Feast upon the Word Blog

If you’re not yet aware, go take a look at the Church’s announcement of a 2013 edition of the LDS scriptures. The new edition is already available online and will be available in print in August. Changes are in many ways minimal, but significant often enough. Following links from the announcement page, you’ll be able to find a full account of all changes made. Here, though, are some of the highlights:

* Archaic spellings in the KJV have been replaced with up-to-date spellings, making for easier reading.
* A number of JST footnotes have been added to the Bible, and a few verses not included in the JST appendix have been added (though the appendix remains far from complete).
* Typesetting in the Book of Mormon has been adjusted to distinguish between study apparatus (chapter headings, for instance) and original text (colophons and the like)—the former always in italics and the latter always in roman type.
* Some errors in the Book of Mormon’s text have been corrected, though these are minor (none of Royal Skousen’s discoveries have been incorporated, for instance)
* The introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants has been greatly expanded.
* Section headings to the D&C have been pretty heavily revised, reflecting recent scholarship on Church history (and nixing all cross-references to the History of the Church).
* Introductory material has been added to the official declarations, both extremely important (the introduction to OD-1 provides some helpful information about plural marriage in general; the introduction to OD-2 states that Joseph Smith ordained black men to the priesthood, that the practice of the ban began without explanation, and that the change was long in coming because Church leaders felt they needed an explicit revelation).
* An implicit recognition that there’s no obvious relationship between the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri has been worked into the introduction to the Pearl of Great Price.

These changes are minor, but more than welcome. I think we can hope that they’ll have a beneficial effect on the Church as a whole.