The Book of Enoch Part 1

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 am joined by my friend, Dr. Richard LeDuc.

Richard Hello, Gerrit. Thanks for having me back. I'm glad to be here and alive. And still breathing.

Gerrit Alive because you might die with the passwords or because your bookie came looking for you?

Richard Well, actually, I do. I did pull up some, what I'd like to call, Gerrit, a segment called Fun with Numbers. So guess how much legal gambling in the United States was done on the Super Bowl yesterday or this last Sunday?

Gerrit Now, how big are the air quotes around legal gambling?

Richard Yes. So I have different numbers in terms of like office pools and just friend exchanges and bookies. That's a separate number. So this is legal through legal means, which by that, I mean, you have a VPN and you pretend, even though you live in Utah, that you live in Las Vegas.

Gerrit Right. I see. So some offshore online betting account is what you're saying.

Richard Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Gerrit The Standard Truth podcast does not confirm or deny any legality of any online gambling sites that you shouldn't be visiting anyway. How did we get these numbers? Nobody knows. I don't know. Let's say $50 million.

Richard Okay. Now, Gerrit, this is how you play the game. You say a number that seems like a fairly reasonable number. The number is $1.76 billion. We're betting on that game of money that was transacted on that game, which is a 26% increase from the previous year. I'm going to go ahead and say America's got a problem.

Gerrit Yeah, America needs a 12-step program, holy cow.

Richard Yeah, the estimated number of unofficial is $20 billion, by the way. And most of those were, we went over to some friends, and there were some office pools and other things going on. Again, my wife doesn't believe me that I don't gamble because of all the time that I joke about. I don't, I don't. I work way too hard for the money that I earn. And also President Hinckley legitimately gave a talk about it.

Gerrit I like how you led though with that it's your money, that's why you don't, not President Hinckley.

Richard Well, I work very hard for the money and I don't want to lose it.

Gerrit But anyway, so hard for the money. So better treat him right.

Richard A couple other things, Gerrit. The some of the prop bets that are popular at at Super Bowl time over under on the national anthem. What do you think?

Gerrit I believe it was two minutes.

Richard Yes. And so that's that's exciting.

Gerrit How in the world do I know that? That's a better question. And also I already know it was under by two seconds.

Richard The number of Bad Bunny total songs was 11 and a half over or under. What do you think?

Gerrit It's got to be under even though he was over several of them together. It wasn't over.

Richard It was over. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a pretty good one.

Gerrit He was mixing a bunch of them together. So.

Richard And Gatorade. I have Gatorade color. I'll have to get the crack research staff on that. I had the Gatorade color, but then I don't do them.

Gerrit No, you're missing one very, very important thing.

Richard Heads. It was heads.

Gerrit No. No. You're missing that. I believe you picked the Patriots to win the game outright. We could go back and play the audio, but I believe you picked the Patriots to win outright. And I guffawed. It wasn't just a guffaw. It was like, and I said that the Seahawks win and the Seahawks cover, and that it's not even close. And?

Richard Yeah. Yeah, it's been a rough. It's been a rough series of picks for me. I'm not good. What's all the more reason why you shouldn't gamble, by the way? Although you should, apparently.

Gerrit You know what? You're trying. You're starting to convince me that maybe this Mormonism thing doesn't work out for me. Oh, look that direction. Well, what do we have in our email bag?

Richard Yes, let's jump straight into the Phebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. And we start off with an email from from Dean, I believe. I write this follow up email. So this is a second email now with a newborn baby. And this just goes to show, Gerrit, that we didn't read his first one. Well, we read it, but not on the air.

Gerrit I believe you even sent a brief email back to him saying, you know what, that's really funny.

Richard It was really funny. Yeah. So I write this follow up.

Gerrit We won't let our listeners know, because here's the problem, Dean. If you email something that's very funny and we read it, then people are going to think you're funny and we're not. And how's that going to make us look?

Richard Yep. The reason I'm on the show is so that Gerrit seems even smarter than he is. That's the whole move.

Gerrit Wow. I should have dug a lot further to the bottom of the barrel than a PhD in business. I should have just been grabbing people off the street places.

Richard I think everyone listening is like, you dug low enough. You're good.

Gerrit You hit that barrel and you hit it good.

Richard Now, with the newborn baby that will guarantee my email gets read, and it is, Dean. Now, in fairness though, the email wasn't sent during labor and it wasn't sent by his wife. It was afterwards.

Gerrit Yeah. This is devolving rapidly. People are like, I had five kids and that's like a guy riding when he's 60. It's like, first of all, you didn't have any of those kids. Second of all, I need proof that you and your wife are still married. I'm not giving you any credit for an email. You got divorced for all I know. He's expanding it. It was supposed to be an actual woman who's actually in labor at the actual time of writing it. Hey guys, two years ago, my wife had a baby. She hates the podcast, but I thought I'd throw a picture in it and get an email sent.

Richard Did we have the baby specifically for this purpose? I'll never tell. But we didn't not have the baby specifically for this purpose either. This is also a follow-up on the first ever pregnancy announcement that you did back in August. So the circle is now complete. It was an emergency C-section, so we only had a few minutes notice. I was like, guys, I have seconds. I've got to get this e-mail.

Gerrit Yeah. Hey, we've got a rush hour right now. Is there any way she can type something on a phone?

Richard So my apologies for not sending this e-mail from the or like, I know you prefer.

Gerrit I shouldn't have said what I said because now he knew that. It was an emergency. I get it.

Richard I don't, I don't. A letter of the log, Gerrit. If you'd be able to read my original e-mail, I'd appreciate it. Now with full permission of my no longer pregnant wife, thanks Dean. We won't do that, Dean, but thanks for the e-mail and keep on reaching for the stars.

Gerrit Does your wife listen to the podcast, Dean, or did you very insensitively when she was being rushed to the operating room say, hey, is there any way that we could just type this e-mail real quick? See, that's what we can't have happening either.

Richard I actually don't have his original e-mail, so I was not intentionally rude on purpose. I just don't have it at the ready. But I'm sure it was something thoughtful. Actually, I'm sure it was whatever the topic is going to be later in the podcast. I believe that was exactly what it was.

Gerrit We'll work that in. Coming to us as a question from Dean. Dean, I think the best part about this podcast is if you don't have a question about what we're about to talk about, you will after we talk about it. Because we give you questions about things that you never knew you had.

Richard You know, Gerrit, I was telling you, I was talking to a soon-to-be tour goer, Mark, and we were chatting through a couple of things, and he's currently on a mission right now, a senior mission, and he couldn't have been more delightful, but he started by, when I first heard the podcast, I hated it. When I heard the banter, I said, I don't have time for this. And like I always say, Gerrit, you got to give us six, seven, eight, nine years of just listening, and then make your story.

Gerrit If you give up after four or five episodes, you don't even want to know the truth about church history.

Richard Well, it's going to take at least that many for us to get to the actual topic.

Gerrit We are not talking about Gaddy and Roberts today, you know, so most people are going to be happy, but Cliff, devastated.

Richard No, yeah. Yeah. My father-in-law loved that. For what it's worth, though, there was some awesome stuff in those Brigham Young sermons on like, what happens to Sons of Perdition and all kinds of stuff. It was good times, had by all.

Gerrit Well, not by the Sons of Perdition.

Richard Was that?

Gerrit Not as good a time had by the Sons of Perdition.

Richard No, less good. Well, the name's Elder Clark, your faithful litner here in the Australia-Brisbane zone of the Pennsylvania-Pittsburgh mission, specifically in the town of Kingaroy. I'm sure I nailed the pronunciation. It's just about an hour away from Brisbane. I am also from Tucson, Arizona. I'm currently in Tucson, Arizona, by the way.

Gerrit Wow.

Richard So there we go.

Gerrit Wow.

Richard So there we go.

Gerrit And my son also in Tucson, Arizona?

Richard Oh my gosh, everything's coming up.

Gerrit Just everything's coming up Tucson.

Richard So he sent an email to the wrong email that wasn't working, but now he's right. First thing I want to share was while I've been made zone leader, I haven't been made zone leader for it yet. So that's okay.

Gerrit I see.

Richard I see.

Gerrit I cut out of the Elder Able Ladder Climbing Specialty not working for him yet.

Richard What's funny about that is I cut out a part where he makes fun of my intelligence and my inability to read. And then I immediately, You cut that part out. I cut that part out.

Gerrit But fate, the forces unseen put it back in.

Richard It was always, Elder Clark was, it was always going to get in there. He hasn't been made his own leader yet. I've used the content from your podcast to answer many questions of friends and other members, particularly about other religions. So thank you for the mediocre and best resource you provide for us missionaries. My grandpa signed me up for this at the beginning of my mission, and it's been my third choice for listening and downtime in the car ever since. Just kidding, your content is super useful. I absolutely love sports betting podcasts that also dabble in history. You see President Hinckley's talk on gambling.

Gerrit Oh, he gets us.

Richard Yes. I put the podcast on as we drive, and our area is big, so we drive a lot, and the podcast never fails to put my Fijian companion to sleep. So good work. And Gerrit, we have talked about this, the operating of heavy machinery or performing surgery. You should not have the podcast.

Gerrit There are a lot of things. I mean, look, you know, there are actually a podcast that are sleep podcasts where people who are so incredibly boring, they market their book or podcast to put you to sleep. So you have a guy gets on, and he's like, okay, the way we build the shed is by taking two two by fours, making sure they are exactly equal in their circumference and in their length. I mean, just, and people pay for this. So the question is, how do we monetize? How do we get people to pay us to put them to sleep?

Richard Because we've already created the garbage.

Gerrit How can we make money on it? Yeah, that's the thing, that's the thing. So yeah, well, and people reference the missionaries all the time. I know we have, sometimes we have new listeners, or at least very frustrated listeners on their fifth podcast, wondering when this gets good. It doesn't. And second of all, if missionaries will email the podcast, which is questions at standardtruthpodcast.com, they will put their name in a Google Drive, their email, their missionary email on a Google Drive, that will give them access to all of the episodes if their mission president allows it. We don't recommend anyone listening if they're not allowed to.

Richard And I would ask for people to exercise patience as we are transferring all of the mini Google Drive folders to one Google Drive folder. There has been a bit of a hiccup. We've received many emails from frustrated missionaries.

Gerrit Very frustrated missionaries.

Richard Who are frustrated that we aren't providing them more updates consistently of the free content that they are listening to, that may or may not be in the rules on their missions. And so we want you to know we hear you and we are doing our best. Thank you so much for your very...

Gerrit Unfortunately, our best is very similar to our podcast.

Richard Now, he did have a question. Do you want me to get into that question or remember what it was?

Gerrit I mean, we can ask it.

Richard What does he got? Now, I have a question for you. I don't believe you've really covered. In war, you want to know exactly how your enemy will move. So my question is, what have Joseph Smith and other church leaders said about the tactics of Satan? Would Satan tempt us to do good at the expense of something better? I try to apply, if it's good, it's from the spirit philosophy, but then I start to wonder if this is the best, because President Oaks once said, paraphrasing, there just isn't enough time for all the good things we can do. I appreciate you reading my email. So on and so on, Elder Clark.

Gerrit Well, look, Elder Clark, if you ever, if Richard ever updates the Google Drive, now he won't, but if he does, really just listening to the last, what was it? Four part series on the Gadianton robbers and the spirit world.

Richard Well, so there's that. And then there's also on the Joseph Smith and the Restoration, there's an episode called the Temptation of Joseph Smith.

Gerrit Oh yes. Yeah. When Joseph goes to get the plates. And I think both of those, they do talk about the tactics that Satan uses. And and I think that it is important to recognize that. Look, Satan will do whatever he has to do to get us to not do what God wants us to do. And of course, he's willing to tempt us to do something that isn't, you know, in and of itself horribly bad, but that it pulls us away from what God wants us to do. So let me give you a great example of this. There are times that people are tempted to, instead of going to church, going up in the mountains and just sitting and looking at the the sunrise and, you know, talking to animal nature as it walks by. There's nothing wrong with that, right? There is nothing wrong with enjoying the beauties of God's creation.

Gerrit But if it's placed in a context where, you know, I was supposed to teach the lesson in elders quorum this Sunday, but you know what, I think it's time for a trip to the mountains. I mean, I think for sure Satan will tempt us to try to keep us from doing the thing, the best thing that God wants us to do at the time. So, you know, is it good to have a job? It's absolutely good to get a job. But if getting a job is preventing you from going on your mission, well, then the good part of that job suddenly becomes less good, right? So, you know, the great CS. Lewis, you know, in the screw tape letters, I mean, he did the best example of this because he was writing in the midst of, you know, World War, the great, you know, World War II and all the all the violence surrounding it, World War I and II.

Gerrit And, you know, look, if you think people are passionate about politics now, imagine how passionate people are when it's surrounding actual warfare, when people are actually dying, right? And not just, not just, you know, thoughts like, oh, this could do this, but the country is literally on the verge. And what CS. Lewis, you know, taught is that the, the these, these devils that he's representing, right, is that you can either get the person you're trying to tempt to become an extreme pacifist or become an extreme patriot, right? So where the only thing that matters to him is the British war effort, or the only thing that matters to him is no one should ever kill anyone. We should have peace. It's, it's wrong always to kill. Now, if you take those two things separately, you know, being a patriot for your country is generally a good thing.

Gerrit You take the idea of not wanting anyone to die is generally a good thing. But his point was, you make this political idea very important to his religion, and then you make it the most important part of his religion. And then when religion becomes the means and the politics become the end, as he writes, you've almost got your man, and says it doesn't actually make any difference. So I absolutely believe that as Joseph Smith said, Satan is subtle and he will do whatever it takes. It's not always the grand overarching thing to pull you away because he leads you with a flaxen cord. He waits until he can grasp you with his awful chains. And that's why it's so important that we maintain, you know, we maintain the righteous path.

Gerrit And when we fall off of it, we get back on to it because he seeks to lead us away by degrees. There are very few people who read their scriptures every single day, who one day they wake up and they go, that's it. I will never read my scriptures again. I am done. There are very few people who do that. What happens? Well, you know, I miss here. Yeah, it wasn't that bad, and I miss there. And then I miss there, and then I find myself a week without reading them. And then I find myself two weeks. I think we need to understand that the devil will employ whatever tactics he can to move you further away from the ultimate goal, which is exaltation. And sometimes it will be to claim that some other generally good thing is better than the best thing that the prophets have told you to do.

Gerrit It is a good thing to do lots of things in this world. It's a good thing to volunteer. It's a good thing to go visit someone who says there's all kinds of good things that you can do. But if there's direct things that a prophet tells you to do, and you say, well, I'm not going to do that because I think it's better to do this other thing. Well, then what Satan's winning at is not, oh goody, I got them to go do some good thing. What he's winning at is getting you to find a reason to not follow the prophet. And once he's established that, I mean, both for your mission and for your life, let me just speak from my own experience. You have to resolve that you are going to follow God's prophet no matter what.

Gerrit And as Doctrine and Covenants section 21 tells you, it will be accounted unto you for righteousness. It's very easy to follow the prophet when he happens to say exactly what you already believe and think. But what happens when he tells you what you don't already believe and think? Then what? I mean, I know a person who has been very vocal, well, to me anyway, about just how bad an idea he thinks it is that we lowered the mission age for men and women to go on missions. And he's brought it up to be probably 10 times. He just keeps bringing it up. They're just not mature enough. We're sending people out there. They're not mature enough. That's why so many missionaries are coming home. Well, how do you think he reacted when they lowered the mission age for girls just recently? It was, it was not what he wanted to hear because he thought it was wrong in the first place. Now, still a good guy. I'm not saying, I'm not saying he's a bad guy. What I'm saying is, we need to, as much as we possibly can, try to conform what we believe to what the person who holds all of the keys on earth is telling us.

Gerrit Prophets aren't perfect. Prophets don't ever claim to be perfect. At the same time, what makes us believe that we are the ones who can determine when they are right and when they're wrong? Because generally, what we mean is, well, I don't like what they just said, so I'm going to say that they're wrong. Well, that's not how you determine whether or not something's from God. So I would say, cultivate in your life, following the prophet, no matter what. Follow the prophet when it's popular, follow him when it's not. Follow him when it's what you already believe. Follow him when it's the exact opposite of what you believe. We are called to be sheep. Now, we can be well-informed sheep. We can be sheep who've read all kinds of things and be very, we can know all kinds of things. But the Lord calls us to be like children.

Gerrit And that means setting aside our pride and accepting that God has called people who receive revelation for the church and that that's not me. So, anyway, I don't know if that's very good.

Richard I think it's a very good answer. I think it's very nice. I think that's spot on. This last email comes to us from Elizabeth, and she says, hi, I recently gave birth unmedicated, by the way. I'll send a picture of the baby for verification.

Gerrit I think at one point we joked around that we would have to start, because we get so many birth emails, we'd have to start saying it would have to be without any kind of anesthesia. I don't think so. I don't want that. So we did talk about the fact that Richard forced Becky to have a natural childbirth.

Richard Look, the hospital made a mistake. By the way, I have received many texts, many calls, many emails. No one believes me. They believe that I'm the one that made the mistake, not the hospital. I'm wounded to the core about that, but it is what it is, and we're so glad to have Max with us. He was the child born. I just subscribed to the premium content since now, I'm partying all night with said newborn. I was listening to the religious podcast and promptly fell asleep while feeding my son. I naturally blame you, especially since other people apparently use your content to fall asleep. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that it was 3am and we've been up all night.

Gerrit We've got to protect the babies out there, okay? New mothers, please don't feed your child in the middle of the night while listening to us because...

Richard You're going to fall asleep.

Gerrit Yeah, I mean, this is a warning. We should put it actually on, you know, that old country song by Doug Stone? Nope. If Becky were here, she would know it.

Richard Becky would know it, yeah. She listed the old... It's like old country western song, right? Like it's old...

Gerrit You know, it's Doug Stone. It's called, they ought to put warning labels on those sad country songs. Called warning labels, I think. Oh. And the whole point is the guy's, you know, he's broken up about a lady and he's in a bar and every time a sad country song comes on, it makes him make him cry. And so, you know, they, they warned me about cigarettes and whiskey and beer, but no one ever warned me about the music I hear. You know, so basically every time a sad song comes on, it makes him cry again over this woman that he's lost.

Richard Well, Elizabeth does say, my baby is fine, by the way. So the baby's fine.

Gerrit While I was talking about Doug Stone, you were thinking, hopefully the baby's okay.

Richard That was. I do like the country song, Sam Stone, although that's a tragically, terribly sad song. Anyway, I didn't have a question while I was giving birth, but one has come to me since then. A sweet sister brought me a meal, and as we were talking about life, I shared how excited I am for the Second Coming. What surprised me was that she said that she wasn't excited for it at all. She explained that she doesn't want Jesus to come yet because she has dreams and goals and things she still wants to accomplish, and feels that his coming would prevent her from doing those things. First of all, as a person that just recently graduated from school, I kind of feel that, right?

Gerrit So you don't want Jesus to come tomorrow because you're like, I'm trying to get tenure.

Richard Well, I'm working, you know, I just started working on a research project. It's a metadata analysis of reciprocity in a sales context. And now I'm just going to have to like, if he does come, I'm just going to have to start just peppering that throughout the podcast unsolicited. You know, Gerrit, what's interesting about what you just said? And then I just get it out.

Gerrit So you think we're the Savior to return. We would still be doing a podcast.

Richard No, I'm saying that if he does, we wouldn't. And that's why I got to try and get in my research wherever I can get it in.

Gerrit We don't believe in the rapture. So it's not like I'd be raptured up, but I know the wicked will be destroyed at his coming. So I know that. So I think it's a pretty bold thing to be like, I'm sure I'll be here.

Richard Yeah, that really confused me. I couldn't imagine that her goals and dreams were telestial in nature, mine are. So I didn't understand why she would think those things couldn't still be fulfilled when Jesus comes. As I thought more about it, I realized I've heard similar feelings for many people. Now, how they're not excited for the Second Coming because of how difficult or frightening it might be, or because of what the world may look like, leading up to it and after it. Yet the Doctrine Covenants and through the words of the prophets, the millennium is described as such a beautiful and hopeful way. That led me to think, rather than trying to explain it myself, I would love to have Gerrit explain eloquently that-

Gerrit Well, and we've already failed.

Richard What the Second Coming and millennium-

Gerrit But you're not feeding your baby right now, are you?

Intro Because-

Richard What the Second Coming and millennium will be like for those who are righteous. I also want to thank you for your podcast addressing a misconception that those who die by suicide cannot receive celestial glory. My mom's father died by suicide when she was in first grade, and she was taught that belief and passed it on to me growing up. Then three years ago, my best friend died by suicide as well. Hearing your podcast and learning where that misconception originated brought so much clarity and understanding. It made things make a lot more sense, and it meant more to me than I can express. Thank you, Elizabeth.

Gerrit First of all, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. I am certain that there's just about nobody listening who hasn't in some way been affected by a loved one, family member, friend who has taken their own life. And it is always tragic and horrible. And I am glad that we have the revealed doctrine that comes through prophets and apostles that help us know what the eventual end of everyone is. I am very sorry to hear that. I'm very happy to hear that we were able to help out. You know, in some ways, the question about the Second Coming, I can see where some people have some angst. You know, I've planned to go to law school. And if Jesus comes tomorrow, they certainly aren't going to need any more lawyers. I mean, that kind of thing.

Gerrit I think on the last couple episodes that we covered, though, many of the things that people think, you know, they'll end up not mattering. I mean, as Brigham Young talked about, just going not only to any place you want to go to, going to any time that you want to go to. I mean, if you're, what you're really upset at is, you haven't yet seen, you know, Tuscany, probably you can go see Tuscany. I mean, that's not going to be a concern. And I understand that for some things, I mean, I've thought before, I mean, what would, am I really just going to be preaching the whole time? Is that going to be the only thing? I mean, so they're not going to be like football and stuff or like, what are we going to be doing in the next life? And, but I think, you know, the second part of your email kind of hits on one of these things. I think when people think about, oh, the things that I want to get done before the Second Coming happens, they are thinking very temporally.

Gerrit And I'm not saying that all of those goals, ideas and ambitions are negative. I'm just saying that focus will change. Imagine what it will be like when you remember in the next life who you really are. Not who you think you are or what you've learned about it in this life, but who you really are and how long you've existed as a spirit child of heavenly parents. My guess is priorities will change. I mean, it's like every cliched Hallmark movie where somebody gets amnesia and forgets their family, right? I mean, where they start thinking that other things are really important, and then, you know, just near the end, someone whacks dad on the back of the head with a two-by-four. The next thing he knows, he loves his family again, that kind of stuff.

Gerrit But I'm not suggesting if you are having a tough time with your father to try a two-by-four. That's not, that's the movie's way of fixing amnesia. But I sometimes think about the glories of the next life and the glories of the millennium, to compare it to what once made me really happy in life. I mean, there was a time in my life when a Hershey's chocolate bar was just about the greatest thing that I ever could have had. You know, when I'm five or six years old and I can't find my Hot Wheels car and someone offers me a Hershey's candy bar, you know what? Things are okay. And I'm gonna eat that candy bar and I'm all kinds of happy.

Gerrit Now, from the looks of me, I still like Hershey's candy bar. This is not the best example. While I still enjoy candy bars, they aren't the thing that brings me the most joy. Even though there was a time in my existence when I thought they were the thing that brought me the most joy. And I think when you have children, when you experience sharing the gospel with somebody, when you have those really powerful spiritual experiences and the veil is just so very thin, nobody's thinking about Hershey bars right then.

Richard So, I got to tell you, I might have shared this already on the podcast, but so we had our kids that were gone and on missions overlapping, and so we didn't have our whole family together for three years. And so for my birthday this last year, we had everybody all together. And I can't think of a better example of what you just said, than all I wanted was for all of us to be together, to have dinner, to play games, to watch a movie, to tease each other and have fun. That was one of the greatest days of my life. It really was. It was such a silly and simple thing. But I was so happy to just be with the people that I love more than anything. And that they felt a moral obligation to stay with me because it was my birthday, obviously.

Richard They didn't want to be there.

Gerrit That's when you can manipulate people.

Richard I definitely did.

Gerrit I mean, I think that everyone's experienced that. So look, I get pleasure and I feel good when I make discoveries with my work in history, when I find something that I didn't know existed before, when I understand something, because of looking at it a different way, that other historians haven't seen. It does bring me, I guess, pride and ego and it makes me feel like, oh man, I'm actually worth something. But when I compare that feeling to when I'm working with someone who's struggling with their testimony, and the Holy Spirit transforms their soul, and suddenly they have the light of the gospel back in their life again, and it is really hard to compare that feeling to anything else.

Gerrit And so, I mean, I understand where your friend is coming from. Certainly, as the world is filled with, you know, the 24-hour news cycle of everything that's terrible, it's easy to be like, I don't want the world to get any worse. And really, that's where a lot of our faith has to come in. Because if you are doing what's right, then God has promised that you will lose nothing in the next life. So whatever we think we would have accomplished, whatever we think, no, you don't understand, I'm building this sculpture and this is what really brings me joy. There will be a greater level of joy in the things that will happen. You think about just how horrible death alone is. In the millennium, there will be no death. And when people who haven't yet been resurrected, when people who are living at the time, they live to the ripe old age, they will be immediately changed rather than suffering the pains of death.

Gerrit Death is probably the greatest driver of sorrow in this world. Fears of death, suffering from after death, the unfair deaths and inexplicable deaths, they are those permanent things that we can't ever fix. Imagine a world in which there is no death, where no one has taken from you, where no one goes too soon. Man, I've got to believe that's better than getting a second doctorate. I've got to believe that having your loved ones close, having a certainty of the celestial glory that awaits you all together, is going to trump the things that we think really matter. I mean, the Lord pointed this out all the time with the rich man, right?

Gerrit This world tricks us into believing that money and fame and the praise of the world and all the other things that Lehi can shove into that great, spacious building. They are what brings real happiness. And the trick to it is, they are temporal. You can experience them now. I take some money and I can exchange that for whatever now and get pleasure now. But everybody knows that no one's taking money with them. No matter how many cars you have, they're still in that garage when you die. Doesn't matter how many rooms are in your house when you're in a hole in the ground, right? That there is this part of overcoming the natural man is overcoming the temptations of the world and realizing that you are not just a person trying to get along.

Gerrit You are an eternal being destined for godhood. And I think our perspective will change a lot when we fully comprehend who we are and what this life is. And plus, a lot of our other desires are going to melt away anyway. You're not going to be desperate to figure out how to live longer in your life. If you have an immortal body, you're probably going to be just fine with that. I mean, so I think a lot of our anxieties, you're not going to be worried about where the next meal comes from. Because everyone is going to be taken care of. There will be no rich and no poor. I think that's why the ideal of the city of Zion, the city of Enoch, was so persuasive to early members of the church.

Gerrit Because they saw a world with all of this conflict and all of this fighting and all of this inequality. And the Lord declared, hey, you're going to create a city where everybody loves each other, where everyone loves their neighbor more than they love themselves. Where all things are had in common, there's no rich and no poor. And the rich are fine with that, because the only thing that matters is God. You can see how appealing that was. And that actually leads me to what we're going to talk about, at least for the next couple of episodes, is someone had asked, actually, Becky had, she had seen something on the internet about the city of Enoch, and well, I'm going to take you to that source. So, you know, just to throw it out there.

Gerrit Now, Latter-day Saints have a special connection with Enoch. We have a special connection with Enoch because the Bible itself says precious little about Enoch. I mean, in Genesis, it's like Enoch was here and then he wasn't here. Where's Enoch? Basically, I mean, it's essentially, Enoch in Genesis is like, where's Waldo? It's essentially, it's just there's, Enoch used to be here, now he's not here anymore. And you get a little bit more out of the New Testament talking about what's going on with Enoch. The Apostle Paul in Hebrews is gonna explain what happened to Enoch, right? This is Hebrews 11, verse 5. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had translated him, for before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God.

Gerrit And so, you know, the reference that it's making here is to Genesis, you know, that Enoch, he's just gone. Where is Enoch? We don't know, Enoch's gone.

Richard So, in high school, I actually had an experience where I don't know how Enoch came up in high school, but the majority of my friends weren't LDS, and so I made some comment about the city of Enoch being, you know, essentially all being translated and taken up, and she's like, what are you talking about? And I was like, I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that's what happened.

Gerrit You just casually threw a Mormon doctorate down to your Nazarene friends?

Richard Well, it's one of those things where, you know, now I'm wiser, but when you ask, you know, young people, hey, turn in Moses or, you know, whatever, and they're like, where is that? Is that in the Old Testament? You know, so I feel like, I feel like I'm like, you know, that sounded like the right thing. I got a little confused, got caught up in the air, and then I threw the ball off her leg, and I, you know, nevermind.

Gerrit And then call time out, when you have any time out.

Richard Yeah, I totally, Chris Webbered it, called time out, got a technical file.

Gerrit I mean, so you get out of Genesis chapter five, it doesn't really talk about his city, right? It just says, Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah 300 years, and he begat sons and daughters, and all the days of Enoch were 360 in five years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God took him. That's what I mean. Genesis is just like, Enoch's walking around, and now Enoch's not walking around.

Richard Well, that's where her name was Carolions, and she's like, what are you talking about? The whole city. I'm like, I'm pretty sure it was a city. And I think everything went up.

Gerrit Well, I mean, first of all, let's give you credit where credit is due. In fact, yes, it was a whole city. But the reason why we know that it's a whole city is because of the revelations given to the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Richard Now, she went on to get a PhD from the University of San Diego in specifically, it was New Testament Greek related. I don't know the specifics of the PhD, but I feel like that question that I asked her when I was a junior really turned that into- It drove her, I see. It drove her. I gotta get to the bottom of the city of Phoenix.

Gerrit Well, maybe because you were like, well, then why does it talk about him in Jude? And then she was like, I've gotta find out.

Richard I gotta get to the bottom of this.

Gerrit I mean, the original Greek.

Richard That's exactly what she did. So you're welcome, world.

Gerrit Although you were just singing the Beatles song, you were like, hey, Jude, you weren't actually quoting Jude from the Bible.

Richard That's right. That's what was happening.

Gerrit Yeah. And again, that is another place that Enoch is mentioned in the New Testament. Jude says, Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these things, saying, behold, the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints. So it's actually become a kind of a... Well, Latter-day Saints are fascinated with the Book of Enoch. And when we say Book of Enoch, there's lots of things we might be talking about. So we need to kind of lay them out. So inside of the Book of Moses, there is a huge expansion from Genesis, all about Enoch and what he did and what his city was. That is not much to Richard Chagrin, known by or accepted by the rest of the Christian world. Had he only known that as a 15 year old? Or maybe were you 16 at the time?

Richard I was 17. There were no excuses, Gerrit.

Gerrit I was trying to give you a pass.

Richard Nope. You're like, Richard, you were seven, not quite accountable. Is that how old you were? No, I was getting ready for my mission.

Gerrit I'd been married at the temple for seven years. And all I could tell you is, I didn't know what was going on with Enoch. There is this huge expansion about Enoch that's in Moses. And again, Moses is, the Book of Moses is one of the most fascinating and incredible books of scripture that we have. We do not give it the credit that we should be giving it because it is so complex. And in it, it talks a great deal about what Enoch did, what Enoch said, what Enoch saw. And the reason why this becomes even more, I don't know why, why Latter-day Saints become even more fascinating is two reasons. One, the city of Zion keeps being referred to like the city of Enoch in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Gerrit So in the Doctrine and Covenants, you repeatedly have, have comparisons that are made to this, this city of Zion, like the city of Enoch. And the city of Enoch is going to be part of the Second Coming, you know, coming down in glory. And so it has a special place among Latter-day Saints. Now, before we run out of time in this episode, I'm going to, I want to answer Becky's question. This is from Wilford Woodruff's Journal. So, you know, this is going to be about to be crazy because this is something recorded in his journal. This is from June of 1869. Okay. And they are organizing a school, The Prophets, up in Ogden. So, you know, they've gone past the center of the Gattie Antons, and they're working their way north on a trip that will eventually take them to Montpelier, actually, up in Idaho.

Gerrit And Brigham Young is going to speak. Afternoon, Sacramento administered. President Brigham Young spoke one hour and 15 minutes. See, back then, you're a Sacramento speaker, hour and 15 minutes.

Richard That still happens today, by the way.

Gerrit Well, there was no youth speaker listed. I don't see a arrest him.

Richard Look, we've all sat there as the person's like, look, I prepared this talk and I'm going to finish it.

Gerrit I don't care that the youth speaker in front of me read a conference talk for 15 minutes and then told a story and they took a total of 30 minutes. I wrote this talk out and I'm going to read every part of it.

Richard Much like the Second Coming, there's a bunch of stuff I got to do before that happens and I'm going to finish this entire talk.

Gerrit He said that when I come again to see you in this place, I want to see more improvements than there is now. That's not how you want every sermon to open.

Richard Classic mom killer, am I right?

Gerrit I shall expect to see more of this land fenced up so that you can find your horses without going the whole day to try to find them as you do now. See, I think Brigham is telling a joke at that point. You know, you guys could try putting fences up.

Richard I tried to find my horse all day.

Gerrit I expect to send many more south. As Woodruff continues in his journal, I expect to send many more south, and we shall send more here. I do not think there ever was a people on earth who has done more, done as much as we have in 40 years. So remember, he's saying this in 1869. It was the opinion of the Prophet Joseph that the city of Enoch was in the Gulf of Mexico. I told you to be ready. When I go to Wilford Woodruff's Journal, it's coming for you.

Richard Wow. All right. There you go. The Gulf of America, he means.

Gerrit Well, he didn't know that at the time. But we'll be censoring Wilford Woodruff's Journal going forward. The city of Enoch was in the Gulf of Mexico, and that Adam offered his sacrifice and built his first altar in Adam on Diamond. And the stones of his altar are there now to be seen. The city of Enoch was taken up, but the city of Zion, which we shall build, will remain and will not be taken away as his city was. Noah was 120 years in building the ark. We have not been 40 years in yet building up Zion in our day and in the kingdom of God on earth. I have reflected a great deal upon this subject. I have labored to know how to build up the kingdom of God on earth. If I was to tell you what your duty is in this place, it would be to go into those canyons and get out the timber and lumber and build you good homes and make yourselves and your families comfortable.

Gerrit There are a few words I want to say to this people and I want you to hear it and obey it. I would give a good deal for what has been said on this journey if I had it. We have not had a reporter in this church that will go with us only for pay and that's George D. Watt. He will not. He would see this church in toe fat before he will do one thing for us only. He was doing it as he was paid to do it.

Richard So toe fat is a compensation?

Gerrit I think it is a barren desert is what he's making a reference to.

Richard So I see. Okay. We should get the crack research staff on.

Gerrit Get your crack research staff on it. But yeah, it's the valley, I believe, where it's the valley of the bones in Jerusalem, Tophet.

Richard Oh, Tophet. Okay.

Gerrit Where the Gehenna is, it's the place where they're bearing all the bodies.

Richard I see.

Gerrit I see. And so it's also the place where... So he's essentially saying he'd rather see the church in the grave than do one thing without getting paid for it.

Richard I see.

Gerrit I see. And so it's also the place where... So he's essentially saying he'd rather see the church in the grave than do one thing without getting paid for it.

Richard So I'm currently on a podiatrist website here, so I think I went a different direction with it.

Gerrit Yes. I mean, I don't know that Brigham Young in 1869 was making an inside podiatry joke, a podiatrist joke, but we'll have a good friend of the show, Adam, weigh in on this.

Richard Okay, it's good. I didn't know how Tophet was spelled. I see.

Gerrit You were saying To-foot, T-O-E-F-O-O-T.

Richard To-fat. So either the thing that you're talking about in Israel or refers to the natural protective padding in the foot that diminishes with age. So perhaps one or the other.

Gerrit I think Brigham was not making that reference.

Richard Okay.

Gerrit But I don't know. I haven't seen George D. Watt's x-rays. So, you know, you should never diagnose someone from the past. I'm pretty sure I'm making a reference to the biblical valley next to Jerusalem.

Richard I see.

Gerrit Anyway, so that's what Becky had seen. And in fact, the Book of Enoch is getting a lot of play recently on the Internet for a couple of reasons. Now, there are some really cool parts about it. And there's also a, hey, maybe it's time to pump the brakes about it. There is an apocryphal book that's not in the Apocrypha. Now, this is it. We really should have never named the books in the Apocrypha, the Apocrypha, because there are New Testament apocryphal books that clearly aren't in the Apocrypha, because it's Old Testament apocryphal books. And the term apocrypha just simply means hidden, right? So there are books that have a hidden origin or meaning. But there was a book that was in circulation in early Christianity and in the last three or 400 years of Judaism before Jesus came, that was attributed to Enoch.

Gerrit And this book was actually very well known to early Christians. In fact, the quote that I just shared with you from, not about, not about, not about Tophet, not about that.

Richard By the way, in additional research, it looks like George D. Watt was baptized in Preston, England. He was baptized by Heber C. Kimball, and he and another candidate had a foot race, because they looked obviously George D. Watt foot.

Gerrit George D. Watt and foot, hoping that you could somehow loop this in. Yeah.

Richard And sure enough, he and another candidate raced to the water to be baptized by Heber C. Kimball, and the younger Watt outran the older person being baptized first. So.

Gerrit And how did that work out for Watt in his longevity?

Richard Well, he lived to 1881.

Gerrit I mean, in his longevity in the church.

Richard Well, he, so the foot race was, by the way, July 30th, 1837. So my guess is that he fell away.

Gerrit He becomes disenchanted, yes, with the church eventually, and goes back to England.

Richard Goes back to England. I wonder how quickly he ran back to England.

Gerrit Well, I mean, it depends on whether or not he had toe fat that was helping pat his feet as he ran.

Richard You don't have less toe fat running back to England than he used when he was running to get baptized. I'll tell you that because we know that the attributes of the parade.

Gerrit I feel like that is one of the call signs of this podcast. I've got less toe fat running back to England than I do running to get baptized. Now, in fairness to you, Wilford Woodruff misspelled it in his journal, which is why I mispronounced it. Well, that and I don't know what I'm doing.

Richard I feel like this was...

Gerrit I've got to stop reading the original journals, by the way. We've got to get a time script before. What am I doing? I pull up the original.

Richard These things are in print, Gerrit, but you're like, no, I must read the original.

Gerrit I've got to make sure we got it exactly right so that I start reading the original. Usually, Wilford Woodruff's handwriting is really good, but he does misspell things. If it's something unfamiliar, then actually, I'm Richard reading an email. But we know that the Book of Enoch, this Book of Enoch, now, when I say it's an apocryphal book, what I mean is it was in circulation among Jews. In Jesus's time, it was not included in the Septuagint. So all the books of the Apocrypha that were in the Bible that Joseph Smith had, those were in the Septuagint. They were translated into Greek and were in circulation in Jesus's time, which is part of the reason why the decision was made as the Bible canon was formed to continue to maintain those books in scripture, even though they weren't, technically speaking, part of the Hebrew Bible.

Gerrit The Book of Enoch was still yet a separate book that was in separate circulation. And we know that these early Christians knew about it in part because of the Book of Jude. In the Book of Jude, it quotes directly from Enoch. Now, you know this isn't in the Old Testament, Enoch, because whoever Jude is talking to, like Richard's friend is like, it doesn't say that in Genesis, Richard. So, because Jude says, and Enoch, also the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these sayings, of these saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurs, complainers, walking after their own lusts and their mouths speaketh with great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

Gerrit But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk after their own godly lusts. So in proving his point, Jude makes a quotation from this Book of Enoch, quoting this portion, talking about the eventual judgment. And so we know that, scholars know, that at least some version of this Book of Enoch was in circulation at the time that Jude wrote his epistle, because he's quoting it. Now, everything I'm about to say, you have to take with a giant grain of salt, okay?

Gerrit Because we don't have the version of the Book of Enoch that was in circulation in Jesus' time. What do we have? Well, we have many references to it. That's what we'll talk about next episode. Well, I mean, what a way to get people like, we're going to quote a bunch of early Christian fathers who reference it. And then also, we'll see how long it takes for the pain to dry. Whatever you do, don't feed your baby while we're doing that. That's the worst tease that has ever been given to get anyone to come back to any podcast ever.

Richard Well, maybe we can say what river George D. Watt was running to in that foot race. Maybe we'll tease that.

Gerrit Yeah, let's save that. Oh, do you know? Let's save that. Yeah, let's not tell them. Look, George Watt's the one who did all the Journal of Discourse. That's why I did all that.

Richard Oh, okay.

Gerrit Yeah, George Watt's the reason why Brigham's making the commentary is George Watt is the, he records many of the sermons and then he will sell them in the Deseret News or he'll sell them. Eventually gets permission to publish them in the Journal of Discourses, which is where the Journal of Discourses comes from.

Richard Yeah, over 450 sermons.

Gerrit Yes. I don't know where you're pulling that up, but yes. Anyway, so we have a lot to thank him for because he records many of these early Utah sermons. Brigham is expressing a little bit of frustration that they don't have someone to record this sermon because George Watt said, look, if you want me to go up there, if you want me to go north of Salt Lake, you have to pay me. He wasn't yet, he didn't yet have a ward clerk helping him fill out his reimbursement form. But in the Book of Enoch, in this apocryphal book, so they eventually, they can't find copies of this. They know it's referenced, it's referenced multiple times. Paul references it. Paul says, this is what happens with Enoch. Well, it doesn't say that in the Bible. Jude quotes Enoch.

Gerrit Well, it doesn't say that in the Bible. And they also knew that these early Christian fathers quoted Enoch, but it doesn't say that in the Bible. So eventually, some scholars track down a copy of the Book of Enoch in the early 1800s in Ethiopia. There's a Coptic version of it, and the guy takes it back to England and he has it translated, tries to publish it to make some waves, and really all of the scholarship that follows is everyone saying, well, this is obviously a forgery, this is fake, this isn't real. And so, because it very much clashes with the Biblical description primarily of Genesis. It provides an alternative creation myth, not so much creation, but what happened after the creation.

Gerrit Frankly, the Book of Enoch spends a lot of time on how did evil get into the world, and why is the world so terrible, and what is God going to do about it? And so, you could see, for someone who's talking about what will happen when Jesus comes again, it's a natural thing for Jude to quote from this Book of Enoch that's in circulation, because we know that Jesus is coming, right? So, this goes back to our discussion of the Millennium. This is sometimes called the blessing of Enoch in this Book of Enoch. Now, let me say again, there's so much more to say. Maybe I should just wait.

Richard Yeah, you should wait. And we forgot to mention also, Gerrit, that we have a couple of spots that have opened up on the Nauvoo Missouri Tour.

Gerrit Oh yeah, for this year. Yes, we had a couple of people contact us. Not everyone put their name on a wait list. So, if you are wanting to go on that tour to see, you know, where Adam on Diamond was, we just talked about, go to the website because we do have a couple of spots that are now open. If you were trying to get on a tour this summer and you weren't able to before, now is your chance. But let me just say, this gets a little bit more complicated because long after Joseph Smith, they find among the Dead Sea Scrolls, some fragments of the Book of Enoch in Aramaic. Even, you know, and the only other copy we had before was one that was coming out of Coptic Ethiopian, essentially. And much later, right? That was copied much later. So this becomes a fascinating thing for Latter-day Saints because the rest of the Christian world outside of like your most, you know, your most locked in scholars, that, you know, after talking to Richard said, I've got to go to San Diego and get a PhD in this.

Gerrit Most of them don't even know that the Book of Enoch even exists. And so when it's found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, suddenly it gets more emphasis placed on it. And there be people who investigate it more. And so we'll talk more about that on our next episode. I promise it will be less boring than what it just sounded like I just said. But not really. Thanks 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.

The Book of Enoch Part 1

Super Bowl prop bets

Super Bowl legal betting figures (source not named on air)

Dean, listener email after his baby's birth

Elder Clark, Australia Brisbane Mission, listener email

Dallin H. Oaks, 'Good, Better, Best' (paraphrased by Elder Clark; title not named on air)

Joseph Smith and the Restoration (premium), 'The Temptation of Joseph Smith'

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

2 Nephi 26:22 (identified, not cited on air)

D&C 21

Elizabeth, listener email after an unmedicated birth

Doug Stone, 'Warning Labels'

Hebrews 11:5

Genesis 5:21-24

Moses 6-7

Wilford Woodruff journal, June 1869, Brigham Young at a meeting in Ogden

Wilford Woodruff journal, June 1869, on the city of Enoch

Wilford Woodruff journal, June 1869, on George D. Watt

Account of George D. Watt's 1837 baptism in Preston, England (source not named on air)

Jude 1:14-18

1 Enoch (the apocryphal Book of Enoch)

Journal of Discourses

How much legal money was bet on the Super Bowl, per Richard's Fun with Numbers?

From 1837 to 1881

Money said on air

Percentages said on air

Putting numbers to words

What this episode talks about more than usual

Names said most

Signature words