Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Grant Underwood on the High Christology of the JST

  

Smith’s high Christology is apparent in a number of New Testament revisions and additions. When considering the young Jesus, Joseph Smith adds these words to the end of Matthew 2: “And it came to pass that Jesus grew up with his brethren and waxed strong and waited upon the Lord for the time of his ministry to come and he served under his father and he sape not as other men neither could be taught for he needed not that any man should teach him and after many years the hour of his ministry drew night.” (NTOB, 162-63 [compare 239]) Smith also revises passages to emphasize Christ’s earthly omniscience. For example, he emends the account of young Jesus “sitting in the midst of the doctors [in the temple], both hearing them, and asking the questions” (Luke 2:46) to read “sitting in the midst of the Doctrines, and they were hearing him, and asking him questions.” (NTOB, 371-72, emphasis added) Even so minor a matter as the account of Jesus “seeing a fig tree afar off” on his way from Bethany to Jerusalem and approaching it “if haply he might find any thing thereon” (Mark 11:13), was modified to preserve Jesus’ omniscience; Jesus “came to [the three] with his disciples; and as they supposed,, he came to see if he might find any thing thereon.” (NTOB, 342, emphasis added) (Grant Understood, “Joseph Smith’s ‘New Translation’ of the Bible,” in The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition, ed. Taylor G. Petrey, Cory Crawford, and Eric A. Eliason [Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2023], 57)