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Searching the beaches
S4E32 · Questions About Joseph Smith
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 32 · 1:13:50

Questions About Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith once spelled his own brother's name 'Hiram' in an 1831 letter, yet he dictated some of the most beautiful passages in Latter-day Saint scripture.

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The question ·
How much money did Joseph Smith have when he died?
Elder Hunt (listener)

Sarah writes that she is jealous her siblings and her nephew Moroni Joseph, aka Heber, are more famous on the show than she is. Then Elder Hunt, a missionary starting the home MTC, sends six questions about Joseph Smith. Gerrit explains the difference between intelligence and learning, how scribes like William Phelps put Joseph's ideas into prose, and how Joseph's Nauvoo Legion compares with Winfield Scott. He says claims that Joseph died rich mix up church property with personal wealth. Finally, he discusses whether the idea that almost everyone will be saved spread from Joseph's teachings or from society drifting away from belief.

Who comes upJoseph SmithHyrum SmithW. W. PhelpsWinfield ScottNapoleon BonaparteMoroni
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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Professor Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thanks for having me back. Excited to be here with you today. Now, we are on another geological, not geological.
Gerrit Or geographical branch.
Richard Geographical.
Gerrit I mean, we could look for rocks too.
Richard We're looking for rocks, specifically rocks, that have been built into someone's home. We've talked about this before, but we received a generous fund to be able to look into where Pahoran's mother-in-law's sublet apartment was. We feel like we've got a plan of attack and we're on our way to Mexico as we speak.
Gerrit We've received no money at all from anyone, but we are actually in the middle of the ocean right now. So if the cruise director happens to come on while we are sailing and letting us know that there's going to be some Zumba classes, we'll decide whether or not to cut that out or in. But obviously we're gonna have to pause the recording because we've got to go to the Zumba class.
Richard Why did I bring these hammer pans if I'm not gonna go to a Zumba class? What's the point?
Gerrit So the audio quality is going to be poorer than usual. The content quality is going to be the same. The same level of content?
Richard So actually to that point, Gary, first of all, just before we get too far off of the research that we're doing that we take very seriously, a friend of the show, Adam, sent me a message asking how this cruise was going. And I explained to him the purpose of the cruise, what it is that we're trying to do here. And I said, no, there's a couple of things we don't know, but we do know some things. We know for a fact that Pahoran's wife was raised near a coast. We know that for a fact.
Gerrit We don't know how we know that for a fact, but it's something we know.
Richard I'm fairly confident it's in the Book of Mormon. I can't point you to exactly where that's at, but it's implied.
Gerrit It could have been part of the 116 pages.
Richard That's it's the Book of Lehi, which was well before.
Gerrit Which was well before Pahoran. But maybe they had a vision of Pahoran.
Richard Well, did Nephi or did he or did he not see from the beginning?
Gerrit Okay. Well, so you're saying he saw this apartment that we're looking for.
Richard Yeah. And so we know also as a fact that Pahoran, he ran into some difficulty. He received an email from Moroni that was passive aggressive, or mostly just aggressive.
Gerrit Yeah. I don't know if Captain Moroni did passive aggressive. He just did aggressive aggressive. He's like, hey, why are you sitting there in your thoughtless stupor while my troops suffer?
Richard You are guilty of murder.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard And Pahoran is like, hey, really sorry about all that. We've kind of been overthrown.
Gerrit There was a rebellion in the capital and they nearly killed me, and I was driven from Zarahemla.
Richard And that's where we think Pahoran went. He went to the sublet apartment of his mother-in-law that we believe to be on the coast. So we're going to go to several beaches in Mexico in search for that ancestral home.
Gerrit Our evidence will be, you know, hey, this place is nice. This seems like where Pahoran, where his mother-in-law would at least have an apartment.
Richard And that is what is a poor example of satire, where we are making fun of everybody that claims to know exactly where things existed or did not exist. But we will be going to those beaches again to search. So, Gerrit, I'm excited to be here. We've got a couple of fun emails to read and to get into. And so away we go. Let me pull up the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag here. This first email comes to us from Sarah. I believe it's Sarah. Yes. Yes, it is. It is Sarah. Dear Dr. Dirkmaat and Professor, maybe Doctor, I'm pretty far back in episodes and you were still working on your PhD, but maybe in the present, you're finished. LeDuc. That was very funny.
Gerrit Yeah, so she had a clause in there that was all of that parenthetical.
Richard And I'm not done. I feel like I can rightfully email you because I finally listened to the episode that explains why you kept calling lit, why you kept saying Litners. I genuinely thought it was a word that I have never heard before that basically meant patrons, but maybe patrons who don't pay because this podcast is free. Anyway, I've listened to enough content now that I think I've figured out most of the running jokes, although I don't think I've found the episode where Bill first became an adulterer. But I believe I've gathered what I need to know about him through context. Well, that he is an adulterer.
Gerrit I mean, do any of us know when Bill first became an adulterer?
Richard Well, this is the thing is, how do we define it? When did he become an adulterer in his heart? Obviously, that's a major problem.
Gerrit Yeah, the podcast is not that old.
Richard Bill's always been an adulterer. And so I think we actually talked about this and we think that it's when Gerrit was talking about the Zion episodes, the five-parter on Zion.
Gerrit Maybe it was even earlier. It may not have been actually on Zion. We might have just been referencing Zion. This is going to be hard to believe for our listeners, but we might have just been on a tangent in which we were talking about the city of Zion. And the whole point was we were talking about how for Zion to be the city of Zion, it's not just a place, it also has to be a people. Well, how can it be a people if Bill apostatizes from the church and starts running a brothel in his house?
Richard Well, that's a step up from adultery, obviously.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, at least he's making money. But the reality is that that's not the city of Zion anymore. And so we were trying to explain why does the church needed to own all of the city of Zion collectively, and that your worthiness would determine whether or not you could live there, because much like, honestly, very similar to a temple today, right? The church owns the temple. We have various people who work there.
Richard We don't have franchises.
Gerrit No, the church owns the temple.
Richard It's like In-N-Out Burger versus Chick-fil-A.
Gerrit It is, yeah. It's a corporate model. And so because the church owns the temple, there are worthiness requirements that people have to meet in order to be able to go. And it would be something similar to the city of Zion in the sense that if you're going to live inside the city of Zion, you have to meet this minimum threshold of worthiness. Otherwise, it's no longer the city of Zion because it's a bunch of righteous people and Bill the Adulterer.
Richard Well, and the other thing is too, Sarah, that's important to know is that about 57% of the people I know that have committed adultery are named Bill or William, which I would also count. So that's part of the reason we chose that.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, I said it randomly actually, but yeah.
Richard I am now a diehard fan, almost to the point of being a premium content subscriber. But I must admit, this was not always the case. This was not my first attempt to get into the Standard of Truth podcast. My sister, the one who wrote to you while she was in labor with Moroni Joseph, recommended it to me many times. I listened but wasn't hooked. But now that I've moved across the country to Hershey, Pennsylvania and have lots of time by myself, while my husband is in medical school, I ran out of Follow Him episodes and was forced to come here. That's very funny. And so this goes to my son's point, is that the podcast is, when there's nothing else to do, it's okay. When you've got, I look at it the same way as being an Ellie Rams fan or a Laker fan. It's like, if the team's good, okay. But if they're not very good, I've got lots of options. But when I'm in Cleveland, man, I care about the Browns a lot because I live in Cleveland.
Gerrit And we apologize to all of our listeners in Cleveland.
Richard They know full well what I'm saying. So, we have the best fans. Well, that actually means you've got the worst city.
Gerrit There's a lot of people in Buffalo that are upset at you right now.
Richard I mean, you just keep naming towns to prove my point. Let's see. I seriously doubted that anything could be better than follow him, but I was mistaken. I am thoroughly enjoying catching up on all the free content. It may even ask my sister or parents that you met on the tour to pay for me to subscribe to the premium content.
Gerrit Well, that would be a good racket, though, if they paid her for them subscribing for it. You know what? We're going to talk to them because we do know your parents. We're going to say not only do you need to buy her a premium subscription, you also need to give her just extra money for the fact that you did it.
Richard This is my favorite thing about Sarah's mom, though, is that she presents as a very smart, sophisticated woman and she was sneaky funny. I wasn't expecting it because she comes across just very, if there was an aristocracy, she would be upper crust.
Gerrit Yeah, Marie Antoinette.
Richard Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying, but then sneaky funny, but her daughters are also hilarious.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, we did email her back immediately when she was in, her other daughter, when she was in labor, because that was the first time we received an email while someone was currently in labor.
Richard Since then, many, many.
Gerrit Well, now it's the only emails we get. Now it's either missionary emails or I'm in labor emails.
Richard Missionaries, their emails are pretty hilarious too.
Gerrit We've gotten many, many, many missionary requests. We have literally hundreds of missionaries now listening to this content.
Richard Yeah, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. It's actually been pretty cool. Now, so Gerrit, to that point, the reason why I'm writing this email is because I'm jealous that my sister Rebecca, her husband, Kyle, and their son Moroni Joseph, aka Heber, and my brother Taylor are more famous on this podcast than I am. I mean, Rebecca and Kyle started the avalanche that turned into five episodes about Moroni plus an addendum. I do hope to have my email read, but if this one doesn't make the cut, I will just have to wait and write to you again when I am in labor with my own currently unconceived baby on some day significant to church history.
Gerrit Now, there's an asterisk there.
Richard To the baby?
Gerrit Well, to the currently unconceived baby.
Richard Yeah, so let's... Yeah, this is a good point. Let's read to the asterisk.
Gerrit There's a footnote to that. We read footnotes on the Standard of Truth Podcast.
Richard I had to specify that any future children are currently unconceived, so that Rebecca and Kyle and eventually my parents, I don't know if they listen right when new episodes come out, like I assume my sister does, don't think this is a pregnancy announcement in case you do read this.
Gerrit You know what, though, we should start doing pregnancy announcements on here.
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit If people want to get their email read, if you haven't told anyone yet that you're pregnant, it's like, we could be like a gender reveal.
Richard We'll do gender reveal, we're already doing bar mitzvahs, so this is kind of a line-story party bar.
Gerrit We did Richard's bar mitzvah, we announced it on the air. That's how everyone knows that Richard was bar mitzvahed.
Richard We did, I got a bris at 38. So then she asks for about significant days in church history. To that end, I guess I have one or two besides April 6th, May 15th and September 21st. So when the church is established, when the Aaronic Priesthood is established, and when Joseph finally is able to take the plates. Right, am I close on those?
Gerrit Yeah, those are all right. I mean, you want me to contradict those?
Richard Well, no, like I don't know anything about anything, so I'm guessing on those three, but close enough.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Okay. What other church significant dates would you recommend I aim to birth my future children on, Gerrit?
Gerrit If I had to pick a date that was one of my favorite dates in church history, it would be May 11th.
Richard May 11th, 1842. What's significant on May 11th?
Gerrit That's when John C. Bennett was excommunicated.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit So I think that's one of the most important dates in church history. I would do Philastus Hurlbuts, but the guy got excommunicated so many times. How am I supposed to know which one?
Richard It does give you a-
Gerrit Which is the one that sticks.
Richard Yeah. So John C. Bennett just gets exed once?
Gerrit Well, yeah. I mean, from our church, yeah. He gets excommunicated from other break-off groups as well, but I don't care as much about those. Okay.
Richard So now, as a ballpark then, so if we benchmark May 11th.
Gerrit If the date you're shooting for is to have a baby on May 11th?
Richard Yes. Then the rule of thumb is your 266 days before that. So we're looking at August 19th.
Gerrit Okay. Well, I think that we've ventured far afield of what we generally speak about on the Standard Truth podcast.
Richard Well, I'm just saying if you want a special day, that's how you do it, 266 days.
Gerrit Okay. Well, what else does she say?
Richard She goes on to say, Like I said, I'm a newly huge fan of the podcast, was even brave enough to share and recommend it on Facebook.
Gerrit Oh boy.
Richard I still haven't actually checked to see if there are any mean comments on my post because I have an unfounded fear of anti-Mormon internet trolls. But I hope that more people will start listening, aka litening, to the podcast because it has strengthened my faith and bolstered my church history knowledge exceedingly.
Gerrit Well, first, let me just stop there for a second. I can answer the question for you. Yes, someone has posted something antagonistic to your Facebook. I don't know your Facebook posts. I'm not Facebook friends with you, but I can guarantee someone has.
Richard I don't know. We mentioned the Daryl Strawberry bit here.
Gerrit I think we have before, but it bears, you know, it bears repeating.
Richard Yeah, so just to explain.
Gerrit Yeah, so there's an old Simpsons where they have a softball team for the nuclear plant. And Homer is one of the better softball players on it because he's, you know, the Homer, the traditional dad guy. And Mr. Burns decides that he's going to win because he makes a bet on the game. So he brings in a whole bunch of actual major league baseball player all stars as ringers. So Homer shows up to the game and there is Daryl Strawberry, back from when the Mets won the World Series. I mean, Daryl Strawberry was amazing.
Richard He's incredible.
Gerrit And this is the conversation that ensues. Homer says, well, you're Daryl Strawberry. He's like, yeah. He's like, will you play right field? He's like, so? He's like, well, I play right field. Yeah. Well, are you better than me? And Daryl Strawberry says, well, I've never met you, but yes. And that's, he doesn't know Homer at all, but yeah, he's better at right field. And I haven't read your Facebook post, but yes. If you ever post anything positive about the church ever, for any reason ever, you will have someone post something negative, guaranteed.
Richard One of the things, we actually received another email, speaking of anti. We're not going to be able to get to it here because we're going to read a missionary's email that had a bunch of questions, but maybe next week we'll be able to get into it. Talking about some of Gerrit's responses when he was on his mission and how that went. Those were pretty funny, but we'll save that for another time. Thank you for sacrificing your time and the time of your crack research staff. That joke also took me a minute to figure out to record and minimally edit the podcast. I really, really appreciate the information. And your testimonies, and I already recommend it to a future missionary. And then she gives me the missionary's email that I send it to her. So thank you again, genuinely, Sarah.
Gerrit Sarah, so great to finally get you caught up with the rest of your family as being mentioned on the podcast. Are there any other siblings that we haven't mentioned that maybe now are going to email us and say, hey, what about?
Richard I don't know. I don't know. But we're fans of the entire family. And so we're glad that they are at least if they, if there are others that don't listen, we're less fans of them, obviously.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard But of at least five of the family members, we love them. And to that extent, also their husbands.
Gerrit Yes. Yes.
Richard So seven. All right. This next email here comes from a missionary, comes from Elder Something. I do not have it. I will find it when Gerrit starts answering the questions.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard Standard of Truth boys. That's funny. I would like to start by thanking you. I've learned so much from your podcast. I've only been listening for about three months, but it's quickly become my favorite. I love your humor and your words make me feel the spirit, inspire me to learn more. Because of you, I have developed a deeper appreciation and desire to learn about church history. Thank you for all you do for your Litners and your audience.
Gerrit You wrote Litners. That's hilarious.
Richard My job makes it quite easy to listen to a lot of episodes during the workday. I probably average six episodes a day.
Gerrit Wow. You need to get into a 12-step program.
Richard Well, in Russia, that's what they do when they send people...
Gerrit They think maybe this will make you talk. They say, we're going to play Standard of Truth on a loop. Just play it. Just go and see, and you tell us everything. I think that that's probably what happens.
Richard They give them a gun. They give them one bullet. You can shoot me, or this thing is on a loop.
Gerrit Or you can shoot the radio that will continue to play.
Richard I was going to yourself, but that's less dark. I quickly finished all the Joseph Smith and the Restoration episodes, and I just have some of the free episodes left. I've also completed most of the Holy Places series. One thing, actually, one of the reasons we're reading this is to point out something here. On the Joseph Smith and the Restoration, especially in season one and the first half of season two, there is a lot of really meaty content in terms of theology and philosophy and doctrine and history relating to all of our Christian brothers and sisters. And so those are ones that I recommend for missionaries, especially to listen to those several times and really try to gain even better understanding. But anyway, to that point, I've also completed most of the Holy Places series. Hashtag crinkling leaves.
Gerrit Not crinkling leaves.
Richard I'm a missionary who just started my home MTC, and I've been doing this for four days now. It's been going pretty well, and I've been enjoying it. I have six questions for you boys. Number one. All right. I'll just go one at a time.
Gerrit Just go in order. Yeah, let's just do this.
Richard And then you'll just knock them out.
Gerrit Well, we live to serve missionaries. Missionaries and former adulterers. Those are our two that we're trying to help out most.
Richard Our current adulterers that we want to try to convince to stop being adulterers.
Gerrit We did say stop, but we did an entire episode with you asking me who gave the most talks about adulteries. So- L.
Richard Eldon Tanner coming in.
Gerrit And Eldon Tanner, yep.
Richard Coming in a lot. All right, so I've been to Nauvoo many times and I've read Joseph Smith's letters. For what I have seen and learned from you guys, it's said that he couldn't spell his own brother's name and had a third grade education. However, his letters seem pretty advanced with some big words. Now I'm no linguist from the 1800s, but I also think that a leader like him must have been quite charismatic. And I don't associate charisma with being intelligent. So how dumb is he? Obviously, you're saying that sarcastically, Gerrit.
Gerrit Yeah, don't get my dander up. We just had two episodes in a row where someone said something about Joseph.
Richard He's saying this sarcastically.
Gerrit I came across the table.
Richard This is sarcastic.
Gerrit So this is actually a great question. You know, you make reference to the fact that he spelled his brother's name wrong. He does. In a letter that he writes in 1831 to Hiram, he spells his name with an A, Hiram. And you'd think you'd know how to spell your own brother's name. So it's important to make a big distinction between someone's intelligence and someone's learning, right? What they have, their education. You can have incredibly intelligent people that don't have access to formal education who then, as soon as they get access to it, crush it. Because they have actually the mental capacity to do it. What they don't have is the money to pay for a tutor or a teacher in order to kind of tap that potential that they already have. So we shouldn't confuse Joseph Smith's lack of formal education, or as Jonathan Hadley said in the Palmyra Freeman, that Joseph was, quote, very illiterate in 1829.
Gerrit We shouldn't confuse the fact that Joseph is not formally educated with the fact that Joseph is unintelligent. Those aren't the same things. Now, what I do think is actually something that's more difficult to gauge is how exactly Joseph's interaction with the angels, with his multiple revelations from God, how that actually does provide him increased knowledge that kind of spreads out to the secular, not just to the spiritual knowledge that he gains. And I don't really know how we would measure that. I mean, it's clear that even after he has dictated the text of the Book of Mormon, two years later, he's still spelling the word church with an I, and he's still spelling his brother Hiram's name with an A.
Richard So, but then you contrast that to Doctrine and Covenants section 132 even, which is just, it's some of the most beautiful, flowery language.
Gerrit It's super deep, yeah. And he made reference specifically to his letters. So, one of the first things to understand, you know, the first caveat is, Joseph being uneducated is not the same thing as Joseph being dumb or unintelligent, right? So, uneducated means you haven't been formally trained, and that's the reason why you're spelling all kinds of words wrong. But it's not the same thing as not being, as being a dim bulb on the tree, so to speak. Second of all, Joseph undertakes a mat, Joseph was the original self-help guru, okay? He undertakes a massive self-education initiative. From the beginning of his time with his meeting with the angels and with his powerful revelations, he's receiving revelations that, for instance, tell him to seek out of the best books, knowledge.
Gerrit And so Joseph really does this. In early Kirtland, they are going to hire a professional Hebrew teacher to come teach them Hebrew. And they're going to go through the entire course as a school of the prophets, and Joseph's going to get a certificate, he's going to graduate from this Hebrew course. And, you know, at the same time, he's still spelling church wrong. But, I mean, he is certainly attempting to better educate himself. And one of the ways he is clearly doing it is he appears to be a voracious reader. He seems to have read all kinds of things. And his library of books that he owns in Nauvoo are quite extensive. So by the time you get to Nauvoo, the Nauvoo Joseph isn't the same as Palmyra Joseph. They're not the same person.
Gerrit I mean, none of us are the same person 10 years later, 15 years later. But there is a pretty big difference between someone who puts sets their mind to gaining education, to reading as much as they can, to studying as much as they can, and the other person who doesn't. And I think we all know people who rapidly increase in their knowledge and understanding because of all the time they put into it. And other people who, you know, the most amount of time they put into anything is deciding which, you know, series to watch on Netflix. And then watch the entire series in a weekend. And no, I don't have time to read the scriptures. I'm on episode seven, season six. I've got to get through this before I could study. So, if you're reading later letters from Nauvoo, Joseph is certainly more educated by then. At the same time, you also have to draw a pretty big caveat there.
Gerrit After the first several years of the church, most of the letters that Joseph Smith is going to write to people, to either the church or to individuals, most of them Joseph is going to write by way of scribes. And so, in the lingo of the field, they call a letter that Joseph Smith actually wrote with his own hand. They call that a holographic letter, meaning he wrote it. Okay. But there's just not that many of them. I mean, there are dozens of them, but there are hundreds of letters and only dozens of them are ones that Joseph wrote in his own hand. A really good example of this, where I can't tell where Joseph begins and his scribe ends, is Joseph Smith's presidential campaign platform.
Gerrit You know, everyone wants to talk about presidential campaigns right now. Here on the Standard of Truth podcast, all we want to talk about is politics. Richard's over here. He just, he was almost asleep. He heard me mention the word presidential campaign and he shot up like a dart.
Richard My favorite thing is to watch, I know, this is going to, is to watch the betting lines on the political candidates. It is fascinating to watch.
Gerrit So your gambling degeneracy is to the point where you're watching the betting markets on political candidates?
Richard I'm not doing it. I'm just watching it because a poll is one thing, but when you're willing to put your money on candidate A or B, I find that fascinating. But again, don't do it.
Gerrit We don't believe in betting on the Standard of Truth podcast. Unless you're betting on the Standard of Truth podcast to be number one in your hearts.
Richard I would fade that.
Gerrit Well, we'll see what Stephen A. Smith has to say. But so it's important to recognize that this presidential platform is a good example, and we have good record of it because Joseph talks about the iterations of it that he's going through. He assigns WW. Phelps to write his views of the powers of the policy of the government. Now he tells WW. Phelps what he wants him to write about, and WW. Phelps comes back multiple times and has multiple iterations where Joseph corrects it and tells him to go back and do it, and he comes back and he does it again. And in the end, Joseph approves it and says, okay, that can be my presidential platform. So when you read Joseph's presidential platform, it is very well written. It's not misspelling Thomas Jefferson's name, let's put it that way. Now, why? Well, first of all, WW. Phelps is a former newspaper editor for multiple newspapers. He's a well-educated man and he's a very well-spoken and a very articulate writer.
Gerrit And so he's taking Joseph's ideas and Joseph's message and he's putting it into prose that of course is WW. Phelps' writing because he's the one writing it. But Joseph is the one approving it. So at the Joseph Smith Papers, one of the things that you had to determine is what constitutes a Joseph Smith document. When does it become Joseph Smith's? This is going to come as a surprise to many of our listeners, again, during this time of presidential politics. But most speeches that presidents give are not sat down and written out longhand by the president of the United States the way that Lincoln did the Gettysburg Address. Or maybe that's why the Gettysburg Address was so short. Lincoln's like, if I'm the one who has to write this, it's like two paragraphs and we're out. I'm not doing this. How long is this train ride? So most presidents don't actually write their own speeches.
Gerrit Now that doesn't mean that the speechwriter is just like inventing their own thing. Like I think right now, President Eisenhower wants to nuke Russia. I'll just put that in there. You know what I mean? So the point of a speechwriter is to try to capture what is the candidate believes, but to do it articulately. And of course, the candidate doesn't have a whole lot of time. Well, Joseph went through what Phelps produced and made him edit it multiple times. And then Joseph said, yes, do this, don't do that. And then eventually Joseph said, okay, that's what I want. So at the moment that Joseph says, we're going to publish this speech under my name as my presidential platform, it becomes a Joseph Smith document. So even if he didn't produce the individual words, but he said, this is mine now, this reflects what I believe, put it out under my name, then it becomes his.
Gerrit And so part of the problem with trying to compare later Joseph Smith speeches or sermons or letters to earlier ones is you need to make sure that you're comparing apples to apples rather than apples to oranges. A letter that Joseph writes when he's in New York City with his own pen early on in the church, writing back home to Emma is going to sound very different than a letter he writes that same year that Frederick G. Williams writes for him. It's still from Joseph, but Frederick G. Williams is the scribe.
Richard What about from Liberty Jail? Those were letters that...
Gerrit There are letters of both types, but the letters that we generally think of as the ones that make up D&C 121, 22 and 23, they are of both types. There are sometimes scribes and there are sometimes it's Joseph. We do have letters that Joseph writes to Emma that are holographic, that are written by Joseph. And you can clearly see that Joseph is becoming more and more educated as time goes on. But we're also at this point by 1838 and even 1839, we are now a decade removed from when he, quote unquote, wrote the Book of Mormon, right? You are 10 years beyond that. And frankly, even the letters Joseph is writing in 1838 and 1839, the ones that are holographic, the ones he's writing himself, they are just nowhere near the Book of Mormon, in their complexity, in their power.
Gerrit I mean, Joseph's got a lot of good stuff. But it just, it further to me demonstrates the miraculous nature of Joseph. Now, as to his charisma, I mean, you can be charismatic whether you are well educated or not well educated. Oftentimes, people who are more well educated are able to utilize their personal charisma better because they're able to play upon things that they know about people. But Joseph is certainly a charismatic individual. He's someone who very quickly makes friends with people. He's someone that people feel very comfortable with very quickly. So I think that it's a fair thing to say Joseph's very charismatic, but he certainly is not unintelligent. In fact, the secular world that examines Joseph Smith at this point, they lean more and more to calling Joseph Smith a religious genius, right?
Gerrit Because how else do you describe what has happened? We can have all kinds of arguments back and forth about whether or not an angel really talked to Joseph. But for a secular historian, what is the reality? The reality is this very poor, day-laboring, uneducated farm boy from New York created a religion that is now the fourth largest church in the United States. That is impressive, regardless of what, I mean, you can hate Mormons all day long. I understand everywhere we announce there to be a new temple, there's suddenly all kinds of people very worried about light and traffic. We're not worried about it at all. Look, if it's a super Walmart, you're bringing it in here. But if it happens to be a Mormon temple, we're gonna protest.
Gerrit So you can have all kinds of problems with Latter-day Saints. You still have to acknowledge that among American religious leaders, it is hard to find very many that have had a greater impact in United States history than Joseph Smith. And you can say, well, yeah, because he was a fraud. You can say that. You don't have evidence for that, but you can say that. Even that wouldn't demonstrate that he was unintelligent. In fact, it would demonstrate that he was more so. So you actually find people on the secular side are sometimes wanting to kind of get around the where did the Book of Mormon come from question, just by throwing their hands up in the air and saying, well, he must have been some kind of religious genius, which I'm willing to go along with him on some of those parts, but also the Book of Mormon came from God. Next question.
Richard Good answer. Was Lieutenant General Smith a good lieutenant general? Was he skilled in fighting and military strategy? If he had a 1 v 1 against someone, would he get the Victory Royale?
Gerrit This seems like a missionary.
Richard Well, so I mean, I don't know if he's talking about Joseph Smith from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who was a lieutenant general.
Gerrit He was a general. And he fought in the World War II.
Richard Yeah, in the Mexican War.
Gerrit Oh, yeah, there's several.
Richard Several of the Smiths. So he fought in Korea and World War II. Many medals. I think in this particular case, Legion of Merit, Army Distinguished, Bronze Star. So that Joseph Smith did great.
Gerrit I'm pretty sure that's not the Joseph Smith he's asking about. I'm pretty sure that that Joseph Smith wasn't a lieutenant general either.
Richard He was.
Gerrit Really?
Richard Yeah.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard We had our crack research staff look up Joseph Smiths that were lieutenant generals.
Gerrit So you only looked up lieutenant generals?
Richard I said Joseph Smith lieutenant, the team. The team. We have a whole team.
Gerrit I believe a couple weeks ago, the team was very close to revolt.
Richard Well, here's the thing. The team does a lot of research. I've got a Winfield Scott joke just ready to go.
Gerrit Okay, go for it.
Richard Well, I mean, if there's an opportunity, it was fed to me by the research team. We'll see if there's an opportunity for it. But no, we're good. We all gave him a Milky Way bar and patted him on the head and sent him on their way.
Gerrit Well, so we don't really get to find out whether or not Joseph Smith is an effective general in the field. It is the case that he's the general of the Nauvoo Legion, and he takes it very seriously. I mean, they have drill very often. In fact, there is a huge, huge amount of Joseph Smith documents from the Nauvoo period that are Nauvoo court martial documents, Nauvoo Legion court martial documents. Now, a court martial sounds really, really heavy to everyone listening because they're thinking, oh man, you know, who ordered the code red? But, is that what you were thinking?
Richard That's what I was thinking. I was thinking the same thing.
Gerrit Yeah, you were thinking, yeah, who ordered the code red? You can't handle the truth. But in fact, people are being court martialed for the most minor infraction, which is what is typical of these local militias from these states. So, you know, if you failed to show up to drill, well, you'd be court martialed and then find or have some kind of thing. And so there's a whole, because Joseph is the head of the Nauvoo Legion, he, those documents all end up being Joseph Smith documents.
Richard I made the classic mistake of calling it Jack Nicholas, who's the golfer versus Jack Nicholson, who is the, I noticed that immediately when I said it.
Gerrit The Golden Bear.
Richard Well, here's the Scott or the Winfield Scott. So the question is, is if he was in some sort of, I imagine, Gettysburg style face off with another general, how would that go? And one of the most renown in that period was Winfield Scott. And the reason I like it is because his nickname is Old Fuss and Feathers.
Gerrit Yes, Winfield Scott, who if at some point on the Condemned or Repeated episodes, we will make it all the way to the Mexican War, in which Winfield Scott will end up being the overall American commander that will capture Veracruz and then march on Mexico City. He is the replacement of, or he takes the position of, Zachary Taylor. Zachary Taylor, after the Battle of Buena Vista, is so popular that James Polk actually makes, now again, this is going to be hard to believe that a politician would make a political decision during the middle of a war. It's never happened before, but in the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor was so popular that it's believed that Polk deliberately assigns the invasion of Mexico to Winfield Scott, because Taylor was from the opposite political party. Now, that wouldn't happen.
Richard So he's a Whig, right?
Gerrit Well, the funny part is Winfield Scott eventually becomes a Whig, too.
Richard Yeah, he loses his presidential bid to Pierce, right?
Gerrit He doesn't become president. But again, hard to believe that a president would, during a war, make a decision that had any other basis than what is best for the war and for the country. Has that ever happened?
Richard I don't know. Well, maybe this one time.
Gerrit So look, James Polk, at one point in American history, decided to appoint a general not based upon their skill, but based upon he was worried about the next election. Turns out, Winfield Scott actually did a great job with his appointment, and yeah, his men referred to him as old fuss and feathers. He was an hard man.
Richard A hard man.
Gerrit Yeah, he reaped what he did not sow.
Richard So what's great about that? I gave Gerrit zero heads up, zero prompt on anything Winfield Scott related. That's pretty good, man. That's impressive for you just to go chapter and verse on Winfield Scott.
Gerrit Well, Winfield Scott is near and dear. So the question of how good he is, I mean, look, he takes it very seriously. But of course, there's all kinds of people who take drill very seriously, and you don't know how they are going to react when they're actually being shot at. Joseph, in fact, the fact that he takes the Nauvoo Legion so seriously is actually one of the things that causes non-Latter-day Saints in surrounding communities to become even more worried about the Mormons, so to speak, right? Because here you have this clearly powerful religious leader with thousands of men under arms. And of course, you then get the conspiracy theories, right? You get the, yeah, well, Joe Smith's going to order that Nauvoo Legion to start killing everybody. And that's my conspiracy voice, yeah. And we've talked a little bit about this when it came to the Latter Day Saints celebrating the Fourth of July.
Gerrit The very fact that they used the Nauvoo Legion to have these massive Fourth of July celebrations was actually used by their enemies to say, look, see how powerful they are? I can't believe that you're allowing the Mormons to become so powerful. Look, they have their own army, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, even though that army was from the charter from the state. It's not like they just invented their own army. They had a city charter that required them to have a militia, or at least allowed them to have a militia, and they did it. But let me share with you from 1841 celebration one of the accounts. This is from the Nauvoo Legion records. The Legion was called out to celebrate our national independence, and the fourth being Sunday, it was reviewed by, they're saying they did it on the third instead of the fourth, and they were reviewed by Lieutenant General Joseph Smith, who made an eloquent and patriotic speech to his troops and strongly testified of his regard for our national welfare and his willingness to lay down his life in defense of his country.
Gerrit Joseph declared, I would ask no greater boon than to lay down my life for my country. So Joseph certainly feels that patriotic fervor that comes from his grandparents having fought in the Revolutionary War. At the same time, it's only a few years later that he's going to have to look elsewhere because clearly the Saints are not going to find peace in the United States. So Joseph does study, he reads, military tactics. They do do drills. My guess is the Nauvoo Legion would do better than some other city militias. But I think we're going to have to say the result is inconclusive. Of course, when Joseph was faced with battle a couple of times, he was able to avoid it because of the power of God. When they were on the Zion's Camp March, there's a group of Missourians coming to confront them, and they are on one side of a stream, a river, a pretty large stream of water.
Gerrit As this larger army of Missourians is coming to confront them, there is a huge thunderstorm that breaks out, and it swells the stream to the point where no one can afford it, and so the Missourians aren't able to attack. So in some ways, if God wants Joseph to win, he's gonna win, right? So I think you have that.
Richard Moses did a decent job, too, on some of these things.
Gerrit Exactly.
Richard Joshua did fine.
Gerrit Yeah, so it depends on, if you have a playing card of them, my guess is there's an asterisk that says, potential miracle ability.
Richard So yeah, if you're rolling a 37-sided die and it comes up, Joseph Smith, the general, and then a rain cloud comes in, you're gonna win nine times out of ten.
Gerrit Yeah, you at least have to acknowledge that's a possibility.
Richard So Sun Tzu's Art of War, that's not translated to English till like 1905, 1910, so he's obviously reading that in its native.
Gerrit No, yeah, so he's not reading Art of War, but he is, I mean, so the primary field tactics that are being studied at that point are all Napoleonic. So the Napoleonic Wars, they complete in 1815. And frankly, every other military commander in Europe and in America, they're trying to study those things. And Joseph seems to have a fairly good understanding of those things. So I don't know in particular what he's studying, but he certainly has read some things that have helped him understand the idea of tactics and things like that. It's a fun question, but it's also one of those counterfactual history questions that you don't really know the answer to.
Richard So, I mean, not for now, but I'd love to know then where Napoleon got his strategy, where he pulled that from. That sounds interesting if everyone's just... You said that people are always fighting the last war, right? But here Napoleon is doing something brand new.
Gerrit From Frederick the Great, basically. So Frederick the Great is going to be the one who professionalizes modern European armies and is so successful in doing it that Napoleon is able to do that on a much grander scale. I mean, up until the Napoleonic Wars, in general, armies were very small. They were highly well trained and usually made up of professional soldiers, people who were soldiers for their whole life. So we've talked about that with the Revolutionary War with the British military. The British army is, you know, they're soldiers forever. That's what they are. But Napoleon and the Revolutionary Army of France becomes a people's army where they are inducting everybody into it. And you get this massive army. And so then what do you have to do? You have to change your tactics. So you're using some of the same tactics as Frederick the Great.
Gerrit But Napoleon always had this... Napoleon always had a mantra of speed in moving your armies and attacking your enemy at their weakest point with overwhelming numbers, right? So my enemy might have more men than me, but if I attack his weak part of his line with all of my men, well, suddenly he doesn't have more men than me. And by the time he reacts, I can cause them to scatter. And that's general Napoleonic strategy. But I think he's going to use Frederick the Great and, of course, other military leaders going back.
Richard We're going to get to Napoleon relatively soon, and can never repeat it.
Gerrit This is a tease on the premium. I'm a little worried about it, because we're primarily focused on American history. But what if I start going off on Napoleonic war tangents?
Richard People cry out. We've got Jonathan out in France who's not a member. He cares about the French from Quebec. So just so many French listeners that we're excited.
Gerrit We have tens of tens.
Richard All right, this next question. How much money did Joseph Smith have when he died? I've heard online, I assume through some subreddit or some source that's likely very, very good, that some reports claim to date a million or so. But that just can't be true. Are those people just antis?
Gerrit First of all, the answer is yes. Are these people just antis? Yes. I mean, anyone who's making a commentary about how much money Joseph had when he died, what exactly would be the point of that? Would that mean that Joseph was rightfully murdered then by a bunch of lawless pieces of garbage because he had money? Is the implication, of course, oh, Joseph had money because he was stealing it from people? The same people who don't care at all that multiple state governments and mobocratic people have stolen all kinds of property from Joseph and from every other saint. They don't care about that stealing at all.
Richard We do know that it is millions of dollars in Missouri. We are sure of that.
Gerrit Yeah, that's stolen from them. So part of the problem with dealing with Joseph Smith's estate after he dies is because Joseph Smith is the president of the church and because many things are purchased via his name with church funds. If someone wanted to try to make the argument that Joseph personally owned all of the things that the church actually owned, for instance, the Nauvoo Temple, then they might be able to get to a number like that, but even that would be a little bit of a stretch. And it would be solely on the basis of being deceptive. It would be that person either being too dumb to know or deliberately being deceptive in claiming that because Joseph's name is on the deed, that that proves that it's his.
Gerrit Right, so Joseph's name is on the temple, so therefore it's his. But it's not his, so it's not his personal wealth. Just like the Nauvoo House, which is a very expensive structure that they're working on, that hundreds of Latter-day Saints have paid money into and bought shares into the Nauvoo House Association. But Joseph's name is going to be on the deed for those records, even though everyone knows it's not actually his. So, you know, part of the problem is this... Part of the problem is the fact that someone who's looking to undercut Joseph and who he was on the basis of that, like I said, either doesn't understand how the church held property in Nauvoo, or they don't want to understand, and that's more likely. They more likely are just looking for a way to attack him. The reality is, Joseph Smith is in multiple bankruptcies by the time that he is murdered.
Gerrit His estate is still owing many debts to people, and it is in the 19... In the 1850s, in the 1850s in Salt Lake, they are still handling legal judgements against Joseph Smith's estate from the time that Joseph was still living. So, no, he's not a millionaire. No, he's not living in the lap of luxury. Even things like the mansion house, which look like a nice house, is not something that he owns, that is, you know, operated by something, someone else, that he owes a great deal of debt on. I mean, it's just a silly, stupid argument for someone to make. I'm not saying that this missionary is for saying that. I'm just saying that it's a silly, stupid argument. And you know what? What would that even prove if he was?
Gerrit You know what I mean? Like, cause again, the implication is, yeah, and he got that cause he like stole money from everybody.
Richard Well, but I mean, to your point, if he was destitute and had no money, they'd make that point. They'd make the point either way.
Gerrit They did make that point.
Richard It's one of the best parts of being anti anything is that you can have it whatever way you want because the ends is the issue, and however you get there, it actually doesn't matter.
Gerrit Yeah, so when Joseph first shows up in Kirtland, he's attacked for being obviously an ignorant, bigoted, poor individual with no education and he owns no property, and he's actually given a warning out where the overseers of the poor of the county order him to leave because he has no property. And then in Nauvoo, we're going to make the argument on the opposite side. Well, he has too much stuff. That just shows. I mean, again, that it stands to reason isn't actually an argument. I realize it's the argument that people make when they don't have evidence, but whether or not someone makes that argument on the Internet doesn't actually make it a good argument. Well, how did Joseph have all these properties then? If he wasn't stealing money from people. Okay, well, why don't you show me the documents that demonstrate that he's stealing money from people? Well, I mean, they don't have those. Oh, interesting.
Richard But you got to admit, he owns a lot of property.
Gerrit It seems like he owns a lot of property. Well, where do you think that that property is? Or is it in the name of the church? Well, I mean, obviously, he's just like taking it for himself.
Richard Uh-huh.
Gerrit Obviously, obviously, because you just figured this out on your own. This is your own idea. Do you have any evidence at all other than the fact that you're just trying to way to find a way to attack him? And back to Richard's point, when you're antagonistic towards a group or a people, whatever they do, you take as evidence of what you already don't like about them. So if Joseph's poor, it's a demonstration that he's just lazy and indolent and unwilling to do anything. If Joseph has property, it shows that he must be stealing from people. If Joseph is someone who's caught up in a lot of lawsuits, that just proves how dishonest he must be with people. And if Joseph ends up winning those lawsuits, then you turn around and say, that's because those Mormons are paying people. I mean, the reality for antagonistic people is they're not trying to get to the truth no matter what they put as their handle on X.
Gerrit They can claim that they're trying to get to the truth all they want, but they demonstrate very quickly that they're not just because of what they decide constitutes great evidence. Do you have PhD historians that are claiming Joseph Smith was a multi-millionaire when he died because he was stealing money from all of the church? Oh, wait, you don't. So why don't you have that? It's very simple. It's not because every historian of American religious history is too stupid to figure it out. It's because every historian of American religious history knows that that's a terrible argument. So they don't make it. The reason why someone on YouTube makes it is because they don't care that they're making a terrible argument. They're making the argument because they're trying to hurt people's testimonies, not because it's accurate.
Richard Great answer, Gerrit. Coming in hot every time.
Gerrit Yeah, boy.
Richard Elder Hunt.
Gerrit I've got a problem. I need to...
Richard You do.
Gerrit I get triggered, I think.
Richard You really do. And it is Elder Hunt. That is the missionary that wrote this in.
Gerrit Oh, you hooked it up to figure it out.
Richard I got our team on it. They looked it up. I mean, somebody somewhere.
Gerrit Our team.
Richard Our team.
Gerrit I like how we try to convince people that there's many people that are part of this operation.
Richard The hundreds of people that we have on our crack research staff. This next question, well, the next is he asks for access to the premium, which has been granted as he's serving a mission in Ecuador, or will be. It's very exciting. Now, here's one, Gerrit, this is a good one. How has the radical teachings of Joseph Smith in the church affected society and the teachings of the general Protestant world today? For example, today most people believe that almost everyone is getting saved. Is that a byproduct of what we believe, or is that just how society has moved?
Gerrit Well, it's much more the second one than the first one, I'll tell you that. Look, the vast majority of Americans don't even know what they believe. The vast majority of people that consider themselves Christian and religious know the basic tenets of what they believe and nothing deeper.
Richard So when you say they don't know what they believe, I mean, they have particular beliefs, but those beliefs might not in any way be tied to the church that they're attending.
Gerrit Right. So for instance, you can find all kinds of Christians who will say that they are going to be with their wife or their husband in heaven. That, oh, I can't wait to be with my husband again in heaven. They'll say that and they'll believe that. But if you were to go to the actual religious teachings of the denomination they belong to, though they would spell it out very clearly that marriage doesn't exist in heaven. So someone can say, you know what, I'm finally happy that I met my spouse and we're going to be together for eternity, even though they're not Latter-day Saints. They can say that, they can believe it. But their religions don't believe that. So when you say society moved, yes, society moved in a great way towards everybody going to heaven. But that's certainly not what even their religions believe. You do get a much watery version of Christianity from many non-denominational churches, or even denominational ones now, where they will not focus on who is going to hell.
Gerrit You don't talk about hell like you used to. And back in the day, everything was, everyone's going to hell. It was, you know, it was going to scout camp and you're all invited. It was everybody's going to hell. Now the focus is much more on the fact that people are saved. With very little discussion of the corollary to that is, how are you saved? Well, I've accepted Jesus as my Savior. Okay, so how were you saved? I accepted Jesus as my Savior. Well, let's do some simple math. How many people have accepted Jesus as their savior? And it's not even 50 percent of the world. So even in your question, when you say that they say, you know, that that people believe that almost everyone is getting saved. There isn't a, I mean, not a mainline Christian religion that believes that, because they all believe you have to accept Jesus to be saved. And we can have all kinds of arguments, you know, as a Protestant, you can have all kinds of arguments about whether or not a Catholic has accepted Jesus the right way.
Gerrit But even if you accepted all of the Catholics in that religion, you still have billions of Hindus and Confucianists and Buddhists and Muslims. They haven't accepted Jesus as divine. So, what I think you're recognizing more so, elder, I can call you that now, right?
Richard Well, soon to be Elder Hunt.
Gerrit I thought he said he started the Home MTC.
Richard He did start Home MTC.
Gerrit Yeah, why are you trying to take away his missionary, his-
Richard His bona fides?
Gerrit Yeah. Like, he's an elder and he's serving, and you're just like, no, he's just like some kind of guy.
Richard And who knows when we got this email? It was actually quite a while ago.
Gerrit Oh, wait, no, he's been home, he's married. He has three kids now.
Richard We're just getting to our 2021 email.
Gerrit He's like, I was serving in the Northern States mission.
Richard Which included Texas, Florida.
Gerrit So, it feels like that when you have conversations with your average Christian, because your average Christian is focusing on the idea that, you know, we're all going to be happy in the next life. Oh, and I also believe in God. And, you know, President Oaks had just barely made a posting about this, about why organized religion matters. And so, I do think you have a societal movement towards, hey, God loves everybody, so everyone's going to be fine. It doesn't matter what you believe. Now, a Latter-day Saint kind of believes that in the sense that God, because we all accepted Jesus before we came here, eventually everyone's going to go to some level of heaven. But that is not, theologically speaking, what Christians believe. Now, you will find, look, you can find a Christian pastor who will say, we don't really know what happens to all the people who don't accept Jesus.
Gerrit I always feel like when I meet a pastor like that, that they're not being completely honest to me.
Richard Well, so I remember, I mentioned the story of my flight talking to the Baptist preacher and his wife. And for her, especially with babies especially, she's like, I'm sure that there is some mechanism. I'm sure that there's some way. And I'm like, what is it? Oh, I don't know. And it's like, boy, that's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. A lot of babies. I actually do like the idea of, in terms of the rising generation, fairness is something that is incredibly important to them. Fairness is the most important thing.
Gerrit As long as it benefits them.
Richard For sure.
Gerrit Everything needs to be exactly equal as long as I'm the one who benefits from it.
Richard Right, they're all snowball from animal farm. Or Napoleon, yes. So, but I think in terms of the idea of a more universal salvation, especially in an eternal marriage, I'd like to think that there is some influence over time that people have heard these things and they like the idea of those things.
Gerrit Maybe. I don't think we have enough of a societal impact. I mean, there's not enough Latter Day Saints. Now look, if you're talking about someone who lives in Utah, Idaho or parts of Arizona, maybe. Maybe that there is some filtering that's going on. But your average person living in Delaware isn't exactly listening to a whole lot of general conference talks.
Richard So then what is it then? Because no one's talking about marriage forever. No one is talking about it. Now it's talked about, at least, like you say, not by maybe pastors or people in theology, but by rank-and-file Christians.
Gerrit There's two things that are going on. You have the societal move towards treating God as if God is, you know, like, you know, like a hip, cool parent. You know, just, you know, he's just always, you know, he's a cool dad. He's like, you guys want to drink? It's fine.
Richard Just do it in my house. Just don't drink and drive, guys.
Gerrit As long as you don't get caught, I mean, it's okay.
Richard I had a neighbor that was exactly like that.
Gerrit Did he talk like that?
Richard Well, he talked like that, number one. Number two, you guys can do whatever. Just do it in the house. Just don't go out and do stuff.
Gerrit So I think, so-
Richard Cool dad.
Gerrit The reality is people often make God in their own image. I mean, it's exactly what the Israelites were doing when they first lived. They want to create a God in their own image rather than who God really is. It was the main point of Albert Schweitzer's book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, is that people create an image of Jesus in their mind, which actually reflects what they believe, not what Jesus actually taught or who Jesus actually was. When you hear about this all the time, you'll read on X right now. You will go there right now. You will find someone saying something like, well, you know, Jesus didn't condemn people. Jesus, you know, told the woman that he didn't condemn her for her adultery, right? Okay, kind of what Jesus says. What does Jesus also say?
Richard Do it no more.
Gerrit You go thy way and sin no more. Not, you know what? This is totally fine that you did this. You can do whatever you want. Did it, does it make you happy? Because that's all that really matters. I mean, it's pretty hard to find a place in the New Testament where Jesus says, and behold, I say unto you, if it makes you happy and it's kind of popular, it's like totally okay that you do it. Because like everyone else does it. I mean, if you really look at what Jesus says, he really says the opposite, right? There will be many that say unto me, Lord, Lord, at the last day. And that suggests that even believing Christians who think they've got everything right, who are desperately doing everything they're supposed to do to go to heaven, that even they're going to be wrong. Anyway, so the point is, as Schweitzer pointed out, often what people create as the image of God in their minds is the God that they want and not the God that is.
Gerrit And not to sound too much like a Calvinist, but, hey, I'm more than willing to agree with you that marriage can exist in heaven. But I believe marriage exists in heaven because Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and he told me that it did, right, through his revelations. How do you believe that? Jesus says the opposite in the New Testament. Says that, you know, it's for this life only, which is why Christians believe that in their theology. I think the general move towards spiritualism rather than religiosity, where people say, well, I'm spiritual, I'm not religious. That is part of that. I don't like how religion doesn't feel like very inclusive. I want it to be more inclusive. I don't want there to be any punishments. I don't want there to be any judgment. I don't want there to be any standards. I want people to do whatever they want to do and whatever they want to do to be right. Yeah, that's a societal movement.
Gerrit And frankly, some religions have attempted to try to co-opt that, to try to say, hey, you can believe whatever you want. Hey, we don't have morality standards in our religion, or at least we don't have any enforceable ones. And that is at least in the short term appealing to people. But I will say this, as we've talked about on this podcast multiple times, the churches that have relaxed their standards, both of salvation and morality over the last 50 years, if the idea was, well, we've got to change this to get the young people, it's not working, because those churches are the ones hemorrhaging their membership the fastest. And we just saw that with the culmination of the schism that took place in the Methodist Church. The Methodist Church forever was attacked by its opponents as being too focused on doing righteous works, of thinking you had to live a certain way, that you had to be holy.
Gerrit That's how other churches attacked the Methodist Church. And within the last two years, the Methodist Church itself has imploded on the basis of whether or not people actually have to live this biblical righteous life. And so, I think often when someone says, well, I just believe everyone's going to heaven, they're giving a statement of what they believe secularly, that they're confusing it with religion, because they would have a very hard time finding the religious person who teaches that.
Richard So, you asked and the Cracker Refuge team got it. So, here's just a random whatever. This is from a pastor in a church in Pennsylvania. Has no one condemned you, quote, right? She replied, no, no one, sir. Then Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. John 18, 10 through 11. Do I condemn others? Peace. Now, generally, what he's saying there is a good point.
Gerrit Yeah, we shouldn't condemn others. But why do you think he left off the last part of the verse?
Richard Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more is not on that.
Gerrit Even though it says, yeah, he left, he knows that's there, because it says neither do I condemn thee.
Richard He just doesn't add the last sentence. Now, look, it's entirely possible that in this particular case, he's trying to make a point about not condemning. And so he's just focusing on the condemning part and perhaps doesn't believe strongly in that. I don't necessarily read all of every verse either, but he's trying to make a point. Whether it's intentional or not, and what his point is, I'm not exactly sure, other than obviously not to condemn, but the point isn't just that Jesus loved and didn't condemn. Jesus also tried to get people...
Gerrit Look, Jesus said, I am not sent to the earth to send peace, but the sword. Now you notice that's not a huge lot of quotes there on X on that one. That the depart from me, I never knew you is not getting the same number of quotes, right? That he will gather together the sheep and the goats isn't getting the same number of quotes. The reality of what's actually in the New Testament is a Paul who really believes that you need to live a certain way and believe a certain way. And if you don't believe me, go read the letter to the Galatians or to the Corinthians. The entire point of those letters is stop doing things that are wrong. Stop believing things that are wrong. Hey, you guys are wrong. Stop being wrong. So, I mean, I appreciate the question. I know we've gone on a little too long.
Gerrit So, but and maybe we'll answer your last question on another podcast because that's more of a general one that would take me a little more time. But I would say in general, when you're talking with people and they express something like, well, I just believe everyone's going to heaven. If you want to, it's a good place to say, why do you believe that? Where does it say that in the Bible that everyone's going to heaven? Well, I mean, and they'll probably tell you, well, I just think that God loves us all so much that he's going to take everyone to heaven. Okay, well, where does it say that in the Bible? Latter-day Saints have a different viewpoint because we have modern prophets who've taught something different. So thank you for your questions. Hopefully, they were helpful and sorry, this one went on a little long. You know, good thing we got our crack research staff in on this. If they don't get to respond, we found out that they become quite irritated. So thank you so much for joining us.
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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So the audio quality is going to be poorer than usual. The content quality is going to be the same.

GerritBanter

And that is what is a poor example of satire, where we are making fun of everybody that claims to know exactly where things existed or did not exist.

RichardBanter

Now it's either missionary emails or I'm in labor emails.

GerritBanter

That's when John C. Bennett was excommunicated.

GerritBanter

If you ever post anything positive about the church ever, for any reason ever, you will have someone post something negative, guaranteed.

GerritInsight

We shouldn't confuse the fact that Joseph is not formally educated with the fact that Joseph is unintelligent. Those aren't the same things.

GerritInsight

Joseph was the original self-help guru, okay?

GerritBanter

Or maybe that's why the Gettysburg Address was so short. Lincoln's like, if I'm the one who has to write this, it's like two paragraphs and we're out.

GerritBanter

It's one of the best parts of being anti anything is that you can have it whatever way you want because the ends is the issue, and however you get there, it actually doesn't matter.

RichardInsight

The reality is people often make God in their own image.

GerritInsight

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 died with a million dollars or so.
Joseph Smith couldn't spell, so he must not have been very smart.
Most Christians now believe almost everyone will be saved because of Latter-day Saint influence.
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

Being uneducated isn't the same as being unintelligent: Joseph spelled Hyrum as "Hiram" in 1831, then spent his life reading, studying and learning Hebrew.

Many later Joseph Smith documents were written by scribes like W. W. Phelps and approved by Joseph, so compare like with like.

Claims that Joseph died rich confuse Church property with personal wealth; he died owing debts.

People often make God in their own image; Jesus said "neither do I condemn thee," and also "go and sin no more."

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Pahoran's mother-in-law's subletThe cruise is a research trip to Mexican beaches to find it; Richard admits it's satire of geography claims (1:01, 3:42, 4:05).
Zumba classThe recording will pause if the cruise director announces Zumba (1:23, 1:49).
Bill the AdultererSarah never found the episode where Bill became an adulterer; 57% of adulterers Richard knows are named Bill (5:00, 5:52, 7:40).
The labor-email policySarah promises to write from labor someday, with a footnote that it's not a pregnancy announcement (11:02, 11:55).
266 daysRichard calculates when to conceive for a May 11 baby (14:07).
Daryl Strawberry"I've never met you, but yes": someone has posted something negative on Sarah's Facebook (15:24, 16:04).
Six episodes a dayA missionary's listening habit; Gerrit suggests a 12-step program, and Richard suggests it's a Russian interrogation tactic (18:39, 18:51).
The crack research staffFinds a Joseph Smith who really was a lieutenant general and feeds Richard an Old Fuss and Feathers joke (37:08, 38:04, 39:33).
Gerrit's danderComing in hot every time; Gerrit admits he gets triggered (21:25, 56:56, 57:05).
Tens of tensOf French listeners, thanks to Jonathan in Quebec (48:58, 49:08).
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 D&C 121Jesus Christ Is the Great Deliverer!Elder Kevin J. HathawayElder Hathaway testifies that Jesus Christ is the great deliverer and that the question for the faithful is not whether He will deliver, but how and when.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 121The Hour of Your Mission Is ComeBishop Sean DouglasBishop Douglas thanks missionaries of every age and urges the rising generation to place full-time missionary service high on their list.October 2026 General Conference · cites John 8:10–11Divine AppointmentsPresident Timothy L. FarnesPresident Farnes recalls a discouraging day as a young priesthood leader when then-Elder Dallin H.

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
Joseph Smith's holographic letters versus scribal ones, and how the Joseph Smith Papers decide what counts as his (27:02).
The making of General Smith's Views with W. W. Phelps (28:56).
The Nauvoo Legion: its charter, drills, courts-martial and Fourth of July reviews (38:16).
Winfield Scott, Zachary Taylor and Polk's politics in the Mexican War (39:53).
Joseph Smith's bankruptcies and how his estate was settled into the 1850s (51:15).
SOT Litner · S4E32.