1. See Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds., Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, forthcoming); see also Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation”: Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible: A History and Commentary (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975).

2. See Doctrine and Covenants 124:89; “Books!!!” Times and Seasons 1 (July 1840): 140. See also Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2d ed. rev., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 1:341, 365; 4:164.

3. See the introductions to the various manuscripts in Faulring, Jackson, and Matthews, Joseph Smith’s New Translation.

4. For the dates, see Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989–92), 1:356, 362.

5. Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:363.

6. Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:363.

7. The date is written at the top of the page, immediately before the translation of Matthew 26.

8. The Holy Scriptures, Translated and Corrected by the Spirit of Revelation, by Joseph Smith, Jr., the Seer (Plano, Ill.: The [Reorganized] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 1867), commonly called the Inspired Version. The most recent edition was published in Independence, Missouri, in 1991.

9. The 1944 edition of the Inspired Version incorporated two NT1 readings into the text: “when I shall come and drink” (Matt. 26:29; Inspired Version 26:26) and “go yonder and pray” (Matt. 26:36; Inspired Version 26:33). They remain in the most recent edition (1991).

10. The verse numbers in modern Bibles were created by printer Robert Estienne in the sixteenth century. Versification in the printed Community of Christ Inspired Version follows the biblical model rather than the verse divisions that are written on the manuscript pages.

11. See Robert J. Matthews, “Joseph Smith’s Efforts to Publish His Bible Translation,” Ensign 13 (January 1983): 57–64.

12. Richard P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures: A Study of their Textual Development, 2d ed., rev. and enl. (Independence, Mo.: Herald, 1995), 71.

13. Howard, Restoration Scriptures, 71.

14. For example, Whitmer corrected “These words was spoken” to “These words were spoken” (OT1, page 3, line 12; OT2, page 3, line 36).

15. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation,” 204.

16. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation,” 205.

17. Joseph Smith’s KJV Bible was published in 1828 by the H. and E. Phinney Company of Cooperstown, New York. See Kent P. Jackson, “Joseph Smith’s Cooperstown Bible: The Historical Context of the Bible Used in the Joseph Smith Translation,” BYU Studies 40, no. 1 (2001): 41–70. Oliver Cowdery purchased this Bible on October 8, 1829, at E. B. Grandin’s Palmyra Bookstore. The Bible is now housed in the Library-Archives of the Community of Christ in Independence, Missouri. The Phinney Bible differs in only a few words from that used in the current English Latter-day Saint edition. See note 24 below.

18. Italics in the King James Bible generally are used to identify words that are not found in the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible but are helpful or even necessary to create complete sentences in English. The identifying of filled-in words in this manner was first done systematically in English Bibles by the translators of the Geneva Bible, and the process was followed by the King James translators. Some in Joseph Smith’s day, including some early Church leaders and probably the Prophet himself, viewed these insertions generally as unnecessary or as interpolations on the part of translators. Thus the Joseph Smith Translation manuscripts show that the Prophet sometimes made revisions at the locations of italicized words. See expressions of disdain for italics in the King James Bible in the Evening and the Morning Star 1, January 1833, 2; Not the Prophet, S. T. P, “To the Editor of the Times and Seasons,” Times and Seasons 4 (September 1, 1843): 318.

19. The NT1 text is from NT1, pages 59–63. The NT2 text is from NT2.2, pages 1–4. Faulring, Jackson, and Matthews, Joseph Smith’s New Translation, 224–28, 305–9, used with permission.

20. See, for example, Genesis 18:32 (KJV “And he said. . . . And he said” = JST “And Abraham said. . . . And the Lord said”) and 2 Peter 3:4 (KJV “his coming” = JST “Christ’s coming”).

21. The Gospel of John does not have an account of the sacrament at the Last Supper.

22. The idea of remembrance is found also in Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24–25; 3 Nephi 18:7, 11; and JST, Mark 14:22.

23. On the manuscript, verse 28 of NT1 reads as follows: “for this you shall do in remembrance of my blood—this is the new testimony which you shall unto all meny of my blood which is shed for ma<as> many as shall beleive on my name for the remission of their sins.” Our best judgment is that the words “—this is the . . . my blood” were replaced by what follows but that the scribe failed to cross them out.

24. The H. and E. Phinney Bible has a before words that start with a pronounced letter h in virtually every instance. In this it differs from the edition of the King James Bible used by English-speaking Latter-day Saints today. See Jackson, “Joseph Smith’s Cooperstown Bible,” 55–56, 65. This and farther in verse 39 are the only differences in Matthew 26 between Joseph Smith’s Phinney Bible and the Latter-day Saint edition of the Bible.

25. Inspired Version, Matt. 26:67.

26. NT1, page 63, lines 11–12.

27. By February 16, 1832, the Prophet and Sidney Rigdon had arrived at John 5:29 (D&C 76:15–18, chapter heading). By March 24, they had completed the translation through Revelation 11:4, when the work ceased due to the attack at the John Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio, and the subsequent travel of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon to Missouri. See Jessee, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:374, 378–79, 382–84. At that point, Sidney Rigdon was replaced as the Prophet’s scribe for the translation, and his handwriting ends.

28. In these verses, the italics in Joseph Smith’s 1828 Phinney Bible are identical to those in the Church’s current printing of the Bible.

29. The originals are on NT2.4, pages 145–46. Faulring, Jackson, and Matthews, Joseph Smith’s New Translation, 557, 559, used with permission.

30. See Richard J. Bauckham, Word Biblical Commentary Volume 50: Jude, 2 Peter (Waco, Texas: Word, 1983), 296–302.

31. See the discussion of these and the following passages in the commentary under the relevant verses, above.

32. NT1, page 1.

33. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980), 4.

34. Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 5.

35. Old Testament Manuscript 1, pages 1–3.

Peter M. Jasinski

BYU Studies Publications