Mark Ashurst-McGee is the Senior Historian and Senior Research and Review Editor for the Joseph Smith Papers Project, where he specializes in document analysis and documentary editing methodology. He is a coeditor of several volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers and is the author of several articles on Joseph Smith and early Mormon history.Robin Scott Jensen is Associate Managing Historian and the Project Archivist for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Jensen is a coeditor of the volumes in the Revelations and Translations series of the Joseph Smith Papers and is the author of several articles on Joseph Smith and early Mormon history.Sharalyn D. Howcroft is a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists and an archivist for the Joseph Smith Papers Project specializing in handwriting identification and custodial history.

• ForewordHarry S. Stout Contributors Chapter 1IntroductionMark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft Chapter 2The Gold Plates as Foundational TextRichard Lyman Bushman Chapter 3Textual Criticism and the Book of MormonGrant Hardy Chapter 4Intertextuality and the Purpose of Joseph Smith's New Translation of the BibleThomas A. Wayment Chapter 5The Dictation, Compilation, and Canonization of Joseph Smith's RevelationsGrant Underwood Chapter 6Joseph Smith's Missouri Prison Letters and the Mormon Textual CommunityDavid W. Grua Chapter 7The Textual Culture of the Nauvoo Female Relief Society Leadership and Minute BookJennifer Reeder Chapter 8Joseph Smith's Sermons and the Early Mormon Documentary Record William V. Smith Chapter 9Joseph Smith's Nauvoo JournalsAlex D. Smith and Andrew H. Hedges Chapter 10The Early Diaries of Wilford Woodruff, 1835-1839Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Chapter 11A Textual and Archival Reexamination of Lucy Mack Smith's HistorySharalyn D. Howcroft Chapter 12The Image as Text and Context in Early Mormon HistoryJeffrey G. Cannon Chapter 13Joseph Smith and the Conspicuous Scarcity of Early Mormon DocumentationRonald O. Barney

Textual criticism, as practiced in this book, sheds important light on the understanding of revelation in early Mormonism...This volume offers a fine collection of essays on early Mormon history and the concept of revelation as understood by early church members.