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S2E30 · Apocrypha Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 30 · 1:03:47

Apocrypha Part 1

Joseph Smith's own Bible, printed in 1828, came from one of the last years American printers included the Apocrypha in the King James Bible.

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When you're told you'll be blessed once you finish the translation of the Bible, how do you know when you're done, and what do you do with the Apocrypha?

Gerrit

Richard and Gerrit start a look at D&C 91 and the Apocrypha, beginning with why Joseph would even need to ask about it: D&C 90 promised blessings when he finished translating the Bible, so how would he know when he was done? Gerrit explains where the Apocrypha came from, Richard shares his family's Hanukkah reading from Maccabees, and Gerrit reads the expanded story of Daniel, Bel and the Dragon. He traces how Martin Luther set the books apart, how Christian primitivists wanted to strip away tradition, and how Protestants in Joseph's day pushed the Apocrypha out of the King James Bible altogether. The episode ends on a cliffhanger: where does that leave Latter-day Saints?

Who comes upJoseph SmithMartin LutherJohann TetzelJudah MaccabeeDanielHabakkukAlexander CampbellJohn CalvinWilliam Craig BrownleeOrson Pratt
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Richard announces D&C 91 and the Apocrypha, and Gerrit claims 80% of emails are about it.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, we wanted to talk about Doctrine and Covenants, Section 91 and the Apocrypha.
Gerrit We figured, you know, what's a bigger hot button issue?
Richard Oh my gosh, all of the kids, all of the, every kid is talking about it.
Gerrit Of the emails we receive, I mean, it's greater than 80% are on the Apocrypha, I would guess.
Richard It is, it really, really is.
Gerrit Yeah, and you know, even emails that don't directly mention the Apocrypha, I think that that's what they're implying.
Richard We're picking up what you're putting down, and that's why we're gonna do a 13-parter on the Apocrypha.
Gerrit Yeah, we're gonna do 17 parts on the Apocrypha of Christian scripture. So this is a revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants, so I'm not just making this up, even though it sounds like I am. Unlike all of the other material we present on this podcast, this is not made up. This is a section that's received in 1833, and it's actually related to Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible. So one of the cool aspects of Section 91 is that it's clearly a response to another commandment that Joseph has received from the Lord. You don't get to see this terribly often in Joseph Smith's work, but you do get to see it occasionally where it's not just the church that's receiving a direction from these revelations and acting on it, that it's Joseph himself. So the day before Section 91 is received, it's received March 9th of 1833, another section of the Doctrine and Covenants, another revelation was received, Section 90.
Gerrit Very convenient for us that they're back to back that way, but thank you Orson Pratt for reorganizing the Doctrine and Covenants in 1876. But the previous revelation, I think most people know Doctrine and Covenants, Section 90 more because there's a lot more in it about the duties and roles of leadership. I think a lot of people know the phrase from verse 15 of Section 90, that to study and learn and become acquainted with all good books and with languages, tongues and peoples, there's an educational aspect to it. Well, why do I say that D&C 90 kind of causes this revelation of Doctrine and Covenants, Section 91 the next day? Because part of what Joseph is told in this revelation, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 90, is that once he finishes the translation of the Bible, that he is going to have these other authorities and also revelations. So if you go to verse 12 of Section 90, And now verily I say unto you, I give unto you a commandment that you continue in the ministry and presidency.
Gerrit And when you finish the translation of the prophets, you shall from thenceforth preside over the affairs of the church and the school. Now the school being mentioned here is the very recently established school of the prophets that has just been established there in Kirtland. Verse 14, and from time to time, as shall be manifested by the comforter, receive revelations to unfold the mysteries of the kingdom. Now that is a pretty big promise. Once you finish the translation, I'm going to unfold to you the mysteries of the kingdom. So Joe's been working on the Bible translation since 1830. And he started with the Old Testament and then like most of us switched to the New Testament because it's just better, you know, it's easier to read. I mean, probably, I mean, I don't know this, but you know, he got to like Deuteronomy. I was like, let's see what Matthew has to say. And then, you know, just moves over.
Gerrit So he's already completed the New Testament translation, but he's got to go back to completing the, especially the minor prophets of the Old Testament, the translation of the Bible. So why does this have to do with section 91? So he's told, March 8th, when you're done with the translation, then you get to have all these promises. Well, what is one of the natural questions Joseph's going to have if the statement is, when you're done with the translation? One of the natural questions is, how do I know when I'm done with the translation? Why would he even ask that question? You just look at the Bible. Well, this is where understanding the history of Joseph Smith's time helps us understand what's going on in the Revelation. So, the Revelation Doctrine of Section 91 is on the Apocrypha. Now, I would say for most Latter-day Saints, they might have heard of the Apocrypha.
Gerrit I'm sure it's a heavy metal band too, I would guess. You want to check on that? You want to do some research, see if there's a band called the Apocrypha?
Richard Looking at it right now. We'll have our research team on it.
Gerrit I feel like maybe we should start one.
Richard Yeah?
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard What would it be, The Triangle in Tamverine?
Gerrit What are we gonna play? Yeah, no, I'd be the DJ. But the Apocrypha are these old books that used to be contained in most Bibles in Christendom. What are they? Well, they're books that were not part of the original Hebrew Bible, but were often included and circulated in books of scripture at the time of Christ and afterwards. The books of the Apocrypha that people are most familiar with are probably First and Second Maccabees, because it's in that portion that you get the explanation of Hanukkah and things like that. Did you look it up? Is there a?
Richard I did, there sure is. It's a power thrash metal band, Apocrypha.
Gerrit I literally had no idea. And yet could just call the fact that I bet it's a heavy metal band.
Richard The Eyes of Time and Area 54 are two of their most popular.
Gerrit Oh yeah, I remember my high school dance days.
Richard Well, 1987 is really when they hit their peak. So we'll obviously be posting a link in the description of our guest.
Gerrit We'll probably look at the lyrics first, but that is pretty funny that you can basically take any Judeo-Christian religious concept and it's a heavy metal band also.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit As one set of- The Rash Metal. Yeah, The Rash Metal. Well, I mean, that's a truism of life.
Richard I'm sure they have a power ballad in there.
Gerrit Oh yeah, I'm sure they do. It's, you know, we're knocking on heaven's door. Anyway, these books were a kind of a problem when it came to a determination of what would be included in the Bible when the Bible was piecing together, was being pieced together by leaders of the early Christian church, really in the three and four hundreds AD. We could do a history of the books in the Bible, but just as a refresher, the books that are in the Bible were not bound together in a single book like they are now. They were different circulating letters of Paul, different gospels that were circulating. And over time, there came to be a canonized group of these books that were accepted by all the Christian church. Well, all the ones who weren't then excommunicated for not accepting those as Christian books. But the Apocrypha was different because early Christians made the determination not to toss out the Old Testament books.
Gerrit Christians, of course, were arguing that they were actually the fulfillment of these prophecies in the Old Testament. Now, that's not true of every Christian. There are entire Christian, we would call them heresies, certainly the Catholics called them heresies, that argued actually that the Old Testament wasn't even inspired scripture. The Marcionite controversy, you know, several hundred years after Jesus, Marcion is claiming that none of the books of the Old Testament are inspired, and that only the New Testament and only some portions of what's today in the New Testament come from God. Well, that is trying to deal with the fact that there's this transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So similar to that, there are books that are in circulation among the Jews that are included in the Septuagint, the Greek-speaking scripture collection, the Greek scriptures that would have been in circulation in Jesus' time, that aren't part of the original Hebrew Bible.
Gerrit But they've been in circulation for hundreds of years. People read from them, they quote from them. So if they're not part of the Hebrew Bible, are they scripture? An example of some of these books, you have 1st and 2nd Esdras, Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther. So this is, it's an expansion of the Book of Esther in the Bible. The wisdom of Solomon, not to be confused with the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Azariah, Susanna. I so badly want to say, don't you cry for me.
Richard In my head, that's what I was doing.
Gerrit Okay, that's what I was saying. My favorite named one is Bell and the Dragon.
Richard I love that Disney movie.
Gerrit Bell and the Dragon.
Richard Oh, it's so good.
Gerrit It's a different bell. This is B-E-L, the Babylonian god. So I don't know that that's the same thing as Beauty and the Beast. You're right.
Richard That's probably DreamWorks.
Gerrit Yeah, DreamWorks. Yeah, obviously. The Prayer of Manasseh and First and Second Maccabees. Now, like I said, most people are most familiar with Maccabees because they're at least somewhat familiar with the Hanukkah story. And I'm going to turn to our resident Bar Mitzvahed co-host to tell us a little bit about Maccabees and Hanukkah.
Richard Well, so first of all, so my family, we celebrate Hanukkah every year and we read from part of this as we talk about the Hanukkah story. So you have the Greeks, they're coming in and they've defiled the temple and they've put up a-
Gerrit As Greeks are want to do.
Richard As Greeks are want to do. They're like, where's the temple? Let's put a statue of Zeus up in it.
Gerrit Is there any way we could get an Athena in here?
Richard So you have this Maccabean revolt in the, you know, right after 200 BC. What is it? Yeah, right after that. I think that they win and they drive the Greeks out around 167 BC, something like that. And you can tell already in the way I'm describing it, when I say something like that, that I'm not the history professor, I don't know what happened between 500 A's.
Gerrit Sometime in our Jewish past.
Richard Anyway, so they drive them out. And so Judah the Hammer Maccabee, which is my favorite name in all Judaism.
Gerrit If Richard were to have a professional wrestling name, Richard the Hammer.
Richard So we actually, so we purchased a dog that I'm allergic to, and I wanted to name the dog Judah the Hammer Maccabee, but it was a girl.
Gerrit Why didn't you name it Judith the Hammer?
Richard That's what I wanted to go with, Judith the Hammer Maccabee. And we went with Scout. Anyway, so the Greeks are driven out by the Maccabeean revolt, and they go to dedicate the temple, and they only had enough oil for one night, and it takes a period of time to dedicate oil in order to be able to use it in the temple. But the oil lasted for eight crazy nights. And so it's a celebration, festival of lights. It's a fun holiday, obviously, to celebrate. But we actually are pretty familiar with the Maccabees because of Hanukkah's night celebration.
Gerrit And I would guess that most Latter-day Saints in America, they probably haven't sat down to scripture study of Belle and the Dragon, but they're at least familiar with the Hanukkah story, and they may not know where it comes from, but that it comes from Maccabees.
Richard And they also, I mean, you probably have a lot of Latter-day Saints as well that know, well, so Malachi ends, and then Jesus doesn't come for a while.
Gerrit Yeah, 400 years of silence.
Richard Yeah, so, but in some of those, some of, so that-
Gerrit The books of the Maccabees, for instance, take place during that supposed 400 years of silence.
Richard That's right, not all of those books do, but some of them.
Gerrit And so that's the, so you see these books are in circulation. Clearly, you know, Maccabees is considered, you know, sacred to many Jews and the fact that it's, it's relating these miracles of, of God delivering them out of the, out of the hands of the Greeks. But I think for most people, they're very unfamiliar with them and, and even what, what's going on. And, and in the early Christian church, that decision has to be made. Do we include these in the Bible? They're in circulation in Jesus' time. They're being quoted as if they are scripture. But we also know that they are not actually part of the, you know, Malachi ends the Hebrew Bible, not these other books. The decision is made to include them in the Bible. And they are part of the, the, the Latin Vulgate, which is the, the Bible, which is the standard Bible that will come down through Catholicism all throughout the first, you know, century, I mean, millennia and a half of, of, of Christendom.
Gerrit So that's how they make their way into the Bible. Now you're thinking, well, wait a minute, I have a Bible and I, I don't see it. You can still buy a Bible, have the Apocrypha books in them, but most don't have them in them. And that's where again, our history question comes in. You know, you didn't think I was going to let us just talk about, you know, religion, we have to talk about the history of it. When Martin Luther, you know, as the Catholics might say, had his little temper tantrum, as Lutherans might say, had his eyes opened, when Martin Luther rejects the teachings of the Catholic Church and eventually, you know, creates his own movement, one of the things that he's most interested in doing, is translating the Bible into German, so that it can be read. So one of the things that was rare was for Christians in Europe at the time to be able to read the Bible.
Gerrit The Church held that the Bible, the Catholic Church held that the Bible had to be maintained in Latin, and they actually decreed that attempts to translate it into other languages was heresy. You know that this is what happened to some early reformers, like Wycliffe and Tyndale, right? They were trying to translate the Bible or providing copies of translations of the Bible in other languages. Luther wants the Bible to be in, not just in every household, because a lot of people own Bibles that they can't actually read because they don't speak Latin, but read. And you can see this is the foundation of Protestant theology. Luther's primary arguments are going to be that salvation comes from faith alone through the grace of Christ. There are no works that cause you to be saved. You are saved purely on the basis of the grace of Jesus.
Gerrit Now, of course, you're going to do good things because you have that grace, but you're only saved on the basis of the grace that has afforded you, not because of following the seven sacraments or whatever. Secondly, Luther's powerful claim, so that affects all Protestantism, the idea that you're only saved by faith alone. And to a greater or lesser extent, every Protestant denomination has that as a central part of what they believe, that salvation is faith-based. You are saved through your faith through the grace of Jesus Christ. The second part of Luther's Reformation, that is also, I mean, ring, it is a huge part of Protestantism today, regardless of the sect that you belong to, and that is Luther is going to argue the Bible is the only source of revealed knowledge from God.
Gerrit In other words, as I've said before, if it ain't in the Bible, it ain't. That's the kind of way of looking at it. You're thinking, well, of course, it has to be in the Bible for it to be true if you're a Christian. But that's because you're a, you know, if you're not a Latter-day Saint listening to this and you've stumbled onto this podcast by mistake, you've learned the name Richard wanted to name his dog, but also some odd things about Latter-day Saint theology. But the idea that of course truth has to be in the Bible is a Protestant understanding that we actually culturally have in the United States today, but it's not the way most Christians thought over the course of 1500 years. Because the Catholic Church claims two ways of knowing the truth. The scriptures is one of the ways, and what's the other one? Well, it wouldn't surprise you that since the Catholic Church is claiming that they are the literal continuation of the truth from the time of Peter, all the way down to now, that tradition is also instructive of how God wants you to do things.
Gerrit Now, again, even Latter-day Saints, hearing me say this thing, what do you mean tradition? Because we've got a pretty bad idea of traditions because of the Book of Mormon, right? The traditions of their fathers kind of thing. But from the Catholic perspective, if we are literally the spiritual descendants of the first churches that Peter and Paul are setting up, then that means the way things have been done is actually a demonstration of the way God wanted them done because we trace it all the way back, and so God wanted it to be done this way. So tradition is also a way of knowing what you should do. Should we do X? Well, back in the original church, they did that, so we should.
Richard I had a great quote, actually. So this is a heavy Jewish content. When my uncle passed away, we went back east to visit, and the rabbi came and spoke to my aunt, and he said something about tradition, which when you think of a Jewish person saying tradition...
Gerrit Next thing you know, they're on a roof.
Richard That's right, with a fiddle. So what he said, which I thought was fairly profound was, tradition tells us what to do when we don't know what to do. And given that there are a tremendous number of traditions that Jews do, especially when somebody passes away, it's a difficult time, and that was kind of his point. He was like, boy, it's a difficult time. We don't know what to do. Let's follow tradition. It's comfortable. We know what that looks like, and we can do that.
Gerrit Right, and for Catholicism, as they're claimed to have been the church that was founded by Jesus and by Peter and by Paul, they can point to tradition saying, well, as long as we've known, we've always done X. So X must actually date all the way back to Peter and Paul. Now, there's a much greater difficulty of proving that some aspects of this tradition date all the way back, but there's some power in the fact that it's been done that long. I mean, it's pretty historically demonstrable that the teaching that nuns, priests and bishops could not be married, that they had to be celibate, doesn't date all the way back to Peter. In fact, it's an odd thing that the Bible itself says that bishops should be husbands of one wife, and then in the modern Catholic Church, they can't have any, right?
Gerrit The zero-wise. But that change to a clergy, a celibate clergy, is by Martin Luther's time, a five, six hundred-year-old change. And then you see the weight of tradition over the course of time. This is the way it's been for six hundred years. And who are you to say that it shouldn't be that way? So God, in his church, has allowed it to be that way. So it doesn't even have to date all the way back, because the very fact that God has had it that way in his church for a long time is evidence that that's the way God wants it to be. Now someone who's a critic of Catholicism might say, well, that's kind of a tautology, right? That, well, the way we had it just so happens to be the way God always wanted it to be. And for those of you Protestants who are listening to this podcast, seeking for another way to attack a Catholic person, maybe that's the argument you're going to take. But the important aspect of why I bring that up is Luther absolutely rejects the idea of tradition being a way to know the truth.
Gerrit Now, don't misunderstand. Luther certainly does not throw away every aspect of Christian tradition that he has himself lived his whole life. And in fact, some of the critics of Luther's Reformation are going to say, looking pretty Catholic there, Martin. You know, I mean, they're going to say that he didn't eliminate enough. But for Luther's argument, he's going to say, anything that we maintain is going to be because the scriptures say it. If you can't find it in the scriptures, then we aren't going to follow it. So let me give you an example of a doctrine that is not expressly found in the Bible, but was maintained as a true doctrine, the doctrine of purgatory. You can't find the word, you know, purgatory used in that sense in the Bible. But it had come to be this important Catholic doctrine of this place between heaven and hell, where those who otherwise, you know, they've done what they perform, the ordinances they need to be able to go to heaven, but they have to have their sins purged out of them.
Gerrit So there needs to be this space in between heaven and hell where the eventual people going to heaven can be perfect when they go to heaven. Well, Luther rejects the doctrine of purgatory. The doctrine of purgatory is what had actually spurred his reformation in the first place, because various sales of indulgences, the claim for the indulgence sellers was by pre-paying through a donation to the church, you could lessen or eliminate your time in purgatory. So your average Christian living a good life is still going to have some sins when he dies, so he can't go directly to heaven, so he's going to have to go to purgatory until those sins are purged out.
Richard I will say, the religious side of me is offended by what happens with Johan Tetzel and the paying to get your way out. But the business side of me really respects.
Gerrit Right, the business PhD in Richard is like... I appreciate... Respect the hustle. Tetzel's growth plan was outstanding.
Richard Every time a coin in the coffer clings, a soul from purgatory springs. Now, that's the kind of marketing that... Boy, the best ad firms on Madison Avenue...
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, you can only wonder what if Johan Tetzel had the ability to employ like Google Ad Matrix. I mean, he could have reached so many. In Martin Luther's opinion, he and other indulgent sellers of the church had already reached too many. And so, the doctrine of purgatory itself becomes a very stark problem for Protestants because the argument is that when you have faith and you have the grace of Christ, you are saved regardless of your sins. You're not saved because you don't have sins anymore. You're saved because the grace of Christ saves you, even though you are a sinner. And that's such a very stark departure. Why am I spending so much time on this? Well, because everyone likes to talk a little bit about indulgences and purgatory. But the point being, if you're going to make a claim that the only truth comes from the Bible, that it has nothing to do with tradition, that even things that you traditionally do, if you can't prove them in the Bible, then they're not true.
Gerrit I mean, for instance, one thing that Martin Luther decides very quickly isn't in the Bible is that it is not in the Bible that priests shouldn't be married. In fact, it says the opposite in the Bible. So Martin Luther very promptly and, you know, surprisingly gets married, right? He goes from being a celibate monk to getting married in the early stages of his Reformation. So if the Bible is the only way that you can know the truth, you can now see how essential it is to Protestants that the Bible is in every home and in a language that everyone can read because it's the only way you can determine what is true. Related to that, then, is this question that's going to be recurring one in Protestantism. If the Bible is the only way that you can know the truth, well, then it's pretty important I know what books should be in the Bible and what books shouldn't be in the Bible.
Gerrit This has actually made all the more stark because some of the doctrines that Martin Luther is railing against have their primary quote unquote scriptural support. For a Catholic, they're going to claim that they have scriptural support in the Apocrypha. Protestants are going to say, no, that's not even that good of an argument. But regardless, the Apocrypha is books in the Apocrypha are actually used to support doctrines like purgatory. So that's going to lead to the question of, should these books even be in the Bible? Because as Martin Luther does his translation of the Bible, one of the things that he realizes very quickly, he might have already known since he was a scholar, that the books of the Apocrypha, those books I listed off, they are not part of the original Hebrew Bible. The original Hebrew Bible ends in Malachi and doesn't include things like Belle and the Dragon.
Gerrit So they've been in circulation in the Catholic Bible for 1500, well, for 1100 years at this point. Do you keep them in the Bible even though you know that they weren't original to the Hebrew Bible, to the Old Testament? But they've been quoted from pulpits all over Christendom for 1100 years. That is part of the question. And so what does Martin Luther do? He translates the books of the Apocrypha, but then he places them all at the end of the Old Testament. So he puts them all in one place, and they're designated the Apocrypha. And in his translation, he says, that they, quote, were not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read. I think Luther probably realized he's already starting kind of a problem with his reformation, that, you know, rejecting so many aspects of Christian life that had been part of Christian life for 1500 years.
Gerrit The last thing you want to be accused of is altering the Bible, right? You're already altering it by translating it into German.
Richard As a Latter-day Saint, yes. We're especially sensitive to this idea.
Gerrit If any man adds to or takes away from the words of this book, let him be accursed, that kind of thing, right? So they are included at the end of Luther's translation. They're separated, but they are in the scriptures. And this begins this kind of long-running odyssey in Protestantism to try to figure out what to do with these books. It means that when the King James translators, later, 100 plus years later, after Martin Luther, when they translated the King James Bible, which becomes the standard among most American Protestants over the course of the next several hundred years, they too translated the books of the Apocrypha, just like Luther had done, and they included them at the back of the Old Testament. So they were in the Bible. You are looking at your King James Bible right now, saying, no, they're not. And this is the reason why this historical, you know, inquiry matters so much.
Gerrit Let me give you a little bit of a flavor of some of the things that you would find in the Apocrypha that you wouldn't know otherwise. I mean, we already talked about, obviously, the story of the Maccabees, but for instance, let's go to Belle and the Dragon, because I just can't get away from it. I mean, it could be a sitcom.
Richard Like Belle comes home and the dragon's had a bad day.
Gerrit The dragon's had a bad day, like, you know, I'm just steaming mad, you know, I don't know. And then there's a laugh track with people clapping in the background. We all know the story of Daniel and the lion's den, right? How long was Daniel in the lion's den?
Richard A night.
Gerrit Au contraire, my French friend. In fact, what we get is an expansion of the story of Daniel and the lion's den in Belle and the Dragon. For instance, let's see here. If you go to Belle and the Dragon, Chapter 1, you get the story of Daniel and the lion's den, but you get it told a different way. I'll just read some of this from the Apocrypha book of Belle and the Dragon. This is Chapter 1. This dragon is one of the things that they worship. So starting in verse 23. And in that same place, there was a great dragon, which they of Babylon worshiped. And the king said unto Daniel, wilt thou also say that this is of brass? Lo, he liveth, he eateth, and drinketh. Thou canst not say that he is no living God. Therefore worship him. So apparently they're trying to, the king's trying to convince Daniel that this apparent idol, which kind of makes it sound like it might be an actual dragon, but I don't know if they're delivering food offerings to him and they disappear because the priests are taking them.
Gerrit But at any rate, then Daniel said unto the king, I will worship the Lord my God, for he is the living God. But give me leave, O King, and I shall slay this dragon without sword or staff. And the king said, I give thee leave. Then Daniel took pitch and fat and hair and did seed them together and made lumps thereof. This he put in the dragon's mouth. And so the dragon burst in sunder. And Daniel said, lo, these are the gods ye worship. So one of the cool parts about this is that Daniel isn't just like, I'm going to pray regardless. Daniel's straight idle destroying. He is the dragon slayer of Belle and the dragon. When they of Babylon heard that, they took great indignation and conspired against the king, saying, the king is become a Jew, and he hath destroyed Belle. He hath slain the dragon and put the priest to death.
Gerrit So they came to the king and said, Deliver us, Daniel, or else we will destroy thee and thine house. So this is a little bit, as I said, very different of what all Daniel is being accused of than what you get from the Bible. Now when the king saw that they pressed him sore, being constrained, he delivered Daniel unto them, who cast him into the lion's den where he was six days. So verse 31 of Belle and the Dragon says that Daniel was in the lion's den for six days, which usually, again, we usually think of as just, you know, we look in there and he's playing with the lion. I've always thought when I was a kid that it was, you know, interesting that they named the lion on Mr. Rogers' name of Daniel, right? It made sense, right? At any rate. And in the den, there were seven lions. Did you know there were seven lions? I did. You do now. And they had given them every day two carcasses and two sheep, which were not, which when they were not giving them to the intent that they might devour that case.
Gerrit So they're usually feeding them a bunch, these seven lions. And then they just don't give them because with the intent that they might devour Daniel. Now there was in Jewry, a prophet called Habakkuk, who had made pottage and had broken bread in a bowl and was going into the field for to bring it to the reapers. But the angel of the Lord said to Habakkuk, go carry thy dinner that thou hast into Babylon unto Daniel, who is in the lion's den. And Habakkuk said, Lord, I never saw Babylon, neither do I know where the den is. Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head. I feel like Habakkuk is being drugged by an angel by his hair.
Richard All I wanted was the address.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, seriously. Babylon, I mean, well, I mean, who's Habakkuk trying to kid? Yeah, right.
Richard Oh, I've never heard of Babylon.
Gerrit But Babylon, what's that? You know, the empire that controls the entirety of the Mideast? I mean, I feel like you got to do better when it's an angel asking you what to do, right?
Richard Oh, so you're going the other way. You're saying that Habakkuk's like, oh yeah, no, I've never heard of this place. I've never heard of these guys.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like his excuse is pretty bad.
Richard I've never heard of Babylon, don't know where that is. And lions then, don't know.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, I've got some pottage here, but I was planning to have a nice lentil soup myself. Anyway, the angel drags him by his hair, and through the vehemency of his spirit, set him in Babylon over the den. And Habakkuk cried, saying, Oh, Daniel, Daniel, take the dinner which God hath sent thee. And Daniel said, thou has remembered me, O God, neither hast thou forsaken them that seek thee and love thee. So Daniel arose and did eat, and the angel of the Lord set Habakkuk in his own place again immediately. So I don't know if he drug him back to where he was with his hair, but he did take him back. Upon the seventh day, the king went to bewail Daniel. So the king, of course, thought Daniel was dead after seven days of being with hungry lions. And when he came to then, he looked in, and behold, Daniel was sitting. Then cried the king with a loud voice, saying, Great art, Lord God of Daniel, and there is none else besides thee. And he drew him out and cast those who were the cause of his destruction into the den, and they were devoured in a moment before his face.
Richard Yeah, the lions are starving. They haven't had a carcass and sheep for some time.
Gerrit They're looking for carcass, sheep. They didn't get any of the pottage, apparently, that the hair-dragging angel brought Habakkuk in by. This is a huge expansion of the story.
Richard Yeah, this is fascinating.
Gerrit It is fascinating. Maybe we should just do an entire Let's Study the Apocrypha. It's what the people cry out for.
Richard Yeah, absolutely. Before we get to what the Lord tells Joseph, let's just do just all Apocryphal.
Gerrit What I want most is Eric to comment on this one.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit I know that he's excited. He's listening right now, and he's thinking...
Richard Oh, the Apocrypha.
Gerrit That's great. Is there any way we could also do Compromise of 1850? At any rate, it kind of gives you an idea that the Apocrypha books often relate to the already existing stories in the Bible and then expand upon them. Important to understand that by Martin Luther's time, these books are in the Bible, and they've been being quoted for centuries. These are parts of homilies and sermons that are made. There is all kinds of doctrine that's coming out of these. And Martin Luther is going to maintain them in the Bible, but provide that caveat that, well, you know, these are not the same as scripture. You're thinking, we are so far into this, and you haven't even begun to explain why Joseph Smith received this revelation. Yeah, that's, again, the fatal flaw of asking a historian any question. You have to wade through all kinds of townships and treaties of Guadalupe Hidalgo before you actually get to where they're at.
Gerrit But what's going on in Joseph Smith's time? I mean, if revelations often come, as the response to questions that are asked, for instance, Joseph and Oliver reading in the Book of Mormon translation that it's a requirement to have proper authority to be baptized, and by the way, baptism is essential, well, the question then gets asked, how can I then have authority to be baptized? Where does authority come from? And you get the revelation of John the Baptist coming and giving them authority. Joseph is told that you need to finish the translation of the scriptures, and then you're going to have all these marvelous miracles that are going to happen. But that is going to beg a question, well, why would the question of, should the Apocrypha be part of, the King James Bible that Joseph Smith is using, he's using a Finney Bible, that's spelled with a P-H-P-H-I-N-N-E-Y, that he's using for the translation of both the Old and the New Testament, includes the Apocrypha in it, like almost every single Christian Bible did up to that point in Christianity.
Gerrit But it just so happens that Joseph was living in this time period. One of the things that comes out of the Second Great Awakening is a renewed hostility to Catholicism. Now, any Catholics listening will be like, oh, surprising, so Protestants began attacking us for our beliefs. Who would have thunk it? But in America especially, this happened in the early Reformation, where people began castigating Luther, that he was far too Catholic. And yet the entire Anabaptist movement in Europe was essentially an argument that the Reformation had not gone far enough in its radicalism to completely get rid of any vestiges of Catholic thought. So, for instance, there's a whole iconoclastic movement in Europe during the Reformation era, where I mean, mobs of people literally go to churches and destroy every piece of stained glass they can find, every statue.
Gerrit It doesn't matter if it's a statue of Peter holding his sword. The mobs are going to come and completely break it into pieces because that's a graven image. Now, Luther is not advocating that, but people who are taking Protestant ideology to its furthest end are saying, if it is not expressly stated in the Bible, it's therefore false. Well, show me some stained glass in the Bible. Of course, it's not stained glass. So this is just iconography that's being used to pollute people's minds. Well, in The Second Great Awakening, you have a similar movement of people trying to get back to the original church. Again, if you take the Protestant view that the church was once clearly founded by the Lord Jesus and that it became corrupted over time, hence the need for a reformation of people like Martin Luther and John Calvin, well, then what does that mean?
Gerrit It means that you're trying to separate out the good Christian history from the bad Christian tradition. So good Christian history is the council of Nicaea that establishes the idea of Trinitarian thought. All Protestants embrace that as being an absolutely true doctrine that's coming from true Christians who lived in an earlier age. The doctrine of purgatory is being rejected as a false traditional teaching that was added out side of the Bible. Now, of course, Protestants are going to point to multiple scriptures in the New Testament that they say demonstrate a Trinitarian theology. One of those scriptures being added to the New Testament much later, but there's this belief that, again, I'm proving everything I believe by the Bible itself. So you have movements like Alexander Campbell's.
Gerrit Alexander Campbell's is what we would call, and this is, you know, I'm not trying to use a fancy word, but Christian primitivism. I hate the word primitivism in the sense that I know that most people who hear it are like, so you mean that they, you know, these are people who are drawing on cave walls. And I mean, the term primitive just has such a negative connotation in today's world, especially if someone, you know, has an iPhone and they, you know, they talk to Becky, Richard's wife, and they say, you have such a primitive Samsung, right? Why can't we text you when we're traveling? Because you won't, you have a primitive phone. It's a negative connotation usually. But in 19th century, this renewed Protestant exuberance in the United States is saying we have got to cut all of the vestiges of tradition out of our church.
Gerrit Even the fact that there's X in the church, that's actually just a holdover from Catholicism that should have been burned out. It's honestly what the Puritans in the original founding colonies of America, it was their argument that the Church of England, yes, had become Calvinist, yes, had moved away and separated itself, but still looked an awful lot like Catholic Mass, right? The Anglican Mass looked very similar, and the argument of Puritans was this, the reformation of the English Church had not gone deep enough to cut out these false traditions and these false beliefs, hence the need to purify the Church of England, and hence the term Puritan. Two hundred years later, you have a similar thing going on in America where you have these radical Protestant groups arguing that the now mainline Protestant churches of Presbyterianism and the Baptists and the Episcopalians, that they had not gone far enough in getting back to what Jesus had initially set up.
Gerrit And Alexander Campbell's movement is this Christian Primitivist movement, meaning primitive, meaning getting back to the first. It's not about Alexander Campbell saying, we want to draw on cave walls, or have a Samsung. It is Alexander Campbell saying, we want to get back to literally only things that can be proved by the Holy Scriptures. It is absolutely just the Bible. So for instance, the word transubstantiation isn't in the Bible. So we're not going to accept that as a doctrine because it's not in the Bible. Luther had maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation. And I guess I should say transubstantiation is the belief that when the priest blesses the bread and the wine for the Holy Communion, for the Lord's Supper, that a transformation is actually made in the bread, that it literally becomes the body and then the wine, the blood of Christ.
Gerrit That process, that miracle is called transubstantiation. It had been Catholic doctrine forever. Luther maintains transubstantiation as a doctrine in his early church. Now, of course, there are others like Ulrich Zwingli who are like, what are you, are you kidding me? No, this is not literal. This is just, it's symbolic. But Luther believes he's backed up by scripture. Jesus doesn't actually say, take, eat. This is a symbolic gesture reminding you that my body was broken for you. That's not what the scriptures say. The scriptures say, take, eat, this is my body. And so Luther is going to take it very literally in that regard and say transubstantiation, while obviously perverted and not done the right way or taught the right way by the Catholic Church is a true doctrine. Other reformers are going to disagree. And so Joseph is living in the midst of this renewed Protestant zeal, where existing Protestant churches actually are dealing with old light Presbyterians who are kind of maintaining this older traditional view and new light Presbyterians who are arguing for a more radical view of their already existing doctrines.
Gerrit One of the things that is easy for Protestants to take aim at is the books of the Apocrypha. You're wondering, when is he ever going to get back to it? Well, this is where I'm getting back to it. After the townships, after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, we are now back to it. There are multiple Protestant theologians in Joseph Smith's time that are arguing strenuously that the Apocrypha is not scripture. They are angry that it has been included in the King James Bible. And in fact, in England, in the 1820s, this is such a big argument that multiple Presbyterian churches refuse to take part in the British and Foreign Bible Society, which was this group that was trying to print Bibles to print them and distribute them all over the world. Multiple Presbyterian churches withhold their funds, refuse to be a part of it anymore because the Apocrypha is in the King James Bible.
Gerrit Now, the Apocrypha has been in the King James Bible since it was published. So for 200 years, every single King James Bible has the Apocrypha in it. These Protestants were holding these books never should have been in the Bible. And so they actually demand that it be taken out. Seeing that this rift was going the wrong way, the British and Foreign Bible Society makes that decision. We're going to take the Apocrypha out. So the American and Foreign Bible Society, which, you know, basically just a branch of their British cousins, essentially.
Richard Yeah, I've always thought that they were a weak organization. They always just bowed to the...
Gerrit They were the bell and the dragon of their day, right? But no, the American Foreign Bible Society, they kind of see the writing on the wall. This movement of, you know, frankly, anti-Catholicism is gaining even much more steam in the highly, much more evangelical place of the United States, especially in the Burned-over district and in the upper Midwest, which is the most religious part of the country in Joseph Smith's time. And so the American Bible Society makes the determination that they are no longer going to print and distribute Bibles in 1828. They are no longer going to, after that date, they're no longer going to print and distribute Bibles that have the Apocrypha in them. Joseph Smith's Finney Bible that he has just so happens to be published when? In 1828.
Gerrit He actually, the Bible he's using is one of the last years that Bible producers of the King James Bible in America are going to include the Apocrypha. Because after 1828, it is seen as this Catholic interlopation. They've gone far beyond where Martin Luther was. Martin Luther was that these are not to be held equal to the Holy Scripture, yet they're profitable and good to read. Let me give you an idea of where Protestant theologians are at the time of Joseph Smith. There's one Calvinist theologian by the name of William Craig Brownlee. He is someone who is very willing to condemn others for not believing the right things, and he makes a concerted attack on Catholicism. And part of what he attacks Catholicism for is for having changed the Holy Scriptures because you included in the Bible these books of the Apocrypha, which were clearly never in the Hebrew Bible.
Gerrit Apparently William Craig Brownlee doesn't actually want to know how many days Daniel was in the lion's den or how he caused the dragon to explode. Here's Brownlee talking about the Apocrypha and its Catholic believers. These books bound up in some of our Bibles, your priests with an affection of gravity impose on their simple flocks as the, quote, Word of God. This I call unceremoniously, quote, uttering a falsehood in the name and under the very eye of the Almighty. The Apocrypha's writers were not sent of God. They nowhere affirm this. Their writings have none of the evidence of their divine mission as prophets. They abound with puerility, filthiness, errors, and glaring contradictions. Ludicrous error is the only cause and reason of this book being admitted into the canon. Well, how does William Brownlee actually feel about the Apocrypha? If only he would be upfront in what he, so you can see you've moved.
Gerrit The radicalism of Protestantism have shifted to the point where Luther was radical just in putting those books of the Apocrypha together and making the statement, these are not equal to the Holy Scriptures. Brownlee is arguing, these are lies. These are lies that should never have been included in the Scripture that were foisted upon people by the horrifically corrupt Catholic Church. And so what does that mean? Protestants who are still using the Apocrypha are a continuation of these falsehoods being perpetuated. So in Joseph's time, the more you rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture, the more Protestant and non-Catholic you were. It was like this kind of litmus test. I'm a Protestant, I'm not a Catholic. Oh yeah, do you believe in the Apocrypha? Well, oh, not very Protestant, are you?
Gerrit If you don't believe that that is false.
Richard So this is interesting to me, though, because these are all Old Testament times, or the majority of them, right? So what's happening then when these books are being put in or not put in to where they're kind of putting this on the Catholic Church? I guess in terms of the way that the Septuagint or the Old Testament is put together, how are these books even left out in the first place?
Gerrit Well, so that's the thing, is that the Hebrew Bible is in existence, obviously, before the Septuagint. The Septuagint is this Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible 70 years before Jesus that is in wide circulation in the Mediterranean world, because Greek is the language spoken in the Mediterranean world. So the Septuagint is the common scripture that's in circulation in Jesus' time. The Septuagint includes those books. So the scripture scrolls that someone might have in Jesus' time is going to include these books, but they are clearly outside of the Hebrew Bible itself, which in its Hebrew form doesn't include those books and ends in Malachi.
Gerrit So you can see there's a disconnect there. These books have always been circulating in our scriptures that we have, but if we go back to the original Hebrew Bible, they aren't in there. They are only added later when there's a Greek translation of these other books that are in circulation. So I would guess that it is similar to the kind of discussions that arise in Latter-day Saint circles with the removal of the lectures on faith from the Doctrine and Covenants. The lectures on faith were in the Doctrine and Covenants from 1835 until 1921. Your actual scriptures that you had, the ones you carried to church with you had the lectures on faith as the whole first part of the Doctrine and Covenants. Well, they're not in there anymore, right? Because in 1921, they're taken out. So why are they taken out? Well, I think the argument is made that while the lectures have some cool principles in them, the rest of the Doctrine and Covenants are literally revelations from God to Joseph Smith, which the lectures on faith don't even claim to be.
Richard Right, just teachings.
Gerrit They're just teachings that were part of essentially the School of the Prophets or the Sunday School there in Kirtland. So even when they're introduced in the original Doctrine and Covenants, that's where the term doctrine comes from in Doctrine and Covenants. The doctrine part was here are the teachings that are helpful to us to study. The Covenants part is the revelations. Well, you could see how there might be a problem, even though they're removed from the Doctrine and Covenants. Now what do you have for Latter-day Saints? This ongoing question, which has very much lessened over the course of the past several years, unless you're someone with a YouTube channel trying to predict the end of the world. But in the early days, following the end of the lectures on faith being in the Doctrine and Covenants, there was a great question of, so does this mean that these lectures are somehow less accurate? Because they were in the scriptures and now they're not. So we have our own little discussions about what is and isn't included in the scriptures.
Gerrit But now if you were to magnify that by 1500 years, think about that. I mean, if the articles of faith, which are canonized, which are part of the Pearl of Great Price, they are in our scriptures. Let's say 200 years from now, the leaders of the church were like, you know, the articles of faith are fine, but we believe so much more beyond that. Let's take that out, because I feel like we're focusing way too much on those when we believe in things like work for the dead and temple work, and that's not in there, right? And maybe they come up with a new statement. This is all hypothetical. I'm not advocating this, nor am I saying this is going to happen. That's the caveat that I was like, no, I heard it on the podcast.
Richard He said that he's against the articles.
Gerrit I am not. Oh, my goodness. I can't even give hypotheticals because we're like, oh, yeah, the reason why he's giving that hypothetical is because he is. No, that's not the case. But the point being, how difficult would that reaction be to people at the time? And even if the church said, we still believe in the Articles of Faith, the Articles of Faith are still true, they are still part of the Wentworth letter, the very act of removing them from the scriptures would be, would then engender all kinds of dispute. Do I still quote from, are they still really the first principles of the gospel? I mean, this kind of discussion, this is all hypothetical, but for the Christians in Joseph Smith's time, it's not hypothetical. Every major Protestant theologian essentially is advocating that the Apocrypha at best should not be considered the same as the rest of the scriptures, but there it is in the scriptures. And at worst, that it's a Catholic lie developed to try to perpetrate false and heretical doctrines.
Richard But I still don't understand the Catholic lie part if it's 70 years before Jesus is when these things are making their way into the Septuagint.
Gerrit Well, yeah, so the Catholics saw that certain aspects of these books that they knew weren't in the Hebrew Bible could be used to perpetrate some of their false doctrines such as purgatory and then included them in the Scriptures. So it is part of, I mean, you're always fighting the last war, right? And for Protestants, one of their primary points of target against the Catholic Church is purgatory, because purgatory itself is the greatest anathema there is to the idea of salvation by grace. If there's a place you have to go to have your sins burned out of you while you await going to heaven, then what is that saying? That your sins, your actions, your works is a determining factor in your going to heaven.
Richard And I understand what you said earlier in the podcast as it relates to this idea of this was one of the linchpins. Purgatory is one of the linchpins that really causes the Reformation to even happen in the first place. But I guess I suppose that that makes sense, but it seems like they're throwing the baby out with the purgatory water.
Gerrit Well, if you are trying to prove that you are less Catholic than the other Protestants you're arguing against, Protestants attack each other for this. In newspapers, they'll say things like, Oh, brother so-and-so wants us to believe that he's a biblical Christian, but in fact, he was preaching from the Apocrypha two weeks ago. So again, it's this weird thing because almost every Bible in America that every American actually owns, like Joseph Smith, has the Apocrypha in it. But the rhetoric of all of the preachers is that it shouldn't be in there. We're taking it out of there. We're not going to print it in there. And as you might know, unless you happen to have a family Bible from 1827, every Latter-day Saint listening to me can go grab their King James Bible and there isn't an Apocrypha in it. Because after 1828, the King James Bible was published in America. Now, are there exceptions? Of course, there are exceptions. Someone's going to write to me, actually, in 1856, I know there were still ones published, but in general, the distribution of the King James Bible throughout the United States after 1828 is not going to include the Apocrypha.
Gerrit So there's a literal decanonization of it. Started with the process of Martin Luther saying, hey, this isn't equal to scripture. Well, if it ain't equal to scripture, get it out of the scripture. So where does that leave Latter-day Saints? And I'm going to leave you on a cliffhanger because we're going to talk about where it leaves Latter-day Saints next week in the podcast. So please join us then and we'll continue this discussion of the Apocrypha riveting as it is in our next podcast.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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Of the emails we receive, I mean, it's greater than 80% are on the Apocrypha, I would guess.

GerritBanter

One of the natural questions is, how do I know when I'm done with the translation?

GerritInsight

that is pretty funny that you can basically take any Judeo-Christian religious concept and it's a heavy metal band also.

GerritBanter

tradition tells us what to do when we don't know what to do.

RichardInsight

But the business side of me really respects.

RichardBanter

Daniel's straight idle destroying. He is the dragon slayer of Belle and the dragon.

GerritBanter

All I wanted was the address.

RichardBanter

So in Joseph's time, the more you rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture, the more Protestant and non-Catholic you were.

GerritInsight

But I guess I suppose that that makes sense, but it seems like they're throwing the baby out with the purgatory water.

RichardBanter

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
The King James Bible never had the Apocrypha in it.
Christians have always believed that if something isn't in the Bible, it isn't true.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

D&C 91 answers a real question: D&C 90 promised blessings once Joseph finished translating the Bible, and his Bible still had the Apocrypha in it.

The Apocrypha were in nearly every Christian Bible, including the King James, until Protestants pushed them out; American printers dropped them after 1828.

Martin Luther kept the Apocrypha but said they "were not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read."

Our own Lectures on Faith, in the D&C until 1921, show how hard it can be when something leaves the book of scripture.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The hottest topicOver 80 percent of emails are about the Apocrypha, so a 13- or 17-parter is coming (0:47, 1:12).
The crack research staffRichard confirms Apocrypha is a power thrash metal band that peaked in 1987 (5:42, 6:40).
Belle and the DragonNot the Disney movie, probably DreamWorks; a sitcom where the dragon's had a bad day (10:24, 32:05).
Judah the HammerRichard's favorite name in Judaism, his would-be wrestling name, and nearly his dog's name (12:15, 12:28).
Next thing you know, they're on a roofA rabbi's word on tradition gets a Fiddler on the Roof joke (20:34).
Respect the hustleRichard's business PhD admires Johann Tetzel's coin-in-the-coffer marketing (25:26, 25:49).
Becky's primitive SamsungWhy can't they text her when she travels? (44:05).
Eric and the Compromise of 1850Eric is surely excited, and wonders if they could also do the Compromise of 1850 (38:23, 38:32).
CliffhangersWhere the Apocrypha leaves Latter-day Saints, next week (62:47).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Read D&C 90 and D&C 91 side by side and look for the question the second one answers (2:23).
Read Bel and the Dragon and the other additions to Daniel in an older King James Bible (32:25).
Learn how Bible societies in Britain and America dropped the Apocrypha in the 1820s (48:43).
Look up the Lectures on Faith and why they left the Doctrine and Covenants in 1921 (56:11).
SOT Litner · S2E30.