The "Inspired Version" of the Bible - an inspired revision of the authorized version by Joseph Smith

I may be slow or out of the loop, but I honestly didn't know that this book existed! I was so excited when I discovered its existence while reading the beginning of "Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith," written by Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. (Another reason I'm grateful for the Sabbath, because I'm pretty sure I never would have been reading that if it weren't Sunday.) Curious about it and knowing the only reason we probably (this is not substantiated by the Church - it is just my assumption) don't use it is because Emma Smith refused to give the manuscripts Joseph had written to the Church when asked for them, and thus, the Church doesn't hold the copyright, I looked it up. I was discouraged when the first listing I found for the book on Amazon cost around $1500, but then I Googled it and found a free e-book version. Success!

In order to introduce you to this book, I'll just say the following: this book was taken from the manuscripts that Joseph Smith wrote while translating the Holy Bible (both Old and New Testaments). There are a lot of changes/corrections/additions that we do not have in the LDS version of the King James version (mostly, I believe, because of the Church's lack of copyright).

I have already had a few things clarified, or at least the knowledge of their rightness intensified, from reading the first couple chapters of Genesis. For instance, the following verses are at the beginning of Genesis Chapter 1 in the Inspired Version (which, by the way, is written by Moses as a dictation from Heavenly Father, so it is in first person - NEAT!):

"And it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Behold, I reveal unto you concerning this heaven and this earth; write the words which I speak.

I am the Beginning and the End; the Almighty God. By mine Only Begotten I created these things.

Yea in the beginning I created the heaven, and the earth upon which thou standest."

OK, wouldn't the inclusion of those first few verses in the Bible have cleared up a LOT about the nature of God? I mean, the whole idea of the Trinity blown out of the water in the first words spoken by God to Moses for the world. I don't think He intended that to be a secret!

This is further built upon in the verse where he talks about creating mankind, and says,

 "And I God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning, Let us make man in our image after our likeness; and it was so."

(The Holy Scriptures: Inspired Version, Gen. 1:27)

 Confusion → gone.

Last thought for the day on the awesomeness of the clarifications in this version of the Bible: Plato had it at least partially right! As nicely summarized by Penelope Page at ConsideredCapricious.com,

"Plato believed that this world is an imitation of the ‘real’ one. He believed in a world of ‘forms’ where ultimate reality is to be found: the physical is not to be trusted and is imperfect. This system is known as ‘dualist’ – the imitation world and the spiritual world of ‘forms’. In this spiritual world exists the essence of everything physical - their perfect ‘forms’. He believed that our souls existed before they entered our bodies and that they are eternal."

Correction in the Inspired Version that says that's not so off-base:

"For I, the Lord God, created all things of which I have spoken spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth."

(The Holy Scriptures: Inspired Version, Gen 2:5)

 Yeah, I'm excited about this discovery.

*NOTE* To my knowledge, the LDS Church has never substantiated this as doctrine. I don't believe that there were any changes made to Joseph's original manuscripts, but be aware that I am not claiming that this is sanctioned as scripture by the First Presidency. In my opinion, it has merit, as many good books do, and I personally believe that (as far as I've read - that being 1 1/2 chapters) it is doctrinally inline with the doctrine of the Church, and was revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith.