The Challenge to Write a Revelation

One revelation proposes a test of itself — pick the weakest of these texts, and let your best man try to make another like it — and then, having staked its own case on a writing contest, turns to say why the men who doubted it did not receive what they came for.

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it. Dates, places, and occasions are not in this wiki’s source text and are not stated. The revelation refers to an assembly and to a book of commandments lying before it; nothing about that occasion beyond the verse text is available to this page.

Account

What the revelation says the assembly failed at

The section opens on a group already gathered — “O ye elders of my church, who have assembled yourselves together, whose prayers I have heard, and whose hearts I know” (D&C 67:1) — and states, without softening, that something offered was not received: “Ye endeavored to believe that ye should receive the blessing which was offered unto you; but behold, verily I say unto you there were fears in your hearts, and verily this is the reason that ye did not receive.” (D&C 67:3).

It then names the specific objection it is answering, and the objection is about prose. The elders’ eyes “have been upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and his language you have known, and his imperfections you have known; and you have sought in your hearts knowledge that you might express beyond his language” (D&C 67:5). That the objection concerned the language of the texts, not their content, is the text’s own framing.

The test

The proposal is put as a procedure with two branches, and the wiki reports it as the text states it, without adjudicating the outcome.

“Now, seek ye out of the Book of Commandments, even the least that is among them, and appoint him that is the most wise among you” (D&C 67:6). The two branches follow immediately: “if there be any among you that shall make one like unto it, then ye are justified in saying that ye do not know that they are true” (D&C 67:7); “But if ye cannot make one like unto it, ye are under condemnation if ye do not bear record that they are true.” (D&C 67:8).

Two features of the test are textual facts worth stating plainly. It selects for the weakest specimen rather than the strongest — “even the least that is among them” (D&C 67:6) — and it selects the challenger by wisdom rather than by belief. Whether anyone attempted it, and what happened, is not in the verse text, and this page does not supply it.

The ground the test rests on is stated in the next verse, in words that run with an epistle.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 67:9: “For ye know that there is no unrighteousness in them, and that which is righteous cometh down from above, from the Father of lights.” - James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

Divergences reported: the epistle’s subject is gifts (“Every good gift and every perfect gift”, James 1:17), the revelation’s is a property of texts (“that which is righteous”, D&C 67:9); the epistle’s closing clause about variableness has no counterpart in the revelation’s verse. The phrase “Father of lights” stands at exactly two distinct frozen verses in the corpus — these two.

The promise attached to the failure

Having explained the failure, the section states the condition on which the offered blessing stands: “inasmuch as you strip yourselves from jealousies and fears, and humble yourselves before me, for ye are not sufficiently humble, the veil shall be rent and you shall see me and know that I am—not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual” (D&C 67:10).

Three verses then bound the promise rather than expanding it. The first states a general rule in wording that runs with two New Testament verses.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 67:11: “For no man has seen God at any time in the flesh, except quickened by the Spirit of God.” - John 1:18: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

Divergences reported: the revelation adds two qualifications the gospel’s verse does not carry — “in the flesh” and the exception clause “except quickened by the Spirit of God” (D&C 67:11) — which convert an absolute statement into a conditional one; and the gospel’s continuation about the only begotten Son has no counterpart in the revelation. “hath”/“has” is the only divergence inside the shared run. The run “seen God at any time” stands at exactly three distinct frozen verses in the corpus: these two and 1 John 4:12, “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.” — disclosed, not paired, because its verse continues into a different subject.

The remaining two verses restrict further: “Neither can any natural man abide the presence of God, neither after the carnal mind.” (D&C 67:12); “Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected.” (D&C 67:13). The section closes by deferring rather than delivering: “when ye are worthy, in mine own due time, ye shall see and know that which was conferred upon you” (D&C 67:14).

Significance

The section is unusual among the revelations in that it offers a falsification procedure for itself. Most of the corpus asks to be received; this one names a test, names who should conduct it, and states in advance what each outcome would license. That structure is the reportable fact.

What the test would actually prove is a separate question the text does not argue. It assumes that the inimitability of the weakest text settles the truth of all of them, and the wiki notes the assumption without endorsing or attacking it — the strength of the inference is a matter for the reader, and any claim about how such a test would come out in the real world is external material outside this wiki’s scope.

Key references

D&C 67:1–3 — the assembly, and the stated reason it did not receive
D&C 67:5 — the objection: his language, and his imperfections
D&C 67:6–8 — the test, and its two branches
D&C 67:9 — the ground: that which is righteous cometh down from above
D&C 67:10–14 — the veil, and the four limits placed on the promise

The Order of Revelation · Joseph Smith · Revelations Recorded Twice · Light and Truth · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants section 67 throughout (verse text only; headnotes excluded). James 1 and John 1 quoted alongside it; 1 John 4 quoted inside a disclosure.

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. Two connection records are registered on this page, both [textual] and both submitted asserted_by: wiki. Phrase distributions are counts of distinct frozen verses in the corpus, derived by script at the time of writing on the stated basis.