Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 46:1 (Mar 2003)
Article: Joseph Smith And The First Verse Of The Bible
Author: Ronald V. Huggins

JETS 46:1 (March 2003) p. 29

Joseph Smith And The First Verse Of The Bible

Ronald V. Huggins

[Ronald V. Huggins is assistant professor of theological and historical studies at Salt Lake Theological Seminary, Box 2096, Salt Lake City, UT 84110.]

I. Introduction

Joseph Smith as the great prophet of the latter-day restoration of original Christianity often used his prophetic gift to correct or clarify the Bible. One of the most interesting texts that we find him returning to again and again during the course of his prophetic career is Genesis 1. In the present article we will be examining Joseph Smith’s differing treatments of one of the key verses in that chapter, the very first verse of the Bible.

II. Genesis 1:1 In The Joseph Smith Translation/Book Of Moses

On 26 March 1830, scarcely two months after the Book of Mormon arrived at Egbert B. Grandin’s bookstore, Joseph Smith was in hot pursuit of his second great revelational project, the “Inspired Version,” also called the Joseph Smith Translation (= JST). In many ways this second project was even more ambitious than the first. According to the Book of Mormon, the Bible had gone forth, “from the Jews in purity, unto the Gentiles,” but had afterward been corrupted, so that “many plain and precious things” were taken from it (1 Nephi 13:25 and 28). So it now fell to Joseph as latter-day prophet to put things right again by restoring the Bible to its original purity. In a prophesy given in June 1830, which now appears in a part of Mormon Scripture called the Pearl of Great Price Book of Moses (= Moses) God is presented as speaking directly to Moses about the future coming of one who would restore the Scriptures.

And in a day when the children of men shall esteem my words as naught and take many of them from the book which thou shalt write, behold, I will raise up another like unto thee; and they shall be had again among the children of men-among as many as shall believe (Moses 1:41).

This passage undoubtedly refers to Joseph Smith’s own project of restoring the Bible, indeed it stands as a prophetic introduction at the beginning of his restored Bible. In carrying out his task Joseph used as his base text a copy of the King James Bible published in 1828 by H. & E. Phinney, Cooperstown, New York, which he and Oliver Cowdery had purchased from Palmyra

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printer and bookseller Grandin on 8 October 1829. The text of Gen 1:1 in that Bible reads:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Joseph Smith’s “restored” version of this verse now app...