Saturday, November 13, 2021

Joseph Smith on the Seven Seals in Revelation vs. Young Earth Creationist Readings of D&C 77

In a discourse from April 8, 1843, Joseph Smith was recorded as saying the following about the book of Revelation:




 

Now I make this declaration, that those things which John saw in heaven, had no allusion to any thing that had been on the earth, because John says “he saw what was shortly to come to pass” and not what had <already> transpired.  (Joseph Smith, Discourse, 8 April 1843, as Reported by William Clayton–B, p. 3)

 

 Commenting on the significance of this vis-à-vis D&C 77, Nicholas Frederick noted that:

 

This statement suggests that Joseph came to understand the seven seals as representing time periods that began, at the earliest, toward the end of the first century AD. (Nicholas J. Frederick, Section 77 and Book of Revelation Scholarship, Religious Educator 22, no. 2 [2021]: 68 n. 59)

 

In other words, Joseph Smith did not understand D&C 77 and/or the seven seals in the book of Revelation as teaching a 7,000 year old earth.