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Lucy Harris, part three
S4E6 · Witnesses of the Book of Mormon Part 3
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 6 · 1:08:43

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon Part 3

Before Oliver Cowdery ever met Joseph Smith, Joseph said, the Lord had already appeared to Oliver and shown him the plates in a vision.

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The question ·
What I want to know is, was there anything akin to service mission in the early church? Or was there only strictly teaching missions?
Sister Ashcraft (listener)

Richard puts on his glasses to finally read Ted's name right, and the hosts take Super Bowl picks for entertainment purposes only. Sister Ashcraft, a service missionary in Utah, asks whether the early church had service missions. Gerrit says many early callings were just that, like settling new places or running lead mines, and gives Branson a little more Porter Rockwell. Then Gerrit picks up the witnesses with Oliver Cowdery, who Joseph said had seen the Lord and the plates in vision before coming to Harmony, and with the speed of the translation. Gerrit cautions against using speed as proof to skeptics, and ends with Oliver's spiritual witness in D&C 6 and his own testimony.

Who comes upJoseph SmithOliver CowderyMartin HarrisEmma SmithPorter RockwellBrigham YoungSidney RigdonLucy Harris
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Lucy Harris, part three

Richard jokes about the series, and Scott's email shortens the gap after the intro music and fixes the "Council of 50 Minutes."

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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 am joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. In this episode of Lucy Harris, part three, we will get into additional witnesses of the gold plates. Oh, okay, I misunderstood. You may have noticed, though, that the gap between the song that we have and Gerrit's intro was shorter this time and will be shorter moving forward, thanks to an email we received from Scott. Let me read that here. Dear Genriff Dreamcrusher and Tracy Gold, that is very funny. I would like to bring to your attention two small issues that if addressed would increase the production value of the Standard of Truth podcast immeasurably. First, the lag time between the intro music fading out and Gerrit welcoming us has stretched from an unoffensive, unoffensive and unnoticeable brief moment in earlier seasons to a gaudy four seconds in the latest episodes.
Richard My smart phone cuts.
Gerrit Wait, wait. First of all, how else are we going to fill the time?
Richard That's the only way we get to 50 minutes.
Gerrit We had a production meeting on it. We were like, you know what? I can't do an hour anymore. And Richard said, what if I gave you four more seconds in between the intro music? And I said, okay, I'll sign on for another season.
Richard Unoffensive and unnoticeable brief moment in earlier seasons to a gaudy four seconds in the latest episodes. My smart phone conditioned brain cannot handle that kind of gap. Thank you, Scott. Appreciate that. We will make the correction. We love the feedback that we get from listeners that increases the overall production value of the podcast. And so here we go.
Gerrit I like how it multiplies the production value. Our production value is zero. So whenever we get suggestions, it can even double or triple our production values, which is two times zero. I'll let you do the math.
Richard Second, I am quite sure that the Council of 50 Minutes refers to the notes taken at the meeting of the Council of 50. But Richard, the way you say Council of 50 Minutes, every time makes it sound like a group of devoted to the- a group devoted to the proposition that meetings should be no longer than 50 minutes in duration. Which it should be the Council of 15 Minutes, if I had my druthers.
Gerrit It'd be the Council of No Minutes at all. It'd be the Council of Zero Hour Church.
Richard Yes, the Council of 50 Minutes, as opposed to the Council of 50 Minutes.
Gerrit Yeah. And in fact, in the Council of 50, they met for literally hours at a time and all day long. They would meet in the morning for like five hours, go have a brief lunch and come back for another five hours. So yeah, it's not a reference to how long they're meeting.
Richard Other than these two small things, you guys are perfect. Carry on, carry on, carry on. Thank you, Scott. That is very helpful. So this episode is Witnesses of the Gold Plates, part three, but it's also our Super Bowl extravaganza prediction show.
Gerrit Yes, coming up. Will people hear this before or after we're wrong about our Super Bowl picks?
Richard So usually, it's only after we are weeks, sometimes months removed from the sporting event. But this time, Gerrit, this time people for entertainment purposes will know as they're watching the game how correct we are. We're going to have two podcasts like many of the Sharps do in Vegas. One that predicts one team and one that predicts another team. And then whichever team or whichever one is correct, those are the people that are more likely to come back for more. That's how it works. So this email comes to us from... Yes, this email comes to us from Todd or Ted, but he prefers to go by Todd.
Gerrit I don't think he goes by Todd. I just think you need to have your glasses checked.
Richard You know what I do? I have gone blind. Thank you to all the ophthalmologists and optometrists.
Gerrit You can't see this, but Richard did legitimately just put his glasses on as I said that.
Richard Blind as a bat. Old man eyes, I believe, is what one optometrist emailed. Hi, Dream Crushers. You may recall an email sent in by my wife, Valerie. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Yes, I do, actually. Wait, was this the one where he does not do dishes? Is that the one, or is that a different one?
Gerrit I'm not sure.
Richard I'll get our research staff on it.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Chances are good that Todd also doesn't do the dishes.
Gerrit He's a dude, right?
Richard But Todd doesn't.
Gerrit I like how you've changed Ted's name to Todd. How many people have emailed us with the name Todd, who now think you're answering their email?
Richard Well, no, they're like, no, I'm a good husband. Yeah, no, they're like, no, no, I'm a good husband and father. I help out, I do the dishes, I do all the things. But Todd here, husband to Valerie. I could have sworn that was the one. I'll have to look it up.
Gerrit Todd's basically Bill the Adulterer at this point. You're just throwing Todd out. No, no, no, certainly not.
Richard Certainly not. I'm just saying that he isn't.
Gerrit We're reading Ted's email with an E.
Richard Todd doesn't take his responsibilities at home as much as he should, putting a lot of strain on Valerie, and it's frustrating. Now, she's a wonderful mother and wife, and so she picks up the slack, probably doesn't say anything, but deep down, she resents Todd and wishes he would do more.
Gerrit I think she resents him because she's married to Ted and not Todd, so she resents the weird guy who just shows up at her house not doing the dishes.
Richard Ted, I'm very sorry. I have put on my glasses and I refuse. I'm kicking against the pricks, and I'm now accepting it. I'm wearing the glasses. I'm also a poor reader, as is evidenced by much of this. It's true. In which she talked about various topics including but not limited to SIPIO Utah, our tithing van, and my flat out refusal to consider going on church history tour for a vacation. We both enjoyed the free version of the podcast so much that I decided it was time to upgrade to become premium subscribers as a kind of joint Christmas present. I just missed the free trial period though. Thanks for that. Well, Todd, I take it all back. Thank you for all that you do as a premium subscriber. I burned through the condemned repeated content within a week, and I've been randomly selecting various episodes that jump out to me in an effort to catch up on previous episodes of both premium and free content.
Richard I may have missed. Today, I decided to switch it up and play podcast Russian Roulette. That's a dangerous game, Todd. I would just scroll down the list from the top of the list, and wherever it landed, that would be the episode I would listen to. I landed on your August 3rd, 2023 episode on building temples, and as you oftentimes do, began the podcast discussing gambling odds for informational purposes only, of course. Thank you very much. Yes. I thought you might like to revisit some of the hot takes from then when you discuss the over-under wins for NFL teams this year. To quote Richard, I always take the under on the Texans. I would hit the under on the Texans hard. That's six and a half wins. And there's no way that they, the Lions, win 10 games this year. Ouch. Don't quit your day job.
Richard So he goes on to say something actually that is very nice. I will get to that in a second, but it is a perfect opportunity for us to really, really get to where most listeners come to us for, and that's for picks for entertainment purposes only for your friends. Again, referencing you to President Hinckley's 2005 April Conference Address on Gambling. We don't do it. We shouldn't do it. And that's all there is to say about that. Now, that said, Gerrit, the line of the San Francisco-Kansas City game opened at two and a half. San Francisco minus two and a half. Now, the line has moved. Now, it depends on which hotel you might go to for entertainment purposes. But potentially, you might get it as low as Kansas City plus one and a half. Most of them have it at Kansas City plus two, San Francisco minus two. Now, Gerrit, your prediction, you don't get into this too much. You spend most of your time reading gospel-related material.
Richard But your thoughts on the game?
Gerrit Well, I think this is a game that is going to have... Look, it's no secret that there's an unnatural amount of 49er fans among Latter-day Saints because of Steve Young, right? So a whole bunch of people became big-time 49er fans because of Steve Young. That's true. I mean, I'm not saying people wouldn't have been fans anyway when they're winning Super Bowls with Montana. So you have a lot of 49er fans. And so I think there's a lot of loyalty there. But then, I mean, like legitimately, there's one Latter-day Saint head coach in the NFL, right? So I do think there's quite a contingent of Chiefs fans as well among Latter-day Saints just because, you know, first of all, Andy Reid makes funny commercials.
Richard Yeah, you're not even factoring all those Latter-day Saints that are huge fans of Allstate Insurance.
Gerrit Right. They're in the back pocket of the Mahomes-Kelsey camp for sure. Yeah, that's, you know, and then you have to add what's the X factor, and that is my daughter who has watched NFL games mainly against her will, the same way that Officer R's friends listen to the podcast when they are arrested in the back of his squad car. She has suddenly taken an interest in NFL games, and in particular, she's taken interest in Chiefs games, and she's been watching all of the Chiefs games. It's a very, very odd thing that it's only the Chiefs she cares to watch.
Richard Interesting. I believe Taylor Swift has a concert in Japan on the Saturday before the Super Bowl, but there is speculation that she should be able to make it back in time for the game and watch from the box. This is obviously huge to Annika.
Gerrit Luckily, we wouldn't be able to cut to her nine or ten times a game. I think the other factor is you have the Taylor Swift factor brings even more fans to the Chiefs that the Chiefs wouldn't have had. There's going to be a lot of divided loyalties here among Latter-day Saints. I still think to beat the king, you got to kill the king. And even though they are not favored, I'm taking the Chiefs. There's something unnatural about Patrick Mahomes when he's in playoff and Super Bowl mode. And he just plays beyond his abilities. So I do think the 49ers are a better team. They're certainly a more solid team, but they don't have a Patrick Mahomes. So I'm taking the Chiefs.
Richard I agree with you. I agree with you. Now, the sharp actions coming in pretty heavily on the Niners with the odds as they move. But I think that the Standard of Truth podcast, Willard Richards' Shotgun of the Week or Pistol of the Week, is Kansas City minus two. I think there we have it.
Gerrit I mean, and I hope that Andy Reid hears this podcast because clearly he listens along with everyone else. And you know what he says? You know what? I want to go on that guy's podcast and be interviewed. And I think that that's what we should expect from this.
Richard Yeah, I agree. Some good value as well is anytime touchdown score. You've got Travis Kelce, if some of those that also enjoy props for entertainment purposes, Travis Kelce at plus 110. So that's pretty good.
Gerrit I like how you've been able to obfuscate the entire point of the email. And that was every pick you've ever made is terrible. And so we're just really feeding in to not Todd, but Ted's criticism of our abilities.
Richard Well, thank you, Ted. Take Kansas City minus two and Travis Kelce at an anytime touchdown for entertainment purposes. In all seriousness, I love the podcast. And two was introduced to the Truman Madsen Joseph Smith tapes while on my mission in the late 90s, early 2000s in southern Italy and Malta. His distinctive voice combined with his research and delivery are just absolutely phenomenal and kicked off my interest in Joseph Smith and church history, though apparently not enough to consider going on a church history vacation. On that topic, I continue. I contend that I'm misrepresented by Valerie Zemo. My attitude toward a church history vacation was more like meh instead of an outright no. I just thought that if I'm going to take off time from work and spend money to vacation, I'd rather be on a beach somewhere in Hawaii instead of touring church history sites. Only after becoming a loyal listener have I started to come around to the idea of joining one of the tours, and I think Valerie will eventually do so.
Richard Well, I'll tell you, no time like the present, Ted, and who's got beautiful beaches? Baltimore.
Gerrit Everyone just talks about Baltimore's beaches. It's a real great spot to be. It would be great to have you join us on the Palmyra tour. Now, he is putting in our, in my mind, we apparently need to take a tour to the church history sites in Hawaii.
Richard Oh, there's no question.
Gerrit And then maybe he would feel more like this is a vacation.
Richard Well, we're looking at that at 2025 for sure. We still have about seven or so spots available for the Palmyra tour. We hope that we've had a couple of people sign up recently, which has been awesome. Also, we have seen a tremendous increase of subscribers to the newsletter, which is wonderful. Hopefully that you enjoyed the recent letter that we sent out. We're going to be sending another one out in a couple of weeks. We've had also a tremendous interest in our live recording, Gerrit, which I know is your second favorite thing in the world.
Gerrit Yeah, right behind badly written anti-Mormon books.
Richard Well, we're probably going to have to limit the number to around 200. And so what we're going to do in our next newsletter is we'll have the details of that and have the way for people to be able to sign up for that. And we are so excited to have that. That'll be an absolute blast.
Gerrit For a lot of people.
Richard Well, for me, for everyone that comes.
Gerrit For everyone who comes and for Richard, it will be less entertaining for me as I will feel the stare of the bright spotlight burning through my soul.
Richard But I have showing to Gerrit here. I have different stickers that have we've produced that we can get will be giving out for free. Something about rice tariff, something about crinkling leaves. We'll have a couple of other giveaways that will be very nice. We'll take some questions that will be given ahead of time so that we can do all the research and pretend like we know it off the top of our head.
Gerrit So we can weed out all of the polygamy ones.
Richard And also believe that all the way. Well, so we can stop recording and answer all the polygamy questions.
Gerrit Yeah, we can push pause on the recording and be like, maybe I, you know what? Maybe I will answer a polygamy question off air at the live event. How about that?
Richard Oh my gosh. What a tease. I will say Gerrit did a fireside in our ward and talked about polygamy for almost an hour and 45 minutes. It was great. I thought you did a great job. As hard of a topic as it is, as complex as it is, I've never heard a better hour and 45 minute fireside on polygamy.
Gerrit Is that how many firesides have you attended?
Richard Less than that, but never better. That's what I do. One more email here. This one was too sweet to pass up. This comes from Sister Ashcraft. The subject as impactful as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. That is a great one. Thank you, Sister Ashcraft.
Gerrit Kudos to Sister Ashcraft. That's impressive.
Richard A hundred percent. Dear Gerrit and Richard, first of all, I'd like you to know how much I've come to love your podcast. I'm a service missionary in Utah. While on my mission, I've become maybe just a little church history obsessed. I just find it so fascinating. I love the way your podcast is thorough in the way it tells history and is filled with great humor. She spells it the British way. There's that, Gerrit.
Gerrit Ah, Sister Ashcraft perhaps from the British Isles.
Richard All along the way. But most of all, I'm grateful for how this podcast has helped me to have spiritual resilience in the face of those who would like to destroy my faith. I have learned so much about good and bad sources and why so many anti-arguments are really nothing to have my faith shaken over. I really can't express enough how much this podcast has helped me. I do have a question. Sorry if it's boring, but I really am curious. I love my service mission. As you know, service missions have changed a lot over the past couple of years, with all service missionaries now being under a mission president as of the beginning of this year. What I want to know is, was there anything akin to service mission in the early church? Or was there only strictly teaching missions? If there were service missions, how do you differ from what they look like today?
Gerrit Well, first of all, what a great question. I mean, thank you so much for the very kind comments. I mean, it's honestly the entire purpose of the podcast, is to try to help people answer questions of church history, try to help present sources from the past and present them with an eye to faith and strengthening testimonies. We certainly have a different type of missionary system today than existed even 50 years ago in the way people are called and the way that it's structured. We talked about that on an earlier podcast about the missionary age changing over the course of time. Well, in fact, some of the earliest missions are what we today, I guess, would call service missions. But think of the people who are called to go do things like when the Latter-day Saints arrive in the Utah Valley, there are multiple people that are called to go temporarily to other locations to either establish settlements.
Gerrit In fact, I was actually just reading, we have a listener who feels like we're ignoring him because he's emailed us, I don't know, a dozen times saying, much like the Saturday Night Live skit More Cowbell, he wants more Porter Rockwell. Now we've done a lot of Porter Rockwell, honestly. We've already done a lot of Porter Rockwell. And he just says the people cry out, so Branson keeps saying, I want more Porter Rockwell. Well, here's a little bit for both of you, Sister Ashcraft and Branson. Porter Rockwell gets called to go establish a mail post, a place where they're trading the mails along the route, the Oregon Trail, essentially, from Utah to the Eastern States. And I was just reading Brigham Young's letter where he instructs him that he's supposed to go do it and how he's supposed to do it.
Gerrit And I don't know if it's just for Porter Rockwell, but he says, now the people you take with you make sure that they're good and kind people and that they don't drink and that they don't swear and they can bring them out. I'm not entirely sure you know who you're calling to go do this. You may want to rethink this. In point of fact, nearly all early missionaries, except for the very few exceptions who have just a lot of personal wealth, a lot of them are actually going to work on their missions in order to pay for their missions. And so what you get from a lot of early missionaries is not only do they do service where they're at, they also have jobs. They also go and work to make money. Now I'm not suggesting this for you, Sister Ashcroft, but they go work in order to support themselves because of course their missions weren't being supported from some missionary fund back home. But a great example of early service missionaries is, and there are lots of them, but there were a group of men who are called to go to what is today Las Vegas, Nevada, but back then Las Vegas didn't exist, and try to dig and organize a lead mine.
Gerrit Now I don't know what your particular assignment is, Sister Ashcroft.
Richard How many lead mines are you currently digging?
Gerrit I can only assume that Sister Ashcroft is also assigned to try to smelt lead. She said it was in Utah, though, so maybe she's in Vernal. We did have a listener say that I mentioned possibly going to Vernal, and so they jumped all over it. But you actually have just not a very distinct and clear separation, and I've noticed more so, at least with some of the service missionaries that I've interacted with in our local area, that they actually are getting more proselyting opportunities even inside of their service mission. And so I really feel like the lines, like you said, are they're really, they're not super distinct to begin with, but from the earliest days of the church, there are people that are called to go do something that is essentially service. You are called to go build a fort. Well, yeah, I'm not going to be preaching the gospel.
Gerrit I'm in the middle of nowhere. That's why you're having me build a fort. But it's still something to further the kingdom of God. And we see this all throughout that when they need more people to work on things, they're going to call people to do it. They're going to call people to go, you know, get trees for the building of the Nauvoo house and the Nauvoo Temple. They're going to call people, even in the 20th century, they call people to do service, a service mission to go help build schools in some of the South Pacific Islands, right? So there's service work as a missionary has been a part of the church as long as the church has existed essentially. And so, I mean, it is as old as the church is. I mean, we could go through an exhaustive history of it, but we'd leave everybody hanging on witnesses. That's where we're at.
Richard Well, Gerrit, I think that that's, I think that's great. Sister Ash Craft's email was beautiful and lovely and touching. Our rack, our crack research staff has gone through.
Gerrit Which is based in Iraq.
Richard We've outsourced it. It's saving us a lot of money. But I feel so bad to Ted. I accused him of not supporting and helping Valerie Moore. It was Jordan. Jordan's the one. It's the email. The other day I was playing Xbox with my son and my wife began doing the dishes in the kitchen.
Gerrit I would like Valerie to email and let us know how well Ted does the dishes. That's what we need to know from her. Don't be too hard on yourself, because Valerie might email and say he's got some changing to do.
Richard He goes on to say, I feel like she doesn't do them because they needed done necessarily, but to passively hint at how lazy I am. Anyway, Gerrit, here we are.
Gerrit When we last left you, we were talking about this attempt to possibly throw Joseph Smith in jail, but certainly with Martin Harris. We talked about Doctrine and Coven, Section 5, and how Martin Harris really wants to see those plates, and in part because of the legal issues, but then also the Lord chastises him because of its lack of faith. So people have still not seen the plates. Now, we'll make a caveat to that. When Joseph first brings the plates home, and they hand the plates through the window, Josiah Stoll, who Joseph was working for with the digging of the, you know, trying to find the Spanish silver mine that didn't exist because the Spanish were never in Pennsylvania or in that part of New York, he gives an account later that as Joseph handed the plates through the window, that the cloth covering them kind of got bunched up, got hung up, and he saw a corner of the plates as they were handing it through.
Gerrit So like there is someone, but he of course isn't bearing any testimony of it. You have Martin Harris who has worked as a scribe for the gold plates translation for, you know, a year at this point in fits and starts. You have Emma who has worked on the translation again in fits and starts for a year at this point. Neither one of them has actually seen the plates. They have lifted the plates in their covering. They have lifted the box the plates are in. And as Emma will describe, she would, you know, she felt the side of the plates could feel the individual plates that it wasn't just a big block of lead, right, that they got from the lead mine that hadn't been started yet in Las Vegas. You know what's funny is that you were talking about gambling picks and my service missionary example was the lead mine in Vegas.
Gerrit You know what? I feel like that was a subliminal thing. That was planted on me.
Richard Yeah, there's no question. That's a tender mercy right there, Gerrit.
Gerrit Anyway, the reality is by the summer of 1829, no one has yet seen the plates. Now, let me give you a little bit of a caveat though. There's another appearance or another miraculous vision of the plates that we don't ever talk about. And the reason why we don't ever talk about it is the person involved doesn't ever talk about it. This is Oliver Cowdery's miraculous vision of the plates. Now, we all know that Oliver Cowdery is one of the Three Witnesses. I feel like Ted or maybe even Todd is rolling his eyes at the podcast saying, yeah, Gerrit, I'm well aware Oliver Cowdery saw the plates. Next, you know, but we're only talking about his experience when he saw the plates with the three with the three witness experience, you know, where Martin Harris couldn't see him.
Gerrit And we'll talk about that in a minute. But in fact, Oliver apparently has a powerful experience that causes him to come down to be a scribe for Joseph Smith in the first place. Now for Joseph, things have gotten bad to worse. I mean, Martin Harris came down in March to let Joseph know that if you don't show the plates, they're going to try and arrest you for fraud and throw you in jail. That's not exactly a happy, hey, things are going great. And again, when Joseph makes inquiry of the Lord, what is he told? Well, Martin Harris is a sinner who needs to repent. This is not a way to have things move forward really quickly. On top of that, Joseph was in some real financial difficulties. It turns out trying to translate an ancient gold record is not, it's as about as financially rewarding as producing a free podcast and then paying to put it on the air.
Gerrit It's taxing for Joseph and he has a debt that he owes on this farm. Now, he owes that debt to his father-in-law. His father-in-law has decided to play hardball with him though. And at least this is the way that Joseph talks about it. He says, we had become reduced in property and my wife's father was about to turn me out of doors and I had not where to go and I cried unto the Lord that he would provide for me to accomplish the work whereunto he had commanded me. This is from Joseph Smith's 1832 history, that incomplete history that he writes. And that's actually just, it ends right there. That's the end of, I cried unto the Lord and apparently he didn't answer because that's the end of the history. It kind of stops mid-sentence. But just prior to that, he explains why this was such an important event.
Gerrit He explains that the Lord appeared unto a young man by the name of Oliver Cowdery. Now you don't think about that too often, do you? That Oliver Cowdery, before he came down to meet with Joseph, we talk about Jesus appearing to Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple all the time. That's one of our favorite stories to tell when Joseph and Oliver see the Lord in the Kirtland Temple. But according to Joseph Smith, in his history, he says that the Lord appeared unto a young man by the name of Oliver Cowdery and showed him the plates in a vision and also the truth of the work and what the Lord was about to do through me, his unworthy servant. Therefore, he was desirous to come and write for me and to translate.
Gerrit So to write for me to translate. So this experience of Oliver Cowdery, Cowdery doesn't ever really talk about. He certainly talks about the fact that he had this powerful witness that caused him to come down to write for Joseph. But he must have told Joseph what that was. Or because Doctrine and Covenants Section 6, the Lord tells Oliver Cowdery exactly what happened the night of his conversion. And says, you know, what greater witness can you have than from God? But Oliver Cowdery, at least in vision, I don't know if it's a dream. I don't know if it's a waking vision. He doesn't say an angel, but he says the Lord appeared to him and showed the plates to him in vision. So Oliver Cowdery comes down to harmony all the way, you know, all the way down from Palmyra with Samuel Smith.
Gerrit And Joseph hasn't met him. Joseph doesn't even know Oliver Cowdery exists. And Oliver Cowdery shows up and says, I'm here to serve as a scribe. And they begin working like crazy. They begin cranking out that translation in ways that just hadn't been possible before. With all the things that Emma had to do around the house and being pregnant with their first child, and then that child passing away tragically, she put in enormous amounts of time and effort. And yet it was fits and starts. With Martin Harris, sure, he came down every couple of months to help out with the translation. But sometimes he brought his wife and they had to spend half their time trying to keep her from digging up plates in the backyard. So I mean, while he had had some help with the translation, he didn't have someone who had felt a call, maybe not had received an official service missionary call, Sister Ashcraft, but he had been called by God to go and serve.
Gerrit And he wasn't on a proselyting mission. Oliver Cowdery doesn't go out to the neighborhoods in harmony and start telling everyone about, he goes to work to produce an essential thing, to write, to be the scribe of the translation of the Book of Mormon. And he does it because he has a witness, not only of the Lord, but apparently also sees the plates. I've actually often wondered if that's part of the reason why Oliver Cowdery doesn't show up, like everyone else in Joseph's life, the moment Joseph says, hey, I have gold plates, what do they say? Can I see the plates? So as soon as Joseph says, I have plates, their first response is, great, let me see them. Apparently, or at least we don't have record of Oliver Cowdery showing up and saying, hey, I need to place my optics on some gold plates or I'm not going to believe.
Gerrit I think because he's already had a vision of the place. Now, of course, he's going to bear powerful testimony of the incredible experience he has with the angel later. But between April and July, instead you have Joseph and Oliver working quickly as they translate the Book of Mormon and as they prepare it for its publication. And it's during this time period. So a way to chart the work of Oliver and the way that they're going is remember they've lost, well, had stolen from them the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon, well, of the translation. And so they pick back up again in where they were at, which was Mosiah, and they keep going all the way through to the end of the Book of Mormon, which means they would have translated Ether sometime shortly after May.
Gerrit I mean, so we know where they're at in May because Oliver tells us very clearly. They translate the portion of Jesus appearing to the Nephites and commanding everyone that they have to be baptized, and not only that they have to be baptized, they have to be baptized by proper authority. And that leads to Joseph and Oliver asking the question, well, how do you get proper authority? How can we be baptized? And, of course, John the Baptist appears. Well, that's May 15th that they receive the Aaronic Priesthood. And so you know that they are at least midway through 3rd Nephi in May. So think about how quickly they're going. They are at, let's say, the third chapter of Mosiah a week into April, and they are through at least the middle of 3rd Nephi by May, but before May 15th.
Richard So, Gerrit, this brings up something that you often say, because oftentimes people use the speed of translation as one of the miracles suggesting that this couldn't come from Joseph Smith. People use that argument in the church all the time. What are some potential issues that you see using that argument?
Gerrit Well, first of all, I mean, as a believer, it is incredible how quickly they are able to translate. So I do understand why people see that as something that bolsters their faith. Because it isn't just, hey, Joseph Smith cranked out a translation. He cranked out a book that is so beautiful, that is so powerful, that has some of the finest pros in all literature, regardless if you're a believer. And it was just in a matter of weeks, essentially. While that is a powerful argument for someone who already believes, because it helps them understand the miracle, it's a less helpful argument, at least in my experience, when it comes to people who aren't believers. Because remember, people who aren't believers don't think Joseph miraculously translated the Book of Mormon.
Gerrit They think he either, as some kind of savant, somehow wrote it himself, even though all other written things by Joseph declare he can't write this by himself, or that he stole it from someone else and just erased their name off the top and wrote his own name on it, or that somehow Sidney Rigdon, who wasn't living there and that there's no record of him ever being there, that Sidney Rigdon actually wrote it, came over there, wrote it with Joseph, then went back to Ohio, pretended to not know Joseph when the missionaries showed up, and that that's how he wrote it, except we also have Sidney Rigdon's handwriting and it ain't the Book of Mormon either, just so everyone's aware. In fact, later in life, Sidney Rigdon claims that he's received further revelation of more of the Book of Mormon. It's called a revelation to the Eskimos.
Gerrit So Sidney Rigdon was not, he wasn't politically correct in his usage of the terminology. But you know what? Sidney Rigdon wasn't politically correct about a lot of things. And look, he's clearly trying to mimic the language of the Book of Mormon, clearly. And this is after 50 years of having it. And it's not the Book of Mormon, right? So it is a powerful thing to someone who already believes to think, wow, look how quickly the Lord accomplished this miracle. At the same time, it's a less powerful argument to people who don't believe. Because Joseph Smith is claiming that he has plates, that he gets them. First of all, he's claiming he has found them by September of 1823.
Gerrit And that he gets them by 1827. Now, I get it as a believer, you're thinking, well, yeah, but I mean, he wasn't translating during that time period. Well, that's because you believe a translation exists. So because you accept everything that Joseph is saying because you believe, you are taking the time periods in which he's actively working on it, also from what he says. And non-Latter-day Saints and secular, you know, historians who aren't Latter-day Saints, they don't do that because we don't have a day log from Joseph. We don't have, you know, Joseph, you know, writing, all right, 1 p.m. now we are going to begin on Ether. Okay, we got through the third chapter. I mean, we don't have that. And so I totally understand, because it is a powerful way to think about the fact that somehow Joseph translated the entire gold plates faster than I read the Book of Mormon when I'm trying to read it.
Gerrit Somehow he did that. But it's a less powerful argument when you're trying to convince someone else. Because what you've already accepted is that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, and then it's miraculous. And now all you're really doing is explaining just how miraculous it was. The other issue, of course, is Joseph did translate other things, and he didn't translate them super quickly. Does that mean that it's somehow no longer as much the Word of God? You take, for instance, the Bible translation. Joseph is working on the Bible translation from mid to late 1830, and he's still just finishing the New Testament in early 1833. So does that mean Joseph Smith's Bible translation is not really the Word of God? It's not really inspired.
Gerrit It's not really revelation. It took him too long. Of course, no believer would say that. He has the scrolls and is working on the translation of the Book of Abraham in the mid-1830s. But he isn't publishing a completed translation of the Book of Abraham until 1842. Does that mean... Oh, Book of Abraham is obviously false. If Joseph couldn't translate it in 30 days... I mean, look how small the Book of Abraham is. In fact, whenever I had to volunteer to... I'm going to read an entire book of scripture. Okay, for real great price. That's the one you always volunteer.
Richard I feel like if I could put myself on a pedestal next to Joseph Smith, how long have I been working on my dissertation proposal? Well, a year and a half. And it's still garbage.
Gerrit Not the dissertation itself, the proposal, not a game, not a game that he dies for. We're talking about practice.
Richard We're talking about practice, man. That's exactly right. So you're 100% correct. It is a miraculous thing to me, the speed at which it is, but a person that already doesn't believe in the divinity of the source on it, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.
Gerrit The Book of Mormon is a fraud regardless, because the reality is people dictate books in under 90 days all the time. Incredibly gifted authors write entire novels in two or three days. Now, maybe they got to go back and fix them up and stuff, but it's not a miracle to produce a book in three months. Now, it seems like that when you're working with a historian or when you're working on your business PhD. It seems like it's a miracle.
Richard It sure is to me.
Gerrit It happens all the time. Well, it just shows how little faith we have.
Richard Yeah, faith and talent both.
Gerrit Yeah, right. Well, so I try not to lean too heavily on that. Again, it is a powerful miracle to me that they were able to do it so quickly. But if I were to find out tomorrow that the entire time between June of 1828 and March of 1829, Joseph was working actively on the translation and it was just going slower, it wouldn't change my feeling of the miracle of the Book of Mormon at all. The miracle of the Book of Mormon is that it exists. The words of it are the words of Christ to us. If they came through the two stones that were found in the box with the plates, it's a miracle. If they came through a single stone that Joseph found at another time, it's a miracle.
Gerrit If they came over the course of years, if they came over the course of minutes, if those words came however they came, however quickly they came, however slowly, however difficult, you only have to read, just like we talked about last week with Doctrine and Covenants, Section 5. You only have to read the words of the Book of Mormon to know this is the Word of God. And yes, because we believe the miracle, it's fun to do things like, and look how quickly the miracle occurred. But I don't try to paint too broadly a brush with that because I believe the Book of Abraham is also the Word of God. I believe that Joseph Smith's inspired translation of the Bible is also from a prophet of God. And it doesn't become less powerful simply because it took longer. I think it is a greater testament to the fact that the Lord needed the Book of Mormon to be published so that the church could be organized.
Gerrit And we see that right after the Book of Mormon is finally completed in March. In April, the church is organized. So back to our discussion about Oliver Cowdery coming down. He's going to work with Joseph during this time period as they're going through the translation. And there's going to be some fits and starts there too. Because Oliver is going to start to doubt. It's so miraculous to Oliver. In fact, when I do focus on the speed of it, I think one of the places to focus on it is Oliver meets Joseph. So he's well aware that Joseph isn't Shakespeare. He's met him. He's talked to him. He knows Joseph isn't Shakespeare. Okay, but I'm sitting next to him as he is rattling off some of the most beautiful words ever written.
Gerrit Nonstop. And he's not reading it back. He's not telling me, Oh, Oliver, where did I leave off? Did I say, pay horns, mother-in-law's apartment there? I mean, what did I say there? I mean, he's just picking right back up. And it's so miraculous that it actually causes Oliver Cowdery to go, What is this? Is this really from God? Because he can't believe it himself. He's participating in the miracle and starts to doubt that miracle. I know this is a tangent, but this is all we do. This is all we do. Come for the title of the podcast. Stay for the tangents.
Richard Well, so, Gerrit, so, but this is a tangent, but this is all we do. This actually does bring up an interesting point. I mean, as we're all, you know, in the come follow me, as we're through the Book of Mormon, or we're going through the Book of Mormon, we read multiple accounts of Lehman and Lemuel having these miraculous experiences, and we all look at that and say, not possible. It's not possible. If that was me, how murderous of rage must they be that they're, you know, against their brother and father? But here's a great example of how something like that might actually be the case.
Gerrit Yeah, that you are unable to grow in faith even with having this miracle. I mean, Cowdery's already seen the Lord, right? That's what Joseph says. The only reason Cowdery is there is the Lord appeared to him and showed him the plates. And then he gets down there, and he starts to kind of doubt the same way. Look, Joseph, remember when he tried to take the plates and he couldn't take them? He said, I started to fear exceedingly that maybe this whole thing isn't even real. Maybe an angel didn't really appear to me. Maybe I really am crazy or something like that. He doesn't say exactly what his fear is. But I think that there are times that we're involved in miracles that are so incredible that we start to actually doubt the miracle itself. And I think Satan does that. I think people will experience miracles and within hours, within minutes, within days, Satan comes along and whispers things like, well, sure, that was nice that she started breathing again, but it wasn't because he prayed.
Gerrit That was going to happen anyway. Where we discount the work of God because we're trying like Pharaoh's magicians to find some kind of way to explain it in a way that works for us. And this seems to be a way that Satan tries to work on believers. That they experience these powerful miracles and then he tries to say, I know that you saw that, but you know what? What you saw, that was actually a natural thing. It didn't really have to happen that way. And goes back to Doctrine and Covenants, section 5 verse 7. Miracles don't convert people. Faith and the Holy Spirit converts people. And miracles might get you there. Miracles might open your heart to where you're willing to let the Holy Spirit speak to you. But they don't convert anybody.
Gerrit Miracles terrify. Miracles are spectacles. Miracles do a lot of things. Think of all of the miracles our Lord performed. And how many people witnessing those miracles, but not acting in faith upon what He said, went away and followed no more after Him, as we learned in the New Testament. In fact, you had people offended at Jesus, knowing that He made the loaves and fishes miraculously stretch to 5,000. The entire reason why they are talking to Jesus is they know He created a miracle of food. And when Jesus refuses to replicate the miracle on demand, they decide He's a false messiah, or they leave Him and they no longer follow Him.
Gerrit The entire reason they are there is they have witnessed Jesus miraculously make bread. And when it's not on demand, nope, He's not what I want anymore. And you know, I think a lot of us are, I certainly am more like the doubters looking for bread than I am Peter who when Jesus says, will thou go away also? And Peter says, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life, and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ. I love Peter's response to that because I think of that all the time about the church. Whenever I have someone say to me, well, yeah, so and so left the church. They just couldn't get over the fact that polygamy was practiced. Yeah, they just couldn't get over the fact that there was a priesthood restriction by race over the course of time.
Gerrit Yeah, they can't handle some of the church's current doctrines on gay marriage or things like that. I understand how those issues are incredibly powerful to people. And I know that we don't have all of the answers. I get it. As someone who's looked and studied, whose job it is to try to find answers, I know we don't have all the answers. But that's why I always think we need to ask ourselves, okay, I don't know how ceilings work in the next life, but I know ceilings work in the next life. That is knowledge that no other Christian has. No other Christian believes that. And we really need to focus on those unique beliefs that we have so that when Satan comes and tries to get you to doubt your miraculous experience, whether it was you saw someone miraculously healed or whether it's just the miracle of the Holy Spirit speaking to you and telling you in your mind and in your heart, this is God's true church.
Gerrit Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith. He appeared to him. The Lord who died for all of us appeared to Joseph and called him to be a prophet. And Satan comes and whispers, well, maybe you didn't really feel. You know what? A lot of people get emotional about things. I think maybe you were just really tired. You didn't really feel the Spirit trying to get you to doubt your miraculous experience. That's why it's good to go back to the things that we have. I don't have an answer for exactly why, how and where and for what reason plural marriage is practiced in the church. I don't have that. But what answers do I have because Joseph is a prophet? First and foremost, I know who I am. I am an eternal being.
Gerrit All of you are eternal beings. You are not just some other creation of God that he made you right after he decided to make a Sequoia. You are his children of heavenly parents. You have a father and a mother in heaven. No one believes that. You have the ability to have a marriage for eternity. No one believes that. You have always existed. You existed before you came here. You chose to come here. No one believes that. You belong to a church that believes that every single person who has ever lived will have an equal opportunity at exaltation. And even those who rejected, even those who refused to repent, even those who are sinners and are going to the telestial Kingdom, they are going to have peace and happiness eventually in the next life.
Gerrit Boy, those are things. I don't know how anyone casually tosses aside. I don't know how anyone decides that, well, because the late war with about 17 pages in between it and 95 dot, dot, dots uses a phrase that's almost similar to the Book of Mormon, but isn't actually the same that just that therefore I don't want to believe in eternal families. I mean, everyone's allowed to believe whatever they want to believe, but I think that's the part of the reason why the church is founded after the Book of Mormon comes forth because we are all being asked the same question that Oliver Cowdery was asked in those early days of translation, because when he started to doubt, what is it that the Lord said to him? He said that what greater witness can you have than from God, right?
Gerrit I mean, what more do you need? I tell you these things as a witness that the words or the work that thou hast been writing are true, right? That is a powerful witness that he receives long before he ever gets to see the gold plates. There they are probably on the table, covered up with a cloth. We don't even know if they're on. I mean, we have very few descriptions of what the translation was like with Oliver Cowdery, where they provide details. But regardless, he's not seeing the plates. And even seeing the miracle, he's stunned by it. It actually causes him to wonder. And he's told by God that he's been given a witness already.
Gerrit Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I am the same that came unto my own and my own received me not. I am the light which shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. Verily, verily, I say unto you, if you desire a further witness, cast your mind up to the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things. Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God? And to everybody listening, just take a minute, and I want you to think about the most powerful spiritual experience you ever had. Think about that day or that night, that experience or that event, when you felt the Holy Spirit speaking directly to your soul.
Gerrit You felt that fire or you felt that peace and you knew, this is God's church and I am going to do everything I can to live worthily and righteously. I know this is true. Think about that day, that moment, that event. Think about the feelings that you had at the time. And then as Alma asks, right, if you have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can you feel so now? We obviously can't walk around in a perpetual, overwhelming feeling of the spirit all day long because we also have to pay taxes. I mean, we have all kinds of... Well, I've got to drive to another basketball game. I mean, I've got to go to work. I've got to punch a time clock. Those dishes don't wash themselves, Ted and or Jordan.
Gerrit There are all kinds of things that take us away from that most powerful spiritual experience we had, but that doesn't mean we didn't have it. As I think about my experience right now, I, like Peter, can say, I know and am sure that Jesus is the Christ and that this is God's fruit church. I know we don't have all the answers. In our discussion about the witnesses of the plates, maybe someone is thinking, oh, this will be the deciding factor that will prove to my friend who doesn't believe that the church is true. There's only one way to prove that the church is true, and that's to have a humble enough heart to be willing to be led as a sheep and to feel the Holy Spirit speak to your soul and when you feel it, when you feel the Spirit testify of it, you will be able to be like Martin Harris and say whether I see the plates or not is immaterial to whether or not I believe.
Gerrit Whether things work out for me at work or not is immaterial to whether or not I believe. Whether I get the job I'm looking for, I land the engagement of my dreams that I thought, whatever it is that we use as something to say, maybe God isn't there. Once you felt the Holy Spirit speak to your soul, it becomes an undeniable thing. And yeah, you'll have Satan and in the guise of his helpers, other people come and say to you, oh, you didn't really feel that. Well, you know, your mind can play all kinds of tricks on you. Anyone who has felt the overwhelming feeling of the Holy Spirit of God knows that that's not the same thing. They know that there's no counterfeit for it. Anyone who's felt it has to lie to themselves to say, well, I must have just been really emotional.
Gerrit Because the Spirit doesn't talk just to our mind, it talks to our heart, to the center of who we are. And that's why I believe. I have studied all kinds of things. I don't believe because I've studied a lot of things. I've studied a lot of things because I believe, because I want to know more, because I want to help other people feel the same spirit of peace and joy that I feel. So in our next episode, we're going to talk more about the actual three and eight witness experience. And I know that that's familiar to people, but I'm hoping that as people listen, the Holy Spirit will touch their heart and say, hey, those gold plates are not a bedtime story. They aren't made up. Joseph didn't steal a bunch of tin and tarnish them and try to make them look like gold and pass them off to a bunch of people as plates.
Gerrit He really had plates, and he really got them from an angel of God. And from them, we have the Book of Mormon and from Joseph through the Lord, we have the Lord's Church restored on the earth. So thank you so much for joining us, and we will discuss more about this next week.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

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And Richard said, what if I gave you four more seconds in between the intro music? And I said, okay, I'll sign on for another season.

GerritBanter

Our production value is zero. So whenever we get suggestions, it can even double or triple our production values, which is two times zero.

GerritBanter

I think she resents him because she's married to Ted and not Todd, so she resents the weird guy who just shows up at her house not doing the dishes.

GerritBanter

I'm not entirely sure you know who you're calling to go do this. You may want to rethink this.

GerritBanter

It turns out trying to translate an ancient gold record is not, it's as about as financially rewarding as producing a free podcast and then paying to put it on the air.

GerritBanter

How long have I been working on my dissertation proposal? Well, a year and a half. And it's still garbage.

RichardBanter

The miracle of the Book of Mormon is that it exists. The words of it are the words of Christ to us.

GerritInsight

Come for the title of the podcast. Stay for the tangents.

GerritBanter

Miracles don't convert people. Faith and the Holy Spirit converts people.

GerritInsight

I don't believe because I've studied a lot of things. I've studied a lot of things because I believe

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More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
The speed of the Book of Mormon translation proves it's from God to anyone who hears it.
Seeing a miracle would settle your doubts for good.
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

Service missions are as old as the church: early Saints were called to build forts, set up mail posts and even dig a lead mine.

According to Joseph, the Lord showed Oliver Cowdery the plates in vision before Oliver ever met him.

The miracle of the Book of Mormon isn't how fast it came; it's that it exists and its words are Christ's words to us.

When doubts come, remember your strongest spiritual witness, as the Lord told Oliver: "Did I not speak peace to your mind?"

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Witnesses of the Book of Mormon seriesIntroduced as "Lucy Harris, part three" (0:43, 27:19).
Doctor inflation"Dear Genriff Dreamcrusher and Tracy Gold"; Richard's proposal is a year and a half in and still garbage (0:43, 46:16).
The Council of 50 MinutesScott's correction; Gerrit would prefer the Council of Zero Hour Church (2:53-3:33).
Todd, not TedRichard needs glasses and reads Ted as Todd, then blames him for Jordan's dishes email (4:58-6:54, 26:31).
Bill the AdultererTodd is basically Bill the Adulterer now (6:16).
Picks with a conscienceTed's receipts on the Texans and Lions, then the Willard Richards Shotgun of the Week: Chiefs minus two and Kelce anytime touchdown (8:05, 13:06, 14:30).
Officer R and AnnikaGerrit's daughter watched NFL games against her will, like Officer R's arrestees, until Taylor Swift made her care only about the Chiefs (11:12, 12:02).
Baltimore's beachesFor Ted, who'd rather vacation in Hawaii (15:34, 15:43).
Gerrit hates the live eventHis second-favorite thing, right behind badly written anti-Mormon books; rice tariff stickers will be given away (16:47, 17:33).
More cowbell, more Porter RockwellBranson keeps emailing for more Porter (21:41).
The crack research staffBased in Iraq, outsourced to save money (26:11-26:31).
Stay for the tangents"This is all we do" (50:57, 51:45).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Early Latter-day Saint service callings: the Las Vegas lead mine, mail posts and fort building (22:43).
Joseph Smith's unfinished 1832 history and its account of Oliver Cowdery's vision (32:03).
Charting the translation timeline from Mosiah in April 1829 to 3 Nephi before May 15 (37:41).
Sidney Rigdon's later imitation of Book of Mormon language and what it shows about authorship (41:17).
SOT Litner · S4E6.