The Prophet Joseph Smith came to
understand the academic side of approaching ancient scripture. Throughout those
endeavors, he never overlooked that revelation from God—ancient and modern—provided
the ultimate source of truth and that it was God who spoke to him with his own
voice, an act that constituted Joseph’s prophetic authority. It is Joseph’s recognition
of God as the source of understanding the ancient past and the glories of eternity
that makes the ongoing Restoration so remarkable. That source was an omniscient
God who is not subject to the limitations imposed by human understanding.
Joseph respected academic inquiry, but academia did not (and does not) always
respect him. This book draws on world-renowned scholarship on the book of
Genesis because scholarly sources have so much to offer in understanding the language
and context of the ancient past and its scripture. However, we recognize the
limitations inherent in scholarship that undertakes to reconstruct the ancient
past. Accordingly, we have gained in this project a greater appreciation for
all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and all that he will
yet reveal (see Articles of Faith 1:9). The Prophet Joseph Smith embodies the
description “prophet, seer, and revelator” in ways we may not fully understand.
The work the Lord performed through him—the revelations, the temple building,
the doctrines, the covenants, the recovery of ancient scripture—has helped us
better understand the Book of Moses as a pearl of great proceeding from the
time of Adam, the Ancient of Days, and generations forward and brought forth to
us in the latter days. (“Preface,” in Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, The
Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days [Provo, Utah:
Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2021], viii)
