Thursday, April 8, 2021

The Verbiage of D&C 20:1 in Other 19th-Century Texts

  

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)