The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will publish a new biography about Joseph Smith, announced President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the Church’s First Presidency, during the seventh annual Joseph Smith Papers Conference on Friday, Sept. 15.

With completion of the Joseph Smith Papers project on June 27, the Church is now ready to effectively tell the story of the Prophet of the Restoration, said President Oaks.

“We announce today that the First Presidency has commissioned a new biography of the Church’s founding Prophet, to be titled ‘Joseph the Prophet,’” President Oaks said to hundreds of attendees in the Conference Center Theater in Salt Lake City.

The new biography will be written by Richard E. Turley Jr., former assistant Church historian and recorder, with help from teams of historians and other professionals at Church headquarters, Brigham Young University and elsewhere.

“The Joseph Smith Papers project has laid a firm foundation on which we can now build a biography of the Prophet Joseph Smith unlike any that has previously been written,” Turley said. “This book will focus on Joseph Smith’s role as a Prophet, which will distinguish it from other recent biographies that focus on other aspects of his life.”

Artwork depicting Joseph Smith by Del Parson.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Turley, who has written many books, said the title, “Joseph the Prophet,” was inspired by “Jesus the Christ,” by Elder James E. Talmage, first published in 1915. The new project parallels Elder Talmage’s work because it was also supported by the First Presidency at that time.

The project is expected to take several years to complete, Turley said.

Also in attendance Friday at the conference were Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Elder Kyle S. McKay, General Authority Seventy and Church historian and recorder.

President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency (right), Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (middle), and Elder Kyle S. McKay, General Authority Seventy and Church historian and recorder (left), visit prior to the Joseph Smith Papers conference in the Conference Center Theater in Salt Lake City on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023.

Cristy Powell, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Reflections of the Joseph Smith Papers project

Before announcing the new biography, President Oaks began his remarks by thanking the “hundreds whose devoted research, analysis, writing, editing, financial support and permission to use documents not owned by the Church have brought this monumental project to completion.”

“To none will these materials be more precious than those of us who esteem Joseph Smith as a Prophet called of God to lead the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said.

The senior Church leader then reflected on the history of the Joseph Smith Papers project, most of which he witnessed firsthand over 20 years as one of two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles assigned by the First Presidency to be advisers to the Church History Department.

President Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency, speaks at the Joseph Smith Papers Conference in Salt Lake City on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. He announced the First Presidency has commissioned a new biography of Joseph Smith.

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

President Oaks said three things were needed to fulfill the ambitious project:

1. “The first was Joseph Smith’s papers, which were scattered in institutional and private collections but principally located in the Church Historical Department.”
2. “The second was scholars with subject-matter expertise on Joseph Smith and the time period in which he lived.”
3. “The third, and perhaps most intractable matter, was substantial funding.”

Bringing in a team of scholars and other staff, as well as providing salaries, benefits and budgets for travel, equipment and other costs, amounted to millions of dollars. Yes, the Church had substantial resources, but those resources were being focused in the 1990s and early 2000s on doubling the number of operating temples and taking the gospel worldwide, President Oaks said.

Enter the Larry H. and Gail Miller family, Utah business owners and philanthropists.

“It was a generous couple willing to heed spiritual promptings that provided the key to catapulting the project forward on a grand scale,” President Oaks said.

With the Millers’ financial support, Joseph Smith Papers launched in 2001. In the following years, the Church hired more professional historians than ever before and devoted resources to build the state-of-the-art Church History Library.

Publishing the Joseph Smith Papers

President Oaks returned from his two-year assignment as area president in the Philippines in 2005 and served with then-Elder Russell M. Nelson as a Church history adviser from 2005 to 2010.

As advisers, the two Apostles sought to keep the project moving and on task. They reviewed all proposed manuscripts, met monthly with department leaders overseeing the project, and provided counsel and direction.

The first volume of the papers was published in 2008 — not through an outside academic press, but through the newly created Church Historian’s Press.

The volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

“We knew that the decision to publish the volumes with the Church might raise questions about their credibility among academics,” President Oaks said. “As such, we assembled a board of nationally recognized scholars in history, religious studies and documentary editing who carefully reviewed and vouched for the high-quality scholarship in each volume.”

Eventually, volumes were published at a rate of two per year, “an unheard-of pace for documentary editions,” President Oaks said. A “world-class” website — josephsmithpapers.org — was also created to make all documents available for free viewing.

Benefits of the Joseph Smith Papers

The Church has already benefited from the Joseph Smith Papers. 

In 2013, information from the papers was used to make changes to the contextual information in more than half of the section headings of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Insights from the papers were also incorporated into the first volume of “Saints,” the Church’s new multivolume history, which has been translated into 14 languages and read by more than 1 million readers.

“Looking back, we can marvel at 27 volumes and an accompanying website being completed in a total of 22 years,” President Oaks said. “No other documentary editing project can match this record of high-quality volumes produced in such a short period of time.”

It would not have been possible without the Miller family, President Oaks said.

“We express special gratitude to the Miller family, whose support over that time period and the tens of millions of dollars they donated is a matter of history,” he said. “It does not overstate the point to say that the initial Miller commitment, later expanded and continued by Gail Miller after Larry’s death, made the Joseph Smith Papers project possible at the high professional level we now recognize with the publication of the final volume.”

President Oaks concluded by telling a “tender experience” related by opera singer Michael Ballam.

Shortly before Larry Miller’s death in 2009, Ballam and his son Ben visited Larry Miller in the hospital. During that visit, Miller asked them to sing the last verse of “Praise to the Man,” a hymn of tribute written after the Prophet’s martyrdom that concludes with the words “millions shall know Brother Joseph again.” 

After they sang it, Miller asked them to sing it again, but to change the word “millions” to “billions shall know Brother Joseph again.” As they sang, tears flowed down Miller’s cheeks. 

“With the project now concluding, the groundwork has been laid for those hopeful words to become a reality,” President Oaks said.