Book of Moses

The Book of Moses, dictated by Joseph Smith, is part of the scriptural canon for some in the Latter Day Saint movement. The book begins with the "Visions of Moses," a prologue to the story of the creation and the fall of man (Moses chapter 1), and continues with material corresponding to Smith's revision (JST) of the first six chapters of the Book of Genesis (Moses chapters 2–5, 8), interrupted by two chapters of "extracts from the prophecy of Enoch" (Moses chapters 6–7). Portions of the Book of Moses were originally published separately by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in 1851, but later combined and published as the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price, one of the four books of its scriptural canon. The same material is published by the Community of Christ as parts of its Doctrine and Covenants and Inspired Version of the Bible.

In June 1830, Smith began a new Bible translation that was intended to restore "many important points touching the salvation of men, [that] had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled." The chapters that now make up the Book of Moses were first published in the church newspapers Evening and Morning Star and Times and Seasons in the 1830s and 1840s.

The Book of Moses is considered part of the scriptural canon of the LDS Church. The eight chapters of the Book of Moses were included as a separate book within the Pearl of Great Price through a series of events subsequent to Smith's death. Franklin D. Richards, who published the first edition of the Pearl of Great Price in 1851, only had access to the early versions of the JST found in church newspapers along with another incomplete handwritten part of JST Genesis, not the original manuscripts. For this reason the book of Moses ended abruptly in the middle of the story of Noah. Richards published everything he had at the time, and what is now the Book of Moses was later added by Orson Pratt in the 1878 edition of the Pearl of Great Price. The Pearl of Great Price, including the Book of Moses, was officially canonized by the LDS Church in 1880.

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