So what does all this suggest about the revelatory process that eventually produced the final edited version of the revelation texts? Perhaps most significantly, it seems to encourage a view of those texts as the “word of God” (A of F 8) rather than the very words of God, or, as expressed in the title of a study of the biblical texts, that they are the “word of God in words of men. ” It may be an a priori assumption among some Latter-day Saints that the Prophet was not involved in any way whatsoever with the wording of the revelation texts, that he simply repeated word-for-word to his scribe what he heard God say to him, but our a posteriori analysis has suggested otherwise. Examination of the BCR and the history of the D&C revelation texts from dictation to final form invite a richer, more nuanced view, one that sees Joseph as more than a mere human fax machine through whom God communicated revelation texts composed in heaven. Joseph had a role to play in the revelatory process. His associate Oliver Cowdery, after all, had earlier been corrected for assuming the revelatory process required no effort, for supposing that God would simply “give” him the words without any thought on his part (LDS D&C 9:7–8/CoC D&C 9:3a–c).

It seems more suitable to see the Prophet Joseph Smith as the extraordinarily gifted servant of the Lord that he was, who, in the words of contemporary Orson Pratt, received messages from God and then had to “clothe those ideas with such words as came to his mind.” Elder John A. Widtsoe of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote: “Seldom are divine revelations dictated to man. . . . Instead, ideas are impressed upon the mind of the recipient, who then delivers the ideas in his own language.”

If, therefore, Joseph’s diction, vocabulary, and grammar, and even that of some of his associates, are discernible in the revelation texts, is that not an impressive testimonial of the fact that even in communicating his word and will to his prophets, God does not override their humanity? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no official statement on the nature of the interaction between Divine Revealer and human revelator in the genesis of scripture, but, as we have seen, a number of its leaders have offered explanations of the revelatory process that allow for Spirit-aided, yet still mortal, articulation and refinement of the divine message. Thus, to borrow an ancient Christological affirmation, the revelation texts can be seen to be both fully divine and fully human.

Such an insight takes cognizance not only of how Joseph Smith communicated his divine revelations but also how he received them. Linguists and linguistic philosophers, at least since the pioneering work of ­ Ferdinand de Saussure at the turn of the twentieth century, have stressed that all communicable thought is mediated through language. That is, whatever the Lord chose to communicate to the Prophet necessarily entered his consciousness through ideas, concepts, and words that he understood, that were part of his mental and linguistic universe. God’s inexpressibly perfect, infinite, transcendent thoughts become accessible to mortal minds only through their own imperfect, finite language. This reality seems to be acknowledged in the prefatory statement to the Book of Commandments that “these commandments are of me & were given unto my Servents in their weakness after the manner of their Language that they might come to understanding.” Thus, from present perspectives, we can see that God, working within the finite limitations of Joseph’s language, itself a historically, culturally conditioned inheritance from the world in which he lived, guided both Joseph’s apprehension of the divine message and his articulation of it in concepts and verbal expressions that were part of his linguistic repertoire.

That the revelation texts thus doubly bear the marks of Joseph’s mind was probably realized by few in his day. At least with respect to the wording of the dictated texts, however, there does seem to be contemporaneous recognition that they reflected his language. During the council meetings convened in November 1831 to consider publication of the Book of Commandments, “some conversation was had concerning Revelations and language.” This is echoed in the words of a revelation directed to the elders present: “His language you have known, and his imperfections you have known, and you have sought in your hearts knowledge that you might express beyond his language” (LDS D&C 67:5/CoC D&C 67:2a). ­Subsequently, an encouraged attempt to improve upon Joseph’s articulation “failed,” as the elders seemed to realize that the inspiration of the revelation texts was more than merely a matter of language. Although particular words, phrases, or syntax may have been “weak” or “imperfect,” the inspired whole, thanks to the special attendance of the Holy Spirit, was decidedly greater than the sum of its admittedly ordinary linguistic parts.