Appearance
Failed Revelations
The claim:
"Joseph Smith received a revelation, through the peep stone in his hat, to send Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery to Toronto, Canada for the sole purpose of selling the copyright of the Book of Mormon... The mission failed and the prophet was asked why his revelation was wrong."[1]
The CES Letter treats this as a smoking gun: Joseph claimed divine revelation, the mission failed, and the episode proves he couldn't tell real revelation from false. It then builds outward -- Adam-God, blood atonement, the priesthood ban, doctrinal reversals -- into a sweeping argument that prophetic revelation is unreliable.[2]
The implicit standard: real prophets don't get revelations wrong. Ever.
But what standard is being applied -- and does any prophet in scripture meet it?
The Canadian copyright revelation
In early 1830, Joseph Smith received a revelation directing Oliver Cowdery, Hiram Page, Joseph Knight Sr., and Josiah Stowell to travel to Kingston, Ontario, to sell a copyright for the Book of Mormon in Canada's four provinces.[3]
The context matters. In January 1830, a former justice of the peace named Abner Cole had already pirated Book of Mormon excerpts in his newspaper The Reflector, publishing them alongside a mocking parody called the Book of Pukei. Joseph confronted Cole and secured arbitration, but the episode exposed a real legal vulnerability: without international copyright protection, anyone could reprint the Book of Mormon without authorization.[4]
Selling a Canadian copyright was a legally plausible response. By 1814, British copyright law (54 Geo. 3, c. 156) extended protection throughout British dominions, including Upper Canada. Kingston had active publishers. The revelation addressed a genuine business and legal problem.[3:1]
The delegation traveled to Kingston. They did not find a buyer. The mission failed in its commercial objective.
(The CES Letter says "Toronto." They actually went to Kingston -- 163 miles apart.)
The 2009 discovery that changed the story
For 160 years, the only accounts of this episode came from former members. No one had the revelation itself.
That changed in 2009. The Joseph Smith Papers Project published the actual text from Revelation Book 1, a manuscript in the First Presidency's archive. The revelation contains explicit conditional language:[5]
"I grant unto my servant a privilege that he may sell a copyright through you -- speaking after the manner of men -- for the four provinces, if the people harden not their hearts against the enticings of my spirit and my word; for behold, it lieth in themselves to their condemnation or to their salvation."
The sale was conditional. The people in Kingston hardened their hearts. The condition wasn't met. The sale didn't happen.
That's not a failed revelation. It's a conditional statement whose condition wasn't fulfilled.
What David Whitmer said -- and what Hiram Page said
The CES Letter relies on David Whitmer's 1887 account in An Address to All Believers in Christ. Whitmer -- by then estranged from the Church for nearly five decades -- claimed that when the mission failed, Joseph inquired of the Lord and received this answer:[6]
"Some revelations are of God: and some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil."
Whitmer's conclusion: the copyright revelation "was not of God, but was of the devil or of the heart of man."
The CES Letter presents Whitmer's account as the whole story. It omits the other firsthand account entirely.
Hiram Page -- who actually went on the trip -- told a different story. In an 1848 letter to William McLellin (18 years after the event, compared to Whitmer's 57), Page confirmed the revelation's conditional language:[7]
"We were to go to Kingston where we were to sell [a copyright] if they would not harden their hearts; but when we got there, there was no purchaser."
Page returned with what he described as "added respect" for Joseph's prophetic role. He concluded he had "for the first time understood how a revelation may be received and the person receiving it not be benefitted."[7:1]
No bitterness. No disillusionment. The man who made the trip understood the conditions. The man who didn't go wrote about it 57 years later and left them out.
| Account | Date | Distance from event | Was present? | Includes conditional clause? | Tone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hiram Page (letter to McLellin) | 1848 | 18 years | Yes | Yes | Positive -- "added respect" |
| David Whitmer (Address) | 1887 | 57 years | No | No | Hostile -- proves Joseph wrong |
"Some revelations are of God, some of man, some of the devil"
Even if Joseph said this (the quote comes only from Whitmer), it's not the admission of fraud the CES Letter treats it as.
LDS scripture already teaches that not every spiritual impression is divine. D&C 129 provides tests for distinguishing angelic visitations from deception. Moroni 7:13-17 gives a framework for discerning good from evil influences. D&C 9:7-9 -- Oliver Cowdery's failed translation attempt -- shows that the revelatory process requires human effort and can go wrong.[8]
Acknowledging that human beings can mistake their own ideas for revelation isn't a scandal. It's the operating system LDS theology has always described.
Bottom line: The Canadian copyright revelation contained explicit conditional language -- "if the people harden not their hearts." The people hardened their hearts. The man who actually made the trip understood this. The man who didn't go and wrote about it 57 years later left the conditions out.[3:2]
Seven categories collapsed into one
The CES Letter builds its "failed revelations" case by stacking examples: the Canadian copyright revelation, Adam-God theory, blood atonement rhetoric, the priesthood ban, shifting positions on polygamy. The cumulative effect is persuasive -- but it works only if you treat all of these as the same kind of thing.
They aren't.
| Category | Example | Ever canonized? | CES Letter treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canonized scripture | D&C 87 (Civil War prophecy) | Yes | Ignored |
| Official declarations | OD 1 (ending polygamy), OD 2 (priesthood) | Yes | Treated as embarrassing reversals |
| Conditional revelations | Canadian copyright | Conditional | Treated as failure |
| Prophetic sermons | Brigham Young on Adam-God | Never canonized | Treated as "doctrine" |
| Personal opinions | Joseph Fielding Smith on the moon | No | Treated as "prophecy" |
| Institutional policy | Priesthood/temple restriction | Policy | Treated as "revelation" |
| Speculative theology | Blood atonement rhetoric | Never canonized | Treated as "revelation" |
A Brigham Young sermon that was never canonized is not the same thing as a section of the Doctrine and Covenants. A prophet's personal opinion about the moon is not a revelation. An institutional policy -- even a painful one -- is not a doctrinal pronouncement. Collapsing these categories is how you manufacture the appearance of a pattern.
The CES Letter's specific examples -- Adam-God, blood atonement, and the priesthood and temple ban -- are addressed in dedicated articles. Each is a genuine tension that deserves its own careful treatment. What matters here is whether lumping them together proves what the CES Letter claims.
It doesn't -- unless you erase the distinctions the Church's own theology has always made.
How binding doctrine actually works
The CES Letter assumes that anything a prophet says carries the same authority. Brigham Young's Adam-God sermon = the Doctrine and Covenants. Joseph Fielding Smith's speculation = canonized scripture. No hierarchy, no filter, no process.
The Church has never taught this.
God's own preface says otherwise
D&C 1:24-28 -- the Lord's preface to the Doctrine and Covenants -- addresses this directly:[9]
"These commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding. And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known; And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed."
God says he gave commandments through imperfect people in imperfect language. When they err, the error can be corrected. When they seek wisdom, they can learn more. The system is designed for correction, not perfection.
This isn't an apologetic invented after the fact. It's in the founding document of the Doctrine and Covenants, placed there before any of the controversies the CES Letter raises.
The tests for binding doctrine
Elder D. Todd Christofferson (2012): "Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine."[10]
Elder Neil L. Andersen (2012): "The doctrine is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk."[11]
Joseph Fielding Smith (1954): "Theories, speculations, and opinions of men... are not necessarily doctrines of the Church."[12]
B.H. Roberts (1888): "The Church is not responsible for [sermons]... In the Church very wide latitude is given to individual belief and opinion."[13]
| Test | Standard |
|---|---|
| Canonized? | Is it in the Standard Works? (D&C 42:12-13) |
| Consistent? | Is it taught by the united First Presidency and Twelve? |
| Sustained? | Has the membership sustained it? (D&C 26:2) |
| Official? | Was it presented as an official declaration or proclamation? |
Adam-God was never canonized. Blood atonement rhetoric was never sustained by the body of the Church. The racial theories behind the priesthood ban were never presented as official doctrine -- the 2013 Gospel Topics Essay disavowed them as "theories."
The CES Letter's "yesterday's doctrine is today's false doctrine" refrain works by ignoring these distinctions. It treats uncanonized sermons, personal speculation, and institutional policy as "doctrine" -- then declares the Church inconsistent when they change.
The "speaking as a man" question
The CES Letter raises a fair objection. Joseph Smith said "a prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such."[14] Brigham Young said, "I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call scripture."[15] Which is it?
Both extremes are wrong
The CES Letter imposes one extreme: everything a prophet says is equally authoritative. If any of it is wrong, prophets can't be trusted.
The naive apologetic imposes the other: when a prophet was wrong, he was "speaking as a man." Problem dismissed.
Ben Spackman, a respected LDS scholar, argues both frameworks fail. The binary is "too neat, too siloed, and too binary."[16] Prophetic communication exists on a spectrum. Canonized scripture at one end. Personal opinion at the other. Most of what prophets say falls somewhere in between.
The relevant question isn't "was the prophet speaking as a man or as a prophet?" It's: what kind of statement was this, and what level of authority does it carry?
A canonized revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants carries different weight than a sermon. A sermon carries different weight than a private letter. A private letter carries different weight than an offhand comment. The CES Letter treats them all as one thing. The Church's own theology doesn't.
Brigham Young's claim in context
Brigham Young's statement that all his sermons were "scripture" (JD 13:95) is one statement. In other settings, he drew clear distinctions:
- "I do not profess to be a Prophet. I never called myself so." (Journal of Discourses 5:177)[17]
- When presenting Adam-God, he framed it with "I will now give my views upon the subject" -- language that signals personal speculation, not canonized revelation.[17:1]
The CES Letter cherry-picks the most extreme statement and presents it as the LDS position.
Progressive revelation: feature, not bug
The CES Letter's recurring refrain -- "yesterday's doctrine is today's false doctrine" -- assumes doctrinal development proves fraud.[2:1]
It doesn't. It proves the Church believes what it says it believes.
The LDS claim is that God keeps talking
Articles of Faith 1:9: "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."
2 Nephi 28:30: "I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little."
The Doctrine and Covenants already contains self-corrections. D&C 3 and 10 rebuke Joseph Smith for losing the 116 pages. D&C 19 corrects a common misunderstanding of "eternal punishment." The canon itself models the process the CES Letter treats as damning.
Every religion develops
The CES Letter applies to Mormonism a standard it would never apply to Christianity generally.
| Tradition | Doctrinal development | "Failed"? |
|---|---|---|
| Catholicism | Council of Nicaea (325) redefined the Trinity. Vatican II (1962-65) reversed centuries of policy. | No -- development. |
| Protestantism | Luther broke from 1,500 years of Catholic teaching. Denominations still multiply. | No -- reformation. |
| Judaism | Rabbinic Judaism replaced temple sacrifice with synagogue worship after 70 AD. | No -- adaptation. |
| Latter-day Saints | Polygamy ended. Priesthood extended. Doctrinal positions refined. | "Failed revelations." |
Course corrections in a living church are evidence the church is alive, not evidence it's false.
Prophets in scripture weren't infallible
The assumption behind the "failed revelations" argument is that real prophets never get anything wrong. The Bible disagrees.
| Prophet | Error | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Nathan | Told David to build the temple | God corrected him that same night (2 Samuel 7:3-5) |
| Moses | Struck the rock instead of speaking to it | Denied entry to the Promised Land (Numbers 20:7-12) |
| Jonah | Announced Nineveh's destruction in 40 days | Nineveh repented; destruction averted (Jonah 3:4-10) |
| Peter | Withdrew from Gentile fellowship under social pressure | Publicly rebuked by Paul (Galatians 2:11-14) |
| Peter | Denied Christ three times | Later given the keys of the kingdom |
None of them were infallible. All of them remained prophets. The standard the CES Letter applies to Joseph Smith would disqualify every prophet in the Bible.[18]
The pattern the CES Letter doesn't mention
The CES Letter cherry-picks a handful of ambiguous cases and presents them as the whole story. It never mentions what Joseph Smith got right.
| Prophecy | Source | Fulfillment |
|---|---|---|
| Civil War beginning with South Carolina's rebellion | D&C 87 (December 1832) | Fort Sumter, Charleston, SC -- April 1861 (28 years later)[19] |
| Saints would become "a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains" | Joseph Smith, August 1842 | Salt Lake Valley settlement, 1847[20] |
| The Twelve would depart from Far West on April 26, 1839 | D&C 118:4-5 (1838) | Fulfilled exactly, under hostile conditions[21] |
| Stephen A. Douglas would seek the presidency and face ruin if he turned against the Saints | Joseph Smith, May 1843 | Douglas ran in 1860, turned against the Saints, lost catastrophically[22] |
| "No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing" | Wentworth Letter (1842) | Global Church of 17+ million members |
| Joseph Smith's name would be known "for good and evil among all nations" | JS--History 1:33 (Moroni, 1823) | One of the most discussed religious figures in American history |
| Health consequences of tobacco and alcohol | D&C 89 (February 1833) | Modern medicine confirmed. LDS males live 7.3 years longer; cancer rates roughly 50% lower.[23] |
Duane Crowther catalogued over 400 prophecies by Joseph Smith; the vast majority were fulfilled.[24] The CES Letter doesn't mention any of them.
The Civil War prophecy deserves a closer look
On December 25, 1832, Joseph Smith dictated a revelation predicting "wars... shall shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina."[19:1]
Critics argue this was an easy prediction. South Carolina was threatening to nullify federal tariffs. Anyone could have guessed it.
Three problems with that.
The Nullification Crisis resolved peacefully. By early 1833, Congress passed a compromise tariff and South Carolina backed down. If Joseph was reading the newspapers, he picked the wrong year and the wrong outcome for a "safe bet."[25]
The prophecy names South Carolina specifically -- 28 years early. The Civil War didn't begin until 1861. Dozens of other political crises came and went in those 28 years. Predicting the exact state is not the same as predicting "there might be a war someday."
The prophecy was published before the war. It appeared in The Pearl of Great Price (1851) and The Seer (1854). Orson Pratt preached it publicly. A Philadelphia newspaper in 1857 printed and mocked it as implausible.[26] This wasn't a post-hoc prediction dug out of a vault.
The hidden premise
The "failed revelations" argument depends on an unstated assumption: a real prophet's revelations would always come true exactly as stated, with no conditions, no ambiguity, and no allowance for human agency.
The entire book of Jonah exists to show that prophecy operates conditionally. God's own preface to the Doctrine and Covenants says he speaks through imperfect people in imperfect language. The Church's formal framework for binding doctrine distinguishes canonized scripture from personal opinion.
And the fulfilled prophecies never get mentioned.
Bottom line: The Canadian copyright revelation had explicit conditional language that the CES Letter's source omits. The "speaking as a man" problem dissolves when you look at how binding doctrine actually works. The "yesterday's doctrine" refrain ignores that progressive revelation is the entire point. And the fulfilled prophecies -- Civil War, Rocky Mountains, Word of Wisdom -- never make the CES Letter's list.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Testimony & Spiritual Witness," no. 4, p. 76. ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," pp. 61-69. The "Prophets" section raises related concerns about changing doctrines and prophetic fallibility, including Adam-God theory, blood atonement, the priesthood ban, and Mark Hofmann. ↩︎ ↩︎
Stephen K. Ehat, "'Securing' the Prophet's Copyright in the Book of Mormon: Historical and Legal Context for the So-called Canadian Copyright Revelation," BYU Studies Quarterly 50, no. 2 (2011): 5-70. Ehat demonstrated that selling a Canadian copyright was legally plausible under British copyright law and that Kingston was the correct venue. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol50/iss2/2/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Why Did Joseph Smith Attempt to Secure the Book of Mormon Copyright in Canada?" Scripture Central KnoWhy. https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-did-joseph-smith-attempt-to-secure-the-book-of-mormon-copyright-in-canada ↩︎
"Revelation, circa Early 1830," Revelation Book 1, pp. 30-31, Joseph Smith Papers. First published in Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, eds., Revelations and Translations: Manuscript Revelation Books, Facsimile Edition, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2009). https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-circa-early-1830/1 ↩︎
David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ (Richmond, MO: David Whitmer, 1887), 31. Written nearly 60 years after the Canadian copyright episode, long after Whitmer's 1838 excommunication. His explicit purpose was to undermine Joseph Smith's prophetic claims while maintaining the Book of Mormon's authenticity. ↩︎
Hiram Page, letter to William McLellin, February 2, 1848. Page, who actually participated in the trip, confirmed the conditional clause ("if they would not harden their hearts") and described returning with "added respect" for Joseph's prophetic role. Published in Larry E. Morris, "'I Should Have an Eye Single to the Glory of God': Joseph Smith's Account of the Angel and the Plates," FARMS Review 17, no. 1 (2005): 11-82. ↩︎ ↩︎
Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-9. Oliver Cowdery attempted to translate, failed, and the Lord explained the process: "You must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right." This passage demonstrates that revelation requires human effort and that the process can go wrong without invalidating the prophetic calling. ↩︎
Doctrine and Covenants 1:24-28. The Lord's preface to the Doctrine and Covenants: "These commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding." ↩︎
D. Todd Christofferson, "The Doctrine of Christ," Ensign, May 2012. "Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine." ↩︎
Neil L. Andersen, "Trial of Your Faith," Ensign, November 2012. "The doctrine is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk." ↩︎
Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954-56). "Theories, speculations, and opinions of men... are not necessarily doctrines of the Church." ↩︎
B.H. Roberts, The Gospel and Man's Relationship to Deity (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1888). "The Church is not responsible for [sermons]... In the Church very wide latitude is given to individual belief and opinion, each man being responsible for his views and not the Church." ↩︎
Joseph Smith, discourse, February 8, 1843, in History of the Church, 5:265. "A prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such." ↩︎
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 13:95. "I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call scripture." ↩︎
Ben Spackman, "'Acting as a Man' and Other Less-than-Useful Frameworks for Talking About Prophets," benspackman.com, April 2023. Spackman argues the binary "speaking as a man / speaking as a prophet" framework is "too neat, too siloed, and too binary" and that both extremes miss the reality of prophetic communication. ↩︎
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 5:177. "I do not profess to be a Prophet. I never called myself so." ↩︎ ↩︎
"Alleged false prophecies of Joseph Smith," FAIR. Identifies three models of prophecy: "Film Reel" (certain future), "Weather Forecast" (probable outcomes), and "Plan" (contingent on conditions). https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Alleged_false_prophecies_of_Joseph_Smith ↩︎
Joseph Smith, prophecy of August 6, 1842, attested by multiple witnesses. He prophesied the Saints would be "driven to the Rocky Mountains" and "become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains" -- five years before the 1847 pioneer trek. ↩︎
On April 26, 1839, Brigham Young led the Twelve in a clandestine return to Far West, Missouri, where they departed symbolically on their mission to England -- fulfilling D&C 118:4-5 exactly one year after the revelation. See Ronald K. Esplin, "Brigham Young and the Power of the Apostleship," in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, BYU, 2010). ↩︎
Joseph Smith prophesied to Stephen A. Douglas on May 18, 1843, that if Douglas ever turned against the Saints, "you will feel the hand of the Almighty upon you." Douglas ran for president in 1860, had turned against the Saints, and lost catastrophically -- carrying only Missouri. ↩︎
Doctrine and Covenants 89 (February 27, 1833). UCLA epidemiological studies found LDS males live 7.3 years longer and LDS females 5.8 years longer than non-LDS counterparts, with cancer rates roughly 50% lower. See James E. Enstrom and Lester Breslow, "Lifestyle and Reduced Mortality among Active California Mormons, 1980-2004," Preventive Medicine 46, no. 2 (2008): 133-136. ↩︎
Duane S. Crowther, The Prophecies of Joseph Smith: Over 400 Prophecies by and about Joseph Smith, and Their Fulfillment (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1963). ↩︎
Ronald K. Esplin, "'Have We Not Had a Prophet Among Us?': Joseph Smith's Civil War Prophecy," in Civil War Saints, ed. Kenneth L. Alford (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, BYU, 2012). https://rsc.byu.edu/civil-war-saints/have-we-not-had-prophet-among-us-joseph-smiths-civil-war-prophecy ↩︎
The Civil War prophecy was published in The Pearl of Great Price (1851), The Seer (1854), and preached publicly by Orson Pratt throughout the 1850s. A Philadelphia newspaper printed and mocked the prophecy in 1857 as implausible -- four years before Fort Sumter. ↩︎