1886 Revelation


In the Mormon fundamentalist movement, the 1886 Revelation is the text of a revelation said to have been received by John Taylor, third President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that is claimed to restate the permanence of the principle of plural marriage. Along with Joseph Smith, Jr.'s 1843 revelation on plural marriage, the 1886 revelation is one of the primary documents used by Mormon fundamentalists to justify their continued practice of polygamy. The LDS Church, which issued manifestos in 1890 and 1904 to terminate the practice of plural marriage, does not accept the 1886 revelation as authentic. Others have questioned whether the revelation, if authentic, even refers to plural marriage or its continuance.
In 1911, John W. Taylor, Taylor's son and an apostle claimed that he had discovered the revelation among his father's papers after his death in 1887. Unfortunately, his was a copy written in his own hand. Photographs of the original document exist, but the document itself is not extant. Examinations of the photographs have suggested that the document is in John Taylor's handwriting. In 1912, Lorin C. Woolley, a Mormon fundamentalist leader, published a claim that five copies of the revelation had been made and entrusted to LDS Church apostle George Q. Cannon with the intent of preserving it for posterity.
The text of the revelation is as follows:

See Also