The Lectures on Faith were first given to the School of the Elders in the early part of the winter of 1834–35 in Kirtland, Ohio, when the elders who had been out on missions returned to their homes for the season. From 1835 to 1921 the Lectures were printed as the first part of the Doctrine and Covenants. Since 1921 they have been available for study mainly in a little booklet edition published by N. B. Lundwall about 1940, and in a Deseret Book Company version published in 1985.

As we studied the printed versions in connection with the symposium on the Lectures on Faith sponsored by the Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University, we decided to prepare a newly edited version of the Lectures to correct several mistakes that had found their way into the printed versions. We also decided to try to make some of the long, complex sentences easier to read.

We present here a newly edited version of the Lectures on Faith. We have restricted our editing to making the language clearer and easier to read; we have not changed any of the doctrinal teachings.

We are pleased to be able to print a whole book containing the Lectures on Faith and discussions of those lectures. If our readers can gain as much from reading this book as we have from seeing it throughout the printing process, our efforts will be richly rewarded.

We wish to express gratitude to those who have helped us in this project. We are especially grateful for those who presented papers at the symposium, and to the staff of the Religious Studies Center Publications Office for their work in preparing the manuscripts for printing.

Larry E. Dahl and Charles D. Tate Jr.