Oliver Cowdery

Named in four of these revelations, given a gift he is told is already working, granted and then denied the gift to translate, told exactly why the attempt failed, and sent to search out twelve.

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it: recipients named in the verse text are textual facts; a revelation’s occasion, date, and place are not in this wiki’s source text and are neither stated nor inferred. Drafted from sections 2–19 only.

Account

Named, and told what he already knows

The naming is direct: “Behold, thou art Oliver, and I have spoken unto thee because of thy desires” (D&C 6:20); “Oliver Cowdery, verily, verily, I say unto you…” (D&C 8:1); “my servant Oliver Cowdery” (D&C 18:1); “And now, Oliver Cowdery, I speak unto you, and also unto David Whitmer” (D&C 18:9); “I give unto you, Oliver Cowdery, and also unto David Whitmer, that you shall search out the Twelve” (D&C 18:37).

The revelations’ recurring move with him is to certify something he has already experienced rather than to grant something new. “Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind” (D&C 6:15); “cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things. Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” (D&C 6:22–23); “if I have told you things which no man knoweth have you not received a witness?” (D&C 6:24); “I have manifested unto you, by my Spirit in many instances, that the things which you have written are true; wherefore you know that they are true” (D&C 18:2).

Two gifts

D&C 8 names two. The first is defined as revelation itself: “I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart. Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation” (D&C 8:2–3). The second is named without being described: “you have another gift, which is the gift of Aaron; behold, it has told you many things” (D&C 8:6); “there is no other power, save the power of God, that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you” (D&C 8:7). The revelation states what the gift does — “whatsoever you shall ask me to tell you by that means, that will I grant unto you” (D&C 8:9) — and never says what it is. This page reports the silence rather than filling it.

The spirit-of-revelation verse identifies itself against an Exodus event:

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The revelation names the Red Sea crossing to define the gift; king Limhi uses the same clause to define God: - D&C 8:3: “Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.” - Mosiah 7:19: “…and also, that God who brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and caused that they should walk through the Red Sea on dry ground, and fed them with manna that they might not perish in the wilderness…”

The run “through the Red Sea on dry ground” stands at exactly these two verses in the frozen corpus (counting rule: distinct frozen verses in the corpus, case-insensitive, punctuation-normalized, word-bounded). Divergence: the revelation makes Moses the agent (“Moses brought”); Mosiah makes God the agent and Israel the walkers (“caused that they should walk”).

The translation that failed, and why

D&C 9 is the record of a withdrawn permission. “Behold, I say unto you, my son, that because you did not translate according to that which you desired of me, and did commence again to write for my servant, Joseph Smith, Jun., even so I would that ye should continue until you have finished this record” (D&C 9:1); “it is because that you did not continue as you commenced, when you began to translate, that I have taken away this privilege from you” (D&C 9:5). The diagnosis is stated as method: “you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me” (D&C 9:7); “you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you” (D&C 9:8); “if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong” (D&C 9:9). The revelation adds a timing clause that closes the matter without blaming: “it was expedient when you commenced; but you feared, and the time is past” (D&C 9:11); “And neither of you have I condemned” (D&C 9:12). The phrases “study it out in your mind” (D&C 9:8) and “stupor of thought” (D&C 9:9) each stand at exactly one verse in the frozen corpus — these.

Witnesses, and the Twelve

Two of the revelations addressed to him carry witness law.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () The clause is word-for-word an epistle’s: - D&C 6:28: “…the keys of this gift, which shall bring to light this ministry; and in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” - 2 Corinthians 13:1: “This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”

The eleven-word run is identical, and it stands at exactly these two verses in the frozen corpus. The corpus carries the witness rule in other wordings not paired here: Matthew 18:16, Deuteronomy 19:15, Deuteronomy 17:6, Hebrews 10:28, 1 Timothy 5:19, and Ether 5:4. The revelation names no source for the clause, so the pairing is the wiki’s.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () Here the revelation does attribute the words to a prior saying of its own speaker: - D&C 6:32: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them—even so am I in the midst of you.” - Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

The nine-word run is identical and stands at exactly these two corpus verses. That the revelation frames the words as its speaker’s own earlier saying (“as I said unto my disciples”) is a textual fact; it names no book, and the record was minted asserted_by: "source" at the 2026-08-10 editorial review.

The closing charge of D&C 18 is a commission to find officers by a test the revelation states twice: “you shall search out the Twelve, who shall have the desires of which I have spoken; And by their desires and their works you shall know them” (D&C 18:37–38) — the desire being “to take upon them my name with full purpose of heart” (D&C 18:27).

The speaker identifies himself

Three of these revelations close on a self-identification in the same words.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 6:21: “Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I am the same that came unto mine own, and mine own received me not.” - John 1:11: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

The divergence is grammatical person throughout: first person in the revelation for John’s third. The clause recurs in the D&C at 10:57, 11:29, 39:3, and 45:8.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 6:21: ”…I am the light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” - John 1:5: “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

Divergences: the revelation makes the speaker the light (“I am the light which shineth”); the tense of the second verb differs (“comprehendeth”/“comprehended”). D&C 10:58 repeats the revelation’s form exactly; D&C 45:7 carries a further variant (“a light that shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not”).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The consolation clause: - D&C 6:34: “Therefore, fear not, little flock; do good; let earth and hell combine against you, for if ye are built upon my rock, they cannot prevail.” - Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The three-word address stands at three corpus verses — these two and D&C 35:27. What follows the address differs entirely: Luke promises the kingdom, the revelation promises that combined opposition “cannot prevail.”

Significance

The revelations addressed to him are unusual in the range for how much they say about how revelation is received: a witness already given and to be recalled rather than re-sought (D&C 6:22–24), a mind enlightened before the fact (6:15), a burning bosom against a stupor of thought (9:8–9), and a gift whose operation is described while the gift itself goes unnamed (8:6–9). The wiki reports that method-language as the text’s own content and does not systematize it into a doctrine of revelation the sections do not state.

Key references

D&C 6:14–24 — the witness already received; “Did I not speak peace to your mind”
D&C 6:25–28 — the gift to translate granted; the two-or-three-witnesses clause
D&C 8:1–11 — the spirit of revelation; the gift of Aaron
D&C 9:1–14 — the privilege withdrawn; “study it out in your mind”; the stupor of thought
D&C 18:1–9 — named with David Whitmer; “even as unto Paul mine apostle”
D&C 18:37–39 — the charge to search out the Twelve

Joseph Smith · The Three Witnesses · The Call to the Labor · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants sections 6, 8, 9, 18 (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Cross-references quoted from Mosiah 7, 2 Corinthians 13, Matthew 18, John 1, and Luke 12; the further witness-rule and self-identification verses are cited, not quoted, inside their disclosures.

Every quote is verbatim from the frozen source text, cited to its exact reference and checked character-for-character; no quote crosses a verse boundary. Six connection records are registered here, all [textual]. Five carry asserted_by: wiki; the two-or-three-gathered pairing () was minted asserted_by: "source" at the 2026-08-10 editorial review. Phrase distributions are counts of distinct frozen verses in the corpus, derived by search at the time of writing. The revelation’s occasion, date, and place are absent from this wiki’s source text and are not supplied.