The rise of the
Church of Christ in these last days, being one thousand eight hundred and
thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh,
it being regularly organized and established agreeable to the laws of our
country, by the will and commandments of God, in the fourth month, and on the
sixth day of the month which is called April. (D&C 20:1)
Many (correctly) believe that D&C 20:1
is just a fancy way of stating the date, and should not be understood as
teaching Jesus was born exactly 1830 from the time the Church was founded.
Something similar appears in D&C 21:3:
Which church was
organized and established in the year of your Lord eighteen hundred and thirty,
in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April.
Further, many who knew Joseph Smith
personally did not believe Jesus was born 6 April. For instance, Orson Pratt
believed Jesus was born 11 April:
If I were to celebrate
Christmas, or the birthday of Christ, I should go back a little less than
thirty-three years from his crucifixion, and it would bring it to Thursday, the
11th day of April, as the first day of the first year of the true Christian
era; and reckoning on thirty-two years, 360 days and fifteen hours from that,
it would bring it to the crucifixion, and bring it on Friday also. (JOD 15:261)
For more, see:
Jesus
Christ/Date of Birth and the sources linked at the bottom of the page.
Interestingly, this was the common way for
people to write the date. Consider the following from the arrest warrant for Brigham Young for Mountain Meadows Massacre (12 May 1859):
Territory of Utah
Great Salt Lake City
County} S.S.
In the Probate Court
for said County
May A.D. 1859
Hon. Elias Smith
Judge
To Robert T. Burton
Sheriff of said County or his Deputy
Greeting:--
Whereas on this
12st day of May A.D. one thousand eight hundred and fifty nine, Brigham Young
Sen. Of Great Salt Lake City, in the County of Great Salt Lake, and Territory
of Utah, filed in the Clerk’s Office of the Probate Court within and for the
County and Territory aforesaid, the following—information, to wait:--“Territory
of Utah, Great Salt Lake County, S.S. Personally appeared before me, Elias
Smith, Judge of the Probate Court, within and for the County of Great Salt Lake
Territory of Utah, Brigham Young senr who being duly sworn according
to law, says that on or about the time between <the> nineth and thirtieth
days of September A.D. one thousand eight hundred and fifty Seven, a company of
Emigrants to the number of one hundred persons, more or less, comprising men
women and children, names to deponent unknown, while passing through the
Territory aforesaid on their way, as he supposes to California, were as he was
informed, attacked by a party of armed men, and by them murdered in the region
of Country known as the “Mountain Meadows,” in the County of Washington, and
Territory of Utah aforesaid. Deponent further says that in consequence of the
disturbed state of affairs in this Territory during the fall and winter
subsequent to the aforesaid murder, no court, to the knowledge of deponent was
held in the County or Judicial District in which said murder was said to have
been committed, and that deponent was, early in the subsequent spring succeeded
as Governor by his Excellency Alfred Cumming, and as Superintendent of Indian
Affairs by Dr. Jacob Forney.
Deponent further
says, that on the eighth day of March A.D. one thousand eight hundred and
fifty nine, in a charge delivered in Provo City, County of Utah, by the Hon.
John Cradlebaugh associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,
for Utah Territory, to the Grand Jury for the Second Judicial District of said
Territory, and in a speech delivered by said Judge at the discharge of the
aforesaid Grand Jury on the (21) twenty first of March A.D. one thousand, eight
hundred and fifty nine, he, deponent, was directly charged with interfering
with the courts of Justice, and preventing the punishment of offenders, thereby
charging him as being accessory after the fact, to the murder aforesaid and
other crimes, and that deponent was further charged indirectly, in the charge
and speech aforesaid with instigating the committal of the murder aforesaid,
thereby charging deponent as being accessory before the fact to the murder
aforesaid. Deponent further says, that he was during the whole of the year one thousand,
eight hundred and fifty Seven, and subsequently until succeeded in office as
aforesaid by his Excellency Alfred Cumming, and Dr. Jacob Forney, a
resident of Great Salt Lake County in the Territory of Utah, and there kept his
offices, and discharged his duties as Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs,
and that subsequent to the first of June in said year, he did not leave the
county of Great Salt Lake, nor until succeeded in office as aforesaid, as far
as deponent at present remembers.
“Now therefore, owing
to the aforesaid charges, having been made and published to the world, by men
in high authority, doubtless thereby acquiring more or less credence, and
feeling unwilling to rest under the sigma of such infamous charges and
accusations, deponent claims the privilege of a fair and impartial investigation
and trial and this rendition of a Just verdict on the Judgment of his peers.”
“Bigham Young Sen.”
“Sworn and subscribed
to before me this Twelfth day of May A.D. 1859
“E. Smith”
These are therefore
to command you to arrest the said Brigham Young Sen. And him safely keep subject
to the order of this court, until an investigation of the matters set forth in
the foregoing affidavit may be had in the premises, and the said Brigham Young
Sen. Dealt with according to law. Hereof fail not and of this writ make due
returns, with your doings Herein endorsed. (Richard E. Turley, Janiece L.
Johnson, and LaJean Purcell Carruth, eds., Mountain Meadows Massacre:
Collected Legal Papers, Volume 1 [Norman, Okla: University of Oklahoma
Press, 2017), 257-58, emphasis added)
