Questions and Answers, 8 May 1838
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Source Note
JS, Questions and Answers, , Caldwell Co., MO, 8 May 1838. Featured version published in Elders’ Journal, July 1838, pp. 42–44. For more complete source information, see the source note for Elders’ Journal, Oct. 1837.
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Historical Introduction
On 8 May 1838, JS prepared responses to a collection of questions he and other church leaders were asked approximately six months earlier while traveling from , Ohio, to , Missouri. The leaders had embarked on the trip in September 1837 in order to locate new gathering places for the and to organize church affairs in Far West. JS explained that on the journey, they held public meetings and were asked questions “daily and hourly . . . by all classes of people.” Upon his return, JS prepared a list of twenty questions—ranging from how the gold plates were discovered to whether the church practiced polygamy—and then published the list in the November 1837 issue of the Elders’ Journal, promising that the next issue would include answers to the queries. The next issue was not published until July 1838, after JS relocated from to and the periodical was reestablished in Far West.JS’s journal entry for 8 May 1838 notes that he spent “the after part of the day, in answering the questions proposed.” He may have begun developing answers at the time the questions were asked in late 1837, perhaps in the public meetings the church leaders held in towns and villages in , , and along the way to . JS noted that the meetings “were tended with good success and generally allayed the prejudice and feeling of the people, as we judge from the treatment we received, being kindly and hospitably entertained.” Whatever the tone of JS’s initial oral responses to interested non-Mormons, he adopted a playful attitude in his written answers for the Latter-day Saint audience of the July 1838 issue of the Elders’ Journal. It is unknown whether JS or others continued working on the answers after 8 May 1838. Because the original document is apparently not extant, it remains unclear whether JS wrote the answers himself or relied on a scribe.
Footnotes

was translated, in a hill in , Ontario County New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them, and the with them; by the means of which, I translated the ; and thus came the book of Mormon.
Question 5th. Do you believe Joseph Smith Jr. to be a prophet?
Answer. Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus. “For the testimony of Jesus, is the spirit of prophecy.”— Rev. 19:10.
Question 6th. Do the Mormons believe in having all things common?
Answer. No.
Question 7th. Do the Mormons believe in having more wives than one.
Answer. No, not at the same time. But they believe, that if their companion dies, they have a right to marry again. But we do disapprove of the custom which has gained in the world, and has been practised among us, to our great mortification, of marrying in five or six weeks, or even in two or three months after the death of their companion.
We believe that due respect ought to be had, to the memory of the dead, and the feelings of both friends and children.
Question 8th. Can they raise the dead.
Answer. No, nor any other people that now lives or ever did live. But God can raise the dead through man, as an instrument.
Question 9th. What signs do Jo Smith give of his divine mission.
Answer. The signs which God is pleased to let him give: according as his wisdom thinks best: in order that he may judge the world agreably to his own plan.
Question 10. Was not Jo Smith a money digger.
Answer. Yes, but it was never a very profitable job to him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it.
Question 11th. Did not Jo Smith steal his .
Answer. Ask her; she was of age, she can answer for herself.
Question 12th. Do the people have to give up their money, when they join his church.
Answer. No other requirement than to bear their proportion of the expenses of the church, and support the poor.
Question 13th. Are the Mormons abolitionists.
Answer. No, unless delivering the people from , and the priests from the prower of satan, should be considered such.— But we do not believe in setting the Negroes free.
Question 14th. Do they not stir up the Indians to war and to commit depredations.
Answer. No, and those who reported the story, knew it was false when they put it into circulation. These and similar reports, are pawned upon the people by the priests, and this is the reason why we ever thought of answering them.
Question 15th. Do the Mormons in the name of Jo Smith.
Answer. No, but if they did, it would be as valid as the baptism administered by the sectarian priests.
Question 16th. If the Mormon doctrine is true what has become of all those who have died since the days of the apostles.
Answer. All those who have not had an opportunity of hearing the gospel, and being administered to by an inspired man in the flesh, must have it hereafter, before they can be finally judged.
Question 17th. Does not Jo Smith profess to be Jesus Christ.
Answer. No, but he professes to be his brother, as all other saints have done, and now do.— Matthew, 12:49, 50— And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, Behold my mother and my brethren: For whosoever shall do the will of my father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
Question 18th. Is there any thing in the Bible which lisences you to believe in revelation now a days.
Answer. Is there any thing that does not authorize us to believe so; if there is, we have, as yet, not been able to find it.
Question 19th. Is not the cannon of the Scriptures full. [p. 43]
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