Dan Ellsworth: Rough Stone Rolling presented a mixed picture of the history of Joseph’s revelations. I came away from the book believing that Joseph had authentic revelations, “apocryphal” insights that seem less trustworthy, and some plain old misfires from time to time. I know that seems like a deflating concept to a lot of people – that Joseph could err in his discernment on occasion – and I admit I occasionally found myself disappointed and saddened to read of Joseph’s mistakes. But from my experience, the most interesting revelatory experiences I am personally aware of have come to people I know with very strong creative streaks, and this seemed to be one of Joseph’s strongest character traits. Joseph was no Company Man, fearful of anything but cautious, incrementalist approaches to change. To borrow a baseball metaphor, When it came to revelation, Joseph was always swinging for the fences. When he connected, we got the Book of Mormon or Section 121. When he missed, we got the June 1831 Conference or Zelph.
I also noticed Bushman did not give very much attention to the incident where Joseph sent Oliver Cowdery and Hirum Page on a failed journey to Canada to sell a copyright to the Book of Mormon. According to David Whitmer, after that episode, in response to questions about why that effort had met with failure, Joseph replied “Some revelations are of God: some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil.” B.H. Roberts seemed to take that purported response from Joseph at face value, but it looks like Bushman did not find the narrative sufficiently credible to warrant much attention. By contrast, I read Donna Hill’s biography of Joseph Smith about 15 years ago, and that story is one of the only things I remember from her book.
Another interesting aspect of Joseph’s revelation portrayed vividly in RSR was Joseph’s desire to share that gift. Leaders of cults are typically very jealous of their authority and abilities, making every effort to keep their status as the sole recipient of insights into the divine. This is not something I saw with Joseph. I saw him be petty, overly ceremonious, and self-aggrandizing at times, but I also got the impression that he was constantly frustrated with the saints’ inability to accept the individual burden of obtaining revelation and making decisions based on it. He wanted for the saints the stronger sense of spiritual autonomy that only personal revelation can provide.
Moreover, RSR has led me to believe that the “study it out” concept of revelation in Section 9, and the story of Brother of Jared’s 16 stones, are not an exceptional model of revelation. In fact, it looks like this was the model Joseph experienced the most. Many of his revelations seem more actively negotiated with God — often out of a personal perception of need — than passively received from Him.

Jeff Bennion: An important thing to keep in mind is Joseph Smith saw revelation as an iterative process. It was something that successive rounds of revisions improved the original. Another way to say this is, to Joseph (and I think for many of us as well) the process of revision and interpretation is part of revelation, not outside of it. Our revelations are not final, but themselves go through a “refiner’s fire”. This theme is certainly quite prominent in Bushman’s book, which he usually describes as an “unfolding”. He adds that this unfolding was just as important organizationally as it was theologically.

We may find our faith unnecessarily challenged if we fail to understand that. We do not have a Mohammedan model of revelation in this Church, where the word of God falls from the mouth of the Angel Gabriel to God’s Prophet to the written page, forever fixed, immutable, and perfect for all time:

Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding. And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;

-D&C 1:24-25

But we also need to be careful that we don’t assume something an error is something that isn’t. Joseph Smith claimed,

I never told you I was perfect; but there is no error in the revelations which I have taught. Must I, then, be thrown away as a thing of naught?

Perhaps even Zelph? Or Moon Men? (Just kidding!) When the Doctrine and Covenants was first published (as the Book of Commandments), several people expressed reservations about the quality of the language. Apparently it wasn’t refined enough. D&C 67 was received in response, wherein the Lord invited those assembled to try to do better. I don’t know if they succeeded, but read verses 5&9:

Your eyes have been upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and his language you have known, and his imperfections you have known; and you have sought in your hearts knowledge that you might express beyond his language; this you also know… For ye know that there is no unrighteousness in them, and that which is righteous cometh down from above, from the Father of lights.

Certainly we know from Book of Mormon scholarship, that at least some of the things that were once considered embarrassing errors are now taken as evidences of the book. Two examples: Jesus being born in the “land of Jerusalem” and the barley-based Nephite monetary system (not “coinage” as the heading says).

On the other hand, one of the many legendary (and probably invented) pronouncements of J. Golden Kimball has him saying that if you get your prophecies right 50% of the time, that’s pretty (and since this is J. Golden add the obligatory ‘damn’) good!