Thirty-five Million Dollars, and a Sale That Changed Nothing

For over a century the manuscript belonged to the smaller of the two main churches that trace themselves to Joseph Smith. It passed from Oliver Cowdery through David Whitmer's family to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now the Community of Christ, which held it from 1903. In September 2017 the Community of Christ sold it to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for thirty-five million dollars, among the highest prices ever paid for any manuscript.

The sale drew attention for the figure and for what it said about the two churches, one holding an object of immense significance and needing the funds, the other able to pay. It said rather less about access, which is the point usually missed. The Community of Christ had already permitted the manuscript to be photographed, transcribed and published in full, first through Royal Skousen's critical text project and then in the Joseph Smith Papers, so by 2017 the text was open to anyone.

What changed hands was custody of a physical object and the standing that goes with holding it. What a scholar can read did not change at all. That is worth recording, because the price invites the assumption that something was closed off, and nothing was.