Criticism of Mormon Sacred Texts - Doctrine and Covenants

Doctrine and Covenants

Unlike the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Book of Moses and JS-M, D&C does not purport to be an ancient manuscript, but instead revelations. There has been criticism of apparent revision, omission and addition of material in it.

In 1876, Sections 101 from the 1835 Edition (and subsequent printings) was removed. Section 101 was a Statement on Marriage as adopted by a conference of the church, and contained the following text:

It was superseded by section 132 of the modern LDS edition, which contains a revelation received by Joseph Smith on eternal marriage and teaches the doctrine of plural marriage.

In 1921, the LDS Church removed the "Lectures on Faith" portion of the book, with an explanation that the Lectures "were never presented to nor accepted by the Church as being otherwise than theological lectures or lessons". The Lectures contain theology concerning the Godhead and emphasize the importance of faith and works.

Until 1981, editions of the book used code names for certain people and places in those sections that dealt with the United Order. The 1981 LDS edition replaced these with the real names, relegating the code names to footnotes. The Community of Christ edition still uses the code names.

Some of the material in the Doctrine and Covenants relates to the production of the Book of Mormon, for which see above.