The Pearl of Great Price

by Joseph Smith Jr.

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The Pearl of Great Price is part of the standard works of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and some other Latter Day Saint denominations.
The first paragraph of the Introductory Note in the LDS edition of the Pearl of Great Price

The Pearl of Great Price is a selection of choice materials touching many significant aspects of the faith and doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These items were produced by Joseph Smith Jr. and were published in the Church periodicals of his day.

Genres: Religion, Lds, Nonfiction, Church, Spirituality, Scripture, Christian

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Joseph Smith, Jr. was the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, also known as Mormonism, and an important religious and political figure during the 1830s and 1840s. In 1827, Smith began to gather a religious following after announcing that an angel had shown him a set of golden plates describing a visit of Jesus to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. In 1830, Smith published what he said was a translation of these plates as the Book of Mormon, and the same year he organized the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

For most of the 1830s, Smith lived in Kirtland, Ohio, which remained the headquarters of the church until Smith began encouraging members to gather the church to a Latter Day Saint settlement in Missouri. There, tensions between Mormons and non-Mormons resulted in the expelling of the Mormons. Smith and his people then settled in Nauvoo, Illinois where they began building a new temple aided by new converts from Europe. He was assassinated by a mob of non-Mormons at the age of 38.

Smith's followers consider him a prophet and have canonized some of his revelations as sacred texts on par with the Bible. His legacy as a leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been recognized by millions of adherents.

Reviews

[JustJams · Rating 5 out of 5]

September 2015---I reread this as part of a Seminary assignment my boys had. It was an amazing experience to hear my teen boys express thoughts and feelings about a book I love so much.


September 2012---Of course I have read bits and pieces of "The Pearl of Great Price" before. But I have never taken the time to read it cover to cover. I am enjoying the process more than I can say. This book is full of beautiful history and instruction.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

A pack of lies written by a frontier charlatan named Peepstone Joe. But fascinating because it's a chance to actually study a religious fiction from recent history.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you view this as revelation from God, Inspired fiction, or flat out fantesy, it is undoubtedly an amazing collections of writings with various styles, approaches, and doctrines. Viewed for what it is, it's great.

[Lars · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is short. Laying aside its controversial origin, it contains some simple and profound ideas.

[Larry Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

cultic crap

[Courtney]

The Pearl of Great Price is, I think the most interesting and enlightening piece of Mormon Literature that is included in the "Mormon Scriptures". Forget the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine & Covenance. The Pearl of Great Price is where it's at. My favorite part is the Book of Abraham.

This zany book was dictated by Joseph Smith (in the usual fashion -- ie. by nearly esphixiating himself in a top hat full of "seer stones" and thus inducing hallucinations). He wrote this piece when someone came to him with a set of scrolls containing the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Supposedly, the Pearl of Great Price was a translation of these scrolls.
Regardless of how the book came about, this is definitely one of the most interesting religious texts written in the modern age, and contains much of the stranger parts of Mormon Doctrine that modern Mormon's would like to deny. It also includes and explanation of the seriously underplayed Mormon belief in the Plurality of Gods. If you asked most Mormons whether there was 1 god, they would of course say "yes". However, this text explains that All mankind has the potential to become a god of his own world one day, and that our God went through a similar life on a planet named "Kolob". He lived a good life and was thus granted the opportunity to become God of his own world. This is the real reason Mormon's are supposed to be good, have their temple ceremonies, and get into the Celestial Kingdom (the 3rd and highest level of heaven reserved for only those who'd had the mormon temple ceremonies). If you make it to the Celestial Kingdom, you'll be allowed to procreate ad infinatum like our God and be God to your own little world. By this understanding, you can see that while Mormons believe there is only 1 God, that Mormon doctrine in fact says there is the potential for an infinite number of gods. Really fascinating stuff.

[Amy Sanders · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Pearl of Great Price?
Please...
The original document was an Egyptian papyri on how they buried their dead. It had nothing to do with the Book of Abraham. A complete embarrassment to the Mormon Church that had believed black people were cursed. Retracted after they found the original Papyri. The fact that they keep the book…well that speaks volumes.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another family read. The history behind this book is great. The stories inside are great. Moving on to the Old Testament. Gabe LOVES reading long geneaologies of practically unreadable names aloud, so fun times in family scripture reading are ahead!

[Chris Webber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book of Abraham is one of the primary reasons I cannot believe in truth claims of the LDS church. Even Nibley could not resurrect my faith after I studied the historical components of this book. Joseph Smith was simply making it up, it is not founded on fact at all.

So disappointing.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This latest read was with my husband as part of our Branch reading challenge.

[Julie Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I've read many times and love learning more from every time. This was a family read. I loved reading it together and being able to talk about and discuss it. So many great truths contained within. From the creation of the world to modern revelation. So many great gospel truths. I love the scriptures and reading about God's word.

Next we are reading the Old Testament as a family.

Happy Reading!!!

[Bri Malan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good history of Joseph Smith. I love learning about someone's path to God. This is a great book.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that it ends with The Articles of Faith. It ties all 3 books and the beliefs of our church together so well.

[King Crusoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, recently I finally restarted reading The Bible, paired alongside various different related study and reading to go along with it. One of those things, in accordance with LDS theology, was reading much of the Pearl of Great Price alongside early “Genesis”, since much of it is relevant to that material.

To answer the question early: I am indeed LDS. But I’m not reviewing this book (nor do I plan to review any other theology books) in the way that you’ll see many folk in here doing so, i.e. “I believe this = 5 stars; I don’t believe this = 1 star”. There is scarcely a more farcical way to review anything, much less anything of such relatively spiritual weight. While I do believe the LDS Church to be true, that doesn’t mean I am going to review these things solely from that basis, with no critical nuance or genuine interest in the pursuit of truth involved.


And that’s as fine a point as any to begin with: the very idea of “truth”.

Put simply: not all “truth” has to be historically accurate or factually correct. In fact, very often the profound pieces of genuine *truth* to be gleaned from anything is found in metaphor, allegory, legend, and myth. Sometimes straight-up fiction still holds “truth”, despite not a word of it ever happening anywhere. If you have ever read truly great fiction, you know for a fact that some of the deepest human truths can be found in stories that are, for all intents and purposes, “lies” - that is, they are made up. That does not inherently reduce the impact or meaning to be encountered; if anything, it’s just another medium through which it *ought* to be encountered.

More to the point: these days, we can understand from a relatively objective scholarly perspective and consensus - both of the secular and the religious variety - that at least some portions of the Bible (even the universal canon) are not historically or or factually true so far as we can determine, usually by means of the archaeological record and other such objective measurements. On the topic of those records, things start to get decidedly fuzzy getting back to the time of Solomon, let alone earlier, where many things start looking more like embellished legend (though perhaps still based on real people), and moving closer and closer to total myth the further back you go). Some books, such as Esther, appear to be something akin to historical fiction, set during another time but pretty clearly being reflections of the time they were written, thus serving a different kind of purpose. Many more books (the vast majority in fact), are understood to be of a pseudepigraphal nature - meaning, very few books in the entire Bible are believed to have genuinely written by who they claim to be written by or otherwise attributed to. Once you match all of this with straight up song/poetry…obviously no individual genre of writing precludes any other genre from being used in similar pursuit - i.e. in a not totally *factual* way.

With regard to the Torah specifically, it IS considered a book of Law, distinct from the books of History that follow it. With regard to those historical books, many of them seem to be some degree of dubious once you get back to David and Solomon, as mentioned before! In the cases of both, it seems that later scholars and scribes compiled *the Law* together with the narrative surrounding it, and compiled the history with a sharper focus on making theological points in the vein (or school of thought) as who the books are said to come from, rather than being one-to-one with the actual sequence of events that literally occurred. Many of the older material is likely also based on word-of-mouth accounts of people or general oral story tradition, which are bound to grow exaggerated over time inherently.

In short, it doesn’t seem particularly likely to me that all of the whole of The Bible (and especially the Old Testament) is of the non-fiction variety the way that we tend to think of things nowadays - namely, literally true portrayals of events exactly as they happened. I just don’t think that view is very realistic. (I say this not to disparage who *do* believe in The Bible that way; it’s just not my view of it, nor is it very common in the broader scholarly community. And once again, this *includes* religious scholars.)


Anyway, to get back more on topic . . . .

The Pearl of Great Price (PoGP for short) is a little bit off-putting in some ways because it does seem like it’s trying to “correct” some of The Bible (most especially the first . . . say, 14 or so chapters of “Genesis”). However, given the context that I gave about the supposed historicity of The Bible, I don’t actually see this as much of an issue in that particular regard. It seems to me based more-so on putting forth theological principles rather than “correcting” history - much like how The Bible itself is more concerned with faith than accurate record-keeping.

Obviously, not everybody reading this is going to agree with the belief that the Book of Mormon is true. But for the sake of this review, let’s just say that it is confirmed true. If that is the case, then choosing to solidify religious points contained within it (and other purported modern revelation) by bolstering it with a “retranslated” (lightly adapted) version of the [King James Version] Bible is a rather sensible way to incorporate these ideas more broadly.

More on the point of said “retranslation”: the Joseph Smith Translation exists in 3 forms: footnotes in the KJV Bible, appendix/endnotes in the KJV Bible, and in the PoGP.

The footnotes are short, minor adjustments of wording, mostly, only occasionally expanding the content; the endnotes are longer portions, like whole verses or multi-verse segments, featuring more notable expansions or reorganization, or perhaps internal relevance added or clarified; the relevant content in the PoGP is contained in “Moses”, “Abraham”, and “Joseph Smith–Matthew” (basically ⅔ of the book).

“Moses” is largely a reframing and sizable expansion of the first several books of “Genesis”. For the purposes of expansion to put forth LDS-specific points with regard to the spiritual realm makes sense. And given the relatively “non-historically accurate” state that said material exists in (in my view), I again am largely ready to accept this book for what it’s doing. I understand that not all will be, but I can appreciate it, even if I have some questions. That said, the book of “Moses” greatly re-introduces Enoch as a character to an extent I never realized before, and in a way that made me go ahead and pull the trigger on including various deuterocanon and other apocrypha into my Old Testament reading for the year - which I think is a very good and useful thing! Reading “1 Enoch” following my finishing “Moses” was honestly a really great experience! (And you can read my review of “1 Enoch” HERE.)

So anyway, I got a lot out of reading “Moses”. “Abraham” is where more questions come into play. The question of its existence and authenticity is a HUGE question mark for a lot of people, and that includes me, actually. I need to look more into it a little more to actually express a genuinely opinion on the matter, but I wanted to make it clear that I totally get it. I have questions of my own. Some of those questions come down to how weird it is that the book is included here at all. In some ways, it is doing much the same thing as “Moses”. It reframes a little of the introduction of Abraham’s character and then gives ANOTHER version of the “Genesis” story, giving us 3 different versions of the same story, with basically all of them being identical outside of *slightly* different wording in places. While I’m pretty content with “Moses”, I’m far less so with “Abraham”, and this book is THE reason I’m giving the PoGP 4 stars instead of 5. I just have a very difficult time reconciling this compared to others - though again, I need to look more into it before I actually voice any specific opinions.

Moving on, “Joseph Smith–Matthew” is a lengthy portion (Chapter 24) of “Matthew” more or less rewritten in the same manner as the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) to be found in the footnotes and endnotes of the KJV Bible. It is a little weird to me that this segment is found in an entirely different binding, instead of just being with the JST already found in the Bible’s endnotes. And since I am not reading the New Testament till next year, I opted to skip these couple of pages of the PoGP, and I will discuss it more when I review the relevant section(s) of the New Testament and Bible some other time.


To bring all of what I just said regarding Joseph Smith’s editorial into conversation with the points I made earlier in the review about truth . . .

I do not believe that the supposed JST needs to be *literally true* to contain spiritual truth: if, as we said before, you believe the Book of Mormon is true, affecting what already may or may not be beholden to factual history from “Genesis” (as the case is with “Moses” and “Abraham”, the bulk of the PoGP), it is not an unheard-of way to put forth those *kinds* points, arguments about authenticity, especially with regard to “Abraham”, notwithstanding. Hell, you don’t even have to believe the Book of Mormon is true in the first place to see that this is a valid view of the content. After all, Jewish scholars compiling and writing the Old Testament itself did not view writing in terms of “fiction” or “non-fiction”. Spiritual - even “human” - truth is its own kind of thing that mixes both together in various manners of genre. Going back and taking another look at the material is not, in my opinion, inherently wrong or nonsensical. That’s how I feel about it. You don’t have to agree, but I feel I’ve made a fairly decent case for why I feel the way I do for those ⅔ of this book.


Nevertheless, that is not all that the Pearl of Great Price contains. It also contains a decently lengthy book (still only like 1-hour long) called “Joseph Smith–History” - a short account of part of the man’s life and testimony vis a vis the First Vision and other important early happenings in the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Then it wraps up with the 13 Articles of Faith - the LDS equivalent to any other church’s Declaration of Faith (or similar), asserting the core of LDS beliefs. The Articles of Faith act as a sort of thematic close to the idea that the PoGP is otherwise trying to use familiar theological concepts, events, and figures in an explicitly LDS framing for the sake of exploring symbolic ideas and spiritual truth rather than literal fact, and closes on the easy reference to our actual belief system.

The history of Joseph Smith here is also of particular note to me. I went in with a fairly blank and open mind. I was inactive in my Church for many years - right around a third of my life. Though I am young yet, and that “third of my life” isn’t *that* long in the grand scheme of things, it comprises essentially my entire adulthood, and a sizable chunk of my teens saw me jaded by particular people in my ward to an extent that I could not bring myself to attend Church at all anymore, even though I never explicitly let go of my beliefs. That said, I spent some of those years in some realm of spiritual homelessness. I still held to the things I had supposedly believed all my life, but I had to come to actually hold many of those beliefs on my own. There are some of those things that I am *still* coming to now, hence my more objective look at this book, and my willingness to explore generally non-canonical “scripture” (depending on who you ask in some cases). Just as I’d ask for an open mind with regard to my faith (and its books), I am opened-minded towards others’ books!

But so, anyway, there’s a degree to which I’ve been disconnected from the Church long enough that my intrinsically biased view of what I was once taught about Joseph and others isn’t as hammered-in the same way. I’d even forgotten large swaths of it. So reading “Joseph Smith–History” was a really powerful reminder. I can’t describe it any way other than the account contained herein really resonated with me in a lot of ways - some of those similar to how it has in the past, some of them a little more new to my current mode of thinking. Similar to the authenticity of “Abraham”, there has been much said about Joseph Smith as a person and as a supposed spiritual leader. I’ve heard just about all of it at this point - especially during the years of wandering that I did. Trust me, I don’t need folk trying to convince me in my bad faith about how much of a “charlatan” he was. I’m simply not convinced that he was. I won’t bother to explain every single reason why, but following reading “Joseph Smith–History” and several of the other deep-dives I’ve gone on with this topic in the years of inactivity, I simply am incapable of believing that the amount of people who suffered to the degree they did for this faith were it merely for attention. They certainly weren’t doing it for money, nor for proper fame or power. That much is obvious. You don’t have to believe that what they said was true. You also don’t have to believe any of them were infallible (because that’s objectively stupid), but I find myself generally convinced by the testimonies. That includes the implicit testimony of “Joseph Smith–History”. This book was looking like a 3-star rating prior to the history and articles, but these items concluded it strong enough for me to up the score!


I think that I largely believe in the Pearl of Great Price. are still questions in some places, but I think it’s also worth noting that this kind of thing is far from a unique trait to the Latter-Day Saints: most Christians have some amount of material that falls in places of relative question. Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and various other writings over the course of Christian history have all landed in spots of being accepted by some, but not by others, depending on the material. An objective view sees basically all of it as some manner of enlightening, useful, and good to read, even when deemed not canon! A huge amount of auxiliary material - and commentaries between both canonical and non-canonical writing - can still be relevant and meaningful, regardless of proper “authenticity” or factuality.

Viewing the book in the way that I viewed it, I got a lot out of it, and it put me in a frame of mind to explore even more material in my personal search for further truth, much of which falls explicitly outside of the purview of my own church. I think that alone should prove that I am engaging in good faith, that I’m not merely appealing to authority (or similar), and that I am being as honest as I can be about my experience.

Would I recommend people outside of the LDS Church to read the Pearl of Great Price? Not particularly, but if you are curious about it and can engage in that same good faith, separate from dogma and inherent distaste for Mormons, it might make for an interesting experience!

That is all.

[Randon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should really give this book Five Stars as it was amazing in that it proved without a doubt that Joseph Smith was not a real prophet and simply a product of his time. Comparing the Facsimiles in The Book of Abraham to undamaged Egyptian Books of Breathing prove that Smith simply created a story to fit the pictures he saw. No matter how hard Mormon apologists try to explain it as simply symbolic- it clearly is a fraud. The papyrus the Facsimiles were taken from date to A.D. 60 so it is highly spurious that they contained any story of Abraham to begin with, let alone one where he got to sit on the throne of Pharaoh. Smith simply drew in the gaps in the pictures by hand and his brain drew in the gaps of the story. Other story material shows the inherent racism of the early 19th century with content obsessing with black skin of humans as simply a product of God's curse on Cain and his descendants. This belief led Mormons to withhold priesthood and certain membership privileges to black people who joined. Things changed in 1978 when they faced external societal pressure in the U.S. on their tax exemption status and the desire to baptize many African-descended Brazilians to grow their ranks (and revenue).

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many great things found here: Extended knowledge of heroes such as Abraham, Moses, Enoch, and Joseph Smith! Revelations about the Creation, Premortal Existence, the Apostasy and Restoration of Christ's church on the earth, the basic tenets of that church, found in The Articles of Faith. I love this book.

[Mistyblue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A spiritual up-lifter. I enjoy revisiting the truths contained herein.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

These two books are clearly fraudulent. The Book of Abraham, supposedly translated from an Egyptian papyrus, contains nothing related to the papyrus, which is still extant and has been translated, correctly, a number of times. The Book of Moses is Joseph Smiths attempt to improve upon the first books of the Old Testament, which he claimed he was correcting by direct revelation from God.

[Brandon Osborn · Rating 1 out of 5]

The PoGP has been documented as an utter fraud - originalso of the scroll pieces were found in Chicago and have been reviewed by Egyptologists from Harvard and other places - the Papyri which the "Book of Abraham" was translated from is actually a permit to breathe for Horace - which is a very common death scroll. Joseph Smith had no idea what he was doing, and faked every bit of it.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book with an interesting history. I've found several of the stories very helpful. Not sure if I'll read it every year for the rest of my life, but since it is scriptural canon I'll give it 5 starts just to prevent a Hans-esque controversy. Hahahaha

[Karey White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. So excited to have read the entire Standard Works in 13 months. And I absolutely loved the last part of Joseph Smith History, where Oliver Cowdery writes. His writing is so beautiful.

[Architeacher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fraud, pure and simple.

[Little Timmy]

I won't rate this book. I read it to learn about a new area in religion and it did fulfill that purpose.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great addition to the Book of Mormon, love all of the scriptures and how grateful I have them in my life. Especially love JST of Matthew & JS History!

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pearl of Great Price is precisely what its name suggests. It is some of the most amazing doctrines revealed to the Prophet Joseph smith. This book has changed my life. I'm sad for people who become so fixated on the provenance of the document they fail to focus on the doctrines it teaches. Truly this book is transcendent!

[Elizabeth Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listen, this one was a tough one to read for a long time. There’s a lot of confusing and complicated stuff, but this time around (reading it alongside Genesis of the Bible) I understood it a lot more and it was a really uplifting read. I love the word of God and love that God always has more to give.
(G rating)

[Von Sowards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember going through the Pear of Great Price in seminary and thinking it was full of those amazing deep doctrines you don't usually talk about. Then I got on my mission and met many people (missionary, Latter-day Saint, and other Christians alike) who got WAY too caught up with the deep doctrines. It would make me frustrated that people were so focused on the deep doctrines the would forget the basic, beautiful principals of the gospel: faith in The Lord Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism and making other covenants, and receiving and following the Holy Ghost.

So I held the Pear of Great Price in, yes with respect, but but a little dislike on the same leaves with those same silly people who forget the basic principals.

Then I had the prompting to read the little book, and guess what, it was full of teaches about faith, repentance, baptism, covenants, and listening to promptings from God.

This is a beautiful book. It is full of the Love of God. I have felt its power in my life, and I know it is true! I love this book!

[Tym · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was raised in a very strongly "faithful" Mormon family and was taught that this was divine scripture all of my life. I eventually figured out I had to find out what I myself believe in and Mormonism isn't for me. So I might have some bias when re-reading this book. There are some pretty awesome sc-fi/fantasy concepts in this particular book that I would love to see used in a novel(s).

The styles are different enough for each section that what Joseph Smith claims about the book (him translating it from papyri) could seem plausible to the uneducated mind. You have to give the guy props for that and some of the crazy cool concepts. However considering that the entire purpose of this document is to convince you Mr. Smith is a prophet I have to say it sincerely fails in that.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone other than sci-fi/fantasy authors floundering for some ideas and actual Mormons.

[Lisa Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pearl of Great Price is a book of scripture used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Containing revelations, translations, and a brief history of Joseph Smith, the first prophet of the church (The Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, a translation of the book of Matthew, and Joseph Smith History). It also includes the Thirteen Articles of Faith, written by Joseph Smith to explain the basic beliefs of the LDS church.

For such a short book of scripture, it is extremely profound. The truths that it contains are beautiful and important, and as I reread it for the first time in a few years, I loved being reminded of how wonderful this book of scripture really is.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I like this book in its entirety and enjoy its somewhat unusual content, I'd have to say the Joseph Smith: History portion to be of greatest significance and effect upon me. Touching scene when the prophet Enoch perceives the poetic analogy of tears falling from "heaven" as rain when God considers the wickedness upon the Earth.