The short answer
Joseph discussed 1890. Doctrine and Covenants 130 records a conditional promise that he would see Christ if he lived to 85. He died at 38. In a separate sermon, he said Christ would come no earlier than that age and discussed a biblical calculation pointing to 1890. The 1835 minutes about 56 years are stronger evidence for an expected deadline in 1891. Joseph’s 1843 uncertainty leaves that reading open to question.
- April 2, 1843. Joseph reported what the voice told him and said he could not tell whether it meant the Millennium, an earlier appearance, or seeing Christ after death. Read D&C 130
- April 6, 1843. He spoke in the name of the Lord and said Christ would come no earlier than age 85. A clerk recorded a calculation pointing to 1890. Compare the reports
- February 14, 1835. The minutes link the Lord’s coming to a 56-year statement. That interval ends in February 1891. Read the 1835 record
- December 1886. John Taylor and George Q. Cannon questioned the fixed-date interpretation before the proposed dates passed. Read the letter and an 1891 response
What to say
“Which record are we testing? Section 130 gives a conditional promise, and the April 6 sermon gives an earliest date. The 56-year line in 1835 is the serious evidence for a deadline. Its meaning needs to be weighed against Joseph’s later uncertainty.”
Joseph Smith discussed 1890 and spoke in the name of the Lord about when Christ would return. The April 1843 records distinguish a conditional promise that Joseph would see Christ from Joseph’s belief about the earliest time Christ would come to reign. The separate 1835 report about 56 years gives the strongest basis for reading him as predicting a deadline. Jerald and Sandra Tanner read it as a prediction that did not come to pass. The Changing World of Mormonism, chapter 14
What Doctrine and Covenants 130 says
On April 2, 1843, in Ramus, Illinois, Joseph said that he had prayed to know the time of Christ’s return. William Clayton recorded Joseph’s account of the answer. If Joseph lived to age 85, he would see the Son of Man’s face. Joseph then described three ways he thought he might see Christ, at the beginning of the Millennium, at an earlier appearance, or after his death. He expressed his own belief that Christ would come no sooner than that time. The record leaves the date of the earlier experience uncertain. Clayton’s journal, p. 66 · p. 67 · Doctrine and Covenants 130:14–17
Joseph would have turned 85 on December 23, 1890. He was killed on June 27, 1844, at age 38. The condition that he live to 85 was never met. Even if he had lived, the promise concerned him seeing Christ. Equating that with Christ’s public return requires choosing one of the possibilities Joseph left open. The Church’s student manual reads the answer as withholding the time of the Second Coming. Joseph Smith Papers, biographical introduction · Church student manual, D&C 130:14–17
What Joseph said on April 6
Four days later, Joseph used stronger language at a conference in Nauvoo. Willard Richards recorded that he prophesied in the name of the Lord that the Son of Man would not come until Joseph was 85, “or about 1890.” On the next page Richards records a biblical calculation involving Hosea that also points to 1890. Clayton reports that Joseph ventured a prophecy that Christ would not come in the clouds to reign before he was 85. Clayton also records Joseph saying some people in the rising generation would live to see the Lord come. Those words give evidence of a real expectation and raise a separate question about its scope. Richards’s report, p. 73 · p. 74 · Clayton’s report, p. 9
The phrase “not before” sets an earliest time. To establish a missed deadline in 1890, the critic needs evidence that Joseph also set a latest time or promised a public return that year. The comment about the rising generation is a separate challenge. If understood as a promise of a public return in their ordinary lifetimes, that expectation went unmet. Robert M. Bowman Jr. distinguishes that objection from the earliest-date language. In March 1844, Wilford Woodruff recorded Joseph rejecting the predicted return that year and speaking against claims to know the precise time. Bowman’s analysis · Woodruff’s March 1844 report
What the 56 years meant in 1835
Minutes of the February 14, 1835 meeting that began choosing the Twelve connect their work to preparing for the Lord’s coming. The report says “even fifty six years, should wind up the scene.” Add 56 years to the meeting date and you reach February 14, 1891. The minutes are a genuine source for the objection. They were entered into Minute Book 1 in 1836 and summarize Joseph’s remarks. The editors note that Joseph was 29 in February 1835, so the interval also matches the difference between 29 and 85. They leave the date of the experience later reported in 1843 open. 1835 minutes, p. 147 and source note
Read as a fixed deadline for the public Second Coming, the 1835 wording gives a prediction that did not happen. Read as an expectation about the closing events, the summary leaves their precise meaning open. The proximity of the two dates makes a connection plausible. It cannot settle whether Joseph meant the same event or how firmly he attached a date in 1835. His recorded uncertainty in April 1843 weighs against treating the 1835 report as an unambiguous promise.
How readers responded before and after 1891
Some Latter-day Saints took the timing seriously. In December 1886, Church President John Taylor and George Q. Cannon wrote Apostle Moses Thatcher after a summary of his discourse had caused speculation. They accepted the accuracy of his quotations and questioned his conclusions. They asked what the 1835 phrase meant and pointed to Joseph’s later uncertainty. Their objection to assigning a definite date predates both 1890 and 1891. December 17, 1886 letter in Cannon’s journal
After February 14, 1891 passed, an editorial in The Return treated the winding up and Christ’s return as the same event and declared the prediction a failure. The editor, Ebenezer Robinson, was affiliated with David Whitmer’s Church of Christ and also affirmed his belief in the Book of Mormon in that issue. The two records show real disagreement over the meaning of the 1835 remarks on either side of the proposed date. The Return, February 1891, pp. 25–26 · Joseph Smith Papers, Robinson biography
A reply you could give
Doctrine and Covenants 130 also records Joseph’s separate prediction about South Carolina. Compare the Civil War prophecy with the prewar records
“I agree that Joseph talked about timing. I would read the sources separately. In section 130 he reports a conditional promise that he would see Christ and says he was unsure what that meant. On April 6 he speaks prophetically about how early Christ could come and discusses 1890. The 1835 wording about 56 years is the harder passage. If that meant a firm deadline for the public return, the deadline passed. Taylor and Cannon questioned that reading before the date arrived, and Joseph’s own 1843 uncertainty gives a good reason to do the same.”
