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Taylor Swift's screen time
S4E7 · Witnesses of the Book of Mormon Part 4
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Standard of Truth · Season 4 · Episode 7 · 1:09:43

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon Part 4

The Three Witnesses weren't only promised the plates. D&C 17 told them ahead of time they would also see the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the brother of Jared's stones and Lehi's Liahona.

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The question ·
How does the church view evolutionary theory in Big Bang?
Wendy (listener)

After a Super Bowl victory lap and an email asking for a church history segment in general conference, Wendy from Australia asks how the Church views evolution and the Big Bang. Gerrit says Latter-day Saints believe God organized existing matter, and that there is no official position on evolution today. Then he follows Joseph and Oliver to the Whitmer farm in Fayette. He reads D&C 14 and D&C 17, where the three witnesses are promised five physical objects to see by faith. Because the earliest copy of D&C 17 is lost, Gerrit guesses its 'Urim and Thummim' wording came later, just as Joseph added that term to D&C 10 between 1833 and 1835, and he explains why Joseph had the right to clarify revelations. He closes on why physical, ancient objects are so hard for skeptics to explain away.

Who comes upJoseph SmithOliver CowderyDavid WhitmerMartin HarrisJohn WhitmerHyrum SmithLehiAlexander Campbell
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The hosts recap their Super Bowl calls, including how often Taylor Swift was shown.

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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 erstwhile friend, my friend through both tribulation and trepidation as he works on his ABD to someday become a PhD or any other series of letters that he can put together by his name, Richard LeDuc.
Richard Hello, Gerrit. That was quite the introduction. Thank you very much. I love that with all of my heart. We've got a lot to cover here today. I'm gonna jump right into the Phebe Draper mailbag. Just right in. No pleasantries.
Gerrit We're not gonna talk about the Super Bowl at all?
Richard Well, we're gonna get to it. We'll get to it. I believe we had that right. You know, let's get to it now. I believe we had that right.
Gerrit Yeah, we just wanna point out for everyone who's following us.
Richard Even a broken clock.
Gerrit Yeah. The reality is, I said in order to beat Patrick Moe's, you can't pick against him until he loses.
Richard And he's pretty good.
Gerrit Yeah, pretty good.
Richard His only Super Bowl loss is to Tom Brady, my understanding also pretty good.
Gerrit Tom Brady is fair. He's a fair to middle and quarterback.
Richard So I also had, I believe I had a prop of an anytime touch, for entertainment purposes only, anytime touchdown for Kelsey, Travis Kelsey. The reason my wife, no, my daughter watched the game was-
Gerrit For Travis Kelsey?
Richard Well, for Taylor Swift.
Gerrit That's why my daughter watched the game.
Richard I think Taylor Swift had 58 seconds or something of screen time.
Gerrit So I called an over under on how many times they would show her during the game, not before, not after, during the game. My over under was nine. She was shown exactly nine times.
Richard How you pushed.
Gerrit But then it went to overtime.
Richard So I had an anytime touchdown for Travis Kelsey. What I meant was is that he would aggressively almost knock over Andy Reid. That's what I meant.
Gerrit Right. And since Andy Reid's a Latter-day Saint, I feel like we can focus on him on the podcast. The offer's still open, Andy Reid. We know you want to come on our podcast after listening to us give you, you know, so many props, but you know, please let us know what time's available for you.
Richard So, again, part of the thing that's fun about this is we predict games that happen weeks after they've actually happened, and also they're wrong, regularly.
Gerrit Right, and obviously a little bit of it is, you know, a little bit of tongue-in-cheek mocking of the fact that every single week, when you turn on any sportscaster segment, you have all these experts sitting around picking games. And they're always wrong.
Richard No one knows anything about anything.
Gerrit These guys, it's literally their job, and they'll show like, oh, what's your record on picking for the season? Eight and 14. Eight and 14, what? I'd do better throwing a dart at the teams than listening to you.
Richard That's why it's so funny to me to make picks. You have no idea. You have absolutely no clue. But anyway, but we were right, so there you go.
Gerrit We just want to point out that although no one can know for certain and that no one's good at it and no one's ever right, we were right.
Richard Dr. Dirkmaat, I also sent this message to your BYU email and then I discovered your podcast website, much like the sustainings every Saturday afternoon in general conference session.
Gerrit I don't know if I like where this is going.
Richard Could you do a church history segment every general conference? I think it would be appreciated by the general membership. I know it's not your decision, but something like that would be faith promoting for the members on the fringes. Thank you and Professor LeDuc again for the podcast. Thank you, John.
Gerrit So is John suggesting that I would be in general conference?
Richard I think that is what he's suggesting.
Gerrit I feel like John has wildly overestimated my importance. So first of all, I'd be willing to talk about church history whenever, to anyone, as long as it's not about polygamy. Second of all, there's a better chance of, there's a better chance of the 49ers winning the last Super Bowl than me being invited to speak in general conference, and certainly not every general conference.
Richard I think it'd be good. It'd be, we'd kinda have a moment, I'd go in, I'd make sports picks during general conference.
Gerrit So, that's very, very kind of you, John, to say. And, you know, I'd love, part of the reason why we do the podcast is a way to help people find answers and a different way of thinking about church history and to in some ways help fortify us. I mean, you know, Richard and I make the point all the time that I can't answer every single question about church history for people, primarily because I don't know the answers. But the secondary reason is that there's too many questions. There's too many things that have occurred that could cause someone to ask a question. You could never get to the end of all of the questions. And especially if we're invoking, you know, extreme anti-Mormonism, which Josh again reminds us is, you know, people, you know, with going off of a jump and doing a double tail whip as he says, Judge, you bet it was right! As he goes down the hill.
Gerrit I mean, the extreme radical anti-Mormonism.
Richard Wait, what was the move?
Gerrit It was a double tail whip.
Richard I don't know. A double tail whip and then screaming, Kinderhook plays.
Gerrit Yeah, Kinderhook forever! You know, as he goes over moguls.
Richard Extreme anti-Mormonism.
Gerrit There's no way to answer all of those questions. So, we want to answer some, but what we really want to do is help people get a mindset that helps people understand that, look, when someone claims that they know something about the past, first and foremost, the first question you have to ask is how do they know what they think they know about the past? What is the source that they are using? Why is that source better than any other source? For instance, why is a source, speaking of Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, why is a source of someone who has apostatized from the church after the fact, claiming that Martin Harris told him that he never really saw the plates, why would that source be more valuable than Martin Harris himself over and over and over again saying that he saw the plates?
Richard I'll tell you how it's more valuable, because it proves my point.
Gerrit Right, and that's honestly one of the major issues that hopefully as you listen to the podcast, even though I will never, I'm not even allowed to go to general conference, a little and speak at it. I mean. There's a restraint order? Yeah, there's a restraint order.
Richard Brotherhood.
Gerrit Yeah, because I just kept jumping up and yelling church history things in the middle of the broadcast. They would be like, let's talk about the atonement. I was like that guy in your old Hyde Priest group who would just jump up and say like, and let's remember patriarchal blessings. And yeah, and I just kept doing it. And they said, we'd like to ask you to leave. But I very much appreciate the sentiment, John. Thank you for believing in me far, far, far more than any church leader would ever, ever, ever believe in me.
Richard All right, we have another email here. This comes to us from Casey. Dear Dr. Dirkmaat and almost doctor, but not quite, but probably within a year, LeDuc. Wow. For the sake of my marriage, by the way, that is, hopefully would.
Gerrit Yeah, it's funny. Did Becky write this email?
Richard Yes.
Gerrit I think it would have started, and it better be within the year, or you can move out.
Richard A coworker introduced me to your podcast last September. And much to my surprise, I enjoyed listening to your first episode.
Gerrit Wow, what a shot across the bow. So that could be a reflection of what they think about their coworker rather than us.
Richard It's not, it's a reflection of us.
Gerrit It's a reflection of us, take it as it's intended.
Richard It's nice of you to think that it's something different. That he hates the coworker.
Gerrit Yeah, like maybe the guy was like, hey, you know what podcast you should listen to is this? It was like, if Jerry's telling me to listen to it, then it must be terrible. And then you're like, wow, surprisingly.
Richard Surprisingly, not bad. I bounce around listening to others that sounded interesting. My favorites being our Mormons Christian, Mormon Hell, The Vision and The Word of Wisdom. Those are a couple of classics, by the way. They're part of the list that we give to missionaries is like, hey, here's some good reading or reading.
Gerrit I like how we try to convince the missionaries to obey The Word of Wisdom.
Richard Well, just the history of it is interesting.
Gerrit I mean, also missionaries, if you're listening, please obey The Word of Wisdom.
Richard I enjoyed listening to your podcast because of your bad humor and lack of taking yourself too seriously. However, the podcast became invaluable to me after my childhood best friend, never a member, I grew up in Maine, got into a non-denominational Christian church and started having doctrinal discussions with me because of your podcast, I could honestly say, in response to him, I learned more about church history, or the more I learned about church history, the more I believed. I never could have said that before listening to you guys and that change has been such a relief in my life. I was also able to stand my ground while talking about doctrines of salvation. I brought up the Arminian and Calvinist terms that I learned listening to you guys and I knew exactly what I was saying when he told me I was going to hell for my blasphemies. Well, that's good. You wanna know, when someone tells you that they're going to hell, you want to be able to envision where they're sending you.
Gerrit Which is why you should listen to the premium content on- We really get into it. Yeah, we read several portions of Jonathan Edwards' speeches. And then, you know what? On our last one, we got to read a rebuttal from Charles Wesley from the Arminian, from Methodism, John Wesley's brother, who, I don't know, was very, very subtle in his calling out of Calvinist theology as he attacked it.
Richard Yeah, very subtle.
Gerrit I think he said it was the doctrine of Satan. That's what he said.
Richard So speaking of Calvinism, by the way, I headed to Wyoming for work next week, and I was messaging a friend of the show, Damian, about that, telling him I was going to Rock Springs and asked him if he was jealous, to which he responded, what, is Cody not available? If Wyoming is Calvinism, then Rock Springs is Jonathan Edwards stopped through damnation town. I'd rather pass on that icy trip to the hands of an angry God. So in the hands of an angry God.
Gerrit That's very funny. Very funny.
Richard Swipe at Wyoming.
Gerrit Look, that's awesome that you were able to use some of the things we've talked about on this podcast to better understand, that's part of the reason why we spend time on Christian theology, in part, because I think Latter-day Saints don't fully appreciate how awesome our doctrine is. And unlike the radical anti-Mormon going off the mogul and yelling Kinderhook plates, we are radical Christians. We believe things that other Christians don't believe. And we don't believe it just because we sat down and thought about it one day. We don't believe it because we had a think tank get together and decide, you know what? This would be a lot better for attracting members if we do X. We have radical theology because the Lord gave revelations to Joseph Smith fully explaining the plan of salvation.
Gerrit And so, yeah, to a Christian who thinks that they are the dust of the earth, that God created them out of nothing and that their primary, you know, their most likely end is to burn in hell forever, it's not hard for them to condemn you to hell. Again, since you listen to Mormon hell, you're well aware that we don't believe in it. So you can just, you know, say to yourself when your friend condemns you what Joseph Smith would say, and that is, I have no fear of hell that don't exist, because God had revealed that.
Richard He said, that was a couple of months ago and it still hurts. But I can confidently say that it was because of your podcast strengthening my testimony that I was able to hold firm during this trying time. I can't thank you enough for that, though I will start getting, I will start by getting the premium content so I can do my part and help make the podcast accessible to others. And I will say, so Casey, you, we spend a lot of time on these exact issues on Joseph Smith and the Restoration. So it is the most popular of the, when we send the content to the missionaries, the Joseph Smith and the Restoration are the most popular there as we talk about other wonderful, our Christian brothers and sisters and their beliefs. PS. I want you to know that I found Follow Him podcast through you mentioning, but that's the first time that's ever happened, by the way. Where someone found Follow Him through us.
Gerrit Yeah, Follow Him, the podcast done by Hank Smith and John, by the way, and it's just outstanding. You know, puts, it brings different scholars, different backgrounds together to discuss the scriptures, but following along with the church's curriculum in a way that we generally don't.
Richard We do not.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard We will next year, relatively.
Gerrit Right. Doctrine and Covenants.
Richard Oh my gosh.
Gerrit Once we get into church history, you know, the word wheelhouse is thrown around a lot these days.
Richard So one of my favorite things, this is how you know how big Follow Him is when other than the millions and millions and millions of channels, other than that.
Gerrit That could have been a way to go.
Richard But no, some people would look at it. How many times in your gospel doctrine is, I listened, I heard on a podcast and they maybe mention it, maybe don't, but then talk about all. It has done more to add to Sunday school discussion than almost anything. Really good, fantastic information.
Gerrit Frankly, any study of the scriptures outside of Sunday school is going to add to your Sunday school discussions. I mean, and so look, they're all great. I actually am going to be a guest on the Follow Him podcast. I will be appearing on the April 10th.
Richard Very exciting.
Gerrit Yes.
Richard It's good for you to plug the Follow Him podcast.
Gerrit Yeah, oh, they need me. Yeah, they need me. If they don't get another couple hundred thousand downloads, they're gonna get shut down.
Richard That's great.
Gerrit So, yeah, so you can mark that on your calendars. I'll be there on April 10th.
Richard Yeah, it's very exciting. We'll be releasing good episodes around that time in case anybody hears about it and then comes, you know.
Gerrit I don't know where we're gonna come up with them. The only way we're gonna have good episodes is we're gonna have to steal some of their episodes and play them as ours. We just have a loop.
Richard We have an intro, welcome to the.
Gerrit And then it's their intro, but we just interject our names.
Richard That's a great idea.
Gerrit Thank you for joining the, follow him with Gerrit Dirkmaat, just like over the top kind of thing.
Richard Anyway, he does also ask a question about transcribing the podcast. Well, Apple has started doing that and Spotify also does that, so.
Gerrit So yeah, the easiest way to do the transcriptions is on your end actually rather than ours. Well, I mean, look, we could end up doing it on our end if we had money and we had, you know, server space.
Richard People and resources, yes.
Gerrit Yeah, if we had anything other than spit and gum holding this together as we barely make it through each week, there would be a chance.
Richard We look forward to your contribution, Casey, as you subscribe to the premium.
Gerrit Thank you. And you know what, Casey, again, let me reiterate, thank you so much for sharing that. That's awesome. It's actually part of the whole point of the podcast is we are a group of people getting together and listening once a week who are sharing each other's testimonies and learning about the gospel and hopefully it helps us in our real world situations like with your friend.
Richard And one way you can do that is joining us in our live podcast or recording in front of a live studio audience on March 16th. We will be sending out a newsletter here in the next week or so that will allow for sign up.
Gerrit For people to get tickets.
Richard To get tickets.
Gerrit Because we anticipate that frankly, local law enforcement will not allow the number of people into a venue that will be trying to force their way into the venue. I mean, I assume it will look similar to a Super Bowl or Taylor Swift concert.
Richard It'll be fun. We've got a lot of fun things planned that'll be engagement with the listeners. The best part about the podcast is nothing to do with the podcast. It's actually the listeners to the podcast. We learned that from the tour. And so we're looking forward to getting together with folks. And so we'll have tickets available for that event.
Gerrit And they're gonna go quick, obviously. Like, if we end up only having like 20 people get tickets, we're gonna just cancel it and say that I was in a plane crash. That'll be the end of the podcast.
Richard Yeah, just know, just know, if we cancel the event, whatever lie we say the reason is, it's because no one wanted to do it.
Gerrit Yeah, we'll say stuff like, oh, Gerrit had to go to England to research a thing on a thing, and it'll just be a lie.
Richard But we hope that people will sign up, sign up to the newsletter and you'll get the details. We'll have the address, the times, some of the stuff we'll do. It'll be a lot of fun. I appreciate Gerrit, who doesn't wanna do this at all, be willing to do it, but.
Gerrit I'm already thinking of ways to be sick.
Richard Anyway, thank you. And we hope to see you there, Casey, if in fact you aren't still living in Maine. But if you do, I mean, how committed are you?
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, look, it's, everyone knows that it's only a cool five hour drive to an airport that will take you.
Richard All right, this last email comes to us from Wendy, all the way from Australia. I continue to learn lots with you guys and keep encouraging everyone to give it a go. My daughter has finally received her mission call to go to the Philippines and they could give the specific name, I would slaughter it. Starting June 5th is when her email will start. Can I complete the cheating you of second subscription by giving her missionary email? She does. And I sent over access to the Google Drive so she's got that. She has assured me she will eventually listen. Well, I will tell you this, like my son, when you have nothing else to do, it's okay. And then she'll dig in. I told her how good your son said it was. When there was nothing else to do. That's exactly right. Thanks for all you do. I appreciate the promise of some possible Australian history with the tease of the apostate who proclaims himself immortal only to die eventually.
Richard We did that.
Gerrit Oh yeah, hopefully she listened to that episode. If you haven't listened to the Potter Christ episode.
Richard Yes.
Gerrit I'm not sure what it's called, but.
Richard Something like that, I don't know.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, the guy has a tattoo on his forehead that he is the Messiah, so.
Richard I have learned so much about the lead up to the restoration. Appreciate Joseph Smith so much more as the prophet of the restoration. But I also have a son who is 17, still coming to church, but not seeking a testimony. He is more aligned with evolution and science and no proof of a divine creator. How does the church view evolutionary theory in Big Bang? I have said they could be part of the creation process, but we didn't all start as divided cells walking out of the ocean. I know it's a bit out of left field, but I can't seem to find a prophetic response. So, we were talking about this before. That's probably at least one, possibly two episodes to do in the future. It is one of our favorite things that Gerrit and I talk about, just the depth that we gain through the restoration about matter, about organization of matter, all of those things.
Richard I believe I was at Boise State as an undergrad. I was a biology, health science major, and I had a friend of mine who I was talking to, who wasn't a member of the church, who was dealing with a similar issue, and I was talking with Gerrit on the phone about it, and I don't remember exactly what you said. But it was something along the lines of, you tell him we don't have some punk belief in evolution. Something along those lines, do you remember that?
Gerrit I do kind of remember some punk belief. Well, look, the point I was trying to make is, Latter-day Saints actually are in a unique position when it comes to Christians, when it comes to science, and it's because the Christian position is that in the beginning, there was nothing but God.
Richard Right, just the law of conservation of matter is something that Latter-day Saints would say, oh yeah, for sure, where the rest of Christianity would say, well.
Gerrit The rest of Christianity has to say, in the beginning, there wasn't any matter. In the beginning, there was no space. In the beginning, there was no time. In the beginning, there was nothing but God. Just God existed. What Joseph Smith is taught by Revelation, what we learn through the Revelations, like D&C 93 and the Book of Abraham and Moses, we learn that in fact, all matter has always existed in some form or another, and that God took of existing materials and organized, and we don't know how that organization took place. So look, I mean, teenagers are teenagers. I have several of them. I'm failing at raising all of them. So getting advice from me is pretty similar to getting our picks for NFL football games when you live in Australia. And I would just say that, you know, it's important to point that out, that while, you know, every evangelical Christian he might talk to believes that God created everything out of nothing, we don't.
Gerrit We don't believe that. We believe that God organized existing materials and we don't know what that even means. Now look, I know there's all kinds of members listening who believe that there is no possible way that evolution has any truth to it at all. And I know that there are others who think, yep, that's the way that it goes. The church doesn't have, I'm gonna quote to you from October 2016, the church has no official position on the theory of evolution. Organic evolution or changes to species and hereditary over time is a matter for scientific study. Nothing has been revealed concerning evolution. Okay, so I know this is kind of like where did the Book of Mormon took place? I get it that everybody listening has an opinion on it. That doesn't change the fact that the church doesn't have an official position on it.
Gerrit So however authoritative we want to be when we make our arguments, we always have to step back and say, what is prophetic utterance saying currently? What is it currently saying? And what it's currently saying is there isn't an official position. So I think you could use that at least to explain to your son, look, it's entirely possible that God used those methods. The church isn't saying that it didn't. Do you know that other Christians however don't believe that? They don't believe that matter always existed. We do. Could the Big Bang be a way of creation for a Latter-day Saint? It could be because the matter always existed. Maybe that's how God did it. For a Christian, ultimately it can't be unless you say, well, God created all that matter at the Big Bang, which I've heard Christians say, God created, but that's not what the theory of the Big Bang is. Theory of the Big Bang is there's all of this matter that already exists and it becomes so tightly bound in this mass dense thing that it eventually explodes, but that requires the mass, the matter to already exist.
Gerrit So look, there's all kinds of things people can read and there are Christians who defend the theory of evolution as well as Christians who defend the Big Bang and then work their own Christian motifs into it. But I've always found for Latter-day Saints, science is not really an obstacle for us because the fundamental principles of science are not things that a Latter-day Saint has to throw to the side in order to believe what they believe. So hopefully your son can appreciate that.
Richard Yeah, she goes on to say, thanks again for all you do. I probably won't ever make a church tour, though I would love to. This is the next best thing. I would even be happy to pay another subscription, even though as you know, Richard, the Aussie dollar is weaker. I even love the gambling tips, despite knowing nothing of US football and caring even less. Well, so I will say, I understand that. We hear you loud and clear, Wendy. As a international presence, we're blowing up. We're huge in Australia, huge in Peru. Several listeners in Spain.
Gerrit Richard found one of his son's member families in Peru watching our podcast on YouTube.
Richard Yeah, so he goes in to have a meal with them. They're playing it on their TV and they say, is that your dad's podcast? And my son says, no, that's Dr. Dirkmaat's podcast.
Gerrit That's funny.
Richard It is very funny.
Gerrit I like how your son's throwing shade on you from thousands of miles away.
Richard No, seriously.
Gerrit Mine throws shade on me from here.
Richard I will tell you though, so Aussie Rules football is about to kick off. I believe the season starts in March. It's in a couple of weeks.
Gerrit Can I just interject how much I appreciate, Wendy, that the Australians call soccer, soccer. I know this is offending every British listener we have. I don't know, the 10s and 10s. And just the people who are Americans but are really involved in the royal family. They all love, the football is the term. I appreciate the fact that Australians call football, football.
Richard Yeah, when we were on our archeological excursion to Australia and New Zealand, looking for evidence.
Gerrit Whatever the Irish needs to think of New Zealand. That's right. Looking for evidence of the Book of Mormon in New Zealand?
Richard That's right, that's right. Anyway, we were there during World Cup and we were watching World Cup with our Aussie brothers and sisters there and they also called it soccer. It was very interesting.
Gerrit It was very refreshing.
Richard It was.
Gerrit Felt like home.
Richard So I will say, as Aussie rules, football is about to kick off or as they say in Australia, football is about to kick off, I will tell you, I would put everything on Collingwood Magpies repeating as champions. Under the leadership of Jack Crisp, he's a veteran leader. I think that he, along with Aiden Begg and Josh Carmichael, as new rookies, I think are going to add a lot to what it is that they're doing there.
Gerrit I think we've degenerated to the point where we're now talking about Collingwood Magpies.
Richard Well, I've got a special place in my heart for Melbourne. And so I feel like they're going to be repeat, much like the Kansas City Chiefs are. I think that they're good. Now I will say the best value though is probably going to be Sydney. Sydney's team is, they seem like they're back. And I'm optimistic that they're going to be able to turn things around with Brody Grundy coming back. He was injured most of last year. So value on Sydney, but take Collingwood Magpies for the championship.
Gerrit Let's see what she says.
Richard There you go.
Gerrit We expect a follow-up email. Well, so let's pick up where we left off talking about the Witnesses. We got a little derailed last time. I know we generally do. Just talking about the importance of faith over overseeing, over a miraculous witness. Having said that, having spent that much time on the last one, we are gonna talk about the miraculous witness. So I mean, that really kind of undermined myself at this point, but as Joseph Smith's translation goes forward, and you're all familiar with this, that things are starting to get a little, there's a threat of mob violence in harmony. Certainly Emma's family and her extended family are not fans of Joseph, and there's starting to be threats that things are going to be, that things could turn ugly quickly.
Gerrit And so Joseph Smith is going to write to, well, he's gonna have Oliver Cowdery write to David Whitmer and say, hey, David, you know this Joseph Smith guy that you've never met, we need to be able to come move up to your parents' house and live in it while we translate. And by the way, we need you to bring your wagon down to move us up there. And by the way, it's several days journey each direction. How's that sound? And you all know that miraculously, David Whitmer had his plowing and his sowing of his field done miraculously. And that allowed him to go and also convinced him of some of the truth of this. And so they're going to move in June up to Fayette. Fayette, which is, look, it's relatively close to Palmyra. I mean, it's a day's journey back then, but you know, you can do it in 35 minutes in a car now or a bus depending on whether or not you have the roads blocked off by SWAT teams.
Gerrit So when they get up to Fayette and they're still engaged in translating the Book of Mormon, David Whitmer is going to receive a revelation that is going to, it's going to foreshadow even more. So you've already had, Oliver's had some foreshadowing, plus he's seen the plates in a vision. You've had Martin Harris with Doctrine and Covenants section five be told directly that if he has faith, then he will have a witness. Well, if you go to Doctrine and Covenants section 14, this is a revelation to David Whitmer, and it opens like several of these revelations in the mid-teens open. A great and marvelous work is about to come forth among the children of men. He goes on to say, the Lord says to him, seek to bring forth and establish my Zion. Keep my commandments in all things. And if you keep my commandments and endure to the end, you shall have eternal life, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God.
Gerrit And it shall come to pass, that if you shall ask the Father in my name, in faith believing, you shall receive the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance, that you may stand as a witness of the things, which you shall both hear and see, and also that you may declare repentance unto this generation. So David Whitmer is told, now that is a little bit vague, it's a little bit different than, you know, you're going to see the plates. But verse eight of section 14 says that he is going to stand as a witness. So you have Oliver Cowdery, who's going to be a witness. You have Martin Harris, who's going to be a witness. Now you have Doctrine and Covenant section 14, right after. I mean, this is in June of 1829, so it's almost immediately after Joseph and Oliver arrive back in Fayette. David Whitmer is told that he is going to be a witness.
Gerrit Our next revelation, talking about what the witnesses are going to see and do and why they are being called as witnesses, comes from, comes again, a couple of weeks. We don't know exactly when later, a couple of days, sometime in June of 1829, Joseph is going to receive a revelation that's going to speak directly to these Three Witnesses. If you read the section heading to section 17, it says, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris were moved upon by an inspired desire to be the three special witnesses. The prophet inquired of the Lord and this revelation was given in answer through the Urim and Thummim. So in the opening verse of Doctrine and Covenants section 17, it's a powerful part of the witness experience because here the Lord tells them what they're going to see before they actually see it.
Gerrit So this isn't the case of them, you know, seeing everything that the angel has to show them and then trying to figure out, now what was that ball of curious workmanship that was sitting there? I mean, instead, the Lord's going to say, listen, these are the things that you are going to see. So verse 1 of Doctrine and Covenants section 17, Behold I say unto you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with a full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Gerrit upon the Mount when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors, which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness on the borders of the Red Sea. And so you get this list of the things that they are going to see. They are going to see the plates, the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, the seer stones that were given to the brother of Gerrit, and also the liahona, the miraculous directors.
Gerrit So these five physical items that these Three Witnesses are going to behold. And it is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them, even by that faith which was had by the prophets of old. Now, let me go on a tangent. Oh, okay. You don't say. It's important to understand that oftentimes people will read Doctrine and Covenants, Section 17, and they will read it in terms of, well, see, look, this is received in June of 1829, and it uses the term Urim and Thummim. And for those of you who have listened to the translation podcast, we've done several on the translation of the Book of Mormon and on Joseph Smith's use of a seer stone, which is what President Nelson has even recently reiterated. That's the way that Joseph translated using various different types of seer stones.
Gerrit Some people have said, no, Doctrine and Covenants, Section 17 proves that they were using the term Urim and Thummim as early as 1829. And because all of our other early documents, they don't use those words to describe the stones that God prepared. They use the term spectacles, they use the term interpreters, they use the term stones, but they don't use the term Urim and Thummim in the early documents. Joseph Smith's 1832 history, he says, but the Lord had prepared spectacles for to read the book, wherefore I commence translating. So this is how Joseph is describing it in 1832. But people will say, well, wait, Doctrine and Covenants section 17 is from June of 1829, and there the Lord uses the term Urim and Thummim. Well, maybe, actually probably not. These revelations were originally recorded in the earliest version of them anyway, in a book called the Book of Commandments and Revelations.
Gerrit It's a large manuscript revelation book, and primarily John Whitmer, although there are other scribes, would take the loose leaf revelations that have been dictated and copy them into this larger book. Now, whatever happened to the loose leaf revelations, I wish, I wish, I wish. Oh, my kingdom if we had all of those, right? But the Book of Commandments and Revelations as a very old book, some of the pages, by the time it was rediscovered, some of the pages were missing. And one of the revelations that is missing from the book, right where it would have been, is Doctrine and Covenants Section 17. Now, in some cases, some of them are partial or some of them are missing, and then we get it published in the 1833 Book of Commandments. And so then we see, ah, so this is what the earlier version looks like.
Gerrit But Doctrine and Covenants Section 17 wasn't published in the 1833 Book of Commandments. And so actually our earliest manuscript of Doctrine and Covenants Section 17, now please understand, I'm not saying that this was received in 1834. It was received in June of 1829, but our earliest copy of it doesn't exist anymore. It fell out of the book.
Richard So someone might have a huge problem with that, but they'd maybe be totally fine with all of the original transcripts we have from the New Testament.
Gerrit Yeah, from the Bible? Yeah, for those of you who don't know, whenever someone says, I read this from the original Bible manuscript, they don't mean that because there isn't one.
Richard Well, they might mean it, but they're incorrect.
Gerrit Right, they mean what they're saying, it's just that what they're saying is false. Like the Texans aren't going to win more than six games, Richard. Well, who knew? But you meant it.
Richard I didn't mean it.
Gerrit You meant it, but you were totally wrong.
Richard That's right. You know, I'm coming off my most successful pick ever and you're beating me up on the overrunners.
Gerrit Okay, let me beat you up on the lions as well. I was wrong about that one. So, the reality is the earliest complete version of any book of the New Testament that we have is well into the second century AD. And we actually are a hundred years after Jesus before we even have the earliest fragments of books that exist, which means the earliest extant copy of the New Testament that you have of any New Testament book is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy and then me saying the word copy a hundred more times. And by the way, they're being copied by people that are far less literate than any person listening to this podcast, including Bill the Adulterer. The reality is that... He's a copy editor. That's why we know he's an adulterer.
Gerrit Like authors and copy editors, we have a love-hate relationship. So it's important to understand that while we don't have all of the most original versions of Joseph's revelations, we have at the very least, for most of them, we have the first or second copy that was made at the time. So for instance, John Whitmer is copying these revelations into the Revelation Book in late 1829. Well, he's beginning it in 1830. So in 1830, he's copying in these revelations from 1829 and 1830, right? So 1831, he's going to be doing a lot of the copying in. So we actually aren't very far removed. But the other problem with viewing Joseph Smith's either Book of Mormon manuscript or his Doctrine and Covenants revelations is that we have a tendency, because we live in this Christian world, which our friend in Maine was just condemned to hell by, we live in a Christian world that has as an axiom that all scripture is in the Bible, that it cannot be changed for any reason, and it's the only place that there is words of truth.
Gerrit And because that's the only Christianity you and I interact with from day to day every single day, the arguments of that Christianity start to filter into our culture. Where do Latter-day Saints have revelations that say a prophet of the living God couldn't adjust a revelation he's received on the basis of new information? We don't have a revelation that says that, by the way. But we have a lot of people who if they were to hear that Joseph went back through his revelations and adjusted them, that would make them feel uncomfortable.
Richard An example of that might be the temple ceremony as an example. As recent changes have happened, the First Presidency has gone out of the way to say, hey, I'm pretty sure they didn't start.
Gerrit No, no, that's exactly, yeah. I can hear President Oaks right now.
Richard Hey, relax.
Gerrit We got this.
Richard No, but just explaining that because people think that, you know, as it was given is exactly how it is and no changes to be made. But you talk about all the time when the Lord reveals things, He reveals it to us in our understanding at the time. And the temple ceremony now, the covenants that we make, those are all the new and everlasting covenant aspect that is, you know, is forever. But the idea that how it's done exactly or the explanations that are part of it, those are constantly.
Gerrit I mean, the way that we bless and pass the sacrament today is different than the way we did it in the 1840s. Does that mean that the sacrament is no longer an ordinance? I mean, the reality is it is a Christian worldview that words that are written in the book can never be updated or changed by God. We don't believe that. And yet, because every other Christian we know believes that, it actually causes us to feel uncomfortable, right? So you'll have people say, well, you know Joseph Smith went through and changed a whole bunch of the Book of Mormon for the second printing? Yeah. It's almost like the prophet who received those words would also have the same prophetic ability to receive more enlightenment on those words. Well, why would God do that? Well, Brigham Young is very clear about it. Because when God speaks to his people, he always speaks to them according to their current understanding.
Gerrit And if you believe in continuing revelation, then that means your current understanding is always going to change. The world changes. The questions we have changed. When this church was first founded, one of the burning questions, one of the questions that caused people to leave the church was, Do we baptize infants? And I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume that every Latter Day Saint listening to me hasn't ever had a faith crisis because we don't baptize infants. I doubt that even Bill the Adulterer is sitting on the edge of his bed crying over the fact that we don't baptize infants. Does that mean that the people who lived 150 years ago were just really, really, really dumb? No. It means that the questions that you have about God are always a reflection of your culture and your world experience. It would actually be really weird if you had questions about God that didn't in any way relate to your life.
Gerrit The most natural thing in the world is to ask questions about God that relate to your life. So Joseph is going to make changes to the revelations. I mean, he'll receive revelations on the organization of the church, and then a few years later God will reveal the office of the Seventy. Well, Joseph doesn't just sit there and go, Well, we're not going to include that in the Doctrine and Covenants because it wasn't in the original. No, he goes back to the original revelation and adds the office of the Seventy. Joseph sees revelation as something that is designed to respond to what God wants in the moment. Back to Doctrine and Covenant Section 17. After 1833, it becomes very evident that there's a real attempt to start referring to the stones, the interpreters that were used with the translation of the Book of Mormon, with the biblical term Urim and Thummim.
Gerrit Why? Well, because you had antagonists, extreme anti-Mormons, going off of their moguls off the ski lift, screaming things like, you just put a rock in a hat. And they're mocking it. They're making fun of it the same way the Book of Mormon musical makes fun of missionaries and what they believe. But the fact that the Book of Mormon musical makes fun of missionaries and what they believe doesn't mean that there isn't a true purpose behind missionary work. The fact that the Book of Mormon musical makes fun of the gold plates in the Book of Mormon doesn't mean that the Book of Mormon isn't really from God just because people make fun of it, right? And in a world that cares a lot about what people think, we have to be really careful that we don't allow ourselves to be swayed simply because of the mocking from the great and spacious building of the people who don't believe. So, in order to help people understand that these seer stones that were prepared by God, all the way back to the brother of Jared, that they were holy and they were sacred, they start using the term Urim and Thummim to describe them because it's a biblical term.
Gerrit And in the Bible, the high priest of Israel used these special stones to aid him in receiving revelation. And so, they start using that term. And the earliest version of Doctrine and Covenants, section 17, like I said, is lost. We don't have anything until after. It has to be, we know by the scribe that it has to be after November of 1834, our earliest version of this. That doesn't mean it wasn't received before then. It means that's our earliest version. And it includes the term Urim and Thummim. But my assumption is, my calculated guess on it, is that it probably originally said the interpreters which were given to the brother of Gerrit on the Mount, because that's, or stones, because that's what's used in the Book of Mormon. And why do I say that? Well, because Joseph actually revises another revelation at the same time to include the term Urim and Thummim. If we go to Doctrine and Covenants, section 10, you can all go there to Doctrine and Covenants, section 10, pull it open.
Gerrit In the original version of this, and now this, we do have a fairly early version. We don't have all of Doctrine and Covenants, section 10, however. You want to know why? Because the first page of it is gone from the Book of Commandments and Revelation. The second half is there. So you have most of the revelation in the early manuscript book, but the first page is gone. Unfortunate that the first page is what we need in this case. But it is published in the Book of Commandments. And so in the Book of Commandments, so in 1833, this is how this Revelation read. Now behold, I say unto you, that because you delivered up so many writings which you had power to translate into the hands of a wicked man, you have lost them. So that's how it starts in the 1833 version. So you can only assume that the manuscript version says the same thing, right? So in 1833, now behold, I say unto you, that because you delivered up so many writings which you had power to translate into the hands of a wicked man, which, Martin Harris, I'm sorry, we keep referencing you.
Gerrit But before the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants is published two years later, Joseph is going through the inspiration of the Lord, is going to revise those first lines. Now behold, this is how it reads in the 1835. Now behold, I say unto you that because you delivered up those writings which you had power given unto you to translate by the means of the Urim and Thummim into the hands of a wicked man, you've lost them. So sometime between 1833 and 1835, Joseph Smith revised Doctrine and Covenants, Section 10 to include the term Urim and Thummim that wasn't in there originally. And I think that I can only guess at the reason why, but I think it's because you have so many detractors. You have the Eberhaus of the world claiming that Joseph Smith just copied it from Solomon Spalding. You have all these, you have Jonathan Hadley claiming that there's no possible way Joseph Smith could have done this.
Gerrit You have the leader of the eventual Disciples of Christ movement, Alexander Campbell, claiming that Joseph Smith just cooked it all up himself and just wrote the whole thing himself. So you have three separate versions of what people are saying is going on. And they vacillate between Joseph just wrote it all himself to some other guy wrote a novel and Joseph Smith scratched his name off the top of it and wrote his on top. But that's where it came from. It's not surprising to me that the Lord would inspire Joseph between 1833 and 1835 to reiterate in the Revelation that everyone is going to read. Those writings which you had power given unto you to translate by the means of the Urim and Thummim. This is not something that Joseph just dictated. This is not just something that Joseph found in a novel and copied it over. God had prepared sacred stones for the translation. And I point that out, like I said, because both Doctrine and Covenants section 10 and section 17 are sometimes seen as the earliest reference to using the term Urim and Thummim in our revealed scripture.
Gerrit The problem is that portion of them is all from 1835. That inclusion of it. Now that shouldn't make any, that shouldn't make any never mind to anybody, but sometimes it really does. And that's why understanding the textual history of our documents matters. And again, like Richard said, I hope this doesn't make anyone feel uncomfortable. It's actually great. Think of how great it is that instead of not providing greater specificity, God through His prophets has these things adjusted so we can better understand them. So that when new offices are given, we don't just leave them out in the cold because we don't want to touch anything. We aren't Protestants. I don't know how to tell everybody we're not Protestants. I know we wish we were. We would desperately want to just say the sinner's prayer and be saved. I know I do.
Gerrit But we're not. We believe in continuing revelation and that that same prophet who received these revelations or that same prophet who translated the Book of Mormon clearly has the power from God to adjust those revelations as God tells him to do it. So the Witnesses are told that these are the things they're going to see. These are sacred items. Now, why exactly do we need Witnesses? This is one of the questions I get asked all the time. In fact, we had someone ask a question in our email, one of the emails that we haven't read. We are receiving many emails. I just want to reiterate to everyone, thank you so much for the emails. We literally read all of them, right, Richard? We read every one of them. We physically can't read them all on the air. I mean, we would have to start another podcast called Richard Reads the Mail. This is what we call it, Richard Reads the Mail.
Gerrit But we read them all and we are grateful. One of the questions we got was, well, if Joseph Smith is translating the Book of Mormon by placing the stone or stones, the interpreters, into the hat to see the words that appear on them, then why does he even have the plates? What do the plates even do? Well, these ancient items are a connection from the ancient prophets to Joseph as a modern prophet. We've talked about this multiple times on the podcast that there are all kinds of people who believe religious things and they believe them wrongly, much like Richard believing that the Lions are going to only win nine games this year, right, last year. Well, what are they going to win this year? You want to throw that out there real quick?
Richard I'm going to take the under. The over under isn't out yet, but they're going under.
Gerrit Because Dan Campbell is going to go for it on 1430.
Richard He's going to be chewing kneecaps. He's intense. I think it's going to fall off.
Gerrit Thanks for bringing me back in. I wanted to get Richard back in.
Richard You're building to a crescendo of testimony. Your thoughts on the Lions over under next season?
Gerrit One of the things that we point out often, and we'll continue to point out because it's such a crucial point, is that there are lots of people who can have religious beliefs and sincerely believe them and be sincerely wrong. If you're listening to our premium content, you know that Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church, had some pretty sincere beliefs about the Jews.
Richard And their lives.
Gerrit And wrote a book called On the Jews and Their Lies, in which he advocated the burning down of synagogues and the prevention of Jews from receiving illegal protections from the state.
Richard Yeah, strong belief.
Gerrit Yeah, it was a very strongly held belief.
Richard Where is he from?
Gerrit Germany. Anyway, so Luther obviously really believed that. He wrote a book about it. But I think most of our listeners are Litners or listeners. As we go on, I'm just going to...
Richard This is the middle of the day.
Gerrit This isn't the middle of the night. Well, it's the middle of tequila. Most of our listeners, I pray that most of our listeners... I can't say listeners. I don't know what's wrong. Most of our listeners don't agree with Martin Luther. If you do agree with Martin Luther, please repent and see the Book of Mormon that all are alike in the God. Anyway, Luther sincerely believed that, and most of our listeners would say that Luther was sincerely wrong. He might have really believed it, but he was wrong. It's wrong to be anti-Semitic and to hate Jews, right? It's wrong. So he was a sincere man. He was absolutely a believer in Jesus, and he was 100% wrong about what he thought and did. Someone might say the same thing about other people who've had religious experiences.
Gerrit Someone might claim that, oh, you know, I saw a vision of heaven, and then they start telling you all about things that make it, you know, sound like it's whatever their political beliefs are. And they might sincerely believe they've had a vision of heaven, but you can always just kind of catalog that in the back of your head as, well, I know you think that, but you're probably just sincerely wrong. You probably just, you thought that, I mean, you had a dream and you thought that dream was real, and it wasn't. These ancient records, however, eliminate from Joseph Smith's world the potential of claiming that Joseph is just sincerely wrong. You either have 70 pounds of gold plates or you don't. You can't think that you're carrying them. The Witnesses can't think that they're lifting them.
Richard You bring up all the time the non-Latter-day Saint historians who say that Joseph Smith was sincere, but obviously since God doesn't exist, none of this is true.
Gerrit He's sincere, but he can't possibly have seen God because God doesn't exist because I'm a historian.
Richard So this is an interesting point though.
Gerrit So these items, they go to that other academic point to say, they go to the historicity of the fact that, look, I might, you know, especially since I can't say the word listener, I might think that I had a vision of God because I was, you know, smoking peyote the other night, and I might think that I had a vision. And I might really believe that I had a vision, but I would be really wrong. The physical items that connect the ancient Nephite world to Joseph Smith's world are in and of themselves testimonies that this isn't just a dream that Joseph had. Because you can say, well, maybe Joseph just thought that up. Okay, what are these 70 pounds of plates doing sitting on the table? Where did they come from?
Gerrit A breastplate, a sword, where did they come from? Where did these interpreters come from? Where did the liahona come from? It's easy to mistake a powerful dream you had for being reality. It's pretty impossible to mistake physical, ancient objects that you are picking up and looking at and holding as not being real. It changes the dynamic of what we're talking about. Joseph either has plates or he doesn't, and there are so many people that see and feel and heft the plates, it becomes pretty hard to argue that he doesn't have plates. Well, now if he has plates, where did they come from? Now, you can be a cynic and you can say, you know, well, even though I don't have any evidence to prove this, and I'm going to just go out on a limb, what Joseph probably did is he went to a nearby town and he stole a whole bunch of tin ore and he brought it back to his house and he created a smelter and he figured out how to smelt the tin and he made it into plates and then he etched different things on the plates and then he found a way to tarnish the metal so that it looked like gold, even though the people that would be looking at it, like Martin Harris, were well aware of what gold actually looked like, but he was able to do it convincingly enough that it made people think that they were gold, even though they weren't gold.
Gerrit Luckily, no one has any record of any of those things.
Richard That's tough to yell off of a 720 or...
Gerrit Yeah, so you're going to 1080, you're going to 1260, what are you doing at that point? Yeah, he's smelting it! Radical abhorrentism! I mean, there are people who make that argument that Joseph fabricated the plates. Now, they provide literally no evidence except, well, it's pretty hard for me to believe that an angel brought them. Yeah, it's called a miracle. That's the point. The fact that it's hard to believe is literally the point. Well, I find it pretty hard to believe that Jesus walked on water. Yeah, that's why it was a miracle. Like, you aren't calling things miracles like, hey, I got out of bed this morning. Although for some people, maybe it is a miracle, especially if you're saying, WITNERS. For Joseph, the fact that he has plates becomes the quintessential, inexplicable part of his truth claims.
Gerrit Because we aren't just talking about whether or not he saw God and Jesus in the Sacred Grove. People can say all kinds of things about that. They can say, oh, he didn't write that down until later. And so that proves that he was making it up, even though the entirety of the New Testament is people writing down many years later what happened with Jesus. But this is a different thing. I mean, like, there's all kinds of logical inconsistencies that exist there, right? But whatever you think about the First Vision, how do you explain that Joseph Smith has plates? Now, you can claim that he fabricated them, even though he lacked the ability to even buy tin, so he must have stolen the tin, right? And there's no record of that, of course. And that he fooled all of these people. You can claim that without any evidence. You could, as some have tried, and some academics have actually tried to say, well, maybe Joseph did actually find something. Because here's the problem. If Joseph manufactured the plates, if he created them out of whole cloth, then why does he so sincerely believe in all of his own personal writings that he's been called by God?
Gerrit Wouldn't he know in his journal, like, boy, I really hope people don't figure out that I just mocked those plates up. Wouldn't he in a letter to Oliver Cowdery be like, Oliver, we've totally got to keep Martin from thinking that these are tin plates. Wouldn't there be some evidence of this? And I can tell you as a historian from 19th century political history, there's all kinds of evidences for that when it comes to politicians. They, this is going to come as a huge surprise, they occasionally, and by occasionally I mean literally always, will say one thing and privately say the exact opposite. I told them that we'd be there by the 14th, but we're not going to go. Well, why did you tell them that you were going to be there? Well, because I'm a liar, that's just what I do. There's no evidence in all of the 12,000 documents of Joseph Smith that he does not sincerely believe he was called by God. So how do you go and spend the months of or whatever it took to manufacture plates in order to deceive people if you believe you're sincerely called by God?
Gerrit So that's led some academics, non-Latter-day Saint academics, to even postulate, you know what? He must have found something. Maybe he did find some metal out in the woods and he just thought that it was from God because we know he has something because we have all these different people that feel it and see it and lift it and not just his friends. I mean, people will say things all the time like, yeah, the only people who are witnesses of the gold plates are all of his friends and families. That just shows it's not true. Yeah, because Isaac Hale was a super big friend of Joseph. He lists the box the plates are in. One of the reasons why we know some of the weight of the plates is Isaac Hale says it. He tells people about it. Now, he doesn't believe Joseph's a prophet, but Joseph has something. What does he have? Well, in our next episode, we are going to cover the actual account of the three and the Eight Witnesses and also some of their responses that they are asked later in life about their witnessing of the plates.
Gerrit As many of you know, many of the witnesses apostatize. Sometimes people will say things like, all the witnesses apostatize. Well, Hyrum Smith didn't apostatize, right? I mean, all of the Three Witnesses will leave the church and then two will come back, but won't deny their testimony. And we'll talk about some of those later testimonies they give of the experience they have in our next episode. So thanks so much for listening. And I think at this point we have to say, go Lions, right Richard?
Richard Go Lions, thank you to our Litners.
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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These guys, it's literally their job, and they'll show like, oh, what's your record on picking for the season? Eight and 14.

GerritBanter

We just want to point out that although no one can know for certain and that no one's good at it and no one's ever right, we were right.

GerritBanter

I feel like John has wildly overestimated my importance.

GerritBanter

the first question you have to ask is how do they know what they think they know about the past? What is the source that they are using?

GerritInsight

We have radical theology because the Lord gave revelations to Joseph Smith fully explaining the plan of salvation.

GerritInsight

But I've always found for Latter-day Saints, science is not really an obstacle for us

GerritInsight

I like how your son's throwing shade on you from thousands of miles away.

GerritBanter

I doubt that even Bill the Adulterer is sitting on the edge of his bed crying over the fact that we don't baptize infants.

GerritBanter

We aren't Protestants. I don't know how to tell everybody we're not Protestants.

GerritBanter

It's easy to mistake a powerful dream you had for being reality. It's pretty impossible to mistake physical, ancient objects that you are picking up and looking at and holding as not being real.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
D&C 17 proves Joseph called the translation instruments "Urim and Thummim" as early as 1829.
Revelation must never be revised after it's given.
The church has an official position against evolution.
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

Before you accept any claim about the past, ask how the person knows it and what source they're using.

Latter-day Saints believe God organized matter that already existed, and the church has no official position on evolution.

In D&C 17 the Lord told the three witnesses ahead of time what they would see: the plates, breastplate, sword of Laban, interpreters and Liahona.

A dream can be mistaken for reality, but ancient objects you lift and handle can't, which is why the plates are so hard to explain away.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Witnesses of the Book of Mormon seriesPart 4 picks up at Fayette after last episode's tangent on faith; the actual witness accounts are promised next time (30:44, 67:34).
Doctor inflation"My friend through both tribulation and trepidation as he works on his ABD," and Casey's "almost doctor, but not quite" (0:36, 8:25).
We were rightA Super Bowl victory lap: no one can know, no one's ever right, but they were (1:21-3:52).
Taylor Swift's screen timeNine appearances, then overtime; Kelce's "touchdown" was nearly knocking over Andy Reid (2:10-2:31).
Andy Reid, come on the showThe offer's still open (2:40).
Extreme anti-MormonismA double tail whip off a mogul yelling "Kinderhook plates!", later a 1080 yelling "he's smelting it!" (5:16-6:31, 48:53, 64:05).
Restraining order from conferenceGerrit kept jumping up yelling church history during the broadcast (7:36-7:51).
Held together with spit and gumWhy they can't transcribe episodes (17:01).
Cancel and say plane crashIf only 20 people get tickets, they'll invent an excuse (18:34-18:56).
Collingwood MagpiesRichard's Aussie rules picks, with value on Sydney (29:32-30:07).
Bill the AdultererEven less literate copyists than Bill, who's apparently a copy editor (41:45, 46:46).
LitinersGerrit can't say "listeners" (58:54-59:11, 64:05).
The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown MailbagSend Gerrit and Richard your question.

The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

Your question could be next week’s episode
Questions from Litners drive a lot of episodes. Send yours. If it makes the show, Richard reads it on air.
General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 10The Hour of Your Mission Is ComeBishop Sean DouglasBishop Douglas thanks missionaries of every age and urges the rising generation to place full-time missionary service high on their list.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 93I Am a Child of GodElder Hutch U. FaleElder Fale teaches that every person is a beloved child of heavenly parents, illustrating God's unearned love by showing his children their baby pictures: they did nothing to earn their parents' love and can do nothing to lose it.October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 14:7–8Fruit to Make One HappyElder Gary E. StevensonSpeaking especially to Primary children, Elder Stevenson uses Lehi's vision of the tree of life and his own love of fruit to describe three sweet fruits of the gospel: we are children of a loving Heavenly Father, the great plan of happiness through Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

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Deep dives the episode points toward
The Book of Commandments and Revelations manuscript and the pages missing from it (38:28).
How the term Urim and Thummim came into use for Joseph's seer stones after 1833 (47:51).
D&C 93 and the Book of Abraham on eternal matter, and how they bear on science (23:15).
Isaac Hale's account of the weight of the plates' box (67:34).
SOT Litner · S4E7.