New volume of Joseph Smith Papers published

A new volume aimed at making the formative, 19th-century revelations of Mormonism "more accessible than ever before" for both scholars and LDS Church members has been published.

"Revelations and Translations, Volume Two: Published Revelations" is the latest publication in the ambitious Joseph Smith Papers project undertaken by the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Bookstore orders are being filled now for the new, hardbound book that includes photos of each page of the 1833 "Book of Commandments" and of the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, published in 1835. Those two early works were fundamental to the doctrinal and administrative development of the church.

Photos and/or transcriptions of several other related documents, including selections from the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, are included in the new book, which will sell for a suggested retail price of $69.95.

An anticipated 20 volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers eventually will be released in book form — three are now in print — scaled back from an earlier expectation of 30, said Richard E. Turley Jr., assistant historian and recorder for the LDS Church. However, the entire 30-volume set will eventually be available online.

"We're trying to straddle this world of the book and the digital world," Turley said Wednesday at a teleconference emanating from the Church History Library and transmitted to Internet bloggers in far-flung locales.

He explained that many people today are far more accustomed to reading computer text files than they are the printed word, while others are comfortable in both worlds, hence the decision to have an online version, with its electronic search capability, be "the principal vehicle for getting access to Joseph Smith's papers."

The latest volume — coupled with volume 1 of the Revelations and Translations series released in September 2009 — provides "the kind of firsthand access we have wanted to give people," Turley said.

He noted that volume 1, an oversize book, offered color photos of revelation manuscript pages juxtaposed with typescripts of those pages. A smaller, less-expensive edition, containing the typescripts but not the photographs, has since been published.