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S4E12 · Live Studio Audience Part 1 (Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mail Bag)
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 12 · 1:11:08

Live Studio Audience Part 1 (Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mail Bag)

Joseph Smith once blessed a baby boy in Kirtland and named him Mahonri Moriancumer, and that blessing is the source of the brother of Jared's name.

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The question ·

Is there a source, besides Mormon's description in Words of Mormon, stating that 1 Nephi through Omni were the last books translated by Joseph Smith and then placed at the beginning?

Dan (listener)

Recorded before a live studio audience in Utah, Gerrit and Richard answer questions from people in the room. Dan asks how we know 1 Nephi through Omni were translated last, and Gerrit points to D&C 10 and context clues. The audience asks for a death metal band name, about the abbreviations on the Kirtland Temple pulpits, and Wendy in Australia asks whether any Three Nephites stories are verified. Gerrit reads an account of Joseph telling Heber C. Kimball that a stranger on Zion's Camp was John the Beloved. Questions about the 116 pages lead to the story of how Joseph named the brother of Jared in a baby blessing, and a final question about paid ministry gets Gerrit's case for lay leaders.

Who comes upJoseph SmithMormonHeber C. KimballJohn the BelovedReynolds CahoonGeorge ReynoldsJohann TetzelMartin HarrisLucy Mack SmithBrother of Jared
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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. We're here in front of a live studio audience. That was our seventh take. You guys did great. It was really great.
Gerrit The first three takes, they booed.
Richard And then after that, it was a hiss, but yeah, we're not getting out of here unless we cheers.
Gerrit Let's go. We barred the doors.
Richard Well, so we're very glad to have everybody here. This is a lot of fun. We're very excited about it. We did a whole kind of preamble before. It would have been great if we recorded any of it. We didn't. And so, Gerrit, let's just jump straight into the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Google form.
Gerrit Well, the mailbag, we have...
Richard We do have a mailbag.
Gerrit We have the physical mailbag.
Richard Many of the questions, though, did come from the Google form of those that are in attendance. So, we wanted to jump right in. We've joked several times that many of the spouses are here against their will. We do have some special seating for people that couldn't convince anyone to come with them because of how terrible it is.
Gerrit Not everyone's spouse is willing to come.
Richard It's true. Steve's like, yeah, yeah, thanks, find it out. Anyway, all right, we're gonna get right in. Like we do, we don't mess around. We get right to the point. We're gonna jump straight in. We're gonna jump straight in. Since my husband is taking Taisley's, is a litner in Georgia, she was gonna be coming in.
Gerrit A listener. A listener from Georgia. Every time Richard says litner, he's mocking the fact that I failed in my ability to pronounce the word listener at one point on the podcast.
Richard That's true. Anyway, so Taisley's son was coming home from a mission. She was gonna come out from Georgia, but decided to stay and have her son come home.
Gerrit It was a pretty convenient excuse, honestly. I mean, we knew that some people would try to get, you know, to get out of buying the ticket when they realized that it wasn't a Smash Mouth concert. But...
Richard Yes. Rest in power. You passed away.
Gerrit Exactly.
Richard That's why.
Gerrit That's why.
Richard Okay. That's very good.
Gerrit But anyway, we're happy to answer the question.
Richard So this question comes from Dan, who is Taisley's brother-in-law who didn't want to come.
Gerrit Dan told us when he came in the door, in all fairness, I don't want to be here. I thought, this is weird. This is something I would never do. And I told him, this is something I don't want to do either. Thank you for coming.
Richard Okay, so his question, is there a source, besides Mormon's description of, in words of Mormon, stating that first Nephi through Omni were the last of the books in the Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith, then placed at the beginning by him. And so for the studio audience that's here, you know, this is an audio medium, but we did put together, poorly put together slides for you to be able to see. Here's what someone thought Mormon looked like. So for those... Now there is a photograph of Mormon being displayed right now.
Gerrit Found just weeks ago.
Richard And I don't know if anyone has ever noticed this before. So if someone has already made this joke, I didn't find it. I did discover this for myself. So if you look here at what he's sitting on, it looks oddly familiar. It looks very, very much like the big cats that King Noah has.
Gerrit The Jaguars.
Richard The Jaguars that he has that were mentioned, obviously in the book more many times, as Abinadi is giving to him the Ten Commandments.
Gerrit There is no better big timing of someone than to not only say you're a false king, but also to kill his pet Malaria.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit You kill Abinadi.
Richard I'm coming for your cat.
Gerrit How are those Jaguars looking now? I'm sitting on them.
Richard That's right. That was 400 years later.
Gerrit I personally don't know how long Jaguars live.
Richard That's right. All right, Gerrit, to the question.
Gerrit We're going to just answer it? In answer to the question of do we have a source that says that particularly, we don't. What we have is context clues and, of course, doctrine comes in section 10. Now, part of the problem with doctrine comes in section 10 is that we don't actually know exactly when it was received. In fact, if you read the Joseph Smith Papers write up on it, we believe that part of it was actually received in 1828 and that the remainder of it was received in April of 1829. Now, that sounds a little bit weird probably to some people, especially people dragged here against their will who didn't want to come at all, but, you know, your friends had extra tickets, right? They told you you were going to a concert, and your friends are liars. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Your friends are dishonest. But the reality is, we talked about it on the, I always say the reality is to the point where Taisley created a shirt.
Richard Yeah, she has a shirt that says the reality is. Hold on, let me go back a slide. Again, this is an audio medium. The reality is.
Gerrit Nothing like being mocked publicly. But anyway, we tend to think of all the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants as just, you know, just immediately coming from the hand of God exactly in the format that they're in. But we've talked about before in the formation of the Doctrine and Covenants that some of these revelations are what we call composite revelations where there were a couple of revelations that were received near one another that were similar and that when they published then they kind of merged them together and created their own. And this is what it seems to be is done with Doctrine and Covenants section 10. That there's a portion that was received earlier and then there's a later portion that was received in April. Now, if it's being received in April of 1829, that means that they are dealing with the fact that Oliver Cowdery is already there writing for Joseph, he's already there serving as a scribe, and they are burning through that translation. But we get some really good context clues about where they are at in the translation on the basis of what questions they're asking because of the translation.
Gerrit I've said this before on the podcast, but again to angry spouses in the audience, if you think back to the first time you ever really read the Book of Mormon, and I mean really read it, not read it because you were forced to in seminary, but read it because you wanted to understand it. When you did that, as you went through it, there would be multiple times, or at least for me, I don't want to, you've never even read it, well I made them look at you.
Richard I'm getting to it.
Gerrit Yeah, right after he finishes his Atlantic Monthly or whatever. Okay. No, I know you. This is where we should pause. But we're not going to. This is where we should pause, but we're not going to. But if you remember what it was like to read the Book of Mormon for the first time, and it made you cry, I know when I read it. I was a teenager, I was 15. I was reading it. I'd read it before, obviously.
Gerrit My parents were really good about having scripture study. And so every morning at 5 a.m. they forced us to get out of bed, and we hated the scripture so much because of it. Thanks, Mom. No.
Richard See, you have to pay for the subscription to the Atlantic Month. There's no way I'm going to do that.
Gerrit If I look over again, he'll have already subscribed. But he'll have used all of your ticket funds to do it. As you go through it, the first time reading it for seriously though, what you find is that there's so many times that you stop and you say, wow, this is absolutely amazing. I didn't even realize that was in there. I mean, it kind of does that each time you read it even now, right? And think about what it was like for Oliver and Joseph the first time they're translating through these pages. As words are appearing on the stones, the Urim and Thummim, as Joseph's dictating them off, it's the first time not only that they have read those words, that anyone, since Mormon etched them in the gold, had read them.
Gerrit And so for him, for both of them, it's a powerful experience. It's a powerful spiritual experience. So for Joseph and Oliver, as they are reading these words for the first time, as Oliver is writing them for the first time, these are questions that, or sometimes answers that they didn't even know existed. I remember having this feeling when I was reading in Second Nephi Chapter 2 on why there's suffering in the world. Now, I've since loved that chapter even more. I've studied all kinds of theology surrounding the idea of suffering in the world. But even as a 15-year-old, it struck me to read that for the first time, that there is this power in understanding who, well, why it is that there's a suffering in this world that God created.
Gerrit Well, Oliver and Joseph have this happen to them over and over and over again. And we actually can trace where they're at in the translation of the gold plates based upon the questions that they have. One of the first questions they have is over Alma going off and people not knowing whether or not he was buried up by the hand of the Lord. That triggers in them a question about whether or not John the Beloved had really lived. Because it's pretty ambiguous in the New Testament. Is John the Beloved still living or is it just Jesus saying to Peter, what is it to you if I say that he lives until I come again? I mean, how about Peter does Peter? You know, just let's dial Peter back.
Richard To paraphrase.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah.
Richard It's a paraphrase of what we said.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah. Jesus probably didn't say it that way.
Richard Yeah, let Peter do Peter.
Gerrit I don't know what the Hebrew equivalent is. But it would have been in Arabic anyway. So, we find with that question, they get Doctrine and Coven, Section 7. They then get to the portion, and we know very well where they're at, because Oliver Cowdery says it very specifically. They translate the portion where Jesus commands them to be baptized and gives the authority to baptize. So he not only tells them you have to be baptized to go to heaven, and whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whosoever believeth not and is not baptized shall be damned. He then, in the next chapter, gives authority to people to baptize. So what do Oliver and Joseph say? Apparently, we better get baptized. Which is a totally new concept to them. Remember, they live in this Protestant world where baptism is of course part of Christian culture. But the fundamental part of Protestantism is that there are no works that are necessary.
Gerrit None. You get baptized because Jesus told you to get baptized. You don't get baptized because you have to. You get baptized because you want to be obedient. You get baptized to show the world that you're a follower of Jesus. But you don't get baptized because you have to be baptized to be saved. So this is a new concept for them. And so of course, they go and they ask. All the way down to when the, in 2nd Nephi, when it discusses the fact there's going to be Three Witnesses of the plates, which is at the very tail end of translation that they have that question. They, again, as Joseph tells us in Joseph Smith history, that they translate that portion and we actually made fun of it. I think maybe even this week that they began to tease him, I think, in the premium.
Richard I don't know.
Gerrit No, no, it was actually the free. You have no idea. You were literally with me as we recorded.
Richard Yeah, it sounds great.
Gerrit Yeah. Well, we defined the word tease that they began to tease him greatly, meaning pester him, basically, and that was because they had just translated that latter portion of Second Nephi. So, is there a place where Joseph says, oh yeah, this is exactly what we did? No. What you do have is Doctrine and Covenants, Section 10, which tells them exactly what they're supposed to do. That they are supposed to translate through the small plates of Nephi until they get to that which they have retained. So, what they already have translated. And so, that's why scholars treat it that way, because Joseph's responding to the text of the Book of Mormon with the questions that he has that lead to the revelations that we have in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Richard Great question, Dan. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.
Gerrit We know you didn't want to be here. Thank you for the question.
Richard All right, so the next one, equally as serious. If Dr. Dirkmaat and I started a death metal band, what historically inspired band name would he bring to the first practice?
Gerrit This was easy, because I've always wanted to have a metal band, and it would be called Sword of Damocles, which we've mentioned before on the podcast, but this is from Greek history. Well, the idea that there's a guy who talks to a tyrant who seems to have everything, all the money, all the food, whatever, and one of his servants desires, oh, I wish I could be like you, King, and have everything that you have, and then King says, okay, sure, sure, yeah, you can do it, but in order to be like me, you have to sit in this throne, and when you're in the throne, you can have all the money and food and whatever it is you want, but above him in the air, he ties by a single strand of horse hair a double-edged sword hanging right over his head, which could break at any moment, and the idea behind it is, you know, that the moral to the story, if there's any, is that with power comes the ability I'm ready to lose it all, essentially.
Richard Perfect for death metal, that's perfect. Or yet another one, as an option.
Gerrit I thought this was yours.
Richard So I like the idea of Tetzel's pretzel. So Angie put this one together, you've seen some of the shirts. We love the idea. Now, Johann Tetzel really sparks much of the Protestant Reformation from Leo X. It's really more of like a scout fundraiser to remodel St. Peter's Basilica is the way that I view it. So a person sitting in purgatory for a period of time that you can purchase your way out of that by paying for-
Gerrit An indulgence.
Richard An indulgence, the merit of Peter doing Peter or somebody else, another saint that then can spring you in. The couplet is something along the lines. Every time a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs. Being in sales, that's an impressive marketing strategy.
Gerrit So Richard, I think, likes Johann Tetzel for the wrong reasons. Yeah.
Richard He's such an effective salesman.
Gerrit And he was. He was so effective that he cost the refurbishment.
Richard Yeah, that's great. Anyway, he wouldn't.
Gerrit I mean, let's be kind to the Catholics in the audience.
Richard That's great. How many Catholics do we have? Oh, hey, Karen. All right.
Gerrit Perfect.
Richard We got one. Pope Francis is doing great stuff. All right. So next one. What are the podium's letters on the front of the podium?
Gerrit On the font.
Richard On the font of the podium.
Gerrit Literally the only temple that doesn't have a font. That's a litner right there.
Richard You know what? Yeah. On the podium fonts in the Kirtland Temple. So what are they for? So, you know, for those of you, maybe you haven't gone to Kirtland. Maybe you have two thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket.
Gerrit So, you can talk to Steve. He went with us.
Richard Steve, what do you think?
Gerrit It was fair to middling, right?
Richard It was worth double. Oh, you're in luck, Steve.
Gerrit Because we're prepared to charge you triple.
Richard Now, I have never, Steve, you and I have never met before. You said that, correct? Well, so if you maybe you have been before, but the church recently took responsibility of one of these sites. We'd like to direct you to the Standard of Truth tour. Again, great question. Whoever asked this question on the podium that is related to this tour. So many people have asked us, they've said, so with the church taking responsibility of the Kirtland Temple, are you going to be doubling your price or tripling your price based on the situation? We already have appointments to go to these places. I don't mean to sound like my Jewish grandmother when I say that, but kind of. And so, but no, we're not going to, not double, not triple.
Gerrit Quintuple.
Richard Quintuple.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard So this is a friend of the show, Damien. This is how he paid for it. That's a wheelbarrow full of cash. So for $10,000, you two.
Gerrit No.
Richard Can go to see where they wrote the Star-Spangled Banner and then the Kirtland Temple.
Gerrit But if anyone, the Kirtland Temple font, which will be an amazing part of the trip. We show you things no one else is willing to show you. Mainly because they don't exist.
Richard The community of Christ doesn't want you to know about the font.
Gerrit They do not. I think the question is about the abbreviations that are on the pulpits.
Richard Oh yeah, to the question. Yes, the tour.
Gerrit This is me trying to get you back on track. We'd love to have you come.
Richard Just think about this for a week. Or don't think about that.
Gerrit You certainly aren't Johan Tetzel, is this the old man? So on the pulpits, there's these abbreviations which are not naturally understood. They aren't the way that we would say it today. So that's part of the reason why you see them and you're like, what is this? But on the east side of the tier, these are all the ones that are for the Aaronic Priesthood. These are pulpits for the leadership of the Aaronic Priesthood. Now, today, there's like 475,000 deacons quorums. I have no idea how many deacons quorums there are. Okay, get our research set on that. Where are you going to look that up? How many deacons quorums there are? Good luck.
Richard I'm going to subreddit.
Gerrit Yeah, subreddit. Yeah. Oh, look, you're on an anti-mormon subreddit. I'm sure they know. He just puts his phone down and walks out. But in the early days of the church, there was just only the ones there in the stake of Zion. And so, while you had people call to certain callings in different branches, you didn't have wards or anything like that. And their designation of things is certainly different than it is for us. So, you'd see BPA, that's the presiding bishop, bishop presiding Aaronic, so of the Aaronic priest. That's what the BPA, it sounds like it's something that you're not supposed to have in like plastics or something. PAP, right? That's the presidency Aaronic priest.
Gerrit Right? So again, we would not use the abbreviations that way. PTA, which all of you are avoiding a meeting of that tonight by being here. That's the presidency teacher's Aaronic, right? So, you can kind of see how they're doing it in this kind of the presiding deacons Aaronic. The next one is the PDA, which is obviously a different designation today. And then on the Melchizedek Priesthood side, which was on the west side of those pulpits, the MPC is not NPC, but MPC with an M, is the Melchizedek Presiding Council. So, or the First Presidency is what that is. Then you have PMH, which is the presiding Melchizedek High Priesthood. So, that would have been in Kirtland, that would have been the High Council of the Stake of Kirtland.
Gerrit Eventually, that's going to be the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has already been called by then, by 1835, by February of 1835, but they are the traveling High Council of the Church at that point. Again, you only have one stake. You just have the High Council at the Seat of Government, which is there in Kirtland, and then the Apostles are called to be the High Council that is essentially the general authority of the Church everywhere that isn't Kirtland, everywhere outside of the Seat of Government of the Church. And so, eventually, that would come, if you were to build those same pulpits in Nauvoo, it would have been more for the Quorum of the Twelve to sit in, or the Presidency of the Quorum of the Twelve. MHP is the Melchizedek High Priesthood. So this would have been the equivalent of the High Priest Quorum. We don't have that anymore, right?
Gerrit And what's interesting is that, as I've said before in the podcast, in the early days of the Church, they didn't have one either. In the early days of the Church, they had elders with the High Priesthood and elders without the High Priesthood. And they eventually are going to create a Quorum.
Richard You kind of have it with Bishoprics and stake presidencies and stuff, but still it's a lot smaller than it used to be.
Gerrit Yeah, so you don't have the same thing.
Richard By the way, I have real quick some information here. Akron's beating Kent State 42 to 37. NC State's, it's just after TIFF, but NC State's up 10 over North Carolina.
Gerrit You were supposed to be looking at how many deacon quorums there are.
Richard Brown beat Princeton, that's a surprise.
Gerrit Yeah, that is a big win. That's a big win. And how do Iowa State fare against Houston?
Richard I didn't check that yet. But there are 31,330 congregations, but you're going to have some variation.
Gerrit Some have two deacon quorums.
Richard And some might not have a deacon quorum at all, because it's all congregations, so plus or minus 30,000.
Gerrit See, he did both. I love the fact that Richard's versatile. He both looks it up and then also finds out what the scores are.
Richard Oh, Iowa State really gave it to Houston actually. 69-41, how about that? Gasp in the audience.
Gerrit Only the people who had money on it, which they shouldn't because of President Hinckley's talk.
Richard 2005 conference address in April about gambling. So if you've never attended before, as an example, you shouldn't gamble because... But I give a lot of gambling advice on the show. I give it two weeks after the event happened and I'm almost always wrong. Yeah.
Gerrit We've tried having him do it before the event. It just, you know...
Richard I got Kansas City? That was a win?
Gerrit We both got Kansas City.
Richard I had the Lions versus Kansas City in the Super Bowl.
Gerrit You also said that the Lions weren't going to make the playoffs, which is a very odd...
Richard I had them on the under. So what an under is...
Gerrit Well, hopefully that answers that. What's our next question?
Richard Next question. Very good, Gerrit. This is a Three Nephites question. These are my favorite. This comes to us all the way from Windy in Australia, who is quickly becoming one of our favorite Litners. She is very, very... She's wonderful.
Gerrit I can't see.
Richard Sorry.
Gerrit This has happened very quickly. Those of you who are in attendance can see Richard's failing eyesight.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit We'll talk to Steve about that later.
Richard It gets better with age, right, Steve? Yep. Alright. Always a fun day when I get to listen to you on the way to work and home again. Loved hearing about William Howe and Augustus from Willy Wonker. Now, we assume it's because of her Australian accent that when we said Wonka, she thought it was, there was an R there. So, we assume. And we're back. That last commercial break was brought to you by Jersey Mike's. Kind of tastes like blimpy. Do you remember blimpy?
Gerrit Why are you calling for applause? Because you want to finish reading the email?
Richard Well, Willie Wonker, not often that you hear those two in one sentence. Just for your edification, Ozzie Rule's grand final was held last Saturday in September. We'll see if your calling wood prediction will come true. I predict that the Magpies would win the championship. I follow Ozzie Rule's football quite extensively. My honey would hope not. I did think of a good question as you discussed the possible... That's a little arrogant, Wendy, to think that the question is good. We'll be the judge of that, Wendy. Just kidding. I'm very sorry. I just got a text from my wife. I'm very sorry.
Gerrit I didn't get one from Angie yet, so I'm okay.
Richard I discussed the possible photo of George Washington in Valley Fork.
Gerrit The photo?
Richard I think it was. Sorry, not fully up on my American history. Many names seem familiar to those that I've heard in the movie National Treasure. That's where a lot of my knowledge comes from.
Gerrit First of all, Wendy, that's where most Americans' knowledge of American history comes from.
Richard It's still the Declaration of Independence.
Gerrit We have a history teacher, a high school history teacher in the audience here tonight. He will tell you most of the knowledge comes from that.
Richard My question is about urban legend stories of the Three Nephites. Are there any verified by historical documents? You know, Wendy, that's a great question. Keep up the amazing work you do. Would love to attend your live session next time. Next time one in Melbourne. Cheers, Wendy.
Gerrit Should we hold the next live event in Melbourne? I'd love to have you all there.
Richard That'd be great. We'll have slightly lower quality treats, obviously. More koalas.
Gerrit More koalas.
Richard So the Three Nephites stories, Genref, what do we know about those?
Gerrit There's a lot of stories, obviously, but you know, are there documents? Well, certainly there's documents where people believe that they've had a Three Nephite encounter or that they say, you know, I don't know what happened. It just, you know, someone showed up and, you know. So I thought I would share one that I was working on, actually, for a different reason, not the Three Nephite story, but I was working with a document earlier this last week that is from a journal from someone in 1881. And he has apparently asked his friend, so his name is Oliver Huntington. He's apparently asked his friend about some church history things because his friend was a member of the church in Nauvoo. And his friend's name is Addison Everett. Addison Everett is his name. So Addison Everett writes a letter to him and Huntington copies this into his journal. And there are several things that he says, he's heard from these sources or that he was a part of.
Gerrit This is how a lot of Three Nephite stories originate, honestly. Now, that doesn't mean that it's not true, but it certainly is a reminiscence back. He's going to be talking about having had a conversation with someone at least 40 years earlier. And, you know, however much you remember this podcast, 40 years from now, because you certainly won't listen to it again, just from tonight, that's basically what you're dealing with. But that doesn't mean that it's incorrect, but it also means you have to be a little bit careful with that source as we talk about on the podcast. So he copies in part of this. I'm going to give you a bonus though, because he tells two stories. And the first one is so good, and we've already talked about John the Beloved, that I thought, you know what, I'm going to tell this story too. So while the camp of Zion, so Zion's Camp march is marching out, was on the way to Missouri in 1834, Joseph was some way out ahead of the company.
Gerrit And one day there was, I'm reading this from the original, you can't see this because I didn't give Richard an image because I can't trust him with it, but if I make mistakes, it's not because, it's not the best handwriting. It's pretty bad. They're so tired of not being able to hear you that they cranked it up to a thousand. Yeah, the next time you talk into it, everyone goes deaf.
Richard Turn Up to Eleven is a spinal tap joke of a movie that you should not have watched.
Gerrit I don't know what he's talking about, so that feels good. So, Joseph was seen talking with him by the roadside. A man, a stranger, when the company came up, there was no person with him. When at camp that night, Heber, Heber C. Kimball, asked the prophet, who was that man? Joseph replied, it was the beloved disciple John, who was then on his way to the ten tribes in the north. Now, so the question of, is there a way to verify that? Well, how would I? I mean, you could ask John. I mean, he's still around. Hopefully, he's in attendance. So, John, were you ever, you know, I mean, you could see if Joseph mentioned the same thing, but of course, he probably didn't. And that doesn't demonstrate that it's not a true story either.
Gerrit I mean, think about every single thing that you do all day, every day, except for those of you that are influencers. Almost no one knows what you do all day, every day. And the fact that you don't write it down or that you don't tell somebody doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means you didn't write it down or you didn't tell somebody. Or maybe you did write it down, and it's like the first several years of our marriage where we lost all of our photos because of digital camera. Angie, she's shaking her head back there angrily. First three years, see, I said two, but she wanted to make sure that everyone knew I was wrong. And this is very much like our home life. And, you know, the digital camera, it was very early with digital cameras, and it all got corrupted. We lost all of it, right? And, you know, I'd like to think that those were the best years of our marriage that she could look back on, but now she can't. So if there's ever a problem, it's because of that. So there's always a problem of trying to make an argument from the absence of evidence.
Gerrit You can certainly say, well, we don't have another source where Joseph ever tells anyone, hey, I saw John the Beloved on my way to Sines Camp. We also don't know whether or not Joseph would tell that story. We know that Joseph has had multiple spiritual experiences that he doesn't tell anybody about. We know that from his letter that he writes to the church in 1842, which later becomes Doctrine and Covenants Section 128. He's mentioning all kinds of manifestations that we have no record of anywhere in the church. Where Joseph's like, oh yes, just like the angel Raphael. Yeah, oh yeah, we know all about that, Joseph. Why don't you care to elaborate? No idea. We have all kinds of people who speculate, but Joseph doesn't ever say, doesn't ever explain that experience, talking about how when the devil appeared as an angel of light and Michael the archangel had to come and detect him.
Gerrit Where is that story in the history of the church? It's not. What does that mean? It means that if Joseph had written that letter and it never got published in the Times and Seasons, never became part of D&C 128, someone somewhere years and years and years from now might find it and say, you know, someone saying, oh, hey, you know, Joseph told us that one time Michael appeared to him and someone, a cynical, you know, historian like myself might say, that never happened obviously. If that would have happened, Joseph would have told us that it happened. So, you do need to be a little bit careful about how definitively you dismiss something when you only have a single source. Just like I want you to be careful about, you know, deciding that you know exactly when the Second Coming is going to happen based upon another one, right? I mean, we need to be careful with sources. Sources should be looked at as possible in some cases, rather than definitive, but at the same time, we also shouldn't throw them out simply because we don't have...
Gerrit This is the most boring thing I've ever said, isn't it?
Richard North Carolina is coming back.
Gerrit So I'll look over at Richard sometimes during the recording, and he's just like, I'm not even enjoying this, and I'm the one making you do this, and I hate it.
Richard So it is a very important point. I'm glad you brought up the reason why. It matters on the good stuff, where Gerrit's a dream crusher, and it matters on the stuff that is antagonistic of the Church, when somebody is saying that Martin Harris said that he never actually saw the plates only with his spiritual eyes. Okay, well, you know, good estimates.
Gerrit So we get to find out what kind of a source is that? How does that comport with other sources? And a lot of times, all you have is a single source, and you have to treat it with care. It's not just that way for Church history. It's that way for all history. There's all kinds of history where people have arguments about them right now, because we only have a single source for it. And so people argue, well, were they really meaning what they said with that? And there's no way to verify. And so you have to take things as they are. So let's get on to the Three Nephites though, right? Because he doesn't just stop with John the Beloved. He's going to tell an even better story. The matter relating to the Three Nephites was this. The morning that the army of Governor Boggs, he's leaving out several words here, of the exterminating order attempted to come into far west, Joseph the prophet stood with the brethren behind the breastworks so hastily thrown up in the middle of the night, and remarked, as they were sweeping, so he's talking about the movement, as they're moving towards the breastworks, as they were sweeping and swarming towards the beloved city, that if they came beyond a certain place, we would open fire on them.
Gerrit The army came on near to that spot designated, and on a sudden, they all turned and ran and pelted back to their camp in great fright, declaring that they saw too many thousands of soldiers that think of attacking the city. Joseph told brother James Bird that he saw between them and the mob one of the Three Nephites with a drawn sword before he made the remark about opening fire upon them, and that when the mob had turned, he saw the Three Nephites near that same place armed for battle. The hosts that the Three had with them were undoubtedly exposed by the power of God to the view of the mob being the hosts of soldiers they saw and fled from them. That's kind of a cool story, right? Now, again, I don't know whether or not that happened. Look at where we're at. It's... Addison Everett is telling Oliver Huntington in a letter saying that, I heard from Brother Bird, who told me 40 years earlier that this happened.
Gerrit So, essentially, every testimony meeting you've ever. Barry wants me to stop recording. I don't want that going out. I'm trying to get people back to church. So, again, that doesn't mean that that didn't happen. Now look, there are some things we can verify from this. Did the army open fire and charge in and assault Far West? They didn't. Is the reason why they didn't that? I mean, it's certainly possible. One could certainly argue that there was some miraculous help that saved the Saints in Far West, and that they didn't suffer the same horrific treatment that happened in Hans Mill. So, is it possible? Sure. Would I base my entire testimony of the Gospel on whether or not the Three Nephites were there? Well, probably we shouldn't base literally any part of our testimony on whether or not the Three Nephites were there.
Gerrit Okay, if your testimony is dangling with a sort of Damocles thread on whether or not the Three Nephites sighting happened, let's tone it down. Let's come back to Jesus and just remember the Savior. So, there's a story for you. I'm sure that's not what Wendy wanted to hear, but since she likes National Treasures, she could watch that again.
Richard Okay, so this next question comes to us. We had several questions about 116 pages. Did Joseph ever talk about what he learned from the 116 pages other than what was in the book of, or that it was the Book of Lehi? I'm looking for, there's a quote about Erastus Snow, 1882, about the 116 pages, and Ishmael's family marrying some of the folks. I'm not reading, I'm trying to just get to it.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's taking longer. Yeah, you're just...
Richard Yeah, it's written better. Anyway, Gerrit, 116 pages, go ahead.
Gerrit Whoever sent that question in is going to be like, Richard made me sound like an idiot.
Richard I'm looking at the time, and we're about to make fun of bishops in a second, so we just want to get to it as soon as we can. I'm just kidding. My former bishop's right there.
Gerrit Bishop England, who also went on a tour with us. And how horrible was it? Terrible. Yeah, see? That's why he does our marketing.
Richard Yes. Yes, he's recently retired.
Gerrit Well, forced retirement.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit So, the question on 116 pages is one that's been around for a really long time. We've covered a little bit of that, the loss of the pages. We'll talk more about it, especially next year as we talk about Doctrine and Covenants Section 3 and Section 5 and Section 10 that are related to it. But it really is one of those great questions. And there's all kinds of people who want to tell you what they know was on it. And because it's something we don't know, it's always the most fascinating thing to us. It's an interesting thing about being a Latter-day Saint. We are just voracious with knowledge. We want to know more and more and more about God and the Lord's plan for us. We want more revelation. Give me more deep doctrine. More deep doctrine. You pour it on me, deep doctrine. I want it all. And yet, sometimes in that attempt to try to get to the deep doctrine, there's not a whole lot of substance that supports the position that we want to have.
Gerrit Now, that's okay because God hasn't revealed everything to us. It's okay to say God hasn't revealed. We literally have an article of faith that says, God is going to yet reveal more things to us. If that's true, then there's 100% true things that we have no idea about right now, that we don't know because God hasn't revealed. And you can't expect people to know revealed knowledge before it's revealed, right? So, look, if there's anyone who would be excited about the discovery of the 116 pages, you're looking at them, and it's not Richard. That would be great.
Richard Sure. I feel like, just, you know.
Gerrit If we actually had the 116 pages, I can't even describe it. My reaction would be, you think it was good to get to Kirtland Temple? I would lose my mind. I'd do another one of these. But, so because we all know the story, because we've f***ed so much, I can't speak for everybody in the room, but my life has been fundamentally altered for the rest of my life, because the Book of Mormon is true. Of course, if there was the possibility, not even just as a historian, just to read whatever Mormon had in his commentary there, it would be so incredible. So I have that same urge and desire that I wish I had it, I wish I knew it, I want it, you know.
Gerrit And so that can kind of cause us to be speculative about, well, what do you think was on it? Well, first of all, the Lord is the one who gives us the best explanation of what was on it. Because He tells us in Doctrine and Covenants, section 10, why He's using the small plates of Nephi to fill in for the lost 116 pages because there's similar things on it. Sometimes when people are speculating about what was on the 116 pages, they'll take any piece of knowledge that seems like Joseph could have only gotten from the plates, but that aren't in... Leave it in. My mom's an English teacher.
Richard By the way, I'm so glad you guys came back, by the way. I got very nervous. I'm like, oh no. I've said something. I've offended them. They've left.
Gerrit No, they got up when you said the North Carolina score. You said the North Carolina score and they got it. It was quick, too.
Richard You're going to want to get your second half bet in. I think North Carolina's going to make up for it.
Gerrit They're still taking props for the late second half. I wonder why we have tangents. We often tend to guess and will say, well, Joseph said this about the Nephites. That's not anywhere in the Book of Mormon, so therefore that proves it was from the 116 pages. Now look, that's a fine conclusion. It makes sense. As a historian, I could say, it's possible that Joseph learned this from the 116 pages. But that's not the same thing as being definitive about it. Right? I think some people are definitive about it. Well, it must have come from this. I know that it came from this. When you don't have Joseph saying, oh yeah, it actually came from this. So I'm always a little hesitant. And part of the reason why I am, let me give you a good example.
Gerrit We don't have any images for this because, again, I don't trust Richard. As a friend, it's not even about this podcast anymore. He's over here texting in his bets for the second half.
Richard So North Carolina was a ten and a half point favorite. So the reason that there's a half point is what Vegas wants.
Gerrit President Hinckley. How do we know that the brother of Jared was named Mahan Raymore Yankomer? That's a pretty good question, right? I mean, well, so that's the type of thing that isn't in the Book of Mormon. And someone might, for instance, say, you know what? Maybe that's what, maybe when Mormon was doing the first part of the Book of Lehi, he's like, don't worry, I'm going to tell you a lot more about Mahan Raymore Yankomer later, right? And so they're like, that's how they got the knowledge of it. We first hear that terminology for the brother of Jared in a letter that Oliver Cowdery writes to the church. It's his letter seven, which is very important to people for other reasons. But in it, Oliver Cowdery gives us this information. He says, the Lord showed the brother of Jared, and then he put in parentheses, Maury Yankomer. Well, that's nowhere in the Book of Mormon, so you're thinking, okay, maybe there's something to that, okay.
Gerrit Where we get the full name from is from something called the Juvenile Instructor.
Richard That's where I go to for all of my...
Gerrit When you're not at the Atlantic Monthly.
Richard Or MGM Grants.
Gerrit You can always find Richard either... The Juvenile Instructor. The Juvenile Instructor was a church publication.
Richard Oh, very good, yes.
Gerrit The Juvenile Instructor was a church publication in the late 19th century and even into the early 20th century. George Q. Cannon was the editor of it. It has all kinds of great knowledge and some great stuff in it. Well, there's an article that's written by George Reynolds. Now, I promised everybody that we were going to talk about polygamy.
Richard Now, we're going to talk about polygamy tonight, but for the Litners at home, it will be next week.
Gerrit We'll never talk about it. George Reynolds is the person who actually goes up before the Supreme Court. His case is the case that goes up for the Edmonds Act, the Reynolds case, which eventually gets decided against the Latter-day Saints. And so, George Reynolds is one of the secretaries. He's actually the secretary to the First Presidency.
Richard We have only seen that coming. Who would have guessed that we would have lost?
Gerrit It's surprising that in a country that was thoroughly anti-Mormon, that there were anti-Mormon judgments made at federal levels. So, George Reynolds writes an article where he's talking about the articles about the Jaredites. And he starts off this article. Among the builders of the Tower of Babel were two brothers, named respectively Jared and Mahonri Moriancumer. Well, he has a little star next to it, you know, a little footnoted star, and you drop down in the footnote, and you see, well, if I could get it to drop down, it's never going to drop down, Richard. It won't drop down.
Richard Just make it up. They'll know very soon.
Gerrit So like every other podcast? No, I like totally have a source on that.
Richard It's like, oh, look, it's just dropped down.
Gerrit It's like a super good one. It's one of my favorite sources. Here it is. So you go down to the footnote, it says, while residing in Kirtland, Elder Reynolds K. Hoon had a son born to him. One day when President Joseph Smith was passing his door, he called the prophet in and asked him to bless and name the baby. So Joseph's like, you think giving a name and a blessing today is a little bit, Joseph's giving the child the name, right? Not, hey, what's his middle name? Okay. And the name is, no. Here's his name, okay? And after asking Joseph to do that, I mean, Joseph did so and gave the boy the name Mahan Ray Mor Yankhamer.
Richard Fortunately, it was a family name.
Gerrit This is why you don't ever ask the bishop to name your child. Because you don't know. He gave him the name of Mahan Ray Mor Yankhamer. When he finished the blessing, he laid the child on the bed and turning to Elder Cahoon, he said, the name I have given your son is the name of the brother of Jared. The Lord has just shown or revealed it to me. Elder William Cahoon, who was standing near, heard the prophet make this statement to his father. This was the first time that the name of the brother of Jared was known in the church in this dispensation. So, here's an example of something that someone might say, hey, I bet this came from something that's lost. Except that we have, at least the Cahoon's saying, that actually this was a revelation that Joseph received as he was blessing this child.
Gerrit So, that's why it's tough to be definitive about what was in it, because Joseph is, for instance, Lucy Mac Smith tells us that Joseph is, at night, before he's translating the plates, but after he's had his lots of visitations with Moroni, because things aren't working out so well, telling them all about the Nephite civilization. So, Joseph's clearly getting some information from the angel Moroni. Whether or not that was in the lost 116 pages, I don't know. But that's part of the reason why, when you're talking about a prophet of God, who's receiving this constant stream of revelation, trying to parcel out what he says as, no, no, that, no, he said walls, there's no way, no, that's from the 116 pages. He kind of has all kinds of stuff that's coming directly from God. And so, I think it's important to, it's important to know where our sources are when it comes to that.
Gerrit And, you know, people speculate, it's fine for people to speculate. I hope when they do, they let people know whether or not their source is a great source or not. I mean, even the Erastus Snow one that we were talking about, that one actually doesn't specifically say that Joseph got this information from the 116 pages. It's implied, and so maybe it is, maybe it is, but it's not specific to the point that's being made usually.
Richard So we have one more question, and then we're going to take a break. We're going to have some giveaways and do some fun things.
Gerrit Something way more fun than this.
Richard Yeah, so we know that some of you, the chairs are a little softer than others, so we're going to take a little bit of a break here after one more question.
Gerrit It's a very nice way of saying we have hard chairs.
Richard So in about 45 to 50 minutes, we're going to have a break. So this one comes to us from Ruth. Sorry, not even close.
Gerrit You're making up names? I make up sources, you make up names.
Richard I have a question about the history of unpaid ministry in the church. I understand its need when the church was just fledgling, struggling organization with no money, but now that the church is prosperous, why not have paid ministry where bishops are qualified professionals with expertise in human relations, conflict resolution, doctrine and counseling therapy. With this, they would have ample time to shepherd the flock, so to speak, as well as perform their personal family duties. They wouldn't need to have full-time jobs other than their jobs as bishops. That's the general question. It's an interesting question. One of the things, I was just texting my former bishop. Fortunately, no one's ever had a boss that is a bad boss, because they're paid. But that's never happened to anyone. It's an interesting question, but for me, the best bishops I've had have been a control engineer, an auto mechanic, or my current bishop is a loan officer.
Richard He's great. I love him.
Gerrit At loans.
Richard Yeah, he's great at loans. He's currently my loan officer. Look, I know interest rates are around 7%, but if you're looking to buy a house and want to pay $6,000 a month, he's your guy. It's not his fault what rates are, but he's doing a good job. Anyway, the point is that these are men that are just the most normal average men that are endowed with power from God and can do incredible things. And so, Gerrit's got some interesting numbers and stats here, but I feel like the question is one that, it makes some assumptions that I do not believe to be necessarily fair on other paid clergy.
Gerrit Well, so, I mean, look, my first thought is that this was probably sent in by someone whose husband's currently a bishop. Like, why do we not have professional clergy? This is ridiculous. For the very least, maybe we could. So, it's a great question because, honestly, there certainly are some things that we, as Latter-day Saints, we kind of take for granted that's the way things are, you know, because we've been to testimony meeting. That we say, you know, it's not weird to us, but it might be to other people. In fact, she referenced in the other part of her email that, you know, that for people from other faiths who come to our church, you know, what if they come and someone gives a terrible sacrament meeting talk, I'm like, what were you doing there the same Sunday I was speaking? But, you know, the idea behind it is we could have things more professionalized if we had a paid ministry.
Gerrit So, one way that I would first of all say, I've thought about that same thing, right? And so I appreciate your question in the sense that there's certainly the case that if you had someone who was, it was their job, who went to school and got a doctorate or at least a Masters of Divinity, who understood the various different types of languages, which is that you might have a more baseline of education. I mean, pastors who go to school are trained in counseling. They don't just have to pick it up on the fly or go through whatever training the church provides. And so you could see why someone might have that impetus. It makes sense, right? At the same time, I think there's a little bit of holy envy that goes on when we look at people who have a professional pastor and we say, man, I wish I had that. Because if I did, I'd never have another boring sermon.
Gerrit There'd be way better counseling that I would get when it came to things in my marriage. You know, that things would just work much more fluently. The reality based on statistics doesn't really bear that out. In fact, in a Pew survey of Christians asking them, you know, how often do you get a very good sermon from your pastor? It was like 46% said that they very often get one. Most of the time they don't, right? And then on the other topics that were brought up, what about counseling? What about, you know, spending more time? They found that in the survey, Christians don't want to counsel with their pastor about their marriage or about their children. What they want is to talk about religion. And so I think there's a little bit of understanding that there are some amazing pastors devoted to God who are outstanding at preaching the gospel.
Gerrit And then there's some that aren't. And because this ministry, the profession of being a professional clergy is rapidly shrinking, the number of people that are going into it, not only is Christianity in America and Europe losing its numbers, the people willing to become a preacher is rapidly shrinking as well. To the point where in the last 15 years, the average age of a Christian pastor in America has gone up 10 years. Your pastor in America, is their average age? Their average age?
Richard Their average age.
Gerrit Their average age...
Richard It's 10 years greater than it was last year.
Gerrit Is now 50...
Richard Is that a troubling stat, guys?
Gerrit Why are we clapping for their age going up? Their average age is now 54. What does that mean if the average age, average age of pastors is 54? It means you have very, very few young pastors, is what it means. And as your pastors age, then what does that mean? It means that churches are now desperate to get pastors. If you read outside of the Atlantic Monthly, if you read Christianity Today or these other journals from other religions, you'll notice a recurring theme ongoing is we need more pastors and we need them yesterday. There's a crisis. Why can't we get more people to become pastors? So what does it mean when you're in a profession where people are desperate to get anyone to do it? What did you say there, Mom?
Gerrit First of all, she said that. I want everyone in the room to know.
Richard So she said it's like school teachers.
Gerrit I did not say that. I want everyone, I want my record clear. Renee Dirkmaat, who lives in Salem, Utah, said... Now look, Becky's a teacher. Richard's wife's a teacher. My mom was a teacher, obviously. You know, I'm a teacher and all of us who are teachers know that there are amazing teachers. People that, frankly, you're around them when they're interacting with kids and you're like, not only are you good at this, I don't think I've ever met anyone better at this. And yet here's your $20,000 a year check. You know what I mean? It's incredible the skills that some people have. At the same time, every teacher that you know would tell you that they know at least one teacher who is a dumpster fire, who is terrible. There's a teacher at your school who's the reason why you have all of the trainings you have.
Gerrit And everybody knows who it is. Like, well, it's because of him again. All right, that's a wrap. You should have got this last month when we trained on the same thing. You know, I mean, and so why isn't that teacher fired? Because the desperation to get teacher is so great that you have to cast a really wide net. And what does that mean? You're going to have some amazing fish in that net. You are also going to have a few tin cans. And probably one of Bishop England's old socks. Get what you pay for. So that is to say that actually what you find is there's a growing level of distrust of clergy among Christians. Feeling like that their pastor is less and less qualified. Because instead of, it used to be a competition. It used to be there's five people getting their doctrine of divinity.
Gerrit Only one of them is going to get a pastorate. The others are just going to have to go figure something else out. Now there's five people getting it and ten churches saying, we all need you to be our pastor. So the worst one of them, the one who barely graduated, the one who used AI, chat, GPT on everything, he's a pastor. The one who's amazing, also a pastor. And so I think it's a little bit of holy envy to say, oh, if only I was a Lutheran, I'd always have a pastor who's amazing. You only have to talk to a few Lutherans who will say, I will counter that argument, right? And so, but really the main reason, and this is probably a good place to finish because we should have been done a long time ago. Yes. Yeah. The real reason why we don't have a paid clergy isn't because we've gamed it out and we've decided, you know what? I like the fact that my plumber is the one who's now the bishop of the ward. I like how God mixes it up and gives experience.
Gerrit It's because this is not a country club. This isn't some political organization where, you know, we sat down, we created the rules, we're like, you know what? What if we just had to be unpaid? What if we ruined someone's life every once in a while? For five years, your life's over. Oh, you know what? And if that's bad enough, we'll give it to them for 10 and make a mistake presidency member. But it's because it's the Lord's Church. The real answer to the question, and I don't mean to be trite, is why is it that we don't have a paid ministry? It's because that is the church that Jesus Christ set up. Jesus, for whatever the reason is, whether it's because of the insight we get from people from all different backgrounds, whether it's because the Lord doesn't want people to be going into it as a profession, because the Lord wants to be able to call the person who can bring you closest to Jesus, whether or not they have a doctorate of many, whatever the reason is.
Gerrit The reason why we don't have a paid clergy is because the Lord Jesus Christ set up the church with an unpaid clergy. And I think it's important to remember when we sit back, we think about why is our church this way? Why is our church? The biggest answer to some of those questions are it's this way, because this is the way the Lord decided to set it up. I have had incredible men serve as bishops in my life who've really touched my life. I've also had bishops that were fine. They did a good job. They worked hard. They put in a lot of effort. But that didn't feel like they impacted me that much. There are others that I'm eternally grateful for. And I think all of us have that experience. And it's actually not that much different than the experience your average Lutheran or Presbyterian is having with their pastors.
Gerrit There's a reason why people call it pastor roulette, where they just keep going to a church until they get one that they like. That's a very common thing among Christians. And so I, for one, am grateful for the men and women who serve in these unpaid callings. My wife was a Relief Society president. It was the worst time of my life. And she's always trying to serve people. It was very frustrating. I've got a needs assessment for you right here. We can have our own dinner. She was obviously great, but it really is one of the great parts of our church. That to be a member of it is to see everybody just trying to build the kingdom of God, the city of Zion together. And that's where we're all trying to get to. And so, yeah, maybe my bishop isn't a student of ancient Greek.
Gerrit Maybe he can teach me something about forgiveness that I wouldn't learn otherwise. Maybe my Relief Society president isn't also the CEO of a corporation. But maybe she can teach me about service and teach me how to have a testimony that doesn't rely on the world. And so I think that for me, the beauty of the way the church is set up is we have all of these abilities to interact with other people who just might touch our spirits. So thank you so much for joining us. I probably...
Richard So we are going to, for here, the studio audience, we're going to do kind of a more traditional episode in the next one where there's one or two questions, but then Gerrit dives a little bit deeper into a specific... We're going to talk about polygamy. We're going to talk about politics. So that's happening. We're very excited. It's very exciting. And that's what you paid the $1,354. And so we're going to do that. We're very excited. We're going to take a little bit of a break. And for those that aren't here, you'll get it next week.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

Quote board

Make a share card from any line

I'm coming for your cat.

RichardBanter

Every time a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs. Being in sales, that's an impressive marketing strategy.

RichardBanter

We show you things no one else is willing to show you. Mainly because they don't exist.

GerritBanter

And the fact that you don't write it down or that you don't tell somebody doesn't mean it didn't happen.

GerritInsight

Would I base my entire testimony of the Gospel on whether or not the Three Nephites were there? Well, probably we shouldn't base literally any part of our testimony on whether or not the Three Nephites were there.

GerritInsight

Let's come back to Jesus and just remember the Savior.

GerritInsight

This is why you don't ever ask the bishop to name your child.

GerritBanter

It's because this is not a country club.

GerritInsight

My wife was a Relief Society president. It was the worst time of my life.

GerritBanter

Maybe he can teach me something about forgiveness that I wouldn't learn otherwise.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
If Joseph Smith knew something that isn't in the Book of Mormon, it must have come from the lost 116 pages.
A paid, professionally trained clergy would give better sermons and counseling.
If there's only one source for a story, it didn't happen.
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

Joseph and Oliver's questions followed the text: Alma's disappearance led to D&C 7, baptism in 3 Nephi to the priesthood, and the witness prophecies in 2 Nephi to the Three Witnesses.

A single late source isn't proof, but it isn't disproof either. Treat it with care, and don't hang your testimony on Three Nephites stories.

Joseph gave the brother of Jared's name, Mahonri Moriancumer, while blessing Reynolds Cahoon's baby boy in Kirtland, saying the Lord had just revealed it.

We have an unpaid ministry because that's how the Lord set up His church, and ordinary bishops and Relief Society presidents can teach us things no degree could.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
The live studio audienceSeventh take of the intro after three rounds of boos, with the doors barred (0:46).
LitnersEvery time Richard says "litner," he's mocking Gerrit for mispronouncing "listener" (2:27).
Here against their willSpouses dragged along, and Dan admits he didn't want to come; neither does Gerrit (1:35, 3:15).
Mormon on a jaguarRichard spots King Noah's pet jaguars under Mormon in a painting, 400 years later (4:03).
The reality isTaisley made a shirt of Gerrit's favorite phrase (5:07).
Tetzel's PretzelRichard admires Johann Tetzel as a salesman, and Gerrit asks him to be kind to the Catholics in the audience (16:39).
Standard of Truth tours, now quintupleWith the Kirtland Temple acquired, prices go up fivefold, paid in a wheelbarrow of cash, and they'll show you the font that doesn't exist (18:21).
The crack research staffAsked for the number of deacons quorums, Richard reports 31,330 congregations and several basketball scores (24:59).
Richard and the sports bettingNorth Carolina's comeback, the half-point line, and second-half props, despite President Hinckley's 2005 talk (37:10, 46:52, 48:16).
Wendy in AustraliaWilly "Wonker," Aussie rules picks for the Magpies, history learned from National Treasure, and a proposed live show in Melbourne with more koalas (27:15).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites 2 Nephi 2Jesus Christ Is the Great Deliverer!Elder Kevin J. HathawayElder Hathaway testifies that Jesus Christ is the great deliverer and that the question for the faithful is not whether He will deliver, but how and when.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 10The Hour of Your Mission Is ComeBishop Sean DouglasBishop Douglas thanks missionaries of every age and urges the rising generation to place full-time missionary service high on their list.October 2026 General Conference · cites 2 Nephi 2“How Long Will It Be Ere They Believe Me?”Elder Dale G. RenlundElder Renlund recalls a heart-transplant patient who, days after a near-miraculous recovery, complained that his oatmeal was cold.

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

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
The Kirtland Temple pulpit abbreviations, side by side with the priesthood offices of 1836 (20:38).
Oliver Huntington's journals and Addison Everett's letter, with other Three Nephites accounts (30:08).
George Reynolds's Juvenile Instructor articles on the Jaredites and the Cahoon footnote (50:03).
Oliver Cowdery's 1834 to 1835 letters to the church, especially Letter VII (48:28).
Surveys on the pastor shortage and the "pastor roulette" many Christians play (1:08:19).
SOT Litner · S4E12.