Without Disclosing My True Identity
took him a little longer to absorb the idea that Campbell didn’t have a corner on God’s
inspiration. By the time Sidney had read the book and met with Joseph near the end of 1830,
he converted to the fledgling religion with such a strong conviction that he was able to take
a great majority of his own Campbellite congregation with him as converts. Hearing about
the apostasy of one of his preachers to the “blasphemous Golden Bible sect” along with
almost everyone in the congregation, Campbell traveled to Kirtland and confronted Sidney.
Alexander Campbell (age 43 and a very educated man) had an ego that wasn’t about
to let someone as well educated as Rigdon leave him for an uneducated twenty-five year
old, without a fight. Campbell and many of those who followed and preached for him were
well “trained for the ministry.” (Campbell later established Bethany College in Virginia,
where Christian ministers were trained.) All it took for Sidney Rigdon to be convinced of
Joseph’s divine authority was for him to meet Joseph and talk to him, wherein he instantly
recognized the difference between Joseph and Alexander Campbell—the former was a true
messenger and the latter was “trained for the ministry.”
After Campbell confronted Rigdon, however, Sidney began to have a few doubts
creep in, and he considered the possibility that he had been deceived by an imposter and his
“new Bible.” This motivated Sidney to challenge Joseph to use the Urim and Thummim to
revise the New Testament, so that he could compare what Joseph produced to what
Campbell had published as his own revision under the title, The Living Oracles, in 1826.^36
Restoring the Plain and Precious Parts of the Bible
Joseph had started his own revision of the Old Testament early in 1830. After
reading some of what Joseph had produced in his retranslation, the book of Moses,^37 Sidney
was very impressed. However, the Campbellites’ main focus was on the New Testament
and Rigdon wanted to see what Joseph’s “rocks” had to say about that. To meet the
challenge for reasons known only to him to him at the time, Joseph left the task of
retranslating the entire Old Testament and began a translation of the book of Matthew,
starting with the part that was the most impressive of Campbell’s Living Oracles: chapter
24.^38 Hands down, Joseph’s translation impressed Rigdon much more than Campbell’s and
Joseph knew he had captured the heart and mind of one who would play an important part
in his plans.^39
Joseph started out with the intent to retranslate the entire Old Testament, verse by
verse, and the New Testament the same. However, so much of his time and energy were
taken up in giving the people what their hearts desired, that the task proved to be too
overpowering because of the interruptions due to the demands and requests being made on
him. Joseph only finished a complete translation of Genesis up to chapter six,^40 and only one
complete New Testament chapter—Matthew 24. He did find time to work on a partial
revision of certain verses in both the Old and New Testaments, which was published by the
RLDS Church (now known as Community of Christ) after his death as the Inspired Version of
the Bible,^41 and then much later by the LDS/Mormon Church as the Joseph Smith Translation
of the Bible (JST).^42 What has never been understood by the LDS/Mormons was why Joseph
worked on the translation in the first place. The real truth is that it was, again, to give the
people what their hearts desired.
The Book of Mormon told the people that the Bible once “contained the fullness of the
gospel of the Lord”^43 and was given to the Gentiles from the Jews “in purity...according to
the truth which is in God.”^44 But the editors of the Bible had “taken away from the gospel of