D&C 10:1-70
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Contents
Summary
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Historical setting
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D&C 10 likely consists of two parts received several months apart.[1]
Verses 1-37
- Received: late September 1828 at Harmony, Pennsylvania
- Prior section in chronological order: D&C 3
- Next section in chronological order: D&C 4
The immediate setting of D&C 10:1-37 was
Verses 38-70
- Received: late May 1829 at Harmony, Pennsylvania
- Prior section in chronological order: D&C 13
- Next section in chronological order: D&C 11
The immediate setting of D&C 10:38-70 was
For a brief overview of D&C 10 in historical relation to the rest of the Doctrine & Covenants, see Historical Overview of the Restoration Scriptures. For lengthier discussions of the historical setting, see Historical Context of the Doctrine & Covenants, chapter 3 or Church History in the Fulness of Times, chapter 5.
Discussion
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Outline and page map
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Unanswered questions
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Prompts for life application
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Prompts for further study
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- D&C 10:34: What does "it" refer to in the phrase "show it not unto the world"?
- D&C 10:345: What are Nephi's writings being compared to when the Lord says they "throw greater views upon my gospel"?
- D&C 10:46: Did the Lord reveal these remaining portions of his gospel only because the prophets prayed for them or were they destined to find their way into the scriptures anyway?
Resources
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Previous editions.
- The oldest surviving partial copy of D&C 10 (verses 42-70) is the one copied by John Whitmer into Revelation Book 1, p. 11-12, presumably during the summer of 1830. The oldest surviving complete copy is ________.
- D&C 10 was first published in the 1833 Book of Commandments, the earliest edition of what we now call the Doctrine & Covenants.
- The content of D&C 10:1, 10-14, 17-18, 30-33, 41-43 is discussed in the Preface to the first edition of the Book of Mormon. That Preface was reprinted in the 30 November 1830 issue (2/24:3) of the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph newspaper barely a month after the first missionaries arrived at Kirtland, Ohio. The substance of these verses thus had wide circulation at an early date.
- The text of D&C 10 in significant editions of the Doctrine & Covenants can be found at:
Related passages that interpret or shed light on D&C 10.
- D&C 3 marked the beginning of Joseph Smith's probation following his loss of the 116 page manuscript. The first half of D&C 10 marked the end of that probation and instructed him not to retranslate the lost manuscript. The second half of D&C 10 instructed Joseph to instead replace the lost manuscript by translating the small plates of Nephi (First Nephi through Words of Mormon).
Doctrinal references cited on this page.
Historical references cited on this page.
Other resources.
Notes
Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves (such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word). In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources (such as Strong's Bible Concordance or the Joseph Smith Papers) are preferable to footnotes.
- ↑ Parkin, Max H. "A Preliminary Analysis of the Dating of Section 10." In The Seventh Annual Sperry Symposium: The Doctrine & Covenants, p. 68-84. Provo: BYU Press, 1979.
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