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S2E7 · Oral History and D&C 135
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 7 · 57:53

Oral History and D&C 135

No edition of the Doctrine and Covenants named John Taylor as the author of section 135 except the 1981 one, and the earliest attribution found is Heber J. Grant saying in 1922, "I have understood."

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my question is, how do historians deal with oral history not authenticated by any written documentation?
A listener

A listener asks how historians handle family stories that were never written down, and Gerrit explains that historians can only show what most likely happened, which is exactly why they can't prove or disprove a miracle. He uses Martin Luther's thunderstorm, Ellen White and Korihor to show the difference between doing history and doing theology, and Richard shares a family story about Nazis in Belarus that turned out to be off by a couple of decades. In the second half Gerrit answers an emailed question about why the 2013 Doctrine and Covenants dropped John Taylor's name from the heading of section 135. He walks through every edition from 1844 to 2013 and finds that only the 1981 heading named Taylor, likely because of a 1922 conference remark that was itself oral history. Gerrit lands on the point that the words, not the heading, are scripture, and that our testimony rests on Jesus Christ and the Restoration rather than on any single story.

Who comes upJohn TaylorJoseph SmithHyrum SmithMartin LutherEllen G. WhiteKorihorSamuel the LamaniteAlexander Hale SmithWillard RichardsWilliam ClaytonHeber J. GrantOrson Pratt
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The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

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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 Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Thank you, Gerrit. In this week's podcast, we want to start off with an email that kind of provides a jumping off point for kind of a larger discussion. So the email says, my question is, how do historians deal with oral history not authenticated by any written documentation?
Gerrit So this is a great question, and it's a much more complex question. I mean, if anyone ever tries to give you a really simple answer to a question, you know, A, they're obviously not a historian, because we have to talk for about 15 minutes and then say nothing. And then when you get to the end of it, you're like, did I learn anything? And the answer is going to be no. So gear up for that. But the foreshadowing for that. Yeah. Well, really for the entire podcast season. But so there's a couple aspects of this. And we did we covered this a little bit in our very first episode where we talked about how can you know essentially what happened in the past? And one of the issues surrounding that is we are talking about religious events. And that was in particular, this woman's question was in particular surrounding, what about the oral history of a miraculous event that happened in a family? I can tell you right now that there are miraculous events that have happened in my family that are recorded nowhere.
Gerrit Because even though I read journals for a living, I don't keep them for a living. And I guess until someone pays me to keep one, I'm not going to do it, which you'd think it'd be the other way around. You'd think that, oh, you know how important this is to your posterity. If only you didn't know how lazy I am when it comes to writing a journal. And I've tried several times. But part of the part of the there's two reasons why I don't keep a journal very well. One is, it's just really hard for me to be, it's hard for me to think that anything I write, anyone's ever going to care about. And I even mean academically. I mean, just anything at all. Like, hey, today I had In-N-Out Burger, Richard paid, finally. I mean, I don't know what you would say. But yeah, I mean, but then also being a historian, you're also well aware that someone might read this someday. And so you're like, well, should I explain that I was really, really, really angry at this guy for saying this to me? Nah, I better not.
Gerrit I don't want people to think I'm some kind of jerk and you know, whatever. So I end up not covering it. But the point being, in my personal, my own, you know, my own family, we've had miraculous experiences that are actually only recorded unless, you know, maybe my kids have written it down. Maybe my wife wrote it down. I don't think so, but they're only known orally to us, which means if my grandkids know them, they're only going to know them orally. Maybe one of them will write them down at some point. Now, the reality is this miracle that I am talking about, it absolutely happened. I, you know, I was part of it. I know that it happened. But if a historian 200 years from now is trying to verify whether or not that happened, they actually have a problem that's not related to the fact that I didn't write it down at the time. And that is, it's a miraculous event that we're talking about.
Gerrit So, historians can only prove what most likely happened in the past. And by definition, miracles are never the most likely thing that happened in the past. And I know that that might come across a little unsettling to people like, no, no, miracles didn't. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that miracles didn't happen. What I'm saying is the reason why they're so powerful to us is they couldn't possibly have happened without the power of God. If miracles were things we could replicate, well, then we wouldn't really care about them very much. And in fact, you know, you noticed from the Book of Mormon, right? What happens after the greatest miracle? I mean, as far as a collective shared miracle, it's pretty hard to get past the day and the night and the day. The sun goes down and it's still light outside. The whole face of the land sees it. And the Book of Mormon says, everybody's converted by it.
Gerrit Everyone gets converted. Now, remember where they were at? Where were they at? We've got some believers in Jesus that we are going to kill tomorrow morning if Samuel's sign doesn't appear. The sign appears that night, and they go from being ready to murder people for having a different religious belief to the entire face of the whole land being converted. And then what happened? Within three to six to nine years, hard to tell exactly, people started providing alternative explanations for the supposedly miraculous thing that they all saw. And so what happens, even when people try to discount miracles, when a non-believer discounts them, is how do they try to do it? They try to provide a somehow, seemingly, but not really very convincing, plausible explanation for the reason why what happened happened.
Gerrit And that way, because they're trying to get to their end, and their end is, I don't want to have to believe that there's a supreme being who's intervening in our lives. Because that mean I might have to change my life a little bit. And I don't want to have to go there. So it's much easier to just say, yeah, I'm sure it was just luck of the draw that X happened instead of Y. So fundamentally, again, I told you I was going to talk for 15 minutes before I even started to answer the question. Fundamentally, the problem is actually with mixing the two fields. Because our history happened in the past, because we're talking about our ancestors and the miracles that happened to them, yes, that is approaching the field of history. But the moment I attempt through the field of history to prove or disprove whether or not great-great-grandpa raised a child from the dead, I actually can't prove that. Because historians, they can't, they aren't God, even though many of them think they are.
Gerrit Historians can only do what sources allow them to do. So when it comes to family histories of powerful miraculous experiences, what can historians do? Historians can try to get to the earliest source of when people started talking about it. But this isn't a slam dunk. Now, critics of the church think that this is, right? So a critic will say something, if you go back to our podcast on the First Vision, a critic will say, well, because Joseph Smith didn't write about the First Vision until 12 years after it happened, then obviously he's lying about it. Well, a critic might say that, but historians don't. Historians simply say that they let you know when he first wrote it down, or they might say, you know, while, you know, while Lucy Mac Smith in her later reminiscence said that Joseph told the family about the First Vision, there are no contemporary sources that record Joseph's First Vision until 1832.
Gerrit That's, you notice why people don't read history because that sounded very boring, but it was also very precise. Notice I didn't say, and so that proves that Joseph Smith didn't have an experience with the divine. The person who starts to say that because there isn't a source that they claimed a miraculous event was impossible is already not doing history because the whole point is it's a miraculous event. And look, this is the case with other religious scholars. I mean, Martin Luther does not tell people about his conversion. Martin Luther will later in life say that what caused him to become a monk was he was walking on the road, he gets caught in this horrific thunderstorm, he absolutely believes he's going to die in it, and so in his fear and his angst, and he cries out to God, he bargains with God like we all do when things are terrible, like you're doing right now listening to this podcast, please, please make this better, I promise I'll do ministering.
Gerrit He calls out to God and says, he actually calls out to St. Anne, who is the mother, or at least the traditional, the mother of Mary, who is a saint in the Catholic Church. Now it's kind of the greatest irony of all time that Martin Luther is going to do more to destroy the veneration of the saints than essentially anyone, you know? I mean, no longer praying to saints and things like that. But anyway, he cries out to St. Anne and says, St. Anne, save me and I'll become a monk. And he says that the thunderstorm dissipates and he survives. Now he thought he was going to die. To him, as he recounts it, it is absolutely a miracle that he was saved and he then dedicated his life to God. You know, his parents were very upset because they wanted to be a lawyer because they wanted him to, you know, have prominence and make money and be important.
Gerrit And so you see that whole story of Martin Luther's conversion is not something he tells when it happens. So a historian doesn't attempt to say Martin Luther didn't actually have that spiritual experience. Another person, Ellen White. Ellen White is the founder of what would later become the Seventh Day Adventists. She claims to have received revelations. She doesn't because she's afraid of how her parents will react. She doesn't tell her parents about the revelations she's received for years. But historians don't say that proves Ellen White's a liar. If she didn't tell them right away, if God appeared to me, I would have told people right away. That kind of just truculent response that you know exactly what you would do if God appeared to you is frankly stunning to me. And it's a really good reflection of how just important that person saying it thinks they are. That you know exactly what you would do if God appeared to you.
Gerrit Frankly, I don't think any of us know what we would do if God appeared to us. We can think all day long about what we'd write down and what we'd say and the questions we'd ask or whatever. But when God or that angel or that you know that ministering spirit is actually speaking to you, I think all of the of the what-ifs kind of go out the window into to the reality of that situation. My point being, in the field of religious history, historians do not attempt to discount events on the basis that they are miraculous. They simply say, this is what that person said. So I don't try to prove that there wasn't really a thunderstorm the day Martin Luther said there was one. I simply say, many years later in his life, Martin Luther explained his conversion this way. And then Martin Luther's doing the talking.
Gerrit And so someone could say, well yeah, well maybe Martin Luther's making it up. Maybe he is. But as a historian, I can't make that judgment. Martin Luther certainly seems to feel pretty passionate about Lutheranism, certainly is willing to, here I stand, I can do no other, right? And he is saying that this was the start of his conversion. And someone might quibble with that and say, well, I think there were a lot of other factors. And of course you can say that. But you can't definitively say it, because the person who had the miraculous experience is saying, this is what happened to me. And one of the great unfortunate things in life, I guess, is you won't ever actually know how any other person actually thinks. You have an idea from what they say, but you won't actually know what's going on inside their mind. And historians, unlike tarot card readers, don't try to do that. We don't try to say, oh, I know that because Martin Luther said this later, he must not have ever believed it.
Gerrit We let people know he didn't say this till later. But if you go the next step saying that proves he didn't really have an experience, well then you're not doing history anymore. You're doing theology. You're doing atheism. You're doing whatever you want to do, but you're not doing history because history can only prove things that are provable. Miracles aren't one of them. So the only thing you can actually prove when it comes to a miracle is did people really believe that it happened? Now, their belief that it happened is also not undisputed evidence that it happened. I mean, there are people all the time who think miraculous things have happened to them that have not. I mean, or maybe they had miraculous things happen from a wrong source. I mean, like our favorite, our favorite stupid person from the Book of Mormon. I mean, Corrohor is like, he's the best, right? I mean, his entire argument is there is no God, there is no being in the unseen world.
Gerrit The unseen world doesn't exist. In fact, he says, you cannot know of things which you cannot see. Right? Corrohor's entire argument is, there is no God. And when it comes right down to it, where did he get the information that there's no being in the unseen world?
Richard An angel appeared to him to tell him.
Gerrit An angel appeared to him to say, just so you know, there aren't any angels.
Richard I think we have the title for this episode, Corrohor is the best. I thought you really nailed it.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, but the point being that his argument, instead of just saying, I don't really believe, his argument is, I had a miraculous experience that told me there aren't any miraculous experiences.
Richard Yeah, he is the best.
Gerrit Yeah, the logical inconsistency is incredible. So when it comes to things like family histories, right? So these can sometimes cause problems, right? Because some things that people claim in a family history can be verified. For instance, if someone says, my great-great-grandfather fought in the Battle of Nauvoo, and their great-grandfather was born in 1849, well, he didn't. You know, right? So some things like that can be verified. And sometimes that does happen, where things are built up in history and in family lore, and they end up not being totally accurate. And they can be definitively understood as not totally accurate. Because, you know, maybe there was another, you know, mob violence that the family was referring to, and they, someone somewhere along the line, you know, connected it to the Battle of Nauvoo. But the reality is, you know, dad wasn't alive at the time, so I guess he couldn't have been there.
Gerrit A great example of this, I know at some point we'll cover Plural Marriage. I think we said it would be season 17, and after only Richard's running the podcast. That's our plan.
Richard And it will be our final season.
Gerrit Our eventual goal is to have my mom and Richard, as the two hosts of the podcast. So that's what our eventual aim is. Maybe Rachel's mom.
Richard Oh, for sure.
Gerrit We'll bring Rachel's mom in, my mom, and then Richard, I just want you to fade into the background. More than you do now. So, so. A great example of this was work that was done by Latter-day Saint geneticists when it came to claims, family oral history claims, that people were descended from Joseph Smith's plural marriages. Now, by the late 19th century, early 20th century, our church was actually very much trying to document Joseph Smith's plural marriages for the sole reason that the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was constantly attacking our church as being the false church by claiming that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced plural marriage. Well, I even have, I was reading an account just the other day of Alexander Smith.
Gerrit So Joseph Smith's young, he would have been just a young, young boy when Joseph was murdered. He becomes one of the leaders of the reorganized Church and he comes out to Utah as on like a missionary mission, you know, saying, you know, trying to get, you know, as long as you can get anyone in Utah to believe that Brigham Young is not a true prophet, but we can get him back over to follow Joseph Smith III, his older brother. And apparently there was a public discussion about this in which Alexander, at least according to the source, where Alexander Smith is saying, you know, Joseph Smith never taught polygamy, that's not true. And in the discussion, there are several of Joseph Smith's wives who were sealed to him and say, well, I know he practiced it because I was married to him, right? Which becomes a pretty difficult thing for him to review. And again, according to the source, I don't want to put too many words in Alexander Smith's mouth. According to the source, as the discussion progressed, Alexander Smith eventually said, look, if he did receive a revelation on polygamy, then he became a fallen prophet because polygamy is wrong.
Gerrit That's how far he was willing to take it, that they were so certain polygamy was wrong that that would have caused Joseph to be a fallen prophet, his father a fallen prophet. Again, I want to put all those words in Alexander Smith's mouth. The point is our church in the 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, I mean, well into the 20th century, has a vested interest in trying to demonstrate and document that Joseph Smith taught and practiced plural marriage, because one of the main antagonists to our church was another church claiming that Brigham Young was a false prophet, because he maintained the D&C 132 as a revelation that Joseph had received. And so in that world, I mean, it's it, look, this is going to sound incredibly like anyone listening now is like, I don't understand it all yet. Well, it's a different world. The past is different, but in that world, it was actually kind of seen as a badge of honor.
Gerrit If people could say, oh yeah, my family was actually descended from one of Joseph Smith's marriages. And so there were multiple families in Utah that really believe that they were. And look, they had a good claim. It was the fact that their great, great grandmother, however far back you go, their grandmother, great grandmother was, was married to Joseph Smith is one of the records that we have. Oh, she is one of the people that sealed to Joseph Smith, right? And so the argument that, well, we're actually descended from him that, that, you know, this person's actually, you know, in our lineage is actually a child of that plural marriage became a part of family tradition and history and lore, and it became a certain part of it. Well, I, I, I don't know what he expected to find. We could probably interview him someday. He's a good friend of mine. But he, he, he did genetic testing on several of these families, different families from different plural marriages in which they were claiming that they were descended from Joe.
Gerrit We are children from Joseph Smith's plural marriages. And what he found was that none of them were actually descended from Joseph's Smith's plural marriages. All of these families, independent families, several families, all had independent oral history of the fact that was certain we are descended from Joseph Smith's plural marriages. And they weren't. Now that's going to cause all kinds of consternation, certainly inside those families. Well, wait a minute, but great grandma said this. And as a historian, you don't know where that misunderstanding leaked its way into the oral history or tradition. Um, anyone who's played the game of telephone knows that you're going to start with something and you're going to end up with something else that might be related. But actually, if it was exactly the same, when you got 17 people, you know, in a circle and you all whisper something, you know, I believe Louisiana is the Pelican state and you whisper that to someone.
Gerrit And by the time it gets all the way around to the last person, they're like, the Pelican should never have drafted Zion Williams. I like the word pelican is still in there, like there are some things that are still in there. But it wouldn't actually be a very fun party game if when you did it, it always ended up the same, right? So when you're talking about historical verifiable events, historians are more cautious. And there's there's a lot of levels of that of that separation. And now this is not again, I have in my own family history, miraculous experiences that are later recorded by, you know, children of the people who had it happen to them. And I want to believe that those events happen because they're miraculous and they're great. And I feel like they did. I also know as a historian, I can't disprove that they happen. And it would be weird for me to try to disprove that they happen. Oh no, there's no possible way that that happened because I don't have a source.
Gerrit No historian is saying that. No historian is saying that. So anyway, I think you have to take whatever the situation is on a case by case basis. If someone says, I was with Joseph Smith in Lima, Illinois on June 28th, 1844, well, they probably weren't because Joseph Smith was killed on June 27th, 1844. And so maybe they're just misremembering the date. Maybe they're thinking of something that happened at a different time. You wouldn't completely discount the fact that person claimed they had the conversation, but you would at least say, you know, at the very least we know that they didn't have a conversation with Joseph, at least not in the flesh, after Joseph had already been murdered.
Richard So, one example from my family history, my grandmother tells a story of the way that my great grandmother came to America. So, she grew up in what's now Belarus, and there was quite the to-do about her being able to flee and come over to America. And the way that my grandmother would tell the story is that her parents had been killed, and so that her grandfather had her papers, and that the Nazis had come and had taken a hold of her grandfather, and he had her papers for her to be able to come to America in his coat, and he threw the coat to her and told her to run, and she took them and she got away and she hid. She was able to come over to America. I got probably about 37 percent of that correct. The problem with this particular telling of the story is, and it's a thrilling story. It sounds like something that I need to contact Steven Spielberg about, right?
Richard It sounds like a really dramatic and exciting event that happened, very traumatic. The problem is that the Nazis weren't doing anything in today's Belarus in 1920. That didn't exist. And we've later found written records of aspects of this that have taken place. But over time, in the family, it just became that this was kind of the telling. And there wasn't really a deep examination that they were off by about, you know.
Gerrit Well, I mean, look, there were pogroms against Jews in Russia. And certainly in the fight of, you know, if it's 1919 and 1920, it's the middle of the Russian Revolution and the Reds. And there's all kinds of violence. Well, this is the thing.
Richard The fact that there was, that there could have been this major event that was very traumatic and insane absolutely is a possible thing. But the fact that it was...
Gerrit That it wasn't Nazis in 1919. That's right. And that, I think, really kind of sums up a lot of things when it comes to oral history tradition that historians have to be careful when it comes to certain facts. That Richard's grandmother experienced this trauma, I think, is beyond dispute, right? That this is something she personally felt and obviously was a part of her life. The details about when and how and where, those might be a little off as people retell them over the course of years. And of course age sets in and there's other factors. And so that's the reason why we have to be careful.
Richard So there was an interesting thing, as you're saying. So this was my great-grandmother, and my grandmother is telling me this story. This was just this last year, she was telling me this story again. And I told her, I said, Grandma, but the Nazis, they weren't, I mean, this was far before the Nazis. And her point was interesting to me because she said, Nazis, Russians, it doesn't matter.
Gerrit They're all the same. It's all the same. Now, in fairness to the Jewish people of Europe, probably, actually.
Richard Yeah, Russians.
Gerrit There was a lot of, I mean, obviously, there was anti-Semitic violence against Jews in Eastern Europe.
Richard But so, but that was her, her point wasn't necessarily the group of people that was doing the thing. It was the dramatic events and story and that the details that I shouldn't be so hung up in the particular thing.
Gerrit And I think that's how it is with a lot of oral history traditions. The and so I think I'm not trying to say, like I said, I have my own family history things that I love and I cherish that I want to believe in and I feel like there's obviously big aspects of truth surrounding them. But so I so I don't I don't want anyone to come away saying like, Oh, well, then I can't believe great, great grandfather story that an angel appeared to him. No, of course you can. It the reality of miraculous events. I mean, the fact that they were felt enough, they were passed out. Of course you can believe that. But there is always a difference between doing religion and doing history. As I said before, you can't historically, as a historian, prove that Jesus was resurrected and that that's the reason why the tomb was empty.
Gerrit I mean, the writers of the gospel are already telling you how people are getting around that empty tomb, right? Oh, just say that his followers came and stole his body and took it away, right? So the reality is, what's more likely that for the first time and the only time in all of recorded history of this world, someone who was dead for three days came back to life and that because he came back to life, we will all live again. Is that more likely or is it more likely that his followers just took his body and hit it? Well, it's easy for someone who is certainly a cynic to say, well, it's much more likely that his followers took his body. We don't believe that Jesus was resurrected because it's the most likely scenario. We believe it because it's true. Now, we have other witnesses to that. We have all of the apostles in the New Testament as witnesses to Jesus' resurrection and then we have the witnesses of the people who saw and heard Jesus in this dispensation.
Gerrit Part of the reason why I've said it before, part of the reason why it matters so much that Joseph Smith is a prophet is that Joseph Smith saw and talked with Jesus and not just once, not just twice, not just didn't just hear his voice. He saw and talked to the Savior multiple times. The Book of Mormon is another witness that Jesus really was resurrected, that he came in and visited all those thousands of people in the New World. The reality is, we don't believe that Jesus is our resurrected Savior because you can prove it by stacking documents on top of each other. There's no way to prove it. There's no way to scientifically demonstrate resurrection. But you believe it because the Holy Spirit of God speaks to your soul and tells you that that's the case. So please don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to say that if all we have of an event from the past is an oral tradition, that that means it must not ever have happened.
Gerrit No, for our religious purposes, that actually is how most of Christian history was, the early Christian history was recorded. The stories about Jesus were told to others and told to others and told to others. And that's how converts were made long before there was a written Bible, hundreds of years before there was a written Bible. It was oral history that converted people to the Gospel. Now, I want to give a kind of a related example of this, in part because we got another question. We've started checking our email occasionally, and so we have some questions in there, and I actually still don't know how to log in to the email. I have to have other people do it for me. That sounds worse than it is. I just, Richard's the only one who can log in to the email. He's probably the only one doing it. He's like...
Richard Job security.
Gerrit Yeah, job security. Richard won't give me the login, and also he's the one writing all of the emails. Maybe you should give a little bit more FaceTime to that Richard guy on your podcast. Have you thought about talking about business metrics? Anyway, a good example, I got a question the other day emailed to me about, the person was wanting to try to prove that it was a mistake to remove the attribution of Doctrine and Covenants, Section 135, to John Taylor. So you might have, we referenced this back when we did the martyrdom episode, but I'm assuming that none of the listeners we had then are our listeners now, and that, in fact, this will be the last time you listen, that the tribute to Joseph and Hyrum Smith was attributed to John Taylor. And in your 1981 edition of the scriptures, which is what many people listening grew up with, I don't know how many listeners we have in the nine-year-old demographic, but if we have any eight or nine-year-olds listening, first of all, you've got amazing parents.
Gerrit Second of all, they might have only used the 2013 edition of the scriptures. But most of the people listening would have spent much of their adult life anyway using the 1981 edition of the scriptures, which that's the one that added D&C 137, it added D&C 138, and official declaration too. So those were all added to the Doctrine and Covenants in 1981. And that section heading for Doctrine and Covenants section 135, the tribute to Joseph, you all know it right, you know, Joseph Smith has done more for the Salvation Men in this world. That tribute. The section heading said that it was written by John Taylor. Well, one of the changes that happened in the 2013 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants that people noticed, and this was what this question I received was, why did they change it?
Gerrit You know, and in fact, there are people who are attempting to provide their own explanations online for why they think it was. I mean, this is going to come as quite a shock, but there are people online who claim to have information about things that they might not have, but are still willing to share it. It's very- I don't believe it. Okay, this, maybe it's only me, but there's a possibility that if you Google something, the person giving their opinion about whatever that thing is may or may not be an expert. And the reason why is because people had come to really, you know, John Taylor, he was there with Joseph when he was shot and then he penned this beautiful- look, Doctrine and Covenants section 135 is beautiful. It is one of the jewels of early Latter-day Saint literature. But they want to believe that John Taylor was the sole author of it. In part because that's what they've always believed. And it sounds really good because John Taylor, who had just been shot, you know, he penned this in the moments of his agony.
Gerrit And so I kind of wanted to spend a little bit of time answering that question because it's related to this first question. Why do we think or why did we think that John Taylor was the author of Doctrine and Covenants section 135? If you've listened to any of this podcast at any point, you know that I am a big fan of John Taylor, that I love John Taylor. And what I love most about John Taylor is how much John Taylor loved Joseph Smith, and especially how much he loved Hyrum Smith. It is clear. It is obvious. The reason why I was so offended by that, that so-called documentary that didn't use any actual documents that claim John Taylor was behind Joseph Smith's assassination and hires. And the reason why that's so offensive is because I have read the dozens and dozens and dozens of documents in which John Taylor just is so grateful for the light of the gospel that he has because of Joseph Smith.
Gerrit So I would love for Doctrine and Covenants section 135 to be written by John Taylor, because I love John Taylor. So I'm in the same camp. I grew up believing that John Taylor always wrote it. It made sense to me. It's what the scripture section heading said. And in 2013, that was changed. And so the question, the query was, well, why was it changed? Or do you think they just need to find more evidence to put it back or or maybe the reason why they changed it was, you know, they were just getting pressure from people because so so it's good to go back and examine it. This document, the tribute to Joseph and Hyrum Smith was written very shortly after Joseph Smith was murdered and published. When it was published in 1844, there was no attribution to it. It was added to the back, the Doctrine and Covenants, the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants was already completed when Joseph went to Carthage.
Gerrit I mean, they were proofing it. They were getting it ready for publication. They were already well on their way to publishing the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. And so they added to it this tribute to Joseph and Hyrum. And unlike many of the places in the Doctrine and Covenants, it didn't have any reference section heading date or anything. It just simply said, Martyrdom of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. To seal the testimony of this book and the Book of Mormon, we close, you'll notice it's a plural there, right? We close with the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the prophet, and Hyrum Smith, the patriarch. They were shot in Carthage Jail, and you all know this and you go on. So in the 1844 edition, there's no attribution made to John Taylor. In 1876, there is a massive reorganization of the Doctrine and Covenants under Brigham Young's direction.
Gerrit Now, we have another podcast on that. I can't remember what number that is. You know, the history of the Doctrine and Covenants? I think we did something like that. Yeah, we probably didn't. At this point, we're just gonna claim we've had podcasts on larger issues, and then have you go search and find them, downloading all of the episodes, driving our numbers up, helping out my mom, Rachel's mom, and everyone else's mom who is willing to download. So, but we do have an earlier one on the history of the Doctrine and Covenants, which discusses that more in detail.
Richard I think it was November of 2021. I think that's about the timeframe of some of those.
Gerrit Is this in the oral history you're giving me now?
Richard It is, it was the, yes, that's correct.
Gerrit So in the 100 years, the Russians posted it. The Russians will have posted.
Richard That's correct.
Gerrit Which, maybe, I mean.
Richard Well, we could say, well, we get a lot of emails about polygamy as an example. Now we could just say, well, we did that in a previous podcast.
Gerrit That's what my plan is eventually. If we have enough and then we do a poor job of archiving them, it was, no, no, it's on the site. What site?
Richard We're already way ahead on that.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, we're doing. Perhaps our operating budget of zero is at some point going to become prohibited for what we can deliver to you as content. But, so in 1876, the Doctrine and Covenants is massively reorganized under the direction of Brigham Young and really Orson Pratt is the one tasked with doing it. And what I mean by reorganized is the Doctrine and Covenants is then put into chronological order. And there are much more established section headings that are created for these different sections. John Taylor, of course, is still alive at the time. John Taylor is the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, actually, when the 1876 Doctrine and Covenants comes out. There is no reference to John Taylor being the author of that. Now it's quoted multiple times in general conferences.
Gerrit John Taylor talks about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith a lot. And as I said in a previous podcast, there's actually one time where Brigham, it's the anniversary of the murder of Joseph and Hyrum. And Brigham essentially says, I don't know that I want to hear from John Taylor on it because it's too emotional to hear from him. He doesn't use the word emotional, but too fired up or something like that. At any rate, in the 1876 edition, it is also not attributed to anyone. There's another major reorganization of the Doctrine and Covenants in 1921. In 1921, yet again, there is no attribution. In fact, if you go to the 1921 edition, this is what you find. So this is the section heading from the 1921 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. Martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the Prophet and his brother, Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch at Carthage, Illinois, June 27th, 1844, see History of the Church, volume six, page 612.
Gerrit So the nice thing about the 1921 edition is that by this time, the History of the Church has actually been published in that six-volume set. And so to give historical background, there are a lot of references to the History of the Church in the section heading. So if I want to learn more about it, I can go read it. Now, of course, the History of the Church isn't going to say, and by the way, John Taylor is the one who wrote this section. So that's not what's there. But you can see that, so as late as 1921, and we're now through the 1844, the 1876, the 1879, and the 1921 editions of the Doctrine and Covenants, there is no attribution to John Taylor as the writer of this. Also important that we don't have any known documents that John Taylor says, hey, by the way, I'm the one who wrote this. You don't have that, at least anywhere that we know. Now, maybe there will be a document found, again, you notice as a historian, I don't like to slam the door on anything.
Gerrit Is it possible that we find a John Taylor letter where he says, I remember when I wrote the tribute to Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith that became part of the Doctrine and Covenants, I felt like maybe we'll find that someday. And if we do, well, then that will be really good evidence that he's the one who wrote it. Now, there are some things going against him having written it, right? Though Willard Richards in his initial, you know, after battle report, essentially, when he responds and tells the Saints and Nauvoo how terrible it is, he says, you know, John Taylor is wounded, not very badly. Now, I can only assume that that's what someone writes who doesn't have four bullet holes in them. You know, Willard Richards like, well, one did graze the top of my ear. So, you know, we're all suffering here. But I mean, John Taylor's in he's an agony. He's in a bad way. He's lost a ton of blood. If if you know anything about 19th century medicine, you should know that the real miracle is that John Taylor is alive at all, right?
Gerrit That he doesn't have gangrenous infections, that he that they don't try to treat him by bleeding him more because that's what have been something they might have tried to do. He talks about as they're trying to dig the bullets out of him. They're trying to do it with a dull pen knife and that it's just absolute agony. So John Taylor is he's in a bad way. He doesn't walk home to Nauvoo from Carthage. He is essentially unable to move. I mean, he's brought home in a wagon. Is it possible that he then immediately dictated the text of this? Of course it's possible. It's entirely, it's always possible, but there are some mitigating factors that would make that more difficult, right? That he, he doesn't come immediately home from Carthage. The, he, he, when he does, he's in a really bad shape.
Gerrit He's not the next day in the Nauvoo neighbor printing office saying, all right, let's get this out. Oh no, I think that you've turned the M upside down. Mind your T's and Q's, your P's and Q's. That's where that comes from, by the way, the P's and Q's. Yeah, because they look the same upside down. But anyway, is it possible that someone came to his house and he dictated it to them? All of those things are possible, but we don't have an early manuscript of this. We don't have this handwritten out from the time before it was published. Willard Richards, of course, is certainly also one of the people who works with the Printing Office. Maybe he had something, and he was certainly there. Clearly, Doctrine and Covenants section 135 takes information from what John Taylor has to say. But a lot of the information is also what is said by Willard Richards himself in the newspaper when he explains it to people and then explains it in a larger account as well. There are other people who could have. William Clayton, we know, writes an account of the martyrdom.
Gerrit After having heard three people describe the martyrdom, he writes out what his understanding is. And William Clayton also loved Joseph Smith and had a beautiful pen and could make things sound beautiful. So there are actually a lot of ways that this could have gone. The fact that it was written with this, we announce the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the prophet and Hyrum Smith, really shows that whoever the authors are, there appear to be more than one or whoever it is, is wanting to speak collectively for the church. This is the book of revelations. It's going to be sent out to members of the church all over the world. And they want to bookend it with, we need to let you know, that those murderers killed Joseph and Hyrum, to seal the testimony of this book. But they don't ever say, and by the way, I'm Willard Richards writing this. So now the question becomes, well, then why is it in my 1981 scripture saying that he wrote it?
Gerrit Well, and maybe let's read that from the 1981 real quick, just so we can be consistent with what we did with 1921. In the 1981 edition, it reads, martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the prophet, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, the patriarch at Carthage, Illinois, June 27th, 1844, and then it gives the same history of the church reference. So it's exactly the same as the 1921 up to that point. And then it says, this document was written by Elder John Taylor of the Council of the Twelve, who was a witness to the events. So you notice that's new information that wasn't there before. Well, I can't go in to all the ins and outs of why that was in the 1981 edition and that it's not in the 2013 edition. The 2013 edition instead reads this way. Announcement of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the prophet, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, the patriarch at Carthage, Illinois, June 27th, 1844.
Gerrit This document was included at the end of the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, which was nearly ready for publication when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered. So it gives you a little bit different historical background, but it doesn't make that attribution. The first place that we can find attribution being made actually comes shortly after, because the real question is, well, why is it in the 1981 edition? If it wasn't in any of the ones before and it's not in the one after, how did it get into that one? Well, shortly after the 1921 edition is printed, there is a reference that is made to the authorship of this document in General Conference. So let's read that. It is from 1922, so just a year after the 1921 edition, again, doesn't give any authorship attribution, you have Heber J. Grant speaking in General Conference. Heber J.
Gerrit Grant loved Section 135. As you go through, you can go through the conference corpus of all the conference talks, and he is going to reference Doctrine and Covenants Session 135 over and over again. You can feel how much Heber J. Grant is touched by this tribute to Joseph and Hyrum Smith. And in 1922, when he gives this tribute, he says, I have understood that this splendid account of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith was written by President John Taylor, known as the Champion of Liberty, who received four shots in his body and who lived carrying some of those bullets to his grave, and who, years after the martyrdom, stood before the people in this stand as President, Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of the Church of Jesus Christ. Heber J. Grant clearly has great devotion towards John Taylor as well, having known him so well.
Gerrit And so this is where that first reference, you'll notice it's not a definitive statement even there though, right? It's President Grant saying, this is what someone's told me. Essentially, there's some oral history there. Notice he didn't say, John Taylor told me that he wrote this, even as close as he was with John Taylor. Nope, you don't have that. What do you have? I have understood that this was written by John Taylor. Well, of course, after that, Doctrine and Covenants, commentaries, manuals, things, all, I mean, part of the reason why is Doctrine and Covenants section 135 is so powerful, we want there to be an author. We want to be able to say, look at this person wrote this. It's really the only section of the Doctrine and Covenants where we just don't have an author. There are either revelations that Joseph Smith received or a revelation that Joseph F. Smith received or Brigham Young received. And it's only D&C 135 that just is there, right?
Gerrit It's just words on the page. It's the tribute, but it doesn't say who gave it. And so over the course of the 20th century, whenever, not whenever, but increasingly, as people reference this great tribute to Joseph and Hyrum Smith, they began saying that John Taylor wrote it. That, I'm guessing, I don't know it all. Trust me, I'm not in the circle to where I have any idea to know what led to the decisions for the section heading of the 1981 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. But my guess is that because it had become more accepted belief since 1922 that John Taylor had written it, that that's the reason why that was added. And of course, people love that. I mean, the part of what Heber J. Grant says here that is indisputable is that John Taylor is a champion of liberty. John Taylor suffered for Joseph. He received four shots in his body, bore his test, I mean, all of those things are indisputable.
Gerrit That John Taylor wrote this, even President Grant isn't saying is indisputable. He's saying that he had understood that that is what happened. So someone somewhere must have said, now this is the earliest I can find, but if we had all the documents from the past, maybe we would know more about what happened. So then in the 2013 edition of the scriptures, utilizing the research from the Joseph Smith Papers and from the new understandings, there were many changes made to the section headings of the Doctrine and Covenants. Now, most of them were very minor. Most of them were, oh, we thought it was this day, and it was actually this day because we got the earliest manuscript version. What seems to be apparent is that when there was greater investigation of this attribution of authorship, that the realization was that, well, John Taylor doesn't ever say that he wrote it and he quotes from it.
Gerrit I mean, this is a big deal to him. Joseph's martyrdom is clearly a main theme for John Taylor. None of the previous sections, editions of the Doctrine and Covenants ever say that John Taylor wrote it. No contemporaries of John Taylor ever say that John Taylor wrote it. The original authors of the statement didn't think that they needed to put an attribution to it. My guess is that the conclusion was made. Well, if we don't know for sure, we shouldn't say. We shouldn't say something that we don't know. We should just let it stand the same way it's always stood. It's only the 1981 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants that even attempted attribution. Now there are other places where there were changes that were made. And in fact, what we're going to talk about next week is some understandings that we have about baptism that are also affected by kind of the messiness of history and how history is recorded and what documents exist.
Gerrit So hopefully this was an entertaining exploration of, you know, oral histories and the origin of Doctrine and Covenants section 135. I hope that no one gets too hung up on any of these things. Because whether John Taylor wrote D&C 135, or whether someone else wrote it, or whether he collaborated with other people to write it, it doesn't actually matter. It's scripture to us. It's canonized. The section heading wasn't the scripture. The words themselves are the scripture. And they've been in that book of scripture book ending, you know, the final statement, essentially, of those revelations since 1844, since the aftermath of the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. So even if we don't know exactly who wrote it, God is letting us know that it's scripture. And that, I think, is what we really need to focus on.
Gerrit Maybe I can't prove every miraculous event from the past, but whether an individual miraculous event happened or not is actually not the deciding factor in whether or not this is God's true church. This is God's true church, even though there are some messy aspects of history, even though we don't have all the answers, even though there are things that I can't give you any answers for, because I don't know. It's still God's true church. It is still the restoration that God envisioned to bring greater light and knowledge to the world. Messy, right? As, you know, using imperfect humans to roll his purposes forward as God has always done. Anyone who thinks that God has used perfect people to work in the past hasn't read any part of the Bible. The reality is, God only has imperfect people to work with, as the Apostle says, and so that's what we have from the past.
Gerrit Hopefully, this kind of gives us a better understanding. I don't want anyone to be too quick to jump to say, oh, well, that must not be true at all from the past because we only have one source. And I also don't want people to be so tied to the specific events of a single oral history that it hurts their testimony if another source comes out. Because what matters is that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was his prophet. It doesn't actually matter who wrote Doctrine and Covenants, Section 135. What matters is the truth of the resurrection of the Savior and that God has prophets on the earth today. So hopefully, you'll enjoy the continuation of that discussion next week.
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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I mean, if anyone ever tries to give you a really simple answer to a question, you know, A, they're obviously not a historian, because we have to talk for about 15 minutes and then say nothing.

GerritBanter

Because even though I read journals for a living, I don't keep them for a living.

GerritBanter

So, historians can only prove what most likely happened in the past. And by definition, miracles are never the most likely thing that happened in the past.

GerritInsight

Frankly, I don't think any of us know what we would do if God appeared to us.

GerritInsight

An angel appeared to him to say, just so you know, there aren't any angels.

GerritBanter

I think we have the title for this episode, Corrohor is the best.

RichardBanter

The problem is that the Nazis weren't doing anything in today's Belarus in 1920.

RichardBanter

We don't believe that Jesus was resurrected because it's the most likely scenario. We believe it because it's true.

GerritInsight

The section heading wasn't the scripture. The words themselves are the scripture.

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Because what matters is that Jesus is the Christ and that Joseph Smith was his prophet.

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More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
If a miracle wasn't written down at the time, it probably didn't happen.
John Taylor wrote D&C 135, and the Church removed his name under pressure.
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

History can show what most likely happened; it can't prove or disprove a miracle. That's not a weakness of faith, it's the limit of the tool.

Family stories often keep the heart of what happened while the details drift, like Nazis in 1920; you can cherish the story and still check the dates.

D&C 135's author isn't known for sure; until 1981 no heading named one, and the words are scripture either way.

We don't believe in the Resurrection because it's the most likely explanation. We believe it because the Spirit testifies it's true.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Gerrit never answers the question (quickly)Historians talk 15 minutes and then say nothing; he's still not answering at minute 6 (0:57, 6:09).
In-N-Out, Richard paid, finallyThe only journal entry Gerrit can imagine writing (2:03).
Korihor is the bestRichard proposes it as the episode title (15:14, 15:36).
The audience: Gerrit's mom (and Rachel's mom)Plural marriage comes in season 17, hosted by Gerrit's mom, Rachel's mom and a fading Richard; the moms download every episode (16:44, 38:46).
The Pelican stateTelephone turns a state bird into "the Pelican should never have drafted Zion Williams" (21:32).
Richard holds the email loginGerrit can't log in to the email; job security, and maybe Richard should get more FaceTime to talk business metrics (31:26, 32:15).
Episodes promised, never madeWe probably did a Doctrine and Covenants history episode; Richard's oral history dates it November 2021, and the Russians will have posted it (38:46, 39:15).
Nazis, Russians, it doesn't matterRichard's grandmother's verdict on her own family story (27:24).
Mind your P's and Q'sPrinting-office type looks the same upside down (45:06).
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
Compare the D&C 135 headings in the 1844, 1876, 1921, 1981 and 2013 editions yourself (37:40).
Read Heber J. Grant's 1922 conference talk and his other references to section 135 in the conference corpus (49:16).
Look into the Latter-day Saint DNA studies of families who believed they descended from Joseph Smith's plural marriages (21:32).
Read Martin Luther's and Ellen White's accounts of their calls and how historians write about them (9:25).
Write down your own family's miracle stories now, with names and dates, so a historian 200 years from now has a source (3:03).
SOT Litner · S2E7.