D&C 103 & 105 I Zion's Camp and Zelph's Bones? I Come Follow Church History I Lynne Hilton Wilson

Scripture Central

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 852 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

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Summary

From May to June 1834, approximately 230 men, women, and children marched to Missouri to help the Saints who had been expelled from Jackson County, Missouri, the previous year. This expedition, known today as Zion’s Camp, was initially called the Camp of Israel. It was formed after Joseph Smith received a revelation in February 1834 commanding him to call up the strength of the Lord’s house to redeem Zion from its enemies. The revelation instructed Church leaders to recruit at least 100, and preferably 500, men to travel to Missouri. In March, Joseph Smith and others traveled through New York to obtain volunteers and funding for the expedition. And don't forget Zelph's bones! What were they? Were they real? Were they a figment of Jospeh's imagination? Were the records of the experience accurate? Join Lynne Hilton Wilson as she dives into the context and controversies of this exciting part of Latter-day Saint Church History.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If they offend you the first time, if they offend you the second time, well now they have attacked them four times.
0:06.0	Let's prepare a relief group and go down and we're going to call it Zion's camp.
0:12.0	If we are coming as a military march, they begin burning the property.
0:18.0	They see this group coming to fight them, and they prepare for battle.
0:23.6	The redemption of Zion must needs come by power,
0:26.6	and it is a ferocious hailstorm.
0:29.6	We're told that the river rose 30 feet.
0:33.6	Days and days, we're filled with frustrations and fears.
0:38.3	If God told us to go, why didn't God take care of us?
0:41.9	Joseph finally warned the camp and said,
0:44.8	In consequence of the misconduct, a scourge will strike the camp.
0:58.3	Hello, welcome back to Scripture Central.
1:04.6	I'm Lynn Hilton Wilson, part of the team that tries to build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by illuminating and defending restored scripture.
1:08.4	And today, we are going to be looking at Zion's camp. So welcome back in
1:13.3	church history to February to July of 1834, where the challenges in Missouri have gotten so horrific
1:21.9	that the Lord finally has called a group to go down and be a relief party. And we're going to talk about some of these hard questions.
1:29.3	My handouts are attached below here, but the hard questions are,
1:33.3	was Zion's camp of failure? To me, that's sort of the elephant in the room on this one.
1:38.3	What went wrong?
1:40.3	Why were women and children included in the march?
1:43.3	I don't know if you even realize that, but that was
1:46.1	quite surprising to me. Why didn't God protect them from cholera of all things? And on this march,
	...

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