Dean C. Jessee

This is the first of a projected set of 30 books of documents associated in some way with the prophet Joseph Smith, and the first volume of the Journals series. It covers his journals dating from November 28, 1832 to October 15, 1839, along with introductions to the Joseph Smith Papers project and the Journals series.

The project claims as its roots the collection of Joseph's papers during his lifetime and then continuing after his death, and first published in book form as History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Period I: History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, by Himself. This was eventually followed by The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith in 1984 and The Papers of Joseph Smith in 1989 (Volume 1: Autobiographical and Historical Writings) and 1992 (Volume 2: Journal, 1832-1842).

It was then decided to expand the project, using a new set of standards and a staff of editors, historians, and researchers to produce an ambitious set of six series including Journals, Documents, History, Legal and Business Records, Revelations and Translations, and Administrative Records. When it is completed, it will be available in book form as well as a more extensive online version, which can be used by anyone from secular scholars to interested church members to study the life of Joseph Smith and the foundations of the church he restored.

The content of this first volume is a subset of the journals published in 1992, so there is actually nothing new here. However, it should be a more reliable transcription, having been produced under the new editorial standards. It also contains more background and reference material to help the reader better understand the context of the journal entries. This includes a chronology covering the years of the journal, a geographical directory and maps covering all the places mentioned, a pedigree chart, a biographical directory containing most of the people mentioned, ecclesiastical organizational charts, a glossary, an essay on the sources used, a list of works cited, and a table giving corresponding section numbers for various editions of the Doctrine and Covenants.

The one thing missing is an index. In its place is an explanation stating that there will be a cumulative index published in the last volume of the series, but that a searchable index of volume 1 is available on the project web site. While it would have been nice to have an index included in the volume, it seems more convenient to have an index covering all the journals, and an offer has been made on the web site to provide bound copies of the volume 1 index on request.

Only a very small portion (about 35 of over 1,500 manuscript pages) of the journal entries were actually written by Joseph Smith himself. Some of it was dictated, but the vast majority was written by clerks based on their own observations, and usually in the first person (which has caused some confusion from the way they were used in the History of the Church). This makes it more difficult to see what Joseph was thinking and feeling, but it also gives us the advantage of having a large number of sermons reported - Joseph apparently never spoke from written texts or even an outline, and instead "depend[ed] entirely upon the living God for everything he said on such occasions." (page xlvi.)

The text is presented using an elaborate system of markup, showing who the writer was, describing the source medium (such as "hole burned in paper" and "28 lines blank"), indicating letters and words that were crossed out or inserted, etc. This gives the reader about as good an idea as possible as to what is on the page, short of actually seeing it (but there are a few example photos in the book, and there are many more available at the project web site). Each journal is described in detail, including its provenance, and there are photographs of each accompanied by a quill to provide a sense of their relative sizes. There is also a historical introduction for each journal, describing what was going on during the time covered.

The entries range from the mundane (29 June 1839 - "Saturday at home principally") to significant events and revelations, many of which will be familiar to readers of the Doctrine and Covenants, such as the dedication and visions at the Kirtland Temple in 1836. There are plenty of editorial notes and annotations throughout the text explaining the context and giving more details, such as the words of hymns that were sung on certain occasions and what happened between entries.

An interesting example has to do with the Leonid meteor shower on November 13, 1833 - "I was awoke by Brother Davis knocking at door saying Brother Joseph [p. 18] come git and see the signs in the heavens and I arrose and beheld to my great Joy the stars fall from heaven yea they fell like hail stones a litteral fulfillment of the word of God as recorded in the holy scriptures and a sure sign that the coming of Christ is clost at hand." A footnote explains that it was reported across the country by newspapers, and taken by many as a sign that the Second Coming was imminent. It includes some descriptive quotes from various newspapers and there is also a full page engraving to show what it may have looked like.

Two of the journals overlap from September 3 to 11, 1838. The latter journal continues through October 6, and may have been intended to be used as legal evidence of Joseph's whereabouts during that time. It was written by James Mulholland, who was living with the Smiths, and contains entries such as "Saw him at home about sunrise, all the forenoon, and at noon. In the evening again about 8 oclock." (October 4, 1838.) For the entries that overlap with the preceding journal, it is interesting to compare them with the much more detailed accounts of George W. Robinson.

This first book, while not providing much that is new for those that have the earlier journals volume, gives an exciting glimpse into a library of books that promises to provide unprecedented insight into the life of Joseph Smith and the early days of the church. To paraphrase one of the editors, once the papers are published, no one will have an excuse to produce irresponsible or shoddy scholarship about Joseph Smith. And anyone with even the slightest interest in church history should find that by using this book they are able to better understand the events that transpired in a way that you can't get from reading historical fiction or even biographies.… (more)

This book was tremendously well done and informative, but just moderately interesting to read. You see, it's primary content is the humdrum of journals rather than professional writing. One of the short journals (about 5 pages) was almost entirely about when Joseph Smith ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I've heard several people in the Joseph Smith Papers Project (including one of the directors) explicitly discourage people from actually reading this book, because it's really intended for professionals and academics. That said, it was worth it for an amateur like me.

Many histories are filtered through interpretations of modern historians trying to draw conclusions with hindsight and modern sensibilities. Reading these primary documents can give you a flavor of the real life of Joseph Smith, although he wrote very little of his own journals. In real life, Joseph didn't always know what was going on around him, or where new developments would lead. It's nice to consider the regular life that wasn't lived in support of some historical thesis. It was just stuff that happened, sometimes normal, sometimes significant, and often disorganized. If you think historians may sometimes come to flawed conclusions, it's nice to read some actual source material for yourself.

There was a lot of helpful historical context in the footnotes, introductions, and appendixes. These helps by themselves are worthy of their own book about the details of Joseph Smith's life and times. They had some of the top people in this field putting it all together. I didn't read all of every appendix, but those have already come in handy for reference, especially the biographical directory.… (more)