It is hard to praise too much The Joseph Smith Papers project. This is one of those rare endeavors that will grow in value as it proceeds and as time goes by. Preserving and disseminating the early documents connected with the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ in these last days—before they are lost page by page to the aggressive corrosions of time and the environment—is worthy of every support and encouragement. The dissemination of Volume 1 being a great success, many eagerly await Volume 2.
With Volume 2 and succeeding volumes, the editors would be wise to resist the natural impulse to contribute their own thoughts and observations. Instead, they should get right on to the documents. In Volume 1 it takes nearly 70 pages before you actually reach the documents. In something that suggests editorial excess, the actual Papers are preceded by a “Preface,” a very abbreviated “Timeline,” a basic map, a “General Introduction” that runs for some 25 pages, a “Series Introduction,” a “Volume 1 Introduction,” a section on “Editorial Method,” and a “Source Note” that runs for about 5 pages more. Sensing the monumental value of the underlying work, it is as if the editors would like to linger for some pictures alongside the monument.
Some of this prefatory material is valuable and needed. A few words on what this is all about, the sources of the documents, and the editorial methods used are called for. The value of the rest of the introductory materials is not as apparent. Of course, many will choose to skip the introductory materials. Others will read them in the fear of missing something important. I read them, and having done so I can report that it is safe to skip them. Read them if you wish, but you need not fear that you need to do so in order to understand the documents. If you feel compelled to read any of them, then go ahead and read the section on “Editorial Method” so you can understand the various markings and typefaces that the editors employ in presenting the documents.
Yet, for all of their length there is something disturbingly missing from the extended prefatory sections of Volume 1. Perhaps I should more precisely say, Someone is missing. Read these sections carefully, and you will discover that the editors forgot to include Jesus Christ in the story. This is a curious omission for an introduction to a set of works intended to present the central documents—and many peripheral documents—relating to the founding and the founder of a major religious organization. I would have thought that what really gives these papers lasting worth is the presence of God in the work.
Do not forget that these papers have transcendental value—what makes them more than a collection of historical curios—because they are the papers of someone who unabashedly claimed to have been working under the immediate and constant direction of Jesus Christ, a claim supported by many evidences—evidences found in these papers and elsewhere. It seems to me inexcusably negligent not to include Christ in the story, for in documenting the work of His Prophet we look to see the hand of God and understand how God achieves His purposes through very mortal and fallible people.
You cannot tell the history correctly, fully, of Christ’s work on the earth while leaving Christ out of the picture. It seems to me worse than telling the history of the American Revolution while slighting the role of George Washington. Leaving the role of God to the side while attempting to tell the story of the Restoration results in a thin caricature, which is what the editors have produced in their essays. For example, their flippant treatment of the fall of such great church leaders as Oliver Cowdery and the treachery of Orson Hyde and Thomas Marsh take amazingly poignant and instructive real life tragedies and make them appear as inexplicable personal vendettas. Instead of a rich, insightful history that joins all of the sources of knowledge and information available, the editors have produced a crippled outline that too often does not rise above the level of silly.
The editors could have done so much better. Hopefully, their faithful preservation work will rise far above this error and save the materials to be used by themselves and other historians who will not fear to include spiritual information and truths along with all of the other valuable information to record a full and insightful history of God’s marvelous interaction with man in recent centuries. It is a rich treasury of history worth telling. You cannot understand Joseph Smith and his work without looking through him to the real Author of that work who inspired and supported and sustained the prophet Joseph (and those who followed in the years afterward), Jesus Christ Himself.
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