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Misspelling LeDuc
S4E30 · Lectures on Faith and Joseph Smith Removed as Prophet Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 30 · 1:00:34

Lectures on Faith and Joseph Smith Removed as Prophet Part 1

The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants opened with the Lectures on Faith, which describe the Father as a personage of spirit, something the Church's own Guide to the Scriptures doesn't teach today.

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The question ·
My question is, did Joseph write the Lectures? Why was it removed? And do we know these things?
Aaron (listener)

A listener asks whether Joseph Smith wrote the Lectures on Faith and why they were removed from the Doctrine and Covenants. Gerrit explains that the 1835 edition was 'carefully selected' from the revelations and that the lectures, written in the plural, look like a group effort rather than Joseph's own drafting. He compares the lectures' teaching on the Godhead with what the Church teaches now and says that, like the Apocrypha, they hold good things but are outdated by later revelation. Ron, a retired attorney and former mayor, shares how a spiritual rebuke stopped him from spreading an unflattering polygamy chart. Then Dan asks about claims on X that God let Joseph die because he stopped practicing plural marriage. Gerrit traces that idea to the Reorganized Church's position and shows how the claim twists D&C 130's 'if thou livest until thou art 85.'

Who comes upJoseph SmithSidney RigdonJoseph F. SmithJoseph Smith IIIOrson HydeMarinda Hyde
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Misspelling LeDuc

The first email spells Richard's name wrong, then right.

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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, having made it unscathed through the fireworks, Professor Richard. Wow.
Richard Hello, Gerrit.
Gerrit I just stumbled over your name.
Richard I loved it.
Gerrit I said Rich Card.
Richard Oh, that's why I'm so glad you had me back.
Gerrit You know what, I think maybe we need to cut that out.
Richard No, no, no, it's great, it's great. In fact, the first email that we have, they misspelled my name, but then spelled it correctly. So maybe that was part of the thing. You were looking at the misspelling of the name, and then.
Gerrit The misspelling was your last name, and I said, Rich Card.
Richard Yes, but my friends call me that.
Gerrit They call you Rich Card? It's like a mixture of Slovenian and French, it's Rich Card?
Richard We're blowing up in Slovenia right now.
Gerrit Oh, really?
Richard Yeah, we are.
Gerrit Okay, well, it's good to know our numbers are huge there. It is funny, when you do a podcast, you get different charting things where they show you where you're charting. They send me random things, like, you're charting as the 170th podcast in Uzbekistan, which first of all, I didn't know we had any listeners in Uzbekistan.
Richard Yeah, isn't that weird?
Gerrit Second of all, Tajikistan was like 180th. 180th, I can't, right?
Richard They have 179 podcasts?
Gerrit Yeah, they have zero podcasts that anyone's allowed to listen to in Tajikistan. Like, they have one state-sponsored podcast, it's no others, it's why Tajikistan Premier is correct. There's nothing else.
Richard Dear Professor L. LeDuc. No, it's LeDuc, so he spells it incorrectly, L-A-D-U-K-E. No, it's LeDuc, ah, thanks, Google. I have heard before that the Lectures on Faith were possibly written by Sidney and not Joseph Smith. I would really love to know more insight that you two could provide into this. If it was authored by Joseph, or at least approved by him, that it would be more valid as revelation slash doctrine. It was a part of the Doctrine and Covenants and then at one point removed, and there must have been a good reason for it to be removed, I assume. My question is, did Joseph write the Lectures? Why was it removed? And do we know these things? Either way, the Lectures on Faith provides some great teachings. Thanks for keeping Gospel learning interesting. Spirit-filled and humorous. I love your guys' podcast, and ever so grateful for the Spirit revelation and teaching you both, and provided me as I listened to the podcast while working.
Richard Well, it's very nice.
Gerrit Who's that from?
Richard This is coming to us from someone. I cut their name off. I'll get the crack research staff on it.
Gerrit We'd like to thank so-and-so for emailing.
Richard I would like to, there is something that I, there's some frustration I'm hearing from the crack research staff. Many times you throw it to the crack research staff and then the crack research staff spends endless hours trying to find the information and then we never actually get back to it.
Gerrit So is it the podcast that's frustrated or the members of the research staff?
Richard Look, I'm trying to keep them from-
Gerrit From bolting the show.
Richard Well, I'm more concerned with a coup. I mean, they're a violent group, Gerrit. And so when we throw it to them-
Gerrit As most researchers are. Most researchers are either betting on Edmonton to make the comeback or they're ready to perform a violent coup.
Richard So just, I mean, it's one of those things, I'm not saying that we would ever do it again, but I believe this one comes from Aaron, by the way.
Gerrit So our crack research staff did come up with that.
Richard They got it back to me quickly. But I'm just saying, so in this particular case, and part of the reason is it's not your fault, because usually the crack research staff isn't looking up spiritual things. They're looking up when was frosted mini wheats.
Gerrit When was frosted mini wheats a thing?
Richard When did it become, and then they go down, you know, rabbit holes of just wheat branded cereal generally, and now they're in the 1800s.
Gerrit That actually makes sense. So because the crack research staff is only doing rabbit holes, it's hard for them to bounce back in.
Richard It's tough too, because this email was very nice, hitting on the spiritual and the history. Part of the problem is that if there's a joke to be made, that's usually where they're spending the majority of their time.
Gerrit The crack research staff spends a lot of time looking up humorous things.
Richard Per our commands.
Gerrit Yeah, right.
Richard But then you're down kind of a testimony track, and it's not necessarily the best time to...
Gerrit So I'm bearing testimony of the restoration, and you're like, hey, I found out when the Edsel became a car.
Richard That's what I'm saying. So I just wanted to relay that to you. Okay. Not that you do it very often or that it is gonna happen more and more, but...
Gerrit This is how empires fall, ladies and gentlemen. This is the beginning of the barbarians at the gate. And what's, I mean, you'd think that we'd take care of a matter like this off air, but no.
Richard Well, they just got back to me. They're very upset.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard So, but Aaron, thank you for the kind email.
Gerrit So this is a really good question, the Lectures on Faith. I would guess that most people have heard of the Lectures on Faith, and that many of you have even read manuals that quote it. You do see a lot with social media nowadays. You'll see like a quote that says, Joseph Smith, Lectures on Faith. And the question of authorship is one that has arisen in the more modern time period. It's important to understand where they come from and what happens to them over the course of time, and the reason why, at least what we might theorize, why they might be removed. They first come to us, and the reason why they're so widely known, because you might be thinking, well, Joseph said a lot of things. How is it that there's all of these that are quoted all of the time? I mean, people aren't quoting from his journal all the time, unless that part of his journal is cut out and made a section of the Doctrine and Covenants. And that's because the Lectures on Faith were first published in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.
Gerrit Now, talking about the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, we've talked about it before, but that was many, many years ago, long before we had the dozens and dozens of listeners that we do now. And long before most of the missionary manpower of the church was listening to the Google Drive of Tetzel's pretzels, talking about the sale of indulgences. We tend to view the word doctrine as, and look, it gets defined variously. Every other conference, you have someone defining it as something that is eternal and unchanging, but then you also have church-making statements that there are some doctrines that are more important than others. We tend to view it as something being definitive, but the 19th century definition for doctrine is really close to the current definition of doctrine in the world today. And that is teaching.
Gerrit That's what it means, is teaching. We often think of the name Doctrine and Covenants, meaning, well, this is the absolute true teaching, and then also, by the way, there's some covenants. That's not how they use those words. They use the word covenant and revelation and commandment interchangeably. That gives you an idea of how they see the word covenant, how they see these revelations. They see them as a two-part thing. This is God telling you, you need to do something, and by the way, you better do it. So if we read the title page of the Doctrine and Covenants from 1835, this is what it says. The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter-day Saints, carefully selected from the revelations of God. So I've made that point before. We sometimes think that every revelation Joseph ever had was published in the Doctrine and Covenants. The title of the Doctrine and Covenants specifically tells you that that's not what the book is.
Gerrit It is carefully selected from the revelations of God. What does that title mean? It means that there are revelations from God that were not selected to be published in this book. That doesn't mean they're not revelations, and it doesn't mean that they're not true. It means that they weren't selected. Just like a selected works of William Shakespeare is not claiming that the Tempest wasn't written by him because it's not in that selected work. So first and foremost, the Doctrine and Covenants is designed to have some of Joseph's revelations in it, but not all of them. As compiled by Joseph Smith, Jr., Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams, presiding elders of said church. So Joseph's name is listed first, which you would expect, but that's also the reason why Joseph is attributed authorship, because it's compiled by him.
Gerrit Now, if you read the preface to the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, this is going to be different than the Doctrine and Covenants preface that you read today, to the members of the Church of the Latter-day Saints. Dear brethren, we deem it to be unnecessary to entertain you with a lengthy preface to the following volume, but merely to say that it contains, in short, the leading items of the religion which we have professed to believe. The first part of the book will be found to contain a series of lectures as delivered before a theological class in this place. That place is Kirtland. And in consequence of their embracing the important doctrine of salvation, we have arranged them into the following work. So first and foremost, there's your first description of what the Lectures on Faith are. When I say the first part of the book, the doctrine part of the book is the Lectures on Faith.
Gerrit And that's what the book, the Doctrine and Covenants of 1835 starts with. The first portion is those Lectures on Faith. And you'll notice that they are writing in the plural there. We deem it unnecessary. These Lectures were delivered. We have arranged them. So the reason why they are attributed to Joseph Smith is because Joseph Smith is the first author on the book in which they are published. But you can tell by the introduction that at least the arranging of them is a collective effort by the multiple authors. The second part of the book contains items or principles for the regulation of the church as taken from the revelations which have been given since its organization, as well as from former ones. So the point is the first part of the book are theological lectures that they think are important, that they're giving to the church as a kind of a study guide.
Gerrit The second part are the actual covenants that Joseph Smith received. We have therefore, I'm skipping a little bit. We have therefore endeavored to present, though in a few words, our belief. And when we say this, humbly trust the faith and principles of this society as a body, talking about the church. Then they sign it. With sentiments of esteem and sincere respect, we subscribe ourselves, your brethren in the bonds of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Ridge and Fr. Hugh Williams. And then it just goes right into theology. First lecture on the doctrine of the church of the Latter-day Saints. So there's a couple of problems here, right? We know that all these lectures were delivered before 1835, since they're published in the, this is one of the easier parts of history to do.
Richard No, I see.
Gerrit Yeah, can you give me a range of when these lectures were delivered before 1835? Are you certain? I'm pretty certain. Pretty certain that they had to be delivered before 1835 because they are published in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. And they aren't published elsewhere before that. So this is where they're published. And they are going to remain in the front part of the Doctrine and Covenants as, you know, Aaron opined or questioned until the 1921 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. Then they will be removed and the Doctrine and Covenants will take the format and will look the way that it does today, much more so than it did in the 1835 edition. As to, so that's how the attribution is given to Joseph. It's given to Joseph because, well, it's a Lectures on Faith. It's got to be from Joseph then. And plus, Joseph's the first named author of the book. But it doesn't claim, the book itself doesn't claim to be from Joseph.
Gerrit Others have argued, well, you know, Joseph isn't the only person teaching in the school in the School of the Prophets or in a theological school in Kirtland. It could be from any of them. Clearly, it is approved for publication by Joseph, Oliver, Sidney and Vergeer G. Williams. So some people have opined that maybe these were Lectures that were originally delivered by Sidney Rigdon. Some have even said maybe some were done by, you know, Parley Pratt, maybe some were done by Oliver Cowdery. There are these questions about it. And again, it's all trying to get to who actually delivered this when the source itself doesn't tell you. There are some people who feel very strongly about it. We know that this was Joseph Smith. Historians don't know. Historians might say, you know, it likely was Joseph. From a historian's perspective, if it is Joseph, it is heavily, heavily, heavily edited, which you would expect for something that's being published to the church, meaning it's not written the way that Joseph writes.
Gerrit So this is certainly not Joseph sat down and drafted this the way he does a letter. We can take a Joseph Smith letter from 1833 and compare it to the Lectures on Faith, and they are not very similar. So at the very least, there's some type of editing that's going on there. And like I said, some people feel incredibly strongly about it, but the Church History Department doesn't come down on it and say, obviously the Lectures on Faith were written by Joseph Smith. They are published under his name as one of the multiple compilers of the Doctrine and Covenants for sure. But that's not the same thing, and that's not what people mean when they say Joseph Smith said, when you hear people quote the Lectures on Faith, they say Joseph Smith said. That's what you hear people say. But the reality is that it's not definitive that Joseph Smith is the author of it.
Gerrit There are people who claim one thing, there are people who claim the other. There are lots of people who feel strongly about it. But the church itself in the Joseph Smith Papers is not making an argument. There are lots of people that make different arguments. Let me put it that way. So what happens to it? Well, over the course of time, these lectures that are just delivered in essentially a Sunday school, imagine if you had a Sunday school manual from 1870. No doubt, there would be some really cool things in there, and there'd be some great teachings, and it would be very helpful. It would also say that polygamy has been commanded by God and that members of the church should be practicing it.
Gerrit But that's not true anymore, is it? So this is part of the problem when you belong to a church that has an unfolding, continuing revelation, that what's true at one point might not actually be true. This is especially true in the early history of the church, where God is continuing to unveil to Joseph revelations that add upon our understanding. So I don't know definitively why it's taken out in 1921. But my guess is it's because these lectures were given so early on in the church's history that, you know, they talk all about salvation and about, you know, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost being required for it, but they don't talk anything about receiving a temple endowment because they were given before there was a temple endowment. And you can see how someone might argue against a temple endowment by quoting a Lectures on Faith.
Gerrit Lecture on Faith just says you have to be baptized to be saved. Yeah, because that's what was needed in 1833. And then God gave more light and knowledge, right? So now it's no longer just that. Let me give you an example of where you might not feel that the Lectures on Faith exactly comport to the way things are being taught today. If we go to the fifth Lecture, this is a Lecture that's surrounding the Godhead. Question, how many personages are there in the Godhead? Answer, two, the Father and the Son. Now, Richard, what do you think about that answer?
Richard Well, I think that the Holy Ghost would like a word.
Gerrit And, you know, he would probably tell you in your mind and in your heart?
Richard He would. He would tell you in your mind. I think I've told this story as a friend of mine that went to a Hmong-speaking mission. And he said that now this is, you and I, we discuss the Hmong language frequently.
Gerrit Oh, yes.
Richard Constantly.
Gerrit Very tonal.
Richard It is. But so that he claims that they didn't have a word for heart and so the closest that they would come to is liver. And so when he would be bearing his testimony, as he's teaching in Hmong, he would say, the Lord will tell you in your mind and in your liver that these things are true. And that always makes me laugh. Now, perhaps listeners could let us know, and if my friend was perhaps stretching the truth, I want that story to be true more than anything. I tell it frequently. But yes, I believe the Holy Ghost would tell most folks in their mind and in their heart, and for the Hmong speakers in their mind and in their liver, that in fact, He is part of the Godhead.
Gerrit Right. Okay. So we can go to the Church's website right now and go to Guide to the Scriptures. We can look up Godhead. What will it say? There are three separate persons in the Godhead. God, the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. We believe in each of them. Or if you go to Articles of Faith 1, we believe in God, the Eternal Father, and His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. I'm not saying that the Lectures on Faith are claiming that we don't believe in the Holy Ghost. That's not what it's saying. But the way of talking about deity, clearly in the Lectures, doesn't reference it the same way.
Richard So that is actually an interesting point. When does the Holy Ghost enter into this discussion of transition into Godhead?
Gerrit Even in this, even in this Lecture, they are going to talk about him as being part of the Godhead. But again, in that direct question, how many personages are there in the Godhead to the Father and the Son, right? If we go to another part of it, it will say this, that the foregoing of the account, the foregoing account of the Godhead, which is given in his revelations, the saints have a sure foundation laid for the exercise of their faith and a life and salvation. So the saints, I'm going to skip down, the saints are to be one in them through the love of the Father, the mediation of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. They are to be heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Notice how this is described, again, this is in Lecture 5. What is the Father? He is a personage of glory and power. Question, how do you prove that the Father is a personage of glory and power?
Gerrit Okay, and you got all these scriptures that are there. So, glory and power, okay, I think we can all go along with that. What is the Son? First, he is a personage of tabernacle. Now, don't you notice that that's a little bit separate from what God, the Father, was declared as being?
Richard It seems like 3rd Nephi would say that he's now similar to the Father.
Gerrit Or in the Doctrine and Covenants itself, where the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's, the Son also. So already you can see that revelations are clarifying what was being taught. And there are all these scriptures that are given.
Richard So that revelation has received how much?
Gerrit In Nauvoo. So 10 years? More than that. Roughly that. I guess I don't know when the lecture was given.
Richard We know it was before 1835.
Gerrit Exactly. So at least 6 or 7 years later. What do you do now that you have what someone might construe as a contradiction?
Richard That's an interesting point. When you read that, the first thing I think of is when Jesus is appearing to the Nephites, he's going through the Sermon on the Mount, he changes the language at the end of one of the chapters, even as your father or myself, in terms of perfect, complete whole. That's the first thing I go to, but I'm only going there because I have the reference to the Doctrine and Covenants, which is incredibly explicit in terms of what it's describing.
Gerrit So let's go to another question. Do the father and the son possess the same mind? That's kind of a mind. What do you mean? Do they think the same things? Or does that mean literally they have the same mind? Well, we just said that they're separate, so probably not. But let's go on. They do. Christ can do of mine own self nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my own will, but the will of my father who sent me. For I, Christ, came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. I, Christ, and my father are one. You can see that one of the major points of this lecture is not to delineate the Godhead the way that Joseph will later in his later revelations, but to say the oneness of the Godhead is figurative and purpose, not literal, right? You can see that, because that's what they, what are they trying to teach people? Every single person who is joining the church is a Trinitarian.
Gerrit Every single person. So what are you going to spend your time on? It's like Richard pulling out talks on adultery in the 1960s and 70s. Why do you think we got so many talks on adultery? It's not because chastity skyrocketed. It's because the church is trying, the Lord through the church is trying to respond to the actual questions of the day. These lectures are primarily trying to help Christians who are joining the church understand that the way you think about the Father and the Son is not correct.
Richard I love the idea of in the 60s and 70s, and Eldon Tanner is saying, you guys are doing great. You guys are doing great not having adultery.
Gerrit Good job.
Richard Yeah, and that I'm miscounting his talks on adultery because he's just saying, you guys are doing so great not having it.
Gerrit Things are fine. Good job not having adultery again. But notice how confusing this question becomes. What is this mind? Do they have the same mind? What is this mind? Answer. The Holy Spirit. Feeling as comfortable with that one?
Richard Good estimates.
Gerrit Now, they go on to try to explain what that means because the Holy Spirit testifies of Christ. And then it says, Do the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit constitute the Godhead? They do. But I just asked you how many personages were in the Godhead, and the answer was two.
Richard You're building up to it.
Gerrit I think that the argument is about whether or not the Holy Spirit is a personage.
Richard Interesting.
Gerrit Which Joseph is, of course, going to spend all kinds of time on. I don't know who gave this lecture, okay? So this might just reflect what that person thinks at the time as they're trying to come to grips with not being a Trinitarian. But I think we can all agree that the statement that the Holy Spirit is the mind of God and Jesus is not exactly what we teach today. It would be confusing.
Richard It would be. So are you kind of saying that Lectures on Faith is kind of the apocrypha in terms of there's some good stuff there, but you kind of need to use the mind of God to be able to figure out what's true and not?
Gerrit Look at how we started to treat the Scriptures, right? We started to treat the Scriptures as being definitive over and above all things. Well, it's one thing if it's just a theological lecture from a Sunday school manual from Kirtland in the 1833. Then if they don't have everything right, it's pretty easy for us to just say, Yep, because God hadn't revealed everything yet. We do that with everything. Like, why did Joseph think that Alvin wasn't going to go to the celestial kingdom? Because God hadn't revealed everything yet. There's nothing nefarious about Joseph. He just hadn't had the revelation yet that everyone could go to the celestial kingdom even if they weren't baptized in this life. And you can't expect prophets to know things before they know them. The problem is, as I've said many times, we desperately want to be Protestants. We wish with all of our might that we were Protestants, that we could have some kind of manual that has every answer there is to every single question right in front of us, that there's the scriptures.
Gerrit I think that's the reason why we all loved things like Mormon doctrine, you know, that I want definitive answers to everything and I want it written down and the written word trumps everything else. Except that's not the church we belong to. We belong to a church where prophetic utterance, written or not, trumps everything else. And so you can see why with that mindset, that if it's in the scriptures, it's more true than if it's not, that you might start having some problems with some of the phraseologies from these very early teachings when Joseph received dozens and dozens of revelations since then. I mean, it's already problematic that the Lectures on Faith, talking about what we believe, don't talk about eternal marriage or temple work. If you were to ask someone today, what are some of the essential teachings of the church outside of Jesus Christ? Obviously, that's the most essential. But what are some of the essential doctrines of the church?
Gerrit You would say temple work and eternal marriage, eternal family.
Richard Like half of the last conference addresses mentioned temples. And by the way, Jesus as the connection through that, but still, right?
Gerrit Right, right. So is this a good representation of what our doctrine teaches now? I'm not saying that this was false when it was taught. And it was probably incredibly helpful when it was taught, as it helped move people away from their false Trinitarian belief that they would have been taught for the last 1,800 years. Well, maybe 1,750. I don't know. I don't know when the last Apostle is going to, you know, when's John stopping holding court? I don't know. But the reality of the situation is there are problematic things in the Lectures on Faith, while there's some really cool teachings. And so I don't know this. So please understand, I'm not putting words in the mouth of the prophets. You know, I'm not saying this is why Heber J. Grant had it taken. I don't know. They don't state why, but it is removed. And if you had to ask me, why do you think it possibly could have been removed?
Gerrit This is what I would say. A lot of the teachings in it are outdated when compared to the later revelations of Joseph Smith. Does that mean everything in it is false? No. So person writing me the email right now telling me that I'm a terrible person for saying that they're false. I'm not saying that.
Richard I'll stop typing it.
Gerrit What I'm saying is they were once in the Doctrine and Covenants, and a prophet had them removed. So whatever they have in them that is good, it's important to recognize that it was a prophet that made the decision to have them removed. I don't think he was saying because everything in there is false. I think because we are more definitive in our doctrine now based upon decades and decades and decades of prophetic utterance. Like I said, you will find people who feel really strongly that Joseph Smith was the sole author of them. You'll find people that feel really strongly that Sidney Rigdon was the sole author. You'll find people that allege other people. The book itself doesn't allege any of those things. It uses the term we. And it says that these lectures were delivered at a theological school and doesn't say when and it doesn't say by whom.
Gerrit So I think that's an important thing to know.
Richard I think we'll put the link to what the Church says about the Lectures on Faith, which I think will be helpful to those that want to.
Gerrit Why don't you read what the Church says about it? How about this crack research staff? So normally, you know, shout out to the crack research staff.
Richard Well, so really quick before we get into what the Church says about the Ford Etzel, by the way, it was brought up in September 4th, 1957, named after Etzel Ford, Henry Ford's only child who died of stomach cancer when he was 49 years old. So very sad. His father died four years later, and then about eight or so years later, the Ford Etzel came out. The Crack Research staff wanted to really bring it, even though it was a throwaway line that you had.
Gerrit Right, just to show all the work they do.
Richard They are doing it. It's a team. It's just a team.
Gerrit You can tell just by listening to us that we have hundreds of full-time paid employees that make us sound better than we are.
Richard So it's a little bit longer. Now, again, when I read emails, because of my failing eyesight, I read it on 46 or 48 font. I think this is 12, so if you think I do poorly when it's on emails, you're about to get it.
Gerrit It's about to get worse.
Richard The publication of the Lectures on Faith in the Doctrine and Covenants elevated its status among church members. In the early 20th century, however, church leaders became increasingly concerned about some of the statements in the Lectures on Faith. For example, I'm actually about to... Look at that. You didn't look at this before. I didn't. How about that?
Gerrit Look at that.
Richard I don't know that anyone believes it, but that didn't happen.
Gerrit No one believes anything I say. What difference does it make now?
Richard For example, the fifth Lecture speaks of the Father as a personage of spirit, which seems to contradict Joseph Smith's teaching expressed in 1843, several years after the Lectures were given.
Gerrit How about that?
Richard That's what I'm saying. Not bad.
Gerrit Oh, man.
Richard Not bad, buddy. That the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man. Elder James E. Talmage, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who led the committee that revised the 1921 Doctrine and Covenants, felt that it would be best to avoid confusion and lectures, and avoid confusion and contention on this vital point of belief. In addition, the Lectures had not been accepted by the Church as anything other than theological lessons. Talmage's committee argued, based on these recommendations, the Lectures on Faith were dropped from the Doctrine and Covenants. Even after the removal from the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lectures on Faith have been studied frequently by missionaries and other Church members. In reprinted editions and Church publications, sometimes quotes from Lectures, a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, a frequently quoted line reads, never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.
Richard That is actually one of my favorites. Now, there's additional things about authorship, which they also state is unclear, but kind of to your particular point.
Gerrit So the Church's position is we don't know, but they do give you a little bit of an explanation, kind of like...
Richard To avoid confusion and contention.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, because when things are in the Scriptures, people take them as being far more definitive. And it's great when you're using that quote as being definitive. But what happens when someone says, oh, yeah, you're right, those Lectures are amazing. Here it says God is a Spirit. Now what? You know, because when you pick up a stick, you can only pick it up so far before you're picking up both ends of the stick.
Richard That's great. All right. Well, so now...
Gerrit We're going to transition to another... Yeah, transition to another... I know that was a lot of Lectures on Faith, but let's...
Richard Well, no, you actually received texts recently. Several emails on that. So...
Gerrit So now everyone's wondering, how do I text him?
Richard So, this next email comes to us from Ron. Ron, by the way, has been a mayor of nearly every city that he has ever lived in, I believe. He is an accomplished gentleman, and it is an honor to have him as a...
Gerrit Why in the world is he listening to us?
Richard That's actually the question.
Gerrit We have a question for you, Ron. Why are you listening?
Richard So, the subject is, My Epiphany to Ignore polygamy Question. You know what?
Gerrit Ron's on my side, everybody.
Richard That's right.
Gerrit Ron's on my side.
Richard Faithful listener here from the center of Silicon Valley, Your reluctance to discuss polygamy reminds me of an epiphany I had many years ago. I decided to do an analysis regarding the polygamy details of a prior church leader, not Brigham Young. The result was a visual chart that was not very flattering. As I was about to share it with a fellow member of the church, I had a distinct spiritual reprimand with two separate messages. One, you do not know what you are talking about. First of all, if more people...
Gerrit The humility of Ron, having been clearly a successful leader both in the church and politically his whole life. The humility to even hear those words. Ron, you are a far better person than I will ever be. This is the reason why I'm not a mayor. Or a church leader.
Richard Well, so it is... This is actually one of your main frustrations. And actually will lead into a very specific series of answers that you're likely going to be giving...
Gerrit Claiming authority for things that you are not an actual authority of.
Richard So, and by the way, we now know of at least two former mayors that listen... We have Paul and we have Ron. I know we are huge in the political scene.
Gerrit Are they all former mayors because they listen to the podcast and that gets them drummed out? Or are we causing them to be former mayors?
Richard I don't know. It's a very small sample size. But I mean, if I was to guess, I would say certainly.
Gerrit It's got to be political death for people to find out that you listen to the podcast.
Richard Number two. Again, I just can't state what a great answer or what... Well, of course, now this is the Lord telling Ron. So, anyway, the Lord's doing great, by the way.
Gerrit Good job.
Richard Through the mind of the Lord, through the Holy Ghost. If you share it with others, number two, if you share it with others, you'll be confronted by and have to explain your actions to that prior church leader for the damage you're about to do. Okay. Could you imagine that?
Gerrit That's a strong impression.
Richard I assume it was Orson Hyde. Needless to say, I destroyed the results and my attitude about polygamy completely changed. Keep it up. By background, I like to think of myself as a rather rational, faithful member of the church, retired attorney, married 52 years, temple worker, prior bishop, and then a list of most towns and cities in and around the Oakland, San Francisco area. He's an incredibly accomplished.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Ron's doing it.
Gerrit Well, I love this, Ron. I love the fact that you had already put in time, that you already felt a certain way and you're so close to God that when you felt the spirit tell you, hey, you're wrong about this, that you listened. Man, I wish more people were far more worried about what the Lord had to say to them than what they wanted to tell God about what they know. I wish that were the case.
Richard We actually now, speaking of that, what a great setup, Ron, transition to something dealing with polygamy where someone may do the exact opposite of this.
Gerrit This seems like a real problem.
Richard This almost seems like it was produced. It almost does.
Gerrit It almost does, except that we all know that it wasn't because you're obviously listening to the podcast. So Ron, I really appreciate it. And one of the only people who's emailed me in support of me holding off until well beyond season 38. And yet we got an email that I feel like we need to respond to, and it involves plural marriage. So against all better judgment, taking Ron's example and throwing it out the window, because I'm clearly not Ron, I'm going to attempt to talk about an answer. Now I got to warn everybody. I will likely become agitated.
Richard You're wearing a shirt and you're wearing pants that will soon you will turn into the Hulk.
Gerrit The shirt will be ripped off and you'll have G-Shorts. We're already well into this episode, so we're not going to be able to talk much about it in this episode. So we're going to have to leave you on a cliffhanger and give you the second part of it later, because there's no way I'm fitting this in in the time.
Richard But we'll get as far as we can go and then we'll say, all right, randomly, here's a cut off and see you next week. We received an email. Sometimes we receive emails and those emails turn into multi-part episodes, multi-parters that I deny that we ever do, even though we do lots and lots of multi-parters. This particular email kind of has a list of some kind of quicker hits that actually go through a lot of things that boil your blood.
Gerrit They got my dander up.
Richard They get your dander, your blood, your dander, all of the things.
Gerrit Everything's up.
Richard Everything's up. And so I think we'll just kind of jump into it and let you go. Now the email comes from a listener, Dan, and the subject is, you guys are the worst.
Gerrit Well, that's why I got mad. Well, actually, that was the most endearing part of the email. It was. It was.
Richard And he was, you know, that's in all caps. And then the email begins, at making a bad podcast. Oh, aha, aha, where's the spoon? So anyway, well done, Dan. Love the show, saw the quoted section below on Twitter and wanted to, X for those that, you know, I also call it Twitter, and wanted to know if it was accurate from the perspective of a real historian. So there's a claim by an individual who's parroting other things that other people might say from time to time that are frustrating, and the idea is, how do these things land as it relates to a real historian? Is this garbage?
Gerrit Right.
Richard And then there's a million of them.
Gerrit Well, so, but the, we are kind of, we are kind of breaking the, the fourth wall here. I mean, because we have a standing policy on the show, and that is that we try not to deal with topics that can't be dealt with in an hour podcast, even if it's over a five podcast stretch, because the reality is some topics are so complex that trying to deal with them actually just doesn't deal with them at all. You might recall that, oh, some time ago, we decided to deal with one very specific antagonistic attack on the church surrounding Miranda Hyde and her plural marriage to Joseph Smith. And because that's so prominent in people's accusations that they false accusations that they made against Joseph, and we decided that we'd cover it because it was it was contained.
Gerrit It was something that, look, people are claiming that Joseph Smith sent Orson Hyde on a mission to marry his wife. Here's what the sources actually are surrounding it.
Richard Right. And we received many, many emails on that topic as well.
Gerrit Yeah. So we weren't just making it up ourselves. But it still was the reality that it was it was it's such a complex question surrounding anything that has to do with plural marriage. That we also had people respond to that, even though, you know, I said, look, I'm well aware that there's many other instances of plural marriage and that there's many other questions. In order to answer any of them, you can't answer all of them. In fact, anyone who tells you that they can answer all the questions about plural marriage in a one hour podcast or even a series of one hour podcasts is selling you something because you can't, there's too many moving parts. There's too many moving pieces in this to be able to answer every question surrounding it. So we kind of have, you know, we have an ongoing joke that in season 38, we'll devote the season to talking about plural marriage. We occasionally have people say, you know what, wait till season 39.
Gerrit We have some people trying to move it up to season 15. What season are we in right now? Season four, season four, so you'll be a, you'll, you'll notice that season four and season 38 are not the same thing. But sometimes you get an email that makes you respond a little bit. And so this question is one that, that is bothersome to me. And I think it originates from a place of someone who's a believer. I mean, Dan's obviously a believer, but I mean, he read it somewhere and I think it originates from someone who has their own personal beliefs, but also is a believer in the church. But these are the kinds of things that arise when people are trying to make everything work out just right for them. You know, so what I mean by that is I want to have certain political beliefs, but I also want to believe this about the church.
Gerrit But I also want to believe this socially, but I also want to believe this about the church. And when we try to shove everything that we believe into the realm of the church, especially when we're talking about historical issues from the past, what you end up doing is creating a kind of Frankenstein monster, that Dr. Frankenstein has sewed together different parts. But what you have in the end is not actually what happened. And so I think that's where this originates. I don't know the person involved, but these types of questions are growing among Latter-day Saint faithful. And so because of that, I felt like maybe I need to respond to it for our listener. And in case anyone else is listening, I mean, I don't know. I mean, how many people are listening nowadays?
Richard Well, you got Rachel's mom, you got your mom.
Gerrit My mom downloads it multiple times. She does.
Richard We have a bunch of missionaries listening to The Premium for free.
Gerrit Because they don't have any other options.
Richard That's what Rigdon says. My son, when you have nothing else to do, it's okay. High praise indeed. So six, seven.
Gerrit Yeah, six or seven people are going to hear this. But anyway, first of all, the question I think is what is hard for me. Did God let Joseph Smith die because Joseph couldn't obey the plural marriage commandment? So the question that this person believes they are answering is, well, why did Joseph Smith die in 1844? Is it because God commanded him to practice plural marriage and he couldn't? Now, I think one of the reasons why this was problematic for me is the person then, as you would expect on an X posting, the person then laid out things in a bullet point as if they were indisputable facts that all historians agree on and therefore if you just believe X and you believe Y, then you have to believe Z. Those are always the most problematic, especially when you're talking about a very complex case. And when you do it definitively and you're wrong about some of the things you're presenting as your evidence, well then, you know, that's a problem.
Gerrit So, first of all, did God let Joseph Smith die because Joseph couldn't obey the plural marriage commandment? It implies what? What's the implication of that question? That Joseph Smith did not practice plural marriage, right? Because if he had practiced plural marriage, then he wouldn't have died. So the underlying statement that the person is making is that Joseph Smith didn't practice plural marriage. Now, this is very different than some of the other claims that people make because there's entire apostate movements within our church right now that claim Joseph Smith never taught and never practiced polygamy. They essentially adopt the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints line from 50 years ago, well, from 100 years ago, and they regurgitate it over and over again, even though the reorganized Church itself no longer claims that. So they're taking the evidence that the reorganized Church used and claiming what the reorganized Church no longer claims to be true.
Richard But there's an additional piece to that too, in that almost assuming that Joseph's a fallen prophet because he wouldn't do it?
Gerrit Well, so the first place where that starts is actually in a long running back and forth between Joseph Smith. We had our good friend of the show, Tanya, emailed asking about the relationship between the cousins, Joseph F. Smith and Joseph Smith III. I mean, you know, they were cousins. They did grow up part of their lives together. I mean, Joseph Smith III was older, you know, but they separate relatively early because by the time that Joseph F. Smith is an eight-year-old, he's leaving to head with his mother to Utah with the rest of the Saints, whereas Joseph Smith III is staying behind. So the question she asked was, what's some of the relationship between them? Do we have a counseling? Do we have a counseling? Well, we do have multiple accounts of them visiting one another, as well as multiple accounts of them.
Gerrit They write incredibly lengthy letters to one another, both asserting their positions surrounding who has the truth. And in fact, one of those places, well, the biggest place they contend over is over polygamy. And so there's a 38-page letter that Joseph Smith III writes to Joseph F. Smith. And they're going back and forth on whether or not it was taught, whether or not, all of those things. And at one point, Joseph Smith III even says to Joseph F. Smith, because Joseph F. Smith collects all of these affidavits of all of the women who practiced it, all of these affidavits of all the people who performed the sealings, all of these statements in contravention to the argument that it was never practiced. And so, Joseph Smith III in some ways relents a little bit, because the amount of evidence is just, we're not talking like four people were sitting outside of an Arby's and said, you know what, I'd like to get the roast beef sandwich and also Joseph Smith practiced polygamy.
Gerrit We're talking about dozens and dozens and dozens of people. And so, faced with that evidence, Joseph Smith III's response was, even if my dad did teach and practice it, he would have been wrong in his teaching and practicing of it. And that actually became a kind of quasi-official line for the Community of Christ slash Reorganized Church. Even today, if you talk to some of their higher ranking leaders, it's not uncommon to get an answer that, yes, Joseph Smith practiced polygamy, but it was a mistake, and he realized it was a mistake, and so he stopped practicing it. But they're at least acknowledging that he did, right? So, how would I prove that he thought it was a mistake? I mean, you could always make the argument, well, he stopped being sealed to as many people in early 1844, so therefore, he realized it was a mistake before he died and repented of it.
Gerrit There's no statement to that effect. There's no evidence to that effect. The women who are married to him are still married to him, but that's at least the argument. The argument is, yes, Joseph did it. Joseph realized it wasn't right, and Joseph stopped. But that's very different than what this question is. Because this question is, did God let Joseph die in Carthage Jail because Joseph couldn't obey the commandment, meaning he never practiced it, right? So here's what this person lists off. What do we know? Joseph was told if he lived to be 85, he'd see the Second Coming. And then they cite Doctrine and Covenants, section 130, verse 15. First of all, I'm going to have to throw my first flak. Okay? That is an assertion of what Joseph was told, that if he lived to be 85, he'd see the Second Coming. So let's go check our source on that. Let's see, what was Joseph actually told?
Gerrit Let's start with verse 14. I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man. This is clearly something Joseph has on his mind and he's asking repeatedly about this. When I heard a voice repeat the following, Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man. Now notice how that was different than what I just read. Joseph was told if he lived to be 85, he'd see the Second Coming. That's an assertion that if Joseph Smith was still alive, the Second Coming would have happened. The Second Coming would have happened. Not some other appearance. The actual Second Coming that we're all anxiously awaiting right now, and that Richard just is waiting for the fourth feather of the seventh horn to drop, right?
Richard And also, I want to go to that Arby's you're talking about.
Gerrit What people are having conversations about? I mean, they've got a great French dip sandwich.
Richard They do, and their cheddar melt is amazing.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, we're not sponsored by them, although I'm pretty sure that it's not part of the Arby's. I'm pretty sure it's not part of their marketing campaign, Arby's, when you want to figure out whether or not Joseph Smith practiced polygamy.
Richard One of my favorite Arby's related... I don't mean to interrupt the middle of the polygamy discussion. We were going as a family to somewhere to eat. It was Parker's turn to pick. Parker picked Arby's. Two of my kids started to cry.
Gerrit There's also the great... One of the greatest Simpson lines of all time is the kids are all stranded on a desert island. Their school bus crashes, they're all stranded on the... It's like Lord of the Flies. They have no food, and they're sitting around talking about how hungry they are. And one of them is like, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. I'm so hungry I could eat an Arby's. And they're like, wow, she really is hungry. I actually like Arby's. I do too. Yeah, I don't know where all the Simpsonate comes from. They also don't like Mountain Dew. No, they don't. Because there's either Mountain Dew or crab juice. Oh, gross, I'll take the crab juice. So, that's very important. Look, when you're analyzing, when someone is making a historical truth claim, because he said, what do we know? Joseph was told if he lived to 85, he'd see the Second Coming. That's a definitive statement. That Joseph was told if he lived to 85, the Second Coming would occur.
Gerrit That means we could date out when the Second Coming was going to happen, right? But when we go to the source, Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man. So, he'll see Jesus. Now, granted, when the Second Coming occurs, we will all see Jesus, but Joseph is also someone who has multiple times seen Jesus, and it wasn't yet the Second Coming. Therefore, let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter. Verse 16 is pretty key. I was left thus without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing or whether I should die and thus see his face. So my first problem with this is Joseph Smith doesn't know what that statement from the voice meant.
Gerrit But luckily, this person on X does. The prophet doesn't know what it means. The prophet provides multiple possible meanings of it. But don't worry, he's cut through it all. He's going to help Joseph out a little bit and going to let Joseph know exactly what he meant. He meant the Second Coming. That's what he meant. Well, Joseph said that he doesn't really know what he meant. No, no, it meant Second Coming though. That's what it meant. Okay, well, thank you for your newfound enlightenment. What else can you tell Joseph about his life? Are there other things that you happen to have some kind of great insight in that you know that Joseph doesn't know? So look, I know that that seems like I'm being overly harsh, but look, when you create a list of things we know from history and you are totally wrong about the first item you list, it's time to stop the post because you're not even right on your first assertion. And as I said, we're not going to have time to go through all of this.
Gerrit So that may be a good place to stop because my dander is already making a claim about the Prophet Joseph Smith and whether or not he did what God wanted him to do is a, I think it's fair to say it's a trigger for me. And so in our part two of this episode, which if I don't get rid of this, there won't be a part two if we strike this from existence. And then I guess you just won't learn about the Lectures on Faith either. But we will cover in part two the remainder of this. We'll try to pick up and remind you where we were at. So thank you so much for listening.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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Yeah, they have zero podcasts that anyone's allowed to listen to in Tajikistan.

GerritBanter

Most researchers are either betting on Edmonton to make the comeback or they're ready to perform a violent coup.

GerritBanter

So I'm bearing testimony of the restoration, and you're like, hey, I found out when the Edsel became a car.

GerritBanter

It means that there are revelations from God that were not selected to be published in this book. That doesn't mean they're not revelations, and it doesn't mean that they're not true.

GerritInsight

Well, I think that the Holy Ghost would like a word.

RichardBanter

And you can't expect prophets to know things before they know them.

GerritInsight

We belong to a church where prophetic utterance, written or not, trumps everything else.

GerritInsight

You can tell just by listening to us that we have hundreds of full-time paid employees that make us sound better than we are.

GerritBanter

Man, I wish more people were far more worried about what the Lord had to say to them than what they wanted to tell God about what they know.

GerritInsight

Parker picked Arby's. Two of my kids started to cry.

RichardBanter

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Joseph Smith wrote the Lectures on Faith.
Joseph was promised the Second Coming would happen if he lived to 85.
The Reorganized Church still says Joseph never practiced plural marriage, so that settles it.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants opened with the Lectures on Faith, but the book never claims Joseph wrote them, and the Church today says authorship is unclear.

The lectures were removed in 1921 partly because Lecture 5 calls the Father a personage of spirit, while D&C 130 says He has a body of flesh and bones.

In a church with continuing revelation, early teachings can be good and still be outdated by later light; you can't expect prophets to know things before they know them.

Ron's experience shows real humility: when the Spirit says you don't know what you're talking about, listen.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Rich CardGerrit stumbles over Richard's name in the intro, apparently a mix of Slovenian and French (0:37, 1:10).
We're huge in...Slovenia, 170th in Uzbekistan, 180th in Tajikistan, and now former mayors (1:21, 1:24, 38:00).
The crack research staff coupThe staff is upset no one returns to their findings and may stage a violent coup; they deliver the Edsel's history anyway (3:24, 3:57, 32:39).
Frosted Mini-WheatsThe staff's cereal rabbit hole, back into the 1800s (4:25).
In your mind and in your liverRichard's friend from a Hmong-speaking mission bore testimony with liver instead of heart (19:39).
Fun With Adultery callbackN. Eldon Tanner was just telling everyone they were doing great not committing adultery (25:57).
Episodes promised, never madePlural marriage is saved for season 38; some listeners want season 39 and some season 15 (40:19, 44:42).
Gerrit's danderDan's "you guys are the worst" email; Richard warns Gerrit will turn into the Hulk (41:13, 42:08, 59:24).
The audience: Gerrit's mom (and Rachel's mom)Six or seven listeners, plus missionaries with no other options (47:39).
Arby'sFour people outside an Arby's, the cheddar melt, and the Simpsons line "I'm so hungry I could eat an Arby's" (52:28, 55:30, 56:12).
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 Articles of Faith 1:1The Gospel of Jesus Christ Is for AllPresident Dallin H. OaksPresident Oaks testifies that this is Christ's Church and that the way through every struggle, including doubt, is to draw closer to Jesus Christ through daily prayer and scripture study, with patience for others and for ourselves.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 130:22Fruit to Make One HappyElder Gary E. StevensonSpeaking especially to Primary children, Elder Stevenson uses Lehi's vision of the tree of life and his own love of fruit to describe three sweet fruits of the gospel: we are children of a loving Heavenly Father, the great plan of happiness through Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

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 1835 Doctrine and Covenants: what was in it and how it differs from today's edition (7:09).
The Kirtland School of the Elders, where the Lectures on Faith were delivered (10:15).
How teaching on the Godhead unfolded from the Lectures on Faith to D&C 130 (20:36).
James E. Talmage and the 1921 revision of the Doctrine and Covenants (33:25).
The letters between Joseph F. Smith and Joseph Smith III, and the affidavits Joseph F. gathered on plural marriage (50:15).
SOT Litner · S4E30.