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Live in Palmyra
S6E28 · Nauvoo Lyceum Part 2 and the Trinity
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Standard of Truth · Season 6 · Episode 28 · 1:09:10

Nauvoo Lyceum Part 2 and the Trinity

Joseph Smith was already teaching that the Father has a body at the Nauvoo Lyceum in 1841, two years before the 1843 teaching that made it into the Doctrine and Covenants.

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The question ·
My question, how prominent is Calvinism in contemporary Christianity?
Elder Cooper (listener)

Recorded live in Palmyra, New York, in an old chapel turned town hall, Gerrit and Richard read Elder Cooper's email from Mexico, which asks how common Calvinism still is. Gerrit says the full system is rarer than its most popular piece, 'once saved, always saved,' which comes from Calvin, not Luther. Then they return to the Nauvoo Lyceum: Joseph teaches that the Godhead is three separate beings, explains how infant baptism grew up, and warns about loud loyalty that runs in danger. The minutes also include a talk on self-defense and Joseph correcting Father Cole on the Holy Ghost. Gerrit closes by noting how early Joseph taught that the Father has a body, and that no one has explained away the Book of Mormon.

Who comes upJohn CalvinMartin LutherJoseph SmithGeorge MillerJesus ChristAdam
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Live in Palmyra

The hosts record in a former Latter-day Saint chapel, and no one in the room has seen 'Small Wonder.'

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the life and teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the Church with faith, expertise and humor.
Gerrit Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Dr. Richard LeDuc. I forgot a lot bigger surprise, a pause line than I did.
Richard Well, hello, Gerrit. From the shadow of the Acropolis, Greek restaurant in Palmyra, New York. We're here to answer, is it, answer an email or question, and then get back, right back to the...
Gerrit To the Lyceum.
Richard The Lyceum.
Gerrit We keep promising Lyceum, and I've seen our numbers tank because we haven't been doing it.
Richard But this one, this one's a little, because we have King Follett.
Gerrit That I'm trying to push off.
Richard Right, okay.
Gerrit Did we ever do three?
Richard We did three.
Gerrit I thought we only did two.
Richard We might have only done two. I don't know.
Gerrit You know what, let's say that we did three.
Richard We did three.
Gerrit So that everyone thinks I've done it. And then when they go to search for it, I can't find it, oh, you have to be in the right spiritual mindset to find it.
Richard Well, so the Lyceum, though, talked a little bit about the nature of God, though. Is that what we're gonna do here, though, as well?
Gerrit I mean, there's gonna be some things.
Richard Okay, that's good.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard All right.
Gerrit I like how you think that this is planned, and that we have rhymed to our reason. We have a live studio audience of folks. We didn't just pipe in the applause sound, but we could start doing, this could be like a sitcom from the 80s.
Richard Yeah, yeah.
Gerrit Where it's like, you know, and Gerrit comes into the room and like, woo hoo!
Richard Yeah, like Small Wonder.
Gerrit Yeah, so, wow, that's where you went.
Richard No.
Gerrit No, like family.
Richard How many of you have seen the show Small Wonder? Zero percent of you have seen it. Zero of you have seen it.
Gerrit How many of you have seen Cipher in the Snow? Okay, see? There we go. See? There was no laugh track.
Richard The guy's got a robot daughter. No one has seen this show. Okay.
Gerrit I feel...
Richard I should have said Alf. How many of you have seen Alf?
Gerrit You're saying we now have someone raising their hand in pity, but she actually hasn't seen it, but sees you drowning? And she's like, I just... Yeah, I saw it. I saw it. Just be quiet, please.
Richard Maybe she wasn't... Maybe you weren't familiar, but when I explained it, you're like, oh, the robot daughter. Yes.
Gerrit I think she is thinking that it's a different show.
Richard Lee's favorite studio audience.
Gerrit Yeah, well, I mean... We've started giving the studio audience an opportunity to leave and providing them transportation. And it's like giving... It's like how some states try to get rid of their homeless problem by giving them free tickets to Hawaii or California. Yeah. That's what happened. We said, you know what? There's a bus that could take you back to a nice air conditioned room in a hotel where you don't have to listen to us. And it was a stampede.
Richard Like the Israelites out of Egypt.
Gerrit They were clamoring over each other. One guy got pushed.
Richard The bus driver stood up immediately and ran out. He sprinted out.
Gerrit I said, you don't have to be here. And the table came up with it.
Richard Yeah, Troy's like, see ya. All right. Hello, Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. LeDuc. I hope that's how it's spelled. He spelled it close.
Gerrit Yeah, he failed to capitalize your D in your name.
Richard Well, since France lost in the World Cup, it's fine. I am Elder Cooper coming to you from Mexico. I'm a big fan of the podcast and I decided I needed to write. I know you guys get a mountain of emails, but hopefully you see this one. Dr. Dirkmaat, not only am I from Spanish frock.
Gerrit Richard. Richard.
Richard That's what he said.
Gerrit It's a Spanish fork. Yeah.
Richard We don't know that.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard We'll get the correct research staff on how many towns are named frock.
Gerrit FROK. What is the over under, a number of towns in America named, with no other name, just FROK?
Richard Two and a half. That's what I'm going under. MGM Sportsbook put it at two and a half. Also, we shouldn't gamble. I think it's very important to do that.
Gerrit President Hinckley.
Richard President Hinckley, 2005 April conference dress.
Gerrit Even though we sometimes talk about it, I hope everyone realizes how stupid gambling is. Right.
Richard Unless you've got a sure thing.
Gerrit No, you don't ever have one. This is the reason. Some people and some people don't gamble because the prophet told them not to. I'm one of those people. Other people don't because they'd be terrible at it.
Richard That's why I don't do it. Yeah. That's why I don't do it.
Gerrit I mean, the prophet kind of, but primarily.
Richard Primarily, I work too hard for the money I earn.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Not only am I from Spanish frock, but for the best part of a decade, one of my closest friends has been your son, Elder Dirkmaat. Thanks for raising him. Well, Angie.
Gerrit She's not even here to hear the praise.
Intro She left.
Gerrit She found out there was a free bus ticket to Hawaii.
Richard She didn't hop on the tour bus.
Intro She got on a city bus to get the heck out of here.
Richard Anyways, after many, many, many hours, I love the idea of your wife leaving you.
Gerrit But this is how she does it. Why is it funny to you that my wife leaves? No.
Intro She chooses this moment.
Richard We're at the Palmyra City Town Hall space. It used to be an LDS church. So if it looks kind of like, yeah, kind of Mormony, that's the reason why.
Gerrit This is how we get them. We just start building buildings and then we start just quietly selling them back. It's all the architecture. This is our plan.
Richard Well, so if you can go look, there's-
Gerrit We won't be hiding in a barrel of beans this time. Yeah.
Richard So if you go to the chapel, they turn that into kind of like the place where the city council sits and then people can come and turn into like a parks and rec situation. People complain about squirrels and stuff. Anyway, after many, many hours of listening to the pod, in the mornings before study, I finally decided that your expertise in early church history is even more impressive than your expertise in Age of Empires. It's close though. What is your Age of Empires civilization? Raise your hand if you're familiar with that aren't my kids or Gerrit's kids, and familiar with Age of Empires.
Gerrit Nobody is.
Richard Hey, all right.
Gerrit We need to talk.
Richard All right.
Gerrit We need to talk.
Richard We need to talk about small wonder. So very exciting.
Gerrit You don't have to pretend that you've seen it anymore. You can stop pretending. It's fine.
Richard So we have one person. What's your civilization?
Gerrit Well, he's talking about Age of Empires II. Yeah. And in Age of Empires II, I mean, there were lots of them that I could do, but I really liked the Byzantines. They're very good. Maybe the Turks.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit Yeah. Very good.
Richard I kept listening to the podcast because it's only slightly more interesting than rereading the Missionary Standards booklet. I attribute this to Richard because I tried watching fair video of Gerrit explaining the Book of Mormon translation and I got distracted by falling asleep.
Gerrit That's about right.
Richard I don't remember who the host was because I only made it about 27 seconds, but I'm guessing that they had to break the Word of Wisdom to drink coffee to produce that one.
Gerrit Wow.
Richard That's very funny. I'm going to ignore Professor LeDuc now and keep addressing Dr. Dirkmaat because he's a Bears fan.
Gerrit He means you're a Bears fan, yeah.
Richard Like the tobacco?
Gerrit No, no, no, no.
Richard No?
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard What does it mean?
Gerrit Why don't you ask the teenagers here? S-K-O-L.
Richard Skoll is a chewing tobacco. I assume that's what it means. Troy, chewing tobacco? No. What does it mean? Does it mean anything? I don't know. All right. We'll get the correct research staff on it. At this point, I think it's a chewing tobacco. I also want to thank you for the podcast. I came to my mission with a lot of doubts, and I came in contact with many of the attacks that are made on the church. Joseph Smith, I didn't have many answers, and I have a need to understand things. When your son told me about the podcast, and that it was free for missionaries, and talked about the prophet, I gave it a go. I didn't know anything about religious scholarship or everything it covers, but this podcast was the catalyst for me entering the world of LDS apologetics. Really, it was what saved my testimony. I found answers and reason. I found that my faith and beliefs could be defended. I learned that they made sense, and I learned the reasons why. Now, I keep learning about apologetics, but because I love it, not because I have doubts.
Richard And that is in thanks to the podcast. So, thanks. Way to go. My question, how prominent is Calvinism in contemporary Christianity? I was under the impression that it was pretty much dead out, but the more I listen to the podcast, it seems like many Protestants have these beliefs. Then I watched a debate between Jacob Hansen and Pastor James White, and you made it through that one, but not your explanation of the translation of the Book of Mormon.
Gerrit I was on the screen for 27 seconds, and he fell asleep.
Richard He's watching a Protestant debate between Jacob Hansen and Pastor James White, and realized that non-LDS Christians don't have that big of a problem with Calvinist ideas. So what's your current state on Calvinism? So what's your current state on Calvinism?
Gerrit What's my current state? What's the current state? Uh, yeah.
Richard It says your.
Gerrit He's now altering the email to read what he said rather than what the words were on it. Thanks for the email. I'm glad that the podcast was able to help out. Yes, I remember, you know, beating you and Riker in My Son in... I should just stop there.
Richard Yeah, just beating you and Riker.
Gerrit In Age of Empires. Yes, I do remember that. You know, it's hard to nail down because there are Calvinist ideas that are pervade much of American Protestant Christianity. I mean, if you're not from a Wesleyan, Armenian type of Protestant school, then yeah, there's at least some parts of it. The parts of it that are the most common found among Protestants in America today is the idea of the assurance of salvation. This is the perseverance of the saints. The last letter of Tulip. We actually already trapped all these people on a bus while I talked about this once before. Now there's doors they can leave. That idea, of course, is so appealing. People want to be able to feel like the old Denzer commercial, fix it in and forget it. They want to be able to say, I did it, I'm done. I don't have to worry about salvation anymore.
Gerrit And Calvin, of course, argued that because he believed you had no choice in the matter. You weren't saying the sinner's prayer. You weren't deciding to give your life to Jesus. You weren't, God chose, before he ever created the world, to save you. And that had nothing to do with yourself. And so the reason why you couldn't fall from grace in Calvinism is because God made the decision, not you. And God doesn't make mistakes. So it's very logical. In modern American Christianity, many people want to believe that they have free will and that they chose Jesus. They chose to have faith. They chose to accept his atonement. And that after they made the choice, then they can no longer fall from salvation. And that's something that John Calvin never would have taught. And so in one way, Calvinist ideology pervades much of Protestant Christianity today in America, especially that idea of one saved always saved.
Gerrit That comes from John Calvin. It doesn't come from Martin Luther. It doesn't come from, you know, obviously there's later theologians who also push that idea, but it comes from John Calvin. And there are still, it's roughly 10% of American Protestant denominations that are very heavily five-point, they call them five-point Calvinists because there's five points of tulip, right? The total depravity of man, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. And while many Protestants in America basically just accept the P, right? The perseverance of the saints, that sounds great. And the total depravity of man.
Richard The perseverance of the saints, once saved, always saved.
Gerrit Once saved, that's what it means. Perseverance. The saints, once you're a saint, you're always going to be a saint. But the person who decided that you're a saint is God. And he decided it before he ever created the world. And he saved you, not because of any good thing you did or will do, but he saved you because he could. He saved you because he was good, because no one should be saved. So it's roughly like 10 to 15 percent, depending on how you count the numbers. But you do find certainly some, there are some churches that are five-point Calvinists, that really make that their theology. I saw a study recently that said about 20 percent of Southern Baptists follow a Calvinist ideology. So depending on where you're at, you're going to run into that more predestined salvation ideology more and more. And you know, it affects people in different ways. One of the great Calvinist theologians in America, well, was, he passed away, sadly, RC. Sproul. He was an Arminian when he first went to divinity school.
Gerrit He went to divinity school believing that you chose to accept Jesus and that's how your salvation came. And as he went through divinity school, even though he was at an Arminian divinity school, he found that it was contradictory. And that, wait a minute, wait a minute, Jesus wants to save everybody, but he doesn't? How is there something that Jesus wants that he doesn't do? Like, why would we say that Jesus wants something that he's bad at, you know? And he wrestles with it and struggles with it. Of course, he went in thinking, you know, I hate Calvinism, I don't believe in it. And when he came out the other side, if you ever have a chance to read any of his books, you know, he explains how he came to understand that Calvinism was the only logical way to understand Christianity. If you believe that God's all powerful, then you have to believe everything is the way God wants it to be. And if you say that it's not, then suddenly God stops being all powerful.
Gerrit But, you know, he's a great example of how sometimes people's ideas will shift. And it doesn't have to be a theologian. I was on my mission in Wisconsin, and this is your favourite story.
Richard It is, yeah.
Gerrit We met a lady who was very kind to us. She informed us we were going to burn in hell, but she was nice. She was super nice to us. She wouldn't got us water.
Richard It's going to be hot where you're going, yeah.
Gerrit She didn't pack a lunch box with dry ice in it. I mean, no, yeah. But she was very kind about it. She's like, oh, you boys are so sweet. It's just, it really is too bad that you're going to burn in hell. And, you know, but she was very nice about it. It was very nice. I imagine if we were in the south, it would have been bless your heart.
Richard Yes.
Gerrit Yeah, something like that. But, you know, we talked to her about, you know, religion and theology quite a bit. And again, wonderful Christian lady, completely devoted her life to Jesus. And I'm sure, done more Christian acts of service than I've ever done, right? But we met her again. It was about three months later. We met her again at the grocery store, and she's like, oh, hi, how are you doing again? Super sweet lady, just a picture of the kind of person that, you know, Christianity makes good people, right? And we started talking again about theology, and she said, you know, I've actually come to realize even more recently, as I've thought about it and I've prayed about it, that I was even wrong with what I said to you the last time I talked, because I told you that you needed to accept Jesus. And, you know, the more I've studied, the more I've just come to understand that it is nothing of myself, nothing.
Gerrit Not even saying the center's prayer. It is only God has decided to give the gift of grace. And if he didn't decide to give it to you, he didn't decide to save you. And so, I watched her move towards the line of more five-point Calvinism, just as she was trying to wrestle with some of the questions that we, you know, talked about, you know. She still didn't believe in the book of... This isn't going to end, by the way, with her getting baptized. I did say it was on my mission in Wisconsin. None of those stories end with, and then she got baptized. Yeah. And some of them end with, and then they pull the gun out. But they don't ever end with, and then they got baptized. So, anyway.
Richard Top five chewing tobaccos. Which one do you think?
Gerrit Well, Skoll's gotta be one of them.
Richard Skoll is. Skoll comes in at number three.
Gerrit Yeah, what about Redmond?
Richard Redmond comes in at number four.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard Number one, you gotta know this one. Growing up in Idaho where you did.
Gerrit Well, I mean, you are implying that I...
Richard It's a moist snuff. There's a hint.
Gerrit Copenhagen.
Richard There it is.
Gerrit Yeah. In fact, I remember a song, Copenhagen. Quite a lot of flavor. Copenhagen. You can see it in his smile. You can see it in his smile. I bet you can. Yeah, you can see it as well. Copenhagen. I bet you can see it. And it goes driving pretty girls wild. Anyway, a lot of chewing tobacco in Shelly, Idaho.
Intro So, yeah, of course.
Richard So, now, I haven't found a city named Skoll, like an official city. There is, so in trying to understand what Skoll means, it could, the missionary could have meant the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad.
Gerrit Oh, you know what? I remember the Elder Cooper, that was one of his big deals with the South. He was a big trade guy.
Richard He covers, yeah, so that covers 450 miles.
Gerrit We have some people that have already received their mission calls, among them, your son.
Richard Yes, Dominican Republic.
Gerrit Yeah, and we're going to give a shout out to Max Roberts, who's, you know, you go... He's going to the Guam Micronesia Mission.
Richard Oh, fantastic.
Gerrit And he's going to use this episode of the podcast to get so many dates.
Richard Yeah. On his mission.
Gerrit Oh, no, no, no.
Intro Lock your heart, Elder.
Gerrit Yeah, lock your heart. So, but we also, we're happy to have them all with us. But yeah, so hopefully the podcast is helpful to missionaries like it was to Elder Cooper. That's the entire point.
Richard Send us your missionary email. We'll give you access to the Google Drive. We have 530 episodes.
Gerrit We have obviously this free podcast that, as you're listening to it, now you're thinking, it seems like it should somehow be cheaper than free. Should I be getting a residual when I listen to this rather than listening for free? But we also do a premium content one, which was designed because people wanted to try to donate to the podcast to try to keep us on the air, because I kept wanting to cancel the show. And then I could use financial reason. No, I can't afford to do this. It costs so much money. But I didn't want to just have people donate and give nothing. And so we created the premium side. And for missionaries who send in their missionary emails, we give them access to a Google Drive that has them all on it, including all the premiums.
Richard So there's also a Skoll City, which is the Minnesota Vikings headquarters. My guess is that's probably not what it is. It's more likely the railroad.
Gerrit But it's possible. Yeah, you know what? So Skoll City is spelled S-K-O-L for the Minnesota Vikings.
Richard Yeah, that's right.
Gerrit Okay, all right. Well, that's why they make the draft picks that they do. Okay, so...
Richard Onto the Lyceum.
Gerrit Yes, well, we promised. In fact, it was a tease. We teased in order to grow our listenership, we're going to talk more about Josephus' teachings of the Nauvoo Lyceum, and we were flooded.
Richard So just a quick reset of what a Lyceum is.
Gerrit No, I think actually they need to just know. No, a Lyceum is, it's obviously the Greek idea of this place where people are going to get together and share ideas in a public forum. We don't do this anymore today. We just call each other Nazis on Facebook. That's our new way of sharing ideas, is just attacking people on X, I think. So someone says, hey, I don't know that we have to increase taxes by 10% and the next comment is, that's because you're a Nazi. That's right. Literally the next balance. It's pretty similar. But the idea, before there was social media, the idea was to, it wasn't quite a debating society in the sense that people got together to attack one another's positions. But it was this idea that someone would, you know, I'm going to present what I've learned about farming, you know, farming potatoes and that people might be able to give commentary or a way of...
Gerrit It was like early access adult education, kind of. And so in Nauvoo, Joseph establishes this among other adult learning ways. And they cover different topics. Well, often the topics, because Nauvoo is made up of a lot of Latter-day Saints, often the topics do revolve around Latter-day Saint ideas. I mean, sometimes, you know, it revolves around how to grow potatoes. I mean, there are some that are like, talked about buckwheat, and there was no rebuttal. Whatever we said about buckwheat just dominated.
Richard There was no rebuttal?
Gerrit Yeah, no one said, I'll say the buckwheat. No, it didn't happen. So-
Richard Foghorn Leghorn was a Nauvoo.
Gerrit Yeah, I'll say it, boy. Yeah, Foghorn Leghorn, one of my favorites. Or, you know, can you tell much of a difference between him and Yosemite Sam?
Richard The swearing.
Gerrit That's the biggest difference. That makes a lot of sense, given the text that you send me. Okay. We're going to go to another one of Joseph Smith's Nauvoo Lyceum meetings. This is in February of 1841. So all of these that we've covered, they've been early 1841. Joseph was really ramping up as Nauvoo is growing. More and more people are coming. The city is becoming much larger. Joseph is engaging in all kinds of public works, but he's also engaging in asking more questions of God and receiving more information. They are building the Nauvoo Temple, or at least they are preparing to build the Nauvoo Temple. And they know that at that temple, God is going to reveal things that, as the Revelation says, in Doctrine and Covenants section 124, have not been revealed since the foundation of the world. And so, it really is a time of an outpouring of Revelation.
Gerrit And so, there are questions that come up in the Lyceum. So, clearly, one of the things that happened in the Lyceum is someone asked what would be a very common question even among Latter-day Saints today. Not about potatoes. Or about what brand of chewing tobacco. Yeah. Yeah. Which I thought you were going to go there.
Richard I was. I was planning to. But we already spent so much time on it.
Gerrit Yeah. The question was about the Trinity. Now, if you're a Latter-day Saint, who has always been a Latter-day Saint, you grew up a Latter-day Saint, your parents were Latter-day Saints, you probably only know the concept of the Trinity vaguely, because you have friends who aren't Latter-day Saints, and they find out that you're one of those Mormons and that you don't believe in the Trinity, and you might have a conversation about it. But it's a very odd idea to you because, well, this is what I've always been taught. It's what traditional Christians teach. And so if you're an early convert to the church, one of the doctrines that you have to wrap your head around is this idea that Latter-day Saints, Joseph is teaching, really, from the time of the First Vision, that God, the Father, and Jesus Christ are separate individuals, that they are separate and distinct beings. And so this is the question that's asked.
Gerrit We don't know exactly what the question is asked. The question is recorded. But Joseph said concerning the Godhead that it was not as many had imagined, three heads and but one body. He said that the three were separate bodies. God the first, and Jesus the mediator, the second, and the Holy Ghost. And these three agree in one. And this is the manner we should approach God in order to get his blessings. And he said that every man is stimulated by a certain motive. Motive precedes action. And if we want to know ourselves, this is the key, to examine the motive. What is it? And the fact will be made manifest. So first, Joseph is teaching here that Latter-day Saints believe that when the New Testament says, when the Lord says, the Father and I are one, that it means one in purpose.
Gerrit You could even say one in power, but not one in person, in not being the same being, because they were separate and distinct individuals. And instead, they would look to the great intercessory prayer of Jesus, where Jesus prays, Father of his apostles, he says, Father, make them one, as you and I are one. Well, clearly, clearly, Jesus isn't praying that the apostles all form into, you know, Devastator, the most powerful Transformer. They'll merge into one giant, you know, put together giant person. That's clearly not what Jesus is praying. He's clearly saying, make them one in unity and heart and purpose the same way you and I are one. And, you know, we've talked before on the podcast about how the doctrine of the Trinity develops. It develops because in the early church, when you have Jews who are the first Christians, you know, Jesus, Jewish, right?
Gerrit Peter, Jewish, I mean, all the first Christians are Jews who believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Well, the most central aspect of Judaism at the time of Jesus, is that it's monotheism. It's the most singular aspect of it. The idea that there's only one God. What made the Jews different from all of the other Mediterranean religions, from the Greeks and the Romans and the Egyptians, was that they didn't just believe that their God could beat up your God. The Romans, a lot of them believe that Mars can beat up, don't worry, Mars can beat up Ra. We've got this. That's why we conquered Egypt, right? But the Jews are saying that the other gods don't even actually exist. There are no other, there's only God. So the mindset, the culture of these early Christians, they're coming out of Judaism where there can only be one God.
Gerrit But of course, Christians are also affirming that Jesus is God. Well, how can God the Father be God, and Jesus also be God? You know, I'm holding up two hands. No one can see on the podcast, but the people here can see it. If they're both God, then don't we have two gods? And so eventually, the philosophical development comes, well, God is not anything that you can comprehend. And somehow, the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not the Son, and they are all God in an incomprehensible way, neither dividing the essence nor uniting the persons. And it's considered a mystery. Well, imagine you're a Latter-day Saint, or a new convert, which almost everyone in the church in 1841 is a brand new convert.
Gerrit There's like five, there's no multi-generational Mormons in 1841.
Richard Only my wife's family.
Gerrit Right. Just Becky's family. The Wilsons, they got baptized before Joseph had the vision. That's how far back they've been.
Richard That's how long they've been members.
Gerrit They've been members before.
Richard They're very proud of their pioneer heritage and the fact that I don't have any.
Gerrit But no one is like, well, I mean, if you had it, you'd just squander it like your acre in Quebec. So nobody is a long time members of the church. You know, you don't have this multi-generational understanding. And so of course, one of the major questions that every early convert has is, what do you mean that God and Jesus are separate? They can't be. The Nicene Creed says that they are not dividing the essence, right?
Richard So first of all, it is interesting to me that Muslims, so Christians don't view us as monotheists.
Gerrit Right. So a standard Christian will often attack and say Latter-day Saints aren't real Christians because we don't accept Trinitarian theology.
Richard Right. The definition of it is such. And it is funny to me that Muslims also say, well, you're kind of also in violation of monotheism.
Gerrit What's really interesting is that if you ever hear a debate between a Muslim, an imam and a Christian pastor, that is literally where the Muslim goes every single time, is that you aren't really a monotheist. We only worship Allah and you are saying it's God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And then the Christian spends the rest of the time saying, no, no, no, they're all one. And the Muslim just keeps hammering him over and over and over. Nope, it's just Allah. You're the one saying that there's more than one God. You're a polytheist. I mean, it is disingenuous, right? The Christian doesn't think that they're a polytheist, but...
Richard But we don't think that either.
Gerrit Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's disingenuous.
Richard But it is interesting to me, though, I've always wondered this, where for the Protestant during the Reformation, Catholics are the worst. Catholics made all these terrible decisions. They did all these terrible things. Everything they did is wrong. We're taking the apocrypha out of our Bibles. But who...
Gerrit There's no purgatory.
Richard There's no purgatory. But who Jesus is, they nailed that. I've always thought that was interesting. What point are they... Well, at this point, they were mistaken.
Gerrit Honestly, it's part of the fact that the Reformation starts with... I get it, we got some Jan Hus fans in here. Big. Yeah. I know there's some Hussites, and I get it that there's some Zwinglians and whatever.
Richard We were thinking of doing a Standard of Truth tour in Prague, but it's a bit thick.
Gerrit Just to do the defenestration?
Richard Yeah. We throw people out of windows.
Gerrit Yeah. Defenestration is when you are tossed from a window. The defenestration of Prague... Richard?
Richard I've been. I've been to the window.
Gerrit Do they let you jump out like it's a bouncy house? No.
Richard They talked about it. We did the castle tour and all this stuff, and yeah, he's from there. There's a big statue for him. Not as big of a fan at the time, but statue for him now, which is nice.
Gerrit Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, well, but Martin Luther is the starting point of the majority of the Protestant Reformation. And there are certain aspects of Christian theology that Martin Luther argues are biblical, and therefore are the one thing the Catholics got right, essentially, right? And so they accept the councils of the church up to the Chalcedonian Council, right, generally, which are talking about the nature of God. And so Martin Luther would say, well, because that is, you know, they got that right. The Catholic Church evil, but they did get that right. They got what the nature of God was right. I mean, and there are some places where you can clearly see this as just tradition. And I actually talked about it. Again, I apologize for everyone here on the bus, I talked about it. Infant baptism is a great example of this, right? So infant baptism had been what had been going on in Christianity in the Catholic Church for almost a thousand years at this point, a thousand years.
Gerrit It's what you did when your baby was born. And so suddenly saying, well, actually, infant baptism isn't in the Bible because it's literally not in the Bible. It's nowhere in the Bible. The closest you get is Cornelius has his household baptized. And you're like, yeah, and I'll bet one of that household was a six-month-old. That's not in the Bible. So all you have, the best you have is maybe this guy's household might have included an infant. From the scholar's point of view, there's no evidence of infant baptism until later. There's no images depicting it, no stained glass. It's all later. Why does it develop? It makes tons of sense why it develops. It develops because people believe that you have to be baptized in order to go to heaven. Well, infant mortality is north of 50%. So if I don't baptize my child, as soon as that child is born, my child might not be able to go to heaven.
Gerrit So of course you're going to develop a dog. It's actually designed to be a super merciful idea. But it's actually a great example of how doctrines develop outside of the light of the restored gospel. When you no longer have a prophet or apostles on the earth that can receive revelation, that can ask God directly, you make decisions based upon what makes the most sense. And frankly, again, it does make the most sense to say, now wait a minute, if you're not baptized, it doesn't matter why you're not baptized, if you burn in hell forever, we got to be throwing water on kids the moment they're born, because we can't risk them not being able, it's designed to be merciful.
Richard So it also takes place in the Book of Mormon, right? I mean, so it's-
Gerrit The argument about it?
Richard Yeah, of course, right? So, but it must have been happening, likely similar arguments must have been made.
Gerrit Yeah, someone's teaching it, or at least you've seen-
Richard It'd be funny for him to get so worked up about something that's not happening.
Gerrit It's really funny, yeah.
Richard You're in the gall of bitterness. No one's doing it, I'm telling you, someone does.
Gerrit But also, he might be seeing our day as well. Yeah, I mean, maybe there's that. All right, we're going to get our crack research stuff on.
Richard Yeah, I never actually thought about it that way.
Gerrit But the point being that this doctrine developed because there was this idea that baptism, if people weren't baptized, they'd go to hell and there was no other chance. Well, then it became what people did for, like I said, a thousand years. You can see how people reacted when they tried to eliminate it. That's exactly where Anabaptists come from. Anabaptists are, you know, we actually even saw some on our tour already, where the Amish and the Mennonites come from. These are radical prophets. These are radical prophets who say, they see Martin Luther and they're like, you know, how high? You know, they're like, oh, Martin Luther, that lightweight? No, because they saw Martin Luther was still accepting doctrines that were not in the Bible. And among them, the baptism of babies.
Gerrit They believe that you had to accept Jesus as an adult. You had to have adult baptism, because that's all of the baptisms you read about in the Bible. They are all adult baptisms. And they are heavily persecuted. They are attacked. They are slaughtered in Europe, is the response when people said, hey, wait a minute, your baptism needs to be when you're an adult, because it was such a cultural belief in infant baptism. So the whole reason I bring that up is the culture was very much a culture of that anyone who denies the Trinity is not a real Christian, even to the point that for Martin Luther, he is going to say, yes, that's scriptural, I'm going to espouse it. Now, they are helped along a little bit because the Bible has the fake insertion at that point, the latest insertion in John that, there's three that bear witness in heaven and those three agree together, which all scholars now believe to be a later insertion into the Bible to try to prove the Trinity.
Richard Hundreds of years later?
Gerrit Yeah, a thousand years, it's not in any early manuscripts at all. Yeah, but there are still disputes about it.
Richard It is the best scripture on the Trinity. It is, yeah, it's really effective.
Gerrit There's actually a lot of Bibles now that just either asterisk it or some Bibles don't include it anymore because it's so well known that it's an added later document. But back to our conversation to hand over the Trinity, the idea that it has to only be one person, one being, one entity, Joseph's going to speak about this again in 1843 a couple of years later where he's a little bit more, he's being a little bit more sarcastic about it. Again, because he's constantly being attacked because, well, you guys don't believe in the Trinity, you don't believe in the Trinity, you don't believe in the Trinity. And Joseph is going to say that people who are believing that they have to all be in one same being, that that's a great gigantic God, that everyone's stuffed inside of that one God, as he said.
Gerrit So the second part of this, that's the end of his teaching at the Lyceum, and I thought I wanted to, I wanted to focus a little bit on that last part, because I do think that's something that's kind of a good takeaway for everybody. That if you want to know why you do things, it's important to examine your motives, right? Let's read that again. That every man is stimulated by a certain motive. Motive precedes action. And if we want to know ourselves, that is the key to examine the motive. What is it? And the fact will be made manifest. So Joseph, this is not the only time that he's going to urge people to kind of look within yourself. What's the real reason why you're doing what you're doing? Are you doing it because you're trying to help people? Are you doing it because you're trying to help yourself? Are you doing it because you want people to look and see how wonderful and great you are?
Gerrit Are you doing it with an eye single to the glory of God? So it's a nice, helpful thing, I think, to examine. Let's move on to the next meeting, Richard. We'll never get through the Lyceum, which is what you want most, right?
Richard I do have the Moroni 8, five. Four, if I have learned the truth, there have been disputations among you concerning the baptism of the little children.
Gerrit And again, why would there be? Because they're teaching that baptism is essential for salvation.
Richard Right.
Gerrit And so-
Richard Let's get them dunked, yeah.
Gerrit It makes sense. It makes sense outside of other revelation that you'd want to save these little children, right? So the next meeting is the 23rd of February, 1841. We don't, again, these are all just notes that are taken. So some of them are not very, you know, verbose. I shared this quote with someone in our group the other day. So I thought, well, this will be a fun one to share. So we know that the first one was on the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Henry Sherwood is the one who gives that, but we don't know what he said, so he just talked about it. Then Vincent Knight gives a speech on education. Again, we have no notes of what he said. Get to the good stuff. That's what McIntyre is saying. Then an unknown speaker, just only identified as Davis, spoke on charity. Then George Miller spoke on manners. So you can see, it's very eclectic. I'm tired of people not brushing the tobacco spit out of their beards.
Richard What did he say? Anything?
Gerrit No. Manners empty.
Richard He just talked on manners. Okay.
Gerrit He spoke on manners. Maybe like how to have better manners.
Richard Okay.
Gerrit Yeah. People wrote into it with the questions about how, what to do with a place setting at a wedding. It was a, then he responded.
Richard It's a very, it was a very heavy kind of stuff.
Gerrit Dear George Miller. Then I don't know how it was related to manners. Maybe it was, maybe, I don't know what it was related to, but then it records Joseph speaking. Joseph said that he never wanted to hear a man snore louder than he could shout in battle.
Richard I agree.
Gerrit So I actually spent some time trying to dig that up. Is that like, is that like a common phrase?
Richard Snore louder than you cry in battle.
Gerrit Yeah, snore louder than he could shout in battle. Good luck. I see you're turning to the ChatGPT. Is that what you're doing?
Richard No, chat, no, no, no, Claude.
Gerrit Oh, Claude, sorry.
Richard That's offensive. So, that's interesting. And as I get fatter with age, it's, I'm snowing, snowing? I'm snowing?
Gerrit Yeah, snowing.
Richard I'm snowing louder and louder.
Gerrit I've been snowing this entire trip because I'm tired.
Richard Really?
Gerrit Yeah, I'll just snow.
Richard When I'm really tired, I'll snow, and then as I get fatter, it's pressing down upon my lungs.
Gerrit So, he goes on to kind of give us an explanation. He did not want any man to say, oh, Joseph, how I love you, so and so. And when in time of danger, come to forsake him, right? And so I think the point is, I mean, it sounds like it's got to be an old, militia drilling saying, but I can't really find it in a common place. So maybe it's just from Joseph around the farm, but to snore louder than he could shout in battle, right? There's a lot of people who are really, really loud about how loyal they are to the church. Right up until the prophet teaches something that they don't want to believe, right? They are all in on everything. I actually witnessed this once. It was incredibly troubling to me because there was someone that I'd always really respected who was a very just devout Latter-day Saint. And he was the guy that if I were thinking of somebody, this would be the last person that would ever question the brethren.
Gerrit He is so dedicated to the church. Well, then the church put out a teaching and it was actually one of the things in the Gospel Topics essays. And it was not what he wanted to believe. And I'm sitting here talking to this guy and he says, well, I know obviously the brethren have made a mistake with this. This is wrong. They've made a mistake. And I sat there thinking, man, legitimately, at any other point of our lives, were I to say to you, hey, I think the prophet got this wrong, you would have lost your mind on me. And here you are saying it. Now, look, he's still a great guy. I'm not saying he's not a good guy. What I'm saying is, it's really easy to say that you're all in the gospel and the church when things are going smoothly. It's super easy to follow the prophet when the prophet is saying something that you already believe.
Gerrit But the real test of discipleship is not, do I follow the prophet when he's saying everything that I already believe? The real test of discipleship, just like it was with Jesus' disciples, right? This is an hard saying and who can know it? And after that day, many of his disciples went away and followed no more after him. Even Jesus taught things that people didn't want to believe. And they were so hard to believe that they said, that's it, I'm out. I've seen you perform miracles. I've heard all of your great teachings. I've seen all the good things that there are. But if you're saying this, that's too far and I'm out. It's incumbent upon believers to give their life to God in the sense that we don't just follow God when it suits us and when it agrees with what we already want to believe politically or socially, when it works out with our friend group, when it works out with our job, when it works out with what we already wanted to believe about this or that or the other thing.
Gerrit The real true test of discipleship is do you follow when it's what you don't already believe? That's when you are shouting in battle rather than snoring, right? It's easy to, look, everybody has their hobby horse doctrines in the church, right? You all know the guy in your ward who's pretty certain that whether or not you have an emergency preparedness kit is just below the atonement in essential doctrines of the gospel. You all know that person. You all know that person. And they got the call to be the emergency preparedness supervisor. And this was the greatest thing that ever happened in their life. And they're calling people to do mock earthquake drills. They're knocking on door. I kid, but I've literally had this person. They came around knocking on doors, asked to see my 24-hour kit, which I did not have.
Gerrit He was more disappointed that I didn't... He looked at me like he just realized that I didn't love my family. That's what he looked at me like. Like, oh, you know what you're supposed to have? And you are supposed to have, but I'm not saying that you don't. But we all have doctrines that appeal to our senses. It's what we really love. It's what we like. And what we tend to do is we lean into that because it agrees with what we already believe so much. And that's fine and good. I'm not saying that it's wrong. But the real test of discipleship is, are we able to do it when it's the doctrines don't naturally fit what we say, think, or believe? And I think that's the point of what Joseph was trying to make there. Richard, do you have something to add there?
Richard I found a poem about how loud my dad snores that was written in 1984. That's the closest thing that I could find.
Gerrit So you think that a poem written in 1984.
Richard Jack.
Intro Did George Orwell write it?
Richard Jack Prelutsky. Okay.
Gerrit Which was George Orwell's student?
Richard Yeah, that was his pet name.
Intro Jack Prelutsky.
Gerrit He just said, I'm going to go full Polish on that.
Richard That's correct. That's what he decided to do. And it's a lovely poem. I don't think it's exactly what you're looking for.
Gerrit Okay.
Richard Louder than the earthquake rumbles, louder than the tidal waves, louder than the org grumbles as he stumbles through his cave, louder than the stampede cattle, louder than the cannon roars, louder than the giant's rattle. That's how loud my father snores. I feel like that's what Joseph Smith was referencing.
Gerrit I kind of feel like my kids wrote this.
Richard Well.
Gerrit Don't shake your head.
Richard Jack Prelutsky. It was like he was the lesser known of the Shell Silverstein's.
Gerrit I see. Yeah. People don't realize how much culture we bring. It's not just brands of tobacco chewing.
Richard Copenhagen. It's also Jack Prelutsky's poetry.
Gerrit It's also little known poetry. That's what people tune in for. Okay. Well, the next meeting that I want to cover of the Lyceum is sometime around March 2nd. We're not entirely sure, but the dating of the other things around it, I think that it's sometime around there, of 1841. One of the people spoke on true friendship and said that true friendship was such as a man laying down his life for his friend. Now that's, you don't have to look very hard to find that, right? That's the Lord greater loveth no man than this, that a man lay it down his life for his friends, ye are my friends, he says to them. But Joseph said, so Joseph response to this, that there was a difference between the vengeance that belongeth to the Lord and a man defending himself or his friend. This is Joseph arguing that while vengeance belongs to the Lord, you did have the right to defend yourself.
Gerrit If someone attacks you or your family or your friends, you have the right to defend yourself. Now you might think, well, yeah, that's pretty standard. Aren't we in America? Well, remember, there's radical Protestant Christian groups that are absolute pacifists who believe that any violence of any kind for any reason is wrong. That if someone comes to attack you, you just let them kill you. Because rather than sin by enacting violence in defense, you just, I mean, we even have an example of that in the Book of Mormon.
Richard Yeah, the anti-leafy?
Gerrit The anti-leafy, I think anti-leafy goes, it's like, it's getting rid of, getting rid of, wow, what has happened?
Richard I don't know, we had Mexican food.
Gerrit It's getting rid of weeds, right? It's like a weed killer, it's a weed killer company. Just like super irrigation could be a long-term company.
Richard No, yeah, so yeah, so they buried, their situation was different, right? Because their children go to defend, because they didn't make the oath.
Gerrit They did make an oath, right? And they were willing to just be slaughtered in one of the great massacres of the Book of Mormon.
Richard But their situation seemed to be quite different though, because they had been a bloodthirsty people and in a covenant to God to say that we have really, I mean, they really go to the next level.
Gerrit I think some of these radical peace sects would say the same thing. I was a horrific sinner. I participated in the wars of these kings. I won't anymore, for any reason, even if you kill me.
Richard Yeah. Did you ever see Sergeant York when you were a kid?
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard It's classic.
Gerrit Yeah. Are we going to also share things about that?
Richard How many have seen Sergeant York? Okay, all right, we got a couple.
Gerrit It wasn't the same people that have seen your sitcom that didn't exist.
Richard No, small wonder. I do a pretty decent Sergeant York's dad. It's a pretty rare.
Gerrit Well, the people cry out. Yeah.
Richard Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty limited.
Gerrit Yeah, it is. Most of our skills are very limited. Maybe you could do a Charlie Brown's dad while you're at it.
Richard I nailed it, by the way. If you go home and watch Sergeant York, when they get a call on the phone, when he's about to meet the president, I'm telling you, I'm crushing that impression.
Gerrit Yeah, I feel like it's lost on the youth.
Richard A movie about World War I that came out in the 30s.
Gerrit It was a long time ago. Why don't you look at that?
Richard Yeah, I'm going to look it up. We'll get on Sergeant York.
Gerrit So the March 9th Lyceum meeting, we have time probably to cover one more. And I think the people are still crying out. Aren't these interesting things that Joseph talked about?
Richard Yeah, I think so. We're killing time. How much time we got? Yeah, it's worth seven more minutes.
Gerrit All the people that are just killing time. They're like, boy, why did I not get on the bus when I had a chance? This is ridiculous.
Richard 1941. 1941.
Gerrit Yeah, there you go.
Richard There you go.
Gerrit Yeah, okay. So in this one, Joseph is actually going to correct some of the teaching that's done. And you can see here Joseph trying to help things along. Now, the problem here is Father Cole, it means he's an older guy. Like home, Father Cole said that he taught on the gospel. Said that some thought that he differed from President Smith concerning the time of the giving of the Holy Ghost as teaching that all men receive the Holy Ghost before baptism. Joseph said, men do not take notice of things as they read them, or they might know things as they read them. And he quotes 2 Peter, repent and be baptized. Peter's second, actually, I think that's just transposed. I think he's quoting Acts chapter 2.
Richard It was not his father. It was Pastor Roesier Pyle. Look, Elvin. That's pretty good.
Gerrit So it wasn't his dad?
Richard No, his dad's dead in the show. I haven't watched it for a while. It was the pastor that helps convert him. He's a drunk. He comes to Christianity, and then they're sending off people to war, and he tries to become a conscience to subject her, and then, you know, the Easter. He's a zeal.
Gerrit So I'm going to play a clip. I'm going to plug it in. Nobody's going to want to listen to that. Repent and be baptized, etc., etc. That's what it says here, is etc., etc. Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, said he, taking up his cap and presenting it to President William Law, in giving you this gift is not it giving myself. However, there is a priesthood with the Holy Ghost and key. The Holy Ghost overshadows you and witnesses unto you of the authority of the gifts and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. He said, it was the province of the father to preside as the chief or president, Jesus as the mediator. Again, so back to the same language that he was using a few weeks earlier. Jesus as the mediator and the Holy Ghost as the testator or witness. The son had a tabernacle and so had the father. But the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit without tabernacle. The great God has a name by which he shall be called, which is Amon.
Gerrit Also, so this is interesting because this is in 1841. We often attribute Joseph teaching that the father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man. To 1843, because that's where it is in the Doctrine and Covenants coming from William Clayton's journal. But in fact, this is something Joseph's teaching earlier, and you can actually see it here in the Lyceum. He's teaching the men that are there. No, the father has a body as well. Jesus has a body, the father has a body. And this is, of course, radical doctrine. It is an odd conversation to have when you're talking with a Trinitarian Christian, because they will say, well, it's blasphemy for you to say that God has a body. But then you'll say, well, isn't Jesus God? And they'll say, yes. And you'll say, doesn't Jesus have a body? And they'll say, yes. But the father doesn't have a body, but isn't Jesus God? Right, so you very quickly start doing some gymnastics.
Gerrit Because Latter-day Saints believe that God has a body, and Jesus does as well, even though the Holy Spirit doesn't. Now, what Joseph uses to prove this as part of it, he says, like Adam, for God made Adam just in his own image. Now, this is a key for you, how to ask and obtain. And so, another guy in the Lyceum, because Joseph brought up Adam as an example, another guy says, wait a minute, wait a minute, Adam. So, like how Adam ate the forbidden fruit, you know, kind of thing, because the Christian world hates Adam and Eve, because they destroyed the world. Joseph said, a person always ought to take his subject along. For instance, Jesus, in all of his doctrines and parables, set it forth like a tree or a mustard stalk, commencing at the foundation and the root, and thence up to the first branch, and out along, and back to the body of the tree, or subject, and thence to the next branch, and so on.
Gerrit Now as to Adam, the Lord said, in the day thou shalt eat thou of, thou shalt surely die. Now the day the Lord has referenced to, is spoken of by Peter, a thousand of our years is with the Lord as one. Day. And at the time, the Lord said this, this is to Adam, there was no mode of counting time by man, as man now counts time. So Joseph's saying, well, you know, the Gregorian and Julian calendars come a little after Adam. They're a little later. But that's an example of Joseph explaining how we learn. It's a little bit at a time. Part of the problem when you're trying to share the gospel with some of your friends is they've all heard things. And the things that they've all heard are almost entirely speculative, high-end, deep doctrine, and almost invariably wrong. And it becomes difficult to have a conversation in that because you're like, you know, we believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God.
Gerrit Welcome God's got his own planet then. Are you going to have... I mean, you're like, well, I just want you to just read the Book of Mormon and find out whether, you know, well, you know, how come you guys have practiced and plugged me, huh? How many wives you got? Like, we don't practice that anymore. I mean, it's difficult because, you know, I find this all the time on even on the podcast. In order to answer a question well, say the Gideon robbers or who's dead and in hell, right? You can't do it right away.
Richard No, you have to do 10 parts.
Gerrit Something like 10 parts. You have to build up to where it's at, otherwise the answer is very shallow. And that's one of the things that I think Joe's is trying to get at here. You can't just understand all there is to know about the fall, just like this, that there's so much involved in it, that the way that Jesus taught was by, you know, saying, well, here's a little bit here, and here's a little bit there, and here's a little bit there. And, you know, Brigham Young's really going to give voice to this, that the way God has to teach all people is to teach them line upon line and precept upon precept. You can't know everything all at once. Nobody can know everything all at once unless you are God. And so we need to not stumble over the fact that we don't know everything. Of course, you don't know everything. Nobody knows everything except for that one guy in your Elder score.
Gerrit Right? Right. I mean, he knows everything. But sometimes we feel afraid to share the gospel because there are these questions that people ask. And the church has provided a lot of resources to help answer those questions. But it's always going to come back to, is the Book of Mormon the Word of God? When someone says, well, what about this? Or what about this? Or what about that? The easiest answer is, well, if you think Joseph Smith's a false prophet because he eventually taught about plural marriage, even though plural marriage is literally everywhere in the Bible. So clearly prophets can teach it, not be false prophets. You don't have to say that. Then you'll find that out by reading the Book of Mormon. Because if he's a false prophet, then you won't feel the Holy Spirit testifying to you that it's another testament of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon was, is, and will always remain the greatest witness of whether or not Joseph Smith was an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Gerrit Because you can't explain away where it came from. And I can tell you, there are lots of people who have tried, horribly, by the way. They think, that they've proven where the Book of Mormon originates. By either inventing a narrative that doesn't exist without any sources. By inventing another source that doesn't exist without any sources. By inventing the fact that Joseph was just suddenly a secret mad scientist genius, and then just not for the rest of his life. They will find, look, here's a phrase from here that's similar to a phrase in another book that was published 10 years earlier. Okay, one phrase, yeah. What about the other 600 pages? They actually don't have an explanation of where it came from. You have all kinds of, well, what about this, and what about this? But there's a reason why actual historians don't attempt to explain where the Book of Mormon came from.
Gerrit Because they don't have an answer, right? You ever find someone who's trying to give you an alternative origin of the Book of Mormon? Almost guaranteed they're not a PhD in history. Almost guaranteed. They are someone else who's saying, well, I mean, if you looked at the late war, I mean, they're giving you an argument, but it's not actually an academic argument. Because if there was an academic way to prove where the Book of Mormon came from, then there would be academic books written about it. The fastest way for you to get a pure surprise would be to write a book proving where the real origin of the Book of Mormon came from. So why doesn't a Yale, Harvard, maybe even Brown University professor do it? It's not because they love Mormonism. It's because they can't. Because if they could, if you could prove where the Book of Mormon actually came from, you would write your own ticket.
Gerrit It'd be the best selling work of history that there is. It would be everywhere. And the reason why it's not written, because it can't be written. Because historians have to rely on things like facts and sources and not just your uncle's YouTube channel. So anyway, I think we've gone on a little too long.
Richard Yes.
Gerrit People are passing out in their seats. Yeah. So, you want to add anything before we close the shop?
Richard No, I think it's an excellent point. I think that it is one of those things. You often, and part of the reason why you point to academics as this benchmark is that there is a standard by which they can't just make things up, because it's peer-reviewed and they'd be mocked for doing poor research, while a person who's making an accusation. So, when they don't make the claim, it's because they can't support it with evidence, while a person on YouTube or whatever, they can say whatever they want. So, the reason that you do that is not just certainly your ivory tower.
Gerrit Yeah.
Richard Well, la-dee-dah.
Gerrit If only everyone had a PhD, then they'd be able to do things.
Richard But that's the point that you're making, right?
Gerrit The point I'm making is that the way that you discover the truth about God has never been by going and getting a PhD, right? The way you knew that Jesus was the Christ is not because you went and were so incredibly educated. You can only know it through the Holy Spirit. I am stunned, honestly stunned at the number of anti-Mormons, the people who attacked the church, who have never actually read the Book of Mormon. And it's painfully obvious the moment you start having a conversation with them, that they've never actually read it. It's weird to devote your life to attacking something and not even invest the amount of time it takes to know what it is that you're talking about. Now, when you're just looking for cheap, easy wins and whatever you find on an anti-Mormon subreddit, fine. But that's not a scholarship.
Gerrit That's just operating on emotion. And so that's what I would say to everybody who's wondering. I mean, everyone's going to have doubts in their life. Everyone's going to wonder. I believe that if you read the Book of Mormon, the Holy Spirit will tell you that it really is another testament of Jesus Christ. And that's how you'll know that Joseph Smith really was a prophet, and that God really restored his church through him. The Book of Mormon is either true or it is not. There's not a way to make it to where it's like, oh, it's kind of true. I mean, Joseph was a pretty good guy, even though he forged this and made a bunch of fake tin plates and tried to pass them off as though they were, it's either true or it's not. And the plates of the Book of Mormon put Joseph Smith in that category that frankly all other religious performers aren't in. So I urge everybody, right, especially if you feel yourself drifting away from God, you can ask that question, have I been actually studying my scriptures the same way?
Gerrit And I think you'll find a lot of the time the answer is no. So thank you so much for joining us.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard LeDuc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.

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And then when they go to search for it, I can't find it, oh, you have to be in the right spiritual mindset to find it.

GerritBanter

We said, you know what? There's a bus that could take you back to a nice air conditioned room in a hotel where you don't have to listen to us. And it was a stampede.

GerritBanter

Some people and some people don't gamble because the prophet told them not to. I'm one of those people. Other people don't because they'd be terrible at it.

GerritBanter

She informed us we were going to burn in hell, but she was nice.

GerritBanter

We don't do this anymore today. We just call each other Nazis on Facebook.

GerritBanter

When you no longer have a prophet or apostles on the earth that can receive revelation, that can ask God directly, you make decisions based upon what makes the most sense.

GerritInsight

It's super easy to follow the prophet when the prophet is saying something that you already believe.

GerritInsight

The real true test of discipleship is do you follow when it's what you don't already believe?

GerritInsight

He looked at me like he just realized that I didn't love my family.

GerritBanter

The Book of Mormon was, is, and will always remain the greatest witness of whether or not Joseph Smith was an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.

GerritInsight

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
Calvinism is basically dead in modern Christianity.
Joseph Smith only started teaching that the Father has a body in 1843.
Someone has already explained where the Book of Mormon really came from.
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

Joseph taught that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are separate beings who 'agree in one,' the same oneness Jesus prayed for his apostles to have.

It's easy to follow the prophet when he says what we already believe; the real test of discipleship is following when he doesn't.

Joseph urged the Saints to examine their motives: 'motive precedes action,' and that's the key to knowing ourselves.

Every hard question comes back to the Book of Mormon, which no one has explained away and which the Holy Spirit can confirm.

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Did we ever do Part 3?Gerrit isn't sure how many King Follett episodes exist, and you have to be in the right spiritual mindset to find them (1:22, 1:30).
Small WonderNot one person in the live audience has seen Richard's robot-daughter sitcom (2:09, 2:14).
The free bus outOffered a ride back to the hotel, the audience stampedes like Israel leaving Egypt; Angie leaves too (2:55, 5:22).
The crack research staffTowns named Frock, what Skol means, top chewing tobaccos, a snoring poem and Sergeant York (4:14, 8:11, 17:44, 49:18, 54:07).
Gambling, with a conscienceMGM sets the over-under at two and a half, followed by President Hinckley's April 2005 talk (4:27, 4:35).
Bears fan, SkolElder Cooper thinks Gerrit is a Bears fan and signs off 'Skol,' which Richard assumes is chewing tobacco (7:49, 8:11).
Copenhagen jingleGerrit sings the chewing tobacco jingle from Shelley, Idaho (18:09).
Becky's pioneer heritageBecky's family was baptized before the First Vision, and Richard squandered his acre in Quebec (29:58, 30:12).
The emergency preparedness guyAsked to see Gerrit's 24-hour kit and decided he didn't love his family (47:26, 48:31).
Sergeant York's dadRichard claims a pretty rare impression, but it was the pastor, not the dad (53:26, 55:33).
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 124Integrity and Virtue Lead to HappinessElder Quentin L. CookElder Cook teaches that integrity and virtue sustain disciples on the covenant path, recalling the inscription that inspired young David O.October 2026 General Conference · cites Moroni 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?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
TULIP and R.C. Sproul's move from Arminianism to Calvinism (12:27).
The Anabaptists, Amish and Mennonites, and the persecution over adult baptism (36:40).
The Johannine Comma in 1 John 5:7 and how modern Bibles handle it (38:49).
Joseph's 1841 Lyceum teachings that the Father has a body, compared with D&C 130 in 1843 (57:03).
Why academic historians haven't produced an alternative origin for the Book of Mormon (1:04:11).
SOT Litner · S6E28.