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Similar to this origination complication of baptism and membership, the ordination to the office of Elder via the higher priesthood could not occur until the church had been established. After the church was officially established we have the following evidences that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had already received the higher priesthood:
This revelation was included as part of Joseph Smith's History in 1838. It was originally part of the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants as section 33. Some might be tempted to say that Joseph just made this revelation up with the circumstances. But as the Joseph Smith Papers note: "JS and Oliver Cowdery's discussion of this issue possibly arose when they encountered a passage in the translation of the plates describing the biblical prophet Moses and the Book of Mormon prophet Alma as having been 'taken up by the spirit, or buried by the hand of the Lord'".[1]Additionally, possibly just several weeks after recording this revelation, they translated a similar account in the Book of Mormon in which Jesus asks the twelve Nephite disciples, "What is it that ye desire of me, after that I am gone to the Father?" The Joseph Smith papers notes: "All be three echo Peter's request to 'speedily come' to the Lord. To the three, however, Jesus declares, 'Ye have desired the thing which John my beloved,...desired of me.'" [2]. So Joseph had this revelation that he received with Oliver Cowdery that he conspired to place into the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, making it up on the spot, and had no one call him out on it including Oliver? It seems like a convoluted explanation to say the least. Critics would have to believe that there was no revelation recorded (which it seems there was. Again, why make one up on the spot?), and/or that Oliver conspired with Joseph to create this revelation at the time of canonization. But why? Wouldn't they be seen? Why wouldn't Oliver expose Joseph then when he was separated from and embittered towards the Church? We have a plausible historical context for a revelation to come forth and a revelation. The smoothest explanation seems to be that the revelation was dictated at that time.
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