For Latter-day Saints who view Joseph Smith
as a prophet and his revelations as divine, there is little doubt that the
Record of John is authentic and that the translation provided by Smith divinely
revealed. There is, however, a fair amount of disagreement over whether the
John mentioned in the 6 May 1833 revelation was intended to be John the
Evangelist or John the Baptist. In the revelation’s excerpt from the Record of
John, the narrator claims, “I John bear record and lo the heavens were opened
and the holy ghost descended upon him in the form of a dove and set upon him
and there came a voice out of heaven saying this is my beloved son.” This
event, which matches the gospel accounts of the divine approval manifested at
the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, seems to identify the author of the
Record of John as John the Baptist—although the revelation may be implying that
John the Evangelist had been present at the baptism of Jesus and witnessed the manifestations
of divine approval (Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22; John 1:29-34).
The author was identified as John the Baptist by prominent church authorities
Orson Pratt, John Taylor, and Bruce R. McConkie (Orson Pratt, Discourse, 18 May
1873, in Journal of Discourses, 26
vols. [Liverpool: Joseph F. Smit; London: Latter-day Saints’ Book Depot,
1854-1886], 16:58; John Taylor, The
Mediation and Atonement [Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1882], 55; Bruce R.
McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament
Commentary, 3 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966], 1:70-71). However,
as historian Steven C. Harper has noted, “all editions of the Doctrine and
Covenants since 1921 imply that these were the writings of John the Apostle.”
Steven C. Harper, Making Sense of the
Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2008), 560; compare
Lydon W. Cook, The Revelations of the
Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981), 194-95. Others
who argue for John the Evangelist as author of the Record of John include
Charles W. Penrose of the First Presidency. See “Prest. Charles W. Penrose,” Eighty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Held in the Tabernacle and Assembly Hall,
Salt Lake City , Utah, April 6, 7, and 9, 1916, with a Full Report of the
Discourses (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1916, 19-20. Another possibility
is that, given the parallel language from John 1 in the Record of John, the
revelation implied that John the Baptist was John the Evangelist though the
Baptist was soon murdered). (Nicholas J. Frederick, “Translation, Revelation,
and the Hermeneutics of Theological Innovation: Joseph Smith and the Record of
John,” in Michael Hubbard MacKay, Mark Ashurst-McGee and Brian Hauglid, eds., Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s
Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity [Salt Lake
City: The University of Utah Press, 2020], 304-27, here, p. 313 n. 30)