Would the Church ever remove something from the scriptures?

It's happened before, and surprisingly recently. But could it happen again?

Latter-day Saints have an open scriptural canon.

I’m not sure how often we talk about this, but it’s a key principle in our faith. The concept of an open canon is the basis for adding the Book of Mormon alongside the Bible as scripture in this dispensation, as well as later adding the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. We also sometimes include other words of modern prophets as “scripture” in a more general sense; Ezra Taft Benson famously said that the “conference edition of the Ensign should stand next to your standard works.”¹

And even the narrowly-defined Standard Works have been added to, and within many of our lifetimes. Official Declarations 1 and 2—the documents that had ended the practice of plural marriage and the temple and priesthood ban, respectively—were added to the end of the Doctrine and Covenants in the 1981 edition. That’s pretty recent!

And little-known (or little-remembered) is that the Doctrine and Covenants gained two new sections in that edition, as well. Sections 137 and 138 first became scripture when they were added to the Pearl of Great Price in 1976, and then were added to the Doctrine and Covenants in that same 1981 edition. Section 137 is the vision in which Joseph Smith saw his brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom; Section 138 is Joseph F. Smith’s vision of Jesus Christ’s visit to the spirits of the dead.

It would be pretty amazing to see more things be added to the scriptures. There’s always the “sealed portion” of the Book of Mormon, comprising half to two-thirds of the golden plates, which could someday come to light. Or maybe more modern documents, like the Family Proclamation or Restoration Proclamation, could be added. Or maybe something else entirely we don’t know about yet.

But would anything ever be removed?

The existence of an open canon presupposes that modern revelation will supplant previous revelation. This is by definition; it means that things said in the past can and will go out of date. The words of current prophets can carry more weight than their ancient, or even not-so-ancient, counterparts. So when something becomes out-of-date or irrelevant in the scriptures (and again, this is bound to happen because of the existence of modern revelation; there’s nothing apostate about saying this can happen), should that thing be removed from our scriptures? Or should it be left in?

There are arguments to be made on both sides. Let’s start with the argument for keeping scripture, even when it has been superseded by something newer and more relevant for our day.

Argument 1: Keep it in, we already have lots of scripture that doesn’t apply anymore

Have you read the Old Testament lately? This beloved book is the poster child for scripture being supplanted by something newer.

Looking for a scriptural justification for slavery? It’s got it (Exodus 21:1-11, Leviticus 25:44-46). Want to capture women in war and force them to be your wife? Got it (Deuteronomy 21:10-14). Do you ever have to work on the Sabbath? You should probably be put to death (Exodus 31:14-15). Wondering what you should eat? Definitely not pork or shellfish (Leviticus 11). So help you if you marry someone from another nation (Deuteronomy 7:1-6). And of course, if somebody pokes your eye out, you should absolutely poke theirs out. The Old Testament says so (Exodus 21:24).

As Christians, of course, we believe that these things aren’t true anymore. We believe that slavery is an abomination, and we don’t put anyone to death for working on a Sunday. We don’t necessarily have verses of scripture that specifically refute these Old Testament verses, but we also don’t need them; nor do we need modern prophets reminding us at every turn that we shouldn’t actually poke out someone’s eye or knock out their tooth, even in retaliation. We just know that.

And we use the Old Testament for entirely different reasons. We benefit from the stories that teach us Judeo-Christian values and morality. We see it as a source for prophecies fufilled by the coming of the Messiah in the New Testament. And while the many chapters spent detailing ceremonial and ritual laws are a slog to get through, the Old Testament overall provides valuable context for when Christ does eventually come.

In short, the Old Testament is full of things that aren’t part of our religious practice today. And yet, nobody is clamoring to remove those things from our scriptural canon. We’re okay keeping them in.

There’s also an argument to be made for convenience. If you took a chapter out of the Old Testament, or a section out of the Doctrine and Covenants, would you change the numbers of all the other ones? Or would you have a blank section/chapter that just now has nothing in it? It’s weird to change the numbers and move things around, but we’re changing all the hymn numbers, so I guess it’s doable.

Which leads us to the argument for taking out scripture that has become irrelevant. Buckle up.

Argument 2: Take it out, it’s wrong

Keeping the old, outdated stuff in the scriptures relies on us all, individually and as a church, understanding when it is actually old and outdated. Sometimes that’s not as easy as it sounds. We’re very quick to say, “The Church believes X,” when that’s actually what we personally think, and it can be a surprise to realize that other active, faithful members think something entirely different—especially when both views have a scriptural basis.

And that’s a good reason to not complicate things by having conflicting messages in scripture.

To be clear, things have been removed from our scriptures before. If something was removed now, it wouldn’t be the first time. For example: In his translation of the Bible, Joseph Smith indicated that the book Song of Solomon is “not inspired writings,” and the book was omitted from the Church’s 1867 publication of the Joseph Smith Translation.²

But it’s also not necessarily general knowledge in the Church that the Doctrine and Covenants has evolved, and yes—things have been removed from earlier versions.³ The first editions of the book had two parts: first, the “doctrine,” comprising teachings that we now call the Lectures on Faith; and second, the “covenants,” comprising revelations to the prophet Joseph Smith. In the 1921 edition, the Lectures on Faith were removed, and of course, you can read them as a separate book these days. There’s a lot more to this story, including discussion of whether this actually constitutes decanonization, which I leave to you to dig into, should you so choose⁴. But we can say for sure that these lectures used to be part of the book, and now they are not.

Another change had happened before that, though, which is even more germane to our conversation. The 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants was a major reorganization over prior versions, and it omitted one section which had been included since the first edition (published 41 years earlier in 1835).

That may not sound like a big deal, but consider what these sections were. Section 101, the one that was removed, was titled “Marriage” and was a statement on various Church stances on marriage. It included this very specific statement (keep in mind that this is before polygamy was a public practice in the Church):

Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.

Section 131 is a brief section talking about the celestial kingdom. But section 132 is a big one; it’s the section that talks about the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, and introduces the principle of plural marriage. Section 132—if this framing of history is accurate—replaced the statement above, which denounces polygamy, with wording that not only condones polygamy, but appears to even command it.

Or in other words, this is a case when scripture was removed, because it had been replaced by something else!

Section 132, and its words on polygamy, has been understood a lot of different ways in the modern Church, and among Latter-day Saints you’ll find every possible different opinion on this section and whether it belongs in our scriptures. But as we go into a year where we’ll be studying the Doctrine and Covenants, there will inevitably—this is a 100% guarantee—be people who teach incorrect doctrine relating to plural marriage when we get to section 132.

What’s the correct doctrine, you ask? Well, that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it.⁵

I can tell you rather simply that we are not being commanded today to enter into plural marriages⁶. The Doctrine and Covenants has been modified before to change statements about the Church’s stance on marriage. Could section 132 ever be removed, like its predecessor was, to again assert the Church’s current stance, or future stances, on plural marriage?

Would it actually happen, though? I obviously have no idea.

Since it’s happened before, and recently enough that some people remember, I think we can say that a current or future prophet could absolutely change what’s in our scriptural canon. Full stop.

Whether or not they actually would—and it feels here like removing something from scripture is dramatically different from adding something—is another question entirely. It’s much easier to just say it would never happen. It’s hard to picture.

But change is always hard to picture. When President Nelson told us to take our vitamin pills, he also famously said, “If you think the Church has been fully restored, you are just seeing the beginning.” I never imagined that the eligibility age for missionaries would change, or that the church block would be shortened to two hours. I never imagined that visiting and home teaching would go away, even if they were replaced by something rather similar. But I don’t think those things were what President Nelson was referring to.

It’s possible that big changes are coming in our lifetimes. It’s possible that there is much more that needs to be restored. And for all I know, it’s possible that the ongoing restoration could include meaningful changes to scripture.

What good is an open canon, anyway, if things never change in it?

1. Conference Report, Apr. 1946, p. 68. More conveniently quoted here. I don’t take this to mean that everything a prophet says becomes part of our scriptural canon. Prophets and apostles can and do say many things that don’t begin with “thus saith the Lord.” But if then-Elder Benson is saying that the words of modern prophets are important, then I for sure agree with that.

2. I have heard from multiple sources that missionaries and/or seminary students have been told to tear the Song of Solomon pages out of their Bible, or staple them together so they can’t read them (referenced here). I would love to hear from anyone who can validate this as more than rumor.

3. Referencing the history from here, or you could go here or here or a variety of other places. I’m not exactly plowing new historical ground here.

4. This is an interesting topic. Were the Lecture on Faith part of the scriptural canon, and then removed? Or were they not canon, but rather just printed in the same book as the revelations that were? There seems to be some confusion about the Official Declarations at the end of the Doctrine and Covenants, with the same question being asked.

5. This topic gives enough material for a whole bookshelf of books that we won’t get into. This is the internet, though, and people will inevitably want to tell me that there is no confusion here, and that (fill in the blank) is obviously the correct doctrine. My response is that I think personal revelation is critically important here. Some faithful, committed Latter-day Saints believe that polygamy was commanded by God, feel joy and peace in that principle, and hang onto it. Other faithful, committed Latter-day Saints do not get the feelings that the Spirit brings—again, peace, joy, and love—from this idea, and let it go.

6. I’ve used the word “commanded” here intentionally. It’s true that a man can still be sealed to more than one woman, such as after his first wife dies. But we are not commanded to do this. This article by Elder Marcus B. Nash does a good job of making this clear, citing multiple prophets and apostles to that effect.