In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there are two priesthoods: the Aaronic and the Melchizedek.

The priesthood is the authority of God given to men to represent Him here on the Earth.

When it came is undoubtedly not as important as that it came, and that we have the power. Today,

our journey is the story of the restoration of those two priesthoods to the Earth.

KJZZ television, in cooperation with the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presents this weekly series, highlighting the research of scholars and historians as they prepare for the publication of the Joseph Smith Papers. And now your host, Glenn Rawson.

Now, in understanding just how important the priesthood is,

Joseph Smith said that the priesthood holds the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and it's also the channel, he said, through which all knowledge, doctrine,

the plan of salvation, and every other important matter is revealed from heaven.

So today, our scholars will open up the papers of Joseph Smith and show us how, whom, when that that priesthood was returned to the Earth.

One of the principles of the restoration is that authority is necessary to perform ordinances. That authority came as the priesthood was restored in two stages as

the Aaronic priesthood came,

and we actually have a date, the 15th of May of 1829 and the Melchizedek priesthood came afterward.

The first thing that we see is the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood.

Joseph and Oliver, when they had received the Aaronic priesthood, were in Harmony Pennsylvania.

The translation of the Book of Mormon, which we've seen on this series, was proceeding.

They came to 3 Nephi,

they went out and prayed,

and we know the place and the time when that Aaronic priesthood was received.

That’s right there on the Susquehanna.

That’s right. On the Susquehanna at

the 13-acre farm that Joseph Smith had there at that time,

Dr. Mark Staker has done considerable research in and around the Harmony area,

and he shares with us now some details,

interesting details, about the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood.

When the Aaronic priesthood was restored,

it was still virtually winter in the Susquehanna Valley,

where Joseph Smith was working with Oliver Cowdery on the translation. And the day after Oliver Cowdery arrived in Harmony, Pennsylvania, there’s a gentleman in the area that kept a garden diary, and he noted that it snowed that day

and it continued to snow and frost for a period of time while they worked on the translation of the Book of Mormon, there are accounts of the water rising in the Susquehanna River.

And during that time, as the snow melted and the river broke up and the ice on the river broke up, a lot of boats began going down the river, increasing traffic as everybody was taking their lumber down to urban markets in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

There is a financial document that indicates that

between April 6th of 1829 and April 19th of 1829,

that more than 3,000 boatmen went down that river.

It was just crowded with traffic.

On May 12 of 1829, Fanny Winters—

who was a stepdaughter of Joseph McQueuin, who lived across the street from Joseph and Emma—

she was married, and the whole town obviously would have come to celebrate that big event in her life,

and the town was in a celebratory mood.

Their attentions turned elsewhere,

while Joseph and Oliver were working on the translation of the Book of Mormon on May 15th.

Joseph and Oliver decided to go and pray,

and Joseph says that they went aside from the abodes of men.

He and Oliver both say they went to the woods to pray.

They didn't go out in a public area.

The only woods that was on his property was on the north end of Joseph's Farm. If that's where he went, it would have been up in where they had maple groves and a more secluded area away from the home, away from the busy river.

Oliver says that it was a bright, bright, sunny—“May beans,” as he called them, were shining.

But garden diaries of this period in this area also indicate that it had been raining that day, and so they apparently found a clear moment of time when they could go out to pray.

And while they were praying, of course,

John the Baptist appeared to them and

Oliver mentions that they knelt down to receive the priesthood and John the Baptist says ‘go and be baptized,’ and Oliver says,

you know, ‘we went and we’re baptized.’

For those who visited the Susquehanna River and stepped in the river at some point in time, we find that typically it's very shallow. It could be a foot or less deep in water at times of the year.

For people who visited, they may think that it’s not deep enough to baptize there. Well that spring, as the ice broke up, the waters began to rise heavily, a lot of rain fell and there was a dam, a 10-foot-high dam on the river that helped assist boatmen as they were going down the river. The waters rose above that dam and broke it.

It was flooding. The river was deep

and it spread up out of its banks, up onto Joseph Smith's property and onto the other adjacent properties in the area. And so the water would have been quite deep.

When Joseph and Oliver went out to baptize each other, and it would have been very cold,

a lot of snowmelt and a lot of frequent rain fall that had raised the river.

But they probably could have found a secluded spot in the river as they, you know, because they didn't have to clear out to the middle to find a deep area where they could baptize.

There's no way to know actually where Joseph and Oliver were when they were baptized.

Presumably, they stayed on their property. Joseph's property went in to the river,

and it would have been convenient for all of her to perform the baptism there at the river.

Joseph baptized Oliver and then Oliver baptized Joseph using the priesthood that they had received from John the Baptist

that very same day. Now,

they weren't ordained into a priesthood office at that time because there wasn't a church organized and priesthood offices are part of a church organization.

Joseph and Oliver then ordained each other into priesthood office after the Church was organized on April 6th of 1830.

They were ordained first and second elder.

But one individual that was particularly opposed to Joseph

was Emma’s uncle, Nathaniel Lewis, who lived across the river just down a little ways from the baptismal site. He actually would have been able to see the baptism take place if it had taken place on Joseph's property.

He would have been able to see it from his home.

Now, whether that happened or not, we don't know. But Joseph says that because of persecution,

they weren't able to share the events surrounding the baptism at the time. They kept it secret.

Now, Nathaniel Lewis was one of the leaders of the persecution that was happening at that time. During May of 1829, persecution was at its severest,

and Joseph was actually looking to leave Harmony at the very same time that he received the Aaronic priesthood.

He was expecting to be able to go north to work on the translation in New York and outside of Harmony because persecution had gotten so intense.

So when he received the Aaronic priesthood,

it was right within the context of that severe persecution

when Nathaniel Lewis was involved with other people against Joseph Smith. It appears that most of the persecution was mocking and ridiculing him as Joseph worked on the translation, and ashe shared information with Emma’s family and with others.

Emma’s uncle, Nathaniel Lewis, had a book, a Bible commentary.

He was the local deacon of the Methodist Church,

and he led the local congregation in that Bible commentary that he had. There were Hebrew words and Greek words, and he asked Joseph Smith if he could look at those words and translate them, ridiculing him

because of his claim to be able to translate ancient records.

So the ironic priesthood was restored on the banks of the Susquehanna River, a busy place evidently,

and also at a time of intense persecution.

Now, the Melchizedek priesthood would come soon after,

but understanding where it came helped us understand when it came.

Joseph identifies the Susquehanna area is the place where the Melchizedek priesthood came,

and as a result of that,

we would have to say it came before they moved to the Whitmer Farm on June one of 1829 in connection with the translation of the Book of Mormon. Or that it came the next year, when Joseph and Oliver were going back on missionary work to reach the the Knight family and their neighbors in that same basic area of the Susquehanna Valley.

But that next year would have been 1830 after the organization. That's right, and that's the issue

because there is there is a recollection of an individual named Addison Everett, reputable individual.

And he stood near the Mansion House not very many days before the martyrdom and heard Joseph Smith recall going down to

Harmony with Oliver Cowdery and the trials that both of them underwent. Now

Addison Everett said that they were escaping from a trial,

a legal trial court case.

And that’s true in 1830, that was happening.

And it's very mixed up.

And so Addison Everett really did not get the circumstance of the Melchizedek priesthood restoration straight.

But his recollection, too, as I recall, was 40 years after the fact. That’s right, it was in the early 1880s.

Addison Everett's recollections have caused some to believe, then,

that the Melchizedek priesthood wasn't restored until after the Church was organized in 1830.

Dr. Richard Anderson quotes Brigham Young to show us that that just simply cannot be.

as you read Brigham Young in all of his quotations.

He’s very clear that the Church had to be organized with the Melchizedek priesthood.

And the important thing in quoting Brigham Young is not only to get his doctrine straight,

but realizing that he probably knew more about

the restoration of the priesthood as being a confidant of Joseph Smith than anyone else.

He gives about eight different quotations where he clearly

states the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood came before the organization of the Church.

And this is typical of one of his plainer quotations where he doesn’t digress, stays on the subject, and gives the sequence. And here’s Brigham Young’s sequence.

“When the Lord, by revelation, told Joseph to go to Pennsylvania he did so and finished the translation of the Book of Mormon. And when the Lord in another revelation told him to come back into New York State

and go to old father Whitmer’s, who lived in a place opposite Waterloo and there stop, he did so, and had meetings, and gathered up the few who believed in his testimony.

He received the Aaronic priesthood,

and then he received the keys of the Melchizedek priesthood

and organized the Church.”

That's the sequence.

That's the sequence,

According to President Brigham Young then, the Melchizedek priesthood had to have been restored sometime between May the 15th and June 1st of 1829 on the Susquehanna River.

Now that's not all the evidence we have.

There’s other historical evidence that supports that the priesthood came before the Church was organized.

And what's that? They gave the priesthood to others.

Now Oliver Cowdery returned to the Church in 1848, he’d been out for a decade.

And when he returned,

he stood up at Kanesville and he bore his testimony to the restoration of the Church. These are his words.

“I was present with Joseph,

when a holy angel came down from God

And conferred or restored the Aaronic priesthood.”

“I was also present,” he says, “with Joseph, when the Melchizedek priesthood was restored,

conferred by the Holy Angels of God,

which we then conferred on each other.” David Whitmer

gives a recollection

of Joseph and Oliver coming to his farm, and David said, “I am the third elder in the Church” and I want to read that to you in a moment.

But David Whitmer insists that the eldership was actually given to him right after June 1st of 1829, which would mean that they were in the Susquehanna area

translating, and the Melchizedek priesthood came after the 15th of May in the Harmony area—

and before June 1st. —before June 1st, when they moved up to David Whitmer’s farm. If the priesthood was not restored until after the Church was organized, as some assert,

then Joseph and Oliver organized the Church

and ordained each other to the Holy Apostleship without the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood. In an earlier interview,

Dr. Anderson addressed this inconsistency.

If Joseph and Oliver ordained each other on April 6th, 1830, which they did, to the Apostleship,

what on earth is the Lord doing sending Peter, James, and John afterward, if they’re already

apostles and ordaining each other apostles?

I don’t care where that ordination comes in,

it is an ordination to the priesthood,

and they certainly are,

and they certainly felt they had authority before they did that.

So my feeling

as a person, as a Latter-day Saint,

as a historian, is everywhere I look,

I see evidences that tell me that the Church was organized with the Apostleship.

It's one thing to have the priesthood conferred upon you, but it's another matter to be authorized to use it.

Joseph and Oliver had the priesthood conferred upon them,

but their ability to fully use it was restrained until after the Church was organized.

Now, that's a fascinating thing.

Were they already using the Melchizedek priesthood in a supervisory way, according to Joseph Smith in the articles of Oliver Cowdery? Yes.

But they did not have the promise fulfilled yet of the Doctrine and Covenants.

The verse that I read from the Pearl of Great Price that

Joseph would be called the first Elder of the Church and Oliver the second. In other words, they

did have, according to the evidence, general priesthood,

but they did not have the keys of the priesthood. They are not to confer the power of leading the Church until it’s organized.

So only after the pattern of common consent is followed

can Joseph and Oliver take the full power that they received

and organize the Church and be leaders in the Church

even though they already held the priesthood.

They held the priesthood, according to

the ordination pattern that

David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery’s articles say,

but they could not be presiding officers until they had the Church organized and consent given by the members of the Church. Now, at the time of the Organization of the Church,

there is re-baptism. Yeah,

and why would there not be the possibility of reorganization?

And so, we have the ordinances performed in ’29,

but the official Church organized in 1830. Why is it that the date was never recorded?

Do you have an idea? You can shed any light on that?

Well, my high school English teacher commented on

the very early Puritan stage in Massachusetts and said they didn’t record much history because they were too busy making it.

That’s literally true. There’s another factor, and that is Joseph Smith says in the history that they had to keep the Aaronic priesthood restoration sacred because it only caused

a stir in the neighborhood.

There is an appropriate time to develop the story when the public is ready for it.

And that theme of ’if you tell all the visions it will cause persecution’ is an inhibiting factor to getting this story out

to Jackson County. Persecutions in 1833 are a great inhibiting factor that we don't recognize because

the mob that drove the Mormons out of the first county in Jackson County,

the first county in Missouri, actually said the Mormons are strange because they claim to talk to God.

And so their visions were used against them

So, as not to offend the Lord and to avoid the onslaught of persecution,

Joseph and Oliver didn't talk about wonderful events,

such as the First Vision and the restoration of the priesthood.

It is the case that priesthood restoration,

along with a number of the other sacred events associated with the Prophet Joseph Smith's life, was something that he considered very sacred.

The events took place, the 1829 events took place.

And all indications suggest that Joseph and Oliver kept that information to themselves.

It is important to recognize that they did not immediately go out and say, not only do we have authority to organize a church,

but we can tell you where that authority came from.

Via John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John.

They kept it sacred, just like Joseph kept the account of the First Vision to himself until it was absolutely required to divulge it. One of the outcomes of this natural reticence that Joseph Smith has of divulging sacred experiences is that many of the things that we yearn for— “Give me a date.

Give me a time. Give me a setting—”

he didn’t tell us those kinds of things.

And so we don't have them.

I know that someone's going to wonder we cannot affix the date of the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood any tighter than May 15 to June 1st of 1829. Is that correct?

Larry Porter has written about that. I respect his writings, and he’s probed that, but it is true.

So how is it then that we came to know this story that's so familiar to most of us today?

Those who have tried to take the divine out of Joseph Smith's experiences rely upon a statement made in 1885 in an interview by David Whitmer

wherein he said he had never heard about angels

and priesthood restoration until 1834.

Well, that is the time that Oliver Cowdery began to tell the story of his own experience with Joseph Smith, which included the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood.

Now that’s not the first time we have mention in historical record of priesthood restoration regarding the angel.

Indeed, we have evidence in

the very earliest patriarchal blessings in late 1833.

The mention of the transmission of authority from angelic beings to Joseph and to Oliver.

It wasn’t until 1838/1839 when Joseph Smith began dictating

the record that was meant for public consumption, that he told the record,

and it contains the statement about priesthood restoration that we're familiar with today in the Doctrine and Covenants Section 13. “Upon you, my fellow servants in the name of Messiah, I confer this priesthood.”

That’s very consequential, but we need to recognize that it came as a part of Joseph Smith's intent and purpose of describing for the public his experiences to defend himself and the Church from all of the nefarious things that were being said about about them at that time.

Joseph and Oliver received the priesthood from John the Baptist and from Peter, James, and John.

So what did Moroni mean when he told Joseph in September of 1823, “Behold, I will reveal unto you the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet.”

We probably short sheet the whole idea of priesthood restoration by limiting it to what happened along the Susquehanna River in May and early June. If that's the exact date when Joseph and Oliver had experiences with both John the Baptist and Peter, James, and John.

And we’ve been pretty content to limit priesthood restoration

to those events and generally always associate it with 1829. We limit that. We limit the whole story, I think, by doing so, because we fail to recognize that what happened on the 3rd of April 1836

in the Kirtland Temple,

what we associate today with the coming of Jesus, Moses, Elias, and Elijah was the delivery of priesthood keys.

Joseph and Oliver's receiving additional keys in the Kirtland temple more fully revealed the priesthood to them,

and in keeping with what we might expect from Joseph,

He recorded the event in his journal,

but he told only the faithful few. Notwithstanding the fact that Joseph Smith had mentioned that Moroni told him that in the future that the priesthood would be revealed to him by the hand of Elijah,

when that event took place on the 3rd of April 1836,

the account of which has been described in a number of settings in this series,

the very last entry in Joseph’s Kirtland diary for 1835 and 1836,

the information was was not shared publicly.

Joseph kept it to himself.

In fact, if we would have had elaborate accounts, it would have been out of character for him.

While he did make a personal record in his diary about the coming of Moses, Elias, Elijah, and

that wonderful experience in April of 1836,

he chose to keep that to himself.

That story was not publicly divulged until it appeared in the Deseret News in the serialization of Joseph Smith’s story in November 1852.

It was from that serialization that Orson Pratt, upon President Brigham Young's instruction,

began to create a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants in the mid 1870s, where Orson Pratt, as church historian, selected that particular text, which the origin of which is in Joseph’s Diary,

which received publication in the Deseret News and took that and placed that as Section 110 in the Doctrine and Covenants today to make a point about the way Joseph Smith kept these sacred events to himself.

Notwithstanding the fact that in his own diary is given the account of the events of the 3rd of April 1836.

Wherein Elijah came to fulfill what was promised early on by Moroni. Joseph Smith gave several sermons thereafter, especially toward the end of his life,

wherein he talked about Elijah coming to fulfill the promise first identified in the book of Malachi in the Old Testament. That is that he would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers.

In those sermons, one in particular, the 10th of March 1844, Joseph described

what Elijah was going to do.

And never mentioned that eight years earlier,

Elijah had come and fulfilled that promise.

Up to this point on the Joseph Smith Papers, you've been seeing the scholars standing in front of the camera, nervous and talking about the papers.

But next week, when we come back, a scholarly roundtable:

the scholars talk about the project.