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S3E19 · Did Joseph Smith Really Use A Seer Stone?
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Standard of Truth · Season 3 · Episode 19 · 1:18:29

Did Joseph Smith Really Use A Seer Stone?

Martin Harris once secretly swapped Joseph's seer stone for a look-alike, and Joseph stopped and said all was dark as Egypt.

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The question ·
Did the prophet Joseph Smith use a seer stone as well as the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon?
John (listener)

After a Brigham Young quote and an email from a faithful Wisconsin member too busy with baptisms to write, John asks in one sentence whether Joseph used a seer stone as well as the Urim and Thummim. Gerrit explains why the question keeps coming up at his firesides: some members insist the seer stone story is an anti-Mormon invention. He tells of a woman who called him a liar until he showed her the church's own Gospel Topics Essay on his phone, and of the stone now kept by the First Presidency. Gerrit walks through the many witnesses, Emma Smith, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, who independently described a stone in a hat. He lands on a choice: either the church and its prophets are deceived, or we can be grateful to understand the translation better.

Who comes upJoseph SmithEmma SmithDavid WhitmerMartin HarrisBrigham YoungAlmon BabbittRussell M. NelsonDieter F. UchtdorfWilford Woodruff
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Gerrit reads an email

The hosts swap roles, and Richard brings up their favorite Brigham Young quote.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
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 installment of the Phebe Draper mailbag, we're going to start off with Gerrit reading an email.
Gerrit Just to switch it up.
Richard And mix it up a little bit from the great state of Wisconsin.
Gerrit So Richard and I, we have production meetings. They consist of watching the Timberwolves game, and that was a little deflating. So I said, I feel like Richard's just talking too much on the podcast. I need to be the center of attention. And Richard, he's slowly, he's muscle in his way in. We have people sending fan mail just to him, and I will not have it.
Richard So just real quick, we've mentioned this before in previous episodes, the Brigham Young quote that we say all the time to each other.
Gerrit Yeah, the Brigham Young quote that goes back to when they're talking in the Council of 50 Minutes, and Almond Babbitt, who is a, he is a long time, well, instigator, I think is a good way to put it. Almond Babbitt is the most curious person in church history because he is constantly at odds with both Joseph Smith and with Brigham Young. In fact, Joseph receives a revelation condemning Almond Babbitt for setting up a golden calf for the worship of the people. Now, I don't know a lot, but I'm just guessing that it's not a good thing for Joseph to receive a revelation condemning you. Well, so he would get disfellowshipped, he'd get excommunicated, and he would just keep getting brought back into the church. And so the guy must have been the most amazing administrator of all time, because he'd get excommunicated, they'd bring him back in, stake president. So, you know, he was failing up in the church hierarchy, essentially.
Gerrit Well, so when they're talking to the council of 50 minutes, they're talking about how upset they are that the government's treating them as poorly as they are. And Almon Babbitt says, well, we need to be careful, you know, because, you know, there were some sermons that were given in Missouri and that, you know, they should never have been given, basically. And Brigham Young stops the meeting and says, you know, I, it says, Brother Babbitt knows that he had Joseph in mind when he said what he said about sermons being given. And I have made up my mind that I will never allow anyone to speak against Joseph in my presence, unless he hears from me. So, that's kind of Brigham's personality. Well, it wasn't just that he wanted to defend Joseph. He also wasn't Joseph. Now, look, they were both, they both had a lot of similar qualities. But, you know, there is God raised up Brigham Young to lead the Saints to Salt Lake, there's no doubt.
Gerrit When they're in winter quarters and people are not exactly following the rules, Brigham Young calls a meeting and he essentially tells them that if you don't stop your adultery and your lying and your gambling and your backbiting, you know, I'm just going to leave you here. And then he said, Brother Joseph bore with you on these things because he was a merciful man, but I will not. And so, Richard and I say this to each other all the time, but I will not. Not that Brigham wasn't merciful, but he was at wit's end. I mean, imagine the car ride to Western Iowa.
Richard Well, essentially, so I went in and I listened to that April 2005 conference talk from President Hinckley on gambling.
Gerrit And reformed.
Richard I'm reformed. And so consequently on this episode, I have one email to read. It's one sentence. And so that's what I've been relegated to for trying to build up a light.
Gerrit Should we read yours first?
Richard No, cause mine actually leads into the topic. And plus yours is a tip of the cap to Wisconsin.
Gerrit This is, so first of all, let's color me a little bit surprised. I believe I have been a little too casual, as I've mentioned, that there are few or zero members in Wisconsin. Of course, there are some members in Wisconsin where I serve my mission. I never met any of them, but I'm sure that there are some on the records of the church. No joke though, when I was there, we went to a ward and we were excited because they had just gotten a new building built. And I'm like, my goodness, they got a church building built out here. We go to church there, like it's a ward. I'm not saying the location to protect the innocent, although literally the point of this conversation is they weren't innocent. And we go there and it was like a branch. I mean, it was a ward building, nice big brand new chapel, like nobody there in church. And come to find out that they had been lying about their sacrament meeting attendance for years in order to get the building.
Gerrit Which I mean, that's a good play.
Richard Yeah, yeah, respect.
Gerrit Anyway, but we did get this email from someone who at least allegedly is both A, in Wisconsin, and B, an active member of the church.
Richard Well, so we don't know in the active member part. We assume perhaps, I think he attended the BYU.
Gerrit I mean, he makes a reference as if he were active.
Richard We know that he is an actual person. We did look him up.
Gerrit Yeah, if you got a Google hit on you, Rob, it's because we were like, before we read this, we need to make sure, because we can't have someone claiming that they're from Wisconsin, but really they're from Michigan. We need actual confirmation. Anyway, Rob writes, you're one Wisconsin listener who isn't a missionary. Now Rob's making a joke about the fact that we did get a couple of listeners in Wisconsin. If you recall, it was a missionary who was tasked with eliminating a bunch of illegally or non-mission approved downloaded materials on some hard drives. And that missionary was supposed to eliminate all the unapproved materials, came to our podcast, listened to all of them instead of deleting them.
Richard And then sent us an email asking a question.
Gerrit Yeah, and sent us an email. We also since found out that the missionary who actually illegally downloaded the podcast was also one of our friend's sons. So shout out to him. But your dad's ratted you out that, look, there's only so many missionaries in Wisconsin that we can be referencing. There's, and it's one of you too. Anyway, he goes on. Hello, Professor LeDuc and Dr. Dirkmaat. I have heard Dr. Dirkmaat talk about his tearful exploits. And trials as a Wisconsin missionary. And I've enjoyed Professor LeDuc's lightening things up with his sports picks. Every time Wisconsin comes up, I think to myself, hey, I have a lot in common with these guys. First of all, I'm a professor, all right. Second, I live in Wisconsin. Third, I served my mission in California, like Richard did. Just like the good professor, I should send them an email. However, I have a very demanding job, and when I do have time on my hands, I need to attend to baptisms, and I feel I should be helping the full-time missionaries with their burdensome teaching loads, so I have no time for emails.
Gerrit So I believe Rob is alleging that there are so many baptisms taking place in Wisconsin currently that he can't write us an email. So there must have been a brief miraculous break in the steady stream of people to the water side for him to send us this email. I was just listening to your missionary extravaganza episode when Dr. Dirkmaat said, no one from Wisconsin listens to the podcast. I may have said that. Missionaries excluded. Because they're not from there. They're just forced to be there against their will. And I said to myself, okay, enough is enough. So he decided to write, I'm a person from Wisconsin who also listens to the Standard of Truth podcast. It is expensive to live out here, and we barely scrape by in between snowstorms. But I hope one day to find some money to pay for the premium content. As has been pointed out, we are glutting ourselves on the labors of the people, like so many priests of Noah.
Gerrit My favorite episode of all time are the ones on the Apocrypha. Every time I think about your banter on Belle and the Dragon, I can't stop laughing. Oh, that was a good one. You should go back and listen to Apocrypha if you haven't heard it.
Richard That's good. We didn't include it in the missionary prep, but I don't know how vital it is.
Gerrit Well, I mean, I assume if you're going to Italy on your mission.
Richard Yeah, if you're serving in Vatican City.
Gerrit Yeah, if you are one of the few missionaries assigned to the Papal residence, then you might find it helpful. I've learned so much from your podcast. My wife and I have taught our children from an early age not to believe anything that is not properly sourced. Respect, because he's a professor, he knows. The thing is, he went through getting a PhD, and so that means he also had an advisor say to him, what is this?
Richard Yeah, electrical engineering and computer science by the professor.
Gerrit Wow.
Richard If, in fact, the Google stocking we've done is accurate.
Gerrit How good of a Google stocker are you?
Richard I'm not good.
Gerrit You were once a grocery store shelf stocker.
Richard I was, actually. Lee's Marketplace.
Gerrit Yeah, and how did that go for you? It was great.
Richard It was a great company. I love living in Logan.
Gerrit It led to him later slicing his finger.
Richard That was at Smith's.
Gerrit I know, but it was because you moved up in the world. That's true. Your podcast is a great example of how our testimonies are strengthened from a position of informed knowledge, honesty and respect. Now he's going to go on to ask a question about James Strang and some of the Strangites in Wisconsin. In fact, he's going to reference Rockford, Illinois and Beloit, Wisconsin, that you'd be very upset that it's pronounced Beloit because it looks like the la. Yeah, very French for you. And I know exactly that location that he's talking about, but it's a question about the Strangites and the succession crisis. And we are going to talk about that at some point. We've said that we will.
Richard It's going to be, the problem is that there's so much going on there, it's going to be one of those.
Gerrit Like nine parters.
Richard It likely won't come until probably the end of the summer.
Gerrit Well, when is the eclipse supposed to cross America again?
Richard You know what, I'll get my correct research done.
Gerrit Okay, get your research. I think it'll be sometime after that that we'll actually get to. But I appreciate the email, very funny. And of course I know there's great faithful members in Wisconsin, because if you're going, if you're active in Wisconsin, you're a faithful member. You are pushing past it. Richard, did you have an email?
Richard I do. I do have an email here. Looks like there was an eclipse April 20th of this year, so we missed that one. There's a big one coming.
Gerrit Yeah, big one. Crosses Arkansas.
Richard Yeah, April 8th, 2024.
Gerrit There we go.
Richard That's the one.
Gerrit So we're going to try to push for that sometime, April 7th of 2024.
Richard Here is my one sentence to read. This comes to us from John. Did the prophet Joseph Smith use a seer stone as well as the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon? Great question, John.
Gerrit That's it? That was the end of the email?
Richard That's it. Can I tell you what, John? Right to the point.
Gerrit Yeah. He didn't even say, hey, Professor LeDuc, please read my email.
Richard No, it doesn't make a reference to me at all.
Gerrit Let me just reiterate again. We receive so many emails, which is funny because we only have three listeners. We're somehow getting dozens of emails a week. And so we really do read them all. I really do appreciate them. Many of you are very kind.
Richard Some of you less so.
Gerrit Some of you are less kind. Someone needs to go back and listen to Blessed Are the Peacemakers from Elder Nelson, President Nelson. But, I mean, they are helpful, and we do get a lot of show ideas from them. So please keep them coming. And if we don't respond to you directly, please do know that we do read them. Sometimes we don't respond because your question is so good, I don't know what the answer is. And I'm not going to just, I'm not going to telegraph to everybody that I'm a fraud.
Richard Well, so the reason that we're reading John's email here is because this is, you've given several fire sites recently where this question has come up, and not only has it come up, it's come up in a way where members of the Church have been fairly antagonistic toward you, and it allows for us to have a discussion.
Gerrit Yeah, and not just me. In fact, there is a fairly popular YouTube broadcast that actually contacted me this week, asking me this very same question. And the way they phrased it was, there's been a lot of rise of people questioning whether or not Joseph Smith used a seer stone. And ordinarily, this is not the kind of thing that I really want to wade into, but it really is becoming kind of a problem. And let me explain especially why I think that it is. I had an email from a Church leader. Don't start thinking that any actual amazing, no general authority knows who I am or cares about me.
Richard Stakes Sunday School Second Counselor.
Gerrit Whatever, yeah. A more general Church leader than that, they sent me an email in which, after a fireside that they had given, someone contacted them and proceeded to say, I love you and I really love your message, but I'm really not okay with the fact that you mentioned that Joseph Smith used a seer stone because I know that he didn't. And they began to kind of chastise this Church leader on that point. And they forwarded me the email asking me if I could help. And so I did my duty as far as trying to give a good answer, but myself, in multiple of the firesides that I've given, even when the topic isn't about that, I have found that there have been multiple people that come out of the gate swinging, arguing that I am an apostate, in fact, because I've written about and talked about the fact that Joseph Smith certainly used the seer stones that were in the box with the plates, the two stones that we often refer to as Urim and Thummim, but that also he had another stone, a separate small stone, which multiple witnesses talk about that he used for the translation.
Gerrit The reason why that, you know, I'm getting this inquiry from this YouTube broadcaster, the reason why I'm getting this inquiry forwarded to me from this church leader, and the reason why this is happening at multiple firesides that I'm giving, is because there is a movement essentially among some members of the church to reject the fact that the church is teaching that about the translation of the Book of Mormon. Now, look, I'm a historian, so I'm well aware that not everyone accepts the different parts of historical inquiry and conclusion that people make. And there are multiple things that are quite disputed in the historical community. For instance, when did Peter, James and John come? Well, among early Latter-day Saint historians, you actually have a wide range of views. Why? Well, we don't have a date on when they came. So you have people who say, well, you know, it had to come when Samuel was there and Samuel was there on these days, and so therefore, and they try to kind of work their way out.
Gerrit There's others who will take other evidences and say, well, I think it happened at a completely different time. And so inside the historical community, you're fine with the fact that there are, there's sometimes a range of possible scenarios. You might certainly feel like you're right about the one you believe in, which of course, you always feel that about whatever you think. It's very weird for you to believe something that you know isn't right, but you just keep believing it anyway. That would be, that's not the best way to do knowledge, I would say. What do you think, Richard?
Richard I tend to agree.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, if you already know that what you believe isn't true, you should probably stop believing it. So look, it's one thing to have an opinion about the way things happened. And sometimes those can be pretty strongly held positions. However, there have been several movements recently in the church that have, that among church members, let me say, who have been troubled by the fact that the church is certainly investing much more time and resources in the history of the church. And as the Joseph Smith Papers or the Gospel Topics essays or the revelations in context are put out on the church's website, oftentimes those narratives that are now on the church's website, they differ from beliefs that people have always had. And sometimes those beliefs are very strongly held beliefs.
Gerrit Now, for most members of the church, you know, maybe they didn't know about Joseph Smith using seer stones. And then the church puts out a Gospel Topics essay that says, Joseph Smith used seer stones, and the member goes, huh, well, I'm glad I know that now, and they move on. But there are other people who are adamant that in fact Joseph Smith did not. Now, their position of argument isn't from one of evidence. It's actually from one of the absence of evidence. So a very common argument that I will hear from people is they will come, you know, they wait around after my fireside is over, and then come up to let me know what part of hell I'm going to, and then I have to remind them that we're Mormons, so we don't believe in hell, but they say I'm still going there anyway. Honestly, it is a really weird thing. Like, I'll go be giving a fireside where for two hours, I'm desperately trying to get people to believe in the Church.
Gerrit Desperately. I'm desperately trying to get them to have a testimony that Joseph Smith's a prophet, that President Nelson's a prophet, that this is God's true Church, and someone will pull me aside afterwards and say, well, you know you're an apostate, right? Because you said that Joseph Smith used a seer stone. So where is that coming from? That kind of visceral, angry reaction? Because it's one thing to say, hey, I didn't know about that. It's quite another to say, you are an apostate if you believe that.
Richard I think that there are rational, in their mind, reasons as to why that's happening. Perhaps they know somebody that had a faith crisis. Perhaps they were always told that things were done a certain way, and now things being done a different way means that the people that told them that they were done this way were wrong, or maybe they feel that they had lied to them, and they were not willing to accept it. I feel like there's a lot of ways that people could rationalize themselves.
Gerrit I think that there's lots of reasons why they react that way, and so the question then becomes, I mean, we kind of talked about this a little bit when we talked about Book of Mormon geography, right? There are lots of feelings about that, and there are some really, really, really strong feelings about it, to the point where I've heard people on both sides of the debate condemn people on the other side of the debate. And yet, what's the church's position?
Richard We're not sure.
Gerrit We don't know, stop being jerks to people about this. And yet, there are people who feel so strongly about it, they're like, well, yeah, but you're just an idiot if you don't agree with what I think. Well, the church is saying, stop caring about it. And yet, people are still saying, no, it's the most important thing. And so, I think that's where you end up with this very difficult position where once someone has convinced themselves that a certain part of gospel doctrine or church history is the most essential part of belief, they then extrapolate out from that, those who don't agree with me are there for, there's something wrong with them. But in this case, it's very different, right? So this isn't just like, this isn't just me sitting in the back of a gospel doctrine class, postulating on just exactly how old I thought Methuselah was before he died, and being very adamant about it when someone disagrees with me. This is something for which the church has repeatedly expressed a position.
Gerrit And so what do you do then if you're on the other side of the argument? Well, look, the vast majority of members of the church, they just change their position. Because once the church has a position on something, okay, well, now that's my position. Because we're members of the church, right? That's the whole point. We follow what the prophet says. And like I said, there's a movement. In fact, there have been a few books that have been written. There are multiple online postings, blog posts, YouTube publications that claim, in essence, that the church, the leaders of the church are being deceived by faithless, godless academics like myself who are pushing a narrative of a seer stone being in a hat because we're trying to destroy people's testimonies.
Gerrit Now, there's a lot of problems with the argument, one of them being the logical fallacy of why in the world I'm so desperately trying to get people to believe in the church by trying to get them to believe something false about Joseph Smith. Now, maybe they might be kind and say, well, you've just been deceived, but the problem is the argument extends beyond that. Like I said, I have had multiple people recently say that I'm an apostate because I teach that Joseph Smith had multiple seer stones, that the way he translated the Book of Mormon was by placing a seer stone and a hat, which is literally what the church's Gospel Topics essay entitled Translation of the Book of Mormon says. So I want you to think about that for a second. I know that there's lots of things that we don't have answers about.
Gerrit There are lots of things that we're not entirely sure. What is the answer to this question? But then there are some things that we actually do have answers to. I realize that that may not convince everyone, but as I tried to respond to this email that was forwarded to me, I started to go through the list of places in which the Church has taken a position on this topic. Now again, I'm not a representative of the Church. The Church, the Prophet declares doctrine. I don't. I only repeat the things that they have on their website. I can research and do history and I can say as a historian, there's overwhelming evidence that Joseph Smith used a seer stone as part of the translation of the Book of Mormon. Overwhelming evidence that the way he translated was by placing either the Urim and Thummim stones or the separate seer stone into a hat to block out the light.
Gerrit David Whitmer, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, Emma Smith, all independently say that that's how it took place. So that would mean if that didn't happen that way, then all of those witnesses, all of those people who are also desperate to prove that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, instead of explaining how it actually happened, they all, and again, independently, because they're not saying this at the same time, they're all independently claiming that he did it with a stone that he placed in a hat, even though they know that's not how it actually happened because they were there, and they know that anti-Mormons attack and make fun of that being the way that it happened. But instead of saying how it actually happened, still said that's how it happened, even though the whole point was to defend Joseph, even though this was going to get Joseph mocked.
Gerrit What is the motivation behind that? Why would someone do that? Why, if I'm a witness of the translation, would I say, I desperately want you to believe that Joseph translated it, I'm now going to quote an anti-Mormon for what I saw while he was translating? That's essentially what people are asking. Like I said, there have been several, people feel so passionately about it, there have been several books written. Now, neither of those books have been written by historians. And those books haven't been published by reputable presses either. They haven't been published by peer-reviewed academic presses. They have instead been essentially self-published, which as we've talked about on the podcast before, you need to be incredibly wary of something that's simply published by someone's own entity. Because that means it didn't go through the review process in which people have to defend what it is they're saying.
Gerrit Mike McKay and I recently published the book, Let's Talk About the Translation of the Book of Mormon with Desiree Book. Well, that book went through numerous, numerous revisions, went through numerous reviews, multiple peer reviews, independent peer reviews of people. I don't know who they are. You know, people who said, Hey, I like this. I hate this. Can you prove this? It's probably my mom. I don't know. I don't know who they had read it, right? And we had to adjust and we had to make it acceptable to those reviewers. When someone self-publishes something, I know they think they're an expert on it, but no other expert has said, I agree you are. And that's the reason why peer reviews. Now, peer review does not, as we talked about on the counterfeiting episode, peer review does not guarantee that you're going to get something that's accurate.
Gerrit But it's at least a backstop to try to help make something that's published be more accurate. It's not a guarantee. I have legitimately read books and said, how in the world did that get published? And then talk to, bringing the book up to other scholars, had the scholars say to me, they published that? I was the reviewer for that, and I told them not to publish it. I'm like, well, here it is in print. And they were stunned. But the reality is sometimes publishers do ignore reviewers and publish them anyway. That's not supposed to be the norm, though. In any case, even having reviewers that you ignore is preferable to ones you don't have, which is the case when someone is self-publishing. They might say, oh, I had a friend review it. That's not what blind peer review is. Blind peer review is someone you don't know who's an expert, who's published in it, who says, yeah, you don't even, you're ignoring half of the sources here.
Gerrit So I think it's this person in their email said, as they were explaining their argument to this church later, they said, all the firsthand witnesses to the translation, specifically Emma, Martin and Oliver, as well as Joseph himself, never said that he used a stone in a hat. This part of the email stunned me. It stunned me because legitimately, almost the entire sentence is false. But this is what they had emailed, saying, you're wrong, brother so-and-so, you shouldn't have said this, because we know that none of the witnesses said that Joseph Smith used a stone in a hat. And they went on to chastise him for sharing what they were claiming essentially was false doctrine in his fireside.
Gerrit And so you kind of get an idea of the stridentcy of that and the definitive nature of it. Martin Harris didn't say it. Emma didn't say it. David Whitmer didn't say it. Oliver never said it. Joseph never said it. Well, that's a lot of nevers that you're using as a way of saying that this church leader is wrong. Well, then you need to be right about that because you're pretty definitively saying it. Now they do say, I got my information from this book that's making this argument. So, I mean, I do feel for this person because they're just simply repeating back what they read from this book. But notice how persuaded they were by this book. They were contacting this church leader to say, you are wrong because of this book that I read. You're teaching something that's false because of this book that I read.
Richard So, Gerrit, actually, before you get into some of the, maybe the back and forth that you had, or the back, I guess.
Gerrit Just the email.
Richard Yeah, but you actually did have a back and forth with somebody at the fireside. It was an interesting experience, which is part of the reason that we're having this conversation. Now, how did that go? So you came down and they waited for you to chat?
Gerrit I mean, I'm not a large draw. I mean, most of the people listening have probably had an opportunity to go to one of my firesides and said, is there anything else on? Oh, it's the best of bread marathon.
Richard Yeah, right. Yeah, you're a winger cover band in Carson City.
Gerrit Yeah, basically. I mean, so I'm not trying to say that, like I do do a lot of firesides because I'm always willing to do, I'm always trying to spread the gospel. I'm not saying I'm effective at it, but if people will say, hey, we'd really like you to come speak at this, I try to do it if I can, you know. And a good friend of mine had me come speak in his stake. And there was a person in the stake who I noticed she was kind of lingering around after I was done. And I was talking to a lot of other people. And someone came up and they introduced me to her. And I said, oh, hi. And this person said, well, tell them. Tell them what you think. Tell them what you think. And she proceeded to say, you are teaching false doctrine because you are saying that Joseph, you published a book. My lesson was not on the translation of the Book of Mormon. That wasn't what the fireside was on. But she had come to the fireside because she knew that I was an apostate because I had published a book with Desire Book, two of them, saying that Joseph Smith had translated the Book of Mormon in that way.
Gerrit And she was saying the same thing. And again, she had read this other book that had made this claim. And the way this book makes the claim is Joseph never said that that happened. Joseph never said that that happened. And so anyone who says that Joseph used a hat is a liar. And who are the people who said that he did? Well, they're apostates. That's who said that he did. So therefore, anyone who says that is a liar and an apostate, down the line. And it was interesting, this woman said to me, none of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon said that Joseph Smith used a seer stone. Same thing, just like this email. And I said, well, I mean, they all did. I mean, I was actually stunned. I mean, given the fact that all of the witnesses of translation say that he used a seer stone, when someone says none of them did, that's kind of a weird, I mean, I get it. I understand that not all of those sources is of the same value. Like some are interviews that they're giving with people.
Gerrit Some are people saying, oh, I talked to Martin Harris, and he said, I get it. I understand that not all sources are created equal. But it's a really weird thing to say. Martin Harris never said Joseph Smith used a seer stone and a hat. And you say, well, here's the interview that he published where he said Joseph Smith took his hat and placed a seer stone in it. I mean, so if we want to have a discussion about I don't like that source or I think Martin Harris is wrong, that's a discussion that you can have, right? But it's a really weird thing to say he never said it at all. Well, what's your evidence for the fact he didn't say it? Well, because Joseph didn't. Okay, but he did. No, Joseph didn't have a seer stone. And she was very belligerent. You could tell she was very angry at me because she saw me as someone destroying the church.
Gerrit And so I said to her, I said, well, you know that the Gospel Topics Essay on LDS, on the library, on the Church History Library app that's on everyone's phone where their scriptures are, it says that that's how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. Her response was, I don't believe that. I don't believe it says that. Well, I mean, that was a fairly easy thing to demonstrate that it does. And I said, well, you know, President Nelson released a video that's on YouTube, it's on the Church website, where he's discussing the translation of the Book of Mormon, and he's sitting in harmony, and he even says that Joseph put the seer stones in a hat and translated. Her response to that was, he never said that, that didn't happen. And I said, well, no, it did. I mean, you can watch it. She's like, I don't believe that. I believe you're lying.
Gerrit It was, it was, she was very I believe you're lying. Yeah, that's what she said. I believe you're lying. He didn't say that. So luckily I had my cell phone, right? You know, thankfully, and, you know, I wasn't checking fantasy football scores right then, because it's not football season, but I, I pulled it out and I pulled up the video from the church's website and she watched it. And her mouth dropped open. She was so certain that there's no possible way that the church could be teaching that, that as she, she finished watching it, her mouth dropped open. She said, and I said, well, that's the prophet of the church who's teaching that. Do you, do you believe that president Nelson's a prophet and crazy? I remember this conversation started with her saying, I was an apostate, that I was leading people away from the church. Her response to watching the video was, well, I follow what Joseph says.
Gerrit I follow what Joseph says. And I said, so are you saying that president Nelson is a false prophet? I'm not saying that, but maybe he's been led away by people who have been telling him different things, academics who don't have any testimonies. And I said, you just listen to me. For two hours, defend Joseph Smith and the church against attacks by anti-Mormons. Do you think that I'm trying to lead people astray? And she said, well, what you did tonight was fine, but if you say that Joseph Smith used a seer stone, you're just destroying people's testimonies. And so I said, well, it's not just President Nelson. I mean, you know that Brigham Young talks about Joseph Smith having a seer stone, right? Do you believe Brigham Young is a prophet? And she got a little defensive. Of course, Brigham Young is a prophet.
Gerrit And I said, okay. And so I pulled up on my phone where Brigham Young talks about Joseph Smith finding his separate seer stone, you know, finding it in a kettle under the earth, right? And she reads it and she's stunned. And I say, you know, Wilford Woodruff talks about that seer stone all the time. One of the arguments she made was Joseph Smith didn't have any seer stones because he gave the Urim and Thummim stones back with the plates, which is a fine argument. I think Joseph did give those stones back when he gave the plates back. And I said, well, Joseph has something that he's calling a Urim and Thummim in 1841. She said, no, he doesn't. And I said, well, we've already, I mean, I didn't say this out loud, but in my mind, I'm like, we've kind of already done this rodeo three times now. I say something that happened, you say that, no, that didn't happen. And then I literally have you read it from the original source on my phone. And then you go, oh, right.
Gerrit And that's exactly what we did. So I said, Wilford Woodruff in his journal, very excitedly by the way, says, today I saw for the first time the Urim and Thumb and Stone, Joseph's office. And he's very excited about it. In fact, after that, Wilford Woodruff will refer to Joseph as Joseph the Seer for like a whole year in his journal. Every time he references him, Joseph the Seer said, it's pretty crazy. And she said, he didn't say that. And I said, okay. So pulled up Wilford Woodruff's journal and she, and she read it right there and she was stunned. I said.
Richard So she's stunned every time. Like this, this is quite the, quite the to do. I would, is the level of stunned reducing or it's same level of eyebrow raising?
Gerrit Well, she started with, she was so angry. I mean, like that she was telling me I was an apostate trying to destroy the church. So as we got further into the conversation, look, I'm reducing a two hour conversation to, you know.
Richard Two hour conversation?
Gerrit That was probably more, two and a half.
Richard Oh my goodness.
Gerrit Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, obviously radio edit, but I mean, we're, she's softening a little bit, but still adamant on each of the independent positions with Wilford Woodruff saying that, you know, that, that Joseph Smith had a seer stone. She, she just could not believe that. He, he, he didn't say that. So we opened up the journal and we read it. And then I said, and, and then Wilford Woodruff will talk about that seer stone multiple times. And I said, here, he'll talk about how Joseph found it when he was digging a well. And again, she's like, I just, I just don't believe that he said that. And again, this woman was a faithful woman, but she had read a book that had made the basis of the argument, anyone who says that Joseph Smith used a seer stone is a liar and an apostate. So what do you want her to do now when you're reading Wilford Woodruff, well known liar and apostate, who's saying that Joseph Smith had a seer stone, right?
Gerrit You can see the dichotomy there, and you could witness in her visage this huge conflict because she had been so convinced. And look, I understand why these arguments are convincing. We look at the world around us, and people are apostatizing right and left, and someone comes along and says, you know why so many people are leaving the church? It's because of that newfangled church history that's coming out. Did you ever hear people leaving the church over seer stones before the Joseph Smith Papers were published? It's those academics. You know how those academics are educated, right? They go to liberal institutions like the University of Colorado.
Richard Well, they got you there. I mean, oh yeah.
Gerrit Oh man. I had more of my professors that were atheists than were, I mean, I don't even know if I had any professors that were members of the Democratic Party. They were all like green and socialist party. Oh yeah. Yeah. They were like, they couldn't respect Bernie Sanders at all. Like he is a capitalist pig dog. He's a complete sellout. What does he have? Two houses? Okay, Bernie. I mean, so yeah, I did go to a very liberal school for my education. And I don't want to make this about political views. You can be a liberal and be a perfectly faithful member of the church. You can be a conservative and be a perfectly faithful member. We have members of the church in countries where it's literally illegal to not be a communist. And they're still members of the church, right? So I mean, probably much to the chagrin of some earlier church leaders, but I mean, it's the reality, right? There's members of the church from all kinds of political persuasions.
Gerrit But when she said it, what she meant was that, this kind of corrosive academic influence that is leading people away from faith and towards some kind of secular belief that God isn't real. And yet, literally, she just heard me for two hours talk about the amazing miracles of the restoration of the church, the miracles Joseph Smith performed, the miracles of the translation, the miracles of revelations, that this is all a miracle. And the response was, but you're trying to get people to, you know, but that's what this book that she had read argued, that there were no sources that said Joseph Smith used a seer stone. And here she was reading directly from the journals of Wilford Woodruff, not a typescript. You can go to wilfordwoodruffpapers.org and read the actual journal from his handwriting. His handwriting is beautiful. You can read it. I recommend it. Go take a look. And she didn't know how to process it because she was so certain that no other church leader had said Joseph Smith had used a seer stone.
Gerrit And then I said, you know, he doesn't just say Joseph Smith had a seer stone. He actually will consecrate it on the altar of the temple. And then the mouth dropped as far as it could drop. Then at that point, you're picking it up off the floor. And she said, no, no, he didn't. He didn't do that. And I said, well, yeah, he did. And I said, you know, this on the altar of the Manti temple, when the Manti temple is being dedicated, Wilfrid Woodruff writes in his journal that he, and this was actually special to this person because that's where they had been married. And that's often quite a bit because it was something special to them. And we read that Wilfrid Woodruff, and I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means that Wilfrid Woodruff said he consecrated upon the altar the seer stone that Joseph Smith had found some 30 feet under the earth and carried with him throughout his life. That's what he says in his journal. But I do know that that means Wilfrid Woodruff believes Joseph Smith had a seer stone because he's consecrating it on the altar of the temple.
Gerrit And that seer stone is then what was ended up in the First Presidency vault in Salt Lake City. And we ended up having an amicable conversation. It was several hours in before she was willing to even give me the time of day, but it was a good example of how she had been given false information and had decided that that was absolutely the answer, but without actually checking it. You know, I asked her, I said, well, you saw me standing in a foyer of a chapel that's not mine in seconds, pull these sources up. Are these sources in the book that you read? And she said, well, no, they're not in there. And I said, okay, why do you think they're not in there? Don't you think it's important if Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff are talking about Joseph Smith having a seer stone, that someone who's writing a book about how Joseph Smith never used a seer stone, if that's the title of the book or the theme of the book, don't you think it'd be important to explain those sources then?
Gerrit Was Wilford Woodruff lying? Was Wilford Woodruff just, you know, did he just find a rock on his way into the temple and say, yeah, this is seer stone? What do you think is going on? But instead, the book didn't mention those things at all. And I said, why do you think they didn't mention them? And she said, I don't know. It seemed like they were trying to include all the sources. And I said, how hard was it for me to pull those sources up? She said, it wasn't hard at all. And I said, I'm like I said, I'm standing in a foyer of a chapel in a place that's not my building and I don't have it saved somewhere on my phone. I just pulled them up from the various places on the internet that they are. Why did the authors who wrote a book on seer stones not do that? And so, you know, I said, we're kind of left with only two options here, right? Either they didn't even do the most basic of fundamental research, meaning they didn't even read the church's essay on translation and then go look at the sources, right?
Gerrit That's just a Church History Library thing. That's a everyone can get on churchofjesuschrist.org right now thing and do it right now. You can do it on your phone right now. What does the essay say? So they didn't even do the most basic level of research, or they do know that those sources exist. In which case, why aren't they telling you that they exist? When you come to something like that, especially when someone is being so adamant that they are correct on a position, if they are leaving out these very important prophetic sources that contradict them, well, they either are not qualified to write the book they are writing, because you are claiming to be an expert on seer stones, but you are not including the places where prophets talked about them, or you do know that those sources exist.
Gerrit And then it's actually worse. You are either not doing research enough to make you qualified to write a book, which is the best case scenario, or you are fully aware that those sources exist, but you don't want the people you are trying to convince to know that they exist. Why? Why don't you want them to know they exist? If you think they are bad sources like Wilford Woodruff's journal, then tell us why it's a bad source. Explain it. But instead the decision was to hide it. The decision was to not talk about it at all. That's why this woman was so stunned. Well, and as we were talking, this was earlier in the conversation, when she said, well, I followed Joseph Smith. And I said, what about President Nelson? And it was after we showed her the video of President Nelson saying that Joseph Smith put a seer stone in the hat.
Gerrit I said, it's very interesting. We started this conversation with you adamantly saying that I was an apostate trying to lead people away from the church, and there's only one person in this conversation between the two of us who is saying that President Nelson has been deceived, and it's not me, right? I mean, that's why it's so important that we do not get caught up, whether it's when the Second Coming is, whether it's the church's position on some kind of political issue, whether it is ham radios and food storage, whether it is whatever it is that we decide is super important. It is so essential that we do not get ahead of or behind of where the prophet of the church is. Because I can have a theory all day long about where the Book of Mormon took place.
Gerrit If President Nelson tomorrow says, I've had a revelation that it took place and I won't even give a location because I don't want anyone to think that's where I'm saying it was, then that's the new position of what I believe. Because my position is whatever the church's position is. You know, back to the email that this church later received, in responding to it, four of them, they forwarded it to me. I mean, it's not like it was a bait and switch thing. He forwarded it. He responded to the woman saying, hey, I've got some friends who really study this. Maybe they can help answer your questions. Thank you so much. He was very, very, very polite. I, you know, drafted an email back in which I said, you stated in your comment that all of the firsthand witnesses of the translation, specifically Emma, Martin and Oliver, as well as Joseph himself, never said that he used a stone on the hat.
Gerrit I'm very confused by that. You indicate that you got the information from a certain place. And I'm not sure why that group or any person would claim something like that when we have multiple statements from Emma and Martin that say exactly that. For instance, Emma said of the translation, quote, I know Mormonism to be the truth and believe the church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father, I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him. He's sitting with his face buried in the hat with the stone in it and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us. That kind of sounds like she's saying that Joseph Smith put a stone in a hat, correct? It does. Now again, maybe you say, well, I don't agree with her source. That's one thing you can say. Well, maybe Emma's wrong. But here the argument was she never even said it.
Gerrit I think it's safe to say she did. Well, it's not the only place she said it. She also wrote a letter to a family friend, which I also included in this. Now, the first that my husband translated was translated by the use of the Urim and Thummim. And that was the part that Martin Harris lost. After that, he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather dark in color. Again, it seems that Emma is saying that he used a separate seer stone, and not even seems. She's actually giving, he used part of, for part of it, he used the stones found with the plates, the Urim and Thummim stones, and for part of it, he used the separate seer stone. That's why it's so odd that the argument that was being made isn't Emma's a bad source, it's Emma never said it, except for the fact that she did, and we have the sources in front of us, right?
Richard So given the two options that you've laid out, what do you think is the more logical thing that they just don't know that these things exist?
Gerrit I think they can't know. I mean, I think that that's not actually a viable position.
Richard But to disprove their point is such a layup. How can they not think that that's going to be looked at, reviewed?
Gerrit I don't know. All I know is if you were going to write a book on, say, the geography of the Book of Mormon, and it was two church members, I don't think there's a single member of the church who was going to write that book that wouldn't go to the church's website and see what the church has stated on the topic, right? Because the whole point is to prove to church members what the church's beliefs are, right?
Richard But you're suggesting then that this person must think that their readers are so stupid as to in no way do a basic search on churchofjesuschrist.org?
Gerrit Well, I think that they, now, I mean, I'm not 100% familiar with the, because I don't know exactly what source they're looking at for the particular.
Richard But like you say, there really are just a couple options here. Either they're ignorant to it, which is stunning, or they're lying, which that is an incredible lack of…
Gerrit Well, and I've heard it lots of different ways. So I've certainly heard people say, well, Emma is a bad source, which is very different than these two arguments where they never said it happened. Those are completely different things. It's one thing to say Emma is a liar, and another thing to say Emma didn't say anything. Those are two separate statements, right? The one case Emma is silent, she isn't trying to stake out a position. The other, she is trying to stake out a position, it's just not your position, right? We have to do this with some things, right? For instance, Emma will fairly cagely, but when asked by her son, who's then the reorganized church prophet, Joseph Smith III, you know, did father practice polygamy basically? And Emma kind of gives a non-answer answer, but that sounds like he didn't, right? She says, you know, people's, I'm not quoting this directly, but essentially, you know, people said that Joseph more than one wife, but I was the only one that I knew about, something like that, right?
Gerrit And so what do we do with that? When we know that Emma, from other contemporary sources, knew that Joseph was practicing, right? We know that from William Clayton's journal, right?
Richard But again, to your point, To your point, it's not that they're saying that Emma is stating something that isn't exactly accurate or purposefully trying to take something down a different path. They're saying Emma never said the thing that she just said.
Gerrit At least some of these sources, part of the problem is, this argument that Joseph never used a seer stone and a hat comes from a lot of various different ways that people approach it. Clearly, these people had been approached with the argument of none of the witnesses ever said it. But I have heard people give variations on that argument, which are, of course David Whitmer said that he did, but David Whitmer is a liar and an apostate. Oh, of course Martin Harris did say that he did, but Martin Harris is a liar and an apostate. Of course, now that argument only goes so far, because there's also people who aren't quote unquote liars and apostates who say it, like Joseph Knight. Joseph Knight is nothing but a desperate friend to Joseph Smith, and in his autobiography says, Joseph put the seer stone on the hat and words appeared on the stone, and that's how he translated, right? Is Joseph Knight also trying to destroy Joseph Smith? And I understand the argument. I do understand that because there is so much antagonistic rhetoric out there, that it does sound like a pretty good way to argue against Emma saying that Joseph put a seer stone on a hat by saying, well, but Emma was an apostate.
Gerrit Right, but what is Emma trying to do at the moment that she says it? A historian, look, it's almost like as an investigator, like our police officer friend with people trapped in the back of his car right now listening to this very episode. Shout out to you.
Richard The criminal or the cop?
Gerrit No, the criminal. We've already given the officer a shout out. I don't think he needs more. He's just happy to have people in his cage.
Richard Pardon me, the alleged criminal.
Gerrit Yeah, the alleged. Everything's alleged at this point. So motive matters is the point I was trying to make as far as an investigator goes. Why would these various people like Martin Harris and David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery in one source, why would they all say that Joseph Smith put a stone into a hat to translate if he didn't? Kind of back to our original question. Now, someone might say, well, maybe they never really saw what was going on. Okay, how would we know that they didn't see it? Because they all say that they did see it. In fact, Emma's very clear. There was nothing between us, right? David Whitmer, very clear. There was nothing between the people translating and the scribe, right? So how would, I mean, so I guess you could theorize, you could theorize, well, maybe they didn't see it. Okay, let's take that theory for a test drive. So none of the witnesses actually watched what Joseph was doing.
Gerrit Ergo, all of them then had to come to their own conclusion about what he was doing. All of them independently over the course of 60 years in multiple different statements said that he put a stone in the hat and looked into the hat. How would that happen? Did they all get together? Even though Emma and David Whitmer weren't on good terms, they got together and said, you know what, when we later lie about how the translation took place, let's say the same thing.
Richard That's just how deep the conspiracy goes.
Gerrit Exactly. That's the problem is you have to deal with what the motive is. When Emma quasi denies plural marriage happened, what's her motive? Well, her motive is defending the name of Joseph Smith. She's well aware that if she says Joseph practiced it, that people are going to attack Joseph. So what she's seen that she knows that she's witnessed it. So there's a motive there to not say that he did. Her son is the head of a church now that says there was never any plural marriage. There's a motive there to say that he didn't. What's the motive when she's desperately trying to convince people that Joseph Smith translated the book? By the way, the same people who question her as a source are the same people who quote her when she says Joseph could barely write a well dictated letter, let alone a well written letter, let alone dictate the Book of Mormon.
Gerrit She's the one who tells us that Joseph stops when he translates about walls being around Jerusalem and asks her incredulously, are there walls around Jerusalem? And Emma is almost laughing to herself like, Joseph, of course there's walls around Jerusalem. Have you not read anything in the Bible? People don't have a problem with that, but it's the same source, it's the same interview where she says Joseph would put the stone on the hat. And that's how we translate. And so what's the motive for that? Since we know Emma was a scribe, again, Joseph says she was a scribe. So again, if we're going back to Joseph, he says, my wife Emma wrote for me. Why would she, instead of saying how it actually happened, when she's desperately trying to convince people that Joseph was a prophet, instead of saying how it happened, lie and say, hey, you know how the anti-Mormon Eber Howe said it happened when he's mocking and making fun of my husband and attacking him and calling him a liar?
Gerrit Yeah, that's how it happened. That doesn't really make sense, does it? Similarly, Martin Harris. I mean, you know, just to further that point, Martin Harris says in multiple places again, in an interview, in other places, but right before he dies, there's an interview that he gives. Martin Harris related an instance that occurred at a time when he wrote for the portion of the translation of the Book of Mormon, which he was favored to write direct from the mouth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He said that the Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim. So again, two separate things. By the way, this is being published in the Deseret News in the 1880s. So this is not a secret to church members in Utah. It's literally being published by the church's newspaper to the population of Utah at the time, which is almost exclusively Latter-day Saint.
Gerrit He said that he possessed a seer stone, which he was able to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim. And for convenience, he then used the seer stone. So Martin Harris actually gives a reason. He was using the two stones, but it was just easier to use the one stone. Now, I don't know if that's the case, but that's at least what Martin Harris is saying. Martin explained the translation as follows. By the aid of a seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the prophet and were written by Martin. And when they were finished, he would say written. And if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another would appear in its place. But if it was not correctly written, it remained until it was corrected. And that was the translation was just so. It was engraved upon the plates, precisely in that language that was used. Martin said that after a continued translation, they would become weary and would go down to the river and exercise by throwing stones out into the river. So this is, you know, hey, we need a break.
Gerrit I know, let's go skip rocks. They didn't have NBA TV. So they didn't have the ability to do it. They had to go out. Let's go throw a rock at that river. Oh man. Okay. So they go down there. While doing so, on one occasion, Martin said he found a stone very much resembling the one used for translation. And on resuming their labor of translation, Martin put in place the stone that he had found. So Martin pulls a switcheroo here. He takes the seer stone out of the hat that Joseph was using, the actual seer stone, and put one in the hat that looked like it. He said that the prophet remained silent, unusually. And intently gazing into the darkness. No traces of the usual sentences were appearing. Much surprised, Joseph exclaimed, Martin, and what's the matter?
Gerrit All is dark as Egypt. Martin's countenance betrayed him. And the prophet asked Martin why he had done so. So Joseph figured out, oh, you swapped the stone out. Why did you do that? Martin said to stop the mouths of fools who had told him that the prophet had learned those sentences and was merely repeating them, et cetera. So this entire testimony building narrative that Martin is giving is about the fact that there was a stone placed into a hat. Because Martin is actually doing this, at least he says, he's actually pulling the switcheroo because there are people who are saying, Joseph isn't reading anything off the seer stones. He's just memorized what he wants to say already, like an actor memorizing lines from a play. Now, what the script is, is still a problem, if that's your argument, but I digress. And they go in to translate, and Joseph's just pretending to read something from the stone and just quotes off whatever he's got memorized.
Gerrit Greater memorization skill than anyone has ever lived, but that's what's going on. And Martin uses the seer stone as proof that that's obviously not what's going on. He swaps out the stone for a stone that looks the same, and Joseph can't translate because that stone was a sacred stone. And he thinks that demonstrates, look, this really is a miracle. If Joseph's just pretending to look for effect, then he could still spout off his memorized lines. Or if he had words written in the bottom, he could still do it. There are lots of ways that we can refute those many arguments. But before we close, I know we're getting kind of long here, it's important to note how many places on the Church's website right now that make a reference to Joseph translating the Book of Mormon with not only the Urim and Thummim stones, which are also, by the way, seer stones. That's how they're described. The possession and use of these stones is what constituted seers in ancient or former times.
Gerrit That's from Joseph Smith history. It's not just one place. It's not just the Gospel Topics resources. I referenced the video entitled The Book of Mormon is Tangible Evidence of the Restoration. That's on churchofjesuschrist.org, and that's in which the prophet explains that Joseph Smith uses seer stones placed into a hat. That same prophet, by the way, back when he was quote, unquote, lowly apostle, he published an article in what was then the Enzyme called A Treasured Testament, in which he quotes David Whitmer's explanation of how the translation took place. Again, saying that Joseph placed a single seer stone into a hat, and words appeared on that stone. Elder Uchtdorf, on his Facebook page a few years ago, actually directly addressed this. He said, you know, people say, do you really believe that Joseph, you know, put a stone in a hat and words appeared on it?
Gerrit And Elder Uchtdorf said, yes. And then used the analogy of his cell phone to say, you know, when it's bright outside and you can't see what's on your cell phone, what do you do? You make it darker so you can see what's on it. So again, this is not just a one-off. This isn't just one person saying this. We now have the prophet, an apostle, the Gospel Topics essays, which is of course something that the prophet and Quorum of the Twelve are well aware is on the church's website. It's not like that just jumped on there. But there's also multiple other ways. In the Foundations of the Restoration Teacher's Manual for seminaries and institute, there is a discussion of Joseph Smith using a seer stone and a hat to translate. In the Book of Mormon Seminary Teacher Manual from 2017, there's an explanation of that happening that way. From the Come Follow Me for Individuals and Families Book of Mormon Lesson from 2020, again, all of this is on the church's website, there's an explanation of it happening that way.
Gerrit In the Foundations of the Restoration Class Preparation Material from 2019, there's an explanation of it happening that way. In the Latter-day Saint History 1815 to 1846 Teacher Manual, again, all on churchofjesuschrist.org, there's an explanation of the translation happening that way. In the Come Follow Me for Individuals and Families from the Doctrine and Covenants from 2021, there's an explanation of it happening that way. From the Book of Mormon Seminary Teacher Manual, again, on churchofjesuschrist.org, there's an explanation of it happening that way. These are all recent, within the last 10 years, except for that Ensign article, publications from the Church that all explain that that's how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. And that's not all of them, by the way. I just realized that was becoming tedious, and so I stopped reading them. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of manual citations, prophetic citations, Church publications, as well as that Gospel Topics Essay.
Gerrit Now someone might say, well, I don't know why the Church is saying that it happened that way. I can understand that. But that's very different than saying the Church hasn't said how it happened. That's not what's going on here. Now the natural question is one that I'm sure some people have right now, and that is, well, how come I haven't heard about this before? Why am I just learning about this? I think I just demonstrated by reading all those things off that the question you have is not the question that your kids or your grandkids are going to have. Because in their classes, in their manuals, in their study guides, in their gospel doctrine classes, that is how the translation is going to be described. The reason why it wasn't described before, I can't speculate, but I do know the Church has done more lately to spend money and time to help people understand their history than in all of the rest of the history of the Church combined.
Gerrit And so now that we have a better understanding of how the translation took place, we have two options. We can say that the Church is wrong, that all those manuals are wrong, that the Church is, that the Prophet's been deceived, that he shouldn't have made a YouTube video explaining that it happened that way. Or we can say, wow, I didn't know that it happened that way. I'm so glad that the Church is trying to help me understand how it happened. In the end, I don't think any of us know exactly how things happened in the past. But there's a very big difference between saying, I don't know how it happened, and saying, I know exactly how it happened, and the Prophet is deceived if he doesn't think it happened the way I think it happened. And that's where we have to be careful. Once you make a particular part of the Gospel, adamantly something that you have to believe, and it's not what the Church is actually teaching, then we open ourselves up for apostasy.
Gerrit The reason why I spent some time on this episode is I don't want anyone to be deceived. I don't know that I'm 100% right on the things I think about the translation of the Book of Mormon, but I do know that the things that I say and speak about it are exactly what the Church is saying and speaking about it. Now, someone might say, well, I don't know and I don't understand. That's not the same thing as saying you're an apostate if you happen to be saying the same thing that the Church's manuals are saying. In the end, the Book of Mormon is the Word of God regardless. Be wary of anyone who wants you to be angry about some aspect of Church history that the Church is not trying to make the issue of. If someone is trying to tell you if you don't believe about where the Book of Mormon took place the way they do that you're an apostate, is the prophet saying that?
Gerrit Or isn't the prophet saying the opposite of that? If someone is trying to tell you if you don't believe about the translation of the Book of Mormon the way I do that you're an apostate, is the prophet saying that? Or is it just someone with a loud voice? In the end, all of us need to surrender our will to the Lord Jesus Christ. And as members of the Church, we believe that President Nelson is the Lord Jesus Christ representative on earth. That doesn't mean that he knows everything, but it certainly means that anytime we find ourselves saying, let's talk about the ways President Nelson's been deceived, that we're probably headed down the wrong road. Being a member of the church means being humble, to accept what is revealed through the prophets in all patience and faith, as the Revelation declares.
Gerrit So hopefully, as you are confronted with things like this, you'll realize, you'll recognize that sometimes people who are making these adamant arguments, they may not be making them with all of the adequate information, and they may be making them in order to cause a rift in your own testimony. So thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it, and we will talk to you all 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.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

Which I mean, that's a good play.

GerritBanter

Sometimes we don't respond because your question is so good, I don't know what the answer is. And I'm not going to just, I'm not going to telegraph to everybody that I'm a fraud.

GerritBanter

and then I have to remind them that we're Mormons, so we don't believe in hell, but they say I'm still going there anyway.

GerritBanter

We don't know, stop being jerks to people about this.

GerritBanter

It is so essential that we do not get ahead of or behind of where the prophet of the church is.

GerritInsight

Because my position is whatever the church's position is.

GerritInsight

That's just how deep the conspiracy goes.

RichardBanter

They didn't have NBA TV. So they didn't have the ability to do it.

GerritBanter

Be wary of anyone who wants you to be angry about some aspect of Church history that the Church is not trying to make the issue of.

GerritInsight

Being a member of the church means being humble, to accept what is revealed through the prophets in all patience and faith, as the Revelation declares.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
None of the witnesses of the translation ever said Joseph used a seer stone in a hat.
The seer stone story was invented by anti-Mormons or by faithless academics.
If I'm just hearing about this now, the church must have been hiding it.
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

Emma, Martin, David Whitmer and Joseph Knight all describe Joseph translating with a seer stone in a hat. Today the Gospel Topics Essay, President Nelson and church manuals teach it too.

Gerrit's rule: "My position is whatever the church's position is." Don't get ahead of or behind the prophet.

Be wary of anyone who wants you angry about a point of Church history the Church isn't making an issue of, and of books that leave out the sources against them.

There's a big difference between "I don't know how it happened" and "I know exactly how it happened, and the prophet is deceived."

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
But I will notBrigham Young's Winter Quarters line, which Richard and Gerrit say to each other all the time (3:49).
WisconsinA ward that faked attendance for a building, Rob too busy with baptisms to email, and a missionary told to delete unapproved downloads who listened to them all instead (5:09, 6:38, 8:43).
Richard and the sports bettingRichard listened to President Hinckley's gambling talk, is reformed, and is now relegated to one email (4:35).
Glutting ourselves like the priests of NoahRob hopes to find money for premium content someday (8:43).
Bel and the DragonRob's favorite episodes are the Apocrypha ones, essential if you're assigned to the papal residence (9:45).
Episodes promised, never madeThe Strangite and succession series is coming, maybe after the April 8, 2024 eclipse (11:42, 12:42).
Richard's grocery careerA Google stalker who was once a Lee's Marketplace shelf stocker, and sliced his finger at Smith's (10:41).
Officer RA shout-out to the alleged criminal in the back of the patrol car; the officer doesn't need more, he's happy to have people in his cage (60:14).
Gerrit the opening actMost people at his firesides checked whether anything else was on, like a Bread marathon or a Winger cover band in Carson City (33:01).
Bernie the capitalist selloutGerrit's University of Colorado professors were too far left to respect Bernie Sanders (43:47).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

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

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Read the Gospel Topics Essay "Book of Mormon Translation" and the sources it cites (24:10).
Wilford Woodruff's journals at wilfordwoodruffpapers.org, from "Joseph the Seer" in 1841 to the Manti Temple dedication (40:41).
Martin Harris's Deseret News interview and the switched-stone story (64:28).
How blind peer review works, and why self-published history deserves extra caution (28:20).
SOT Litner · S3E19.