Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price

Have you heard the stirring conviction of Elder George Reynolds, or the quiet scholarship of Elder Janne M. Sjodahl concerning the truths and beauties of the Pearl of Great Price? If not, then this Commentary should have spiritual and intellectual excitement for you.

This observation comes from one who recently read the Commentary in manuscript. After considering the commentarial notes, the critic complimented the compiler, Philip C. Reynolds, son and son-In-law, respectively, of the two eminent Church writers, for the unique material presented and the arresting quality of spirituality that sparkles in virtually every paragraph.

The engaging literary style of the two men, which Elder Reynolds has kept intact, seems so appropriate in this day of so many dry-dust technical and scientific "papers." Here are men who were not only leading scholars in their generation, but who had fiery convictions that the work at hand was from the Lord and that it had a divine beginning through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith.

The result of combining the heretofore unpublished testimonies, observations, research, and sound-doctrine observations of Elder Reynolds, a long-time member of the First Council of the Seventy, and of Elder Sjodahl, an assistant Church historian, editor of the Deseret News, and widely read Book of Mormon and Church scholar, has been a long labor of love by Elder Philip C. Reynolds, and Church scholars and students will long hold his name in high appreciation for his self-assigned task of assembling these notes that were available only to him and for sharing them with Church readers.

What of course gives this Commentary appropriate validity is its casting new light on passages frequently glossed over by the sincere reader. Especially valuable are the papers "Is Continuous Revelation Necessary?" and "Are We of Israel or the Seed of Abraham? published in their entirety.