The Pearl of Great Price: A Study Edition for Latter-day Saints

Although diminutive in size, the Pearl of Great Price has had a profound impact on the faith of the Latter-day Saints. It is a book of scripture that spans dispensations. It reveals the grand scope of Creation as it unfolded under the direction of God and His Only Begotten; it reaches far back into the history of God’s interactions with His children, preserving heretofore unknown accounts from the lives of Adam, Eve, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses; it narrates the calling of Joseph Smith as prophet, seer, and revelator in modern times; it provides clear warnings about the signs and tribulations the Saints should expect as the world prepares to receive the Son of Man in His glory; and it provides a useful outline of the Saints’ fundamental principles of faith. It is a book that encompasses the beginning and the end, situating its readers in a worldview that predates humanity and extends well beyond the confines of this earth.

In harmony with the Lord’s commandment to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118), over the course of many decades Latter-day Saint scholars have probed the contents of the Pearl of Great Price with the tools of scholarship to see what light might be thrown thereon. Successive generations of committed disciple-scholars who have closely studied the Pearl of Great Price have reaped a bountiful harvest, offering many important insights that greatly enhance appreciation for this remarkable text. Readers of the Pearl of Great Price today stand atop a treasure trove of academic resources that make studying the text relatively easy and immensely rewarding.

To help facilitate awareness of these resources and to provide a sense of how they might be usefully synthesized to increase faith and understanding, we have created a study edition of the Pearl of Great Price. The offering presented here, The Pearl of Great Price: A Study Edition for Latter-day Saints, hopes to satisfy the counsel given in Doctrine and Covenants 88:118 and to help both new and longtime members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints magnify their study of this sacred text.