Episode 151: The 1886 Revelation Validated

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:00)
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:02)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:04)
Bringing you the story of Mormonism from the shadow of the Everlasting Hills, straight out of Zion. This isn't your grandpa's Mormon history.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:32)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day. Saddle up.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:37)
Gird your loins, lock your hearts, and pay your tithing, because we're bringing you the story of Mormonism in all its paradisiacal glory.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:44)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast. Hello, friends. We're back at the video gig here because we have breaking news.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:14)
Breaking news?

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:15)
It's nerd news, but it's like nerd news that gets to the level of actual breaking news.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:20)
Some say the biggest news in Mormon history in nearly 50 years.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:26)
This is pretty fun because this is something that we've known about, and the location of it has been rumored, but it was confirmed. What are we talking about? So, just a week ago, the Church History Library released a new manuscript collection that has the original 1886 Revelation to John Taylor that is at the center of most fundamentalist claims to authority. It comes at a very interesting period of time, and as a result, like, it's been a controversial topic forever.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:01)
Forever, but some of us are not shocked by its existence because some of us have been talking about it for a long time, and...

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:10)
Like, some people, I think, have talked about it for, like, a whole year.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:13)
And some of us don't feel martyred at all by all the crap that they got when they talked about this.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:18)
Some of us have gotten yelled at for it, and it shows.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:22)
Yeah, okay, so let's give some background to what we're talking about. So, for those who are just tuning in, especially if you're a non-Mormon who has accidentally stumbled upon this video...

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:31)
What are these people so excited about?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:34)
We're weirdos, that's all you need to know. So, there is this thing called polygamy that exists in Mormonism, that started way back in the 1830s and carried all the way into the 1890s. If you're to believe the traditional LDS narrative, the LDS Church stopped polygamy in 1890 It was shut down and no one ever did that again. But there are still polygamists today. Why? Why are there still polygamists in Utah? Why are there still polygamists all over the country? I always say wherever you find mainstream Mormons, you'll find fundamentalist Mormons. A lot of them still practice plural marriage, this doctrine that they believe Joseph Smith instituted. We're not going to make polygamy denier jokes right now.
This idea that polygamy has existed, why would fundamentalists continue to practice it if in 1890 the church officially bans the practice?

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:33)
Yeah. We'll talk about all of this today, but first we thought let's back up just a little bit and talk about what was actually released and then we'll talk about why it's important. It's a fairly small collection, but the very first document immediately recognizable to us is a high-res scan of the original Revelation. It's on two pieces of paper in John Taylor's handwriting.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:58)
We've been talking about this before. I talked about this on Year of Polygamy. This is part of the fundamentalist lore. If you want to know why there are fundamentalists that still practice it, they actually have paperwork. They have receipts where some mainstream LDS people don't with this history. What they've claimed is that John Taylor in the 1880s had this revelation, which we're going to talk about what it says, and basically says, polygamy is never to leave the earth. We have had scans of this.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:28)
Photos have been out there since 1938

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:30)
But low res, right?

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:32)
Not great quality.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:33)
Not easy to read. And so we have translations and transcriptions of what the revelation said, but no one really had seen the original. We've seen the copy of the original.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:41)
And no one was totally sure where it was.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:44)
Yeah. I mean, we should talk about the rumors of what we've heard over the years, because some of them seem very plausible and some seem very fantastical. So the existence of this revelation that John Taylor had, now John Taylor was the prophet at the time in the 1880s. He was an avid polygamist. He also had been in Carthage Jail when Joseph Smith was murdered.