The following narrations briefly
review the genesis and creation of History
of the Church, as well as some explanation and refutation of critics' charges—critics bent on unfairly applying the standards of modern scholarship
to the methods of men unfamiliar with them:
Truman G. Madsen,
B. H. Roberts’s biographer, explained:
“While he was a missionary in
Britain with access to the back issues of the Millennial Star, Roberts
systematically gathered together and bound into three volumes the entire ‘History
of Joseph.’ It had been published in serial form over a period of years. Some
volumes of the Star were rare, others unavailable, but finally he had
all the important volumes from fourteen to twenty-six (the articles had been,
most of them, copies from the Deseret News and, earlier, the Times and
Seasons). Thus his compilation of the journal of Joseph Smith, much of it
gathered and dictated with the help of scribes, and composed from various other
contemporary documents, was a functional reference book.
“Elder Francis M. Lyman, learning
of Roberts's collection, suggested to his Quorum that Roberts be appointed to
organize, supplement and publish it. When Roberts was consulted his estimates
of the costs were ‘rather high,’ and George Q. Cannon proposed to undertake the
work through his own publishing house. It was begun as a ‘simple reproduction,’
with no effort to unify or annotate. Within a few months Eider Cannon died in
California. Only ninety-six pages of the work had been printed. President
Lorenzo Snow invited Roberts to continue the work. But Roberts's plan was more
complex: He recommended introductions written to harmonize the volumes,
footnotes, marginal explanatory notes, and the inclusion of all of the revelations
received by the Prophet Joseph Smith in their chronological order, with
marginal references to the current editions of the Doctrine and Covenants and
with reliable historical data. Roberts expected this would require ‘at least 6
volumes.’
“Upon hearing the proposal,
President Snow authorized Roberts to carry out his original purpose. The result
was the publication of the history of Joseph Smith as the six-volume History of the Church, Period I, averaging six hundred pages per
volume.
“Anthon H. Lund was Church
historian in 1900. (Andrew Jenson, Orson F. Whitney, Amos Milton Musser and
Brigham H. Roberts were sustained as assistant Church historians on April 6,
1902.) The work of reviewing the Millennial Star “History of Joseph
Smith” was then begun. The entire third story of the old historian's office was
turned into a historical archive, with an office for each of the assistants.
From April 15, 1902, ‘almost indefinitely,’ every forenoon Anthon H. Lund (and
later A. William Lund), Joseph Fielding Smith, B. H. Roberts and occasionally
other staff members went line by line through the history. Volume one was
completed in 1902 and the successive volumes in 1904, 1905, 1908, 1909, and
1912. In 1932 Roberts added a seventh volume, made uniform with the style of
the first six, and based upon the Manuscript History of Brigham Young and other
related documents. This seven-volume work has become an indispensable tool in
the quorums, classes and libraries of the Church.
Further perspective comes from the
journal of Anthon H. Lund, Church historian at the time, and as noted, a close
collaborator:
“President Lorenzo Snow laid upon
our Revision committee the work of getting up a History of the Church. Bro. Francis M. Lyman and I wanted to get
Bro. Brigham H. Roberts to be the writer.
President Snow thought he would be just the man. (April 19, 1900)
“Brigham H. Roberts was appointed
to take hold of the work of publishing the History of Joseph Smith and I
suggested that he be attached to the Historian’s Office. I was told that the responsibility would be
upon me to see that the work was pushed.
Bro. Lorenzo Snow is very anxious about having the work progress. (May
23, 1901)
“Bro. Brigham H. Roberts is going
to help me [in the Historians Office] and in publishing Church History. He chose a lower room [in the office],… (May
31, 1901)
“Bro. Brigham H. Roberts proposed
to change the [font] types of the Church History and President Joseph F. Smith
was willing. We tried to see Pres. Snow
but he was tired out, so Bro. Smith and Roberts said they would see him on that
question. (June 6, 1901)
“I looked over the first form with
Bro. Brigham H. Roberts and in the afternoon read it critically…. In the afternoon [Orson F.] Whitney, Andrew
Jensen, and I compared the Far West Record, Millennial Stars, and Times and
Season [newspapers] with the manuscript for the new edition of the Church
history. Bro. Roberts did the reading.
(July 2, 1901)
“The forenoon was spent with Bro.
Brigham H. Roberts, Orson F. Whitney, and Andrew Jensen in revising or rather
comparing the manuscript with the sources whence it is taken. In the revelation to Oliver Cowdery in May
1829, Bro. Roberts said that the gift which the Lord says he has in his hand
meant a divining stick which was like Aaron’s Rod. It is said Bro. Phinieas Young got it from
him and gave it to President Brigham Young who had it with him when he arrived
in this valley and that it was with that stick that he pointed out where the
Temple should be built…. (July 5, 1901)
“In the forenoon Bro. Brigham H.
Roberts and I read his manuscript of his introduction to the History of the
Church” (June 16, 1902, Anthon H. Lund Journal).
Truman Madsen and others have
answered the charges of the critics:
“Little that Roberts wrote ever
escaped controversy. His editing of History of the Church (often called the Documentary History) has been soundly censured by history-minded
readers within and without the Church. A complex matter can be summarized by
some observations on how Roberts went about his task. First, the ‘changes,’ 90
percent of them, are matters of spelling, grammar and diction, and these were
made often as committee decisions aiming at clarity.
“Second, Roberts's three bound
volumes of the Millennial Star articles are still in the Church Archives
for scholars to examine. In the margins of these one may here and there see his
mind at work. A celebrated example is the elimination of the phrase from an
early account of Joseph Smith's first vision, ‘for as yet it had never entered
my heart that all [churches] were wrong.’ In the margin of his own first volume
Roberts has written, ‘contra. st. in Wentworth letter.’ The Wentworth letter
says Joseph had wondered, ‘are all wrong together?’ One might argue that what
had entered into Joseph's mind had not yet entered into his heart (because in
his heart he still hoped that his own family, not to mention others, belonged
to a divinely approved church). But for Roberts this was a contradiction like
the contradiction in Paul's two narratives of his experience on the road to
Damascus recorded in Acts. Roberts chose the later source written by Joseph
himself in preference to earlier sources which were dictated to scribes.
“Third, letters in the files of the
First Presidency show the rationale of some of Roberts's deletions and
additions. For example, on February 16, 1906, Roberts wrote asking to omit an
article on election and reprobation. ‘I doubt if the Prophet is the author of
those words,’ his letter says. The First Presidency approved. In the same spirit
and for similar reasons Roberts sought to eliminate from the official history
the account or definition of the word Mormon as ‘more good.’ He had
found evidence that the editor of Times and Seasons, W. W. Phelps, rather than
Joseph Smith, wrote this paragraph and that it was ‘based on inaccurate
premises and was offensively pedantic.’ He asked permission to leave it out. This was
granted.
“Again, on March 2, 1906, Anthon H.
Lund encouraged Roberts to write to the First Presidency concerning a credulous
article that had been published in the Times and Seasons on the ‘Signs of the
Son of Man.’ Roberts and others on the committee had reason to doubt that
Joseph Smith was responsible for this essay. President Joseph F. Smith approved
its omission.
“Fourth, of the 187 changes which,
according to critics, are ‘significant,’ careful study shows many to be
inconsequential (for example, ‘spiritual and temporal welfare’ is changed to ‘temporal
and spiritual welfare’; there is no mention of an ordinance establishing a
ferry at Nauvoo and of Joseph's speech for the repeal of Nauvoo's hog law).
Twenty of the ‘changes’ critics list are ‘mechanical errors.’ For example,
Roberts has been accused of leaving his readers in ignorance of a given event
or a letter or a speech. Actually Roberts inserted footnotes and summaries for
the essential parts of the deleted documents. In one case what is called a ‘missing
revelation’ is simply relocated on another page, and that change is indicated
by Roberts in a footnote.
“Forty changes remain upon which to
base the case for tampering in a misleading way. There are three kinds of
changes: first, omissions of some early tempestuous acts of Church enemies [the
omission, for example, of a line in a story where one J. B. Nicholls kicked a Presbyterian
minister ‘on his seat of honor’); second, deletion of whole documents (for
example, Joseph Smith's vehement response to a letter from presidential
aspirant, Henry Clay); third, vernacular changes (for example, Hyrum Smith's
reference to Judge Birch as a ‘cannibal’ is changed to ‘ruffian’; ‘old lady,’
apparently spoken respectfully in the nineteenth century, is changed to ‘my
mother,’ in concession to the connotations of the twentieth; and the easily
misunderstood phrase ‘our ladies’ is changed to ‘our wives’). Overall, there
are also additions of material, biographical notes, and a deletion of large
segments of material which earlier had only British and European interest in
the Millennial Star series.
“Enough has been said to suggest
this approach to Roberts's editing: Where changes have been made (and that is
easily discoverable by comparing Millennial Star ‘History of Joseph’
with Roberts's edited History of the
Church) one may assume that changes were made under constraint of such
considerations as above, and not, as some allege, by comparing a published
history with a ‘hidden history.’ One must go to more trouble to check the
original Times and Seasons documents with the earlier construction of the history
itself. It would be nearly half a century before LDS historians would achieve
that objective. It would be characteristic of Roberts to see it done, be the
first to say, ‘Let the chips fall where they may,’ and the last to argue for ‘Mutilating
history.’ He made a beginning and only a beginning. But he was as thorough as,
and perhaps more conscientious than, many of his critics.
“Roberts himself would have
expected and acknowledged the relevance of criticism on the other side: Could
he not have done a still better job by invoking the services of other
historians in sifting through the superb archives of the Church Historian's
Office and ‘padding out’ the history with more extensive annotations and
corrections? The restraints of time, his otherwise feverish assignments and
activities, and publication costs were all restraining factors.” (Truman G.
Madsen, Defender of the Faith,
290-93)
For
Christmas 2008, Deseret Book issued History
of the Church in an expensive full leather edition, adding an eighth volume
as an index. Also, as the Joseph Smith Paper Project moves forward, all
documents related to Joseph Smith as found in the History of the Church will be examined and published in their
original form. Information from this source will likely supersede that from
others.
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