Next Tuesday marks the 203rd anniversary of the birth of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith. Perhaps in commemoration, church scholars, under the auspices of the newly established Church Historian's Press, have just released the first of 30 projected volumes of the Mormon prophet's personal and public papers, all reproduced as originally written.

The importance of this new undertaking cannot be overstated.

Past attempts at publishing Smith's papers have been uneven at best. Excerpts from his diaries and letters first appeared during Smith's own lifetime in the History of Joseph Smith. Serialized in the church's Times and Seasons periodical in Nauvoo, Ill., in the early to mid-1840s, and later in the Deseret News in Utah and Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star in England, the excerpts were carefully edited by church historians so as to minimize offensive, controversial content. Smith's History was subsequently republished in seven volumes from 1902 to 1912, with additional editing.

Brief excerpts appeared in print in the ensuing years, but it was not until 1979, with the publication of H. Michael Marquardt's slim volumes -- Joseph Smith's 1832-34 Diary and Joseph Smith's 1835-36 Diary, followed in 1982 by Joseph Smith's 1838-39 Diaries -- that unedited typescripts of Smith's original diaries began to appear. These were followed in 1984 by publication of Dean C. Jessee's Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (revised in 2002), which reprinted Smith's 1832-36 diaries, with annotations and other scholarly apparatus. Three years later, Scott H. Faulring produced complete transcriptions of all of Smith's known diaries, 1832-44. Faulring's An American Prophet's Record remains the only one-volume edition of Smith's journals, and the only published with the support of the Joseph Smith Family Association. In all the publicity attending the church's new volume, Marquardt's and Faulring's contributions have been overlooked.

In 1992, Jessee revisited his earlier work, issuing The Papers of Joseph Smith, Volume 2. Journal, 1832-1842. Jessee's new volume--which should not be confused with the church's current project -- reprinted those of Smith's diaries that had previously appeared in Personal Writings but also included an Illinois journal of 1841-42. This latter diary was taken from the record book Book of the Law of the Lord, housed in the archives of the church's First Presidency and not otherwise available to researchers.

Jessee's Papers of Joseph Smith project did not advance beyond the second volume and, in fact, was superseded by the church's own project. Church historians realized that publishing Smith's voluminous papers required a team of researchers.

In 2002-2003, digital full-color scans of almost all of Smith's diaries appeared in Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Volume 1, published with the church's encouragement. Publication of Selected Collections was an event in itself, and what these and other reproductions lacked in legibility they more than made up for in accessibility.

Now, with the release of The Joseph Smith Papers: Journals, Volume 1. 1832-1839 -- issued under the supervision of academically trained historians and archivists -- Smith's diaries have received the kind of scholarly treatment they have long deserved.

Seventeen-plus years in the making, this first volume--which includes the material Jessee published first in 1984 and again in 1992, minus the 1841-42 Illinois journal (which will appear with Smith's other Illinois journals in a later volume) -- sets what seems to be an impossibly high standard for the remainder of the monumental project, including maps, geographical and biographical directories, a glossary of specialized terms, and a bibliography.

The publisher hopes to release two volumes each year for the next 15 years or so. The next, scheduled to appear in the first half of 2009 -- is the inaugural volume in the Revelations and Translations series. The projected 30 volumes are grouped into six series: journals, revelations and translations, histories, documents, legal and business affairs, and administrative papers. This second volume will include the original manuscript books from which the Book of Commandments and the Doctrine and Covenants were published (in 1833 and 1835, respectively). These two publications are the forerunners of today's edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, a compilation of most of Joseph Smith's early revelations.

The Revelations and Translations volume will also contain, for the first time, the original of Joseph Smith's controversial "Canadian revelation," which had promised followers success in selling the copyright to the Book of Mormon in Canada. Smith's followers returned empty-handed. Some have called this a "failed revelation," though the current LDS Church historian and recorder Marlin K. Jensen responds that, with the text of the revelation finally available, that conclusion is "not warranted."

The present iteration of the Joseph Smith Papers project is both a turning point in the LDS Church's embrace of scholarship and a landmark of intellectual outreach.

Gary James Bergera is managing director of the Smith-Pettit Foundation.