'Major Discovery'

This article cites a new discovery, the 1831 edition of the Book of Commandments & Revelations, found recently in the church's archives. After reading the article, you are probably wondering how you can get your hands on the book?! The author seems to skip over the most important find of the book, which is the fact that it contains seven revelations not included in the modern canon of the church. It may be that some of these revelations are contained in our historical record and that is why more information isn't provided in the article. But if they are not to be found anywhere in available church history, then they will surely be gems to enrich our understanding of the early days of the restoration. In either case, it looks like we will probably see it in an upcoming "Revelations and Translations" volume of the Joseph Smith Papers project.

Speaking of which, the Joseph Smith Papers project is much more popular than I think anyone intended it to be. If you want to purchase the next volume (at a steep cost of $99), you have to pre-order by June 1 in order to guarantee receiving it in September! The staff at Deseret Book told me that they have all been surprised by the many orders they have received, and that it is by far the most popular seller in their store. It's a beautiful thing that there is so much interest in Joseph Smith's original writings. For a teaser into the Joseph Smith Papers project, you can watch BYU TV online, and find two 1/2 hr shows airing each Monday from 5pm to 6pm. The web site allows you to scroll back over weeks and weeks of programming. This particular show has been around for at least a month. The series is really fascinating, and I would like to see them fold the series into a DVD sometime in the future.

We live in a truly remarkable age when so much Gospel-related material is readily available. The historians in the series even say as much as they describe the technological advances that have made the Joseph Smith Papers project possible.