Joseph Smith Stepping Down As Prophet

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 our last episode, we finished up with the happiness letter, and we actually put a couple of links to things that we talked about.

Gerrit I feel like I may have called Richard out.

Richard No, I felt great shame, and I'm like, you know what? All right, I'm actually gonna connect the link.

Gerrit So there will be a link in that episode.

Richard Yes, the one that came out last week.

Gerrit So by the time people hear this, they'll have clicked on that link.

Richard Oh, no one's gonna click on the link. It's just the way it will be there.

Gerrit So why do we provide links if no one clicks on them?

Richard Because you made me feel guilty for not putting links.

Gerrit Ah, and that's true religion I'm going to file this. Making people feel guilty for voluntary things that they're not being paid to do.

Richard I am not. So let's see. We did receive an email that will actually be the main jumping off point for today's podcast.

Gerrit Wait, one second. As you listen to Richard, you'll notice his voice is a little heavy. Right now, when we're recording this, the Lakers just went down 0-3 in the Western Conference Finals. So, Richard, what are your predictions of the Lakers coming back?

Richard You know what? We had a talk today in Sacramento, for meeting, or this last week, and we had somebody get up and they were talking about pickleball and talking about how you need to be determined when you're playing pickleball, and you'll be down 9-0. But you know what? It's not over until it's 11. And so you've got to get in there, and you just got to keep fighting. And so I'm going to take this speaker's sense of determination, and you know what? You know what? I think we're going to come back.

Gerrit So what I'm getting out of this is you're not only bad at picking NBA games, you're bad at pickleball.

Richard Well, he was. He came back to win. That's the point.

Gerrit He says he did.

Richard Well, I mean, just the nuggets look so good.

Gerrit The nuggets do look good. At any rate, that's why you're hearing a little bit of reticence in poor Richard's voice.

Richard I mean, they were the seventh seed. I didn't have a lot of hope. In the season, they looked terrible. Since Westbrook, they were the best team in the NBA.

Gerrit But when they beat the Suns, it made you hope.

Richard Well, they didn't beat the Suns. The Nuggets beat the Suns.

Gerrit Sorry, when they beat the Warriors, they made you dare to hope.

Richard They weren't able to light the beam in Sac Town because they beat Sacramento.

Gerrit Which was a big deal.

Richard Of course. So yeah, if you went going into the playoffs, they didn't have a lot of hope. And then they won and I'm like, oh my gosh, here we go. And now that's right. That's the problem. The problem is hope.

Gerrit Like all hope, it's false and misplaced.

Richard Hope not in Jesus.

Gerrit The only hope that you can be guaranteed of.

Richard So they're by this time, they've been eliminated. They've been, you know, anyway. So we got a wonderful email here that will be the jumping off point for today's podcast. And I'm not going to be able to do the name credit. Gerrit, so I've mentioned this before. I don't call Gerrit, Gerrit. I call him Garniff or Genriff or something along those lines, because when he received an award for some essay that he wrote in Idaho at the award ceremony, the poor person who didn't have a stuttering issue developed one just by looking at your name and not being able to pronounce it.

Gerrit He saw a Dutch first and a Dutch last name, and the result was some kind of Bell's Palsy that happened.

Richard Yes, they didn't know the source by which the stuttering occurred other than just the Dutch name. So, Genriff Dirkmaat and the French guy. I have thoroughly enjoyed the show and the premium content has been amazing. Oh, you know what, Jeff, thanks.

Gerrit Hey, we're going to double check to make sure he's a premium listener before we read this.

Richard Actually, that's the only part of the email I wanted to read. Thanks, Jeff. I really appreciate your efforts to strengthen the membership of the church by helping people to have the facts of history under their belts and inoculating them against bad arguments. You can't know everything, but it's helpful to know which issues are actually issues and which ones are just plain awful like the late war.

Gerrit Oh, that was...

Richard I will say...

Gerrit That makes me mad just hearing that.

Richard I've mentioned this a couple of times. I've been with Gerrit when we've had meetings with people with faith crises. They'll bring up... They start off playing the hits. I mean, a little bit of a little polyandry, a little polygamy, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. But occasionally, they mentioned the late war. And when it's mentioned, Gerrit's countenance falls and he gets so angry.

Gerrit That makes me so like I'm a jerk.

Richard Well, no, it's just because the argument that people who are antagonistic toward the church are making, who write these things, it's just such a disingenuous, false...

Gerrit You're making an argument. Let me show you where the real Book of Mormon came from, even though literally no scholar who's not a Latter-day Saint agrees that that is the argument, right? But let me tell you the real truth. It's just it's so true, even the Presbyterians who don't like the church aren't making it because it's even more true than they are. I mean, it's...

Richard Well, but it's that there's the pages, it's, you know, dot, dot, dot, pages are skipped to get things close to... anyway.

Gerrit Dot, dot, dot.

Richard Probably not. This morning, I remembered my political philosophy professor at the BYU related a story of Joseph Smith becoming fed up with the institutionalization of the church and wanted to step down as prophet and have Hyrum take over so he could simply be a priest or be simply a priest. How much truth is there to this? I've read rough stone rolling and saints, et cetera, and don't recall seeing something like this. I'm not... so this is actually my favorite part of the email right here. I'm not emotionally attached to this story, so feel free to crush this one. Thanks for your help, best Jeff. Anyway, that's very funny. Dream crusher, Gerrit.

Gerrit It suggests, Jeff, that I on occasion am less careful with people's hopes and dreams.

Richard Well, so here's how some emails might read. This story that I'm about to relay is the most important thing in my entire life. My father, his father and his father's father have passed this down. It is the cornerstone and bedrock of all that I hope and believe.

Gerrit Whatever I'm feeling weak in the Gospel, I just think, no, great-great grandfather said that Joseph said that he was going to step down.

Richard And I read this and then, Gerrit, please tell me that this is true.

Gerrit Tell me how true it is.

Richard Dearest so-and-so. Those emails are a little bit rougher. So, Jeff, we appreciate that you're coming into this, putting your face in the buzzsaw, hoping, hey, you know what?

Gerrit Well, frankly, it would be best if all the people who email us say, I don't care what the answer to this question is, that I could feel more free.

Richard Well, it is fun. Since you've set the tone there, then Gerrit can be a little lighter with it. When it is something, there's Gerrit, his tone changes, he talks a little bit softer, and he's just trying to be sensitive, because you don't want to hurt people's feelings, even though the things they believe in are total lies.

Gerrit Well, I mean, sometimes, there are things that I believe in, I'm sure, that are not actually the case, because I haven't investigated them. It's something I heard. Sometimes it has no impact whatsoever. Other times it can have a pretty large impact. Someone says, Oh, the best ice cream you can get is at this place. You don't run out and try it, but you don't take it on their face value. Then someday you actually try the ice cream, and you're like, that was the worst ice cream I've ever had. I've told like 10 people that apparently the best ice cream is this place in town. It was the worst ice cream I ever had. So I've been lying to people for years.

Richard It's very similar to a testimony.

Gerrit Terrible ice cream purchased in a place that you've never been on the recommendation of someone who didn't know. That's what covering a church history topic is. So this is kind of an important topic. And frankly, it's a topic that will actually come up in other ways. So I don't know who your philosophy professor was. Political, political, political, political science professor, that most likely. Yeah, I don't know who they were. And I don't know how old you are, when you went or, you know, so I don't want to indict anybody one way or the other. That being said, I find that when people, when you examine stories like this from the past, there usually is some part of it that is, is a factual story. Now, sometimes it's just like Hyrum Smith existed, Joseph Smith existed, and then did he move on?

Gerrit That's the end of the story. But, but other times there are aspects of it that are true, but what ends up being speculative is the explanation for the reason why. So read again what he said, that part of it, not the whole thing.

Richard Yes.

Gerrit Not my name.

Richard Yes.

Gerrit Not my name.

Richard Yes.

Gerrit Just the part.

Richard Joseph became fed up with the institutionalization of the church and wanted to step down as prophet and have Hyrum take over so he could be simply a priest.

Gerrit Okay. So there is an editorializing of what occurred, right? At least according to the way he's relating what his political science professor said, and that is that why is Joseph saying what he's saying? He's saying it because he's fed up with the institutionalized nature of the church. First of all, I'm not even sure what that means. I'm guessing what it means is the fact that the church is becoming more and more codified in its offices. And so because of that, it requires more and more of Joseph doing menial things like signing.

Richard First of all, after a long Sunday of meetings, I bet he's like, you know what?

Gerrit Yeah, we were recording this on the wrong day for Richard.

Richard I was like, you know what? I do just want to be a priest.

Gerrit I've been in meetings since 6 a.m.

Richard So you know what?

Gerrit I know what he's talking about. I'll just become a priest. That being said, let's talk about where this is originating. So let me just say, first and foremost, before you even investigate this, it is a sound practice to when someone editorializes what happens to push the pause button there. If Joseph says the words, I am tired of the dealing with the institutionalized nature of the church, and so because of that, I'm going to have Hyrum be the prophet. Well, then that's different. But let's say Joseph says something similar. Is Joseph saying something similar necessarily? How do we know the reason why he said it? And that's actually one of those great questions of speculation with a lot of historical actions. Well, why did Joseph say this or why did he do this? You can speculate and say, well, Joseph may have thought that by going to Canada to get a copyright for the Book of Mormon, they'd be able to sell it, right?

Gerrit But unless Joseph says the words, the reason why we're going up there is so that we could, you don't actually know. So you always have to be very careful and you have to provide certain levels of caveats to any story that you're studying from church history. Sometimes people will in fact tell you why they're doing what they're doing, right? They will say, I was upset because of X. Other times, you'll just find out that they're upset. And people will say, well, I'm sure that she was upset because her dad had to go on another mission. Well, she doesn't say that's why she's upset. Maybe. Look, that's a sound speculation. But there is a pretty big difference between trying to discern what someone thinks and what their motives are through sources and having them tell you what they think and what their motivations are. Now, they might not always be honest about their motivations either. So that's the other issue.

Gerrit Sometimes people will say, you know, like I'm sure Richard said today, I'm so happy to be in this meeting. He probably said something like, it's great to see everybody here, when in fact what he was thinking was, if literally no one shows up to the meeting, we don't have a meeting. So the greatest thing that could ever happen to me is everyone doesn't show up. But what do I say when people get here? It's great that everyone made it here this morning.

Richard That's not accurate at all.

Gerrit I feel like we need to bring Brady in on that, and he will say, that's accurate. So let's talk about where this originates. Let's start with Joseph's Journal. Now, when I say Joseph's Journal, I am not talking about something that is kept by Joseph Smith, that he's writing in every day. By Nauvoo, and this is taking place in Nauvoo in 1843, July of 1843, by the Nauvoo era, Joseph is employing several scribes to keep his daily journal for him. Now that matters because what it means is while the scribe is sometimes quoting Joseph directly, sometimes the scribe is just relating what they think Joseph is doing, and sometimes it's more or less accurate. So we call it Joseph's Journal. The reality is in 1843, it's Willard Richards keeping Joseph's Journal. And perhaps it's being dictated to, perhaps it's not, but that's an important caveat to understand.

Gerrit And as I said, it's from July 16th of 1843 in Joseph Smith's Journal. We call it Joseph Smith's Journal even though it is Willard Richards keeping the journal. But this is the entry, Sunday, July 16th, 1843, preached all day or a.m. and p.m. at the stand. Now, remember, Richards is keeping this for Joseph, so he keeps it usually. He doesn't always do this, but he keeps it usually in first person because it's Joseph's accounting of what Joseph did that day. But preached all day a.m. or p.m. at the stand in the grove near and west of the temple concerning a man's foes being they of his own house, such as having secret enemies in the city intermingling with the saints, etc. And proposing Hyrum as a prophet that he might be a priest, so the hearers tell the story. So what you get from that last, it's actually set off by a dash where he says, so the hearers tell the story, is Willard Richards himself wasn't actually at this speaking.

Gerrit So unlike other sermons where Richards is in attendance and keeping notes of the sermon itself, and then later making a record in his journal, or both in his journal and in Joseph's journal, in this case, Richard wasn't there for either the morning or the afternoon sermon. And Richards gives you that caveat, so the hearers tell the story. So someone came to him and said, oh, you should have heard what Joseph said. He said that Hyrum should be the prophet that he might be a priest. And the he there, essentially we're thinking, meaning Joseph. So you'll notice there's nothing there at all that says Joseph was like, you know what? I am tired of signing recommends.

Richard All this bureaucracy.

Gerrit You know, I just, you start, you start initiating the endowment in your upstairs of your brick store, and it's just work, work, work all the time. So from that source alone, it would be difficult to make the argument that that was the reason why, but you can see where the kernel is here. What does Joseph mean by this? Well, frankly, Lord Richards isn't terribly helpful because he wasn't really there. Now what's going on here? I think maybe some of our Latter-day Saint listeners, which I'm assuming is all of our listeners that aren't in the back of a police car in Idaho.

Richard We're huge with the snake handlers in Mississippi as well.

Gerrit We got a great message from him by the way as well. He's become very fast, become a great friend of the show just because we know he's forcing alleged criminals, alleged, haven't been convicted, although I assume he occasionally transports those who have been convicted. Yeah, from the county to the state lockup. Anyway, there is an important starting place for this story, and that is Doctrine and Covenants Section 124. Doctrine and Covenants Section 124 is one of the longest revelations Joseph Smith receives, and in that revelation, you've probably spent most of your time on it as a Latter-day Saint because it talks about the building of the Nauvoo Temple and all of the things that are going to take place in the Nauvoo Temple, such as washings and anointings and endowments and baptisms for the dead. It talks about baptisms for the dead. It's a very expansive revelation.

Gerrit It relates the powers and authorities of the Quorum of the Twelve and of the First Presidency. So if you haven't read D&C 124 for a while, I recommend, you know, like it's Oprah's Book Club, go out and get it. Get it. Get yourself a copy of D&C 124. Sit down, read it, you know, enjoy it. But there is a point that matters for our discussion here. If we go to verse 91, so 91 of section 124, And again, verily I say unto you, Let my servant William be appointed, ordained, and anointed as counselor unto my servant Joseph in the room of my servant Hyrum, that my servant Hyrum may take the office of priesthood and patriarch, which was appointed unto him by his father by blessing and also by right. So this is Hyrum being called to be, you know, the patriarch of the church.

Gerrit And the William here is not William Smith, it's not William Clayton, it's William Law. So the unfortunate aspect of doctrine of section 124 is this is how William Law, the eventual garbage water apostate person will, this is how he becomes a member of the First Presidency. That was probably a little jaded.

Richard Garbage water, yeah. Yeah, I feel there was a bias there.

Gerrit I'm going to let people in on my biases. And I have a bias against William Law.

Richard It wasn't just what he published. You were saying him as a person. That was aggressive.

Gerrit Absolutely, him as a person. And what he published. Well, what he published was him as a person. At any rate, at this point, he's obviously good. And he does do a lot of good things prior to his not doing good things. Now remember, the patriarch had been Father Smith, but Father Smith has passed away. And so this verse 91 says that it is by blessing and also by right that Hyrum take over that office of patriarch. Therefore, from henceforth, he shall hold the keys of the patriarchal blessings upon the heads of all my people. That whosoever he blesses shall be blessed, and whosoever he curses shall be cursed, and whatsoever shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. And from this time forth, and this is the key part here, I appoint unto him that he may be a prophet, and a seer, and a revelator unto my church, as well as my servant Joseph.

Gerrit That he may act in concert also with my servant Joseph, and that he shall receive counsel from my servant Joseph, who shall show unto him the keys whereby he may ask and receive, and be crowned with the same blessing, and glory, and honor, and priesthood, and gifts of the priesthood that were once were put upon him that was my servant Oliver Cowdery. That my servant Hyrum may bear record of the things which I shall show unto him, that his name may be had in honorable remembrance from generation to generation forever and ever. So we often will say things like, well, Hyrum was called to be the patriarch of the church. I think that's a fair thing to say. It's true. That's a true statement. But that's not all that's going on here. Hyrum is called to be a prophet. And he's called essentially to be the, I mean, you don't want to use the word co-prophet because then people are like, well, what do you mean that like Joseph isn't really the prophet?

Gerrit Well, I'm just quoting the scripture here. In fact, later people trying to deal with this would refer to Hyrum as being an assistant prophet. Or an associate prophet, which as a professor, you know, assistant, associate, things matter. But no, no one in Joseph or Hyrum's lifetime, which is the same lifetime, no one in their lifetime refers to them that way. It's very interesting. Of course, later, because Joseph and Hyrum are both murdered, then trying to discern exactly what is going on, you know, what exactly Hyrum's relationship is to Joseph and to the church and to the potential succession of Joseph becomes a pretty big deal.

Richard Which succession we do owe to many listeners and we plan to get to that very soon.

Gerrit Did we ever say we were going to do that?

Richard We did. We promised very soon.

Gerrit Did we say we would do it on premium?

Richard No, we said we'd do it free. Wow.

Gerrit Maybe we should read Nago in our promises.

Richard Well, so succession coming soon.

Gerrit Coming soon. This is just a taste.

Richard I've often wondered about that, because we have about a year of this then, right?

Gerrit Well, so it's actually 1841 that D&C 124 received.

Richard You have three years.

Gerrit You have three years that Hyrum is essentially, well, at least by revelation, he's called to be a prophet, seer and revelator for the church. Now, I want you to think about this for a second. He isn't called into the quorum of the 12. He isn't made an apostle, even though he's made a prophet. So that's going to also lead to all kinds of what exactly is the nature of his calling going forward, because it's such a weird thing for Latter-day Saints today to even think about, because today, when you think about a prophet, there's no question that he was a member of the quorum of the 12 apostles, because that's how they become a prophet, right? So you're never like, wait a minute, was Elder Oaks even in the quorum of the 12? You don't-

Richard You've seen it for 30 years.

Gerrit Yeah, exactly. Like the fact that it's going to be an apostle, similarly, no one even bats an eye over the fact that they, let me say, they assume, and I mean assume so greatly that they would act like their hair was on fire if something happened differently. They assume that a member of the First Presidency absolutely comes from the quorum of the 12 apostles, right? And that's a very fair assumption over the last 150 years, because that's what's happened. But the original members of the First Presidency, all throughout Joseph Smith's life, none of them are members of the quorum of the 12 apostles.

Richard Coming on the heel of the happiness letter, you had John C.

Gerrit Bennett. Who was not an apostle, but he was a member of the First Presidency. And that's part of the reason why I try to explain that the First Presidency, while it was an important office in the church in Joseph's time, I'm not saying it wasn't important, but it is pretty obvious that it is not the same as it is today. Today, it is imbued with much more power and authority as God, line upon line and precept upon precept, reveals more and more and more about the role and keys of those who are members of the First Presidency. And since that time, everyone who's called into the First Presidency are people who were apostles, right? So now that won't be the case 100% after Joseph, but in the 20th century, it's an apostle who becomes a member of the First Presidency.

Richard But given coming to previous First Presidency experience, it almost makes sense that you would have somebody that was an apostle then.

Gerrit Absolutely, right? But in Joseph's time wasn't the case. In fact, there's only one member of the First Presidency in Joseph's time that was ordained an apostle, or that was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve at one point. Do you need a little bit of trivia? Well, we'll have our listeners write in and we'll tell you. I mean, wouldn't that be fun if this was like a live thing? Like, we're taking your calls and the 10th call, we're going to tell you the first apostle was who became a member of the First Presidency. And then, you know, people will be like waiting on the line. Oh, I can't get through it. If the number is busy, keep trying. And we're going to have to do that at some point. We're going to have to do a totally live podcast where we have people call in.

Richard That sounds great.

Gerrit There's no way that could go bad.

Richard Let's do like early, late 80s, early 90s, morning drive shtick on who the apostle was.

Gerrit Is there any way I could get like some kind of like flushing sound when people are wrong or like a wha wha wha? That would be the best. I would love that. It would be the best as well. It's like, um, um, was it, was it Jesse Gause? Wha wha wha wha. Sorry. Oh, you won't get the, uh, the, the $10 e-gift certificate to Chili's that we were, we were offering. Um, we have a limited budget as, as you are all aware. Well, you wouldn't be listening to this anymore if you didn't realize that we had a limited budget. Well, it's actually, uh, Amos Aliman, uh, is the first apostle who serves in the First Presidency. And you're thinking, well, wait a minute. Uh, what, what, how, how did that happen? Well, for him, it happened because Orson Pratt in, in 1842, Orson Pratt is caught up in the John C. Bennett issues and he actually causes him to leave the church. It's a pretty, it's a pretty tough discussion.

Gerrit One that I probably shouldn't have right here, but you know what? You know what? This is what the people, what this is season 38. Again, as we all know, John C. Bennett has to do with plugging me. Well, Orson Pratt was gone from Nauvoo when the whole John C. Bennett affairs came out. Well, one of the people implicated as one of his followers was Orson Pratt's wife. Yes, and that is a problem, right? So Orson Pratt comes back and his wife alleges that it wasn't John C. Bennett who was making overtures to marry her, but in fact, it was Joseph Smith. And so now poor Orson Pratt literally has to choose between the prophet and his wife. And so he leaves the quorum and he leaves the church for a brief amount of time. In fact, a search party sent out for him because they're worried that he's gone out to possibly hurt himself because he's so distraught and upset.

Gerrit Boy, this podcast really took a turn. Yeah, let's get back to anyway, but so what happens, you know, he and his wife are out of the church and they need to call someone into the quorum and they call Amos O'Hyman into the quorum of the 12. Well, about, you know, in a few months, Orson Pratt and his wife both, they repent. His wife repudiates the statements she had made against Joseph.

Richard So she comes clean with all of it.

Gerrit She has Joseph Smith re-baptize her. Now, the tail end, the PS to this story is, she will later in Utah, apostatize again and then write an expose of polygamy and claim that everything was always a lie. But she still can't get around the fact that she publicly had Joseph Smith baptize her. So, you know, sometimes actions speak louder than words. But at any rate, Pratt then wants to get back into the quorum. Well, it's called the Quorum of the Twelve, not the quorum of the baker's dozen, right?

Richard So how did he come back? He's like, come on. Like, how did he? I mean, he comes back, obviously, very penitent.

Gerrit Well, I mean, remember again who Joseph is. Joseph is desperate to forgive anyone, desperate. Joseph, like I said, as a historian, you are frustrated by Joseph Smith because as you see him reaching out the olive branch to literally everyone, you're like, not him, Joseph. I'm well aware of what he does. He becomes an apostate sect leader after you die. I mean, just let him go, right? Now Orson Braddon ended up being amazing for the church. I mean, he's an incredible apostle, great theologian. Orson Pratt was incredible. But yeah, he becomes convinced essentially that something, you know, that John C. Bennett had, you know, was nefarious, that he was wrong to doubt that Joseph was in the right on things. And, you know, again, has Joseph baptized. But he wants his place back in the Quorum of the Twelve and Joseph wants him to have this place back. Orson Pratt was an early convert and an amazing convert.

Gerrit I mean, there are a few people who did as much, preached as much, wrote as much. He was an intellectual. He was incredible, right? The problem is Lyman is now in his position in the Quorum of the Twelve. So what are you going to do? Are you going to just like make it the Quorum of the Thirteen now? You know, it's Quorum of the Thirteen. Are you going to wait for someone to die? I mean, you might be able to do that today, but back then they're all thirty. So then what are you going to do? I guess, you know, life expectancy is forty. So you're still like, you know what? We'll be good. Just give it another year or so. I think I had some bad meat at breakfast. We'll see you in the afternoon and put you in the Quorum of the Twelve. What Joseph does is he moves. Richard's having a hard time.

Richard It's a funny thing. I tasted something funny in those potatoes.

Gerrit You'll probably be in the Quorum by the evening. I think that's what kept Orson Pratt going. Someone's like, you know what? I ate some beef, but it was four days old and we don't have refrigerators. We'll see you in the Quorum. So Joseph moves Lyman out of the Quorum of the Twelve and makes him a member of the First Presidency. And again, today the First Presidency is two counselors. That's what it is, first and second counselor. There was no set limit to that. In fact, we've multiple times have more counselors to the First Presidency, to the Prophet than just two. And so you had William Law and Sydney Rigdon and Amos Lyman. So you had three counselors to the First Presidency, but Lyman had already been ordained an apostle, had been a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and then becomes a member of the First Presidency. Now, I'm not going to, I'm not saying anything, but let me just say, when Joseph is murdered, William Law apostatizes, Sidney Rigdon apostatizes, Amos Lyman doesn't.

Gerrit Now, postscript of that, he will eventually get into like believing that you could do seances to see the dead and whatnot. He eventually will get excommunicated from the church in the Utah period, but he'll actually be posthumously reinstated. Yeah. So that's a unique thing that kind of takes us off the realm.

Richard So he is excommunicated from the church, dies shortly thereafter.

Gerrit Yeah, he lives for a little while actually. I mean, he becomes affiliated. There's a spiritualist movement that he becomes affiliated with. And one of the first things that he begins teaching is he begins teaching that a type of semi-Pelagianism. Now that probably does not... Is there anyone listening who's... You know what? It's time to take our 10th caller. If you can tell us. And now 10th caller, please tell us what Pelagianism is. And it can't be something from Chat AI or Wikipedia Go. Well, Pelagius is an early Christian thinker who is going to argue that he's arguing against the idea of original sin. But he's going to take the argument to this level. He's going to say, theoretically, if you didn't have any sins, then you wouldn't need Jesus for salvation, theoretically.

Gerrit Now, although his antagonists will always say that he's not being theoretical, he appears to be saying, in theory, Jesus dies for all of your actual sins. If you didn't have sins, then Jesus wouldn't be dying for them, right? Because he's taking a kind of one-for-one sin-to-blood-drop ratio, right? Well, this, of course, gets condemned as a heresy, more because it argues against original sin than for the idea of that. And so, actually, Latter-day Saints will sometimes be called Pelagians. Why? Because, oh, you think you can work your way to salvation. Anything that has to do with works, because that's what Pelagius is saying. If you become perfected, if you are perfect, then you don't need Jesus to make up the grace.

Richard But you're still dead, though, right?

Gerrit Yeah, you kind of still need the resurrection. Yeah, but that was not a big part of Pelagius' argument. Yeah. Anyway, Lyman will actually start teaching something similar in Utah, and he'll be chastised multiple times, because he's arguing that essentially for limited atonement.

Richard But does it start with we need to be more like Jesus, and that eventually it's...

Gerrit I think it's a type of perfectionism in which people believe that they are progressing towards becoming like Jesus. And the idea is if you could perfect yourself in this life, then there wouldn't be any sins that Jesus needed to pay for.

Richard Interesting.

Gerrit Yeah. Well, we don't need to spend a ton of time. I mean, maybe we'll pull up some of his old seances, and we can do that on a future podcast.

Richard But so he dies, and then they don't just bring him back into the...

Gerrit He's eventually, he has his priesthood blessings restored to him. So I'm assuming that means his apostolic.

Richard How about that?

Gerrit Yeah.

Richard That's fantastic.

Gerrit Yeah.

Richard That's fantastic.

Gerrit In fact, I believe it's his son who is in the Quorum of the Twelve, who leads the charge to have his dad's...

Richard Yeah, that's fantastic.

Gerrit Well, I mean, you know what? I love my dad.

Richard Yeah, that's great.

Gerrit And I don't care if he said we didn't need Jesus. We're bringing him back. But I always have a soft spot in my heart for Lyman because when Joseph is murdered, the primary argument of Sidney Rigdon is I was a member of the First Presidency. The First Presidency is equal and authority to the Prophet. Therefore, I'm the new leader of the Church. And it's Lyman who stands up in that meeting and says, I'm a member of the First Presidency too. And I know that we're supposed to follow the Quorum of the Twelve.

Richard And I'm an apostle.

Gerrit By the way, I'm also an apostle. Yeah, well, I mean, he does. He's able to kind of big time Sidney Rigdon and say, you can't just say that you are the leader because you're in the First Presidency because I'm also in the First Presidency. And so it ended up being a very fortuitous thing actually for the crisis of succession that Lyman was put into the First Presidency because it helped diffuse Rigdon's argument. Because if your sole claim to power is, I am in the First Presidency and therefore I should take over the Church, and there's another person in the First Presidency with you who says, I don't think so. Well, now that really undermines your argument. Whereas the apostles were relatively unified.

Richard We're talking about Hyrum?

Gerrit Yeah, what were we talking about? Let's go back to Hyrum. Okay, so back to our Hyrum Smith question. What is apparent is that Joseph believes Hyrum should be treated with more apostolic and prophetic respect than he is, right? That he's given this calling by God that he is a prophet. And the example that is given is that he should be just like Oliver Cowdery was. Now remember, what was Oliver Cowdery? Back before there was a Quorum of the Twelve, there was just First Elder and Second Elder. And it was Oliver Cowdery and Joseph who ran the Church. Before there were bishops, before there were Seventies, before there were apostles, there was just Oliver Cowdery and Joseph. And that's it. And so Hyrum is, D&C 124 is trying to elevate him to that position. That it's Joseph and Hyrum that run the Church.

Richard We're talking about Hyrum?

Gerrit Yeah, what were we talking about? Let's go back to Hyrum. Okay, so back to our Hyrum Smith question. What is apparent is that Joseph believes Hyrum should be treated with more apostolic and prophetic respect than he is, right? That he's given this calling by God that he is a prophet. And the example that is given is that he should be just like Oliver Cowdery was. Now remember, what was Oliver Cowdery? Back before there was a Quorum of the Twelve, there was just First Elder and Second Elder. And it was Oliver Cowdery and Joseph who ran the Church. Before there were bishops, before there were Seventies, before there were apostles, there was just Oliver Cowdery and Joseph. And that's it. And so Hyrum is, D&C 124 is trying to elevate him to that position. That it's Joseph and Hyrum that run the Church.

Gerrit And that of course is, at the very least, I think that that's what's really behind Joseph saying this. It's not that he's fed up with the institutionalized aspect of the Church. It's that people are not properly giving Hyrum his due. Let's go to another source. So we, you know, the Joseph Smith Journal, while a great source a lot of the time, is not the best source right here, because the person who's keeping it, Hyrum, I mean, sorry, Willard Richards, isn't there to hear this statement about Hyrum. He's only taking it from others. Here's William Clayton. Again, William Clayton does appear to be there. PM went to the Grove and heard President Joseph preach on the law of the priesthood. He stated that Hyrum held the Office of Prophet to the Church by birthright, and that he was going to have a reformation, and the saints must regard Hyrum for he has authority.

Gerrit He showed that a man must enter into an everlasting covenant with his wife in this world, or he will have no claim on her in the next. He said that he could not reveal the fullness of these things until the temple is completed. So there's, so you get a little bit more from someone who's actually there. What appears to be the case is that Joseph is a little more frustrated that people aren't giving Hyrum his due, rather than, I'm not even going to be a prophet anymore. It's all just Hyrum. Here's from the the Levi Richards diary doesn't even really talk about it. He spoke of contracts and covenants made in this life and this life end with life. The necessity of the temple of the servants of God may be sealed in their foreheads. The four angels are not permitted to destroy the earth until this was done. The weather was warm and dry.

Richard The angels won't be allowed to...

Gerrit The angels are coming to destroy everyone.

Richard It was a nice day.

Gerrit The weather was warm. It'd be a good planting season.

Richard It would seem like if something like that statement of Joseph wanting to no longer be in charge, that seems like something that would have popped.

Gerrit Right ahead of the temperature. Now, I know that Willard Richards isn't our... He isn't there for this, right? So it is a little bit problematic because he's not there, but later he is going to provide even more context to this because he's going to write a letter to Brigham Young. And in that letter, he is going to state that there was a different reason for why Joseph said what he said. Joseph preached and said, the idea has gone abroad... Well, this is Joseph preaching actually a week later. So a week later, people will come to Joseph and say, you can't step down. I mean, you have to be the prophet, right? Because they were worried that he meant it, which clearly it seems like Joseph was trying to make the point about temple covenants. And in fact, there are some people who argue that because Joseph is talking about the things that are going on in the temple, what Joseph is really saying is, you can have this earthly position of prophet.

Gerrit I want to be a priest and king. And that's what he means by, and I will take the office of priest, right? That that is at least what some of the speculation is. So we actually have from Joseph's journal, again, kept by Willard Richards, the following week where he explains, at least what he said the week before, he at least says that people are overreacting to what he said. Oh no, it can't be, you know, Hyrum that takes over, you've got to be the prophet. This is what he says in his journal. Joseph preached introduction. It has gone abroad that I was no longer a prophet. I said it ironically is what is the sentence. I suppose you would all understand. I was not that I would renounce the idea of being a prophet, but that I would renounce the idea of proclaiming myself such and saying that I bear the testimony of Jesus.

Gerrit So Joseph is at least later trying to clarify saying, I didn't say that I'm renouncing being a prophet. I'm saying that I'm renouncing the idea of proclaiming myself such. You can tell though that this is something that people are very worried about. They're worried about it enough that they bring it back up to Joseph and actually want to make sure that he's not planning to renounce it. And Joseph will talk multiple times about the fact that people just do not understand what it is that he's trying to teach them and to tell them. This idea that he wasn't actually serious about it is something that is reiterated in that Willard Richards letter to Brigham Young later, where he tells Brigham Young that Joseph said he would not prophesy anymore.

Gerrit Hyrum should be the prophet. Did not tell them that he was going to be a priest now, nor a king by and by. Told the elders not to prophesy when they went out preaching. So here you have even another source that's claiming kind of a different reason. But I think the main point, back to our question is, is what Joseph's saying, I'm so tired of the administration of the church, that I'm going to leave it off and make Hyrum the prophet. First of all, as far as Joseph was concerned, Hyrum was already the prophet. He was already a co-prophet or whatever you want to call it because of D&C 124. It appears much more the case, especially according to William Clayton's diary, that Joseph was annoyed that people were not giving Hyrum the due that he believed Hyrum deserved. Maybe Joseph was feeling more sensitive to that because it is in 1843, and in fact in July of 1843, that Doctrine and Covenants section 132 on plural marriage and eternal marriage is going to be written down in the presence of Hyrum with William Clayton and Joseph dictating it.

Gerrit Maybe because it was very difficult for Hyrum to accept that that was a revelation from God, maybe the fact that that's going on plays into this. Again, now this is me speculating, but don't go tell people I heard on Gerrit's podcast that this is the reason why this happened. But you've got a lot of things going on here. You've got Joseph teaching more and more about these blessings that come in the temple. He's endowing people in his brick store. And at the same time, you have him teaching about eternal blessings. And perhaps it is in that, it's certainly in the context, even if it has nothing to do with this, that Joseph is trying to reiterate that Hyrum is a prophet to the church as well. And that appears to be the case. Other people listening to the talk don't even get that out of it. I mean, that's not even what some people get out of it. William Clayton clearly gets something out of it, but what he gets out of it is, you're not respecting Hyrum enough.

Gerrit And our source that says Joseph's going to resign is people telling Willard Richards that, and Willard Richards saying, I guess he said that he was going to become a priest. And then Joseph a week later saying, I said this ironically. And you almost get a little bit of frustration there that yeah, you guys can't get it. So anyway, I hope that that helped answer. I know we spent a lot of time discussing who's in the quorum of the 12 and who isn't. But I would say that it would be an overstatement to simplify it and say that the reason why Joseph said it as he was frustrated about administrative things. I think it's far more the case that Joseph is trying to teach them that there are higher things that are going on. And that's the reason why they need to hurry and finish the temple. Because in the temple, he can teach them these higher things. And even the people listening, you know, almost like the followers of Jesus who are more worried about getting the bread for the next day, it just kind of goes right over their heads.

Gerrit Instead of thinking, oh wow, we really better get after the temple, they appear to focus on, wait a minute, did Joseph really say he's not going to be the prophet anymore? When Joseph has to later explain that. But it is something that we'll probably revisit on another occasion when we talk about succession, because one of the great questions of succession is, what happens if Joseph is murdered but Hyrum Smith survives? Would that have changed the way succession happened in the church? But if you want to hear the answer to that question, you'll have to tune back in as we promise, yet never deliver, the succession crisis in the early church. Thank you so much for listening.

Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

Joseph Smith Stepping Down As Prophet

Chapters

Transcript

Quote board

Source shelf

Rough Stone Rolling and Saints

Joseph Smith journal (kept by Willard Richards), July 16, 1843

D&C 124:91

D&C 124:94-96

William Clayton journal, July 16, 1843

Levi Richards diary, July 16, 1843

Joseph Smith journal (kept by Willard Richards), July 23, 1843

Willard Richards to Brigham Young (date not given on air)

D&C 132

Revelation 7:1-3 (servants of God sealed in their foreheads)

Episode quiz

What inspired Richard's hope that the Lakers could come back from 0-3?

Fun with Numbers

From 1841 to 1843

Money said on air

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Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

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More from this episode

Claim check

Take it to class

Banter bin

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

In General Conference

Go deeper

Joseph Smith Stepping Down As Prophet

Fine, here's the link

Rough Stone Rolling and Saints

Joseph Smith journal (kept by Willard Richards), July 16, 1843

D&C 124:91

D&C 124:94-96

William Clayton journal, July 16, 1843

Levi Richards diary, July 16, 1843

Joseph Smith journal (kept by Willard Richards), July 23, 1843

Willard Richards to Brigham Young (date not given on air)

D&C 132

Revelation 7:1-3 (servants of God sealed in their foreheads)

What inspired Richard's hope that the Lakers could come back from 0-3?

From 1841 to 1843

Money said on air

Percentages said on air

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words