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The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days
The book of Moses is canonized scripture spanning the epochs of Creation, Adam and Eve, Enoch, and Noah. Its content was revealed anciently by God to Moses and re-revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith in modern times. This book explores the origins and development of the book of Moses, its ancient nuances, the linguistic features of its revelations, and how its sweeping visions and rich doctrines inspired and guided Joseph Smith and the early members of what would become The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their pursuit of Zion.
575 pages, Hardcover
Published December 11, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 19, 2022
4 stars for the research, 1 star for the writing. I can’t recommend this book to anyone. It tries to do too much, and it is in need of better editing to be accessible. The authors included multiple similar quotes on each topic, so I sometimes wondered if I was rereading the same page. On many pages (perhaps the majority), the footnotes take up more space than the actual text. And in the last few chapters, there are some weird spacing problems on the pages.
In the first section, it was quite interesting to see the events that led up to the translation of the Book of Moses, and the effect it had on subsequent sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. This information took the first several chapters of the book, and most of the research came from Givens & Hauglid’s “Pearl of Greatest Price,” which I definitely plan to read as well as Draper, Brown & Rhodes PGP commentary. They also referenced some helpful articles from Kent Jackson, who addresses the idea that Joseph Smith “plagiarized” Adam Clarke for his translation of the Bible.
There are two chapters on Moses 1, with quotes from modern leaders such as Joseph Fielding Smith and Jeffrey R. Holland discussing the implications of Moses’ vision, as well as comparing it to Joseph Smith’s First Vision.
The next section used many Biblical commentaries to discuss Moses 2-5, which are essentially Genesis 1-4. The most commonly cited scholars were John Walton (whose work I love) and Gordon Wenham, as well as Bill Arnold, John Hartley, Bruce Waltke, and several others. Where this information is widely available, I would have rather the authors focused on how Moses and Genesis differ, and how Latter-day Saint doctrine changes our perception of these stories.
The chapters on Moses 6-7, often reference Jeffery Bradshaw’s “In God’s Image”, which is unfortunately out of print. It was interesting to see how the story of Enoch influenced Joseph Smith’s plans to build Zion. There were some discussions of Hugh Nibley’s work on how names like Mahujah relate to ancient records, but again, I was expecting a lot more on that topic.
In the first section, it was quite interesting to see the events that led up to the translation of the Book of Moses, and the effect it had on subsequent sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. This information took the first several chapters of the book, and most of the research came from Givens & Hauglid’s “Pearl of Greatest Price,” which I definitely plan to read as well as Draper, Brown & Rhodes PGP commentary. They also referenced some helpful articles from Kent Jackson, who addresses the idea that Joseph Smith “plagiarized” Adam Clarke for his translation of the Bible.
There are two chapters on Moses 1, with quotes from modern leaders such as Joseph Fielding Smith and Jeffrey R. Holland discussing the implications of Moses’ vision, as well as comparing it to Joseph Smith’s First Vision.
The next section used many Biblical commentaries to discuss Moses 2-5, which are essentially Genesis 1-4. The most commonly cited scholars were John Walton (whose work I love) and Gordon Wenham, as well as Bill Arnold, John Hartley, Bruce Waltke, and several others. Where this information is widely available, I would have rather the authors focused on how Moses and Genesis differ, and how Latter-day Saint doctrine changes our perception of these stories.
The chapters on Moses 6-7, often reference Jeffery Bradshaw’s “In God’s Image”, which is unfortunately out of print. It was interesting to see how the story of Enoch influenced Joseph Smith’s plans to build Zion. There were some discussions of Hugh Nibley’s work on how names like Mahujah relate to ancient records, but again, I was expecting a lot more on that topic.
February 1, 2026
excellent and insightful
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews