Doctrine and Covenants

Week 18: The priesthood & its quorums

Sections 84, 107; Official Declaration 2

20 February 2025

Notes and slides will be posted after the class has been held.

• Ronald K. Esplin and Sharon E. Nielsen, “The Record of the Twelve, 1835: The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles’ Call and the 1835 Mission,” BYU Studies 51, no. 1 (2012): 4–52. This document, recently made available through the Joseph Smith Papers Project, is the earliest extant record of the activities of the modern Quorum of the Twelve.

• Elder L. Aldin Porter, “A History of the Latter-day Seventy,” Ensign, August 2000, 15–20. Elder Porter reviews the organization and growth of the modern office of the Seventy.

• “Race and the Priesthood,” Gospel Topics Essays. This scholarly article on the Church’s website explores the origins of the ban on ordaining men of African descent to the priesthood.

• Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood,” BYU Studies 47, no. 2 (Spring 2008): 4–78. Edward L. Kimball discusses the chain of events that led his father, President Spencer W. Kimball, to seek revelation regarding changing the Church’s ban on ordaining black men to the priesthood. The article describes how President Kimball went about obtaining the revelation, how the revelation was spiritually confirmed to other leaders, and members’ reactions when the change was announced.

• Lester E. Bush Jr., “Mormonism’s Negro Doctrine: An Historical Overview,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, no. 1 (Spring 1973): 11–68. This seminal article—which appeared before the 1978 revelation that reversed the Church’s ban on ordaining men of African descent to the priesthood—examines when the policy began and developed, and what scriptures were employed to explain it.

• Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “All Are Alike unto God,” address in the Second Annual CES Symposium, 18 August 1978. Elder McConkie’s address came just two months after the 1978 revelation that extended the priesthood to men of African descent.