Welcome to Abide, a Maxwell Institute podcast.

In February 1832, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were working on the prophet's translation of the Bible.

Smith sought to expand upon what he had learned as an American Christian by increasing his spiritual knowledge through a concentrated reading of the King James Bible,

clarifying and expanding the text of the Old and New

Testaments between 1830 and 1833.

Part of the prophet's translation process included asking questions, what does this verse mean?

What else did the Lord have to tell him about figures like Melchizedek and Abraham?

On February 16, 1832, Smith and Rigdon sought clarification on the text of John 5,

verse 29, where Jesus Christ speaks on the resurrection, saying that those who have done good would

receive the resurrection of life, and those who had done evil would reap the resurrection of damnation.

As the prophet and his scribe, Sidney Rigdon, pondered what the two resurrections might mean,

they beheld a vision of what awaited humankind after death, what has been canonized by the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as Doctrine and Covenant Section 76, or what

saints living in Joseph Smith's time called the vision.

This vision presented new doctrines and understandings and introduced new vocabulary terms into the Latter-day Saint lexicon.

Words like celestial, terrestrial, and telestial kingdoms, and sons of perdition.

Even familiar words like hell,

he needed to take on new meaning for Joseph Smith and members of what was then known as, the Church of Christ.

Joseph Smith Papers Project found the first copy of Section 76 was written down in July 1832,

some four months after Smith and Riggins' original experience, but it circulated quickly after that.

Matthew McBride, in his essay on the vision in the church's Revelations and Context series,

available in the Gospel Library app, found that some saints found difficulty in understanding

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