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S4E33 · Theory for the Origin of the Book of Mormon
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 33 · 59:40

Theory for the Origin of the Book of Mormon

In 1847 Brigham Young gave away his company's fresh horses to a struggling pioneer company and then 'took a walk' of about 900 miles back to Winter Quarters.

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The question ·

Joseph used John Bunyan's stories as a source for the Book of Mormon.

Dan (listener)

Dan in California confirms that in Hmong you really do feel the Spirit in your liver, and then asks about a theory that Joseph borrowed the Book of Mormon from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Gerrit introduces Bunyan, a Puritan soldier in the English Civil War, and walks through Christian, Obstinate, Pliable and the dream that frames the book. He shows that the 'parallels' are vague, often the opposite of the Book of Mormon, and shared by most religious writing, and that no historian makes this argument because it can't explain the plates or the witnesses. For Elder Hunt's request for a favorite story, Gerrit tells how Brigham Young in 1847 gave up his company's horses to help Jedediah M. Grant's company and walked back to Winter Quarters.

Who comes upJohn BunyanJoseph SmithOliver CromwellDanteHomerEmma SmithBrigham YoungJedediah M. GrantEber D. Howe
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The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

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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. I'm excited for this episode. We're gonna talk about something that's near and dear to my heart, toward the middle or end. We'll see how far we get with Paul Bunyan, but, or John Bunyan.
Gerrit It really just depends on what Babe the Blue Ox has to say about things.
Richard Or any of the Bunyans, or a Bunyan in general, on your foot. We're going to cover all the Bunyans today, but I appreciate you letting me talk about something that's near and dear to my heart, eventually later on.
Gerrit We'll see. We'll see if it pans out. If you're listening to this and it's edited, you know.
Richard We didn't get to it.
Gerrit Yeah, well, and we don't really do any editing, so.
Richard Well, so we do have here, starting with the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. And I apologize, I'm a little congested. I sound like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer when he has the fake nose.
Gerrit What's wrong with the way I talk?
Richard So it starts, this email comes to us from Dan in California. Dear Gerrit and Richard, I chuckled while listening to you tell of a Hmong-speaking friend bearing his testimony of the Holy Ghost speaking to your mind and liver. I am happy to confirm that your friend is absolutely telling the truth in Hmong. Now, Gerrit, you know that I'm fairly fluent in Hmong.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard So my pronunciation of these Hmong terms will be nearly flawless.
Gerrit Every Hmong listener we have will be canceling their premium subscription.
Richard So, in Hmong, love siab, which is exactly how it's pronounced, is the main emotion.
Gerrit There is no way that you just said that, right? We're going to need you to write back, Dan, to tell us how wrong Richard pronounced that.
Richard Write it phonetically. So, love siab. That has, yeah, I'm pretty sure that that was perfect. In the main, look, I'm super congested. Look at that. Is the main emotion for your body, and it translates as the liver. In fact, a common put down is to refer to a person as having a siab fem or evil liver.
Gerrit Oh, man. I know that I've called you that a few times. I've been like, I'm so tired of your evil liver.
Richard Did you know, your dad, was he a liver and onions guy?
Gerrit Oh, my.
Richard That's what I consider evil liver.
Gerrit Yeah. My mom loved liver and onions, and my dad liked it. My mom still enjoys it. She still enjoys a good liver and onions.
Richard What was it? Was it your dad? Onions and milk? What is your dad?
Gerrit My dad, yes. Yes, he would eat onions with milk in it, as if it was like a cereal. Yeah, yeah. He grew up during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. And so to him, you know, if you have an onion, What kind of, was it a Walla Walla?
Richard Was it a red? Was it a sweet yellow?
Gerrit I think at the point that you're putting buttermilk over onions.
Richard It was not, it was buttermilk?
Gerrit I don't know. I know he drank buttermilk. He drank buttermilk by the cup. He loved buttermilk.
Richard That's not possible.
Gerrit Loved it. No, he did. Well, look, I'm going to need to have Renee.
Richard At my grandparents' house, I went and poured myself a glass of milk, not knowing, I was like five, not knowing there was a difference between the types of milk.
Gerrit Milk and buttermilk?
Richard Yes.
Gerrit Because butter, butter, good. Milk, great. Buttermilk, the nastiest thing you've ever tasted in your life. I mean, why would you even call it buttermilk?
Richard I don't know.
Gerrit I mean, we need to talk to your wife. She grew up on a dairy farm. How much buttermilk do you think Becky drank?
Richard I don't know. What do you think, Beck, who's here with us now, but eight gallons a day? So many gallons. She's organizing our photos right now in Google Photos. Translates to liver, Syab fam, evil liver. That is English equivalent to telling someone that they have a bad or evil heart. Conversely, the phrase zoo Syab translates to good liver and means happy. I served a Hmong speaking mission in Central California. It was blessed to return 15 years later to my former mission to live and work. The Hmong ward where I served is still part of my current stake and is thriving with some of the best strongest members I've ever known. We recently had a Hmong speaking patriarch called to serve the church members in the region who wish to have their patriarchal blessings given in Hmong. The history of the Hmong people in the church is an amazing one. One other side note, as a missionary, I was blessed to attend several Hmong member patriarchal blessings and was surprised to hear that many of them were from the tribe of Asher.
Richard The fact certainly got our missionary imaginations going. Just goes to show the gathering of Israel. Thank you both for your wonderful podcast. I've enjoyed listening to it for several years now and appreciate the mix of history, humor and testimony. It has truly been a blessing in my life. Sincerely, Dan.
Gerrit Where was Dan emailing us from?
Richard From California, Clovis, California.
Gerrit All right. How about that?
Richard There you go.
Gerrit Who knew that we could have as many episodes about Hmong speaking as we did?
Richard No one.
Gerrit Yeah. I mean, I feel like what our listeners come to the podcast for is, first of all, they come for the humor. Yeah. Yeah. Second of all, they come for Hmong language advice.
Richard We're huge in Southeast Asia, though.
Gerrit I mean, I don't know what our downloads are in Cambodia and Vietnam. I have a pretty good guess what they are in Laos and Vietnam, actually, but I'm guessing zero.
Richard This next email comes to us from Branson. He starts with, it's me, Branson.
Gerrit I think you need to read the subject line though.
Richard Polygamy in Vietnam. So speaking of, Genrith and Grand Viceroy de Tuth.
Gerrit He is making a mockery of the fact that no one ever spells or pronounces our name correctly.
Richard So polygamy in Vietnam. It's me, Branson. The guy who wanted you to lie to us about some awesome Porter Rockwell stories, I still want that. First thing, one of my favorite things to do recently is look at the AI generated chapters that Spotify gives me while listening to you guys ramble. See attached picture. Ramble?
Gerrit Boy, he's shot across the bow.
Richard We just spent three minutes talking about onions and buttermilk.
Gerrit Well, only because Becky wouldn't answer how much buttermilk she had to drink when she was a kid.
Richard So the image that he shows here is of a condemned to repeated episode. And in the condemned to repeated episode, one of the chapters is called polygamy in Vietnam. A couple of things to note. Polygamy in Vietnam is a chapter in the Treaty of Paris episode. I'm glad I know how huge of a role that played in ending the Revolutionary War. Thanks. Additionally, note that I only listen on 1.4x speed or higher. I tried normal speed recently and it was way too slow.
Gerrit Wow. I feel like Branson.
Richard He's coming in hot.
Gerrit How much coffee is he drinking? That he has to listen, that the slowest he can listen to something is 1.4?
Richard So it's like that with me listening to conference talks. If I'm not listening on 1.5, I feel like they're doing it in slow motion.
Gerrit So you need elder Bednar to sound like a squirrel? I mean, is it like Alvin and the Chipmunks to you?
Richard I don't have to like three. Yeah. President Oaks is saying all he wants is a hula hoop.
Gerrit Yeah. Me, I want a hula hoop.
Richard Well, so I went actually to the transcript to try and find out what, because when we saw this, we're like, what are you talking about?
Gerrit We did reference polygamy in Vietnam. What is the AI transcript doing?
Richard Well, we did. So in this, I was asking Gerrit about Vietnam, they use similar tactics to the Fabian strategy that Washington used. He just dragged the war out. Eventually, it becomes too expensive and the people lose the will and you win. So that they talked to us. So Gerrit was talking about that a little bit and then saying how, we're eventually going to get to the Vietnam War. I said, we'll get to polygamy before we get to the Vietnam War, and AI created a chapter then saying Vietnam polygamy.
Gerrit I think that's because on our Condemned to Repeat It, that's some of the premium content. It's American history. We're going maybe at a slower pace than Richard originally anticipated. I think we had somewhere around 12 episodes on the Revolutionary War.
Richard Yeah, you're probably right. It's actually probably a little more than that.
Gerrit Okay, more like 15 episodes on the Revolutionary War.
Richard More like 20 episodes on that. You hit slavery quickly, then we got right in.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, who doesn't want to know more about the Revolutionary War?
Richard It's been fascinating for me. I've learned so much, as I didn't know any of that stuff before.
Gerrit And now we're talking about the Articles of Confederation. We're pretty quickly going to get to Shays' Rebellion. What else could someone want?
Richard Well, we're going to spend 3 years on the Federalist Papers.
Gerrit We're going to read them all word for word. We're going to read one Federalist Paper and pick one that wasn't good and call that the Federalist Papers.
Richard Yeah, by Jay?
Gerrit Yeah, John Jay.
Richard John Jay, that'll be the one we read.
Gerrit Chief Justice.
Richard Yes. All right, secondly, I sent y'all an email in the past and have done a bit of research since, but by the way, noticing the y'all there. So, I've got graduation coming up in December. I'm hoping to be able to graduate in December. And I went with my wife and I purchased all Western gear head to toe. I am absolutely dutted out so that when I go to walk, I'll be in full cowboy regalia.
Gerrit So, we went on a combined family vacation. And for one of the nights, it was, you know, it was elegant night on the cruise ship where you're supposed to dress up and look good. Richard packed his cowboy attire and in complete with bolo tie and gigantic oversized don't tread on me belt buckle. In all of the pictures, he's brandishing the belt buckle as if it is, I don't know.
Richard And they got it for roping.
Gerrit Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as if you just won the Dodge National Circuit Finals. And yeah, but he just bought the belt buckle. He has not as much rodeo experience as he wants people to believe.
Richard Yeah, and I drive an electric car. I couldn't have been further away. I had to sell my Dodge Ram pickup. I may have mentioned this before. It was a dark, dark sad day.
Gerrit I find it interesting that you kept the Dodge Ram pickup right up until you became an Oklahoma State cowboy and then got rid of it for an electric car. It's very interesting.
Richard I have a long commute. Anyway, so I'm pasting it again below. So he asked a question, wanted some information. I'm pasting it below. I want to know how Paul Bunyan wrote the Book of Mormon. That's his question. All right. So while surfing through some extreme, and by the way, we do appreciate. So in this particular case, we didn't get to the e-mail, right? We read it, but not on the air. He still has the same question, reposted it. There you go. Just persistence pays off.
Gerrit Maybe.
Richard We'll see.
Gerrit There's like 70 people listening right now. They're like, I've e-mailed them like 17 times. They haven't even acknowledged me. Yeah. Mainly because it's like, tell me what your address is. I'm coming to your house.
Richard While surfing through some extreme, anti-Mormon subreddits, 360 gainer kick flip off of the top of a 20 foot wall, and mocking bad anti-Mormon theories, I ran into one that I was not familiar with. Joseph used John Bunyan's stories as a source for the Book of Mormon. After doing some research and finding that John Bunyan and Paul Bunyan were different people, I did some more research.
Gerrit Do research to find that out.
Richard I did. Now, I love the idea of Paul Bunyan being the person that actually wrote the Book of Mormon. I love that. So much. I always want that to be partially true. I did some more research and found that theories surrounding this have been around since Eber Howe's anti-Mormon reign. I didn't find a lot more about it though. Would you mind spending some time hashing it out? Then he sends us a website to an article about it. They claim that striking similarities between the Book of Mormons of Benedi and Lehi, specifically to some of Bunyan's characters. They do at least note the remarkable feat of Joseph doing it without notes, but compare it to how oral stories by Homer were passed on. So the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Book of Mormon.
Gerrit Well, and first, John Bunyan. So I'm going to guess that the majority of people that are listeners have not really, they've probably not even heard of John Bunyan. I mean, they've maybe heard of the foot problem of Bunyan, or maybe they've, and they certainly heard of Paul Bunyan. Oh, of course. Because who doesn't wish they had a gigantic blue ox as your friend? And, you know, I think also the Simpsons did a lot of, you know, Paul Bunyan stories that made it even easier to remember. But John Bunyan is probably one of the most popular English authors that you don't know who they are. That's what I would guess, right? Because if I were to say, you know, Shakespeare, you'd know who Shakespeare was. If I were to say Milton, you would know who Milton was. If I were to say, you know, John Donne, you'd know who those people were.
Richard You're giving me a lot of credit on the last couple, but yeah.
Gerrit Becky would know who those people were.
Richard Sure, Becky would.
Gerrit She reads. But John Bunyan, not so much. But his books, well, in particular, one of his books was incredibly popular when it was written. And the one that's the most famous is the Pilgrim's Progress. Now, that kind of sounds like it's going to be a story about, you know, when they land on Plymouth Rock and the Puritans are setting things up. But the reality is, it's a book that is a Christian-centered book. Now, Paul Bunyan is a Puritan, and he actually serves in the military during the English Civil War. So if, I don't know if I'm saying if you recall, did I ever talk about the English Civil War on this podcast? I'm sure I did indirectly.
Richard Yeah, on the Condemned to Repeat It, you spent a decent amount of time talking about Oliver Cromwell.
Gerrit Yes, so the English Civil War is essentially, I mean, there's a lot of reasons for it, but it in essence pits the Parliament, which is primarily Puritan, against the Royalist and the King, who's of course maintaining the standard Church of England. So it's both religious and political and economic, like all things, there's all kinds of things that are in there. And when he's just basically a teenager, I keep wanting to say Paul Bunyan instead of John Bunyan. See, now that's a problem. I never would have said Paul Bunyan before, but Branson did this.
Richard He did this.
Gerrit Branson did this to us. Bunyan serves in the parliamentarian forces, so he's one of the round heads in the English Civil War. And afterwards, you have the Cromwell dictatorship, and then there's the restoration of the monarchy, and Charles II becomes king again. Surprisingly, Charles II, not super big fan of the Puritans who executed his father. And so, while he is relatively soft at first, he increasingly becomes more, he increases his persecution of Puritans. And one of the people who finds themselves on the negative side of these persecutions is John Bunyan. John Bunyan's actually going to be in jail for 12 years because he refuses to be a what's called a conformist.
Gerrit Meaning, what the Church of England required of people was for everyone to take this oath, adhering to the fact that the king was the head of the Church of England. Well, when you think the king is a terrible apostate, you get a whole bunch of people saying, you know what, I don't think I'm going to take that oath. And so Bunyan is what's called a non-conformist, right? Because he won't conform and he is thrown in jail. Well, while he's in jail, he has lots of experiences, but also he does a lot of writing. And the the end result of what he writes, the big book that he writes is the the book Pilgrim's Progress. And you can see why someone might taking it at a glance, say, Oh, well, that sounds very similar to parts of the Book of Mormon. In fact, let's go to Pilgrim's Progress real quick. Let's let's just pull that up and we'll read part of how it starts.
Gerrit So the author is going to tell you that they're having that everything that you're about to read is something that basically took place in a dream. But this is how it starts. As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that certain place to sleep. And as I slept, I dreamed a dream.
Intro What?
Richard So had dreams ever been discussed in literature to this point?
Gerrit So never, obviously. No one's ever said the phrase, I dreamed a dream, except for of course, Lehi in the Book of Mormon.
Richard Right. And also from Les Misérables.
Gerrit Yes. That's the thing.
Richard So they stole that from Lehi or they stole that from this? Well, I stole it from him because obviously Joseph stole it from this.
Gerrit The play is written only in the last half century, so I'm sure they're stealing it from lots of things.
Richard Okay. So Joseph didn't, you're saying you know for certain that Joseph didn't get parts of the Book of Mormon from the play Les Misérables.
Gerrit I'm certain, or the book that Victor Hugo wrote, because he lived after Joseph Smith and wrote his book after Joseph.
Richard Okay. All right.
Gerrit Well, so I can see why someone casually reading that first sentence, because when they read the words, I dream to dream, what are they thinking? If you happen to be a Latter-day Saint. Isn't that exactly what Lehi tells his family? Behold, I have dreamed a dream. Or in other words, I've seen a vision, right? Yeah. In fact, they say it twice, because they say it when he first tells his family, and then they say it again when Nephi is having the same dream revealed to him, right? So you could see it right away. Well, how about that? Joseph's just stealing the phrase, I dream to dream from this very popular book, Pilgrim's Progress. Let me give you a little bit of background on the book first before we dive into some of these so-called similarities. The point of the book is that the author has this dream of someone who the main character of the book is someone who's trying to get out of the city of destruction and make their way to the celestial city.
Gerrit So some critics would be like, oh, trying to get to the celestial city, huh? In fact, I read one person trying to claim they were similar, saying like, don't you think it's too much of a coincidence that the guy in Pilgrim's Progress is trying to get to the celestial kingdom and that that's what Joseph Smith later said that people were trying to do? Well, the word celestial kingdom isn't even in Pilgrim's Progress. It's celestial city, but that just shows what happens when people are desperately trying to find connections that may or may not be there. So the main character is it's supposed to be a Christian allegory, right? And unlike the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, it's not exactly as entertaining. And the allegories, I mean, there's a reason why it's super popular. John Bunyan, much like his namesake Paul, is very relatable to his reader because he's not trying to make the allegory really difficult to understand.
Gerrit The main character in his book is a guy who's trying to get to this celestial city, which, you know, follow the yellow brick road. And guess what his name is? His name is Christian. And all throughout the book, as people interact with him, people who help him on his way or prevent him on his way, they all have the name of the attribute that is the problem or the help to that person trying to find their way to paradise, right? So when he first starts on his journey, two of the people that go with him are obstinate and pliable. Okay. Well, what do you think obstinate is like? I mean, without reading the book at all, with having no idea what it is, what do you think obstinate is like?
Richard My guess is that they're obstinate.
Gerrit That's exactly right.
Richard Oh my gosh.
Gerrit So he's like, oh, I'm not going in there. And pliable, what do you think pliable is like?
Richard Say that they're obstinate.
Gerrit Nope, they're pliable. Oh my gosh. Yeah, wow. Yeah, don't. And so pliable is able to be convinced by Christian to go with him right up until things get kind of bad, and then someone else is able to convince pliable to go back the other way. And so he keeps introducing these characters. They're all in the story for just a very little time. There's someone in the book whose name is Worldly Wise Man. What do you think Worldly Wise Man is good at? He's good at wisdom of the world. And he's trying to, all of them trying to convince him to not keep doing what evangelists told them to do. Evangelists told him to keep following on this path. Whatever you do, don't get off of it, and you'll get to the gate that leads to paradise.
Richard So subtlety isn't necessarily...
Gerrit The reason why this book is so popular is that it's kind of an allegory, but mainly it's not an allegory at all.
Richard Yeah, an allegory is when something means something, not when something is expressly that thing.
Gerrit And so, for instance, as he's traveling on the way, he falls into the sluice of despair, right? And he has a hard time getting out, and that causes other people to turn around and turn back. You know, maybe that's where Princess Bride got the pit of despair.
Richard Oh, so that was stolen from... So many people are stealing...
Gerrit I feel like everything written in the English language has been stolen from John Bunyan.
Richard Well, I mean, so to your point on the dream to dream, so that's 1 Nephi 8 and 1 Nephi 3.
Gerrit Right, so it's twice that it's mentioned in there. So someone might say, well, look, if it's... I mean, that's word for word. I dreamed it. Where do you think Joseph Smith got that? Of course, you could also go to, I don't know, the Bible, where that's literally the phraseology that Joseph in Egypt... Well, of the story of Joseph in Egypt, it's the story that's the way that is used, right? It's I dreamed a dream.
Richard It's also in Daniel chapter 2. It's used multiple times in that chapter, I dreamed a dream.
Gerrit Which is the whole reason why John Bunyan is using that language. You know, look, John Bunyan is not super educated. I mean, he becomes a pastor and a preacher, but not because he went to Oxford and Cambridge. But what he is an expert in, I mean, he's basically the quintessential new Protestant teacher. He knows the Bible backward and forward, and everything's about the Bible. And so, of course, he incorporates into his Christian story biblical language. But you can see how someone on the service level says, well, wait a minute, if it says, I dream to dream, then that just shows that Joseph's just taking that. Are there things that are similar in the books? In the most generic sort of ways that anything could possibly be similar. There's actually far, far, far, far more differences.
Gerrit For instance, I mean, is this a dream that he's going to have that talks about, you know, leading your family out into the wilderness to save them? Nope, it's the exact opposite in John Bunyan's work. His family's like, what are you talking about? What do you mean that you read a book that said the city's going to be destroyed, right? So there's another thing. The city's going to be destroyed. Again, in all of Christian literature, no one has ever talked about a city being destroyed or judgment coming. That's never happened. So this is what I'm trying to point out. As part of the problem with these sorts of critiques is they claim that what the Book of Mormon or Joseph's revelations are doing is just repeating oft-repeated common Christian themes. That's a good way to be critical of something. And yet at the same time, if it's something that's taught in Christianity, it's going to be repeated as a theme, right?
Gerrit So if Christians believe that Jesus is coming again, I don't know about Joseph Smith, he's claiming Jesus is coming again. You know how many people have claimed that? Yeah, the Bible claims that.
Richard Jesus claims that.
Gerrit Exactly. I will come in clouds of glory. I mean, so in some ways, it's a type of criticism that's criticizing the religion itself and claiming, oh, well, there's no originality because, I mean, John Bunyan thought that you had to struggle to get through life to get to where paradise was, and the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith say the same thing. Almost as if that's the message of Christianity, that you have to put aside this life in order to get to the next life. So like I said, in many ways, it's an unfair criticism because the person is arguing that unless you're talking about a completely different religion, which by the way Joseph Smith is, almost everything that's being taught in Pilgrim's Progress is at some point being cast aside by Joseph Smith's theology.
Gerrit I mean, there's a pretty stark difference between what the ideas of baptism are in Joseph Smith's theology and in Bunyan's. But, you know, there are some things that are pretty direct. Let's read Wood passage from Pilgrim's Progress. They'll kind of give you an idea of just how, well, I mean, there are aspects of this that can at times be a little negative. Now, remember, John Bunyan is a Puritan from the 1600s. So he is not the type of person that you can easily talk about Catholicism with. For instance, at one point, they get to the valley of the shadow of death, which of course, John Bunyan just stealing from the Bible.
Richard For a minute, I thought you were going to say Coolio.
Gerrit Yeah. Well, and where's Coolio stealing it? From John Bunyan. Coolio has... I mean, most of Coolio's lyrics are from Pilgrim's Progress. Most of them are.
Richard I'm going to do a side-by-side comparison right now.
Gerrit Let's pull up the words and see. Yeah. I've been laughing so long that even my mama thinks that my mind is gone.
Richard That's not the classic John Bunyan.
Gerrit Oh, John Bunyan says that. I mean, why do you think he couldn't get his parents to follow him out of the city? So let me read part of this. In this light, therefore, he came to the end of the valley. Now I saw in my dream that at the end of this valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, even of pilgrims that had gone this way formerly. So he's seen the bones of people that have tried to make it and didn't make it. And while I was musing, what should be the reason, I espied a little before me a cave where two giants, Pope and Pagan dwelt in old time by whose power in tyranny, the men whose bones, blood, ashes, et cetera, lay there were cruelly put to death. But by this place, Christian went without danger. Whereat I somewhat pondered, but I have learned since that Pagan has been dead many a day.
Gerrit And as for the other, though he may yet be alive, he is by a by reason of age and also by the many shrewd brushes that he met with in his younger days, grown so crazy and stiff in his joints that he can now do little more than sit in his cave's mouth, grinning at the pilgrims as they go by and biting his nails because he cannot come at them. That's that's John Bunyan's description of the Pope. We apologize to Pope Francis if...
Richard Yeah, and the emeritus Pope Benedict and all of the popes that...
Gerrit That feel slighted by what John Bunyan... I mean, well, to be fair, he doesn't say it is the Catholic Pope. He just happens to say the name of these two evil monsters living in the cave that kill all the pilgrims is Pope and Pagan. It could have been a different Pope or a different...
Richard Well, and a different Pagan.
Gerrit Yeah, other non-Christian religions that aren't Pagan, even though that's the definition of Pagan. Again, while it's an allegory, it is not a readily clear one. So look, what do I think of the argument? I think that there are almost no words that are similar in the books. The stories that the claims are that they are similar, oh, there's a prison involved. Uh-huh. Why don't we go read all literature that's ever existed and see whether or not there's ever a prison involved? And by the way, it just so happens to seem like with the apostles preaching an unwelcome gospel, guess what happened to them? They're thrown in prison. What happens to people praying in Nebuchadnezzar's court without permission?
Gerrit Prison, well, or furnace. What happens to Joseph and Pharaoh? I mean, the reality of religious literature is that often people trying to preach against the preeminent power, they are going to be persecuted and that persecution is often going to take the form of prison. Now, Joseph Smith doesn't know it yet when he's translating the story of Abinadi or the story of Alma and Amulek, but he's going to be in a prison too. Not something Joseph could have foreseen as he was writing the Book of Mormon all those years, or maybe he did. Maybe he planned that. Maybe he planned to have the Missouri government issue an extermination order. Well played, Joseph.
Richard Well, I was going to say, so Missouri also stole that from John Bunyan.
Gerrit I feel like Missouri stole the extermination order from Pope. I think that they, Pope and Pagan.
Richard Pope and Pagan, but the idea of imprisonment, they stole that from John Bunyan.
Gerrit From John Bunyan, generally.
Richard Generally, yeah.
Gerrit Because John Bunyan was thrown to prison. And they wanted Joseph in there for 12 years, but it didn't work out for him. The argument that follows is made by people. Again, this is not an argument that's made by historians, by the way. There is someone with a PhD who makes arguments about Joseph having the ability to do oral tradition. They have a PhD in theater, is what their PhD is in. And clearly, that...
Richard That sounds like a little on the nose, doesn't it?
Gerrit Well, I mean, since they're doing a nice show for everybody in their attempt to claim that's where it came from. The argument being that Joseph is a genius. It is very funny when it comes to...
Richard I thought he was lazy and stupid.
Gerrit Well, he's lazy and stupid and doesn't know anything, but also a brilliant, maniacal genius who can do everything all at once. I see. It is really the problem, right? Because with Joseph Smith, what do you do? The Book of Mormon appears to be completely beyond his ability. So what this person is arguing is that... Well, okay, so Joseph wasn't very educated, and Joseph couldn't write very well, and other things that Joseph wrote, even after the Book of Mormon, clearly demonstrate that he has less education than is demonstrated in the Book of Mormon. But here's what Joseph probably could do very well. He, okay, he couldn't have read all of these things on his own, because he couldn't really read very well, but maybe he had told to him the stories of Pilgrim's Progress. He had told to him the stories of Homer, and he had told to him these stories, and then he was able in his genius mind to spout out the Book of Mormon by dictation in a way that was coherent, and so coherent that it convinced the people that were writing for him as scribes, or people who were witnesses, that in fact he was reading the translation, even though he wasn't reading it, because he was just reciting it from something that he'd memorized as a storyteller.
Gerrit Are you following me?
Richard Yeah, no, yeah, that makes sense.
Gerrit Yeah, yeah, all of that follows.
Richard 100%.
Gerrit Yeah, of course, part of the problem with this argument, and this is the reason why historians aren't making it, because what are the historical records that demonstrate this? Do you have witnesses that say Joseph Smith just was pacing around the room, dictating as he walked around? Do you have witnesses that are saying things like, oh yes, Joseph was telling these stories, not that he was translating with the seer stones? No, you don't have any of that. Of course, the argument from the other side would be, yeah, well, that's just, he's lying to them and saying that he's seeing words on a stone, but really he's just rehearsing the whole thing that he's memorized from himself. So, the argument here is that Joseph is the most gifted storyteller that's ever lived in American history, that he's memorized exactly what he's going to say, and he's memorized it so well that when he rehearses it while pretending to look at the Urim and Thummim, that the scribes think he's reading words put there by God, even though he's just telling a story.
Richard Scribe after scribe.
Gerrit After scribe.
Richard After scribe, because he's got it memorized, he's an evil genius.
Gerrit Right.
Richard Got it. Okay, yeah, that checks.
Gerrit Yeah, even though apparently such isn't the case when he does other speaking, right? I mean, look, Joseph at times gives very, very powerful sermons, but one would not say, oh, looking at Joseph Smith's collected sermons, that Joseph Smith was a naturally gifted orator. They wouldn't say that. In fact, many people would say that's the reason why he defaults to Sidney Rigdon, because Sidney Rigdon is a naturally gifted orator. Now, you can already hear anti-Mormons in the background going, aha, so maybe he did know Sidney Rigdon even earlier, and then Sidney Rigdon helped him with this oration so that he could give the oration. It requires a whole lot of people to be liars, but not the least of which, what about the gold plates? And this is what I've said on previous podcasts, the gold plates present the biggest problem for people trying to dismiss the Book of Mormon as anything other than what it is.
Gerrit Because Emma Smith says she feels and lifts and moves the gold plates. They're a physical reality. You have 8 witnesses who testify before God that they hefted and leafed through and looked at the gold plates. You have 3 more witnesses who declare not only that they see the plates, but that an angel from heaven came down and showed them the plates and the voice of the Lord declared that the translation of those characters was correct. What do you do with those witnesses? Are they all liars? Oh, they're all lying together. Okay, what's our proof that they're lying? Well, they must be because I don't believe the Book of Mormon is true. Okay, that's great. And that's called an opinion. That's not evidence. The fact that you don't want to believe that the Book of Mormon could be from God isn't actually evidence that it's not.
Gerrit You have an opinion. We know what people say about opinions. Congratulations, you're entitled to it. Great. That's wonderful. But your opinion doesn't carry any weight simply because you don't want to believe what it is that the other side is saying. Here's the historical fact. There are over a dozen people who say they felt, lifted, saw, interacted with gold plates. Are they all lying? Or is Joseph and his maniacal genius so incredibly gifted that he's able to fool even people like Martin Harris, who has ready interaction with gold, to believe that the tin that he gussied up to look like gold plates just so happened to be gold? I mean, the desperation behind this is where the origination came from. I can see why this argument appeals to some people, because it's essentially an unprovable argument, and that also makes it an undisprovable one.
Gerrit Like, what if Joseph had read a bunch of these stories, which by the way, aren't really similar at all. That there's a heaven involved, that there's religion involved, that there's difficulty in finding the way involved.
Richard And a dream, you can't skip over that.
Gerrit Yeah, no one's ever had a dream in all religious history. The first dream ever, right? And here I thought it was Martin Luther King, Jr. I mean, that this-
Richard He stole that from John Bunyan.
Gerrit Everyone stole everything from John Bunyan. You know, one of the interesting things about John Bunyan is trying to figure out what his literary motivations were. Because, in fact, when I first read Pilgrim's Progress, my first thought was I bet he, you know, this kind of idea of following this person on their journey, what does it sound like to you? It sounds like Dante's, right, Divine Comedy, where in the 1300s Dante writes, you know, writes this guided tour of hell, essentially, right? And that's what it sounded like to me. And so I was like, I, when I first read Pilgrim's Progress, I, my thought was, oh, I'll bet Bunyan read Dante, and that inspired him. Instead of doing a guided tour of hell, he's doing, gonna do a guided tour of how someone becomes saved.
Gerrit And then I found out, and apparently this appears to be the case. Now I'm not a specialist in this, but as far as I know, this still seems to be the consensus. There is no English translation of Dante in Bunyan's time. So maybe he could have heard about the Divine Comedy from other people, but we actually don't have any evidence that he did. So this is the problem with finding things that have similar themes and similar ideas, and just throwing the blanket, you know, criticism up there, oh yeah, obviously he stole that, obviously he stole that. Of course, the other problem is, even if there was some inspiration from these other writings, that would not demonstrate where the 600 pages of the Book of Mormon come from. Okay, so let's say Joseph Smith was inspired by Pilgrim's Progress, or Dante, and the Divine Comedy.
Gerrit Okay, so he's inspired by it. Now, where do those 600 pages of words come from? And trying to find the most delicate of slender threads of connection and saying that proves that's where it comes from, frankly makes the argument look terrible. It's almost as bad as the late war argument, honestly. Yeah, if I take like four lines from this and then like 20 pages later, take three more lines and then I like shove them together, then that like almost creates a verse that's almost the same as something that's almost in the Book of Mormon but isn't. That's where the Book of Mormon came from? You think it's this high wire plagiarism act, but not really plagiarism, but the idea comes from somewhere else? But we're not applying those standards to literally anywhere else? I mean, it to me, it's ridiculous. And that's coming from someone who has read all the things that Joseph Smith wrote and said and did.
Gerrit And so, yeah, are there people who make that claim? Sure. But it's not surprising that if that's a great claim and a great argument, why aren't more people making it? Why aren't historians making it? Why not? Well, because historians make arguments that have sources. And unlike this argument, it would have to deny all of the sources in order to make the argument. Either everyone with Joseph Smith is all involved in the lie, and they keep up the lie even after they hate Joseph and they're trying to destroy Joseph, or Joseph is such a monogamaniacal, you know, crazy genius, that he is able to convince all of them that this is the case, and they're so convinced that they're even convinced even after they hate him and have left the church.
Gerrit But they're still convinced that he was an evil gene, right? I mean, if this is where your faith is faltering, if you're saying, I don't know, I mean, I mean, there was a prison involved, and like some, you know, miracles in both books, I think you're, you know, I'm not saying this is not, you know, this is not what Branson's saying, but if he knows people that are really being swayed by it, I would say you're talking to people who don't really want to believe. For you to believe that the writings of John Bunyan are the actual origin of the Book of Mormon, you have to desperately want to believe that. And you're not believing in it because there's a scholarly consensus. You're not believing in it because there's overwhelming evidence. You're not believing in it because it's word for word. You're believing in it because it makes you feel good.
Gerrit Frankly, if you're going to believe in something because it makes you feel good, you might as well believe in the gospel rather than something else that doesn't have any evidence. Now, I want to shift to one more question we had.
Richard Yeah, so this comes from Elder Hunt. We went through many questions that he had, but one thing that we didn't get to was one of your favorite stories from church history. I know you have many different favorites. It's like a favorite child. It actually might be more difficult than a favorite child.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Favorite child is easier than your favorite.
Gerrit Well, especially if you're traveling with your children like you are now, then the favorite child status just ebbs and flows so much.
Richard It's minute by minute.
Gerrit Who's talking to me right now? Dad, where are my sandals? I just told you where your sandals were seven times. Dad, where are my sandals? That's it. Titus is the new favorite child. I mean, that's what happens. If you assign the favorite child in the moment, it helps him whip him right in the shape. I'm pretty sure that's what my kids think.
Richard I am 100%. But so, I mean, there's so many stories from church history that you love.
Gerrit Yeah. And, you know, obviously, it would be easy to take a Joseph Smith one, and frankly, I have so many Joseph Smith stories that it's, they're very hard to say, I like this one more than that one. I mean, and when we say stories, I mean, the martyrdom isn't really a favorite story of mine. I mean, it's, it's horrific. There are doctrines and teachings that are, but one that, that does always come back to me, because of how clearly, you know, rarely do you get the opportunity to demonstrate in the moment what kind of a believer you are. Rarely does that opportunity come. Again, you know, everybody's always says things like, oh, I'd die for the church. Well, what Joseph Smith found out over and over and over again, is there's a lot of people who say they would die for the church, circa WWF Phelps, right?
Gerrit But they aren't really going to die for the, not, I mean, die, I meant like, like, you know, I, I'd have people say like bad things to me and stuff, but that's it. I mean, I wouldn't, wouldn't actually die for it. And so the, the, one of the stories that speaks to me, there are two related stories to the crossing of the planes. The first, I want to, to set up the second, because the second one's more well known and, and obviously people have heard about it. It's the one that matters more to me. But I want to tell the first one because that, that helps people understand why this is a personal thing for the people involved. And that is when the saints are crossing the planes, okay? They, they, they, they, they get across the planes and they, they put in their, they put in their crop and the, the advanced party then starts heading back to winter quarter. So we always talk about, you know, the pioneers arrive in 1847, but they, and they also go back, many of them, because they're going to go back to get the next group of immigrants to bring them back.
Gerrit And so as they are traveling, they are passing the various pioneer companies that are, that are coming back. And they know how many pioneer companies left winter quarters. So as you're passing each one of those companies, okay, here's the next one, here's the next one. As they get further and further into the season, they're getting a little more worried that they haven't found the last company. You know, they, they are already into September and they haven't found Jedediah Grant's company. Where is it? And Brigham Young and his group, you know, made up of many apostles, actually, from people from the advanced group on their way back, they will eventually, on their way back, find this last company. And by the time they find them, they're a little worried. Snow has already fallen in Wyoming, in South Pass, where they're going through the mountains.
Gerrit Now, I don't know if any of you have ever been to Wyoming in the wintertime, or frankly, in June.
Richard Yeah, I was going to say, what do you define as the winter?
Gerrit If I'm in Star Valley, the winter is, what is it, August? It's right now. I'm pretty sure it's already frosted several times.
Richard That's right. No, you can't grow tomatoes there.
Gerrit Yeah. You get zero cuttings of hay.
Richard As we define coldness, yeah, you get half a cut.
Gerrit You can't even get hay to grow. It's just zero cuts. But so, here they are in the midst of, and when I say Wyoming, I mean the area that would eventually later, many years later, be organized into a territory that nobody lived in, that would eventually be organized into a state that also nobody lived in. There's no one living in this area right now. It is completely barren. The first wave of pioneers in 1847 has just gotten across, and now they're heading back to winter quarters. So that's why they're so worried. There's a hundred people in this pioneer wagon train that is so far behind the other nine wagon trains that they're not going to make it to Salt Lake without going through snow at this point. Snow is already falling. And when they finally run into the company, they find out they've had a series of mishaps like nobody's business.
Gerrit They had a stampede that drove off half of their oxen, and then they spent weeks trying to get all their cattle back, and they couldn't get them. So now they're going half as fast because they have half as many animals. Then the same day that Brigham Young's company arrived there and met them in camp, there was an Indian attack that drove off the remainder of the rest of their animals. So now they're in the middle of Wyoming, and they have no or almost no animals to pull their wagons. And snow's already falling, so now what are you going to do? And so Brigham Young is not only willing to die for the kingdom, he is also the ultimate pragmatist. He looks at his men that are on their way back to winter quarters, and they all have relatively fresh horses because their whole job was to get there quick and then to get back, not to haul grandmother's china.
Gerrit Their job was to get there, get a crop in, get back. And so he tells the men that are with him that they need to give up all of their horses to Jedediah Grant's company. And then with, I'm guessing a level of sarcasm, he said, after seeing the whole of Jedediah M. Grant's 100 on the road to the valley, at 9 a.m. I called on my council and all the returning brethren to take a walk with me to winter quarters because they gave up all their animals. Now, when he says take a walk with me, it means 900 miles to winter quarters without the horses that they'd relied on to get there fast enough that they weren't caught in a Wyoming or Nebraska or even Iowa snowstorm. Brigham doesn't know this at the time that he makes that sacrifice, that divine intervention is going to bring more animals to them on their way back.
Gerrit That's part of another story. But I tell that story first to say that faced with the possibility of having to give up everything, these church leaders did it. This is not an abstract idea. This isn't, hey, you should give things up for the kingdom of God. Brigham and the apostles and 70s and other church leaders who were with him, they practiced what they preached to the tune of what could possibly be their lives. They were one snowstorm away in Wyoming from their not being a Brigham young. That doesn't happen, thankfully. But why did I tell that story first? Because I think sometimes when we tell the second story, which is much more familiar to you, it's very easy for people to try to find ways to be critical. Because people will say, why is Brigham Young telling people to go out there instead of himself? Brigham's already done this.
Gerrit This isn't his first rodeo. So, and he would have had a bigger belt buckle than you.
Richard Yeah, probably not the Gaston flag necessarily, but something.
Gerrit I think Brigham would have liked to don't tread on me flag.
Richard I guarantee you.
Gerrit That's kind of his bag. He felt like he was being treaded on quite a bit all the time. Okay, well, we're basically out of time, so I won't get to tell the major story. So the problem with telling a story in order to set up another story is sometimes you don't get to the second story.
Richard That does happen.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, it happens, and close only counts, we know, in horseshoes and hand grenades and slow dancing. Yeah, that's the other thing that close counts. And so rather than try to shovel that story into our tail end here, we'll go ahead and break. And we expect a goodly amount of listener email discussing what exactly they think Brigham Young would have on his belt buckle. And then maybe we can get Richard to get a belt buckle that looks like that.
Richard I would be, look, I am now in the belt buckle collecting business. I want, the bigger the better for the Oklahoma State graduation.
Gerrit 10 gallon hat, is that what you're taking or?
Richard Yes, well, it's gonna be, well, I don't know if it'll be 10 gallon. It's gonna be felt, it's very nice. I'm gonna put it underneath my cap, the graduation cap.
Gerrit So you're going to walk with a cowboy hat on?
Richard 100%.
Gerrit Are there other people that do this?
Richard There are.
Gerrit Okay, so this is a thing at Oklahoma State.
Richard I saw one person do it.
Gerrit Was that person on their way to an asylum?
Richard That person was actually likely a cowboy.
Gerrit Yeah, oh, so like a real one? One that doesn't drive an electric vehicle?
Richard Yes.
Intro Okay.
Gerrit Yeah, well, so we will talk about that second story that was the focus that I wanted it to be on our next podcast. So thanks 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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Buttermilk, the nastiest thing you've ever tasted in your life. I mean, why would you even call it buttermilk?

GerritBanter

Second of all, they come for Hmong language advice.

GerritBanter

So you need elder Bednar to sound like a squirrel?

GerritBanter

Now, I love the idea of Paul Bunyan being the person that actually wrote the Book of Mormon.

RichardBanter

I feel like everything written in the English language has been stolen from John Bunyan.

GerritBanter

Well, he's lazy and stupid and doesn't know anything, but also a brilliant, maniacal genius who can do everything all at once.

GerritBanter

The fact that you don't want to believe that the Book of Mormon could be from God isn't actually evidence that it's not.

GerritInsight

Well, because historians make arguments that have sources.

GerritInsight

Frankly, if you're going to believe in something because it makes you feel good, you might as well believe in the gospel rather than something else that doesn't have any evidence.

GerritInsight

Brigham and the apostles and 70s and other church leaders who were with him, they practiced what they preached to the tune of what could possibly be their lives.

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 took the Book of Mormon from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
Joseph could have memorized and recited the Book of Mormon like an oral storyteller.
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

Similar themes aren't evidence of borrowing; dreams, prisons and judgment run through the Bible and nearly all Christian writing.

Every theory of the Book of Mormon's origin still has to account for the gold plates, which Emma, the Eight Witnesses and the Three Witnesses handled or saw.

Disbelieving the Book of Mormon is an opinion, not evidence; historians make arguments that have sources.

In 1847 Brigham Young and the apostles gave their horses to a stranded company and walked back to Winter Quarters; they practiced what they preached.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
In your mind and in your liverDan from Clovis confirms the Hmong story, and Richard attempts the pronunciation (1:43, 2:16).
We're huge in Southeast AsiaDownloads in Laos and Vietnam: probably zero (6:17).
Onions and buttermilkGerrit's Dutch dad ate onions in milk like cereal; Becky won't say how much buttermilk she drank on the dairy farm (3:21, 4:05, 7:20).
Polygamy in VietnamBranson finds Spotify's AI chapter title; he listens at 1.4x or faster, and Richard does conference at 1.5x (6:43, 8:08).
Richard's cowboy regaliaFull Western gear for his Oklahoma State graduation, a don't tread on me belt buckle on cruise elegant night, and a cowboy hat under the mortarboard (10:25, 10:54, 58:11).
Paul Bunyan wrote itBranson had to research that John and Paul Bunyan are different people; Gerrit keeps saying Paul anyway (12:44, 16:55).
Everyone stole from John BunyanLes Mis, The Princess Bride, Coolio, Missouri and Martin Luther King Jr. (19:44, 25:12, 30:27, 34:44, 42:21).
The favorite childChanges minute by minute on vacation; Titus is the new favorite (48:25).
Wyoming wintersIn Star Valley, winter is August and you get zero cuttings of hay (52:20).
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 1 Nephi 8:2Love Like JesusElder Ronald A. RasbandElder Rasband speaks to everyone grieving for loved ones who have turned away from the Lord, acknowledging that lecturing and pressure often widen the rift.

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 Hmong Latter-day Saint community in Central California (4:23).
John Bunyan, the English Civil War and the nonconformists jailed under Charles II (16:55).
How critics' "parallels" arguments work, from Pilgrim's Progress to The Late War (44:51).
Brigham Young's 1847 return trip to Winter Quarters and the animals that later came to them (54:50).
SOT Litner · S4E33.