A Restored Scripture

The acceptance of scripture beyond the Bible is a defining feature of the Latter-day Saint movement and distinguishes it from the historic Christian traditions, which hold the biblical canon closed. It expresses the movement's self-understanding as a restoration of original Christianity rather than a reform of it, and it is inseparable from the belief in continuing revelation through living prophets. This entry describes the Book of Mormon as Latter-day Saints hold it, as sacred and true scripture, without adjudicating the historical and theological questions others raise about it.

Acceptance of the Book of Mormon is not confined to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints alone: the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), the second-largest Restoration denomination, also publishes the book but has moved toward treating it as one inspired witness among others rather than as co-equal with, or an inerrant supplement to, the Bible, and some of its members question its historicity while retaining it devotionally. This divergence illustrates how the several Restoration churches that descend from Joseph Smith's original movement, which split after his death in 1844, have not maintained a single, uniform understanding of the very scripture that first defined the movement's claim to a restored gospel.