After completing his revision of The Book of Genesis, Joseph Smith, Jr. adopted a less ambitious approach to the remaining sections of the Old Testament. Instead of extensive revisions, many chapters or entire books were simply marked as “Correct.” In some cases, Joseph only made minor changes to convey his intended meaning. For example, in 1 Samuel 16, he made only two corrections, specifically in verses 16 and 23. The primary focus, as with previous chapters, was to soften the portrayal of God’s character. Joseph felt compelled to alter instances where “evil” was attributed to God.
Therefore, considering verse sixteen:
“Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the EVIL SPIRIT FROM GOD is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well” (1 Samuel 16:16, AKJV. EMPHASIS ADDED).
He was compelled to change it to read,
“Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on a harp; and it shall come to pass, when the EVIL SPIRIT, WHICH IS NOT OF GOD, is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well” (1 Samuel 16:16, JST. EMPHASIS ADDED).
The Authorized King James Bible, verse twenty-three reads,
“And it came to pass, when the EVIL SPIRIT FROM GOD was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him” (1 Samuel 16:23, AKJV. EMPHASIS ADDED).
The Joseph Smith Revision reads,
“And it came to pass, when the EVIL SPIRIT, WHICH WAS NOT OF GOD, was upon Saul, that David took a harp, and played with his hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him” (1 Samuel 16:23, JST. EMPHASIS ADDED).
Upon considering Joseph’s revisions, one might conclude, “It’s wise for him to modify references that attribute evil to God.” However, this line of thinking overlooks the fact that Joseph only made minor alterations to a few verses, rather than addressing every instance. In fact, he only made changes in two additional verses out of the 383 verses in the first fifteen chapters of 1 Samuel: 15:11 and 15:35.
A closer examination of the remaining twenty-one verses in 1 Samuel 16 (AKJV) exposes the shortcomings of the young prophet’s efforts:
“But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an EVIL SPIRIT FROM THE LORD troubled him” (1 Samuel 16:14, AKJV. EMPHASIS ADDED).
“And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an EVIL SPIRIT FROM GOD troubleth thee” (1 Samuel 16:15, AKJV. EMPHASIS ADDED).
We now see four instances in 1 Samuel 16 where the implication is that an evil spirit originates from God, yet Joseph only saw fit to correct two of them. Subsequently, a diligent scholar has revised these verses in the JST, though no adjustments were made to a similar instance in Judges 9:23. Since the JST was not published during Joseph Smith Jr.’s lifetime, these inconsistencies persisted.
The pattern of addressing certain issues while overlooking changes to other verses was a common occurrence in Joseph’s revisions. It would be reasonable to expect that he would have noticed these discrepancies if he had approached the other chapters of the Old Testament with the same level of detail as he did Genesis. However, the fact that he amended 1 Samuel 16:16 but neglected the two preceding verses strongly suggests that, at this juncture, the inspiration for modifying the Bible lacked coherence.
