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The longest introduction
S3E35 · The Final Charge to the Twelve
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Standard of Truth · Season 3 · Episode 35 · 1:11:02

The Final Charge to the Twelve

The oldest recording of any prophet's voice is Wilford Woodruff in 1897, on a wax cylinder, bearing witness that Joseph gave the keys of the kingdom to the Twelve.

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The question ·
I recently learned of a meeting Joseph Smith had with most of the Quorum of the Twelve. In this meeting, Joseph Smith gave the keys of the kingdom to the Twelve. And I was looking for more information about the meeting and what sources exist for it.
Eric (listener)

Richard's dissertation inches forward, and Cindy, a relative of Lilburn Boggs, reports that his temple ordinances show as unavailable on FamilySearch, which leads to talk of who gets proxy work done and early re-baptism. Along the way Gerrit explains why the Smiths named a son Don Carlos and how a Civil War marching song became a children's song. Then Eric asks about the meeting where Joseph gave the keys of the kingdom to the Twelve. Gerrit explains why many hoped the Council of Fifty minutes would describe it, and reads the brief March 1844 entry plus the apostles' 1845 certificate recalling Joseph's charge: round up your shoulders and bear off this kingdom. He closes with Wilford Woodruff's 1897 wax cylinder testimony, played on the episode, and Brigham's sense that Joseph knew his time was short.

Who comes upJoseph SmithWilford WoodruffBrigham YoungWilliam ClaytonLilburn W. BoggsDon Carlos SmithDon Carlos BuellGeorge F. RootHeber C. KimballOrson HydeJohn Taylor
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The longest introduction

Gerrit gives Richard an elaborate ABD intro, and a friend finishing her PhD finds the right song.

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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 ABD. Nearly, he can see the end of, well, maybe it's the end of the rainbow. So maybe as he gets closer, it will disappear, because it is nothing but a chimera. It is an illusion, finishing the dissertation. Richard LeDuc.
Richard Oh my gosh. Oh, Gerrit, thank you so much. That was the longest introduction I've ever had. Well deserved, and I appreciate it.
Gerrit The introduction that was just pointing out that dissertations are terrible.
Richard Yes, yes. I am looking for, there is some progress. I'm looking toward the research portion of the project November, December, and then writing up my findings that no one will ever read, not even the dissertation committee.
Gerrit One of our friends of the show, but probably doesn't listen anymore like most of our former friends, Sherilyn, she posted on Facebook the other day because she's near the end of her history PhD as well. And she had just finished meeting with her advisors about the things you still have to do. And she was thinking about, well, I've got to do this and I've got to do this and I've got to do this. And she gets in the car and she has the Mormon Tabernacle Choir playing, right? Because clearly Sherilyn is doing dissertations better than I am.
Richard She's listening to-
Gerrit Yeah, she's, yeah, I was, it was all ACDC.
Richard But he has poison.
Gerrit No, no, not poison was when I was taking it easy. The other time it was- It was goire. No, I was listening to Sepulchra. It was, no, she's obviously, she's in the right mindset. She's listening and the song that comes on from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as she's thinking, am I ever gonna get this done, is to dream the impossible dream.
Richard Oh, that's great.
Gerrit Which that's where she's at.
Richard And you mean the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square?
Gerrit Yes.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit Did I, well, you know what? The recording, she was listening to you, guaranteed. Yeah, ah, ah. Foisted on your own side, aren't you?
Richard So the, we'd like to get right into the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag. We have two emails, one a little bit longer of an answer, one a little bit shorter. We're gonna start with a little bit of the shorter of the answer here. This comes to us from Cindy. And it's about Lilburn Boggs' temple work.
Gerrit Ah, yes. This was on a previous episode where we talked about the prophecy that a church spire would cover the grave of... I mean, I'm pretty sure we debunked it. Although you know what, repeating it back, now I kind of wish it was true.
Richard I do too. I also think that Lilburn would have done well with perhaps a rapper name, he'd be Lilburn.
Gerrit Maybe that's what his parents were going for, is these Lilburns.
Richard You got Big Burn, you got Big Daddy Burn, and then you got Lilburn.
Gerrit Lilburn.
Richard And that's why he had to be governor because he was pursuing his parents' love.
Gerrit There were a lot of people named Lilburn back then. I occasionally get the question, quite often, honestly. I mean, as questions go. I mean, so the number one question is polygamy. And then the next 10 questions are also different aspects of polygamy. Some of you actually write into the show to try to trick me to talk about it.
Richard You've talked about it twice.
Gerrit I've talked about it more than that.
Richard Yeah, that's true.
Gerrit But where I had an entire episode on a polyandry ceiling. I mean, what more do you want from me? The people cry out, but I think the people just start listening. But people will try to write in to try to trick me. Like, hey, I had a question about how elders quorums were formed. By the way, who was the second poor wife of Joseph Smith? I mean, they're unrelated. They're hopeful that it just kind of goes right into there. But one of the questions I get, and I would say at least once every five to six months when I'm doing firesides and things like that, if you're wondering, yes, occasionally, I occasionally, occasionally people are so hard up that I have given firesides. In fact, we have a couple, I think I only do firesides for listeners of the show at this point, right? Because I was like, hey, is there any way you could come? Because after listening to the show, they're thinking, what is every church leader thinking when they need a fireside speaker?
Gerrit I need someone dumb enough to say yes. I just need someone available.
Richard I've been asked zero times.
Gerrit Yeah, that's what I'm saying, right? I need someone who's available. Well, what is, I mean, look, have you ever done a cameo? You ever gone on and bought like a cameo?
Richard Yeah, you got me one for my birthday.
Gerrit Yeah, here we go. I got Richard a cameo for his birthday. You know, we're a celebrity person. It was Jim Miller, the former-
Richard The Chicago Bears quarterback?
Gerrit And Richard's a huge Bears fan.
Richard I am.
Gerrit Who wished Richard a happy BYU football game, but then they were-
Richard We got crushed by Oregon.
Gerrit It was a beating. It was biblical.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit At any rate, some cameos cost a lot of money, right? Others are less expensive. What do you think the deciding factor is on that cost?
Richard Just general popularity.
Gerrit Popularity and demand, right?
Richard Of course.
Gerrit So when you're always available to give a fireside, it's because your dance card isn't terribly full. That is if you know what I mean.
Richard Actually, there was one time, we have a listener to a friend of the show, Lisa. She tried to get me to come in to present some thing. She did.
Gerrit And you ghosted her.
Richard No, I did not. So my wife said, you don't have anything to say that anyone wants to hear.
Gerrit Well, he actually did say yes at first. And then Becky said, you call her back and you tell her no, right? Or write her back or whatever it was.
Richard Something along those lines.
Gerrit Yeah. In fact, she actually sent me a message and said, Richard's not doing that. He's not going to become one of those people. Well, I'm talking to her. I'm clearly one of those people.
Richard As mentioned in last week's episode, our family slogan is don't embarrass the family. My wife knows very well that I don't have anything to present that anyone wants to listen to.
Gerrit How would that be any different than every other fireside?
Richard Well, yours at least provides some level of history. So wait, you didn't even say what the thing they ask you. Oh, they ask you to do the firesides? No, no. Or they ask you a question about the firesides?
Gerrit We went down at what we like to call in the Standard of Truth a tangent. But I get asked pretty regularly, it's a question that you wouldn't expect. And that is about Joseph Smith's brother, Don Carlos. They're like, that's such a weird name.
Richard The sword, the sword fighter, Don Carlos.
Gerrit Yeah, exactly. Like why in the world? I mean, in fact, I even had one person who said, well, I was listening to this anti-Mormon and he said, and I was like, what, what? You're just casually listening to anti-Mormons? He's like, I was listening to this anti-Mormon and he said that it was actual proof that the Smiths were just a bunch of liars and fabricators that they were trying to make themselves sound so grand that they named one of their sons, Don Carlos, even though none of them were Spanish or had any Spanish heritage, it just shows what deceivers the Smiths were. Yeah, and the reality is that it's actually a really, I mean, it's not like Bill. Remember Bill the adulterer? Do you remember how Bill wrote in to say, I'm not an adulterer?
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Bill, we need to hear from you again. We need another email from you because it's been a little while for all we know.
Richard No, we assume.
Gerrit That he's now an adulterer.
Richard Well, yeah, with a name like Bill.
Gerrit Yeah, all Bills end up adulterating at some point. So anyway, that was, I mean, it just demonstrates how something that quote unquote stands to reason as Jordan and his Xbox demonstrated last week. Sure, that sounds like, oh, what, yeah, the Smiths are just trying to make themselves sound smarter and better by using that name. But it's actually a pretty common name in the 19th century.
Richard So why is it a common name in the 19th century?
Gerrit It's a great question. I mean, you could ask the same thing about all kinds of names. There's all kinds of stuff that we have as names. I mean, why is LeBron a common name now in the United States?
Richard Well, but I could, I mean, yeah, I could answer.
Gerrit There you go. Because it gives a little bit of prestige because of that. And in fact, one of the generals of the Civil War, who is frankly, unfortunately, one of the worst generals in the Civil War.
Richard That's saying a lot.
Gerrit Well, I mean, look, I guess I'm gonna have some, how many Civil War PhD historians are listening, do you think?
Richard Actually, surprisingly, probably a lot. Like faithful members of the church, very few. So Civil War historians, PhDs, a lot.
Gerrit Is that at least 50, 60% of them?
Richard The majority of our downloads are your mom, Rachel's mom, and PhDs in history.
Gerrit PhD, Civil War historians. But they're listening to a Latter-day Saint podcast. Latter-day Saint podcast. That's what they're doing. Well, anyway, his name is Don Carlos Buell. Don Carlos Buell. He's most well-known for his, well, he does okay actually in the Battle of Shiloh, which is one of the biggest early battles. But he loses the Battle of Perryville. He like loses most of East Tennessee to the Confederacy. So he's, you know, he's considered, I mean, he gets sacked by Lincoln in 1862. And so he's considered a poor commander. In fact, I'm about to let the audience in on something that I probably shouldn't. When I was younger and I had time and also clearly not any friends, I love strategy games.
Gerrit I love them. I mean, for some people that's Settlers of Catan and stuff like that. I love military strategy games. I was playing them. Me and my brother were playing them. My brother is Brian Andale. We'd play them from the time I was a little kid. And one of the ones I had is an American Civil War strategy game where, you know, one side's the Confederacy and one side's. And the good commanders, they, you know, if they had a one, you'd add a one to your role because he's that good that he makes your role that much higher. This sounds like I'm doing Dungeons and Dragons at this point. There was no Dungeon Master.
Richard It's Dungeons and Dragons, but with like historical figures.
Gerrit Historic Dungeons and Dragons.
Richard No, you have to move your. Don Carlos Buell Warlock had a hit.
Gerrit He had a 29 hex spell that he could use. Anyway, and the better the commanders, that higher that number was, right? So like, you know, Grant was like a four. So you like added a four to every roll of your dice. So here's, I mean, Grant's killing everyone essentially, right? Don Carlos Buell was in another camp, whereas if they were really bad commanders in the actual war, they had like a highlighted number, which meant you subtracted that much off of the roll. And his was like a subtract too. So it was, if he ended up being your commander, you lost every single battle, which is also what happened when he was the commander. So it was a very good historical simulation. Now, luckily the Smiths did not name their son Don Carlos after Don Carlos Buell, because the Civil War of course occurred many years later. But Don Carlos Buell was born roughly the same time as Don Carlos.
Gerrit He's born in 1818.
Richard So Don Carlos Buell's parents were also liars trying to put on air.
Gerrit Exactly. I mean, so the whole point is like, we have all kinds of names that are cultural things that people hear and they go, oh, that's cool. And yes, in the 19th century United States, there was kind of this affinity for Spanish names because it made things seem older. And you don't have to go very far to see that same phenomena today. I mean, go to Thousand Oaks, California and the main road is Avenidos de los Arbolos, right? I mean, why? Well, because everything's Spanish this and Spanish that. Those names were deliberately designed to try to give this kind of a Spanish flavor to make it seem more ancient. So anyway, I get asked that question all the time, why do they name him Don Carlin? It's funny, I've been asked it twice this year, in fact. Yeah. Yep.
Richard By the way, your Spanish has the accent of a person that served their mission in Wisconsin.
Gerrit Well, yeah, I'm not.
Richard De los Arbolos.
Gerrit Well, I'm saying it the way that the GPS says it. Yeah, that's how the GPS lady says it.
Richard If I had a month of Sundays, as I've heard you say, I would never have guessed we would have started here with Don Carlos as a name. You know what? This is just a little treat for the listeners.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard A little love prize.
Gerrit You know what? Has anyone listening ever thought to themselves, why am I listening to this podcast? And second of all, has anyone listening thought, why are the Smiths naming their son Don Carlos?
Richard I have actually wondered why they, I mean, it's such an odd name.
Gerrit I believe one of our listeners said, answering the questions that you never asked or didn't have.
Richard That is true.
Gerrit Right? And of course, Joseph loves Don Carlos. And in 1841, his younger brother is going to die, most likely of tuberculosis. And so it's gonna be a huge tragedy for Joseph. And shortly thereafter, Joseph's son, who he had named after his brother that he loved, Don Carlos, also died when he was young. He was just a toddler. So, I mean, there, you can tell Joseph is giving his brother the name because, I mean, giving his son the name because it's his brother's name, because he loves his brother, just like he at least is reputed to, although we don't know for certain. I mean, people say that he tried to name his first son, Alvin, but that's not definitive. At any rate, that wasn't the question that was asked.
Richard We haven't gotten close to the question that was asked. We're back to-
Gerrit But we were talking about why Lilburn had the name Lilburn.
Richard This is true. So Lilburn, the hype man for what we could only assume is Big Daddy Burn, I'm related to Governor Boggs, first wife.
Gerrit So first of all, you're a member of the church and you're related to Governor Boggs.
Richard First wife, through marriage, you know.
Gerrit Well, yeah, but that means she's related to him.
Richard I mean, maybe it's an aunt.
Gerrit Oh, I see. So maybe she's like an in-law, like she's not actually, but why would she say first wife? She'd say first wife's sister then or something.
Richard I don't know.
Gerrit We're gonna need a little bit. We're gonna need your family group sheet. And if you could send your personal ancestral file along with, if you could send your personal ancestral file along with any credit card numbers, pin numbers and or bank accounts.
Richard So I'm related to Governor Boggs' first wife, Julia Ann Bent. She died in 1820, so that may be what sent him over the bend. Well, that's very nice of you to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Gerrit There you go. So you were related to him before-
Richard Before he was murdering-
Gerrit Before he became evil.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit Yeah, we just read in our last, if you didn't listen to our last podcast, we got a few shots in, well, I didn't. Joseph Smith got a few shots in on what Governor Boggs had done.
Richard Since we are related, I have access to his records on FamilySearch. When you pull up Boggs' Temple Ordinance page, everything is colored a bright, cautionary yellow. And the message next to each ordinance states, cannot request, not available. The person's ordinance status is not available. Please contact FamilySearch support if you are a relative and need more information. From this, I would guess that his temple work has not been done. I don't know if this would be appropriate to share on your podcast. Well, okay.
Gerrit Well, you know what, we've-
Richard Sorry about that, Cindy. We seem to have jumped the ship.
Gerrit Richard, I'm gonna need you to read these emails before we- Look, whatever you guys do, don't share this on your podcast. Oh boy.
Richard Oh, Cindy, I'm-
Gerrit Yep, so sorry.
Richard I don't mean Cindy, I mean Bill.
Gerrit Yeah, Bill, Bill the Adulterer.
Richard Yeah, of course Bill the Adulterer is related to Lil, Lil Byrne. I don't know if this would be appropriate to share on your podcast if Governor Boggs comes up again. I think he might. He always will, by the way, he always does. But feel free if you'd like to. Or does it make the church seem like it holds a little, or a very long grudge? What is the appropriate grudge length for inciting murder and mayhem?
Gerrit First of all, that's one of the greatest questions ever asked.
Richard I don't know, I feel like-
Gerrit You should come with us on our tour to Missouri and you'll see. I'm not gonna make it out of Jackson County without just being mad. It's so weird because I feel embarrassed that I am so mad, but I start reading the accounts of the things that happen and I'm just like, you pieces of garbage. Sorry, sorry. I just digressed again.
Richard The first time I ever drove into Liberty, people are just whistling and happy and walking their dog and I'm coming in and I hate all of you. I was really upset, really angry about it.
Gerrit Yeah, and it was in a rash of anger. You came out even more mad.
Richard Yeah, but the guy who's just walking and the mailman that's whistling and saying, hey, hey.
Gerrit I never saw one person smile when I was in Missouri.
Richard Except that I'm Barbie. I want to read this sentence again, because it's, what is the appropriate grudge length for inciting murder in Mayhem? I don't think grudge seems like it's a softer, perhaps, word.
Gerrit I like how she was dialing it down.
Richard She did dial it down. I did think you both would find it interesting, however. Happy to share a picture of the page from FamilySearch if you'd like to see it. My son recommended your podcast to me, and it's absolutely my favorite. And since I've retired, I listen to many, many podcasts. Keep up the great work, and I'll keep up the devoted listening. Cindy, proud to card-carrying subscriber of Standard of Truth Premium content.
Gerrit Well, now I know how she got into the read.
Richard Wait, why don't we get cards to carry? That's a great question. Communists and...
Gerrit Yeah, every... Communists and us.
Richard Standard of Truth Premium listeners.
Gerrit It's actually a really problematic thing that we're trying to work on. So we are working the problem, but we're working it the same way that we're talking about polygamy. Because when people sign up for the premium, Apple and Spotify actually shield that from us, I think just so they can steal more of your money. But they don't send us a list of who the premium subscribers are. And so we want to be able to create a community of those people. So we've got some ideas. Don't worry, Damien's.
Richard Yeah, Damien gave us a lot of great ideas that we will poorly execute.
Gerrit Well, look, is Damien executing the ideas? No, if it's us, it's gonna be poor.
Richard I mean, if Damien does it'd be great.
Gerrit Yeah, unfortunately Damien has what we like to call a real job, and so he probably can't. But he gave us some good ideas of some ways we might work around it so that we can try to build a community, maybe something where we can have people on there that are premium subscribers where they can talk to one another.
Richard And this came, so we had some audio issues in the last episode. A lot of my audio was cut. It's interesting how that works.
Gerrit So, we are not what you would call a high end operation.
Richard They'll be surprised to hear that. Shock.
Gerrit Okay, so occasionally, and it's weird, it's relatively occasionally, but occasionally one of our mics will just spontaneously stop working while we're doing this.
Richard It's not the mic, it's the software that is running the.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean the mics seem great. The freeware that we installed with 17 viruses on our computers so that we could do this for free. They seem to not work as well as they might.
Richard So in that last episode, I don't know what will be cut and what won't be. You're gonna find.
Gerrit We might just leave it in and Richard will just sound like he's very distant. He's like, I don't know, it's very, yeah.
Richard It's very distant. But in that, we talked about the tour that we went on and how wonderful all those people were on the tour and how we have a WhatsApp to be able to communicate prior to the tour and then on the tour. And then it's been several months and people are still communicating on the WhatsApp. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of like-minded folks that are faithful members of the church who may or may not take themselves so seriously. And it's just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people. And so thank you so much for being a premium listener. And Cindy, we are very grateful for that. And we hope to have more things like that coming in the next three to seven years.
Gerrit So, yeah, sometime before we retire or die, which of their children are you descended from? I'm guessing, because if you're from Julianne, his first wife, right, they have two children. So are you from Angus or are you from Henry?
Richard Interesting.
Gerrit We would like a little bit of a follow up on that. So you're right, when you do go to FamilySearch, those things are, needs more information or contact the staff kind of thing. They're yellowed out in a way. I would love to believe, I mean, look, I, of all people, want to believe that, yeah, I want to believe that President Nelson is sitting there. Nope.
Richard Not yet, not this year. He's like, Pete Rose getting into the Hall of Fame.
Gerrit Not this year. Maybe you shouldn't bet on baseball. Maybe you shouldn't murder a bunch of Mormons. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like that. I would like, I mean, I'll tell you what, President Hinckley wouldn't have approved it.
Richard President Ford's out.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, I mean.
Richard No President Ford, anyone with Ford, Governor Ford.
Gerrit Gerald Ford was not a problem for us.
Richard Anyone named Ford in leadership, they're out.
Gerrit It's true. We have a real problem. Anyone named Ford, anyone named Boggs. We didn't even want Wade Boggs to win a World Series. We prayed against it. That's the reason why the Red Sox struggled. But anyway, more like, I mean, so look, possibly that's the reason why, but I would guess much more likely it's actually the fact that it is constantly being requested to be done. And so they just put a lock on it. You probably have, so look, the way that these temple records were originally kept, I mean, computers didn't exist. So how did people do temple work? Well, they all had their own giant family group sheet, right? Well, how do you know whether your third cousin Lester has gotten that far on your family line as you have? How could you possibly know? I mean, okay, eventually things are gonna be a little bit digitized and you have a better chance of understanding where things are at.
Gerrit You get the personal ancestral file and stuff like that. But many of these ordinances were performed long before things were digitized. And so that's what I would guess. I would guess that not only do they have multiple independent records of people doing the work, as like I said, it is a Latter-day Saints favorite thing to do. I'm sitting around and I say to myself, you know what? I would like to demonstrate that you're a member now, whether you like it or not, you know? But my guess is it's more that. My guess is they have probably dozens if not hundreds of competing records of people that have said that they have done it and that people keep requesting to do it. But you know what? As a direct descendant, you can always ask. I would love it if you were to contact them and say, I would like to have my husband do, not you, I mean, if you were to do it, then they'd probably say no.
Gerrit But if you were to say, I'd like to have my husband do, he's my great-great-grandfather, whatever it is, and see what they would say. But they'd probably have to run it up the line somewhere. But I don't really know. I am not adept at all of these types of things. It is interesting, though, that it says needs more information. But it's not just affecting Lilburn Boggs, right? Because it's affecting the fact that Julia, his wife, before he did all the nonsense, can't be sealed.
Richard No, that's what she says.
Gerrit Yeah. She can't be sealed to her spouse, because her spouse is Lilburn Boggs. Or at least it's blocking that from being done. Sealing to spouse not available is what it's saying on the old Pedigree Shard.
Richard So who would you guess probably that was the most popular for people to go and do work for, like Calvin?
Gerrit Well, there's all kinds. Reformers, people go do that all the time. John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Wesley, people are doing John Wesley all the time.
Richard Yeah, we're huge Wesley fans.
Gerrit Yeah, well, we're big meth time Methodists. But then also antagonists. People, I guarantee Governor Ford has been through the roof number of times because it's a way of people saying, well, you didn't like us, but shows you.
Richard Well, maybe, I don't know that they necessarily are going with the same level of attitude that you're presenting.
Gerrit Maybe I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder.
Richard Well, but it might be more of a Christ-like, loving, you know, hey, come on, dear friend, now the war has passed.
Gerrit Well, yeah, but that never happened. There was no begging and forgiveness. There was just murder. I will note that in some of that family group sheet, there are a few things you could do. So there's some other.
Richard Yeah. Thomas Oliver.
Gerrit Yeah, there's lots of people there.
Richard William Boggs.
Gerrit Anyway, so that's what I would guess. I would guess that they probably locked it down because it's been done so many times that it's just ridiculous at this point. I should go back and look at someone like George Washington to see how many times it's been done. Right? I mean, so that's different because you at least have Wilford Woodruff saying that he did it.
Richard So what do you think that's like in Spirit Prison? And you're up there and it's like, hey, you were baptized again. Hey, you want to accept this one?
Gerrit Nope, you know what, in the early church, in the early church, we re-baptized people all the time.
Richard This is something you've mentioned a little bit we haven't talked a lot about, but they baptized them for all kinds of different reasons.
Gerrit Yeah, people did baptisms for healing. They did baptisms for recommitment. When the Saints got to the Valley, Brigham Young told everyone to be re-baptized because it as a re-signal of their commitment. Re-baptism was something that was actually pretty common, and again, that sounds crazy to you, and you're about to... You're like, what? How many of you are standing in front of the church office building, burning your recommitment right now?
Richard The church lied to me. They never told me that Brigham said that everyone was supposed to be re-baptized.
Gerrit I was never told, as if in your primary lesson, it was like, now, no one was ever re-baptized, ever. I mean, I doubt that that was the lesson, unless they had a far better primary teacher than most. But anyway, that practice of re-baptism is eventually going to end by the late 19th century. So maybe these spirits in spirit prison are, you know what? They're like, you know what? I need to be renewed there. And look, we see this all the time. I see it in my own family pedigree chart, that there are multiple competing endowments, dates for them, places they're done for literally the same person because they came from two different group sheets that came in. So I mean, the difference is no one's running out and trying to find the nearest Dirkmaat to baptize until they listen to this podcast.
Richard Yes, not even the Dirkmaat family.
Gerrit Yeah, not even that. We're terrible at a family history. I mean, come on. I'm the one doing it. But with someone who was so crucial to the history of the saints, I mean, it's a no-brainer. So that's what I think. But I don't know. Spoiler alert, I'm not a general authority over the temple department. So just so everyone's aware, as the podcast has no affiliation with the church other than the fact that we are members and we love it. But nothing we say matters.
Richard Speaking of that, next email, Eric, the last charge beating. This is a little bit of, I mean, almost apostles minus apostates, a little bit.
Gerrit Yeah, it's a little bit of apostles and apostates, but it's more like...
Richard Mostly apostles.
Gerrit It's apostles, but guess what? Some of those guys do apostatize.
Richard There we go. You know what? Let's call this part two.
Gerrit No, because it'll confuse people and they'll be like, why, when was Lil Bird Boggs an apostle? He was never a member. He's just a jerk. So we need it to be apostles, apostates...
Richard And jerks, part two.
Gerrit You know, for the alliteration, it would have to be another word that starts with A, but... Right? I mean, you can't... Apostles, apostates, apothecaries. Anyone who happens to be a pharmacist in early church history, we want to know their names. I'm sorry, please e-mail the show. Okay, back to the question.
Richard Eric, I hope this e-mail finds you both well.
Gerrit Thank you, Eric.
Richard Yeah, we're-
Gerrit It finds us hilarious.
Richard We're quite well.
Gerrit I'm so sorry to everyone listening. I'm so sorry to Angie when she hears this.
Richard If our wives were here, they'd be so mad.
Gerrit They would tell us we'd have to redo it. This one's gonna seem a little more reckless because they're not here.
Richard They do keep us in check.
Gerrit Oh, yeah, when they're not asleep, they're like, you guys are doing a terrible job. Best part is Becky and Angie are respective wives. They'll sleep for 45 minutes of the podcast. They'll wake up not of their own volition, but because Becky's bouncing her leg on the chair and Richard wakes her up and Angie's, you know, snoring or something and we wake her up. Both of them wake up, have listened to literally nothing we've said and immediately begin to criticize what we've done. Jordan, we feel your pain with the Xbox and the dishes.
Richard Well, you know what? Jordan was playing the Xbox with his son, by the way. You know what? You know, this is the night we've waited for, always a treat. We haven't started, they're having family night. It's a whole.
Gerrit So you think for family home evening, they were playing Xbox, but his wife, rather than playing, went to go start doing the dishes. That's what you think.
Richard It seems classic Jordan's wife.
Gerrit Jordan, I need you to have your wife email in her side of the story.
Richard I feel like I'm on Jordan's wife's side. I'll be honest.
Gerrit I think there's no other side to be on, but as long as Jordan sides up for the premium content, we will be on his side.
Richard So by the way, when you, did you guys have family night as a family? Do you ever do family home evening often? I don't wanna judge you. Not now, obviously not now, but like when you were a kid.
Gerrit Well clearly not now. No, not now. No, yeah, we did it all the time when we were kids.
Richard Did you have a song that you sang when you were a kid?
Gerrit We would sing an opening hymn, but we would not.
Richard You would pick a hymn, it would be different every time.
Gerrit Yes, yes.
Richard So you wouldn't sing, this is the night we've waited for, always a dream with each other, more and more with every family night. Stories and games for everyone.
Gerrit So you would sing.
Richard Father and mother, daughter, son, together on a family night.
Gerrit I don't even know the song you're talking about. Yeah.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit Is that in the children's song?
Richard I think it was like from the 60s or something, I don't know. If I had to pick. We sang it.
Gerrit Yeah, I'd be in our lovely Deseret.
Richard I love that song. Yeah.
Gerrit Drink no liquor and they eat, but a very little meat.
Richard We would sing that on our mission, but we'd sing with like a Southern accent. It was fun. That's interesting.
Gerrit Especially given the fact it was written by a Northerner as a Northern marching song for the Union Army in the Civil War.
Richard When you sing that song, you can like swing your arm.
Gerrit You really can't get out of it. It was originally, so it was written by George, you didn't know we were going to talk about this, did you?
Richard I assumed, I hoped. I had all, Don Carlos and-
Gerrit Yeah, it was originally written by George F. Root, who is a master song smith of the mid 19th century. I mean, he's, you know, and the song was called Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Boys Are Marching. And it was a Union marching song during the Civil War. Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Boys Are Marching, cheer up.
Richard Yeah. I've heard that song. Yeah.
Gerrit But not, have you heard the Tramp, Tramp, Tramp version? Oh, okay.
Richard All right. You're always humming it.
Gerrit Yeah. You know what? Every time we come up to record the podcast, I'm like, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Boys Are Marching. I think actually the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square also does a version of that.
Other Yeah.
Gerrit They do some Civil War songs.
Richard The email finds us very well. Eric, thank you very much. I recently learned of a meeting Joseph Smith had with most of the Quorum of the Twelve. In this meeting, Joseph Smith gave the keys of the kingdom to the Twelve. And I was looking for more information about the meeting and what sources exist for it. Best regards, Eric. Thank you, Eric.
Gerrit Okay. Well, thank you very much. I mean, this is something that if we ever did talk about succession, which-
Richard We've got to.
Gerrit Well, we kind of do sometimes.
Richard No, but people want it like in an organized way.
Gerrit But then I'd end up repeating myself things that I've already said.
Richard What, you're doing that anyway.
Gerrit I guess I did just talk about Don Carlos for 25 minutes. I think-
Intro Yeah, what do you want?
Gerrit I like to, what I like-
Richard Heaven forbid you're talking about the succession situation versus Don Carlos and Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the boys are marching.
Gerrit I feel like answering people's questions is an important part of what we do. Oh yeah, no one asked either of those questions. So this is sometimes called the final charge to the 12 or the last charge. And it is where Joseph Smith gives the keys of the kingdom to the Quorum of the Twelve, because of course Joseph's not going to be there anymore. And so the question then becomes, how is it that the church is going to continue to be led in the wake of Joseph's death? Now we have talked about before, and when we do do succession at some point.
Richard Good, yeah. No, Richard. Right after Apostles and Apostates and Apothecaries, part two.
Gerrit Apostles, Apothecaries, let's put Apothecaries in the middle. Let's do that one. The keys of the kingdom, right, which were restored to Joseph Smith over the course of years by various different ministers. You know, you not only have the ones that he gets from the three Apostles, Peter, James and John who visit him, but also from John the Baptist. You also have Moses, Elias and Elijah. You have all of these keys that are restored over the course of time. Not all at once, but a little bit at a time. And then what happens when Joseph dies? And of course, one of the questions becomes, who has the authority to lead? Many people made arguments that they had the authority to lead because of the position they held in the church. Like Sidney Rigdon. He's going to make the argument, hey, I'm pretty important. I was a member of the First Presidency.
Gerrit So I should be the person to lead the church. Other people, like James Strang, will claim through either a letter appointment or also miracles that he is supposed to lead the church. Other people will make other various claims during this time period. But it's the Quorum of the Twelve that is going to have the majority, the vast majority of members, certainly in Nauvoo, follow it. And it's going to be this claim that they have been given this, that they've been given this authority. Now, we have a couple of accounts of when this took place. We know that it was sometime in 1844, and most likely it appears that it was in March. Now you might be saying, well, wait a minute, we don't know exactly when it was. We don't have a certainty. Now I was working on the Joseph Smith Papers project for the church, and, you know, back, you know, a decade ago, the most highly anticipated aspect of working on them was the idea that we would finally get to publish with annotation the Council of 50 Minutes.
Gerrit Now we have, I think, several podcasts on the Council of 50 Minutes, Richard?
Richard Yeah, we do.
Gerrit And are they good?
Richard Nope.
Gerrit Okay, so you can go back and try to find those. They won't be indexed, nor will they be helpful.
Richard You know what, I'm going to go find them. I'm going to get our crack research staff on it, and I'll, they're actually great.
Gerrit By the way, our crack research staff is also Richard.
Richard We're expanding. We're expanding that with all of the filthy lucre coming in. We're looking to hire a team of researchers.
Gerrit Researchers, yeah, we're looking to hire.
Richard Hire is a loose term.
Gerrit We're looking to, is there anyone looking for credit? It would have to be at an unaccredited university. So if you are looking for internship credit at an unaccredited for-profit university, we're hiring.
Richard If you're a University of Utah student, you're looking to be a TA in the business school and get credit, for that, you can do all of our indexing for free, completely unrelated to the TA work that you'll receive credit for.
Gerrit Yeah, there you go.
Richard There it is.
Gerrit Yeah, Richard's just gonna have to figure out how to.
Richard I'm pretty confident everything I said is not going to be possible.
Gerrit And not only is it not possible, not one of those people is listening to this podcast because they would be relatively successful if they were in the business school. So the reason why I bring up the Council of 50 Minutes is one of the things that was the most highly anticipated about finally getting the text of this was people wondered and frankly hoped that this final charge meeting where Joseph gives the keys of the kingdom to the Quorum of the Twelve, that it would actually have taken place in a Council of 50 meeting. The Council of 50, just so you don't have to go back and find the other episodes and read it all out.
Richard It's actually would be season one.
Gerrit Yeah, it was very early on.
Richard All the way back to season one.
Gerrit It was back when no one was listening, unlike now.
Richard So yeah, season one episodes, I think 29, 30, 31, something like that.
Gerrit Right. So there is a meeting, oh sorry, let me just say that there's the creation of the Council of 50. And in the Council of 50, the point of it was twofold. To help electioneer for Joseph Smith, because he was running for presidency of the United States. And then also, primarily their purpose was to help prepare to move the Latter-day Saints outside of the United States. To find a place for them to move, and also not just find a place for them to move, but also prepare and draft the Constitution of the Kingdom of God on earth. No pressure basically. So that wherever they go, the new Constitution of their new land, because they're leaving the United States, the new Constitution that they would draw up would be absolutely a perfect government. I mean as perfect as it could be with people running it, but at least its layout would be perfect because it would be it would be from God.
Gerrit That was the idea behind it. Well these meetings, they begin in March of 1844, so just before Joseph Smith is murdered. And they continue even after Joseph is murdered, up until the time that the Saints leave Nauvoo. Now why am I focusing on this? Well, because we have multiple accounts from apostles talking about Joseph Smith rolling off the kingdom to them, giving them the keys of the kingdom. But like the experience of Peter, James and John coming and giving the keys in the first place, we didn't have an exact date or account of that, or at least we weren't able to verify the later dates that were given. So we only had reminiscent accounts rather than, here's a journal entry of, today I got the keys of the kingdom type of thing.
Richard Seems like that would be something that you'd probably write down.
Gerrit Again, people will think that, and yet, well, if Joseph didn't write down the First Vision when he wrote it down, obviously it didn't actually happen. Which the more I don't keep a journal, which is always...
Richard Right, every day you're keeping it less than you did the day before.
Gerrit Yeah, every day I'm a worse journal keeper because it's one more day that goes by with nothing entered. In fact, I want this podcast to be my journal.
Richard There you go.
Gerrit Yeah. Future posterity, this is me. Yeah. Anyway, the reality is we didn't have an exact date. We had reminiscent looking back on it. And so people hoped when the Council of Fifteen Minutes became public, it's what everyone wanted to dive into. I'll bet it has the whole thing written out in there, right? And they were a little bit disappointed that it wasn't in there, that it wasn't written out in there. Now, there is a place where William Clayton records that Joseph is teaching some pretty important things but doesn't teach what they are. And, you know, maybe William Clayton was too busy going, wait a minute, he's ruling off the keys of the kingdom. But yeah, there's a reference to it.
Gerrit March 26, there's this reference that we think is a reference to Joseph Smith giving the keys of the kingdom to the Quorum of the Twelve. And you'll see just how kind of ambiguous it is, but it is a kind of a weird reference. It's talking about different things. President Joseph Smith continued his instructions on heavenly things and many other important subjects, period. That's all William Clayton gives us. Now, look, it's possible that William Clayton believed that this was too, this was too holy a thing to record it all down. But that doesn't mean that we don't have some idea of what was said, primarily because there is a draft statement created by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles where they give this explanation of what was said.
Gerrit They are going to make a list, basically, of the things that are said, and they start with, We the undersigned do hereby solemnly, sincerely, and truly testify before God, angels and men, with all people to whom this certificate may come, that we were present at a council in the latter part of the month of March last, 1844. So, they're preparing this document in 1845, in March of 1845. Looking back a year, they are all swearing to this experience that they had, or at least that's the intent of the document. That we were present at a council, and I said March 26, right? And there you saw that, there Joseph was teaching about heavenly things, many important things, no details on it. Well, here seems to be the explanation of it. The meeting was held in the city of Nauvoo in the upper part of the brick building, situated upon Water Street, commonly known here as Joseph's Store, in which council Joseph Smith did preside.
Gerrit And the greater part of the Twelve Apostles were present, namely Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Parley Pratt, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Amos O'Lyman, Willard Richards and Wilford Woodruff. These, we feel confident, were all present on that occasion, besides many others who were of the Quorum of High Priests, to which we ourselves belong. And in fact, this Council of Fifty Minutes had more than one person in them. In this Council, Joseph Smith seemed somewhat depressed in spirit, and took the liberty to open his heart to us concerning his presentments of the future. His own language to us on that occasion, as nearly as we can recollect, was as follows. Brethren, the Lord bids me hasten the work in which we are engaged. He will not suffer that you should wait for your endowments until the temple is done.
Gerrit Some important scene is near to take place. It may be that my enemies will kill me, and in the case they should, the keys and power which rest upon me not be imparted to you, they will be lost from the earth. But if I can only succeed in placing them upon your heads, then let me fall a victim to murderous hands. If God will suffer it, and I can go with all pleasure and satisfaction, knowing that my work is done, and the foundation laid on which the kingdom of God is to be reared in this dispensation of the fullness of time. Upon the shoulders of the Twelve must the responsibility of leading this church hence forth rest, until you shall appoint others to succeed you. Your enemies cannot kill you all at once, and should any of you be killed, you can lay your hands upon others and fill up your quorum. Thus, this power and these keys be, thus can this power and these keys be perpetuated in the earth.
Gerrit Brethren, you have many storms to pass through, and many sore trials await you. He goes on to say, you will know what it is to be bound with chains and with fetters for this cause's sake. God knows I pity you and I feel for you, but if you are called to lay down your lives, die like men and pass immediately beyond the reach of your enemies. After they have killed you, they can harm you no more. Should you have to walk right into danger and the jaws of death, fear no evil, Jesus Christ has died for you. Now the document goes on to state, after the appointment was made and the twelve confirmed by the Holy Anointing under the hands of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Joseph continued his speech unto them saying, while he walked the floor and threw back the collar of his coat upon his shoulders, I roll the burden and responsibility of leading this church off from my shoulders onto yours.
Gerrit Now round up your shoulders and stand under it like men, for the Lord is going to let me rest a while. Never shall we forget his feelings or his words on this occasion. After he had thus spoken, he continued to walk the floor saying, since I have rolled the burden off of my shoulders, I feel as light as a cork. I feel that I am free. I thank my God for this deliverance. So this account of course is a reminiscent account, but there are obviously other people present who also give accounts of what it is that happened in that meeting. For instance, Wilford Woodruff would later recall, I, Wilford Woodruff, being the last man living in the flesh who was present upon that occasion, feel it a duty that I owe to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to the House of Israel and to the whole world to bear this, my last testimony to all nations, that in the winter of 1843-44, Joseph Smith, the prophet of God, called the Twelve Apostles together in the city of Nauvoo and spent many days with us in giving us our endowments and teaching us those glorious principles which God had revealed to him.
Gerrit And upon one occasion he stood upon his feet in our midst for nearly three hours, declaring unto us the great and last dispensation which God had set his hand to perform upon the earth in these last days. The room was filled as if with consuming fire. The prophet was clothed upon with much of the power of God, and his face shone and was transparently clear. And he closed that speech never to be forgotten in time or in eternity with the following language. Brethren, I have had great sorrow of heart for fear that I might be taken from the earth with the keys of the kingdom of God upon me without sealing them upon the heads of other men. God has sealed upon my head all the keys of the kingdom of God necessary for organizing and building up the church, Zion, and kingdom of God upon the earth and to prepare the saints for the coming of the Son of Man. Now, brethren, I thank God that I have lived to see the day, that I have been able to give you your endowments, and I have now sealed upon your heads all the powers of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods and apostleship with all the keys and powers thereof which God has sealed upon me.
Gerrit And I now roll off all the labor, burden and care of this church and kingdom of God upon your shoulders. And I now command you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to round up your shoulders and bear off this church and kingdom of God before heaven and earth, and before God, angels and men. And if you don't do it, you will be damned. Wilford completes his recollection by saying, And the same spirit that filled the room at that time burns in my bosom while I record this testimony. And the prophet of God appointed no one else but the Twelve Apostles to stand at the head of the church and direct its affairs. Now, not only do you have this account that is given by Wilford Woodruff, we have this priceless account of Wilford Woodruff bearing his testimony, not just in written form, not just an account of a meeting when someone's transcribing and writing down what he's saying, which is still great.
Gerrit We actually have the earliest audio recording of any prophet of God because shortly before, shortly before Wilford Woodruff dies in 1897, they have invented this dictaphone machine and the way that it worked was there were wax cylinders that were created that would rotate around and there would be styluses that would make impressions in the wax and then that would be played back in order to get someone's voice recording back. Now, the first time I ever heard that this was the case was again by our unbeknownst to him mentor, Truman G. Madsen. I mean, he I'm sure is quite disappointed. He's like, I see.
Richard Look at my followers.
Gerrit Oh, boy. This is what I've got? I mean, couldn't you give me something else? Nope. Imperfect people was all God had to work with. But he referenced, you know, this, this charge, this testimony that Wilford Woodruff gives that was on those wax cylinders. Now, I didn't hear it at the time. Later, when, you know, I got when I got older, when I got more into research, I was able to listen to that testimony. It is incredibly difficult to understand because it's, it's wax being played. This is, you know, the earliest of all types of recording. And he is very old and, and quite in feeble. In fact, he's going to die just a few months later. And he is not given a script really for what he's going to say, but he records this essentially four minute testimony that we are going to try to include here in the podcast.
Richard We have the audio. It is, it is fairly difficult.
Gerrit It's really difficult audio. We're going to insert it into the podcast. Like I said, it's about four minutes. We are also going to include a link in the download.
Richard We are actually going to include the link this time.
Gerrit Okay, we won't actually, obviously there won't be a link. Not only will you not be able to hear the prophet speak, but you won't be able to, you know, there won't be a link. No, we'll try to do that. We'll try to insert the audio. If it ends up not sounding like you can't understand it at all because it is so bad. The nice part about clicking the link is subtitles have been created for the audio.
Richard There's a YouTube video.
Gerrit A YouTube video that has subtitles with it so you can understand it. But it is one of the most profound things I've ever heard in my life. It is one thing to hear someone say, I've read the things that Joseph Smith wrote, and I really believe that he's a prophet. You can read John Taylor's testimony, which we've read on air here multiple times, as he knew Joseph personally that he was a prophet. Here you hear Wilford Woodruff, not writing it down, you actually hear him say it. And even though he's, well, late 90s, you know, Wilford Woodruff nearing the end of his death, you can hear the fervency and emotion in this man's voice, even on the worst recording device ever created in the history of mankind. I mean, well, it was the only one at the time. It was amazing at the time, but compared to anything else...
Richard Until the Standard of Truth podcast.
Gerrit So this was the worst recording until we started recording.
Richard Right, well, that was poor in sound quality. This is poor in all of the other...
Gerrit Well, initially we were poor in quality and in content, and then we got, you know, Lisa gave us some microphones, and so then we just got poor in content.
Richard That's correct.
Gerrit But I'd like to say that we've remained poor.
Richard We did listen to it before the recording. It is... It's pretty remarkable.
Gerrit It's powerful. And, you know, while there are people who will say, well, of course the apostles are going to say that they were given the keys. You know, that's a way to be a detractor. But the reality is, most of the saints living in Nauvoo were well aware that the Quorum of the Twelve was the leadership of the Church. That's why most of the saints living in Nauvoo are going to follow the Quorum of the Twelve. Why don't they follow Sidney Rigdon when Sidney Rigdon has been a member of the First Presidency for, you know, a decade? Why don't they follow him? You know, he's the one who received Doctrine and Covenants, Section 76 with Joseph. Why don't they follow him? Because Joseph had made it very clear that the Quorum of the Twelve had this power and authority. And when we talk about the succession, I mean, we will at some point, obviously not right away, but at some point we'll talk about it. And when we do, that's one of the things that we'll focus on is this process whereby Joseph is building the Quorum of the Twelve up, preparing them.
Gerrit One thing that's really interesting and that is verified by the Council 50 Minutes is the Apostles talk all the time about how it seemed like Joseph, you know, was worried that he was going to die. Well, one thing that comes out of the Council 50 Minutes is Joseph Smith in one of his sermons says that he fears that he won't be able to spend the time with his friends that he wants. Brigham Young, when he's talking about this later in the Council of 50 and he will say, while Joseph was living, it seems as though he was hurried by the Lord all the time and especially for the last year. It seemed that he had laid out work for this church which would last them 20 years to carry out. Well, think about it. They had to complete the temple. They had to complete the Nauvoo house. They had to give endowments to all of the members of the church.
Gerrit They had to perform baptisms for the dead for countless people. And Joseph had already laid out that they were going to move. Once again, leave everything in Nauvoo and move to the middle of nowhere in Mexico. And so when Brigham Young says it seems like Joseph had laid out work for 20 years to carry out, I don't think that's much of an exaggeration. And Brigham says, I used to wonder why it was that he used to be hurried so, not supposing that he was going to die, but now I understand the reason. There are several references, not just reminiscent ones, that Joseph seemed to understand in March and April and May of 1844 that his time was very quickly drawing to a close. And that's the reason why he gives the keys of the kingdom to the Quorum of the Twelve collectively and gives them that final charge that they have to carry off the kingdom and if not, they're going to be damned.
Gerrit That's part of the reason why I think that the Quorum of the Twelve, with Brigham Young as their leader, refuses to just cast aside any of Joseph Smith's teachings, even though some of them were not very popular because they knew where their keys and authority came from. People like Sidney Rigdon, in conversation with Brigham Young, tells Brigham Young that the church has not been led by the Spirit for a long time. Well, since Joseph had just been murdered, what did Sidney Rigdon mean by that? What he meant was, Joseph had been revealing things that Sidney Rigdon disagreed with. For Brigham Young, it didn't matter whether he disagreed with them. If Joseph revealed them, that's what they were going to do. I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the men and women who, even though the way wasn't completely clear, and even though the way of the apostles was the most difficult way that required forsaking again almost all of your property, leaving the nation, leaving your family, burying children and spouses and family and friends sometimes along the way, even though the practice of plural marriage, as well as other doctrines like the idea of deification, becoming like God, that God was once a man, even though those doctrines would further alienate Latter-day Saints from the rest of the Christian United States, our pioneer forebears, even if you don't have a pioneer ancestor, those men and women who said, I'm going to follow the prophets, I'm going to follow the apostle, I'm going to follow what it is that the keys of the kingdom are teaching, The kingdom are teaching, even if I don't understand it, even if it is very hard, their faith and their testimonies are what makes it possible for us to casually argue about when we go to the temple next.
Gerrit The only reason we have endowments and initiatories and temple sessions and ceilings are because these men and women refuse to cast aside the teachings that Joseph Smith initially taught. Those keys are clearly carried on by the Quorum of the Twelve. And if you want the best evidence of it, look and see which of the groups that are formed after Joseph Smith is murdered, which of them are desperately trying to maintain every single thing that Joseph taught. Even when it wasn't popular, even when most people rejected it, even when it alienated them from the country. And that was Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for a great question. Hopefully, you're all able to hear Wilford Woodruff's amazing testimony.
Other President Wilford Woodruff, speaking on March 19, 1897. Thank you.
Other The Twelve Apostles together have to be given one full day of the ordinances of the Church of Kingdom of God. All the kings and powers that draw their people upon Him. And I know it will true by these powers of God by the next four years. At that season, these Sudanese people about three hours traveled to the small country, and they were covered with the power that I have never seen.
Other They missed that in the break before. I see my own involvement under his name as I read to you. As I know they are true Christians, I not only receive my own involvement under his name, but I bear my testimony that they do not believe in the truth of the world. I am not the only one who believes in the truth of the world. I believe in the truth of the world. I believe in the truth of the world. I believe in the truth of the world. And also my wife, Edith, must be the same Eosie Miller, Mary Smith, and others who say, I cannot be wrong now.
Other Robert Joseph laid down his life on the word of God, the testimony of Jesus Christ. He was declared as a martyr in the first episode after that. I believe in the truth of the world.

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GerritBanter

So my wife said, you don't have anything to say that anyone wants to hear.

RichardBanter

So it was, if he ended up being your commander, you lost every single battle, which is also what happened when he was the commander. So it was a very good historical simulation.

GerritBanter

It's so weird because I feel embarrassed that I am so mad, but I start reading the accounts of the things that happen and I'm just like, you pieces of garbage.

GerritBanter

Not this year. Maybe you shouldn't bet on baseball. Maybe you shouldn't murder a bunch of Mormons.

GerritBanter

Yeah, every day I'm a worse journal keeper because it's one more day that goes by with nothing entered. In fact, I want this podcast to be my journal.

GerritBanter

Well, initially we were poor in quality and in content, and then we got, you know, Lisa gave us some microphones, and so then we just got poor in content.

GerritBanter

Because Joseph had made it very clear that the Quorum of the Twelve had this power and authority.

GerritInsight

The only reason we have endowments and initiatories and temple sessions and ceilings are because these men and women refuse to cast aside the teachings that Joseph Smith initially taught.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Naming a son Don Carlos shows the Smiths were trying to sound grand.
Re-baptism was never part of Latter-day Saint practice.
Only the apostles claimed Joseph gave them the keys, so it was just a power grab.
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

In March 1844, Joseph Smith gave the Quorum of the Twelve the keys of the kingdom and charged them to "round up your shoulders" and bear off the church.

The Council of Fifty minutes only hint at the meeting, but the apostles' 1845 certificate and Wilford Woodruff's later testimonies describe it in detail.

You can hear Wilford Woodruff's own voice, the earliest recording of any prophet, bearing witness of this charge in 1897.

Joseph seemed to know his time was short; the Saints who followed the Twelve and kept all of his teachings are why we have temple ordinances today.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Professor ABDThe dissertation is a chimera at the end of the rainbow, and its findings will be read by no one (0:38, 1:21).
Lil BurnBig Daddy Burn's hype man, and Pete Rose's Hall of Fame problem (3:47, 16:21, 24:18).
Firesides and cameosGerrit is always available, which says something about demand; Becky made Richard say no (5:39, 6:59).
Bill the adultererBill, who wrote in to say he isn't one, needs to send another email (9:04, 18:27).
Civil War Dungeons and DragonsDon Carlos Buell's minus-two commander rating (11:44, 12:28).
Angry Gerrit in MissouriThe tour comes with a warning, and nobody smiled in Liberty (18:59, 19:42).
Card-carrying premium subscribersCommunists and Standard of Truth Premium listeners; Damien's ideas, poorly executed (20:29, 21:15).
The freeware with 17 virusesWhy Richard's mic dropped out last episode (21:53, 22:13).
Apostles, Apostates and ApothecariesPart two, with jerks, still coming (32:19, 38:35).
The crack research staffAlso Richard, now hiring unaccredited interns paid in filthy lucre (41:16).
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
Re-baptism in the early church, from baptisms for health to Brigham's call to be re-baptized in the valley (29:50).
The Council of Fifty, its plan for a constitution of the Kingdom of God, and Joseph's presidential campaign (42:57).
Wilford Woodruff's 1897 wax cylinder recording, available online with subtitles (56:11).
The succession crisis: why Saints followed the Twelve instead of Sidney Rigdon or James Strang (38:41, 63:47).
SOT Litner · S3E35.