Rare First Edition of the Foundational Text of the Mormon Church

Palmyra: Printed by E.B. Grandin, For the Author, 1830. First edition (one of 5,000 copies printed, of which only about 500-700 copies are known to survive). From the collection of Bethany College, West Virginia, with a contemporary inscription on front free endpaper ("A Campbell / Bethany / Va"), same inscription in another hand on front blank (neither seemingly in the hand of Minister and Bethany founder Alexander Campbell). 8vo. 588, (2, "Testimony...of Witnesses") pp.; preponderance of text corrected, per Jenson ("very few copies of the book exist which are entirely identical", per Crawley). Contemporary calf, front board detached, rear board largely detached but just holding, contemporary circular leather patch in lower rear board, spine label worn and starting, boards dry and scuffed; front free endpaper loose; Bethany College library ink stamp on front endpapers and blank, title-page, and scattered throughout text; scattered spotting and staining to text; scattered pencil marginalia. Book of Mormon Census Project A0059; Reese, Best of the West 56; Church 1342; Grolier Hundred 37; Howes S-623 ("b"); Sabin 83038; Streeter Sale 2262

Rare and completely unsophisticated first edition of the foundational text of the Mormon Church, one of the most important religious books of the 19th century. Published only days before the official establishment of the church on April 6, 1830, this is the only edition in which Joseph Smith is identified as the author (subsequent editions identify him as the translator), and it is the only edition to include his two-page preface. The Book of Mormon is Smith’s translation of the golden tablets, revealed to him in 1827 by the angel Moroni on the hill of Cumorah near Manchester, New York. Smith worked on a translation of the plates from early 1828-June 1829, before returning the plates to the angel. This copy is complete with the elusive two-page leaf of witness testimonies: “The Testimony of Three Witnesses”, signed in type by Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, who attest to having had “seen the plates which contain this record.”; the following page contains the testimony of eight witnesses, signed in type by Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith. Sen., Hyrum Smith, and Samuel H. Smith, all of whom attest that Smith had shown them the plates. Smith dictated the text to Cowdery, who acted as scribe, which was then printed by local printer Egbert B. Grandin, printer of Palmyra’s Wayne Sentinel. He published this first edition in 5,000 copies at a cost of $3,000. This first edition forbade freemasonry and polygamy, which was altered in subsequent editions. Of those 5,000 there are thought to be only around 500-700 extant copies.

Bethany College was founded in 1840 by Scots-Ulster minister and leader of the Restoration Movement, Alexander Campbell (1788-1866). Chartered by the Virginia Legislature on March 2, Bethany was the first institution of higher learning in what is now West Virginia. Campbell provided the land and funds for the school and then served for 25 years as its first president. Born near Ballymena, in County Antrim, Ireland, Campbell was educated in Glasgow, and emigrated to the United States in 1809 at age 21. There he joined his father, Minister Thomas Campbell (1763-1854), who had emigrated to America in 1807. Together they preached an emerging form of primitive Christianity in Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, and now West Virginia, that emphasized Christian unity and the restoration of the New Testament church. Alexander, possessing extraordinary energy and intellectual ambition, gradually assumed the leadership of their growing movement. Through relentless preaching, numerous public debates with religious contemporaries, and a prolific output of theological writings and periodicals, he became the foremost figure in what came to be known as the Restoration Movement. His efforts, building on his father's earlier work, ultimately led to the establishment of the Christian Church, also known as the Disciples of Christ.

Joseph Smith’s (1805-44) Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, like Campbell's Disciples of Christ, sprung out of the Second Great Awakening that shook the religious foundations of early 19th century America. Despite sharing roots in Christian primitivism, the two traditions diverged sharply on questions of scripture, continuous revelation, visionary experience, and the nature of divine authority. As the leading rationalist voice of the broader restoration movement that emphasized biblical scholarship and reason, beginning in the 1830s, Campbell became one of the most public anti-Mormon voices. This opposition was at once theological as well as personal to his congregation. Beginning around 1830, Campbell's congregations in Ohio experienced losses as members converted to the new Mormon faith. The catalyst for much of this was Sidney Rigdon, a prominent and early Campbellite preacher and close associate of Campbell himself. In August 1830, following a falling-out with Campbell, Rigdon converted to Mormonism and quickly rose to become one of Joseph Smith's most influential lieutenants and one of the movement's most eloquent early defenders. In response to these developments, in 1832 Campbell published Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon, one of the earliest anti-Mormon tracts, and the first major full-length critique of The Book of Mormon. Campbell examined The Book of Mormon's claims, its theological content, and historical plausibility, and argued that it was a product of human invention, rather than divine revelation.