Article of Faith 10

[GoCeltics]

Could someone explain this article of faith:

“We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory”.

Which two tribes are excluded from this restoration belief? Where is the restoration to?

Doctrine and Covenants 57:1-3 says “Hearken, O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God, who have assembled yourselves together according to my commandments, in this land, which is the land of Missouri, which is the land which I have appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the saints. Wherefore, this is the land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion”.

Is Missouri the appointed place for the gathering of all Latter-day Saints even if they are not literal descendants of Jacob?

This teaching is attributed to Brigham Young:

“By and by the Jews will be gathered to the land of their fathers, and the ten tribes, who wandered into the north, will be gathered home, and the blood of Ephraim, the second son of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt, which is to be found in every kingdom and nation under heaven, will be gathered from among the Gentiles, and the Gentiles who will receive and adhere to the principles of the Gospel will be adopted and initiated into the family of Father Abraham, and Jesus will reign over his own and Satan will reign over his own. This will be the result” (Journal of Discourses, General Instructions to Missionaries Going Abroad).

Where is "home" for the ten tribes?

[the narrator]

5 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Which two tribes are excluded from this restoration belief?

Those tribes weren't "lost." Biblical tradition is that 10 were lost while Ephraim and Judah remained.

5 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Where is the restoration to?

To the totality of the tribes of Israel

5 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Where is "home" for the ten tribes?

Missouri, where the Garden of Eden originally was and before Noah's flood split the continents. At least this is what I was taught as a kid, but I think few LDSaints believe that anymore. For the most part, the "Latter-day" aspect of Mormonism lost its immanence and is now relegated to a permanent state of soon-but-not-that-soon.

Edited October 24, 2025 by the narrator

[CV75]

1 hour ago, GoCeltics said:

Could someone explain this article of faith:

“We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory”.

Which two tribes are excluded from this restoration belief? Where is the restoration to?

Doctrine and Covenants 57:1-3 says “Hearken, O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God, who have assembled yourselves together according to my commandments, in this land, which is the land of Missouri, which is the land which I have appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the saints. Wherefore, this is the land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion”.

Is Missouri the appointed place for the gathering of all Latter-day Saints even if they are not literal descendants of Jacob?

This teaching is attributed to Brigham Young:

“By and by the Jews will be gathered to the land of their fathers, and the ten tribes, who wandered into the north, will be gathered home, and the blood of Ephraim, the second son of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt, which is to be found in every kingdom and nation under heaven, will be gathered from among the Gentiles, and the Gentiles who will receive and adhere to the principles of the Gospel will be adopted and initiated into the family of Father Abraham, and Jesus will reign over his own and Satan will reign over his own. This will be the result” (Journal of Discourses, General Instructions to Missionaries Going Abroad).

Where is "home" for the ten tribes?

Assuming the explaining means answering your questions: the literal gathering of Israel entails all the tribes (the exact number is contextual); the Ten Tribes would be those not commonly recognized or identified in latter-day scripture as Judah (“Jews”), Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) and Levi (supported by the other tribes). I think the Ten Tribes will be restored in the sense of recognizing them as organized entities (“home” in that sense), as has begun in their inclusion in patriarchal blessings as time rolls on, and in the sense of gathering to Zion (“home” in that sense) or their ancestral promised land (“home” in that sense). I think restoring, gathering and “home” carry both figurative/spiritual and literal/geographical implications.

It seems D&C 57 applies to the saints of that day irrespective of lineage, but could be extended to saints of any lineage (genealogical or adoptive) living in our time awaiting the Second Coming, or to those living in the Millennium. I think “all” 18M+ saints is impractical and unlikely, but a representative body akin to SLC is possible.

[Benjamin McGuire]

36 minutes ago, GoCeltics said:

Which two tribes are excluded from this restoration belief? Where is the restoration to?

This is a reference to the "ten lost tribes." This (at least historically) refers to the 10 tribes that were carried off when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom. The two tribes that were in the southern kingdom were Judah and Benjamin. The other thing to remember is that at least in this context, Levi isn't considered in all of this because they were distributed throughout all the tribes and didn't have their own territory. The twelve tribes had two slots taken by Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) to make up for this.

So this is a reference to the restoration/return of the lost ten tribes. This was a significant prediction in restorationist theology (which early Mormonism participated in - and Mormons viewed the Book of Mormon and its peoples - who were descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh as a fore-runner for this return).

There was a push in Mormon thought a while back to see the recovery of the tribes from the nations as a function of patriarchal blessings with their assignment (or adoption) into various tribes. I don't think it is a subject that we really discuss much these days. Mormon thought has largely pushed a physical return of the lost tribes into the Millennial period (along with the building of Zion in Missouri). To kind of put some perspective on this, in my infancy, my father (who was then a recent convert) decided to move the family to Missouri to be a part of the gathering and the building of Zion. We left a few years later when it became clear to him that this wasn't something he was needed for any time soon ...

As Mormonism has further shifted away from those restorationist roots, this has all been moved into the back seat. And what I mean by this is that the restorationist movement believed that we (collectively) could accelerate the time frame of the second coming and the millennium by helping fulfill the prophetic conditions required. This was very much on the mind of early LDS - and there were a number of events that occurred in the context of early Mormonism that were a part of this effort. Mormon theology today essentially takes the view that there is a prefetermined time-frame for all of this, and that there isn't anything we can do to alter that time-frame. The return gets pushed into the millennium, the need to build Zion becomes an effort of the millennium, and so on.

There is also a bunch of stuff on the returning tribes in Section 133. And in general, the "home" for these tribes is just referred to as the "north countries" (D&C 133:26).

[InCognitus]

52 minutes ago, GoCeltics said:

Where is "home" for the ten tribes?

[Sarcasm mode on]:  The meek will inherit the entire earth (see Psalm 37) excluding the United States of course, which will be taken to heaven so as to be specifically excluded from the inheritance. [Sarcasm mode off]

The "ten tribes" are the northern ten tribes that were scattered.  They will be restored to Israel.  The two remaining tribes (Judah and Benjamin) were in the southern kingdom that were not scattered at the time the northern tribes were scattered.  They will also be restored because we believe in the "literal" gathering of Israel, and they will literally be able to return to the lands promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob at some time in the future.

[Senator]

A thought (prediction) came to me a while back.  Is the use of the vernacular "gathering Israel" going to become a liability for the success in mandate to take the gospel to "every nation, tongue and people"?  Seeing that vast numbers of the worlds population is not to keen to anything relating to Israel, could we see a rebranding in the messaging from the church?

Sorry, I just realized this is bit of a tangent....

Edited October 24, 2025 by Senator

[longview]

56 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The return gets pushed into the millennium, the need to build Zion becomes an effort of the millennium, and so on.

There has to be a "Zion People" tried and tested and prepared (Five Wise Virgins) to meet the Savior at His Second Coming. Read Elder Bednar's magnificent talk of October 2022 on Isaiah chapter 52: “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.”

[Benjamin McGuire]

38 minutes ago, longview said:

There has to be a "Zion People" tried and tested and prepared (Five Wise Virgins) to meet the Savior at His Second Coming. Read Elder Bednar's magnificent talk of October 2022 on Isaiah chapter 52: “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.”

This illustrates my point. This has been a change in the theology of the Church. In the 1830s, the expectation was that the Second Coming would occur within the lifetime of many of those members, and that the members of the Church could change the time frame of the Second Coming through their actions.

[ZealouslyStriving]

31 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This illustrates my point. This has been a change in the theology of the Church. In the 1830s, the expectation was that the Second Coming would occur within the lifetime of many of those members, and that the members of the Church could change the time frame of the Second Coming through their actions.

Quotes from Church leaders clearly advocating that thinking?

[Benjamin McGuire]

6 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Quotes from Church leaders clearly advocating that thinking?

This isn't criticism. I am pointing out the fact that current leaders have such a different perspective than the leaders of the Church in the 1830s. This is only to be expected. But it means that when we look at some of the Articles of Faith, that difference in views needs to be taken into account - especially for questions like the one in the OP.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Mormon theology today essentially takes the view that there is a prefetermined time-frame for all of this, and that there isn't anything we can do to alter that time-frame.

I have been under the impression that the one thing they still push as a fulfillment of last days is missionary work, reaching out to all the world, but maybe it’s been more me inserting it into talks then them saying it.

[Benjamin McGuire]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

I have been under the impression that the one thing they still push as a fulfillment of last days is missionary work, reaching out to all the world, but maybe it’s been more me inserting it into talks then them saying it.

There is a difference between saying that there is work we need to do as part of the 'last days' and the idea that the Second Coming could be tomorrow as long as we get X, Y, and Z done today.

[ZealouslyStriving]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This isn't criticism. I am pointing out the fact that current leaders have such a different perspective than the leaders of the Church in the 1830s. This is only to be expected. But it means that when we look at some of the Articles of Faith, that difference in views needs to be taken into account - especially for questions like the one in the OP.

I would love to see a comparison between then and now, with actual quotes.

Oh, well.

[manol]

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

 Mormon theology today essentially takes the view that there is a predetermined time-frame for all of this, and that there isn't anything we can do to alter that time-frame.

Manol's theology, according to its one adherent, takes the view that the Second Coming of Christ includes an awakening and embodying of oneself as a literal manifestation of Christ, which usually happens over time for each individual, rather than it being a single spectacular geo-political event that could theoretically be livestreamed on social media.  So the Second Coming of Christ is a participatory event which is spread out over time, and it occurs when we (first individually and then collectively) unreservedly show up as who and what we really are, without the baggage.  This is why it has no single fixed date and time which would be knowable in advance by the participants... us.  And, again according to manol's theology, this is why the Son doesn't know the date and time, but only the Father... we are that Son. 

Edited October 24, 2025 by manol

[The Nehor]

16 hours ago, the narrator said:

Those tribes weren't "lost." Biblical tradition is that 10 were lost while Ephraim and Judah remained.

To the totality of the tribes of Israel

Missouri, where the Garden of Eden originally was and before Noah's flood split the continents. At least this is what I was taught as a kid, but I think few LDSaints believe that anymore. For the most part, the "Latter-day" aspect of Mormonism lost its immanence and is now relegated to a permanent state of soon-but-not-that-soon.

This isn’t correct. The two remaining tribes were Judah and Benjamin. The other ten (eleven if you count Joseph as two tribes for both Ephraim and Manasseh) were believed to be largely lost after the defeat by the Assyrians.

The return of the lost tribes isn’t something you will find anything recent about.

[the narrator]

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

This isn’t correct. The two remaining tribes were Judah and Benjamin. The other ten (eleven if you count Joseph as two tribes for both Ephraim and Manasseh) were believed to be largely lost after the defeat by the Assyrians.

 

Thanks for the correction.

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 10/24/2025 at 3:29 PM, ZealouslyStriving said:

I would love to see a comparison between then and now, with actual quotes.

I'll tell you what - I'll recommend a few sources. You can read through them.

Grant Underwood's masters thesis: Early Mormon Millenarianism: Another Look. And his The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism.

Christopher Blythe's Terrible Revolution: Latter-day Saints and the American Apocalypse.

Dan Erickson's As a Thief in the Night: The Mormon Quest for Millennial Deliverance.

One of the things that we have that is very clear is a very different view of millennialism now than was held by early Mormons. I don't think that this is particularly noteworthy. There are lots of theological changes that come in the Church. We don't have divisions in the Celestial Kingdom, for example, until 1905. We didn't seal people to their deceased ancestors until 1894 (we didn't start proxy priesthood ordinations until 1877). The LDS Church has been a rather constant string of changes. So to have changing views - even deeply held views - shouldn't be surprising. There was (and still is) a progressive nature to our LDS theology. For example, we no longer are trying actively to move the Church's headquarters to Missouri, to establish Zion in preparation for the millennium - and we are not trying to get members of the Church to move there. Of course, one of the biggest difference between now and 200 years ago is that we have our own history and our own theological developments. We aren't all converts from other (mostly restorationist) backgrounds. And we have seen (historically) too many predictions of the end of the world and the Second Coming to really take any of them individually at face value.

[GoCeltics]

On 10/24/2025 at 10:33 AM, InCognitus said:

The "ten tribes" are the northern ten tribes that were scattered.  They will be restored to Israel.  The two remaining tribes (Judah and Benjamin) were in the southern kingdom that were not scattered at the time the northern tribes were scattered.  They will also be restored because we believe in the "literal" gathering of Israel, and they will literally be able to return to the lands promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob at some time in the future.

Not all Judah and Benjamin remained in the land through their course of history though, when Babylon down to Rome and the Ottoman Empire controlled that area. One could consider this a form of being scattered too.

Was the land of the United States promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?  If yes, where?

What is the difference in meaning between AOF 10 saying, "We believe in the restoration of the Twelve Tribes" as opposed to "the restoration of the Ten Tribes"?

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 10/24/2025 at 4:04 PM, manol said:

Manol's theology, according to its one adherent, takes the view that the Second Coming of Christ includes an awakening and embodying of oneself as a literal manifestation of Christ, which usually happens over time for each individual, rather than it being a single spectacular geo-political event that could theoretically be livestreamed on social media.  So the Second Coming of Christ is a participatory event which is spread out over time, and it occurs when we (first individually and then collectively) unreservedly show up as who and what we really are, without the baggage.  This is why it has no single fixed date and time which would be knowable in advance by the participants... us.  And, again according to manol's theology, this is why the Son doesn't know the date and time, but only the Father... we are that Son. 

The problem within the LDS community, however, is that there is a determinate time-frame that must exist. That determinate time-frame exists because there is a finite number of spirit-children (determined in the pre-existence) who will come to this earth to be born. It was the development of a pre-existence theology and narrative - the extending of creation earlier than a Garden of Eden that began to cause this shift in perspective. We went from something closer to your view to a view that while we may not know the time of its occurrence, that time is predetermined. Rather than the push to build the New Jerusalem, we have a theology that says that when the time is ready, God will instruct us, open doors for us, etc. We reinterpret that growing wealth of the Church as a preparation that we will be able to build Zion when the time comes. So the emphasis also shifts to the parable of the virgins with their oil lamps. 

[GoCeltics]

On 10/24/2025 at 10:31 AM, CV75 said:

I think the Ten Tribes will be restored in the sense of recognizing them as organized entities (“home” in that sense), as has begun in their inclusion in patriarchal blessings as time rolls on, and

How did you recognize the entities of the other two tribes?

When did the inclusion of the Ten Tribes in the patriarchal blessings begin?

[Benjamin McGuire]

6 minutes ago, GoCeltics said:

What is the difference in meaning between AOF 10 saying, "We believe in the restoration of the Twelve Tribes" as opposed to "the restoration of the Ten Tribes"?

The LDS Church believes in a literal restoration - in that there was land given to the twelve tribes as their promised land, and the restoration of all twelve of those tribes to that land becomes a part of the predictive signs of the Second Coming. The ten tribes that are lost have to come back, and Judah and Benjamin have to be restored (as well as Levi - which is also not one of the lost tribes). We have to remember that in 1841, Orson Hyde dedicated Jerusalem to the return of the Jews and the other children of Abraham. Israel (as we know it now) simply didn't exist.

[GoCeltics]

On 10/24/2025 at 10:30 AM, the narrator said:

Those tribes weren't "lost." Biblical tradition is that 10 were lost while Ephraim and Judah remained.

Did the tribe of Ephraim and Judah always remain in the southern part throughout history?

[GoCeltics]

10 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The LDS Church believes in a literal restoration - in that there was land given to the twelve tribes as their promised land, and the restoration of all twelve of those tribes to that land becomes a part of the predictive signs of the Second Coming. The ten tribes that are lost have to come back, and Judah and Benjamin have to be restored (as well as Levi - which is also not one of the lost tribes). We have to remember that in 1841, Orson Hyde dedicated Jerusalem to the return of the Jews and the other children of Abraham. Israel (as we know it now) simply didn't exist.

Why not simply say “restoration of the Twelve Tribes” then?

[Benjamin McGuire]

9 minutes ago, GoCeltics said:

Why not simply say “restoration of the Twelve Tribes” then?

The Articles of Faith are not that technical in nature. The thing about the phrase "restoration of the Ten Tribes" is that it is a relatively common phrase used in the later 18th and early 19th century with a specific connotation and meaning. The Article of Faith is referring to this idea - it isn't inventing something new - and this was important because it wasn't being used to communicate with a small group with their own technical vocabulary.

[GoCeltics]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

There was (and still is) a progressive nature to our LDS theology. For example, we no longer are trying actively to move the Church's headquarters to Missouri, to establish Zion in preparation for the millennium - and we are not trying to get members of the Church to move there.

Won’t Latter-day Saints now living in Salt Lake City and other places in the United States “gather their riches” so they can “purchase an inheritance” in Missouri and assist in building the New Jerusalem in order to seek safety and refuge from war and other calamities leading up to the Second Coming as Doctrine and Covenants 45:65-69 teaches?