Did Joseph Smith set a date for Christ’s return?

The promise said Joseph would see Christ if he lived to 85. Joseph listed different ways that could happen and died at 38.

You kept the condition and the range of meanings Joseph himself gave it.

The verse promised that Joseph would live to see the public return.

The word “if” leaves Joseph’s lifespan open. The next verse distinguishes seeing Christ from knowing it was the Millennium.

Yes. Read the timing phrase too. Clayton reports that Christ would not come to reign before Joseph was 85. That sets the earliest time.

You acknowledge the explicit date and prophetic language. An earliest time alone leaves the actual date open.

Nobody recorded Joseph discussing an actual year.

Richards gives 1890. Clayton’s wording helps identify what the date was being used to say.

That is the stronger objection. On the fixed-deadline reading, the date passed. I would weigh what the minutes say against Joseph’s later uncertainty.

You address the real evidence for the deadline. The 1835 wording deserves its own judgment.

That’s just the same conditional wording as section 130.

The minutes use different wording. They link the coming of the Lord to 56 years and leave us to work out how firmly Joseph meant it.

In 1886, Taylor and Cannon already challenged Thatcher’s conclusion and pointed to Joseph’s uncertainty about what he heard.

The letter dates that interpretation to before the proposed deadlines. It also acknowledges that the circulated discourse had stirred speculation.

Everyone in the Church always agreed there was no deadline.

The letter itself says Elders took different views. It documents the leaders’ response to a real debate.