The founding claims
The Revelations That Were Edited
The same revelations read differently in 1829, 1833, and 1835. The originals are on the Church’s own website.
The point in one sentence
Revelations presented as the received words of God were later rewritten, expanded, and republished with the changes unmarked, and you can verify this yourself on the Church’s own Joseph Smith Papers site in about ten minutes.
Check it yourself: the gift that became the first gift
In March 1829, before the Book of Mormon was finished, Joseph received a revelation about his gift. Here is the earliest surviving copy, in Oliver Cowdery’s handwriting, hosted by the Church:
Revelation, March 1829, earliest copy (circa April 1829)
he hath A gift to translate the Book & I have commanded him that he should shall pretend to no other gift for I will grant unto him no other gift
The spelling and the crossed-out word are in the original. One gift. No others. Stated twice.
The manuscript, on the Church’s siteThe same revelation as it reads in your Doctrine and Covenants today, D&C 5:4
And you have a gift to translate the plates; and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you; and I have commanded that you should pretend to no other gift until my purpose is fulfilled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished.
“A gift” became “the first gift.” “No other gift” became “no other gift until it is finished.” By the time of the revision Joseph was revising the Bible, and the Book of Abraham was ahead of him. The promise that aged badly became a promise that did not.
D&C 5It was not just one verse
The revelation now printed as D&C 27 was received around August 1830. The Joseph Smith Papers notes that “early manuscripts, including the copy featured here, contain only the first portion of the combined revelation as published in 1835,” and that the 1835 printings “included two additional paragraphs.”
Open the 1830 manuscript next to D&C 27 as printed today and read what the added paragraphs contain. You will recognize the verses. They are load-bearing.
What is true on the other side
The Church does not hide any of this. The Joseph Smith Papers is a Church project, it publishes every version side by side, and its editors annotate the differences. If you want the originals, the Church is where you get them, and this page could not exist without that work.
A believing member can also hold that God may authorize a living prophet to expand or revise earlier revelation. That is a coherent position, and plenty of thoughtful members hold it.
The problem with that answer
The revised text does not say revised. It is printed as the revelation, dated to the original event, in the same voice, with no marking where the 1835 hand entered the 1829 sentence. A reader of the Doctrine and Covenants has no way to know, from the book itself, which words came from the moment and which came later.
The words changed. The quotation marks did not.
If the words of a revelation can be rewritten years later while still being presented as what was received, then “the revelation says” means less than it appears to mean.
Why this should make you question
Every claim on this site eventually rests on the revelations. This page is about what kind of documents those are: not fixed transcripts of a divine voice, but texts their author kept editing as circumstances changed. You do not have to take my word for which kind they are. The Church has published the receipts.