Ina letter to James Arlington Bennet dated November 13, 1843 (in the handwriting of W. W. Phelps), Joseph Smith may have alluded to the Assumption of Moses (the same pseudepigraphical work referenced in Jude 9):
And Jude the Apostle of Jesus Christ fifteen hundred years after, as “as him that had dominion,” came about fifteen hundred years after, in accordance of <with this and> the prediction of Moses, David, Isaiah and many others, came, saying Moses wrote of <me;> declaring the dispersion of the Jews and the utter destruction of “the city” and the Apostles were his witness <unimpeached> especially Jude, who not only endorses the facts of Moses “divinity,” but <also the> events of Balaam and Korah with many others, as true!
In a footnote to the above in the
Joseph Smith Papers series, we read that:
This
may refer to a passage in the apocryphal book The Assumption of Moses,
hinted at in the New Testament book of Jude, which states that after his death,
the biblical prophet Moses was taken into heaven by assumption—the ascent or reception
into heaven. . . . (The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents Volume 13: August-December
1843, ed. Christian K. Heimburger et al. [Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s
Press, 2022], )
On Jude 9, including answering
objections by those who deny Jude is using the Assumption of Moses, see Thomas
Farrar’s paper:
