Introduction
The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, commonly abbreviated as the JST, is one of the clearest windows into Joseph Smith’s understanding of Scripture and prophetic authority.
The project did more than modernize archaic language. It altered thousands of biblical verses, expanded entire narratives, introduced new revelations, resolved perceived contradictions, and inserted teachings that (conveniently) corresponded closely to the developing beliefs of early Mormonism.
Its most controversial addition appears near the end of Genesis. In the King James Version and every recognized textual tradition, Genesis ends with Joseph’s death in verse 26. In Joseph Smith’s revision, however, the chapter expands to thirty-eight verses. The additional material contains a detailed prophecy about a latter-day seer named Joseph, named after his father, who would bring forth new scripture and help restore Israel.
The modern Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints identifies this figure as Joseph Smith himself.
This presents a direct historical question. Did Joseph Smith recover an ancient prophecy that had vanished from every known biblical manuscript, or did he place himself within the biblical story and present that expansion as restored revelation?
The answer cannot be reached by assuming either that revelation is impossible or that Joseph Smith was already a prophet. His claim must be examined through chronology, manuscript evidence, literary dependence, and theological consistency.
What Was the Joseph Smith Translation?
Joseph Smith began revising the Bible in the summer of 1830, only a few months after the Book of Mormon was published. He worked on the project with several scribes, including Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, John Whitmer, Emma Smith, and Frederick G. Williams. The principal work continued until July 1833.
The official history of the LDS Church acknowledges that Smith did not translate from Hebrew or Greek manuscripts. He did not begin with the biblical languages, consult ancient codices, or produce an English rendering of a previously untranslated document. Instead, he read from an English King James Bible and dictated revisions, expansions, and corrections that he believed were given through inspiration.
Calling the work a “translation” therefore requires a much broader definition of the term than scholars normally employ. It is more accurately described as a revelatory revision of the King James Version.
The changes range from minor grammatical adjustments to entirely new chapters. According to an analysis published by BYU Studies, the JST differs from the King James Version in approximately 3,410 verses. The Book of Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew, now contained in the Pearl of Great Price, originated in this project. Other changes appear in LDS footnotes and an appendix, while many are not included in the Church’s standard works at all.
This distinction is important. A passage may be spiritually meaningful as commentary without being the original wording of Genesis, Matthew, or Romans. A theological paraphrase is not the same thing as a recovered ancient text.
The Manuscript Problem
Christians do not need to pretend that every biblical manuscript is identical. Textual variants exist. Some are small spelling differences; others concern words, phrases, or longer passages. The Hebrew Bible also circulated in several textual forms, as demonstrated by the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other ancient witnesses.
Textual criticism exists precisely because Christians and scholars have not concealed these differences. Manuscripts are compared openly in an effort to determine the earliest recoverable form of the text.
Yet acknowledging textual variation is not the same as accepting the claim that essential Christian doctrine disappeared from every manuscript tradition and had to be restored by a nineteenth-century prophet.
No known ancient manuscript or ancient version of Genesis contains the prophecy found in JST Genesis 50:24–38. Nothing corresponding to it appears in the Hebrew textual tradition, the Septuagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Syriac tradition, the Latin tradition, or any known ancient commentary preserving an alternate form of Genesis.
Kevin L. Barney, a Latter-day Saint scholar who compared JST readings with ancient biblical variants, concluded that the majority of Joseph Smith’s changes have no ancient textual parallels. He found a small number of places where the JST resembles an early reading, but observed that most changes appear to harmonize contradictions, clarify doctrine, or paraphrase difficult King James language rather than restore words lost from the original manuscripts.
This does not logically disprove the possibility of revelation. A person may always claim that God restored material for which no surviving evidence exists. It does mean, however, that the JST cannot be presented as a historically demonstrated recovery of the original biblical text.
Its authority depends almost entirely upon first accepting Joseph Smith’s prophetic authority.
Genesis 50:33: Joseph Smith Enters the Biblical Story
The most revealing example is Joseph Smith’s expansion of Genesis 50.
The canonical chapter records Joseph’s final words, his death at the age of 110, and the embalming of his body in Egypt. Joseph expresses confidence that God will visit Israel and return the people to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
The JST inserts an extended prophecy into this setting. Joseph of Egypt is made to predict a “choice seer” who will arise among his descendants in the last days. This seer will bring forth God’s word, restore Israel, unite the writings of Joseph with the writings of Judah, confound false doctrines, and be opposed by enemies who will ultimately fail.
The identification becomes unmistakable in JST Genesis 50:33:
“His name shall be called Joseph, and it shall be after the name of his father.”
Joseph Smith Jr. was the son of Joseph Smith Sr.
The current LDS seminary manual does not treat this identification as uncertain. It explicitly teaches that Joseph of Egypt prophesied the coming of Joseph Smith and that the passage can strengthen a student’s testimony that Smith was called as a prophet.
The issue is not merely that the prophecy happens to describe Joseph Smith. The passage was produced under Joseph Smith’s direction, names a prophet matching Joseph Smith and his father, validates the writings Joseph Smith had produced, and promises that those who seek to destroy the prophet will be confounded.
We cannot prove Joseph Smith’s private motives. Historically, however, the result is plain: a biblical revision created under his authority inserted a detailed prophecy of a man matching Joseph Smith into the final chapter of Genesis.
In that meaningful and observable sense, Joseph Smith wrote himself into the biblical story.
The Book of Mormon Came First
The chronology makes the problem more serious.
The Book of Mormon was offered for sale in March 1830. Its third chapter of 2 Nephi already contained a prophecy attributed to Joseph of Egypt concerning a future seer. That seer would bring forth scripture, restore the descendants of Joseph, be named Joseph, and be named after his father.
Second Nephi 3:15 reads:
“His name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father.”
The corresponding JST wording is:
“His name shall be called Joseph, and it shall be after the name of his father.”
The resemblance extends far beyond that sentence. Second Nephi 3:6–15 and JST Genesis 50:26–33 follow substantially the same sequence of ideas and repeatedly use the same distinctive expressions: a “choice seer,” the “fruit of thy loins,” one who will be “great like unto Moses,” the joining of two records, strength arising from weakness, and the seer being named after his father.
The surviving manuscript evidence places the Genesis 50 expansion in Old Testament Revision 2. Joseph Smith resumed that portion of the Old Testament after completing his initial New Testament revision in July 1832, more than two years after the Book of Mormon had been published. The entire Bible project was declared finished in July 1833.
The order is therefore:
Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon, which contained a prophecy about a future seer named Joseph after his father.
Joseph Smith later revised Genesis.
His revision inserted substantially the same prophecy into the words of Joseph of Egypt.
The later passage was then treated as biblical confirmation of Joseph Smith’s prophetic mission.
That is not independent corroboration.
From a believing LDS perspective, the same ancient prophecy was revealed twice: first through the Book of Mormon and then through the JST. But when Joseph Smith’s prophetic authority is the very matter under investigation, one Joseph Smith text cannot independently authenticate another Joseph Smith text.
The argument is circular. Joseph Smith’s revision confirms Joseph Smith’s book, while Joseph Smith’s book confirms Joseph Smith’s revision.
Genesis 50:33 therefore provides no external historical evidence that Joseph Smith was foretold in antiquity. It functions as evidence only after one has already accepted that Joseph Smith could reveal lost ancient scripture.
Restoration or Theological Harmonization?
Some JST changes are thoughtful and may even improve the apparent meaning of the King James wording. That should be acknowledged.
For example, Genesis 6:6 in the King James Version says that “it repented the Lord” that He had made humanity. Joseph Smith revised the passage so that Noah, rather than God, repented. The change appears designed to harmonize Genesis with passages such as Numbers 23:19, which says that God is not a man who should repent.
The difficulty is that the Hebrew text of Genesis does not say that Noah repented. It says that the Lord regretted or was grieved over humanity’s wickedness. Joseph Smith’s revision may remove a perceived theological difficulty, but it does so by changing the subject of the sentence rather than recovering the Hebrew wording.
Barney therefore argues that such passages are better understood as theological interpretation or harmonization than as restorations of an original text.
This distinction allows for a balanced judgment. Some JST changes may be perceptive commentary. A few may coincidentally or insightfully resemble readings preferred by modern textual critics. Matthew 5:22, for example, removes the phrase “without a cause,” a phrase absent from several important early witnesses.
But occasional agreement with an ancient variant does not authenticate the much larger expansions for which no textual evidence exists.
A useful commentary is not necessarily an ancient manuscript. A good paraphrase is not automatically the original wording of an apostle or prophet.
The Adam Clarke Commentary
Modern scholarship has raised another problem for a simple restoration theory.
Thomas Wayment and Haley Wilson-Lemmon have argued that portions of the JST, particularly in the New Testament, show hundreds of possible connections with the biblical commentary of Adam Clarke, a prominent Methodist scholar whose work was available in Joseph Smith’s time. They contend that the similarities are too numerous and specific to be explained entirely as coincidence.
Their proposal does not claim that every JST change came from Clarke. They found no comparable Clarke influence in the earliest Genesis material and suggest that the commentary became influential later in the revision process, especially during work on the New Testament.
Kent P. Jackson, another Latter-day Saint scholar, disputes their conclusions. He argues that many proposed parallels are vague, that the same changes could have arisen independently, and that the evidence does not establish direct dependence upon Clarke.
The exact extent of the connection therefore remains debated. It should not be carelessly described as settled plagiarism. Nevertheless, the evidence has been strong enough to produce a serious scholarly discussion within Latter-day Saint studies itself.
At minimum, this debate makes it difficult to treat every JST alteration as the direct restoration of ancient wording by revelation. Some changes may reflect engagement with nineteenth-century biblical interpretation, whether directly through Clarke or through the broader religious environment in which Joseph Smith worked.
A Developing Rather Than Recovered Theology
The JST also reflects Joseph Smith’s changing theological concerns.
In the early 1830s, Smith altered several difficult passages to clarify monotheistic language or remove apparent references to a plurality of gods. Yet by the final months of his life, he was openly teaching a plurality of gods and appealing to the Bible in support of that doctrine.
Kevin Barney notes that Smith’s 1844 teaching effectively reversed the interpretive direction of some earlier JST emendations, including changes involving Revelation 1:6, Exodus 22:28, and Colossians 2:2.
This does not prove that every JST passage was consciously invented. It does suggest that the project often followed Joseph Smith’s developing theology rather than preserving a stable ancient text.
The surviving revision manuscripts also show that overlapping passages could be translated more than once with similar ideas expressed through different words and sometimes placed in different locations. Even Robert J. Matthews, one of the most important LDS scholars of the JST, concluded that the exact wording was generally not dictated word for word but was formulated and later revised by Joseph Smith.
Once again, such a process may be described as inspired commentary by someone who already accepts Joseph Smith’s calling. It is much harder to describe it as the recovery of the precise words written by biblical authors.
Why Does the LDS Church Still Prefer the King James Version?
The LDS Church has never replaced its English Bible with the complete JST.
Historically, there were understandable reasons. After Joseph Smith’s death, his widow Emma retained the manuscripts. They later passed to their son Joseph Smith III and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now known as Community of Christ. That church published the revision in 1867 as the Inspired Version.
For many years, LDS leaders in Utah were uncertain whether that edition accurately represented Joseph Smith’s manuscripts. Later comparison showed that it was largely reliable. Selected JST passages were incorporated into the LDS edition of the King James Bible in 1979, while the Book of Moses and Joseph Smith—Matthew had already entered the Pearl of Great Price.
The LDS Church acquired the original Bible revision manuscripts from Community of Christ in 2024. Historical manuscript custody therefore explains much of the initial delay, but it no longer accounts for the continued refusal to adopt the complete JST as the Church’s Bible.
As of 2026, the Church continues to identify its own King James Version as its preferred English Bible, although recent guidance allows members to consult and use other translations. The full JST remains outside the standard works, apart from the portions canonized in the Pearl of Great Price. Other excerpts appear in footnotes and study helps without the entire revision having been formally canonized.
This ambiguity does not, by itself, prove that the JST is false. It does reveal an unresolved question of authority.
If the complete JST restores essential words removed from Scripture, why are all of its changes not treated as binding Scripture? Why are some revisions canonized, some placed in footnotes, and others omitted? Who determined which of Joseph Smith’s changes possess scriptural authority?
Latter-day Saint scholars themselves continue to disagree over whether the entire project is canonical, partially canonical, inspired but optional, or primarily an interpretive aid.
The Strongest Latter-day Saint Defense
A fair evaluation should present the strongest LDS response.
A Latter-day Saint may argue that Joseph Smith used “translation” in a revelatory rather than linguistic sense. God was not merely correcting damaged manuscripts but revealing events, doctrines, and prophetic words that may never have existed in the surviving textual tradition. Under this view, the absence of manuscript support is unsurprising.
Genesis 50 could therefore be an authentic prophecy revealed independently in the Book of Mormon and the JST. The similarities between the two accounts would reflect a common ancient source rather than literary dependence. Other JST changes could be inspired commentary intended to clarify doctrine rather than reconstruct Hebrew or Greek wording.
This position cannot be disproven merely by showing that the material is absent from existing manuscripts. Divine revelation is not limited to what archaeologists have recovered.
Yet this defense comes at a considerable cost.
First, it largely abandons the claim that the JST restores the original text of the Bible in any historically testable sense. The project becomes new revelation placed inside an existing biblical narrative.
Second, it makes Joseph Smith’s authority the necessary premise rather than the conclusion. One must accept him as a prophet before accepting Genesis 50 as ancient prophecy. The passage cannot then be used as independent evidence that he was a prophet.
Third, the inspired-commentary explanation does not fully account for the way Genesis 50 is used. The LDS Church does not merely present it as Joseph Smith’s nineteenth-century reflection upon Genesis. It teaches that Joseph of Egypt actually foretold Joseph Smith’s mission.
That is a historical claim. Historical claims may properly be asked for historical evidence.
What Does the Evidence Support?
The available evidence supports several conclusions.
Joseph Smith did not translate the Bible from ancient languages or manuscripts. He revised an English King James Bible through what he regarded as revelation.
Some changes may function as thoughtful paraphrase, doctrinal commentary, or attempts to resolve difficult passages.
A small number of JST readings resemble ancient textual variants, but most do not. The major expansions lack support in known biblical manuscripts.
The JST also contains evidence of nineteenth-century interpretive influence and Joseph Smith’s developing theological concerns.
Most significantly, JST Genesis 50:33 is not an independent ancient witness to Joseph Smith. Its wording appeared after the Book of Mormon had already contained substantially the same prophecy, and both texts reached the world through Joseph Smith.
The historical evidence therefore does not justify calling Genesis 50:24–38 a recovered portion of the original book of Genesis. Under ordinary historical standards, it is better understood as a Latter-day Saint expansion of Genesis designed to place Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon within sacred history.
A person may accept that expansion as modern revelation. But that is a confession of faith in Joseph Smith, not a conclusion established by biblical manuscripts.
Theological Significance
The Christian issue is larger than the reliability of one nineteenth-century Bible revision. It concerns the preservation of the apostolic faith and the authority to speak in the name of Scripture.
Historic Christianity does not claim that copyists never made mistakes or that the King James Version is perfect. The Church has always compared manuscripts, corrected translations, and wrestled carefully with difficult passages.
But correction is not the same as prophetic rewriting.
The apostles instructed Christians to guard the deposit of faith that had been entrusted to the Church: “Hold fast the pattern of sound words” and “guard the good deposit” through the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 1:13–14). Jude speaks of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Paul commands believers to hold to the apostolic traditions they had received, whether by spoken word or written letter (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
The apostolic Church was not told that the Gospel would disappear and require reconstruction by a prophet eighteen centuries later.
From an Orthodox Christian perspective, Scripture was never an isolated volume severed from the worship, doctrine, and memory of the Church. The biblical writings were copied, proclaimed, interpreted, and preserved within the communion that had received the apostolic witness. The same Church confessed Christ in baptism, Eucharist, martyrdom, preaching, councils, and creeds.
For the Gospel to have been lost in the manner required by Mormon restorationism, the corruption would have needed to overtake not only biblical manuscripts but also the Church’s worship, preaching, sacramental life, theological memory, and public confession across many languages and regions.
The historical record does not support such a comprehensive disappearance.
Final Verdict
The JST is best explained as Joseph Smith’s nineteenth-century revision and theological expansion, not as a demonstrated recovery of ancient biblical wording. Its lack of manuscript support, self-referential prophecy, developing theology, and possible use of Adam Clarke remain serious obstacles to the restoration claim.
Christians need not fear honest study of the biblical text. The Scriptures have passed through the hands of human copyists, translators, pastors, and scholars, yet through divine providence the apostolic testimony has endured.
Our confidence does not depend upon pretending that every manuscript is identical. Nor does it depend upon defending one English translation as flawless. It rests upon the remarkable continuity of the biblical witness and the faithfulness of God, who did not abandon His Church or leave the world without the Gospel of His Son.
The deepest problem with JST Genesis 50 is not merely that Joseph Smith placed himself within an ancient narrative. It is that the passage directs attention toward the authority of the man producing the revision.
The true center of Scripture is not a latter-day seer. It is Jesus Christ.
The Law and the Prophets bear witness to Him. The apostles proclaimed His incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and everlasting kingdom. The Church preserved the Scriptures because she had encountered in them the voice of the Shepherd and the apostolic testimony concerning His saving work.
Christ does not need to be rewritten into the system of a nineteenth-century prophet. He is already the fulfillment toward whom the whole scriptural inheritance points.
The proper response to Scripture is therefore not suspicion that the Gospel vanished, but gratitude that God has preserved the testimony of Christ: sufficient to call sinners to repentance, sustain the Church in faithfulness, and lead His people into the hope of the resurrection.
Sources
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.” Church History Topics.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “JST, Genesis 50.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 50: ‘A Seer Shall the Lord My God Raise Up.’” Old Testament Seminary Teacher Manual, 2026.
The Joseph Smith Papers. Old Testament Revision 2, page 65.
The Joseph Smith Papers. Book of Mormon, 1830 edition.
Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts. Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center, 2004.
Jared W. Ludlow. “The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible: Ancient Material Restored or Inspired Commentary? Canonical or Optional? Finished or Unfinished?” BYU Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3.
Kevin L. Barney. “The Joseph Smith Translation and Ancient Texts of the Bible.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19, no. 3, 1986, 85–102.
Thomas A. Wayment and Haley Wilson-Lemmon. “A Recovered Resource: The Use of Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary in Joseph Smith’s Bible Translation.” In Producing Ancient Scripture, University of Utah Press, 2020.
Kent P. Jackson. “Some Notes on Joseph Smith and Adam Clarke.” Interpreter 40, 2020, 15–60.
Robert J. Matthews. “A Plainer Translation”: Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible—A History and Commentary. Brigham Young University Press, 1975.
Emanuel Tov. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Revised and expanded 4th ed. Fortress Press, 2022.
Eugene Ulrich. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible. Eerdmans, 1999.
Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th ed. Oxford University Press, 2005.