What Counts as Scripture

Two revelations rule on the boundaries of scripture from opposite directions. One says that speech can enter the category, on a stated condition. The other takes a body of writing already inside a printed Bible and declines to have it translated — while refusing to say which parts of it are false.

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. What the Apocrypha is, its contents, and its history outside these six verses are external, real-world material outside this wiki’s scope; the wiki reports only what the revelation says about it.

Account

Speech that becomes scripture

One revelation states a rule about scripture in the course of describing a missionary’s commission. It begins with a named man and generalizes outward: “My servant, Orson Hyde, was called by his ordination to proclaim the everlasting gospel” (D&C 68:1), and “this is an ensample unto all those who were ordained unto this priesthood, whose mission is appointed unto them to go forth” (D&C 68:2).

The ensample is then stated in one clause — “that they shall speak as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost” (D&C 68:3) — and the consequence in the next verse is the widest statement about the category anywhere in these sixteen sections: “And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.” (D&C 68:4).

Two textual facts about that verse are worth stating exactly. The condition is stated twice, once in each verse (“as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost”, D&C 68:3; “when moved upon by the Holy Ghost”, D&C 68:4), so the rule is conditional on its face and not a property of the speaker. And the verse does not say who determines whether the condition held — that question is not answered in the verse text, and this page does not answer it. What such a rule would mean in practice is an interpretive question the revelation leaves open.

Writing that is not to be translated

The other ruling concerns a body of text by name, and it is the only place in the frozen corpus where that name stands: “Apocrypha” appears at exactly two distinct frozen verses in the corpus, D&C 91:1 and D&C 91:3.

The section’s first two verses set two findings side by side without reconciling them: “There are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly” (D&C 91:1); “There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men.” (D&C 91:2). The ruling follows: “it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be translated” (D&C 91:3).

What the revelation conspicuously does not do is separate the two categories it has just named. It supplies no list, no criterion of content, and no marker — only a reader-side test: “whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth” (D&C 91:4); “whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom” (D&C 91:5); “whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefited.” (D&C 91:6). The section then restates its ruling in the same verse it closes on: “Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated. Amen.” (D&C 91:6).

Placed together, the two sections turn on the same instrument. In one, the Spirit’s motion is what makes speech scripture (D&C 68:4); in the other, the Spirit’s manifestation is what sorts truth from interpolation inside a text already written (D&C 91:4). Neither section supplies an external, checkable criterion, and both place the burden on the same faculty. That is a correspondence of structure, not of wording, and it is reported here as such rather than registered as a connection.

The commission the rule is embedded in

The verses immediately after the scripture rule give the commission itself, in words that run closely with a gospel’s closing charge. Those three records are on this page because they sit inside the same passage; the missionary charge as a subject is treated on The Charge to the Ministry and The Missionary Charge, and the material here is flagged to both.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () - D&C 68:8: “Go ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature, acting in the authority which I have given you, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” - Mark 16:15: “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”

Divergences reported: the revelation drops the conjunction “and” between the two clauses, and continues into two requirements the gospel verse has no counterpart for — acting “in the authority which I have given you” and the trinitarian baptismal formula (D&C 68:8). The run “Go ye into all the world” stands at five distinct frozen verses in the corpus — D&C 68:8, D&C 84:62, D&C 112:28, Mark 16:15, and Mormon 9:22; “preach the gospel to every creature” at four — D&C 68:8, D&C 80:1, Mark 16:15, and Mormon 9:22. Mormon 9:22 carries the same wording as Mark and is disclosed, not paired; the record pairs the gospel verse because the revelation’s next verse follows the gospel’s next verse in the same order.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () - D&C 68:9: “And he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” - Mark 16:16: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”

Divergences reported: one conjunction — the revelation’s “and he that believeth not” against the gospel’s “but he that believeth not” (D&C 68:9; Mark 16:16). The clause “he that believeth not shall be damned” stands at four distinct frozen verses in the corpus: these two, Mormon 9:23 (which reads “but”, as Mark does), and Ether 4:18 (also “but”). All three alternates are disclosed; Mark is paired because it stands adjacent to the verse paired in the record above.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 68:10: “And he that believeth shall be blest with signs following, even as it is written.” - Mark 16:20: “And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.”

Divergences reported: in the gospel’s verse the signs confirm the preached word after the fact, in a narrative past (“And they went forth, and preached every where”, Mark 16:20); in the revelation they are promised to the believer (“he that believeth shall be blest”, D&C 68:10). The run “signs following” stands at three distinct frozen verses in the corpus — D&C 58:64, D&C 68:10, and Mark 16:20; D&C 63:9 carries the thought in a different form, “signs follow those that believe”, and does not carry the run; Mark 16:17, “these signs shall follow them that believe”, is a different word order and is already paired with D&C 84:65 on The Charge to the Ministry.

One phrase in this verse is worth separating out. The revelation appeals to writtenness — “even as it is written” (D&C 68:10) — but names no book, chapter, or verse. Under the lane’s named-source rule the record is therefore submitted asserted_by: wiki, not source; the appeal is reported here as a textual fact and nothing is inferred from it about which text is meant.

Significance

The two rulings pull in opposite directions and are worth reading against each other for that reason. One admits new material into scripture on a condition about how it was spoken; the other declines to act on material already printed, while conceding that much of it is true and correctly rendered. In neither case does the text supply a criterion an outsider could apply. That is the common feature, and it is a feature of the wording, not an inference: both sections name the Spirit and stop.

What follows from that — whether such rulings are workable, and how a reader would use them — is interpretive, and the wiki leaves it with the reader.

Key references

D&C 68:3–4 — the condition, and the five things such speech is said to be
D&C 68:8–10 — the commission the rule sits inside
D&C 91:1–2 — the two findings, set side by side
D&C 91:3, 91:6 — the ruling, stated twice
D&C 91:4–6 — the reader-side test

The Order of Revelation · Coming Forth of Scripture · The Lost Writings · Discerning the Spirits · The Charge to the Ministry · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants sections 68 and 91 (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Mark 16 quoted alongside them; Mormon 9, Ether 4, D&C 58, D&C 63, D&C 80, D&C 84, and D&C 112 are cited, and Mormon 9 and Ether 4 quoted, inside 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. Three connection records are registered on this page, all [textual] and all 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.