Informal Canonization and the Revelations of John Taylor

John Taylor (1808-1887) was the third president of the LDS Church. This paper will explore a little-known aspect of Taylor's time as prophet: his use of direct revelation in governing the Church. While Joseph Smith, the founding Mormon prophet-president, had organized and directed the Church using revelation, most of his successors have not used this textual form. Taylor is an exception. There are nine surviving Taylor revelations, each modeled on Smith’s style. Uncanonized and largely forgotten, they survive in several material forms which show Taylor’s flock using them as revealed scripture: seeking out and obtaining copies, studying them, sharing them with others, cross-referencing them to other scriptures, and acting on their commands. The material evidence of the use of these texts recommends against too strong a focus on the terms of formal canonization in the study of scripturalization in favor of greater attention to the informal contingencies of scriptural usage.