The Pearl of Great Price

What The Pearl of Great Price is

The Pearl of Great Price is a short anthology of five texts that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts as scripture, ranking it alongside the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants as one of the four standard works. The components are the Book of Moses (a revealed expansion of early Genesis), the Book of Abraham (a translation of an account of Abraham produced in connection with Egyptian papyri), Joseph Smith—Matthew (a revealed rendering of part of Matthew’s Gospel), Joseph Smith—History (Joseph Smith’s first-person account of the tradition’s founding events), and the Articles of Faith (thirteen short statements of belief). Together they run only about sixty pages.

It exists because the early Saints valued these shorter pieces and wanted them gathered in one place. Franklin D. Richards first compiled and published the collection in Liverpool in 1851; the contents were revised over the next several decades, and a general conference of the Church canonized the book as scripture in 1880. These texts are distinctive to the Restoration tradition and are not part of the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant Bible — a matter of canon, not a claim about which writings are richer.

Why Latter-day Saints treasure such a small book

For its length, the Pearl of Great Price carries an outsized share of the passages Latter-day Saints quote in everyday life. The thirteen Articles of Faith are learned by children and recited from memory; the First Vision account in Joseph Smith—History is the narrative every member can summarize; the Book of Moses supplies language about Enoch, the worth of souls, and the work of God that surfaces constantly in talks and lessons. A book you can read in an afternoon ends up doing a remarkable amount of the tradition’s teaching work.

It is also the book that most directly tells the Restoration story in its own voice. Where the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants are large and wide-ranging, the Pearl of Great Price is compact and foundational — the place a member points to for how the tradition began and what it most concisely believes. That combination of brevity and weight is why it is often the first standard work handed to someone who asks where to even start. It is short enough to finish and central enough to matter.

Joseph Smith—History: the founding account in the tradition’s own words

Joseph Smith—History is the first-person narrative that opens the Latter-day Saint story. In it Joseph Smith recounts his early religious searching as a young man in upstate New York, the experience the tradition calls the First Vision, and the events leading to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. It is written as testimony — Joseph telling, in plain narrative, what he says happened to him. For Latter-day Saints these are not background documents; they are scripture that grounds the claims the whole movement rests on.

What makes the text matter beyond the tradition is that it is the primary source members themselves read. When a Latter-day Saint speaks of “the First Vision,” this is the canonical telling they have in mind. Reading it directly is far more accurate than encountering it secondhand, and its brevity means a curious outsider can absorb the founding account in fifteen minutes rather than working through a biography. The tone is personal and unadorned, which is part of why it remains the text most often shared with someone learning about the faith.

The Articles of Faith: thirteen sentences that work like a summary

The Articles of Faith are thirteen short statements drawn from a letter Joseph Smith wrote in 1842, each beginning “We believe.” They move briskly through belief in God, the Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost; the Atonement; ordinances such as baptism; the organization of the Church; spiritual gifts; scripture; continuing revelation; the gathering of Israel; and a closing affirmation — borrowing a line from the Apostle Paul — of seeking after things virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. They are the most compact summary of the tradition’s beliefs in its own canon.

Their practical role is enormous. Latter-day Saint children memorize them, missionaries lean on them to introduce the faith, and members cite individual Articles the way other Christians cite a catechism question or a creed line. Because they are short, declarative, and free of technical vocabulary, they are also the single most efficient thing a non-member can read to understand, in the tradition’s own framing, what Latter-day Saints affirm. Few documents this brief carry this much weight in the life of a religious community.

The Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham: scripture that opens the ancient world

The first two and longest components are expansive in scope. The Book of Moses is a revealed enlargement of the opening chapters of Genesis — it retells the creation, the account of Adam and Eve, and the story of Enoch, adding material Latter-day Saints prize for its teaching on the purposes of God and the worth of every soul. The Book of Abraham presents an account of the patriarch Abraham, including his own narration of the creation and a description of a premortal council, and it includes facsimiles — printed reproductions of illustrations — with explanatory notes. Joseph Smith produced it as a translation in connection with a set of Egyptian papyri, and the precise nature of that translation is a subject of ongoing scholarly discussion.

Within the tradition both texts are heavily used. The Book of Moses supplies some of the most-quoted lines in Latter-day Saint devotion, and the Book of Abraham contributes distinctive teaching on premortal existence and the cosmos. For a reader outside the tradition, they are the components that feel least like ordinary biblical material and most like the Restoration’s particular contribution — which is why they reward slow, footnoted reading rather than a quick skim. The cross-references built into the official editions help here, tying each chapter back to related passages across the standard works.

Pricing

Where The Pearl of Great Price falls behind

Brevity that assumes context. At roughly sixty pages the Pearl of Great Price does not pause to orient a newcomer. It presupposes familiarity with the Bible and with the wider Latter-day Saint story, so a reader arriving cold will meet names, events, and ideas the text does not stop to explain. That is a feature for members and a hurdle for first-timers — worth knowing going in rather than discovering halfway through.

Diversity of genre across the five parts. A revealed expansion of Genesis, an account of Abraham, a rendering of part of Matthew, a personal history, and a list of beliefs are five very different kinds of writing. They were gathered for their value, not for narrative flow, so moving from one to the next can feel like changing books rather than turning a page. Readers expecting a single continuous work should reset that expectation.

Better with a guide than without one. Most readers get substantially more from the text paired with an institute manual, a seminary lesson, or the Come, Follow Me schedule than reading it unaided. The official editions are richly cross-referenced, but they are scripture, not commentary — the explanatory scaffolding lives in the Church’s study resources, which are free but separate.

Distinctive to one tradition’s canon. These texts are not part of the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant Bible, so a reader expecting familiar biblical material will encounter content unique to the Restoration tradition. That is a fact of canon rather than a shortcoming, but it shapes who the book is for and what to expect.

The Pearl of Great Price vs. the Book of Mormon vs. the Doctrine and Covenants

These three make up the distinctively Restoration portion of the Latter-day Saint canon — the standard works beyond the Bible — and they do different jobs. The Book of Mormon is the large narrative scripture, a centuries-spanning account that the tradition presents as a companion witness to the Bible and the text members read most. The Doctrine and Covenants is a collection of revelations and declarations addressing the organization, governance, and ongoing direction of the Church. The Pearl of Great Price is the short anthology — five compact texts that hold the founding history, the Articles of Faith, and key revealed expansions of ancient scripture.

Different strengths. The Book of Mormon is the deepest and longest read and the natural center of personal study. The Doctrine and Covenants is the most administrative and forward-looking, the place for how the Church understands its own structure and mission. The Pearl of Great Price is the most concentrated — the fastest to read and, for its size, the densest with quoted and memorized material. If you want to understand the Restoration story and its briefest statement of belief, start with the Pearl of Great Price; if you want the tradition’s central narrative scripture, read the Book of Mormon.

All three are studied together by Latter-day Saints, most often inside a single Triple Combination and on the same weekly Come, Follow Me schedule, with footnotes that constantly cross-link the four standard works. A reader outside the tradition who wants the shortest fair orientation will find the Pearl of Great Price the most efficient of the three, simply because it is the smallest.

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