In my post on the printing of the revelations in the Evening and Morning Star, I have already outlined some of the basic history behind the Church’s development of its first efforts at putting Joseph’s revelations in print. The turn toward printing, it seems, worked itself out through a series of events: the unauthorized publication of section 42 in non-Mormon newspapers seems first to have precipitated the desire; the conversion of W. W. Phelps, already a professional printer, seems to have made for the actual possibility of printing the revelations; and the organization of the Literary Firm during the November 1831 conference in Kirtland seems to have sealed the deal. In that previous post, I avoided, for the most part, dealing with the plans to produce the Book of Commandments, focusing instead on the printing of the revelations in the Star, both because the Star was issued earlier than the Book of Commandments and because the Star commanded a much, much larger readership than the Book of Commandments ever did. Here I want to begin by returning to this early history but now with a focus on the Book of Commandments. After that, I will turn to the actual volume that is the Book of Commandments, along with the manuscript collections that tell us something about the production of the Book of Commandments. Finally, I will look at efforts at history-writing that were undertaken alongside the publication of the Book of Commandments. I will postpone discussion of the aftermath of the publication of the Book of Commandments until my next post, where I will deal with the publication of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835. Read the rest of this entry »

The Church saw the seeds of a major development in its notion of canonicity planted in June of 1831 when William W. Phelps joined the fledgling movement. Read the rest of this entry »