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S4E19 · Gerrit Goes Hard in the Paint on Hurlbut and Solomon Spaulding Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 19 · 54:18

Gerrit Goes Hard in the Paint on Hurlbut and Solomon Spaulding Part 1

Devin's sister's testimony hinged on a ward mission leader's claim that the Church owns all the Book of Abraham scrolls. It owns only fragments; the rest burned in the Chicago fire.

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The question ·
How does a historian guard against the fact that Joseph and Sidney could have tried to ensure no paper trail would show that they knew each other?
Matt (listener)

Devin writes that the podcast prepared him for an hour-long conversation with his sister, who left the church after learning a ward mission leader had wrongly claimed the church owns every Book of Abraham scroll. Gerrit explains that only fragments survive and the rest burned in the Chicago fire, and he gets fired up about people who pass off pseudo-history as expertise. Matt asks how historians know Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon didn't secretly hide every trace that they knew each other before 1830. Gerrit explains that historians make arguments from evidence, that the Sidney Rigdon theory grew out of the discredited Spaulding manuscript theory, and that no one could erase every neighbor's journal. The episode sets up Part 2 on Philastus Hurlbut and Solomon Spaulding, and Gerrit urges people with questions to look for real experts, not the top Google result.

Who comes upJoseph SmithSidney RigdonPhilastus HurlbutSolomon SpauldingJeffrey R. HollandM. Russell BallardRussell M. NelsonJames BuchananEber D. Howe
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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 erstwhile friend, the professor, Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thank you so much for having me back.
Gerrit I feel like you don't need to say that. You're always here.
Richard Thank you so much for having me back, Gerrit. So we're gonna do something a little bit different in this episode. We've produced about 250 of these things, and you know what? Let's change it up just a little bit. So-
Gerrit We're now going to only talk about business tactics and ways to improve your small business.
Richard This is true. I do provide that as a free consulting service to small businesses because of my passion for small business. So hit me up and I'll set up a Zoom meeting and we'll talk about your sales and business development. So we did a premium episode, Joseph Smith and the Restoration. So that 22 episodes in and you finally got to Joseph Smith.
Gerrit We mentioned him multiple times.
Richard In the title. So there's a lot of context to set up. It's important that you know what Joseph Smith is coming into so that you can understand the real value for the restored gospel. It's a great, this is me pitching the premium. It is actually pretty good.
Gerrit We have had several people ask, what is the premium? People who are recently joining us, what is the premium? How do I sign up? First and foremost, the premium is only hosted on either Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. Those are the two ways that people use our podcast most or listen most. And so those are the platforms where you can sign up for the premium if you decide to. Again, the premium, the whole purpose of it is a way of trying to help support this podcast and keep it going. And it has things like there's a podcast that's dedicated to just American and world history called Condemn to Repeat It, where we talk about, right now we're talking about the American Revolution.
Richard We've been talking about that for a year and a half, and we've got about another year and a half to go.
Gerrit No, we're almost done. Oh, Yorktown's coming at us.
Richard Oh my gosh.
Gerrit Yeah, Yorktown's, it's bearing down on us right now.
Richard That's, oh my gosh. You guys don't know, that's thrilling.
Gerrit Yeah, oh, the Comte de Grasse is on his way. Your French Admiral, who saves the day.
Richard Oh my gosh, that's fantastic.
Gerrit It's gonna be one of the few times in Richard's life history he's gonna be able to say, you know what, the French saved us.
Richard Well, so there's that, there's Joseph Smith and the Restoration, that's the most popular with the missionaries. So we provide the premium to missionaries for free. We send them access to the Google Drive that has it so they can access it on their missions. So if you have a missionary that is really interested in understanding church history and specifically comparative Christianity and how that compares to the restored gospel and some of those things, it's hugely valuable. We have, we also have holy places from our past, AKA crinkling leaves. We haven't done one of those this year, but we have quite a few.
Gerrit In the hopper, or in the past.
Richard Or in the past. And so the idea there is when you go to a particular site, here's some things to know about this historic site that might be of value to you. So we'll be doing more of those as well. So that, Gerrit shrugged. Apparently we won't. But so anyway, that's the premium. And we did a Joseph Smith and the Restoration a week or so ago. And the intent, Gerrit talked about several of the visions that were had by Lucy Mac Smith and by Joseph Smith Sr. And I asked a relatively innocent question, I felt. And I was trying to make a point about how many people at the time of the Restoration are having these miraculous experiences and that the Lord was helping to prepare them. But I may or may not have come across maybe more antagonistic than I intended.
Gerrit I wasn't offended.
Richard Yes, but so Joseph Smith Sr., the vision that he had, had many parts that had a lot of similarity to Lehi's vision. And so I brought up a point about antagonists and how they might perceive that. And then Gerrit.
Gerrit Apparently became unhinged in a way that was biblical and I'm not entirely sure why. So in order-
Richard I know why. There are like, Dr. Philastus Hurlbut, Eber Howe, those are a couple of triggers that you have that send you into a blind rage. You wake up the next day, what happened?
Gerrit Yeah, exactly, I woke up like, what did I say? I knew that I was in trouble because my brother texted and said, I think that's the record number of times someone has used the word fornicator on the Standard of Truth podcast.
Richard It was a lot of times.
Gerrit So look, so what Richard is doing is he has, he has cut out part of that rant and we're going to work that into what we're talking about today so that a little bit of a taste of the premium content for our non-premium subscribers and also because it relates to the topic we're going to talk about today.
Richard It does. And I will say though, so it's not a good thing to be angry all the time, but there is such a thing as righteous indignation. And I feel like you did a good job of walking the line on that. And you have people listen to it that are cheering, cheering, you know, huzzah, like somebody defending how ridiculous some of these things are. You make the point all the time that some of these things from church history are complex and they're difficult to understand. And some of them are outright lies. And the outright lies you will not see.
Gerrit Yeah, those are the ones that bother me most. When someone isn't just saying, you know what? We don't really know how plural marriage worked. Instead, they're claiming that Sidney Rigdon clandestinely met with Joseph Smith prior to Joseph ever claiming that he had the plates so that he could help write the Book of Mormon and then pretend that he had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. Something like that.
Richard Something like that. So should we get quickly to a Phebe Draper-
Gerrit Yes, let's read some email.
Richard Palmer Brown mailbag.
Gerrit Something that will calm me down. I have too much caffeine in my system and I'm angry. Richard showed up and it just made me mad.
Richard That's usually how I arrive at most places. Like I was happy, now you're here. All right, this first email comes to us from Devin. I don't have any questions, but wanted to share my deep appreciation for your work on the podcast and wanted to share my testimony, how my testimony has grown because of listening to you. I always thought I had a gift of belief and have never struggled with knowing that the restored church of Jesus Christ is led by living prophets, I have never had a major faith crisis over a policy or change in the church. Even if I didn't fully understand something, my testimony of living prophets allowed me to accept that this is his church and following the council of church leaders would bring blessings and understanding and time. While I don't think I have a weak testimony, this gift of belief has allowed me to coast or to be on autopilot when it came to my personal testimony. When President Nelson read the Restoration Proclamation at General Conference in April 2020, I admit that I was a little bored. I thought to myself, well, that's why we don't read last names.
Richard This seems obvious. I know.
Gerrit You'll be getting a call from your state president soon. Yeah. Really, all this podcast is a clandestine, Stasi-Sialpulli state. We have a network. The East German secret police.
Richard I know what Stasi-Sialpulli is. I don't know when Napoleon wars are, but I know what Stasi is.
Gerrit I see. Yeah, that we are clandestinely trying to find out whenever anyone says anything about the prophet and then we sick their sick president.
Richard If you had Stasi in the Standard of Truth bingo card, boy.
Gerrit Boy, you just got the free space.
Richard Yeah, because we're going to mention that from now on.
Gerrit Stasi comes up a lot.
Richard I admit that I was a little bored. This seems obvious. I know all this already. I forgot much of that conference address and moved on to other things. In October of 2023, I received a strong prompting that I needed to study church history. I have had a few times in my life where the Spirit spoke so clearly into my mind. It felt urgent and of the utmost importance. Along with that prompting came the reminder of the Restoration Proclamation. When the family, a proclamation to the world, came out in 1995, most members of society would have agreed with that document. So I began to wonder what will happen 20 to 30 years from now when the Lord needs his church to have strong testimonies of the Restoration. First of all, that is, I mean, I remember, did you have to go hand it out? Do you have to pass it around?
Gerrit The proclamation of the family? I don't recall doing that, but I mean.
Richard So Becky's ward, they sent them out to hand it around to everybody. And you know, in the part of Idaho I'm from, it's about, I don't know, 10, 15% LDS. So the majority of people aren't LDS, and we would hand it to them, or she would, and they'd be like, yeah.
Gerrit Like what, what are you talking? We believe all of this.
Richard Yeah, what are you talking about? Why are you, anyway, and now bigotry.
Gerrit Well, I mean, it certainly demonstrates how much the world shifts in its understanding. And I mean, I was grateful for the Proclamation of the Restoration for that very reason. I mean, we hear people all the time who want to have their cake and eat it too. I want all of the doctrines that Joseph Smith revealed. I love them. They are altering. The idea that you have a premortal life, the idea that you have a Heavenly Mother, the idea that marriage can exist after this life. I want all of those things, but I don't want to have to deal with the fact that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage. So what am I going to do? I'm going to ostracize and minimize and create a box that I place Joseph in and I slowly talk about him as if he's a fallen prophet. Now, of course, I'll have other people to help me along my way, people who themselves are claiming that they have the truth, right?
Gerrit But the sheer hypocrisy that I guess a lot of people don't realize as they do this is that the only reason you have a strong belief about, say, your Heavenly Mother is because Joseph Smith's a prophet. Now let's say Joseph Smith's not a prophet. Well, you don't get to believe you have a Heavenly Mother anymore because that's a revelation that comes to a prophet. So you don't get to just believe it because you want to. Not without coming to the logical conclusion of where did the idea come from? And I know that some people think the idea came from the person they're watching on a YouTube clip. That's not where the idea came from. The reality is that you can have pastors from other faiths that will say things like, well, of course you'll be with your wife in heaven. I mean, we'll all be there in heaven. I mean, yeah, we believe in, you know, that you'll be with your wife in heaven. You have to be very clear.
Gerrit Do you believe in marriage in heaven? And I can tell you right now, because you can go to all their websites, you can read all of their doctrines if they put it up there, and they will tell you very, very, very clearly. Marriage is for this life only. It does not exist in heaven.
Richard It says so in the Bible, Gerrit.
Gerrit Exactly. And yet you have Latter-day Saints who want to, rather than dealing with the intricacies of history, as you talked about, rather than dealing with the fact that maybe we don't know everything, and just accepting the things that we have had revealed to us, they want to denigrate Joseph Smith as a prophet. Well, that way I can just believe whatever I want to believe, and not have to come to terms with the fact that God commanded him to practice plural marriage, or whatever it is. But the reality is, it's a logical inconsistency. Yeah, this person's absolutely a prophet whenever they say things that I already want to believe, but when they say things that aren't, that's how I know that they're a false prophet at that point. Well, what makes them a false prophet? Well, they said things I don't like. Okay, that's not logical. That is someone who is trying to create a false narrative to make themselves feel better.
Gerrit So I'm grateful for the Restoration Proclamation. I'd actually been asked by a couple of people in the past year before that was issued, and fairly prominent people. So I'm not talking about, not that I know me. Richard. Yeah, so not Richard. Okay, people that are way more prominent than he is, like Richard's dissertation advisor, who's not a Latter-day Saint, so he couldn't possibly care.
Richard No, but Tom, if you're listening, we just love you here at the Standard Truth Podcast. We think you do great work.
Gerrit Although Becky is getting a little irritated. Anyway, because she wants him to be done. She sees you as an impediment. Stop trying to make the dissertation good, just make it done. So the people, they said to me, do you think the church is trying to go the way of minimizing Joseph Smith as part of our beliefs? You know, there's been so much focus on the fact that, you know, we're the Church of Jesus Christ, and we need to make sure Christ is the center of literally every lesson that we have. And it got to the point where you're sitting in a ward council and people are just saying the word Jesus over and over again because they think that's what they're supposed to be doing. Like, well, well, and Jesus, you know, that kind of stuff. Well, so they said, I think maybe the church is trying to minimize, you know, Joseph Smith's role in what we believe because, you know, it's embarrassing. That's what the two different people say this to me. And then President Nelson issued the Proclamation on the Restoration.
Gerrit So I actually have no doubt that in the coming decades, you will have people want to push our church in the direction that, say, the community of Christ went. And that is to minimize Joseph's revelations, to minimize him as a central figure. Now, look, there are plenty of members of the community of Christ who still absolutely revere Joseph as a prophet. But the trend is to minimize Joseph's teachings and Joseph's experiences because they're difficult to deal with in a modern Christian world. So I think that we will look 20 years from now on the Proclamation of the Restoration, and there will be people that will say, you don't really believe this, right? Inside of the church, we'll be questioning it and criticizing it. So I have to wholeheartedly agree on that. I don't even know if I'm agreeing or disagreeing at this point. What am I doing, Richard?
Richard You're agreeing with Devin.
Gerrit But angrily.
Richard Yes, but Devin appreciates it.
Gerrit He wants it.
Richard He's messaging me. Well, Gerrit, to that point, there was a leadership training that President Holland recently did where he talked about kind of the very thing that you're describing. He said, we learned from President Ballard's deep and abiding testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. President Ballard was a descendant of Hyrum Smith, and he had a great love for his family heritage. He spoke often of Joseph Smith and testified of the Prophet's majestic role in the Restoration. Even in his last conference talk, President Ballard shared a sweet testimony of the Prophet saying, though my message this morning is simple, it's deep, and it's full of love for the Prophet Joseph Smith. Similarly, when we testify that Jesus is the Christ and God is our Eternal Father, we should make certain that we bear testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Restoration of the Gospel. May we pause a little more, often to think about those who've given so much to the Kingdom past and present.
Richard So this was in a leadership training that's on churchofjesuschrist.org.
Gerrit First of all, that's what you expect from President Holland. Both President Holland and President Ballard were champions of understanding that Joseph Smith and his revelations are central to our theology. This is the Church of Jesus Christ. We get it. It's the Church of Jesus Christ. None of this exists without the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. But none of the things that we know about who Jesus even is and why we are here and what the purpose of this life is and what the aftermath of this life will be, none of those things exist without the restoration of the gospel and the prophet Joseph Smith in his revelations and the subsequent prophets that followed him. It was a discussion we had in our elders quorum on Sunday.
Gerrit We were talking about the importance of temple covenants. We were talking about President Nelson's talk, where he's just reiterating, without temple covenants, without keys, you know, we're a nice moral institution.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Nothing more.
Gerrit Yeah. We do some charity work, and tip the hat, and we're on our way. You know what I mean? Like that, that's it, the entire point of the restoration is to provide the tools and doctrine that will allow us to gain the knowledge and make the covenants necessary to be exalted. You remove Joseph Smith from the equation, and we don't even know what exaltation is. We lose why we're here. Heavens, we lose that God and Jesus are separate beings if we remove Joseph Smith from the equation. So, I don't know if that will be a trend that happens, Devon. I don't know if on down the line, people will desperately try to focus on Jesus to the exclusion of the revelations of Joseph. But our church can't exist.
Gerrit It has no meaning if it doesn't have the keys that Jesus directed be given to Joseph and the apostles and prophets that follow him. That's why I think President Holland is saying you have to testify both of those things together. Because it's great to have a testimony of Jesus and if that's all you have, that's wonderful. It's great to know that you have a Savior who loves you, who died for you. And if that's all you have, that is awesome. But there is a lot more than just knowing that your Savior died for you. There's knowing who you are. There's knowing why you're here. There's knowing that all of your family relationships can be bound together in the eternities. There's knowing that this life isn't just some kind of cosmic game that God plays with you because he thinks it's funny to watch you struggle.
Gerrit There's knowing that there are steps you have to take to become like your Heavenly Father and your Heavenly Mother because those steps are essential to becoming a god and a goddess. That's what the church brings us. That's what Joseph Smith and the keys and revelations he received from Jesus bring us. Someone who thinks that they can have the one but not the other has not thought very long about what it is they believe. They've just thought an awful lot about what they want to believe.
Richard So Devin goes on.
Gerrit Oh, sorry, Devin. Maybe we need to cut that out.
Richard No, no, no.
Gerrit That's great. You'll know whether or not we cut that out by whether or not you're listening to it right now.
Richard I looked for Accurate Church History Resources and was led to your podcast. Well, my God.
Gerrit All right, now Devin ceased being a credible witness. Who told you to come to our podcast?
Richard I don't know.
Gerrit I will tell you that somebody, I had a bishop friend up in, I have a friend who's a bishop, just kind of name dropping on you.
Richard Catholic?
Gerrit Yeah, Catholic bishop, that'd be way more powerful if he was a Catholic bishop. No, he's just some loser, latter day bishop.
Richard Some accountant?
Gerrit No, he's a great guy actually. I have a friend who's a bishop up in your neck of the woods, Farmington, and he said that they had a stake training among the bishops and the bishoprics, and that the stake president said, there are other resources you can use to help people answer questions, and he named our podcast as one of them.
Richard How about that?
Gerrit We finally arrived.
Richard That's right. After listening to lesson after lesson in gospel doctrine about follow him, we're always chasing the big...
Gerrit No, we'll never get there, but anyway, go ahead.
Richard I listened earnestly, and in December 2023, I received an answer why the Lord directed me to study church history with such urgency. My family and I stayed with my sister for Christmas. A few days into our stay, my sister sat me down to explain why she no longer attends church. She explained that the ward mission leader had stated during a Fifth Sunday lesson that he was glad that the church has the actual scrolls that were translated into the Book of Abraham. Now, that's a very specific topic for a Fifth Sunday. Usually it's temple and family history, it's missionary work, this one, the Abraham scrolls. That's a very specific topic.
Gerrit Yeah, he's like, the lesson today is how our church possesses the entirety of the scrolls purchased by Joseph Smith when he bought the mummies. Now, there's lots of problems with that. First and foremost is why is the lesson on that?
Richard Wait, it's possible. It's possible the lesson was on faith. And he's just like, in a classic, there's some times where you might have a ward mission leader that might stray from the core doctrines of-
Gerrit We have a former ward mission leader of mine in Wisconsin who listens to the show regularly, Jeff, and the greatest ward mission leader of all time. I mean, literally the greatest of all time. Everything was on point. Nothing was straying off topic. And so you could have amazing ones. You can also have ones who think that the most essential part of the gospel is patriarchal blessings.
Richard It is funny. When I was on my mission, it seemed like I was constantly afraid of word mission leaders. Since I've been home, I'm like, yeah, they're pretty good. But on your mission, I'm even especially sensitive.
Gerrit Yeah, you're like, we haven't even taught them about the First Vision yet. We haven't even taught them about the First Vision yet. I'm like, well, you guys started paying your tithing? Like, no, they haven't started paying their tithing.
Richard We met with them one time.
Gerrit Anyway.
Richard Not only is it incomplete, but my sister's testimony hinged on this statement. She felt like it would be the proof she needed to really believe in the church.
Gerrit I'm not totally following at this point. So the ward mission leader said, you know, the church has all of the scrolls of the Book of Abraham, right? Which just so everyone listening knows, we don't. We have two fragments from them. And as we've talked about before, in much to the dismay of this historian, one of the fragments is reinforced and backed with the original Kirtland Temple plans that they chopped up and pasted the part of the fragment of the scrolls to.
Richard That's good.
Gerrit But I'm not bitter about it.
Richard No, but is there a swamp problem, a humidity problem? Do we put these with the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon?
Gerrit No, the scrolls end up being, they end up being destroyed in the Chicago fire, actually. Yeah, so they end up moving around a little bit because they don't go with the saints out west. And so they end up being sold and they change possessions and they end up going to a museum and they end up being destroyed in a fire. So we have almost none of them.
Richard So first that, then Caleb Williams. This is not Chicago, you are.
Gerrit Well, I mean, Richard's still a little bitter about, why are you bitter about Caleb Williams? What if he's amazing?
Richard Well, he might be amazing, but Justin Fields wasn't the answer, that's for sure. And I thought that he was, and I've been a Bears fan for a long time, and they're just terrible.
Gerrit Well, what about all the people that are hating on the Falcons for drafting Penix after also signing Cousins?
Richard First of all, that's a great question. And Devin, this is why this is a bad example of a church history podcast.
Gerrit We've gone far afield. I'm just trying to simmer down because apparently I've been triggered again.
Richard You have, you're coming in hot.
Gerrit I've got a problem.
Richard Coming hard in the paint.
Gerrit I've got a problem.
Richard And so you're potentially questioning that what she's saying is her reason might not actually be her reason.
Gerrit To me, it's a very weird thing to say. As long as I know the church has all of the original scrolls of the Book of Abraham, then I have a testimony. Because you believe in the Book of Mormon, right? And I don't know that we have a whole lot of the original gold plates laying around.
Richard Chicago Fire?
Gerrit No, Angel Baroni. Angel Baroni took them back. But same thing with multiple other things. I mean, do we have the original Hebrew manuscripts that Joseph is using to receive the Book of Moses as a revelation? Nope. So it just seems a weird thing to say, my testimony hinged on whether or not we actually possessed the scrolls.
Richard Well, I mean, Gerrit, it's possible she's being hyperbolic and that that thing caused her to go down a rabbit hole that opened it up. And maybe she was being-
Gerrit Whereas Devon's rabbit hole led him to this as a credible source.
Richard Yeah, seriously.
Gerrit Devon's will kill you, Devon.
Richard Her personal study then led her to other sources and incorrect views on Joseph Smith. I bet that it did, on Joseph Smith. She spent about an hour telling me about how Joseph Smith is a fraud. It's gurgling inside.
Gerrit I'm gonna have to take five, and it's just gonna be Richard, and you'll hear from the outside, like a mumble like, ah, ah!
Richard And was trying to get rich.
Gerrit Oh. Oh yeah, yep, that's what he was trying to do.
Richard The gold digger.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard I didn't attempt to correct her or argue her points, as I don't think she was open to learning. What I am thankful for is that nearly every point she brought up was a subject that I had been taught about through your podcast. I don't think she would have, she would have shaken my testimony, but I can at least know I was proactively learning and strengthening my testimony before this event happened. It has been a joy to listen to each episode, this one excluded, and I am thankful, he doesn't say that, but I'm assuming. Yeah, I'm saying it. I'm so thankful that the Lord prompted you to create this source of information. Thank you for sharing your time and your talents with us.
Gerrit Devin, thank you for that email. Honestly, it is one of the whole points of the podcast is to try to help people have some basis for the hope they have, and to help people understand that when that person says, well, the church doesn't even have an answer for this. Yeah, there are answers. Just because they weren't the first click on your letter to the CES director website doesn't mean that there aren't answers. I am sorry to hear that your sister is struggling. And look, I feel bad for her. It's part of the reason why I get so volatile, I guess. I'm normally a mild-mannered person.
Richard You are. Yeah, sports and Joseph Smith.
Gerrit Sports and Joseph Smith sent me over the edge. The reason why is because there is a liar out there, a liar, who took your sister's insecurities and her questions and flooded them as if they were some kind of an expert with pseudo-intellectual faux-historical Garbage. Expletive, right? And that hurt her and hurt her testimony. And in a lot of ways, I don't blame her because how would she know where to look or not to look? And so that kind of stuff really does bother me. I mean, okay, maybe the ward mission leader shouldn't be telling her that we have all the scrolls and we don't have all the scrolls. It seems like a really weird point to make.
Gerrit Hey, we have all the scrolls, even though we don't even have the scrolls, at least say you think we have all the scrolls. I don't know what the conversation actually was. But the podcast exists really as just our desperate attempt to try to help people feel the spirit as we talk about these historical issues and questions because we don't want people to feel alone. We want people to feel like that there is some reason for the hope they have. We'll never be able to replace what you're getting at church on Sunday or what it is the prophet's saying. Anything that the prophet says, you go with that. But hopefully that you know that we're a brotherhood and a sisterhood of people that are all desperately trying to build the kingdom of God. And we're trying to find ways to explain the things that have happened in the past and maintain our hope and our faith in what we know to be true.
Richard That's great. This next email, Lin, leads us into the actual subject of this episode that is over 30 minutes in.
Gerrit That seems like maybe the last part was the subject of our episode.
Richard Well, so, I mean, this is going to be, I wanna call this episode, Gerrit goes hard in the paint on Hurlbut and Solomon Spaulding, but we'll see. So this-
Gerrit We'll see how it develops. Maybe I'll be calm.
Richard Yeah, I mean, maybe.
Gerrit Yeah, there's a chance.
Richard Things happen. So, this is gonna be a two-parter, though. I'm confident of that. This next email comes to us from Matt, subject historical alteration. Yes, I found this podcast last week and I love it.
Gerrit Did he say yes with like exclamation point?
Richard It's an exclamation point. It might be yes, maybe he's just a fan of the Yankees and it might be yes network.
Gerrit Well, you know, Richard's a fan of the Yankees.
Richard I am a fan of the Yankees.
Gerrit And now we just lost all of our listeners in New England.
Richard Yeah, yeah, all three of them. I found this podcast last week and I love it. I've cranked out 20 episodes so far, starting from the beginning without falling asleep, even once. Well, now that, that is a feat.
Gerrit Yeah, were you in the back of Officer R's squad car by chance?
Richard Yeah, our podcast is used in astronaut training. So if you've been able to do 20 without falling asleep, that is impressive.
Gerrit I'm hopeful that we can get the US government to take it up as a way of torturing prisoners, right? You know, like playing loud music and stuff, really to just play this. And they're like, I'll tell you what you wanna know.
Richard My question, how would you address someone saying something like, well, they obviously tried to leave a specific paper trail to cover their lies, et cetera. For example, in an episode I'm listening to now, you say that while others will, out of desperation, claim Sidney Rigdon must have had a hand in writing the Book of Mormon, we have no historical evidence that he and Joseph Smith knew each other in 1828, 1829. How does a historian guard against the fact that Joseph and Sidney could have tried to ensure no paper trail would show that they knew each other? I'm thinking one, they couldn't possibly find and control all of their neighbor's journals, and two, pulling off such a foreseeing and comprehensive feat across all their quote unquote lies over decades would be at least as impressive as dictating the Book of Mormon in 60 working days with no edits. But what do professional historians do with this?
Richard Genriff. Well, I say Genriff.
Gerrit Yeah, I was gonna say, did he just come at me hard with that name wrong? No, no, no. Wow, this is not gonna be the way to calm me back down. So.
Richard Well, and so one thing though is that, I mean, you say all the time, look, could they have known each other? I mean, I guess there's no evidence.
Gerrit Right, and so you really hit the nail on the head. Okay, we have 12,000 Joseph Smith documents, and not all of them are ones produced by him. And you have thousands of secondary sources and accounts where people are talking about Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith. You have an entire book, Mormonism Unveiled, that is written by someone who is a contemporary of Sidney Rigdon, who knows very well the people going to Sidney Rigdon's church, Eber Howe, who attacks every single conceivable aspect of Mormonism so-called, but he doesn't make that argument. So if there was even a slight contemporary source, even if there was a bad source that said, oh yeah, Sidney Rigdon actually was already in Palmyra with Joseph for like lots of time and stuff, and that's where it came up.
Gerrit I assume that's what it was. And stuff. Why is that not part of his argument? He's writing an anti-Mormon book. He's using all kinds of things that are spurious sources. Why isn't he making that argument?
Richard When does the Sidney Rigdon, it seems like Sidney Rigdon is a grasping at straws when the other ones prove to be less effective arguments. When does Sidney Rigdon even come up as a potential argument that he must have, they must have known each other?
Gerrit It comes about in the 20th century when people can't find another way to explain it. Look, the Solomon Spaulding Manuscript explanation, this idea that there is a preacher who wrote a bunch of novels and they were religious sounding and he used the Bible phraseology because he's a preacher, I mean, because he's a preacher, he really knows that Bible, that that's where the Book of Mormon actually comes from. That is the primary explanation for the Book of Mormon from 1834 until the turn of the 20th century. It is repeated over and over and over again and it is, I mean, it's a preposterous argument. So only after that argument gets totally discredited.
Richard And why is it discredited?
Gerrit It's discredited because they find the actual manuscript that everyone said is literally word for word of Solomon Spaulding's book, except that when we found it, none of the words are the same. So one of the worst parts of claiming that words are word for word is when none of them are. That makes it a bad argument. That's how you know it's a bad argument. No, no, it's word for word plagiarized right from Solomon Spaulding. Okay, are any of the names the same? No, are any of the words the same? No, is the story the same? No, is it using movable type as it puts it on the, ah, there's the, I mean, it's a reality. So there's this claim that Sydney Rigdon has as part of this, right? But look at what it says in the original anti-Mormon book, you know, with Sydney Rigdon, Mormonism Unveiled.
Gerrit The plans of their deception seemed to have more fully matured after the meeting of Smith and Rigdon. The latter being very intimate with the scriptures, a close reasoner and as fully competent to make white appear black and black white as any other man. And at all times prepared to establish to the satisfaction of great numbers of people, the negative or the affirmative of any and every question from scripture. He was forthwith appointed to promulgate all the absurdities and ridiculous pretensions of Mormonism and call upon the holy prophets to prove all the words of Smith. So the person who is most desperate to destroy Mormonism so called in 1834 is saying that Sydney Rigdon didn't have anything to do with it beforehand, but once he becomes a part of it, he then lends his scripture knowledge to the ways that he defends Joseph.
Gerrit But I'll bet Eberhaus wrong about that because I just want him to be.
Richard Well, he's wrong about a lot.
Gerrit He is wrong about a lot of things. But back to the question that Matt has. So here's how you know whether historical argument is a good argument. Is there a historian with a PhD and publications in the topic making the argument? If they aren't, why aren't they? Okay, so let's say there's evidence that Sidney Rigdon just hurried and ran over there, found some obscure Joseph Smith. I mean, how do they even know each other? No one has any idea what Sidney Rigdon just received his own revelation that like, I guess I'm gonna go to some podunk town on the Erie Canal and find the Smith family and see if he's got plates and then I'll help him write. I mean, there's no evidence of any of this at all. So a historian deals in what sources actually exist.
Gerrit We are certainly aware that people do destroy their papers. People do try to prevent certain negative things from coming out. This is most especially apparent when it comes to politicians. Again, very hard to believe that politicians would attempt to control the narrative of how they're perceived.
Richard Not today, back then.
Gerrit Back then, in the 19th century, politicians would lie and cheat and steal.
Richard I feel like there's a great opportunity here. I made a comment about transitory inflation inciting Janet Yellen, and I didn't want this to turn political. I was just mentioning that she said later that she should not have said transitory. I feel it's very important to get that right.
Gerrit But under this argument that Matt is making, Janet Yellen would have had banned from the internet all of the words that would have said that she said.
Richard That she ever said transitory.
Gerrit Yeah, that's right. It is very, very, very difficult in history to make arguments without the evidence. Now, so someone could say something like, well, isn't it possible that Sidney Rigdon, you know, traveled to New York, met Joseph Smith, concocted the idea of writing the whole Book of Mormon, and even though he was present back in Ohio the entire time the Book of Mormon is being written, or maybe he wrote it before he went back, but how, I mean, there's no time frame there. Even though we have no sources that would help that argument, and even the very antagonists of the time are not making that argument, the only person who's going to make that today is someone who isn't a historian, someone who's trading on the what ifs and the possiblies, because all it is is unisom anti-Mormonism.
Gerrit It's whatever helps you sleep at night. I don't have a way to describe where the Book of Mormon came from. It's clearly beyond Joseph Smith's abilities. But what if Sydney Rigdon clan destinately snuck over there, wrote the whole thing with him and then went back and pretended to be converted when the missionaries came to him? Do you have any evidence of that at all? Well, it would just make it a lot easier to explain the Book of Mormon. Yeah, I guess that would. Except that Sydney Rigdon actually does try to expand on the Book of Mormon later in life. He claims to have received more of the Book of Mormon after he founds it's like four different churches that all fail. And it's not the Book of Mormon. So, I mean, even the premise is actually counteracted by the sources that exist. So historians don't engage in that. They don't engage in, oh, I'm sure that Ellen White must have not really believed that the Sabbath day was on Saturday, but told everyone that it was, but she destroyed her early journals that said that she knew that it wasn't on Saturday, and then only talked about the fact that it was on Saturday with her later journals.
Gerrit Historians don't do that. We do know that there are sometimes sources that are missing, like James Buchanan had most of his records destroyed.
Richard Chicago fire?
Gerrit No, James Buchanan fire. I mean, this is the same guy who led Buchanan's blunder, the person most responsible for the coming of the American Civil War, of any American president that there was. Yeah, not surprised. He doesn't want anyone to see what it is he had to say. But even knowing that, if I were to say something definitively like, James Buchanan ordered the army to Utah because he was trying to ensure that the Democrats could direct ideas away from their pro-slavery stance. Now, that's a plausible possibility, but it's not one for which I have a journal or a letter from him that says that. In this case, we're talking about something much more definitive. We don't have any records that have Joseph and Sidney meeting.
Gerrit Even people who are contemporary are saying that Sidney kind of took over Mormonism when he met. So historians make arguments that are plausible. They make arguments based upon sources. People on the internet make arguments based upon what they wish had happened. They don't have to follow the rules of academia, so they get to say whatever they want. But that's a good rule of thumb. If it's a good argument, it's not coming from the letter to the CES director. If it's a good argument, if it's a historical argument, it's coming from a historian. So if someone makes an argument about, oh, this is where the Book of Mormon actually came from, and there's not a Presbyterian professor of religious studies that is also making that argument, then it's not a very good argument.
Gerrit That's how you know.
Richard Is it possible that they're, I mean, they're making a historical argument, but they don't necessarily feel like it. They certainly don't know the rules, as you say, right? Because they're not a historian, but they feel maybe like they're making more of a religious argument or something like, what makes a person, like you call it unisom Mormonism.
Gerrit Anti-Mormonism.
Richard Right, because it helps them to be able to sleep at night.
Gerrit Helps them sleep at night.
Richard Explaining where these things come from, but it's just that they're so ignorant to what the rules even are, to where they would make an argument. I mean, the Sidney Rigdon argument lacks any evidence whatsoever. Why would somebody make that argument?
Gerrit Because it allows them to explain the unexplainable. I mean, it's the exact same thing that happens in the New Testament, right? Well, let's get his parents and find out if he was really born blind. Why? Because if we can find out that he wasn't actually born blind, now we have an explanation for why he suddenly can see. And that's the reason why the Sanhedrin's so upset when the guy says, yeah, and his parents say, yeah, he's born blind. It's a way to try to explain away the miracle without having to just say, well, I just don't believe. Because guess what? Well, I just don't believe is absolutely subjective. It is, you know, thank you for your opinion. It is duly noted. Tip of the cap. And you're on your way, right? There's that. Why would that person's opinion that I just don't believe carry any weight? That's why, look, you can believe or not believe. Everyone has the freedom of belief.
Gerrit Joseph Smith thought we should fight for the fact that everyone should have the ability to believe or not believe. But once you begin to make a historical argument for why you can't believe, you don't get to just throw the rules of history out the window in order to make your argument. I didn't force you to make a historical argument about why you don't believe. You can simply just say, I don't believe. But the moment you say, oh, it's obvious that Sydney Rigdon just wrote the Book of Mormon, well, guess what? It better actually be obvious, and there better actually be sources that are surrounding it because you're no longer making a religious argument. You're making a historical one, and historical arguments have to follow the rules of history.
Richard To paraphrase the documentary Happy Gilmore, now you're in my world, Grandma.
Gerrit You're in my world now, Grandma.
Richard You will go to sleep or I will put you to sleep.
Gerrit Yeah, can I get some warm milk? Helps me sleep before bed. Probably a lot of people listening are wishing they had some warm milk because they're also falling asleep based on this.
Richard Well, so as we're well into this now, we're not going to have time to play the clip. So maybe we set up a little bit of Dr. Philastus Hurlbut and Solomon Spaulding. If you want to set that up a little more, and then we can go into the next, the part two where we can dive right in.
Gerrit So we'll be playing a clip, but I think it's important to know. I'm leaving everybody hanging.
Richard That's what we do. It's a tease. We keep them coming back.
Gerrit If you are somebody who is struggling with your testimony, because there are aspects of church history that don't make sense to you, first and foremost, stop looking for answers from people who are not themselves experts. You wouldn't do that for any other aspect of your life. You would not have your car break down and go to someone who knows nothing about engines but really likes to drive cars to tell you what's wrong with your car. You'd go to a mechanic. You would not, if you got a toothache, you would not go find somebody who's good with power drills and say, hey, think maybe you could get this tooth out for me? You'd go to someone who is a trained and recognized expert. The problem when we have questions about our church history is that the most readily accessible answers come from the least reliable and least authoritative and least trained people.
Gerrit And frankly, that's the problem with the internet all the way around. Because it comes up first on a Google search is not in and of itself proof that it's a good argument. And we're easily deceived by these not good arguments. Why? Because they're things we haven't heard before. And so we mistake our lack of knowledge about the thing for that thing being true or false, depending on what it is we're talking about. What I'm asking is that if you're struggling with the church over church history topics, that you cease to try to find answers from sources that aren't trying to give you answers, but are trying to destroy your faith. Faith is a choice.
Gerrit Believing that Jesus was resurrected is not something that you believe because you can prove it. You believe it because it's true. The Church has produced Gospel Topics Essays. The Church has produced manuals that discuss many of these difficult topics. There are all kinds of resources from faithful scholars who can discuss these very difficult things. And if you want to still have that fire of faith, if you want to have some explanation, there are many credible places you can go. But the moment we start looking at non-credible places, at non-historians' arguments about our own history, it's not a surprise that quickly things start to fly out of focus, because the arguments they're making are not accurate arguments at all.
Gerrit So thanks so much for joining us, and I'm going to have to go take a nap or something, right?
Intro Yes.
Gerrit Yeah, okay. It's nap time on the Standard of Truth podcast. Thanks for your emails.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time!

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It's gonna be one of the few times in Richard's life history he's gonna be able to say, you know what, the French saved us.

GerritBanter

I knew that I was in trouble because my brother texted and said, I think that's the record number of times someone has used the word fornicator on the Standard of Truth podcast.

GerritBanter

But the sheer hypocrisy that I guess a lot of people don't realize as they do this is that the only reason you have a strong belief about, say, your Heavenly Mother is because Joseph Smith's a prophet.

GerritInsight

Someone who thinks that they can have the one but not the other has not thought very long about what it is they believe. They've just thought an awful lot about what they want to believe.

GerritInsight

Because you believe in the Book of Mormon, right? And I don't know that we have a whole lot of the original gold plates laying around.

GerritBanter

Yeah, our podcast is used in astronaut training.

RichardBanter

So one of the worst parts of claiming that words are word for word is when none of them are.

GerritBanter

People on the internet make arguments based upon what they wish had happened.

GerritInsight

You're making a historical one, and historical arguments have to follow the rules of history.

GerritInsight

Believing that Jesus was resurrected is not something that you believe because you can prove it. You believe it because it's true.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
The Church owns all the scrolls Joseph Smith used for the Book of Abraham.
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon secretly wrote the Book of Mormon together and hid the evidence.
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

You can't keep the Restoration's doctrines, like a Heavenly Mother or eternal marriage, while rejecting the prophet who revealed them.

Leaders are asked to testify of both Jesus Christ and the Prophet Joseph Smith; without the Restoration, we'd lose who we are and why we're here.

Historians argue from sources. A theory with no evidence, like Rigdon secretly writing the Book of Mormon, isn't history; it's what someone wishes had happened.

When you have questions, go to real experts and faithful resources like the Gospel Topics Essays, not the top Google result.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Gerrit goes hard in the paintHurlbut and Eber Howe send Gerrit into a blind rage; his brother counts a record number of "fornicators" (5:03, 33:05).
Richard and history datesHe knows what the Stasi is but not when the Napoleonic Wars were, and Yorktown is coming on the premium show (2:48, 8:38).
Free consulting for small businessesRichard offers to Zoom about your sales pipeline (1:09).
The dissertationBecky wants Tom, Richard's advisor, to stop making it good and let it be done (13:53).
Standard of Truth bingoMentioning the Stasi wins you the free space (8:51).
Patriarchal blessings, that's all you need to knowThe ward mission leader who strays from the core doctrines (24:23).
Chicago fire?Richard's answer to everything lost, plus the Bears and Caleb Williams (26:35, 27:41, 44:44).
Officer RMatt listened to 20 episodes without falling asleep; was he in Officer R's squad car? (34:00).
Unisom anti-MormonismThe Rigdon theory is whatever helps you sleep at night (42:20, 47:07).
Cut that outYou'll know whether they cut it by whether you're hearing it (22:02).
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
The 2020 Restoration Proclamation, read alongside the 1995 Family Proclamation (7:18).
President Holland's leadership training on testifying of Joseph Smith (16:34).
What happened to the Book of Abraham papyri after Nauvoo, ending in the Chicago fire (26:09).
Eber D. Howe's Mormonism Unvailed and what it does and doesn't claim about Sidney Rigdon (38:07).
Part 2 on Philastus Hurlbut and the Spaulding affidavits (49:40).
SOT Litner · S4E19.