Excerpt: 'Becoming a People of the Books: Toward an Understanding of Early Mormon Converts and the New Word of the Lord'

By Janiece Johnson

“Pray sir what book have you got?”

“The Book of Mormon, and it is called by some The Golden Bible.”

“Ah sir then it purports to be a revelation from God.”

Yes said he it is revelation from God. I took the book by his request looked at the testimony of the witnesses. Said he “If you will read this book with a prayful heart and ask God to give you a witness, you will know of the truth of this work? I told him I would do so.” — Phineas Young

Leather-bound copies of the first edition of the 586-page Book of Mormon were published and sold beginning March 26, 1830. Before there was a prophet, there was a translator—legally the “author and proprietor” of the Book. The title page told of the plates written “by the spirit of Prophecy and Revelation” from which the Book originated.

Before the publication was complete, Joseph Smith had encouraged Oliver Cowdery that “a great call for our books” had already commenced. The Book emerged before there was any church to join. The rest would come later; initially individuals decided how they would respond to this “Golden Bible.” Was it counterfeit or divine? Was it the “greatest piece of superstition” or a “revelation from God”? What would it be to them?

Not long after its publication, Samuel Smith—brother of Joseph Smith Jr.—introduced the Book of Mormon to Methodist lay preacher Phineas Young. Young decided to investigate the Book to “make himself acquainted with the erro[r]s.” to his surprise, he felt a conviction that the Book was “true.” For more than a year, he preached from the Book to Methodist congregations until he decided he could not unite the Book of Mormon with Methodism. He resolved that he must “leave one and cleave to the other”; his reliance on the new book had developed to the point where he chose the Book over Methodism. Newspaper publisher William Phelps similarly dated his own conversion to April 9, 1830, when he first obtained a copy of the Book of Mormon. From that point on, “his heart was there,” though he had not yet met Joseph Smith or been baptized. Conviction of Smith’s prophetic call and a decision to convert would come later for Phelps; his affinity with the Book was primary. When Mormon elders shared the Book of Mormon with Sarah DeArmon Pea and her family in the Summer of 1835, Sarah “was anxious to see the Book” for herself. Rather than spending the evening with the Mormon visitors, Sarah asked to be excused so she could read. She spent “most of the night” reading the Book and was “greatly astonished at its contents.” She detailed, “It left an impression upon my mind not to be forgotten:—For in fact the book appeared to be open before my eyes for weeks.”

 

At the outset, Sarah had no expectation of joining a new Church, but her connection to the Book blossomed. She became a Latter-day Saint as a result of that relationship. The Book unfolded the possibility of individual numinous experience not to be discarded once one accepted Smith as a prophet. A relationship with God was not just the prerogative of prophets: Smith’s egalitarian impulse offered each Mormon convert the possibility of experiencing the divine.

In 1841, Wilford Woodruff recorded a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles in Nauvoo, in which Joseph Smith proclaimed the Book of Mormon “the most correct” of any book, more capable of bringing one “nearer to God” than any other book. The introduction of each Book of Mormon published by the LDS Church since 1981 has included that oft-repeated assertion. While lacking a sometimes-assumed nod to perfection, this bold claim is about practice—about lived application. Belief that the heavens were open and that God had called a modern prophet began to collapse the chasm between humanity and divinity, and Smith promised the readers of the Book that its content could narrow that space even further. The text was of central import.

You can read the complete journal entry here.

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