The Mormon Apocrypha

This month marks the one-year anniversary of my blog and to celebrate, I wanted to go over some of the most famous "apocryphal" texts of Mormonism, the Lectures of Faith. The Lectures of Faith were a collection of seven Lectures delivered to the School of the Elders in Kirtland, Ohio in the winter of 1834-35 and first published in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. The authorship of the Lectures is not entirely known, with recent scholarship attributing a lot of the lectures to Sidney Rigdon, with substantial input from Joseph Smith Jr. They were published in the doctrine and covenants by the LDS church until 1921, when they were removed, as they were not revelations in the same way the rest of the D&C was. The RLDS church removed the Lectures from their version of the D&C a few decades earlier, in 1897 (Though they still publish it in a separate volume). Other branches of the restoration, such as the Strangite Church and the Remnant movement still use th...

  The contributor was a monthly periodical of the LDS church between 1879-1896. It was founded by Junius Wells and was primarily for the Youth organizations at the time. Below is an article from an 1880 issue, written by W. W. Taylor. How easy it is to talk. To quote Brother Millen Atwood's favorite phrase: " Talking is the easiest part of our religion," or in other words, to tell others how they should perform their duties. Yet with all the advice that is given, how much 'of it is practically applied? There seems to be a natural desire in man at least to be considered good, and to have the reputation of exercising a good influence over others, and whether this is the cause for it or not, a disposition to teach or advise others very generally exists. How naturally the question arises: "Does he practice what he preaches?" and what a difference in the effects of his teaching does the answer have. The Elders in going abroad to preach to the nations of the earth...

Unlike the other churches of the restoration, I have talked about so far, The Church of Christ with the Elijah Message was not created during the succession crisis, but instead in the 1920s. Despite this, it is the fourth largest Mormon denomination, with over 12,000 members. Otto Fetting was a member of the Church of Christ, Temple Lot. On February 4, 1927, Fetting claimed that John the Baptist gave him a message to give to the Church of Christ. The church was originally accepting of Otto's visions, even publishing them in their paper, The Zions Advocate. Soon however, Otto began receiving messages contrary to the Church of Christ's policies. Consequently, in 1929, Fetting was silenced. Fetting chose to withdraw from the church, bringing a large percentage of church of Christ members with him. Otto passed away in 1933, after claiming to have received multiple revelations by the angel. William A. Draves, a member of this church, claimed to have received revelations from the sam...

The Joseph Smith Translation, also known as the inspired version, is an interesting part of Latter-day Saint history. After translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith began his translation of the King James Bible in June 1830. In 1833, he believed it sufficiently finished to begin publication. Unfortunately, Joseph Smith did not live to see it published.  Following Smith's death, John Milton Bernhisel, a confidant of Brigham Young, asked Emma Smith for permission to use Joseph's translation in his own bible. Unfortunately, Bernhisel's bible had less than half of the corrections of the JST and was never published. When Jospeh Smith III became prophet of the RLDS Church, he began work on a bible based on his father notes, publishing it in 1867. The JST has not been canonized by the LDS church, with the exception of the Book of Moses, which contains Genesis 1-7 of the JST, and Joseph Smith Matthew, which contains Matthew 24 of the JST. Below are some sections from the Old Te...

 In 1895, the LDS Church released a manifesto saying that General Authorities must require approval from the First Presidency before they could seek office. This was done in a possess to keep the church politically neutral. Not everyone agreed with the manifesto. Moses Thatcher did not agree with the document and was released from the Qurom of the Twelve the following year. B.H. Roberts too did not agree but signed it under the threat of losing his position. TO THE SAINTS: To the officers and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in General Conference assembled. DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: Every Latter-day Saint will recognize the value of union, not only in action but in matters of faith and discipline. As to the rights and authority of the Priesthood of the Son of God, it is of the highest importance that there should be no difference of opinion among the officers and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Feeling the necessity of a corre...

James Strang   James Jesse Strang was born on March 21, 1813, in New York. He was baptized into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on February 25, 1844. Later that year, Joseph Smith was murdered. There was a succession crisis discussing who was going to be the next prophet of the church. During that crisis, Strang claimed to have a letter from Joseph Smith saying he was to become the next prophet. He also found some small plates in Voree, Wisconsin and claimed to have translated them. He was also said to have translated a portion of the brass plates, publishing this translation as the book of the law of the Lord in 1851. Thousands of Saints followed Strang. They were first located in Voree, Wisconsin, but later moved to Beaver Island, Michigan. On Beaver Island, he was coronated as king of the church. He was also elected to the government of Michigan in 1852 and 1854.  In 1856, some disaffected members of Strang's church shot him, killing him. Soon after, all th...