SOT LitnerStandard of Truth listener companion
Fan-favorite punctuation
S2E49 · The Problem with Punctuation
0:00 / 51:48
13 chapters
← All episodes
Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 49 · 51:48

The Problem with Punctuation

A speaker claimed the only quote marks in Joseph Smith's history surround the Lord's words about creeds, but the 1851 Pearl of Great Price puts "This is my beloved Son. Hear him!" in quotes too.

Press play above. The page follows along.
The question ·

Is it true that the only place in the entire Joseph Smith history where Joseph inserted quotes is around the Lord's words that "they draw near to me with their lips"?

Gerrit

Richard announces plans for a premium side of the podcast, including American history episodes and church history site audio tours, then reads a hilariously redacted fax from a listener from the Rochester area. Gerrit takes up a question from a friend about a talk claiming Joseph Smith put only one phrase in his history in quotation marks for emphasis. He traces the hunger for hidden meanings back to the Gnostics, warns how it can feed apostasy or disappointment, and shares Richard's story of a temple architect hearing tour guides explain symbolism he never intended. Then he shows that the 1851 Pearl of Great Price had other quotes, later set in italics, so the point rests on modern punctuation and not on Joseph.

Who comes upJoseph SmithFranklin D. RichardsHenry B. EyringJudas IscariotPaulDenver Snuffer
Now playing · 0:39

Fan-favorite punctuation

Richard teases the topic and thanks listeners for their support.

Chapters

Tap a chapter to jump there

Transcript

177 moments · tap a time to play from there
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're going to talk about fan favorite, punctuation. But before we...
Gerrit Before you turn that dial.
Richard That's a bit of a tease. We wanted to talk a little bit about something. We actually received quite a few emails and faxes.
Gerrit One fax, one fax, one very extensive fax.
Richard So Gerrit and I, Gerrit especially, is very self-deprecating and it's very endearing.
Gerrit Well, there's a lot of people who hate it.
Richard Most people hate it, but I find it endearing. But essentially, we joke around about the podcast and the listenership, and we are incredibly grateful and humbled by the number of people that listen and that send in emails. But what has happened is that the podcast has actually grown in popularity. Thank you to everybody. Thank you very much. We now actually have tens of thousands of listeners per week. And so there is some additional cost associated with actually running something that isn't...
Gerrit Well, it still has the same level of...
Richard It's not going to get better.
Gerrit The content is the same.
Richard Our abilities are the same. The bandwidth is more. So we talked about a couple of different ideas in terms of what we might be able to do. And so we settled on what if we provided some additional content and that that additional content was potentially behind some sort of paywall, that this podcast would be free forever, and but that additional content would allow for us to pay for kind of everything.
Gerrit Electricity and gas, food.
Richard So that was the idea, in general.
Gerrit Well, so, I mean, we've had people like the stuff we do in American history. So we thought one thing we could do with some premium content is we could have a separate podcast, but still under the same name that we would like to call Condemned to Repeat It.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit That is about American history and different topics in American history. And also, we thought maybe we could provide some other content on the premium site that might provide church history in a more chronological version.
Richard Yeah, we're playing with some of the names. Gerrit hates all of them. I love all of them.
Gerrit Richard makes up names the same way names as children, just haphazardly and without any forethought.
Richard So, Topsfield to Temple Square, I think that's got a good ring to it. Gerrit hates it. My favorite, though, is we also talked about if you were to go to historic church sites, you can go to Harmony.
Gerrit If you're going on a tour there.
Richard Yes, and you weren't coming with us and you wanted to go on a tour and you decided that I will go on a better tour without them, but I still want to hear what they have to say about it.
Gerrit So I can compare it to what the person I'm with says and know how wrong they are.
Richard You're going into Harmony. And so kind of a poor man's Rick Steves, we're kind of talking through all of the things that are going on in all those particular places. Now, this one's my favorite possible name.
Gerrit We're not naming it.
Richard I wanted to call it Crinkling Leaves.
Gerrit Because, you know, in the background when you're talking about it, this is where Emma first met Joseph.
Richard Yeah, like.
Gerrit Wrestling Leaves in the background.
Richard Creaking Doors, Wrestling Leaves.
Gerrit We don't have the ability to have a premium that's high enough for us to have that kind of audio content. So we won't call it that, first of all. Unless there's huge demand. I have had multiple very, very kind and generous people offer to find ways to help offset the costs of doing the podcast and the time that it takes. And if you're one of those people, I mean, this is really one way that would work. So in a couple of weeks, we're going to launch a premium side of our content. Don't worry if you're thinking, I don't even want to listen to this now. This isn't worth what I pay for now. And it's free. And I mean the electricity that powers this when I listen to it. No, but it's in the car like it's already generated. No, it cuts away from my gas mileage by 0.07%. Even that is too much. That free garbage will still be there for you.
Gerrit So if you feel like this is not worth it, you'll still have that. You'll still have the free garbage. And we'll still answer questions. We'll still cover church history things. But we invite you and we'll remind you in the next couple episodes. If you are able, if you like the kind of stuff we do, if any of that other stuff sounds interesting to you, we'll go through a lot of American history, various aspects. It might be a little heavy on some military history and political history. For those of you who want to learn about how politicians were once pure and clean and good in the good old days, we'll have a premium content that you'll be able to subscribe to. We'll have both the free Standard of Truth podcast as well as these other premium areas coming in a few weeks.
Richard That's right. We'll kick that off with obviously Bacon's Rebellion, where everybody wants it to start.
Gerrit Well, first of all, it has the word bacon in it. And I think if anyone...
Richard We're going to go Bacon's Rebellion, then the whiskey... We're just hitting all whiskey...
Gerrit Bacon's Rebellion, then Kevin Bacon, right? And then the degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. I think that's...
Richard That's the goal. Anyway, so that'll be fun. And we'll have that up here in the next month or so.
Gerrit I think the worst promo ever made by any podcast.
Richard Oh my gosh. Well, what would you expect?
Gerrit Well, I just assume that no one's listening anymore.
Richard But yeah, 100%.
Gerrit Well, don't worry. We're about to talk about punctuation.
Richard Yep. So that was the tease. But before we get into talking about punctuation and why none of it matters, spoiler alert, by the way, we received a fax. It was a fax that was sent, but then it was copied and put into an email.
Gerrit Which is good, because our fax machine has been down since 1998.
Richard That's true. Dear Brother Dirkmaat and Professor LeDuc, spelled incorrectly, upstairs room, Standard of Truth headquarters, somewhere Utah. Dear Brother Dirkmaat and Professor LeDuc, long time listener, first time faxer slash emailer. A few notes, I ran across townships again yesterday, and my third run through, by the way, this email is heavily redacted, or faxed.
Gerrit Well, if you recall, we asked a few episodes ago, we said, if there are things you don't want us to read on the air, it'd be best if you redacted them yourself. That way we would know. Well, this listener took that very much to heart and redacted multiple things, including, I think, some profanities.
Richard I'm fairly confident in context that these are profanities, and her name, which may be a profanity.
Gerrit In some language.
Richard I ran across townships again yesterday on my third run through of the entire podcast, and being from Rochester area. Had to chuckle at the pointless explanation. I must admit, any references to the historical price of tea now makes me irrationally angry. Far more so than townships. I listened to those episodes being specific episode numbers redacted on a bad day. I don't know. I have missed of late your many sarcastic references to how in our days, in our lives today, we'd never be able to understand issues like politics being divisive.
Gerrit Well, luckily the Moore battalion episodes have settled that for you.
Richard Politicians doing anything to win, et cetera. I did feel at the time that there was a substantial lack of the expressions in a world or imagine a world, being said in Gerrit's deep movie guy voice. There doesn't seem to be any reason in the age of Google specifically for those who listen to this podcast to not know how to spell Richard's last name, which is funny because she spelled it wrong.
Gerrit But that was all part of the gag.
Richard Perhaps. Unlike you, I am assuming you did not provide a fax number. As you did not provide a fax number, I do not have the ability to fax, so I guess I'm going to send this via email. Fingers crossed this actually goes through this time to end up in the whoever mailbag, which nobody ever checks anymore. My first attempt to email you ended in a digital failure.
Gerrit I'm not entirely sure what she means by that. If she did send something that we didn't get before, or she just started typing to us, decided it was fruitless and gave up.
Richard It's possible. And we have suspended the whoever mailbag. We have 17 lawsuits currently pending against us, and so we're gonna go ahead and stop that. I really hope that rather than nasal and flat pronunciation of most vowel sounds of the Great Lakes dialect region in which the Manchester-Palmyra area currently resides, did not at any time sound like a really bad approximation of today's Boston accent, redacted, redacted. With that out of the way, I really appreciate that you put time into this podcast. I've shared it with many people, and though I cannot definitively state that any of those redacted have heeded.
Gerrit She doesn't want anyone to know how many people she spoke to.
Richard Well, I think any of those redacted, I think perhaps-
Gerrit People, yeah.
Richard Have heeded-
Gerrit Very colorful adverb.
Richard Have heeded my advice. I can tell you at least redacted people have listened to at least redacted episodes. And it's, you know, with a black, it doesn't say redacted.
Gerrit No, she's redacted this out the same way the government does when they release top secret documents.
Richard The Freedom of Information Act. Yeah, here you go.
Gerrit The word the is the only thing I could read.
Richard I have a bachelor's degree in history.
Gerrit Awesome.
Richard A fact that I would hope might elevate me to the level of enthusiast. That's very funny.
Gerrit Yes, it does.
Richard If you call yourself a historian, Gerrit will attack you.
Gerrit Only online.
Richard Which obviously does not make me an expert in anything, but it definitely helped me appreciate the way you present your podcast, the claims you make, and your willingness to admit limitations. She goes on to talk about Under the Banner of Heaven, and how that's how she first came across us and learned about our podcast. Thank you for the effort you put in debunking all of these different ideas that circulated to undermine the faith, for professing your own faith, and for all you have done to make yourselves legitimately credentialed, and to make your claims and arguments that you have, and for lending that scholarship to us to help sustain our own faith. I guess I'm also grateful for you putting the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Compromise of 1850 and 1849, obviously, the Treaty of 1818, Popular Sovereignty, Abraham Lincoln, and yes, even townships, into their proper LDS historical context.
Richard Anyway, she goes on, this is just very well written, very funny facts. Hilarious, in fact. And then keep sneaking those polygamy-esque questions into the mix, Richard. You're doing a redacted job. Sincerely redacted.
Gerrit I like the fact that even she can discern that I actually don't ever want to talk about it, but Richard keeps finding a way to force me to talk about it.
Richard Well, the people cry out.
Gerrit The people cry out.
Richard They want to hear about it. Anyway, this was absolutely hilarious redacted. You're very funny, and this is a very nice and very thoughtful fact. Thank you so much for sending it.
Gerrit Well, speaking of what I'd like to talk about today stems from a question that I received from a friend of mine who had heard someone give a talk in which they made a very special point of the punctuation surrounding some of the scriptures that are used. This is not unique to this. I remember it was probably about 15 years ago or so. It made the rounds on the internet that if you went to a certain passage in the Book of Mormon and you took the first letter of each word at the beginning of each verse and went down, it spelled Utah. And the person was making a point of, look, this demonstrates that Utah was actually on the Lord's mind when he said, I will establish on the tops of the mountains the house of the Lord. I think we've all heard these kinds of arguments.
Gerrit And this idea that there's a secret meaning in the Scriptures is something that goes all the way back to early Christian history. In fact, one of the largest apostate groups of the early Christian Church were the Gnostics. The Gnostics, it's kind of an umbrella term. In fact, scholars actually argue about whether or not Gnosticism is even an appropriate way to describe. There's so many different types of Gnostics. They all believe so many different types of things. But the term Gnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis, which just means knowledge. And so why did these Gnostics, why is this reference to them? Well, these Gnostics believed that the scriptures themselves were not self-apparent. Gnostics believe that there were secret hidden messages in Jesus' teachings that taught something completely different than what the words seem to be teaching.
Gerrit This, of course, puts them at odds against the more established church. But, for instance, there's a Gnostic gospel of Judas, in which Judas, Judas Iscariot, Judas of, here's some pieces of silver Judas, that he actually is the only apostle who actually understands the real message of Jesus. And the whole point of that gospel is that Judas is the holy apostle.
Richard Interesting, it didn't take off.
Gerrit Well, it did in some places.
Richard Some places, like Judas' mom's house?
Gerrit Well, I mean, obviously, it became heretical. So, there are lots of really Christians who believe lots of different things. I mean, this is easy for a Latter-day Saint to understand, because we believe in the apostasy, right, that the message that Jesus and the apostles gave was very quickly lost by various different groups. You know, frankly, it's what Protestants believed, too, that there was an apostasy. It just happened much later and over the course of time. But by the time Martin Luther's, you know, hammering theses to doorways, that the Catholic Church no longer has, you know, a corner on the truth. And, well, this, these different Gnostic groups, they thrived in some places and they didn't in others. And they especially were successful in places where there was a high Greek cultural content, because Greek philosophy wanted to juxtapose the immortality of the spirit, vis-à-vis the jaded, you know, terrible nature of mortality.
Gerrit And Christianity obviously feeds into that. But we know from Paul that there's some serious problems, right? Because the whole point of 1 Corinthians 15 is that you have all of these Greek Christians in Corinth who reject the idea of a bodily, physical resurrection. So one constant theme in Gnosticism is this idea that the body is something to be escaped. Well, the whole point is to escape your body. Why in the world would you want it back? So in the Greek philosophical terms, generally the body is seen as something to be escaped. And this bleeds into Gnostic theology. And again, there are so many different types of it. Like I said, most scholars will say it's almost not even helpful to talk about Gnosticism as a religion. It's a type rather than it is a religion. But for instance, in the Gospel of Judas, the idea behind it is that the real truth about Jesus is gaining this knowledge that the body is meaningless and that that's you escape your body.
Gerrit And so this idea that has been current in Christianity from the very beginning is that there's a super secret special type of knowledge that if only you read the scriptures the right way, you would understand. But the people who don't know the super secret special knowledge, they won't really know. You see this among apostate groups in modern times today who make arguments that passages in the Book of Mormon that you've always read to mean one thing suddenly mean something else. Now why do they mean something else? Because that's what proves the point of the person who's trying to make that argument. Now, scriptural interpretation is a difficult thing, and I'm not saying I'm an expert at it by any means. But we always have to be a little bit careful when someone makes an argument that based upon the right reading of certain types of passages, it completely transforms the meaning of the thing that you're reading.
Gerrit Now, if that's a prophet or an apostle telling you that, great. Often when I talk to people, it's not a prophet or an apostle telling them that. It is someone with a YouTube channel that is saying that, but that's not the same thing. We've talked about that before when it came to...
Richard Second Coming.
Gerrit Second Coming and the different arguments about that. And you saw in those cases what? Someone was saying, oh, I know it says this.
Richard But this is what it really means.
Gerrit And so I get questions like that all the time. In fact, you'll have people take things and overstate them in ways that the church isn't stating them. When it comes to things like Second Coming, I think we can all rest assured that President Nelson is a bold man. He's more than willing to tell us when Jesus is coming. I don't think he's expecting everyone to subscribe to your brother-in-law's YouTube channel where he explains when Jesus is coming. I think he probably will tell people himself when Jesus is coming.
Richard My favorite example, I think in one of those episodes that we talked about where somebody had a YouTube video that was talking about the Second Coming, and they referenced a President Eyring talk where he was talking about the Second Coming generally, and that he cited a couple of scriptures, and then he said, but the very next scripture that he didn't read says this, and then implied that there's all this additional meaning, or meeling, and that President Eyring...
Gerrit I think now you're agnostic.
Richard And President, what did I mean by meeling? Yeah, that was an Easter egg. So President Eyring was the tip of the cap to those that are in the know. That they would know to read the next verse. Yes, that they would know to read the next verse and that he would keep us guessing.
Gerrit And that is how this Gnostic heresy happened in the early Christian church, is that the people who knew, knew how to read the scriptures the right way. I'm not saying that everyone who thinks they have an insight on the scripture is some kind of heretical apostate. Often, it's very well-meaning people, right? It's just a matter that a lot of the times we try to find meaning in scriptures that was never intended for them to be there.
Richard But you're also not... I mean, there's lots of depth. It's like the parables that Jesus would give, that there's multiple layers in these things as we read the scriptures. There's lots that's there for us.
Gerrit Well, a good example of this with Joseph Smith is when you take the parable of the Prodigal Son, and you have all kinds of just mountains and mountains and mountains of biblical criticism on it and people saying what it actually means. And here's another layer to the meaning, because of course the story itself is a meaning. And then there's, is this figurative for the fact that Israel is actually the man who's going on down the line? Joseph Smith says, well, it's not meant to be figurative at all. It's meant to be the story that tells the, right. I think we can easily read meaning into things that is not actually intended to be meaning. I think this happens sometimes when it comes to even some of our church architecture. Sometimes we want every single, you know, you notice how there are four trowel marks on that stone instead of five?
Richard So I actually, I have a story on that.
Gerrit Okay, well, let's hear the story.
Richard I have a friend of mine whose name is Redacted, and a temple that he was the architect for, which temple is also redacted.
Gerrit Right, so you have to guess among the 17 million members.
Richard Yes, and the 160-plus temples.
Gerrit Yes, and the ones under construction. So really, and even announced.
Richard Well, this one actually has been built. So there, there's the case.
Gerrit I feel like I gave it away.
Richard I gave it away.
Gerrit At this point.
Richard So anyway, so he went and he was the architect that designed the temple, right? And it was a cool process. He shared a lot of stuff with us about the process, how amazing it was. Anyway, so he's going through a tour.
Gerrit Of his own temple.
Richard Of his own temple.
Gerrit Well, I mean, it's the Lord.
Richard Well, okay.
Gerrit Everyone can write in. We're not blaspheming. We know it's the Lord's temple.
Richard The temple that he had a hand in.
Gerrit The temple that he was allowed to consecrate towards.
Richard Let's call it that. Yes, okay. A slip of the tongue. But, the temple that he designed and built.
Gerrit With God's help.
Richard Anyway, so he's going through the tour. And the tour guide that is giving the tour is pointing, just like you said, pointing to this and to that and talking about how this means this and that this means this. And not symbolism of the temple, obviously. There's a tremendous amount of symbolism of the temple. Symbolism in this design here.
Gerrit Just where we believe in temple worship.
Richard It's very important.
Gerrit I don't know what Richard's talking about.
Richard This crown molding means this and this is this. And so he's going through and he's like, oh, does it? Oh, no, geez. And then they designed this.
Gerrit But he's actually thinking like, no, we got that carpet because it looked nice with the other pattern.
Richard That's exactly what he said. We got that because we thought it looked nice. That happened several times as he was going through the tour, where a well-intentioned person was telling him all of the meaning of all of the design for the person that designed it didn't have any actual meaning.
Gerrit Well, so why do we even spend any time on this? Well, because this is a bad podcast. But second of all, there's two problems with finding meaning in things that were never intended. One more dangerous than the other. So the first is claiming that there's a hidden meaning in things allows for apostates to claim that they are just simply a higher level of understanding. And if only you really understood the things that they understand, then you'd agree with them in their apostasy. This is like the Denver Snuffers and the Phil Davises out there claiming that they, you know, I've had Jesus appear to me in the Second Anointing, and if you understood how important that was, then you, right, it's this idea that everyone else just doesn't get it. But I do, luckily. And anyone who follows me also gets it.
Gerrit Now, it doesn't always rise to the level of apostasy, but sometimes it rises to the level of allowing for disappointment that leads to apostasy. So, for instance, it is a common thing for members of the Church to explain away events of our past in ways that sound good, that sound, you know, hey, you know what, that sounds about right. A great example, I know we talked about this with plural marriage. We'll never talk about plural marriage again, even though we got that redacted fact saying that Richard's trying to sneak it in.
Richard I did it. I did it.
Gerrit I got it. But again, he's got some kind of mind control drug. Anyway, it was a very common thing. I mean, I heard it all the time. Two things I heard all the time that were meant to assuage people's anguish surrounding the idea of plural marriage. First, that fewer than 2% of the population in the church practice plural marriage.
Richard Yes, every person I talked to on my mission in Southern California heard that.
Gerrit That's what you told.
Richard 100%.
Gerrit So they had already heard that before you talked to them?
Richard No, no, that's what I told them. Okay.
Gerrit This is also a confession of Richard's missionary sins. We need to find his former...
Richard That's what I was told, and that's what I...
Gerrit And then what was the second thing? There were just so many more women than there were men. Oh, the reason why they practice polygamy is there are just so many more women than there were men. Now, both of those explanations are absolutely well-intentioned. I can actually track where those explanations come from and why they started...
Richard They came from the Riverside, California mission.
Gerrit I can track them coming from 29 palms in 1999. Is that correct?
Richard Yeah, 1998, 1999, 2000.
Gerrit But they're not meant to hurt anybody. They actually are meant to get to a positive end, and that is helping people feel better about that practice. The problem is...
Richard Especially people that aren't members of the Church.
Gerrit Someone who is not listening to you simply because you said the words Mormon, and they said the words, how many wives do you have?
Richard That's right.
Gerrit The problem is, with both of those explanations, is they're not true. That's the main problem with them. I don't mean to call Richard a lying missionary, But you did. But I'm also not willing to not call Richard that. And again, Richard well-intended, and I did the same thing. You know, maybe not exactly the same, but similar things, where I thought they were the case, and with well intentions, I said them. Now, why does that matter? I mean, most likely, look, maybe in Richard's mission, people joined the church. In mine, they didn't, so it didn't really matter what I told them, right? But the problem is, what happens when someone comes to believe that that really is the truth? And they hang all of their explanations on it, and they explain it to multiple other people about it. Now, they might be like Richard, who many years later learns that that's not the case, and goes, huh, how about that? I guess I won't use that excuse anymore.
Richard Yep, that's almost exactly how that went down last week.
Gerrit In our pre-show meeting, I explained it to Richard, and he said, huh, how about them apples? But for other people, it comes as a crushing thing. If the way that you've dealt with it your whole life is just telling yourself almost no one practiced it, and they only did it because there were more women than men, and you find out that that's not true, it might cause you to have an actual, a faith crisis. Sometimes it's not, sometimes it's not that serious. My point in this whole podcast is to just be careful, to not put too much stock in any one thing that isn't coming from the prophets or apostles. And that means even me. I mean-
Richard Oh, especially you.
Gerrit Okay, especially me. I'm not a prophet. But I don't have the ability to declare doctrine for the church. I'm a historian. I can tell you what someone once said in the past and maybe what kind of hat they wore, which is about my level of importance to the world. And of course I believe, and of course I present the things we talk about in a way that I think hopefully promotes faith and is also true. But I don't have any key, so I don't have the ability to declare the doctrine of the Church. But I think we very easily slip in the Church into trying to find new ways of explaining things, not because there's been new research that's been discovered, not because, but because by presenting in a different way, it sounds different and it makes people focus on it. And that happens at times. I see it all the time on the Internet, which is hard to believe that you'd find anything inaccurate on the Internet.
Gerrit But trust me, I've looked enough that I have found a couple of inaccurate things on the Internet.
Richard Interesting. Dark web or...?
Gerrit Mainly your Facebook feed. But where people have made claims about things that just aren't really the case. And this week, I'd like to focus on one I received a little bit ago from a friend who was listening to someone give a talk. And in the talk, they were talking about the First Vision. And they were talking about how in Joseph Smith's history, of course, that outlines the First Vision, that in fact, there's only, you know, this is a bigger deal than you even think that it is, right? The speaker said something to the effect of, there's a quote here and it's the only place in the entire Joseph Smith history where Joseph Smith inserted quotes. Now, that's fascinating to me. I believe he's quoting it because I believe he doesn't want us to think that it was his paraphrase or maybe in his own words, but he put these quotes in to emphasize to us that this is what the Savior told me.
Gerrit And then he goes on to give the quote. Now, the speaker is obviously faithful, obviously trying to help, and wants to emphasize the fact that they draw near to me their lips, but their hearts are far from me, and they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof, that phrase in Joseph Smith history. You've all read it. And the speaker wants to point out, you know what I looked, there's only one place where what Jesus says is in quotes. Everything else, he told me not to follow the religion, all that other stuff is paraphrased, but that part, word for word. And that sounds like there's an extra emphasis that's now being placed on those words, right? If it's the only place where he quoted the Lord directly, therefore there's a reason why it's extra emphasis. So on the surface, that sounds like a really good argument.
Gerrit The problem is there's a history to the text. All of the text that you read did not simply drop down out of heaven reading exactly the way it does in front of you. And in the case of Joseph Smith history, as we've talked about previously on previous programs, it is the eventual edited portion of the history of Joseph Smith that was written that would eventually become the history of the Church. So if you know about that, if you recall, or maybe I'll just give you a little bit of a refresher. In 1838 and 39, Joseph Smith undertakes to have a new history of the Church written. This is coming out of the Missouri Persecutions. This is when there's all kinds of lies, and that's exactly how Joseph Smith history starts, right? Owing to the many false reports. Because people give us all kinds of lies about us, we're going to tell our own story.
Gerrit And that history is massive, and they are using Joseph's letters, they are using journals, they are going chronologically through the history, and they begin to publish portions of that history in the times and seasons in Nauvoo in 1842. They're not going to get all the way up through Joseph's life publishing it before Joseph was murdered, but they're going to continue publishing this history that these church historians are working on, people like Willard Richards. Yes, Willard Richards just made a sign of having multiple guns. This is an audio. Yes, unfortunately in the audio presentation, you can't see Richard wielding multiple guns that Willard Richards must have had.
Richard Every time he says Willard Richards, they pretend to pull out multiple pistols.
Gerrit And then wave them back and forth with an angry look on your face. So that history of the church, the history of Joseph Smith, they continue to publish in the Deseret News, and then eventually it's combined all together and republished as the history of the church. That's the BH. Roberts undertaking, and that's the multiple-volume, color-coded set that many of your grandparents have on your shelves. That comes from the BH. Roberts. But the history of the church and the history of Joseph Smith are the same document. They're just republished in different formats. In 1851, Franklin Richards, who was the head of the church in England, published a missionary tract called The Pearl of Great Price. You might have heard of it. But what you haven't heard of is, well, I'm sure you have. You probably have heard of it. What an arrogant thing for me to say. But what you haven't heard of.
Richard Yeah, no, it is arrogant, but let's see what it is.
Gerrit Okay, let's find out. Let's find out. You know what? Maybe I'll be right. I'm praying that Richard hasn't heard of it. Except I know he has, because I told him just recently. So this is not going to be like the number of polygamous that he quoted on his mission. That in 1851, as a missionary tract, and to strengthen the members there in England as well, Richards is going to take portions of the already published history of the Church, as well as published portions of the Book of Moses, published portions of the Book of Abraham, as well as multiple revelations that were not included in the Doctrine and Covenants, such as Doctrine and Covenants section 87. That's the prophesying of the Civil War. That's not published in the Doctrine and Covenants until 1876. It's a well-known revelation of Joseph Smith. It's been published, but it's not published to the world, really, until 1851. At any rate, he's going to publish those things in the Proof of Great Price, and the history of Joseph Smith that he's going to publish in the Proof of Great Price in 1851 is a redacted version of what was published in the Times and Seasons in 1842.
Gerrit He's going to take that story of Joseph that was written out, the history of Joseph Smith, and he's going to cut it into smaller portions. So now you can see the problem, because what the speaker was asserting was that Joseph himself decided that there was only going to be certain portions of what the Lord said that would be in direct quotes as a means of highlighting what the Lord said. Well, then that means we need to go back to find out what it is that Joseph actually wrote and actually punctuated, as opposed to where it is in my current scriptures now. If you go back to the original 1851 Doctrine and Covenants, you will find, first and foremost, that the assertion that there aren't any other quote marks is not accurate. If you go back to the original Pro of Great Price in 1851, what else is in quote marks? This is my beloved son.
Gerrit Hear him. Now you won't notice that in your Pro of Great Price because to set off the words even more, rather than just having them in quotes, what have we done? We've created a space and italicized them so that they stick out even more. It's not a matter of that wasn't really a direct quote from the Lord. It's a matter of we want you to recognize this more than the other direct quote. Also in the 1851 Pro of Great Price, there are multiple other things that are in quotes. Behold, I reveal unto the priesthood by the hand of Elijah the prophet for the great and dreadful day of the Lord. All of that is in quotes. All of it's in quotes, but I italicized in the later versions of the Pro of Great Price. So this is one of those arguments that sounds like it's a good argument, but it's only an argument because of our current version of the Pro of Great Price from 2013, essentially.
Gerrit Well, which is the same as 1981. That what appears to be a thing, and it is truly a thing in the Joseph Smith history, there's only one place where there's quotes rather than italicization. But what's missing is an understanding of the history of that text. That when it was first written down in the history of the church, when Joseph first approved its publication, it did have those quote marks in it, right? Now, you might think, well, why spend so much time on it? What difference does it make? And it's because of that second level thing that I was talking about. What if someone thinks that this is proof that that scripture is the most important thing that Joseph Smith says? And they go around telling people that until someone who has an understanding of the history of the text of the Pearl Grey Prize demonstrates to them, yeah, that's not true.
Gerrit Now what? Now, we might have the problem of someone, you know, feeling a little bit awkward and a little embarrassed that they thought that. But secondly, it can actually be used by antagonists of the faith to hurt people's testimonies. And I see this all the time where someone will say something like, why just feel like the church lied to me? And when you dig into what the church lied to them about, what it really is, is that they didn't know something about the past. Not that someone actively tried to deceive them, not that someone said, you know what, I'm going to prove to you something that isn't true. But in kind of benign sort of a ways like this, we tend to project things that may not end up being true. And that might be water off the duck's back for someone like Richard, who's just like, huh, go figure, right? But for other people, it might really hurt their testimony.
Gerrit That's why it's important that we have to be careful that if we're going to try to make a big point, let's try to make it because the prophets and the apostles make it. Let's try to make a point that the people who've been called, the men and women who've been called to lead the church, they're making that point, which is very different than someone who throws up a meme somewhere. I mean, you know, memes are great. They're pithy and maybe they get people through the day. But if they're not accurate, then what they're doing is they're simply creating a false sense of understanding. And when people really are crushed by anti-Mormon attacks, it's when they think they knew about something, and in fact, they didn't. And it leaves this kind of empty hole in between. I don't mean to be overly critical. I know it probably comes across that way that, oh, you're just saying that if you don't know the things that you know that you aren't good.
Gerrit I'm not saying that at all. I'm only an expert in certain things. And even then, there are people that would disagree with the things that I have to say. What I'm saying is that it can be a negative to people's testimony, even if we think it's positive in the moment, to try to connect dots that aren't actually connected. Because when people find out they're not connected, they might react in a way that's detrimental to their testimony or to the testimony of other people around them. I don't know how many times I've met with people who only through the implied understanding of what happened in the past have come to feel like they've been cheated, that people didn't tell them the real truth. When someone says, I was always taught that Joseph Smith translated by putting his finger on the gold plates and moving his finger along the words.
Gerrit Whenever someone says that, I always stop and I say, who? Was that like your CTRB class?
Richard When were you in the California Riverside Mission? When did Richard talk to you?
Gerrit So you're from Riverside, and it was 1999. Right. The reality is, most likely no one ever actually actively taught them that at all. But they saw the images, and it's how they envisioned it in their own mind. So I think what the plea that I wanted to get across here is that it's really important that even when we're trying to make a new point or a pithy idea, that we vet what it is we're going to say against what it is the prophets and apostles have taught about that thing, and never assume, never ever ever assume that the way you are reading scriptures in your Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl Great Price today is exactly the same way they were received when they were first received. There have been all kinds of changes that have been made. Versification has changed.
Gerrit Punctuation has changed. I don't know how many times I've heard someone try to make a really big point about, you notice here, it has a comma rather than a period. Why do you think that is? Well, I think that is because in the 1920s, that's how they decided that they were going to punctuate that. The reality is that I would be very suspect of any attempts that someone tries to make of an argument that is over the punctuation or the phraseology of certain words. I know I've said to Richard before, we've all had the gospel doctrine teacher before, who wants to make a really big deal about an individual word in the scripture. He says we must be in the gospel, in it, in. And then he asks you the question as he walks around the room pointing at you, are you in it?
Gerrit And you don't have the heart to tell the guy, well, the word in was added in 1876 to make it flow better. You know, I mean, the point is, the gospel is not some kind of hidden secret thing that we are only going to understand if we happen to read a verse the way that someone told us to read it. The gospel of Jesus Christ can be understood even without the ability to read. When we allow people to project a special knowledge of the truth, that special knowledge can sometimes lead us down another path. I mean, we read from, you know, my friend the other day, not Richard, a different friend, talking about how, you know, the Julie Rowe stuff had led some members of their family away. And how did it start? It started with, wow, these are some really cool dreams that she's had.
Gerrit And really cool dreams that she had then turned into, wow, that's the most amazing thing about the afterlife I've ever heard. And then that turned into, that's the only truth there is about the afterlife and the church is wrong about everything they're teaching. It's kind of a slippery slope to apostasy in those ways. Look, I believe in doing scriptural studies. I believe in seeking out, you know, academic ways of reading about things and getting lots of different perspectives. I just thought I maybe give a little bit of a pause to say, always be careful if someone is trying to make a very big point in your scriptures that you're studying on the basis of a single word, a single phrase, a pause, a verse break, or a punctuation. Because those things have changed and will continue to change over time. Because the point of the scriptures is to deliver the word of God to us.
Gerrit And we make changes to the versification and the punctuation to make those things make sense.
Richard And I think part of it too though is that don't have any one particular thing mean so much more to you than what the apostles or prophets are saying.
Gerrit Yeah, I think that's the case. If there's anything that, you know, some pithy idea that you've gotten that really means a lot to you. Look, I've got those two. It really means a lot to you. Make sure that it's backed up by not just someone who's got a YouTube channel or a bad podcast. Make sure it's someone who actually has authority to declare doctrine for the church. And I think that's an important place to be. I know that that sounds a little bit like a wet blanket.
Richard Oh, not a little bit.
Gerrit Okay, this sounds entirely like a wet blanket. At the same time, all of us have watched too many of our friends, relatives, people we know in our wards who've been led astray. And often that leading astray starts out very, very, you know, it seems just, just innocently. It starts off just by thinking, well, you know, the prophets aren't saying everything they know about X. Oh, they're not saying everything they know? Yeah, because they know Y too. Well, how do you know Y? Well, because I know Z. And it just starts going down this line where someone who was, who started out saying, oh, I wish the prophets would talk more about Heavenly Mother are four years later saying the prophets are not inspired because they don't know what I know about her. And that, that slippery slope is one that happens all the time.
Gerrit Anyway, thank you for joining us this week on the Standard of Truth podcast. And we hope that you're still listening next week. If you can dissect any of the pithy comments that we said, determining that we're wrong about everything, and then I'm sure we'll get redacted facts as an e-mail. Thanks so much for listening.
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.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

That free garbage will still be there for you.

GerritBanter

Which is good, because our fax machine has been down since 1998.

GerritBanter

If you call yourself a historian, Gerrit will attack you.

RichardBanter

But we always have to be a little bit careful when someone makes an argument that based upon the right reading of certain types of passages, it completely transforms the meaning of the thing that you're reading.

GerritInsight

I think now you're agnostic.

GerritBanter

But he's actually thinking like, no, we got that carpet because it looked nice with the other pattern.

GerritBanter

I can tell you what someone once said in the past and maybe what kind of hat they wore, which is about my level of importance to the world.

GerritBanter

Never ever ever assume that the way you are reading scriptures in your Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl Great Price today is exactly the same way they were received when they were first received.

GerritInsight

The gospel of Jesus Christ can be understood even without the ability to read.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
The only quotation marks Joseph Smith put in his history surround the Lord's words about the creeds, to emphasize them.
Fewer than 2 percent of Latter-day Saints practiced plural marriage, and it was because there were more women than men.
Joseph Smith translated by running his finger along the words on the gold plates.
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

Be cautious of any lesson that hangs on one word, a comma or a verse break. Versification and punctuation have changed over time to help the text read clearly.

Hidden-meaning readings of scripture go back to the Gnostics. When someone claims special knowledge others don't have, check it against what prophets and apostles teach.

Well-meant explanations that aren't true can set people up for a faith crisis later. Make sure a favorite idea is backed by those with authority to declare doctrine.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a hidden code. It can be understood even by someone who can't read.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Fan favorite, punctuationThe tease that makes listeners turn the dial (0:39).
The redacted faxA listener redacts her name and profanities like a Freedom of Information Act release; the fax machine has been down since 1998 (7:25, 11:23).
Imagine a worldThe listener misses Gerrit's deep movie-guy voice for "imagine a world" (9:10).
The whoever mailbagSuspended because of 17 pending lawsuits (10:11).
Enthusiast, not historianA history bachelor's degree earns enthusiast status; call yourself a historian and Gerrit will attack you, only online (11:38, 11:45).
Keep sneaking polygamy in, RichardGerrit suspects mind control (13:07, 27:15).
Crinkling LeavesRichard's name for the poor man's Rick Steves site tours (4:08, 4:23).
Bacon's Rebellion to Kevin BaconThe premium launch plan, and the worst promo ever (6:28, 6:57).
Willard Richards's pistolsRichard mimes two guns every time Willard Richards comes up (36:00).
Riverside, 1999Richard's mission is blamed for every bad explanation (28:15, 44:56).
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.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites 1 Corinthians 15Jesus Christ Is the Great Deliverer!Elder Kevin J. HathawayElder Hathaway testifies that Jesus Christ is the great deliverer and that the question for the faithful is not whether He will deliver, but how and when.October 2026 General Conference · cites Luke 15:11–32Love Like JesusElder Ronald A. RasbandElder Rasband speaks to everyone grieving for loved ones who have turned away from the Lord, acknowledging that lecturing and pressure often widen the rift.October 2026 General Conference · cites 1 Corinthians 15Courage Born of Our Faith in Jesus ChristElder Neil L. AndersenElder Andersen welcomes President Rosemary Chibota, who joined the Church at 17 after reading a pamphlet about Joseph Smith, and teaches that spiritual courage, born of faith in Jesus Christ, has always been required of disciples, from Moroni to today.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
The 1851 Liverpool Pearl of Great Price and how its contents became scripture (36:00).
Gnosticism, the Gospel of Judas and early Christian debates over the body and resurrection (15:44).
How chapter, verse and punctuation in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants have changed, such as the 1920s and 1981 editions (46:01).
The History of Joseph Smith, from its 1838 start through the Times and Seasons to B. H. Roberts's History of the Church (35:12).
SOT Litner · S2E49.