Keywords

Book of Revelation, Section 77, Doctrine and Covenants

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The book of Revelation is a complicated book, to say the least. For those of us who teach courses covering the book of Revelation, we often rely upon Joseph Smith’s questions and answers on the book of Revelation, now canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 77, as a means of providing some answers to all the mysterious complexity John’s vision presents to us. However, the question inevitably arises as to how closely the answers provided in section 77 adhere to the text of the book of Revelation as well as the opinion of New Testament scholars, both those contemporary to Joseph Smith and those writing now. Essentially, what my students are curious about is the uniqueness of section 77’s answers. Do they provide distinctive, heretofore unknown solutions to the book of Revelation’s riddles, or do they largely follow the general scholarly consensus (if there even is such a thing when it comes to Revelation)? I typically answer with something like “Kind of.” Yes, there are times when section 77 fits nicely with how scholars have interpreted Revelation, but section 77 also provides unique insights that are absent from many academic works. However, this kind of answer feels inadequate. In an attempt to be able to provide some firmer answers to my students’ inquiries, I decided to compare section 77’s answers to a variety of prominent commentaries on the book of Revelation, some from the era of Joseph Smith and others more modern. The results of that project are what follows here. To be clear, the purpose of this project is not to question the answers delivered through Joseph Smith through revelation (however that process may have worked) but to evaluate how those answers align with other students of the book of Revelation as a way of helping students appreciate section 77’s contributions.