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SALT LAKE CITY — In what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints calls an "era of transparency," the next volume in the Joseph Smith Papers is being released.
In 2008, many documents written by LDS Church founder, Joseph Smith, were released in a project being referred to as "The Joseph Smith Papers." The volumes include letters, minutes of meetings and other writings of Joseph Smith. The writings will be released in a 10 volume document series.
The first volume focuses on artifacts from 1828-1831 — the time period when the Book of Mormon was published and the Church was formally organized.
"Here we have the earliest document entirely in the handwriting of Joseph Smith," said Assistant Church Historian and Recorder Richard E. Turley Jr. in reference to a letter from Joseph Smith to his brother Hyrum.
The volume was made from a collection of the writings of Joseph Smith that the LDS Church possesses, along with documents in private and personal collections.
"The great value of the Joseph Smith papers is that it brings together in one location all of the documents of Joseph Smith that we can get our hands on," Turley said.
The project also includes scholarly research to give readers background on the historical setting.
"What was going on, when they were created, why were they created, how they were originally received, what the impact was at the time," said the Joseph Smith Papers general editor Ronald Esplin. "So it is richly annotated and every document has an extensive introduction."
The Church historian, Elder Steven E. Snow, believes publishing every available document of Joseph Smith will allow church members and scholars alike, to see for themselves the Church's beginning in chronological order.
"This is a milestone in our work and we are really grateful to be launching this part in the Joseph Smith project," Snow said. "You can go through the documents, you can understand what is happening in the church, you can follow along and really can follow the story of the church by reading these documents."
Those involved with the project said the end goal of the Joseph Smith Papers is to allow anyone to see the Church's roots and founding for themselves.
"With the Joseph Smith papers, we finally have the scholars and editors and archivists to comprehensively, as a broad team, really understand our history," Esplin said.
Volume 1 in the documents series will be available in bookstores in a few weeks, and Volume 2 will be released in December. While the Joseph Smith Papers are being published in print, the project is also being released online free of charge. Click here to view the documents.
