Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, LDS Discussions Edition. I'm John Dehlin, one of your hosts for today. It is January 16, 2025, and today we are covering. Here's the thumbnail. BYU professor's art brings CES letter to life. And Julia, remind me, is the name of that guy Anthony Sweatt? Is that his name?

Julia [00:00:26] Yeah, Sweat. Anthony Sweatt.

John Dehlin [00:00:27] Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the short. The short version is there's a BYU professor who, I think he's both an artist and a religion professor, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, his name is Anthony Sweatt, and he has painted a bunch of images of the LDS restoration that are actually renditions of aspects of Mormon Church history that for, I don't know, 150, 200 years, the Mormon Church has actively sought to deny or avoid talking about. And we stumbled upon his artwork at some point last year, I believe, and we thought it was really fun to acknowledge that a lot of his art basically confirms what. What Jeremy Runnels published In his famous PDF called A Letter to a CES Director. That can be found@cesletter.org and because in the past year, the Mormon Church apologists have started attacking Jeremy, trying to undermine his credibility, trying to undermine the credibility of CES Letter, we have been committed this year to advertising and promoting the CES letter as much as possible, if for no other reason than that we're sick of Mormon apologists smearing sincere critics, and we're gonna, you know, fight back against that. This is part of the LDS Discussion series. We're very proud to be continuing that series. For those of you who don't know, a couple years ago we started based on a really awesome website called LDS Discussions. We brought in the author of that website and of a bunch of essays. He goes by the name of Mike. He's now retired, but we did 55ish episodes covering all of the different essays that Mike wrote on his LDS discussions episode. They're kind of historic. And we did it with Nemo the Mormon and Julia. You appeared on many of those episodes and of course, Mike himself appeared as well. Occasionally we would have a special guest, but the whole shtick was to do our best to discover or to explore Mormon Church truth claims as objectively and as neutrally and as dispassionately as. As possible. And as many of our viewers and listeners have noted, sometimes we were better than others at being dispassionate and neutral. But what I've been told is that LDS Discussion series is one of the most important things Mormon Stories has ever done. And having. Coming back on Mormon Stories podcast, LDS discussions edition. To join us in today's episode is Julia. Hey, Julia.

Julia [00:03:34] Welcome.

John Dehlin [00:03:35] Hi, Julia, you are the. You're the tiktoker known as analyzing Mormonism, is that right?

Julia [00:03:42] Yeah, for as long as TikTok's around.

John Dehlin [00:03:43] Yeah. And of course, you help us with production on Mormon Stories as well. Thanks for joining us today, Julia.

Julia [00:03:51] Yeah, of course.

John Dehlin [00:03:52] And Nemo, we've got Nemo the Mormon back from the Nemo the Mormon YouTube channel. Hey, Nemo.

Nemo [00:03:57] Hi. I used to be the token active member of the church on the discussion, didn't I? And I. I heard people's comments. I've heard what you have to say about the fact that we weren't particularly dispassionate in some of our previous episodes. So I'm gonna bring with me Mike's energy of being dead inside and. Yeah, thanks for having me, John.

Framing the LDS Discussions Approach

John Dehlin [00:04:22] All right, you know, a couple things I'll just address really quickly. One is this idea that we're not as objective. We should stop saying we're trying to be objective because we're clearly not. And I'll just agree. When we started out the series, we really wanted to try and keep an objective tone. And I do think the evidence that we provided was objective. And I think our intellectual analysis was fair, or at least the most fair thing out there on the Internet. Certainly fair than any apologetic resource out there. Certainly more fair than many of the even ex Mormon podcasts. But I will acknowledge that we, you know, I think we. Yeah. That we were not as objective as we could be. I will defend us, though, and just say the LDS discussion series is probably the most fair and balanced analysis of Mormon Church truth claims in. In a series for a podcast on the Internet. But also one of the reasons why we're continuing to release episodes in this series is because there's a lot that we didn't cover. But also, every time we do an LDS discussions episode, we're promoting the past series. And, you know, we all know that, like, people recycle on the Internet, and every month there's a brand new set of people joining Mormon stories that are brand new to the questions and have never heard of the LDS discussion series. So those of you who love the LDS discussion series, you should want us to continually be releasing new episodes under this series, if for no other reason than that it continually promotes the past episodes. And so I'll just say, any of you who want to go to the series, you can go to Spotify or Apple Podcast. And we've got the entire series in sequence there. And there's also a YouTube playlist called LDS discussions under the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. And you can literally listen to or watch these episodes in sequence, starting from the very beginning. And it'll be, I've been told by tens of thousands of people, it's one of the most important things they ever consumed on the Mormon or ex Mormon Internet. Julie, anything you want to say in addition to that?

Julia [00:06:50] No, I just wanted to point out that this is episode. This should be episode 60 of the LDS discussions episode.

Nemo [00:06:55] So, yeah, you listen to one a day. There's two months worth there for you to kind of enjoy one a week.

John Dehlin [00:07:02] It's over a year. All right. And I think today is absolutely worthy of the LDS Discussions brand. We were supposed to have a Gerardo with us. Gerardo must have been busy. Who else do we normally have in our panel? Anyone else? That's Nemo. That was normally besides Mike in our panel. Was it me, you, Julia and Mike? Most of the time, yeah, most of the time. Okay, well, three of the four. That's not bad, right?

Julia [00:07:31] Yeah, that's pretty good.

John Dehlin [00:07:33] All right. And Julia, I think it was your idea to do this episode. And I'll say one last thing. We're going to be showing a lot of images today, and I want to encourage those of you who listen on Apple Podcast, but don't, you know, watch it on YouTube, consider switching to Spotify to listen to these episodes, if for no other reason than that Spotify allows you to do audio only, but it also now has video. So literally you can be watching or listening on the Spotify app. And if there's an image you really want to see, you can just pull it up, open up Spotify, switch to video, and you can actually see on your mobile device whatever images we're talking about. In Spotify, you can switch between video and audio. The only other thing I'll say is that those of you who, you know, those of you also who. Who want to be able to listen to and. Or watch these episodes, you can listen to these episodes from YouTube as audio only if you just get the Premium subscription to YouTube where you pay like 10 or 15 bucks a month, and you can literally listen to video episodes as if they're audio only and you miss all the commercials. So if you want an ad free version of Mormon stories, all you got to do is just get a YouTube Premium subscription and you'll be able to watch or listen to these episodes without any ads. So that's a way to do an ad free Mormon stories experience. Anything you all want to add to that?

Julia [00:09:12] No, that was good. That was great.

John Dehlin [00:09:13] Okay. I think that's important stuff. So, Julia, you volunteered to produce this episode.

Julia [00:09:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:19] But then I. After reviewing it after, as I always do, as an old man who's been at this stuff for 20. Nemo, why are you nodding? Why do you immediately nod when I say old man? What is up with that?

Nemo [00:09:35] I'm just. I'm just confirming to the people what they already know.

John Dehlin [00:09:38] I'll arm wrestle you, Nemo. I'll arm wrestle you. I'll bench press you when you come to Utah.

Nemo [00:09:43] Next time, subscribe to see it, people. Subscribe to see it.

Background on Anthony Sweat's Paintings

John Dehlin [00:09:48] Anyway, as soon as Julia showed me this presentation she put together as an old man, I said, julia, let me add a couple slides. So why don't you, Julia, start with the intro and then I'll give a little bit of history as an old man before we proceed to the presentation you created.

Julia [00:10:03] Yeah, I just want to explain a little bit how I'm sort of setting this up. So we're going to show the image. Typically we're going to show the image that Anthony Sweatt has painted. And then a lot of times these have not been depicted in church history at all. So then the next slide will be the same picture but with a historical explanation. So this is sort of a history lesson showing his artwork. And then we're going to compare Jeremy, what Jeremy Reynolds says in the CS letter to what Anthony Sweatt is either depicting or what he has said in some of his other presentations. Like he has. He's online quite a bit and he's, he's giving like Sunday lessons or things like that. So. So some of those are from. From that. So. So his image, historical background, and then a comparison of the two. So that's how I've basically set it up.

John Dehlin [00:10:42] Okay, perfect. And if it's okay, because I don't think we plan to do this, let me just go ahead and show Anthony Sweat's BYU profile really quick. So this is him at the BYU website. It says he's a department chair. So it looks like he's the department chair of Church history and doctrine. Did you know that?

Julia [00:11:04] I don't think I knew that he was that connected to church history.

John Dehlin [00:11:08] Yeah. So he's, he's got a website, Anthony sweat.com and I'll just read his profile. It says Anthony Sweatt received a BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Utah and his master's of education and PhD in curriculum and instruction from Utah State University. So I'm going to just call it right there. That's weird that, you know, a Division 1 history department is chaired by a PhD who doesn't have a PhD in history, but instead he's got one of those softer PhDs. In this case from Utah State, which I love, but it's curriculum and instruction. So he has like an education Master's and PhD. Doesn't even have a history degree.

Julia [00:11:57] Maybe that's why that didn't stick out to me, because he, like, I'm getting my master's in history.

Nemo [00:12:01] It's almost like the church historian not being a historian, but being a lawyer.

Julia [00:12:06] Yeah, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Anyway, that's interesting. If he's the department chair of history and he doesn't even have a history bachelor's degree. I'm just going to call it. That's super weird. Anyway, it says before joining the religion faculty at byu. Okay, wait, it's saying religion faculty, so now I'm confused. Church history. Oh, church history and doctrine.

Nemo [00:12:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:12:30] Is that a different department than history?

Nemo [00:12:32] Yeah, because probably church history isn't real history. It's what the church says it is. Right, okay, sorry. I meant to be dispassionate and not snarky. But like, I. I think if you were looking at it objectively, you would say that church history.

John Dehlin [00:12:45] Yeah.

Nemo [00:12:46] Taught by a church university is not the same as just regular.

John Dehlin [00:12:50] Notre Dame's got a good history department, you know, I don't think it has to be that way. Right. No. Anyway, before joining the religion faculty at BYU, he worked for 13 years with seminary and institutes of religion. So he was a CES guy. Dr. Sweat is the author of several books and articles related to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. His research centers on factors that influence effective religious education. I'll say, parenthetically, indoctrination as a practicing artist. His paintings center on previously un underrepresented important aspects of church history to promote visual learning.

Julia [00:13:29] This is. That's really interesting. And that's one of our points that we're going to talk about.

John Dehlin [00:13:32] Why is that issue to you, Julia?

Julia [00:13:34] His paintings center on previously unrepresented important aspects of church history. And this is from the BYU website page. So they're like, oh, yeah, we haven't commissioned artists to do this.

Nemo [00:13:45] I love this. The sleight of hand in there where they talk about to promote visual learning as though they looked at the VAK model of learning and they were like, oh, we're just. As a church, we've just let the visual learners down. You know, we've always. We've always been teaching this, but we just. We just haven't been catering to the visual learners. It's like, no, you haven't talked about this at all, or very little. This is not an issue of. You've just not got the pictures.

John Dehlin [00:14:07] No, the church has actively hidden this information for 200 years and communicated people that talked about it like that.

Julia [00:14:15] I'd argue they still are to some degree. And we'll talk about this.

John Dehlin [00:14:17] Absolutely, absolutely. Anyway, the last thing it says here is Anthony and his wife Cindy, are the parents of seven children, and they reside in Springville. So I just thought. Springville, Utah. I thought it was. Would be interesting.

Julia [00:14:31] Yeah, that's good.

John Dehlin [00:14:31] And he teaches a course called Foundations of the Restoration or Religion C225. I'm guessing that's the course that BYU students take if they want to get a little bit more of an accurate version of Mormon Church history. But. But also, I'm sure the church is doing that to inoculate. You know, it's BYU students to go out into the world. Anyway, that's the introduction.

Julia [00:15:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:03] Okay. Anything else you want to say, Julie, before I give my little lesson?

Julia [00:15:07] No, I think that's good.

John Dehlin [00:15:08] Okay. All right.

Nemo [00:15:09] Tell us about the good old days, John.

Early Online Mormon Criticism and South Park

John Dehlin [00:15:11] All right, so let's talk about the good old days. So I. I thought it was important to start with 2002, you know, when I lost my Mormon faith in 2001, and I started just going to read any book that I could, because this was kind of pre Internet, before podcasts, before CES Letter, before Mormon stories. I was just looking for stuff I could learn. And believe it or not, there are these things called books. I know nowadays people don't really read them in the Mormon Internet. Nemo, have you ever read a Mormon book?

Julia [00:15:45] No.

John Dehlin [00:15:45] No? No. You have books, but you actually read them?

Nemo [00:15:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:48] Oh, okay. Yeah.

Nemo [00:15:50] I do want to point out in 2002, I was five years old.

John Dehlin [00:15:55] Julie, you read. You read Mormon history books all the time. But anyway, one of the classics is a book called An Insider's View of Mormon Origins. I would put it in the top five.

Nemo [00:16:04] I haven't read this one.

John Dehlin [00:16:05] History books. Ever written. You have or have not?

Nemo [00:16:09] I haven't read this one.

John Dehlin [00:16:10] Okay. Well, Grant Palmer was a CES instructor, CES director for several decades, or teacher. And when he was in his final years, before he retired, he came out with this book and he called it an insider's view because he was an insider, because he taught seminary institute for 30 years. And this is probably one of the best books I've ever read that sort of gives a good explanation for how Joseph Smith came up with the Book of Mormon and how he bamboozled people, you know, regarding the priesthood and regarding his powers, etc. So he gets a lot of credit for being kind of someone that really forced the Mormon Church to have to start paying attention to, you know, the lies around Joseph Smith's translation and, and that sort of thing. And so I had him on Mormon stories very early on. And Julia put together this slide in 2006. So this is in the. Within the first year and a couple months of the existence of Mormon stories I had Grant Palmer on. It was a four episode series where he talked about an insider's view. That's when I became Taper Dan, Dan Peterson's arch enemy. He was okay with me interviewing Richard Bushman, but he got super mad at me for giving any visibility to Grant Palmer and Nemo. You'll be interested to know that that's when I got on Taper Dan's enemy list, just for interviewing the guy. And at the time I was an active member of the church teaching elders quorum. But you know, Taper Dan, again, anytime you're just giving visibility to honest, truthful history, that made you an enemy in his mind.

Nemo [00:17:57] I don't think I'm on his enemy list. I don't think he knows I exist.

John Dehlin [00:18:01] Oh, I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does.

Nemo [00:18:03] Keep it that way.

John Dehlin [00:18:05] After, After I interviewed Grant Palmer and he was disfellowshipped for writing an insider's view of Mormon origins. Later he came out with some essays on sexual allegations against Joseph Smith during sort of his. During the 1830s and even before that was during the time where he was getting excommunicated. He eventually was excommunicated. And I think it was during or after that 2012 period where I. Where I interviewed him about sexual allegations. I've also interviewed a couple more times, you know, when he contracted cancer and we wanted to celebrate his life before he died. I interviewed him a couple more times and he's definitely a super important person to know about. And a lot of this episode, I think, you know, is attributable to him. The other thing that was worth mentioning is in 2003, South park did an episode on Mormonism like it had done on Scientology. And it aired, according to Julia, on the 19th of November 2003. And in that episode, there's an accurate depiction of many things, including how the. The translation of the Book of Mormon probably actually happened. And it was the first depiction I think anybody ever saw of sort of, you know, an artistic representation of what likely happened, which was Joseph Smith sticking his head in a hat. Now, Julia, do we have a picture of that?

Julia [00:19:36] No, I didn't have a picture of that. I wasn't sure how much, but we should find one.

John Dehlin [00:19:39] One of you guys go Google that really quick and we can show it, but I won't stop the presentation.

Julia [00:19:43] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:19:44] But that. That rocked my world, and it rocked a lot of people's world because never, you know, we had always seen before the inaccurate but official version of. Of church history. Nemo, you're raising your hand.

Nemo [00:19:57] Yeah. Thank you, sir. I have a question about south park, given that when that aired in what. What year was it? 2003.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] 2003, yeah.

Nemo [00:20:07] Again, so I was six years old at the time, so I wasn't allowed to watch South park, but my understanding is certainly the way I grew up in the church is that south park would have been a show that Mormons shouldn't really have been watching anyway. So I guess my question is how, if it did at all, how did that pervade the Mormon zeitgeist? How did that affect members? How did that come to the attention of members, if it did at all, that depiction of Joseph Smith?

John Dehlin [00:20:31] Well, I mean, I would say that on the ex Mormon Internet and the Mormon Internet at the time, and there were forums that people would join, obviously, liberal Mormons questioning Mormons and ex Mormons all immediately. We're talking about it, of course.

Nemo [00:20:48] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:20:48] And I'm just gonna go ahead and share. I.

Julia [00:20:51] Here.

Julia [00:20:51] I.

John Dehlin [00:20:53] What you can see are just Google images. You know, there's Joseph Smith was With his head, you know, head in the hat. And there's him and Martin Harris, you know, with Martin Harris transcribing, you know, that. That gives people a sense for, like, the types of images, you know, that there's. There's Martin Harris giving the manuscript to his wife. The. The 116 pages that end up. End up getting lost. If you haven't seen that episode of south park all about the Mormons, it's definitely one of the most important things you could ever see. But. But you got to give south park credit. And Nima, I hope I answered your question. You kind of got to give south park credit because they caught onto this stuff, you know, a year after Grant Palmer published his book but long before any of us ever really thought about this idea of artistically representing Mormon church history accurately. Any. Any comments y' all have?

Julia [00:21:58] No, that's. That was good.

The CES Letter and Its Origins

John Dehlin [00:22:00] Okay, so the next slide I have for you guys. So. So credit grab, Hummer. Credit to South Park. The next slide that I have is a website that came out. I don't know exactly, it came out in the 2000s, let's just say 2007, 2008, I think y'. All. Actually, I'm going to pull up the. I pulled it up actually from the machine on archive.org because this website has been taken down. But the website that it used to be called, it was called Images of the Restoration. And I actually had a friend who is an attorney who drew these images of accurate depictions of Mormon Church history as a non believer. And. But. But he was in hiding because he was a successful attorney and he didn't want his attorney legal practice to be affected by him being outed as somebody who is doing factual church history art. So on the left you have the picture of the website as it. As it was originally released. It was called Images of the Restoration. That website's being taken down, but the images have been reproduced in a website called intellectual preserve.org. that's where you can find them now. So I've got an image of the original website, Images of the Restoration on the left, Images of the Restoration under Intellectual Preserve on the right. And let me just go ahead and show y' all some of the images that my friend, who I won't name, you know, produced, and y' all tell me if you can figure out what these images are of. So, Nemo, I'll let you go first. What do you guess this is an image of?

Nemo [00:24:00] Is that Joseph Smith Senior having the dream that then became Lehigh's vision?

John Dehlin [00:24:05] Yep. So what he drew is he drew Joseph Smith Sr. Telling Joseph Smith Jr. And do you. Do you think that's Hiram? Who else do you think that would be?

Nemo [00:24:14] Alvin maybe.

John Dehlin [00:24:15] Alvin, maybe. And he's. This is basically a picture of Joseph Smith Sr. Telling his dream of a tree with the tree of life and the fruit and the great and spacious building in the, you know, mists of darkness. And basically the point here is, is, you know, before Joseph Smith ever wrote into the Book of Mormon, Lehi's dream, he knew about his dad's dream. And most people think that basically just Joseph imported Lee, Joseph's senior's dream, into the Book of Mormon. So that's what this is depicting. Does that make sense?

Julia [00:24:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:49] So that's one example. Here's another example of. Of my friend's artwork. And again, I can't name him. Any of y' all want to guess what this is an image of?

Julia [00:25:00] Which one? The.

John Dehlin [00:25:02] Can you see it?

Nemo [00:25:03] This is all Joseph Smith's interactions with the divine over the years and how these things changed.

John Dehlin [00:25:10] And, Julia, you were. You were. I did. I had never really read this closely enough to pay attention to it. But what's interesting about the first three images, we all know about, you know, the five or the six different versions of the first vision that Joseph Smith taught. And so that's what you'll see. In the middle is an 1832 version where the Lord appears to Joseph Smith, like, in a vision. Right. And then there's a few other versions. It ends in the 1840, 1838 version, which is the official version, where God and Jesus appear to Joseph Smith. And then there's, of course, the other versions in the middle where you get Satan binding Joseph, you get hosts of heaven. All the different details of the four or five other versions that we have. But, Julia, tell us what the first three versions are.

Julia [00:26:04] Well, so for those just listening, this is a panel. There's three rows of three images. And so it's just going through the timeline. But, yeah, the first one looks like he's trying to retrieve the plates, and the angel is knocking him down. And he. And we hear this story throughout church history where he. He was knocked down, and he gets back up and he's knocked down again. And so that's just. I've never seen it that depicted before.

John Dehlin [00:26:24] And I think that's important to mention because Joseph never told anybody about his first vision until when?

Julia [00:26:32] Well, it became known in the church in the 40s.

Nemo [00:26:36] The first written account was 82.

Julia [00:26:38] 32. Yeah. But he was. That was not. The church members did not know that story.

John Dehlin [00:26:41] So the 1827 version would be his first telling that we know of. Of any sort of interaction with the divine. Right.

Julia [00:26:49] Yeah. And those are published in the newspapers and things like that. So these stories or in other anti.

Nemo [00:26:54] And that's the visitation of Moroni. Right. That would.

Julia [00:26:57] Well, I don't know. I don't know that Moroni was named yet.

Nemo [00:27:00] Or Nephi, depending. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:27:02] Like, it was an angel. Right, Julie? It was an angel, and then it was Nephi, and then it was Moroni

Julia [00:27:08] gone through a whole spiel of like, a toad or a. Or a Quaker, or like, he's gone through a whole metamorphosis of characters. But, yeah, the second One I'm not quite sure. I'm not, no. If. I don't know if I can see the image very well.

Nemo [00:27:20] There's a difference between 1827 and 1834-5. So the top middle and the middle middle, those are like the same image as the visitation of the angel, etc. Except for one has treasure digging equipment in the background, but looks of it, right?

Julia [00:27:36] Oh, that's true.

Nemo [00:27:37] Stone and a hat on a chair. And then the other one is different again.

Julia [00:27:41] Well, one of the first newspaper accounts said that Joseph Smith was visited in a dream by the Almighty and that's where the Almighty, which I'm assuming is God, showed him where the plates were buried. So that could be the 1827 image that we're looking at because it's very treasure digging stuff. The 1831, I'm not quite sure because it's just one person. I don't know if that's supposed to be God or an angel. But again, all the stories before that were just angels or just. Or different characters like that, but none of them were God and Jesus that we, that we think of now.

John Dehlin [00:28:11] Yeah. Okay, so that was. That's another image of the restoration. Do you all want to guess what this is?

Nemo [00:28:19] The rod, I mean, the sprout. The sprout. I mean, tell our viewers and listeners

John Dehlin [00:28:25] what this is depicting.

Nemo [00:28:27] Yeah, so, right.

John Dehlin [00:28:30] What did he used to do just for those who were brand new?

Julia [00:28:33] Well, so divining rights were generally used to find water. I think farmers use them generally. But, but Joseph and Oliver were very steeped in the treasure digging views. And so I don't know. So in reference. So treasure digging, I'm assuming that's what the, the rods were used for. In fact, there's stories of Beeman. Alvin Beam, I think, was looking for the plates and he used divining rods and he found the place where they had been buried, but Joseph had moved them. But, but I don't understand this because in the Scriptures, Joseph is saying that Oliver should use the rods to translate the plates. And I've never heard of any story of these being able to translate anything. It's usually a, it's a location finder. So I don't know how that was going to play out, but I'm pretty

John Dehlin [00:29:13] sure we did an episode on LDS discussions about changes to the Doctrine and

Julia [00:29:18] Covenants over time and we'll talk about that. Yeah.

Nemo [00:29:21] So this is.

Julia [00:29:22] Anthony Sweatt has an image like this

John Dehlin [00:29:23] too, because originally the Doctrine and Covenants or Book of Commandments refers to the gift of the rod to Oliver Cowdery's gift of the rod.

Julia [00:29:34] And then it was changed to sprout. And then it was changed to gift of Aaron. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

John Dehlin [00:29:38] So that's why it's important. This is stuff that made it into the Doctrine and Covenants. So that's why it's not just water. It's not just water searching. It's, you know.

Julia [00:29:49] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:49] Okay. So that's. That's what this is depicting. How about this one? Y' all want to guess what this is for our listeners? What do you see?

Julia [00:29:58] So there's. Do you want to describe anymore?

Nemo [00:30:00] Yeah, sure. There's some individuals in a room with a window. One of them has a pipe. In fact, two of them are smoking pipes. One of them is drinking or sat on the floor. They have weapons. They have pistols, pepper box pistols, for a little bit of added historical accuracy. And this is Joseph's last night in Carthage jail, which I believe it was. John Taylor says that they sent for alcohol. Some have said that it was sent for, you know, medicinal purposes, whatever. No, it was to lift our spirits. Like, he's very clear that they were drinking to try and pick up their spirits and. And make them feel better, I think.

Julia [00:30:35] Is it Taylor singing?

John Dehlin [00:30:36] Oh, go ahead.

Julia [00:30:37] Isn't he singing? Is that why he's got his army fairy man?

John Dehlin [00:30:41] Because I think that was like the hymn that Joseph loved. And Joseph's just throwing. Throwing one back. You know what I mean?

Julia [00:30:47] Right.

Nemo [00:30:48] Throwing wine back.

John Dehlin [00:30:49] So that, you know that that's one of the images of the restoration. Here's a little scandalous one. What do we see here?

Nemo [00:30:55] Oh, this one's multi layered because you've got Joseph sort of approaching a woman on the bed and trying to kind of get her involved in an amorous affair. But the picture in the background has an angel with a flaming sword and wings guarding the way of the Garden of Eden. I think that's him banishing Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden in that picture in the background. But yeah, this is the dirty, nasty affair as it was described between Joseph.

Julia [00:31:21] Is it Fanny Alger or is.

Nemo [00:31:22] It could be funny Alga. It could be anyone else.

John Dehlin [00:31:25] I'm guessing it's not Fanny Auger. And there. I know he also did an image of Fanny Augur. Joseph and Fanny in the barn, like on a hay bale. Like Joseph on top of Fanny. For some reason I couldn't find it in the website.

Julia [00:31:38] So this woman looks older than Fanny would have been.

Nemo [00:31:41] Yeah, Any number of them.

Julia [00:31:44] Right.

Nemo [00:31:44] This is the same thing.

John Dehlin [00:31:46] There's 30 to choose from. And then this one. This one. Y' all want to describe that Nemo.

Nemo [00:31:52] This is Joseph sat on a stairwell with his head in a hat. Ella, South Park. And. And any other, you know, descriptions of that with. With the scribe potentially Cowdery or. Or whoever down below him on a table facing away from him, writing down what Joseph dictates from whatever he's seeing in the hat.

John Dehlin [00:32:13] And there's obviously no plates in the room.

Nemo [00:32:15] No plates in the room.

Julia [00:32:17] But even the depiction of Joseph is kind of separated from. That's. Is this Martin Harris? He's kind of separated from him. So, like, that's just really interesting to me. I hadn't really. I don't know which account that this artist is pulling from where. They're not even normally. Even with the hat head and the hat. They're at the same table, but here they're basically not even in the same room.

Nemo [00:32:35] I think this is potentially just to create this sort of artistic division. It's a very powerful way. Sort of like in this image, it creates a powerful separation between the subject of the image and the secondary subject, the scroll.

Julia [00:32:49] I just wonder if that's a. I wonder if that's based on a historical account where they're separated like that. That's just so interesting.

John Dehlin [00:32:56] Well, the main reason I wanted to give that history is because, like, the church loves things to go down the memory hole, and the church loves to punish people who are truth tellers and then wait five or 10 years and then do some act as a way to neutralize or inoculate its members. That's totally response to a true teller that they punished or excommunicated and then make it seem like it's totally authentic and new and original, when in reality, it's totally not just a response, but a response to a truth teller who is excommunicated. And, you know, whether it's Grant Palmer who's excommunicated, or Fawn Brody or, you know, Sandra Tanner or me or whatever, or, you know, whether it's this art, the south park, or my friend's art, you know, Anthony Sweatt doesn't get any credit at all, and the church doesn't get any credit at all for this. This innovative artwork that they're doing. I just think it's important to know there's a history behind this. And it's the Mormon Internet and Grant Palmer and courageous historians like Fawn Brody and the Tanners that forced the church to create these depictions. Right. And Another person who is important in helping force the church to make these depictions is the CES Letter, because, well, Julia, this is where you can kind of take over.

Julia [00:34:27] Yeah, Well, I think this is a. It's a good timeline because we've been documenting, like, 22,002 with Grant Palmer and then throughout. And then the south park episode, and then this one he published. See, Jeremy Reynolds published the CES letter in April of 2013. And then if you go to the next slide from what I have found, Anthony Sweatt started. Started his artwork in 2014, which is right after. Right after Joseph or I mean, right after Jeremy published his book. So to me, that feels like really close. And then he. His artwork was. As far as I'm concerned, or as far as I'm aware, if anyone has information that's different than this, please let me know. But I think his artwork was first printed in the book From Darkness Unto Light. And I remember I consumed that book as an active member of the church because I wanted to learn more about the translation process, because that was so interesting to me. But so, Anyway, so, yeah, 2014 is when, as far as I can tell, Anthony Sweat started doing. Started publishing his artwork.

First Vision Accounts and Official Church Narrative

Nemo [00:35:23] I have a question about the phrasing on this slide. It says that he was commissioned to paint an accurate depiction of the Book of Mormon translation process.

Julia [00:35:31] He'll talk about that, too. Okay, yeah, so we'll bring that up later. I'm glad you pointed that out. Yeah, he talks about that in one of the slides.

Nemo [00:35:39] Okay, next slide.

John Dehlin [00:35:42] All right.

Julia [00:35:43] Okay. So I just wanted to, like, just show you guys. These are the images of. These are various images of how the members of the church have been shown the translation process. It's very like, Joseph's got. The plates are open. He's right next to Oliver, and he's got his finger on the plates, and he's just kind of in study. And then one of them, it's depicted with a sheet between the two of them. And Joseph's got his. The little glasses on the breastplate. But this is generally what we. What we think of when we think of the translation process. This is what. This is what the members have been consuming. This is what has been published in all the church literature. In fact, if you try to go back and find them, you won't find anything. Any accurate depictions of the translation process. So the church is very specifically, very carefully showing you this image, even though it's not correct. And then if you jump to the

John Dehlin [00:36:27] next one, well, I just want to say, like, it's outrageous that the church has shown these images over the past decades or more, because the church has known about the stone in the hat for probably for its entire existence. It's had the seer stone in its vault for forever. For as long as it's had a vault, I'm sure. And so we have to just note it's been an act of intentional, overt deception for at least a half to a full century of the church, including these images on, you know, walls of chapels in its official curriculum. Like, you know, we're talking about an act of intentional, overt deception for. For decades, if not centuries.

Speaker E [00:37:16] Yeah.

Nemo [00:37:17] Can I make a quick point on that? People like to blame the artists for this, right. And they say, oh, it's the artist's fault. You know, that's how the artist chose to depict it. But ultimately, the artists that painted these will have been working to a brief, or even if they weren't working to a brief and they were just painting from their understanding when they submitted it to the church and the church used it officially, the church then made a choice to publish this, knowing that this is what would then be represented to the members and non members of the church. So no matter how it got painted, just discarding the fact that the church probably commissioned it to be painted, to look this way in some cases, ultimately by the church choosing to publish it and put it out there, it's the church's responsibility for propagating the message that these images put forward.

Julia [00:38:06] Right.

Nemo [00:38:07] I just think that needs to be really, really clear.

Julia [00:38:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:38:10] Yeah. Perfect. Thank you, Nemo. Okay, Julia.

Julia [00:38:16] So this is what it would have looked like. This is what the translation process does look like. Although I think we can argue to some degree because a lot of these are showing the plates in existence somewhere on the table. And there are. There are stories, historical accounts of that happening. Although I think a lot of times the plates weren't even in the room. But here you have Joseph, and he's either with Oliver Cowdery or Martin Harris or Emma, and he's got his stone and a hat, and he's like looking into them. Only one of them is showing him with his face actually in the hat, which is what the historical accounts say is that he buried his face in the hat.

Nemo [00:38:48] And the only one that did that has done that is the bottom one, which was done by John's friend.

Julia [00:38:56] So even that's interesting to point out. Like, even these ones commissioned by the church, he doesn't have his face actually buried yet.

Nemo [00:39:02] And I think that's all really summed up. Do you have the video that goes with the bottom right image there of Russell Nelson?

Julia [00:39:08] I don't think I pull the whole

Nemo [00:39:10] video because if people were to go watch that video, you will see that that is as close as that hat gets to his face. It might get slightly closer he goes to do it, and then you can see he realizes it's a bad idea and he shouldn't do it because he knows how it looks. And. And that is emblematic of all these other pictures that the Church has commissioned here, which is that they know just how it looks from putting his head in the hat, so they won't show it.

Julia [00:39:38] Right.

Nemo [00:39:39] Russell M. Nelson, prophet of God, cannot bring himself to do that because even he knows that's a bit far.

Julia [00:39:47] Yeah.

Julia [00:39:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:39:49] Nice.

Nemo [00:39:50] It's a great video. You should go watch it.

Julia [00:39:51] Yeah, it is a great video. Okay, so this is kind of how it was explaining how I've set this up. And so you have Jeremy Reynolds on one side with the red. And this is. So these are questions and concerns or direct quotes from the CES letter. And then we're comparing them to the side on the blue with Anthony Sweat and what he's. What he is saying in his images or what he is saying in other outside interviews that he's done. So it's just a comparison of the two.

John Dehlin [00:40:14] Yeah. And again, I know I'm kind of. We're probably beating a dead horse here, but the main point of this episode is to show that a BYU professor, religion faculty is creating art that validates the main concerns expressed in the CES letter that Mormon apologists want to deride as being anti Mormon and inaccurate and, you know, biased.

Julia [00:40:38] Right, right, Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:40:40] Yeah. I think that's just. I think we can't emphasize that.

Nemo [00:40:44] And that is the story of the CES letter is Jeremy Reynolds makes points and apologists have to concede them, but then say, oh, but it doesn't mean what you think it means.

Julia [00:40:55] Yeah.

Nemo [00:40:56] And that. That's. That seems to be the argument around the CS letter now as kind of like a broad topic point is that, yeah, no one's really arguing over the details anymore because the Church has been forced to admit a lot of this stuff and now they're arguing about, oh, but we can still find a way to make it okay that Joseph did X, Y, and Zed. We can still find a way to make it okay that this was actually how he translated it all along.

Julia [00:41:22] Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:41:26] Okay, so let's go ahead and go to the first Is this the first Anthony Sweatt image?

Julia [00:41:32] Yeah. So this one is called the First Visions by Anthony Spy. It's the early. The early state that I found for this painting is actually 2019. And again, if somebody has different information, just let me know, because these are just things. This is just what I was able to gather. And so the image here, actually, if you go to the next slide, I think it has little arrows that point out. Okay. Aspects of the painting. So, yeah, you'll see this Joseph Smith, he's in the forest, and there's, like, fire consuming half the image. And then there's two figures in the fire, and then there's a multitude of angels or faces behind them. And so, like, he's. What Anthony Sweatt is doing is he's taking pretty much all either four or nine accounts, and he's like kind of molding them into one image. And so you have. In the bottom corner, you have the ax on the. On the wood, you have the angels. In the top, you have God and Christ are not quite next to each other because in some accounts they appear separately. They appear at different times. And then in one corner you have. It looks like. It looks like a figure with a black. Or a black and red cape almost. This is, I think, a depiction of the devil. And then it's daylight outside. And so, like. So, like, there's different things he's just showing. Like, this is a bunch of different accounts mixed into one. And then the fire, of course, because there's some where he says he thought the leaves would catch fire. And then the other ones, they call it a pillar of light. And so it's just a very different image than what we're used to seeing.

Nemo [00:42:51] Yeah. 1838 account, which is the one that's in the Pearl of great price, very specifically, says a pillar of light descended.

Julia [00:42:57] Right.

Nemo [00:42:57] You know, brighter than noonday sun, all that sort of thing. That's where we get, oh, how lovely was the morning that him all draws from that account. But the ax, that's a particular detail that I think I wasn't expecting to see.

Julia [00:43:11] Yeah, he. There's a. There's an account where he says he went around and he was looking for a perfect spot in the grove, and he left his ax there to signal, hey, go here and pray. And so that was an interesting addition that Anthony Sweat added and I guess is it.

John Dehlin [00:43:26] Should we give credit where credit is due and say even though we're. We wanted to make sure and acknowledge that the church, number one, has deceived people and number Two was forced to do this sort of thing. I mean, I guess it's good that at some point they're starting to try and be more honest. So can we. Can we at least say, good job, Church, Good job, Anthony Sweatt, for trying to advance history more. Nemo.

Nemo [00:43:51] I would say yes and no, because what this image does is it acknowledges or tries to draw in all the different ones. But because it's a singular image, it still gives the impression that this is the scene as it appeared. What this is, this is an attempt to take all those accounts and make them all work together. And it fails to acknowledge the underlying contradictions between those accounts, that is, how many people were there? Because in some of them, those angelic hosts weren't there. And some. So, so what this is saying is, oh, well, there's one. Yeah, there's one that says there was angelic hosts there, therefore Joseph just neglected to mention it in all the others, and they were just clearly there all along. Similarly, oh, well, we only have one account that says it was only one person, so it probably was always the two. So we're going to ignore that. So. So yes and no. There is credit to them trying to. But like with many things the Church tries to do, they'll react, but they'll still try and control to an extent. And so they're still trying to control and say, look here. Here's one image that makes it all work together. It takes all the elements that are different and makes them all work together. But that doesn't square the contradictions.

Julia [00:45:03] Right.

John Dehlin [00:45:04] All right. So, no, not a lot of brownie points from Nemo. What about you, Julie? Any brownie points?

Julia [00:45:10] No, I would say the same thing because he's trying to. That's what a lot of apologists do do is they're saying, oh, you know, it's, you know, it'd be. It would be suspicious of all the accounts were similar or they all, you know, you know, went along with each other, but they actually actively contradict each other and they contradict the historical. The historical record throughout. And so, like, they're just. He's just trying to make it work. He's like, it's okay if they're different. It's okay if they're contradictory. They still fit into this image. And so I don't. I don't know if I'd give a lot of credit. Like, it's a beautiful image. It's a great. It's a great painting. I just don't think it's. I wouldn't give It. Brownie points.

John Dehlin [00:45:42] Okay. All right, all right. So that's the first one. But I mean, I guess Brownie points

Nemo [00:45:47] to Anthony Sweat for trying to paint the things that haven't been previously painted. Like, I will. Yeah, I give you that.

Julia [00:45:54] I can give him that.

John Dehlin [00:45:55] That's what I mean.

Julia [00:45:56] Oh, that's. This whole episode really is good on you. Brownie points for depicting these things that haven't been depicted. They should have been depicted a long time ago, but.

Nemo [00:46:05] And with this particular one, I take exception with the way he's depicted it because it seems a bit deceptive to try and imply that they can all work together in image.

Julia [00:46:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:13] And again, I'm going to remind you all listening on Spotify that you can actually switch and see these images in Spotify.

Nemo [00:46:21] This is an image heavy episode. You're going to want to do that.

Julia [00:46:25] Yeah. So I just want. I just wanted to throw this one in there too, because this is another depiction that Anthony Sweatt has done. It is called a column of light, and it is vastly different than the one he. Than the one we just saw. He's in the Josephson. It looks like he's maybe in the forest. It's kind of dark around him, but then there's light that's like raining down on him. It's a really beautiful picture. It's just very different than what his last image was.

John Dehlin [00:46:47] Okay, but that's still pretty compatible with the traditional 1838.

Nemo [00:46:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It's even the traditional pose, the lean back, right?

Julia [00:46:59] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:00] The Brandon Flowers pose from his music video.

Julia [00:47:05] Oh, I need to watch that.

Nemo [00:47:06] Which he knew what he was doing.

Julia [00:47:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] Okay, what's this next slide?

Julia [00:47:12] Okay, so this is comparing the CS letter with what Anthony Sweatt is doing. Nemo, do you want to pick one and I can read the other one?

Speaker E [00:47:17] Sure.

Nemo [00:47:18] I'll take Jeremy Runnels.

Julia [00:47:19] Okay.

Nemo [00:47:20] I did not know there are multiple first vision accounts. I did not know of their contradictions or that the church members did not know about the first vision until 12 to 22 years after it supposedly happened. I was unaware of these omissions in the mission field. I was never taught or trained in the missionary training center to teach investigators these facts. Yeah, sorry, just real quick. That is the state of the church at the time that Jeremy was writing this. And the problem that CSS is facing now is like the stick of Joseph lads when they come on John's episode and they're like, yeah, well, we know about this stuff, like. And again, this is a broader Theme this episode. They only know about it because people like Jeremy have forced people like Anthony to paint things and talk about it. The church has been forced into talking

John Dehlin [00:48:04] about it and Jeremy was excommunicated for producing the ces.

Nemo [00:48:08] But. But Jeremy's coming from a perspective that resonates with people of that time, which was, yeah, we weren't told about these things. We didn't know about these things. They weren't overtly there as part of the church's history. If they're becoming more common now, great. But what people like the stick of Joseph lads needs to need to acknowledge that they exist in a different time. They grew up through the church in a different time. And as a residents of these things

John Dehlin [00:48:32] and as a resident old guy is the resident old guy, as Nemo likes to call me on this episode. I'm 55. In all my years in the church, sixth generation Mormon, no one ever in church ever talked to me about the multiple versions of the first vision. And I didn't learn about this until my late 20s, early 30s, reading these books like, you know, Fawn Brody and Grant Palmer. That's how I learned about it for the first time.

Julia [00:48:57] Yep. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:58] Did you want to talk about the right side, Julia?

Julia [00:49:00] Yeah, yeah. So this, so this is kind of reiterating what I've already said. So in one painting, Anthony Sweatt is combining the first vision accounts to make them into one harmonious scene. He acknowledges and depicts the differences. Satan being cast out, many angels, that Jesus appeared at a different time than God the Father, etc. And then in another painting, Anthony Sweat, to pick something totally different.

John Dehlin [00:49:20] Yeah, yeah, got it.

Nemo [00:49:23] So he's at least adding in the extra. I think what I would say there, rather than saying he kind of acknowledges and depicts the differences, I would say it's more that he brings in the extra details from the other accounts and tries to add them to the 38 account to harmonize them, as we say.

Julia [00:49:37] That's true. Yeah.

Church Transparency and the First Vision

John Dehlin [00:49:40] All right, we've got a little video here. Do you want to tell us what this is going to be, Julia?

Julia [00:49:45] Yeah. So they're talking about the. This idea that the first vision, these different accounts have been hidden from the church.

John Dehlin [00:49:51] And so who are these people?

Julia [00:49:53] So it's, it's Elder Oaks talking with Elder Ballard and they're doing. I think it's a face to face with these teenagers. And so they're talking about this, this idea that. Oh, that we've been hiding the first vision.

John Dehlin [00:50:03] So. And while Elder, Elder Ballard passed away recently. But, but at the time, Oaks and Ballard were two of the top, what, three or four ranking Mormons in the world? Basically, yes.

Nemo [00:50:14] And Oaks is now the next in line to be the prophet.

John Dehlin [00:50:17] Yeah. All right, let's play the clip.

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 [00:50:21] Some are saying that the Church has been hiding the fact that there is more than one version of the first vision, which is just not true. The facts are we don't study. We don't go back and search what has been said on the subject. For example, Dr. James B. Allen of the BYU, in 1970, he produced an article for the Church magazines explaining all about the different versions of the first vision.

Video Clip 1 [00:51:01] How long ago Was that article?

Video Clip 1 [00:51:03] 1970. That was back in 1970. So.

Video Clip 1 [00:51:06] Been hiding that for a long time.

Video Clip 1 [00:51:08] Yeah, but this idea that the Church is hiding something, which we would have to say as two apostles who have covered the world and know the history of the Church and know the integrity of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the twelve, from the beginning of time, there has been no attempt on the part in any way of the Church leaders trying to hide anything from anybody. Now we've had the Joseph Smith Papers. We didn't have those where they were in our hands now under. And so we're learning more about the Prophet Joseph. It's wonderful. We are. There's volumes of it. There's so much of. In those books now in my bookshelf. Maybe you've read them all, but I haven't got. I'm a slow reader much. So just trust us wherever you are in the world and you share this message with anyone else who raises the question about the Church not being transparent. We're as transparent as we know how to be. And telling the truth, we have to do that. That's the Lord's way.

John Dehlin [00:52:23] Now, Nemo and Julia, you're both snickering throughout this entire episode. Why are y' all snickering like just Devil's Advocate? You can find an inside article here or there over the past 30 or 40 years where they mentioned the Stone in the hat, for example. So why is that not valid, that they've never hidden anything and that they've been talking about this openly forever?

Nemo [00:52:49] This is the Church library app, right? You go to the enzyme. The earliest Ensign you can access through the Church's own website or Library is 1971. So you've got to go to a separate website. You've got to go to arXiv.org to find the. The 1970 Ensign article that he's talking about, because for some reason, the Church doesn't have on its website readily accessible all of its old magazines. So there's a point. If they're trying to be fully transparent, then why is that magazine not available on the church's website? Now, I have personal experience with Dallin H. Oaks and his lack of transparency and his dishonesty. So, I mean, that video always, you know, strikes me. But when he says, oh, we've been hiding that for a long time, it's like, well, yeah, but it's not on your website. It's not readily accessible to people. So, yes, there has been articles. And I think this is where you have to take a broader view and recognize that just because someone talks about something one time doesn't mean that it was part of the dominant narrative. Doesn't mean that it was what was taught in the classrooms every day. Uh, you know, it. It's. It's not that it was part of the narrative that people grew up with. It's that one person, as a curio, went, oh, did you know there was, like, more than one account? And it was like, oh, okay, cool. And that's it.

Julia [00:54:06] Well, and then additionally, like, you have. You've told the story many times in Mormon stories where Joseph. I think it's Joseph F. Smith, where he takes. He rips the 1832 account. Fielding, fielding, Fielding, Fielding. Okay, Joseph feeling. Where he rips the 1832 account out of the. Out of the letter book and he puts it in his vault. And then it wasn't until the Tanners said that they're like, hey, can we see this? That they. That he put it back in. And it's been taped in. And you can see the images. You can see that it's been torn and taped. And, like. So we're as honest as we know how to be. Well, it looks like you don't know how to be very honest if you're going to take some pages out and hide them. And so, like, yeah, I just have a hard time with that.

Nemo [00:54:40] Can I read that quote you sent in the. In the private chat?

Julia [00:54:42] Is that.

Nemo [00:54:42] Okay, that's the galaxy. Yeah.

Julia [00:54:44] This is one of my favorite quotes from Hitchhiker's Guide. It's one of my favorite books. And this. This always comes to my mind when thinking about the first vision.

Nemo [00:54:50] All right, yeah, I'll read that. So. But the plans were on display. On display. I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them. That's the display department with a flashlight.

Speaker E [00:55:00] Ah.

Nemo [00:55:01] Well, the lights had probably gone, so with the stairs. But look, you found the Notice, didn't you? Yes, said Arthur. Yes, I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck to a. Stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, beware of the leopard.

Julia [00:55:18] I just laugh because, like, it's just hard. The church makes it hard to find. Things. Like, even the gospel topic essays, I think, are a little bit harder to find. Like, I just. It's just.

Nemo [00:55:27] Well, that Ensign article is plausible deniability. You publish one article and you say, look, see, we've talked about it. But there's a difference between there being, like I said, one article. There's a difference between something being on prominent display and something being through all those layers, which you have to get through. Right, Exactly. And it's the same with this. There's a difference between someone talking about it one time in a church magazine like it's some sort of curio, and it actually becoming part of the narrative that people are taught about the history of the Church.

Julia [00:55:55] Right.

John Dehlin [00:55:55] Yeah. They know how to be honest. And the way to be honest would be to fix the art. To show accurate visual representations of the translation of the first vision to. In a ces, you know, seminary and institute curriculum and. And in the Sunday school curriculum, to teach about the multiple versions of the first vision. To teach about the real translation process, to teach about the Masonic influences in the temple ceremony, to teach about polygamy and polyandry, because they've known about that stuff for a couple centuries. So, yeah, it's an outrageous double lie and deception for them to both lie and hide things, excommunicate people that talk about them and. And then to claim they've always been open and honest and transparent. It's kind of gross. And I think that's why y' all were snickering, because it's just outrageously ridiculous. Why did they excommunicate Jeremy Reynolds? Why did they excommunicate me? Why did they excommunicate Simon Southerton for discovering the DNA problems in the Book of Mormon? Why did they excommunicate, you know, Bill Real. It's. It's because they want to label as apostates the truth tellers so that no one will pay attention to anything that they have to say that's truthful about the Church's history and his truth clips.

Nemo [00:57:16] Yeah.

Seer Stones and the Translation Process

John Dehlin [00:57:17] All right, what's this next image, Julia?

Julia [00:57:20] Okay, so this one is. I don't know. I don't know if I ever knew how to say it. Gazellem. Because. How do you say this?

John Dehlin [00:57:25] Maybe Gazilam I don't know Gazellem, but this is a painting by Anthony Sweatty Sweatt.

Julia [00:57:29] So it's Gazellem, a stone. And so Joseph is helping dig Willard Chase's well. And while he's digging, he's finding. He finds this, like, tiger's eye. It's like this brown and black stone. And he's here, he's reaching for it to pick it up. And so that's something I've never seen depicted in the church, in any of the church's artwork.

John Dehlin [00:57:47] And how does this, how does this connect. Connect the dots? How does this connect to controversial church history?

Julia [00:57:53] So if you skip to the next one, I think I give a little historical background. Okay, so should we read this account? This is from. So this is from. In 1833, Willard Chase gave his affidavit that was then published in Ed Howe's book Mormonism Unveiled. And this is a quote from the book. In the year of 1822, I was engaged in digging a well. I employed Alvin and Joseph Smith to assist me, the latter of whom is now known as the Mormon Prophet. After digging about 20ft below the surface of the earth, we discovered a singularly appearing stone, which excited my curiosity. It's a very pretty stone, by the way. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we were examining it, Joseph put it into his hat and then his face into the top of his hat. It has been said by Smith that he brought the stone from the well, but this is false. There was no one in the well but myself. The next morning he came to me and wished to obtain the stone, alleging that he could see in it. But I told him I did not wish to part with it on account of it being a curiosity, but would lend it. After obtaining the stone, he began to publish abroad that what. That what wonders he would discover by looking into it and made so much disturbance among the credulous part of the community that I order the stone to be returned to me again. And so this is. This is Willard Chase's version of it. He said, you know, Joseph didn't find the stone. It was mine. Joseph used, you know, could see things in the stone and he wanted to borrow it. He never gave it back. But yeah, this is sort of controversial because we've never. The church doesn't depict this. The church tries to leave the treasure digging out of it, tries to leave all this magic worldview things out. And so the stone is a very. Seems like a very recent thing as far as the church. Like, I, I remember I was an active member of the church. Whenever they published, I think, in the ensign, the pictures of these stones or the images of images of the stone, if that makes sense. And I was shocked. I was like, I, first of all, like, I'd known about the stone, but I didn't know the church had it because I feel like that's a totally different thing. Because if the church is run by prophets, seers and revelators, and they have a seer stone that, you know, they use to translate the Book of Mormon, why. Why are they not using it? Why do they have it? What is it used for? I don't know. It was just. It was. It really shook me.

Nemo [00:59:57] And then I'm not surprised that they hid it, because the best they could come up with when they were talking about it was Dieter Foot off saying, well, it's kind of like my iPhone, you know, I can look at my iPhone and see things and the stones like that. So they realized again, I think, just like with Putting the Head in the Hat, they realized that this thing looks difficult. It, you know, to the credulous members of the church who, who have been taught that you can't play with face cards because they're too much like tarot cards, because it's too much like witchcraft and magic and things. The occult that we're meant to stay away from. All of a sudden you've got this object of the occult, a seer stone that Joseph Smith's meant to have had. And the church is, like you said, kept hold of for all these years. So they clearly value it as an artifact. They clearly value its position. Otherwise they would just got rid of it. They wouldn't let Community of Christ have it or whatever, you know, but they've clearly held onto it for a reason.

John Dehlin [01:00:50] The one thing I want to add that I think gets forgotten in a lot of this conversation is that originally it wasn't Joseph that necessarily had the secret special powers. It was the stone. Joseph didn't start out by telling everybody he had the powers of being a seer, per se. And so the whole reason why Chase has been out of shape, Willard Chase has been out of shape, you know, and he's, you know, the story he's telling, the affidavit is he thinks that stone is magical and he wants it back because he thinks that it's a magical stone. And you have to ask yourself, if you're a believing Mormon, do you believe that stones are magical? Because that's certainly what Joseph believed at the time, and that's Certainly what Willard Chase believed at the time. And that's why Willard Chase wanted the stone back. And that's why the Church would have kept it for so long. Otherwise, why is it even valuable or useful? But then if you're right, okay, yeah, stones can be magical. Then you have to ask yourself, well, then why doesn't Russell M. Nelson or Dalliny Jokes whip out that stone and give us more Revelations? Because they have it and they certainly could use it if it was magical. And that's all part of the reasons why the Church is hid. The Church hid this stone and hid the translation process for so long because it was connected to those days where Joseph Smith was a treasure digger, breaking the law, you know, employing fakely, fraudulently employing folk magic to fool people. Because obviously stones don't have power. And if the stone doesn't have any power, then what was going on? It had to have been Joseph was lying to people, saying that he could see treasure in the earth when he clearly couldn't.

Nemo [01:02:43] And that speaks to the broader question, doesn't it, of why Revelation seemed to drop off a cliff within the Church at the death of Joseph Smith. Why Doctrine and Covenants all of a sudden gets very, very quiet once Joseph Smith dies. There's a few sections added afterwards and there's a couple of official declarations, but just we went from new sections of the Doctrine Covenants to, okay, we'll just call these official declarations. And now we've got like, oh, well, we've got the family Proclamation, which we still haven't put in the standard works. And Danish Oakes is desperately trying to get it canonized as Scripture, but he won't. The train has slowed massively. And the revelation of this stone again to John's would ask the question, well, why aren't they using it? Because if it worked for Joseph, why do we not need it now?

John Dehlin [01:03:29] Yeah, couldn't. Wouldn't it be great to have revelation on LGBT issues, on women or.

Julia [01:03:35] Or even something just as simple as. So that there's so many languages, there's thousands of languages that people speak. The Book of Mormon has only been been published in like 200 of them. So like, even if you just publish the Book of Mormon in different languages, like just have it do the same thing that it did for Joseph.

John Dehlin [01:03:49] But I dead languages that we don't

Julia [01:03:51] even know anymore, not even just Revelation, but just, you know, putting. Making the Book of Mormon more accessible, like if they can't even do that,

John Dehlin [01:03:58] or Covid letting us know ahead of time that covet was coming.

Nemo [01:04:05] Quinton L. Cook saying on the church's podcast, the Church News podcast, that we didn't know there was going to be a pandemic. He admitted that on the church would

John Dehlin [01:04:14] have told him if they had been using it.

Nemo [01:04:15] Right.

John Dehlin [01:04:17] Okay, so to then sort of show Anthony Sweatt validating the CES letter, we have the next slide.

Nemo [01:04:24] Again, I'll take Jeremy. That the gold plates that ancient prophets went through all that time and effort of making, engraving, compiling, abridging, preserving, hiding, and transporting, only for Joseph to translate instead using just a rock in a hat. A rock he found digging his Neighbor's property in 1822 and. And which he later used for treasure hunting.

Julia [01:04:47] Yeah, that's a. That's a big thing for me too, because like the, you know, in the Book of Mormon, they talk about how hard it was to preserve these plates, how big they were, how heavy they must have been, and yet Joseph doesn't even. Oh. And how long they were waiting. And the angel came and said, this is a very important. Don't tell anybody. Bring only a certain person to help you retrieve them. And then Joseph doesn't use the plates. He just uses the rock and a hat. So that's wild. But so on the. On the flip side with Anthony Swe, we've kind of already talked about this, but he painted Joseph Smith finding his brown seer stone while digging a well for Willard Chase. As an artist, he is also very aware of how under depicted Joseph Smith's seer stone has been, especially in the translation process. And he talks about that too. Just. It's just not in the church's artwork at all.

John Dehlin [01:05:30] I really do think the Mormon Church owes its membership in the world an apology for deceiving people about the translation process for so, so long. And. But. And they're also still doing it. You know what I mean? So it is an active. Because you'll see that painting in church chapels today. You'll still find the false translation, you know, images in church curriculum. So it's an active, active deception. Not only have they been deceptive in the past, they're still being deceptive.

Julia [01:06:05] Very much so.

John Dehlin [01:06:06] Yeah.

Julia [01:06:07] Yeah.

Joseph Smith's Treasure Seeking and Legal Troubles

John Dehlin [01:06:08] Okay, what's the next painting we have?

Julia [01:06:10] Okay, so this one is called the Harmony Treasure Searcher by Anthony Sweatt. And I've never seen this depicted in church history. I think it's fascinating. You've got Joseph Smith, you've got a lot of characters in the woods. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 characters. And then you have Joseph separate, and everyone else is holding a shovel But Joseph is not. He's just holding his brown seer stone and he's just kind of talking to one of the men. And so I just think this is so interesting because Joseph was not actually the church. And some of the depictions, you'll see him like holding a shovel as he's walking by and Emma's looking at him like Joseph wasn't actually. Joseph did not actually dig. Joseph was not a digger. All he did was he put the stone in a hat and he would tell people where to dig. And so I thought that was really interesting that Anthony Sweatt is very specifically painting this, this person of Joseph.

John Dehlin [01:06:53] And this is, this is significant because it was illegal to be a treasure digger. It was literally illegal. Oh, you have another, have another slide conviction.

Julia [01:07:01] Yeah.

Julia [01:07:01] Like the history. Yeah. John, do you want to read this one?

John Dehlin [01:07:05] Okay, sure. So this, this slide says the Harmony Treasure Searcher on November 1, 1825, quote, articles of agreement, close quote, were signed by nine men. Isaac Hale, that's Emma's dad, David Hale P. Newton, Charles A. Newton, Joseph Smith Senior, Isaiah stole, Calvin stole, Joseph Smith Jr. And William I. Wiley. The agreement was that quote, if anything of value should be obtained at a certain place in Pennsylvania near a William Hales supposed to be valuable mine of either gold or silver to have it divided, Joseph Smith Senior, Angel Smith Jr. Shall be considered as having 2 shares, 2/11 of the property the that may be obtained, the shares be taken equally from each third. Why is that significant? Julie?

Julia [01:07:59] I just was explaining, this is just an explanation of the painting. So they're, so they're saying we don't know. Like they're very certain that they're going to find something using the seer stone, the stone and hat. And so much so that they write up an agreement, this articles of agreement in 1825 and they break it down. They break down. You get this amount, you get this amount and Joseph and his dad are going to share this amount. And they're just so sure that they're going to find something. And I just think that's so interesting historically like that they're, they're very steeped into this treasure digging lore or concept.

John Dehlin [01:08:28] Now to be fair, does that mean they really believed that the Joseph and Joseph, Joseph Jr. And senior both believed they were, had powers and were going to find something? Or could that have just been a way to formalize a fraud and to make everyone feel like you were sincere when you really knew you were defrauding people?

Julia [01:08:49] Why are you asking if I think Joseph and Senior and Junior believed it.

John Dehlin [01:08:53] Like some would say that the existence of that agreement would at least show that Joseph Smith, Jr. And senior were optimistic that they would find something else. Why would they bother writing up an agreement?

Julia [01:09:07] I think that's a.

John Dehlin [01:09:07] Really believed he had powers even if he didn't really have them. That's one theory.

Julia [01:09:14] But then you have stories of like Joseph, where this man is saying the conversation between Joseph and Isaac where Joseph says, I've never seen anything in the stone. So. But then you have other chance, other times where you think that Joseph really maybe does believe it. Like later he goes to. He goes to someplace and it's in the Doctrine Covenants. Is it Salmon? Where does he go? He goes somewhere to go to find buried treasure as a prophet of the church. And so, like, I don't know, you could see it either way. Like, maybe he does believe, maybe he's not quite sure.

John Dehlin [01:09:39] Doesn't he go to Salem to try it? Was Salem, Salem, Massachusetts, to find some treasure in a basement somewhere kind of thing?

Julia [01:09:46] Yes. Yeah, I forgot about that one. I forgot the name. Yeah. Salem.

John Dehlin [01:09:49] What, what do you think, Nemo? Do you think that, you know, this suggests Joseph was a sincere believer in his powers?

Nemo [01:09:59] Maybe. I think he was. He was a believer in the possibility of it, but then equally he was getting paid and would get paid if the treasure was found or not with certain arrangements. Right. So there is a. There is something to be said there for someone that knows that they're not going to find anything, but he's still gonna get some money out of it anyway. So it's very hard to tell. I think I. I don't think we can know for certain one way or another. I think more broadly, he is embroiled in the magical worldview. We understand that. And he, he does believe in these things some more broadly. But whether he believes he will actually see things and find things, I don't know. It's really hard to tell.

John Dehlin [01:10:45] To answer my own question, I don't think it means anything because obviously if someone, if someone's going to pay all this money Josiah stole, is going to pay all this money to do a silver mine excavation, he's going to want a legal agreement ahead of time as to who gets what because he's footing the bill. And then if Joseph and Joseph Jr. And Senior don't ask for some of it, it's gonna look sketchy that they're just like giving it all, all the wealth to somebody else. So I don't think it means anything. But I just thought I'D ask the question anyway.

Nemo [01:11:17] And there is always the possibility that they would find something, whether with magical powers or not. There's always the possibility that they do stumble across something that's true.

John Dehlin [01:11:28] But the main point is that this is kind of important because it's a BYU professor, religion professor, acknowledging what the Church fought to deny, including with Hugh Nibley and others. B.H. roberts, Hugh Nibley, Joseph Fielding Smith. You'll read books published by the Church for decades saying Joseph was not a treasure digger. Those are lies for a long, long time. In fact, I think even Hugh Nibley said if the treasure digging story was true, it would be one of the most damning things that could ever be uncovered about Joseph Smith.

Nemo [01:12:05] Even as recently as around 2010, you have Jeffrey R. Holland denying it to John Sweeney in a BBC interview and then going, there's a great deal of. Of difficulty in the life of the American frontier or.

Julia [01:12:19] Or.

Nemo [01:12:20] And then says, essentially. But it has no bearing on the character of the man being like, it doesn't really matter whether he was convicted for treasure digging or not. So, yeah, they're still trying to deny it as recently as the 2010s.

John Dehlin [01:12:33] Yeah. To tie it back to the CES letter.

Julia [01:12:37] Yeah. So I'll read this one. Joseph was hired by folks like Joseph.

John Dehlin [01:12:41] This is Jeremy writing.

Julia [01:12:42] Oh, yeah, sorry. This is directly from the CES letter. Joseph was hired by folks like Josiah Stole, who Joseph mentions in his history. In 1826, Joseph was arrested and brought to court in Bainbridge, New York, on the complaint of Stowell's nephew, who accused Joseph of being a disorderly person and an imposter.

John Dehlin [01:13:00] Because believe what you want about the power of the stone in Joseph, he was engaging in illegal activity according to the laws of New York and Pennsylvania. And he ends up in several trials or courts for his cripes, full stop. Right.

Julia [01:13:17] Yeah.

Nemo [01:13:18] And this is the 1826 arrest and court that. That John Sweeney brought to Jeffrey O' Holland and said, no, 1826, this happened. And Holland tried to say he didn't know anything about it and then tried to get out of it.

Julia [01:13:32] Wow.

John Dehlin [01:13:33] Did you want to say, Julie, anything about the right side?

Julia [01:13:36] I've already said it, but Anthony Sweat's depiction of Joseph is of. Is of Joseph standing, holding only his seer stone. He is deliberately showing Joseph not as a treasure digger, but as a treasure seer. I just also think that's very interesting.

John Dehlin [01:13:47] So he's always picking. Anthony Sweat's always picking the most favorable way to depict a problematic story.

Nemo [01:13:56] It's like Going. Yeah. He didn't hand the shovel himself, though, did he? He was just telling people where to dig, you know what I'm saying?

John Dehlin [01:14:03] He's not. He doesn't have his head in a hat while they're digging treasure, right?

Julia [01:14:06] Yeah, yeah, you're right. He doesn't show that. And also, these were. These excursions always happen in the middle of the night. They would do some kind of enchantment and the nighttime was the best time to do it. So that's not depictive.

John Dehlin [01:14:16] Sometimes they'd, like, kill a chicken or a dog. Like.

Julia [01:14:21] Yeah, they put stakes in the ground. Yeah, there's a lot. D. Michael Quinn, his book Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview. He goes into a lot of details on that. It's. It's amazing the things that you'll learn. Like even Joseph getting the plates the first time he had to dress all in black and ride a black horse and go in the middle of the night and it's just the whole thing. But, yeah, so Anthony Sweat, he. He's not quite. He's not quite historically accurate because it's, you know, it's daylight. He's not. There's no hat or. I mean, he's got one on his head, but he's not looking at it in the hat. So it's. He's trying to spin it favorably, like you said.

Nemo [01:14:51] And he does have the stone in his hand.

Julia [01:14:53] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:14:55] Isn't it weird how they all like white shirts? Like, do you dig in a. Do you dig in, like a white vest or white shirts? And maybe you do. I don't know.

Julia [01:15:04] Joseph looks pretty fancy with his little vest on.

Julia [01:15:08] Anyway.

John Dehlin [01:15:09] Okay, well, another, like CES letter three, you know.

Julia [01:15:14] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:15] Three to nothing. Apologies. Zero.

Julia [01:15:18] This is a picture that. I think these are really interesting. I saw these as members of the church. So you have two stones here that Anthony Sweatt has painted. One is just the white stone and the other one is the brown stone. Joseph, I think, had as many as five or more seer stones. Some of them were like Native American type stones. The little hole in the middle. But these ones are just really interesting. I don't know where. I don't. I don't know for sure if this church has the white one, but I know they definitely have the brown one. Anyway, just. I don't see these depicted ever like this. And so, like, very good of Anthony to at least paint them to show us what they. What they look like.

John Dehlin [01:15:52] And again, the church hid these from the membership for a couple hundred years and just released Them around the time that the Gospel Topics essays and the CES letter came out after Mormon Stories and Mormon Think, and Grant Palmer and Fawn Brody and Sandra Tanner, you know, made noise about this. You know.

Julia [01:16:13] Right.

John Dehlin [01:16:14] Okay, what's this next one, Julia?

Julia [01:16:18] Okay, so the image on the left is called the Gift and Power of God. And I think.

John Dehlin [01:16:21] Is there Anthony Sweatt?

Julia [01:16:22] Yes, these are both Anthony Sweatt.

John Dehlin [01:16:24] Okay.

Julia [01:16:24] And then I think these were painted in 2014. Again, if somebody has a different date, please tell me. And then the one below is called Translating with Oliver, and he's. Yeah, both by Anthony Sweatt. And so these are just images we don't see at all, really. And then he's just like. But even so. So he's not quite putting his face in the hat. One of them, the one on the one below, you don't see the plates at all, which I think is interesting. And then the other one on the right, you can see. Or the. On the table, you can see the plates are kind of covered.

Nemo [01:16:51] Can I make a point? A couple of points there. First, it looks like it says sweat. And then 2014 maybe on his signature. So it might be worth zooming in, looking at his signature and seeing if

Julia [01:17:04] that date to when he does. It does look like 2014. Yeah.

Nemo [01:17:07] But it could be 2019. So it's worth just having a look at that. And then the other thing is, I wonder, to be kind to Anthony Sweatt here, you know, to try and be balanced, whether when it comes to a painting, you want a recognizable figure to make it engaging. And I wonder whether that's one of the reasons he doesn't put the face all the way in the hat.

Julia [01:17:31] Oh, I got you. I see what you mean.

Nemo [01:17:32] So that you can see that that's Joseph Smith still. Because someone with their head in the hat might be more difficult to draw. Might be a bit less engaging. Just trying to be balanced. It is progress, definitely, that he's showing that he's looking into the hat. But then there is the other side of it, where it could just also be embarrassment and not wanting to show it in full.

Julia [01:17:53] That's true, I think. I think even more interesting. Just as I just said, like, the absence of the plates in one of the images is very interesting to me.

John Dehlin [01:18:03] But also that makes the left image somewhat deceptive because I don't know of any account where Joseph's looking into a hat and the plates are still in the room. My understanding is all the accounts where Joseph's looking into the hat with the stone in it the plates aren't anywhere in the room. So this. That left one feels still deceptive to me, even though it's a step forward. Is that fair or not fair?

Julia [01:18:28] I think that's fair because he's getting there to a point, and then. Yeah, trying to, like you said, favorable. Trying to make it the most favorable image.

John Dehlin [01:18:38] Okay.

Julia [01:18:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:18:40] All right, well, so here. Oh, what is this, Julia?

Julia [01:18:44] So this is a presentation that he gave. It's the history and art meditating, the rocky relationship with Anthony Sweatt. And he's bringing up. He's talking about a concern that a student has concerning the Seer Stone. And this is how he kind of answers the question. And I just thought it was interesting enough to put it in here.

John Dehlin [01:18:58] So now we're hearing from the man himself.

Julia [01:19:00] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:19:00] All right, let's roll.

Speaker E [01:19:05] This happens in our teaching of church history and doctrine. One day when I was wrapping up a class at byu, a student came to me afterward after we had looked at historical sources on the translation of the Book of Mormon. And this sweet student came up to me and expressed her difficulty and then sent me an email about it. And she said, quote, when she learned about the stone in the hat, she dismissed it and said to herself, quote, no, that can't be true. That's not what the illustrations of the translation look like. This time in my life turned out to be a huge trial of my faith. So I'm showing you these to show how art alters our understanding of doctrine, our understanding of history, and can even turn problematic for some people based on our depictions that we show.

Nemo [01:19:57] Right. I have things to say about that.

John Dehlin [01:20:00] All right.

Nemo [01:20:00] I was so on board with him until that last sentence, right?

John Dehlin [01:20:05] What's wrong, Nemo?

Nemo [01:20:07] Because

Julia [01:20:09] he.

Nemo [01:20:09] In that last sentence, he puts all the blame on the people looking at the art. He's like, oh, it can show how our. Alters our perception and causes us, you know, and can be problematic for us. It's like, we're not the problem here. The issue, what he should be saying is this shows how when art isn't produced accurately or when the church doesn't produce art that accurately depends. Depicts things, then that can cause problems for people. It's subtle, but I certainly. The way I heard that last sentence was him saying, the people are still the problem because the people saw the art and that altered their perception, and they should have almost, like, known better or whatever. Maybe I'm being oversensitive there. And people tell me in the comments if that's an unfair comment, but that's how it felt to me was he was trying to blame the people, not the fact that church didn't produce appropriate artwork.

Julia [01:21:03] Yeah, I was. When I was listening to him, I was thinking like, oh, any. Anyone who's left the church or who's looking at this critically could say those same words to the church itself, saying, you're. You're the ones who are commissioning these artists, and you're the ones who are shaping doctrine by showing incorrect depictions of. Of the translation process or anything, really.

Nemo [01:21:19] So, yeah, because I was so on board of him to that point, because I thought he was starting to make a very good point about how artwork does shape our understanding of Scripture. Just like I did a video recently where people were coming after me saying, oh, you've, you know, you've linked together scriptures that don't go together. I said, well, no, the church's footnotes link those scriptures together, and footnotes are there to help us understand what scriptures are saying. So, absolutely, if the footnotes say something, that's what the church wants you to understand by the scripture that you're reading. And it's the same with the artwork. If that's the artwork they put in front of you, that's what they want you to understand by right to be the case.

John Dehlin [01:21:58] All right, so again, it looks like it's CES Letter four. Critics of the CES Letter zero. Do we want to read what Jeremy said in the CES Letter?

Nemo [01:22:08] Yeah, I'll take Jeremy.

John Dehlin [01:22:09] Go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo [01:22:10] Unlike the story I've been taught, Joseph Smith used a rock in a hat for translating the Book of Mormon. He put a rock called a peep stone in his hat and put his face in the hat to tell his customers the location of buried treasure on their property. He also used this same method for translating the Book of Mormon. While the gold plates were covered, placed in another room, or even buried in the woods, the gold plates were not used for the Book of Mormon we have today.

John Dehlin [01:22:38] Jeremy's got it. Right. So what do you have there for Anthony on the right?

Julia [01:22:42] I'm actually. Can you read this one, John?

John Dehlin [01:22:44] Okay, so this is. Is this Anthony Sweatt himself?

Julia [01:22:47] Yeah, this is From Darkness unto Light and the book. The book is by McKay and Dirkmaat, who are over the Joseph Smith papers, I believe. And so, yeah, this is Anthony Sweat. They're quoting him, I think, in the. In the book itself.

John Dehlin [01:22:58] Okay, so Anthony Sweatt himself says, at least twice I have been approached by the church to do that scene Joseph translating using the hat. So that shows the church is asking him to do it. I get into it when I do the drawings. I think this is going to look really strange to people culturally. From our vantage point 200 years later, it just looks odd. It probably won't communicate what the Church wants to communicate. Instead of a person being inspired to translate ancient records, it will just be what's going on there. Some things just don't work visually. Tell me about it.

Julia [01:23:40] Yeah, I liked this quote and I think, like he's saying, oh, from 200 years, the vantage point 200 years, it just looks, it just looks a little weird.

Nemo [01:23:48] Peasantism argument again, isn't it?

Julia [01:23:50] Right.

John Dehlin [01:23:51] It was illegal at the time because it was weird.

Julia [01:23:54] Right. Like, I think people looked at it then and they thought it was odd. Like, it's not just. It's not just everyone in the 1800s thought it was fine. No, no, that's not true. A lot of people thought it was weird and that's why it was published so much. That's. I really think that Joseph will say in his history that people fought against him because of his first vision. And there's no evidence of that at all. There's nothing published negatively about Joseph's first vision. The things that were published negatively were about Joseph Smith and his treasure digging and his seer stone. People thought that was so odd. And so him saying it's presentism, that's not a valid argument.

Nemo [01:24:27] Well, because there were other visions published around the time that Joseph was having his other similar visions were getting published in newspapers. People were talking about it. It wasn't uncommon. So, yeah, it wasn't. Wasn't as weird. I think it's. This is the same argument the Church uses for polygamy. Right. They try and make the argument that, oh, well, people were getting married young back then as well. And it's like, well, there was a reason they kept it secret because it was odd back then. It's not like we're looking back and going, oh, polygamy from our modern sensibilities. No, Polygamy was illegal in the state of Illinois in 1833. Bigamy was, was, was illegal already. So it's not presentism. And it's similar, like you said, it's with the peep stone. Joseph was put on trial in 1826 for doing the thing that the Church doesn't want to depict.

Julia [01:25:14] It's not.

Nemo [01:25:14] It's not. Doesn't look odd to us now. He was on trial for it then.

Julia [01:25:19] It is odd and it was illegal.

Nemo [01:25:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:22] Another. Another thing I want to add. We covered this in A previous LDS discussions episode. And I just want to remind people these LDS discussions episodes are best consumed sequentially because they build on each other. So we do recommend you go back to the very first episode and then watch them in order to get the full effect. But we shared a quote by Benjamin Franklin that comes from like the 1770s, where basically Benjamin Franklin is like, they're these fraudulent hucksters that go around the countryside claiming they can see buried treasure and they claim to have some type of magic artifact where they claim to be able to see in the ground, blah, blah, blah. And it's like literally Benjamin Franklin in like the 1770s, talking about this whole treasure digging thing as a con, as a scam. And he publishes this in a Pennsylvania newspaper, if I'm remembering it correctly. So like even one of our core founding fathers did an expose on the illegality and the fraudulent nature of this treasure digging stuff 60 years before Joseph Smith was. Was doing it.

Nemo [01:26:30] Your core founding fathers, John, bringing me into your Americanisms there.

John Dehlin [01:26:39] Touche, Nemo. Touche. All right, what's this next one, Julia?

Oliver Cowdery, Priesthood, and Race

Julia [01:26:44] So this is something I've never seen depicted or I had never. Oliver. It's called Oliver Cowdery and the Gift of the Rod by Anthony Sweatt. And it's Oliver Cowder. He's in the middle of a field. You'll see like a little forest in the background and it's daylight and. And he's holding a wishbone shaped stick and he's just holding it each side with one hand and it's pointing him and he's walking. And so that's, you know, that's just a very interesting. I don't ever picture that whenever I picture Oliver Cowdery.

Nemo [01:27:09] Well, because this is the gift of the rod, as it was mentioned in scripture. That was later changed to the gift of Aaron. Was it?

Julia [01:27:15] Yeah. If you skip to the next slide, that explains it at all.

Nemo [01:27:17] Yeah. And this, I think goes back to his last point where he made where he said it won't communicate what the Church wants it to communicate. And similarly, this revelation and the changes here would changes again because we almost. We're forced to now accept by all this, this will force us to accept that the Church knows that what it communicates, what it puts out in artwork, what it says to people, it is exactly that. It's communication. They're trying to send a certain message. And you have to change the communications if you want a certain thing to be believed. That's why the pictures of Joseph Smith are all very upright with a Cravat and holding scripture under his arm and big light behind him. Etc, not him stood around on a dig site with people digging for treasure while he directs them. It's not him digging in a well. They don't want that earthy version of Joseph Smith. They didn't want that for years. And this again, is that folksy version of Oliver Cowdery. This folk magic thing that they don't want to communicate. That's why this has never been painted before.

Julia [01:28:20] They like to say that because he was. He was a schoolteacher. They like to tout that. But they don't talk about the. That he was also steeped in the magic worldview.

Speaker E [01:28:27] Yeah.

Julia [01:28:28] And this is depicting that. So sometime during the translation process, Oliver Cowdery inquired of Joseph Smith if he might try to translate a portion of the gold plates. In a revelation given in 1829. Joseph Smith says that Oliver had the gift of working with the sprout, meaning divining rods. Later this was changed to the gift of working with the rod. And then finally it was changed to what we see today, the gift of Aaron. And then I have a little clipping in the corner of the actual paper from the Joseph Smith Papers website where you can see that sprout has been crossed out. And then it says rod over top. And then, of course, it has been changed in our scriptures today to say the gift of Aaron, but there it is.

Nemo [01:29:03] The church has provided the evidence there that that's what it was.

John Dehlin [01:29:07] Yeah, yeah. This is condemning for a couple reasons. One is it's. It's the weird folk magic creepiness stuff, number two, that's been hidden from us. But number three, it refers to, I think, one of our most important LDS discussions episodes where we show how just blatantly Joseph Smith was willing to completely reverse or change or hide actual revelations that were printed in the Book of Commandments of the Doctrine and Covenants. But in a shameless way, if a revelation didn't come true or he wanted to fix or add or alter something, he would literally just reverse the meanings of published scripture to say the opposite of what it originally said or add things to it that weren't there in the original versions. It's kind of shameless what he was willing to do to manufacture or edit or change or add to scripture or revelation. So please make sure and check out that episode, everybody. All right, so is this. I always lose count. Is this 6 to nothing CES letter against its critics?

Julia [01:30:14] I can't remember what it is.

John Dehlin [01:30:15] All right, go ahead and read it. Nemo if Oliver's.

Nemo [01:30:20] If Oliver Cowdery's gift was really the use of a divining rod, and it was, then this tells us that the origins of the church are much more rooted in folk magic and superstition than we've been led to believe by the LDS Church's whitewashing of its original, of its origins and history.

John Dehlin [01:30:36] And that's Jeremy Reynolds in the CES letter talking about Oliver Cowdery and the divining rod. Julia, what do you want to say about the. Right.

Julia [01:30:43] Anthony Sweatt is acknowledging Oliver Cowdery's use of a divining rod. He acknowledges that early on the church was changing its revelations and that the earliest sources say that Oliver had the gift of the rod and the gift of the power, the gift of the sprout. And he talks about this in one of his. His videos that he's done. And I've left the timestamp in the. And the title, if you wanted to go and check. But yeah, he's. He's acknowledging that the church is changing. Joseph Smith was changing the doctrines, the revelations. And, and then he is. His depiction shows that as well, that he really did have, or Oliver Cowder believed he had the rod of the. The gift of the sprout.

John Dehlin [01:31:16] I mean, I know that this is an obvious point. Isn't it outrageous that Jeremy Reynolds was excommunicated for releasing a PDF that tells the same facts as what a BYU faculty member 10 years later can publish on the Internet in paintings and be celebrated for the same type of thing? They got Jeremy Runnels excommunicated 10 years previous.

Nemo [01:31:40] It's all about the spin. It's all about the spin, John. Like, it's like I was told in my excommunication letter. I wasn't excommunicated for raising concerns about the leaders of the church discussing those openly. I was excommunicated because those were persuasive to people and people believed me when I said them. And that wasn't good. It was very much tone policing. Right. It's how you say these things, not what you say.

John Dehlin [01:32:05] I think it's also being the first to say it publicly. You know what I mean? Like Michael Quinn, he started publishing. He was a faithful BYU church employee who still to this day. Well, he passed away recently, but, like, until his dying day, he was a believer in Joseph Smith's divinity. He was a believer in the golden plates. All he did was publish, like, information on post manifesto polygamy, which was, you know, polygamy, ceremonies, officiated, by prophet seers and revelators. After 1890, that happened, and he published that along with the magic world stuff, and he was excommunicated in 1993 as a full believer. Right. So it can be spin, but it even doesn't have to be spinning. I think it can just be talking about factual, truthful stuff. Too early.

Nemo [01:32:57] Well, no, that, that. My point was that the people that don't get excommunicated, the ones that put the appropriate spin on it. Right. They're the ones that try and make it faith promoting still. And they can only do that because they're coming from a position where the early adopter, the person that brought it forward, has been punished for it, but the church has to admit that it's true because they can't hide it anymore.

John Dehlin [01:33:17] Right.

Nemo [01:33:18] So now the people that spin it to make it good for the church and. And can make the church look open and like the church is actually addressing these things, like Anthony Sweat does they get praised for him?

John Dehlin [01:33:28] Got it. Okay.

Julia [01:33:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:31] All right. So the. I went back and counted. It's five to nothing CES letter against his critics. Let's go to the next Anthony Sweatt painting.

Julia [01:33:40] So this painting is called the ordination of Q Walker Lewis by Anthony Sweat. And it's a black man, and he's very well dressed, and he's got this white man's hands on his head, and he's being given the priesthood.

John Dehlin [01:33:51] And this is significant because it's a black man being ordained to the priesthood pre Brigham Young during Joseph Smith's lifetime.

Julia [01:34:00] Yes. If you skip to the next one, I explain a little bit about Q. Walker Lewis. So his name is Kwaku Walker Lewis. He was an early African American abolitionist and freemason. He joined the church in 1842. He was the third black man known to hold the Mormon priesthood. The first was Elijah Abel and the second, Peter kerr. In the 1840s and 50s, Kwaku was part of the underground railroad and the anti slavery movement, which I thought was very interesting. Two months after Kwaku arrived with the Saints to Salt Lake City, Brigham Young legalized slavery in Utah. Kwaku then moved six months later back to his hometown in Massachusetts. Yeah.

Julia [01:34:38] Yeah.

Nemo [01:34:39] Nope, I'm out.

John Dehlin [01:34:41] I didn't know that. Quake. Who? The apologist probably got his fake name from an actual black figure in Mormon history.

Nemo [01:34:49] I was gonna say this is my favorite Kwaku.

Julia [01:34:52] Yeah, I think Quaker. Really? I think he did that on purpose. Right. I don't. I don't know what his actual name is.

John Dehlin [01:34:57] But I think he actually, I think he was started as an actor. Like, I think he didn't want his real name being used.

Julia [01:35:04] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:35:05] For his apologetic stuff. I don't know if he's running from some history that he's embarrassed about or just wanted to protect his real name.

Julia [01:35:13] I don't know.

Nemo [01:35:14] He should be embarrassed about what he's done under the name Kwaku. To be fair. I mean, those this is the show videos were. Were so embarrassing that fair Mormon took them down. Right. So how interesting. Yeah, this is interesting that.

John Dehlin [01:35:26] Yeah.

Nemo [01:35:26] Brigham Young legalizes slavery in Utah and Quaker Walker Lewis is like, well, I guess I'm out there then I'm. I'm off, you know?

Julia [01:35:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:34] Assuming that's why he went back to

Nemo [01:35:36] mess, I feel like that's a fairly reasonable conclusion to draw.

John Dehlin [01:35:41] Maybe. Yeah. All right, so this is 660. And so we've got Jeremy Runnels talking about this in the CES letter. Do you want to read that?

Nemo [01:35:51] Nemo, Joseph Smith permitted. Yeah. Joseph Smith permitted the priesthood to at least two black men. Elijah Abel was one of them. Walker Lewis was another. I would think Christ, one true church, would have led the civil rights movement, not be the last major church on the planet in 1978 to adopt it. How can we trust these prophets, seers and revelators who have been so wrong about so many important things for so long while claiming to be receiving revelations from God? Yesterday's doctrine is today's false doctrine. Yesterday's prophets are today's heretics. I think it's important we put a shout out in there for second class Saints and all the important work you guys have done. Talking about that book. I'm reading it. It's a great book. But, yeah, the church was very, very late to adopt the removal of the ban in 1978. And this, the. The idea that black people just never had the priesthood and they were always cursed is something the CS letter challenges by stating that Joseph Smith did permit people to have the priesthood. And Anthony Sweat, if Julia reads, the other side agrees.

Julia [01:36:56] Yeah. So Anthony Sweatt's depiction of the ordination of Walker Lewis acknowledges that the priesthood and temple ban on blacks was not started with Joseph Smith, but with Brigham Young. And I'm glad you talked about Matthew Harris's book, Second Class Saints, because he talks about the reason why this happened is because Brigham Young was so afraid of interracial marriage that black people would marry white people that he made the ban. He put the ban into play. And so that's. That's so it's not. It wasn't Joseph. Joseph wasn't, wasn't doing that, but it was Brigham.

Nemo [01:37:24] And this book here, I don't know if you can see, it's the Way to Perfection by Joseph Fielding Smith. Right. This book was full of justifications by Joseph Fielder Smith that his ancestor Joseph Smith was the one that started the ban. Right. There was a narrative for a time that you will see in Matthew Harris's book. They tried to bring this justification not just to Brigham, but all the way back to Joseph. They tried to say it's from the beginning. And that's why that's really important, that that's in the CES letter undermining that narrative.

John Dehlin [01:37:55] Yeah. Please buy Matt Harris's book, Second Class Saints, Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality. Please check out our 17 part series. That book, Way to Perfection was literally commissioned because Mormon Church prophetess and revelators kind of woke up in the early 1900s where everybody's asking, wait a minute, why was that priesthood ban implemented again? Where's the revelation? Oh, there's no revelation. Oh, wait, there's descendants of Elijah Abel who got the priesthood, who are black, that want the priesthood today because their grandpa had it. What do we do? Okay, let's commission and publish a book written by an apostle that tries to enshrine the priesthood ban as doctrine because there's no evidence that there was ever a revelation or anything doctrinal about the priesthood band. So check out that book and check out that very important series. All right, so I think this is. Is this six zero six, Anthony Sweatt confirming the CES letter. We already read this, right?

Polygamy, Coercion, and the Nauvoo Expositor

Julia [01:39:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:04] Okay. All right.

Julia [01:39:06] Okay, so this next one is called an angel with a Drawn Sword by Anthony Sweat. And you have Joseph's kneeling down and it looks like he's in the. In a field or forest or something and he's got a book open. The feet, the foot of an angel and angel. You can see his little halo. And then he's got a. What are those called? Weights or measuring. What do you call it?

John Dehlin [01:39:25] Like a scale.

Julia [01:39:26] A scale? Yeah. He's holding a scale. Yeah, he's holding a scale in one hand and then a sword, a drawn sword in the other. It's a very interesting picture.

John Dehlin [01:39:34] What are they, Julia? What are they trying to depict here? What actual historical.

Julia [01:39:38] So if you go to the next slide. So what's happening here is the angel is giving the command that Joseph should live polygamy as far as what Joseph Smith is telling. So Joseph Smith told Several men and women, that an angel came to him with a drawn sword, sometimes it's called flaming sword. And told him that if he did not establish the principle of plural marriage upon the earth, Joseph would lose his position and his life. And so I've made this list. I gathered this list. Joseph told this story to at least the following people. His brother Hyrum, who told Benjamin Johnson, Dimmock Huntington, who relayed the message to his sister Zina, Joseph Bates Noble, who married Joseph to Louisa Beaman, Elizabeth Whitney, who along with her husband gave him permission to marry their daughter, Sarah Ann Lorenzo Snow, Eliza R. Snow, Lorenzo's sister, Heber C. Kimball, Helen Marr Kimball, Heber's daughter, Orson F. Whitney, Benjamin F. Johnson, Joseph Lee Robinson, Orson Pratt, Erastus Snow and Mary Elizabeth Rollins. And so these are the names that I gathered that were aware of this story of Joseph saying, this angel is going to kill me if you don't practice polygamy, if you don't marry me, or if you don't have your sister marry me or your daughter marry me. This is what he was telling them.

Nemo [01:40:47] And one of those names, to me at least, they're all egregious, right? Because they're all trying to use the weight of God as a threat against the life of Joseph. To say, look, if you don't, if you don't do this, I'm gonna die. Right? But one of Those is a 14 year old, right? Oh, sorry. Several months shy of her 15th birthday, she's a 14 year old. And that, that's that alone. The fact whether they had sexual relations or not, any of that other stuff, the fact that Joseph Smith said to a 14 year old girl, if you don't enter into this arrangement with me, I'm gonna get killed, is just completely wrong, manipulative, inappropriate, whatever words you want to use, it's not right.

Julia [01:41:32] Also, it kind of takes away this idea of agency because I think, I think the, you know, the church, you know, you know, I don't know if brags is the right word. They say that, you know, God gave us agency and he's never going to take that away. And it's Satan's plan to remove agency. But if you're, if the pro, the mouthpiece for God is coming up to you, especially as a 14 year old saying, if you don't marry me, God is going to kill me. That kind of takes away her agency.

Nemo [01:41:53] Yeah. And Roland, a rasband. Did a, did a. I think it was Rasband. Yeah, Or Renlund, was it Renlund it was. Renlund did a talk about unfairness, talked about terrible unfairness. He then went on to talk about the genocide in Rwanda, about it as being a matter of incredible unfairness, which is just beyond being tone deaf. That talk was all about how do we respond when the agency of others impacts our lives. And he was talking about how all these terrible things happen through the agency of others. Right. But yet God chose this moment to intervene in Joseph Smith's agency and not allow him to use his agency and his conscience to say no to marrying 14 year old girls. He instead went, no, if you don't do what I say, I will strike you down with an angel and a flaming sword. And we can think about other instances like the Rwandan genocide that Renlund brought to the fore in that talk that he described as unfairness. Where were the angels with flaming swords to stop that agency from impacting people's lives and causing suffering on a much bigger scale than just Joseph not being able to marry 14 year olds? That's, that's a, I think it's a valid question.

Julia [01:43:05] Or women who are already married.

Nemo [01:43:07] Yes. Or women who are already married.

John Dehlin [01:43:09] And another, another way to say it is just like if God's going to, you know, let's just say God has a limited number of opportunities to send an angel with the flaming sword to force his children to do things. I could think of a gazillion better moments in world history where God could have sent an angel with the flaming sword. Send an angel with the flaming sword to threaten Hitler not to, you know, perform the Holocaust. Send an angel with the flaming sword, you know, to, to tell Brigham, don't you dare take the priesthood away from black men and temple blessings away from black women.

Nemo [01:43:49] You know, stop the Mountain Meadows massacre.

John Dehlin [01:43:52] Yeah, yeah, like John D. Lee and, and all those, all those involved. Don't you dare go and massacre 80 or 100 men, women and children. There's just so many better. If God's going to be sending angels with flaming swords, how about, you know, teaching germ theory? Like every person in the world, wash your hands, you know, before and after, you know, you eat or when you go to the bathroom or before or after any medical procedure. Like, think of all the opportunities God had to use an angel with the flaming sword. And he's going to do it conveniently when Joseph is sort of hot sexually and looking for more sexual partners, he's conveniently only going to send the angel the flaming sword, frankly, to help Joseph get laid.

Julia [01:44:42] You know, I'm reminded of Mike's I feel like one of his things he says often is he says if you, if you separate yourself from the religion and you just hear this as if it's not Mormonism and it's just some other sect or faction, you would not accept it. It would be, it would be ridiculous to be like, oh, this man is obviously making this story up. He's obviously just trying to get what he wants to, what, by whatever means necessary. But when you are raised in the church, when you have invested so much time and energy into the church or even joined it later, like, this is a. It's a harder to separate yourself from this type of story. And I just like that Mike says that. And.

John Dehlin [01:45:14] Yeah, that's good. All right, so I think this is 770 where Anthony Sweatt is confirming what's in the CES letter. Nemo, do you want to read Jeremy in the CES letter?

Nemo [01:45:27] So Jeremy said some of the marriages to these women include promises by Joseph of eternal life to the girls and their families, or threats that he, Joseph, was going to be slain by an angel with a drawn sword if the girls didn't marry him. I have a problem with this. This is Warren Jeff's territory. This is not the Joseph Smith I grew up learning about in the church and having a testimony of. This is not the Joseph Smith to whom I sung praise to the man or taught others about for two years in the mission field.

Julia [01:45:59] And Julie, what do you have on the.

John Dehlin [01:46:00] What do you have on the. Right.

Julia [01:46:02] Anthony Sweatt acknowledges that based on the research done by Brian Hales, there are at least 20 reminiscences of an angel with a drawn sword coming to Joseph Smith, commanding him that he needed to implement the practice of polygamy or he would lose his prophetic mantle calling or position.

Nemo [01:46:17] That's an interesting sleight of hand there by Anthony. Right. He doesn't go so far as to say that the angels threatened to kill Joseph.

Julia [01:46:23] He.

Nemo [01:46:24] He doesn't admit that in his statement. He just says, oh, they would take away his prophetic mantle. They would take away his calling as the prophet.

Julia [01:46:30] Yeah, well, the dread quote is lose his position. And his life, I think is. I think Heber C. Kimball says that.

Nemo [01:46:35] But yeah, he missed that out.

Julia [01:46:37] Yeah, yeah, he did.

Nemo [01:46:39] Just want to call him on that.

John Dehlin [01:46:40] And again, you know, if he's going to be bold, like, okay, give him credit or the church credit for commissioning some partially more accurate or authentic versions of art to reflect the history. If he's going to be bold, show Joseph with Helen Mark Kimball. Do a painting of Joseph propositioning Helen Mark Kimball for polygamy. Or show Joseph artistic rendering of him with his 34 wives. Or, you know, sending a man off on a mission so that he can proposition that man's wife. That would be a lot more bold than, like, doing the angel with the flaming sword. Depicting that without any connection to Joseph's, you know, predatory plural marriages.

Julia [01:47:29] Yeah, yeah, right.

John Dehlin [01:47:31] So somehow Anthony hasn't gotten that bold yet. You know, who would be some of the polyandrous wives that Joseph propositioned? You know, women married other men.

Julia [01:47:42] Zina Huntington. Her sister.

John Dehlin [01:47:46] Yeah. Anthony Sweatt, show a painting of Joseph with Zina Huntington.

Julia [01:47:50] Yeah. Or Sylvia Lyon or there's a whole bunch.

John Dehlin [01:47:54] Yeah.

Julia [01:47:55] Yeah.

Nemo [01:47:56] Awesome. Pratt's wife.

Julia [01:47:58] Pratt. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:00] Yeah. Okay, well, we've got the next one.

Julia [01:48:04] So this one's called. This is. This is showing the destruction of the Nauvoo exposure by Anthony Sweat. And you see the building of the Nava Expositor, and there's a huge bonfire, and it's. There's. People are surrounding. Men are surrounding the bonfire, holding up either firearms or torches.

Julia [01:48:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:22] And this is obviously problematic historically because it's Joseph as the mayor and as the Chief justice of Nauvoo and as the head of the Nauvoo Legion. It's people responding to Joseph Smith's command to destroy the printing press, to violate the First Amendment of the United States, to destroy the press that printed the one single edition of the newspaper where William Law tells the world that Joseph's been lying, that Joseph has been sleeping with other men's. With women, married, other men, sleeping with teenagers, and he's been hiding and lying about it. And Joseph was so worried that that newspaper would get out, that he commanded violated the First Amendment of the United States, the freedom of the press, and ordered a printing press destroyed. So, yeah, kudos that they're now depicting it. Right.

Nemo [01:49:15] He declared it a public nuisance, didn't he?

John Dehlin [01:49:17] Yeah.

Julia [01:49:18] This is random, but I wanted to point out. So I've been to Nauvoo so many times, we're not very far from it. I'm in Missouri, but so that in the picture, you see the sun setting, and in reality, that's where the temple is. So if you think about how close the Nauvoo Expositor building is to the Mormon, to the Nauvoo Temple, it's very, very close. I never pictured that before as a member, that it was just right behind the temple.

Nemo [01:49:39] I think this is also interesting because the death of Joseph Smith Is painted as I go as a lamb to the slaughter. Right. I'm calm as a summer's day. That's the quote, isn't it? Something like that. This idea that Joseph was innocent and he was trump on the trumped up charges and he was in jail because he'd done nothing wrong. This is now an admission that here's the event that put Joseph Smith in jail right here. Or the event. Yeah, the events that followed from this, plus the. The polygamy which was illegal.

John Dehlin [01:50:08] Which was illegal, which.

Nemo [01:50:09] And the polygamy which caused this William Law to talk about this because he felt, you know, betrayed that Joseph Smith had been doing this and he didn't agree with it. So he puts this out, Joseph destroys it. Then Joseph refuses to let the. The. The federal government come in and try and sort out what's going on, which means it's then treason, which means he then goes to Carthage and the church tries to say, oh, there were some promises broken, he should have been kept safe, all this sort of stuff. He was only in jail because he was doing things that were illegal. And this is one of those things

John Dehlin [01:50:43] of a printing press and publicly lying about it.

Nemo [01:50:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even. Even if he hadn't been. My point is, even if he hadn't been committing polygamy, even if he hadn't been doing that, even if he just ordered the destruction of a printing press for no reason, that in itself is still illegal. And that was what led to the state coming in and going, oh, yeah, the federal government coming in and going, what's going on here in Nauvoo? This man's looking too powerful. There's a tim pot dictator who's judge, jury and executioner, and he had the

Julia [01:51:14] largest militia in the world at the time, I think. Yeah, yeah, so.

Nemo [01:51:18] So a genuine, legitimate threat to the stability of the union. And they're all coming in, trying to sort it all out or in the country.

Julia [01:51:28] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:51:29] All right, so I think, is this seven or eight?

Julia [01:51:33] Seven, I don't remember.

John Dehlin [01:51:35] We keep losing track. All right, so this is Jeremy Runnels in the CES letter. Go ahead, Nemo.

Nemo [01:51:41] Joseph Smith did everything he could to keep the practice of polygamy secret from the church and the public. In fact, Joseph's desire to keep this part of his life a secret is what ultimately contributed to his death when he ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor, which dared publicly expose his private behavior in June 1844. This event initiated a chain of events that ultimately led to his death at The Carthage jail.

Speaker E [01:52:05] Yeah.

Julia [01:52:06] And then Anthony Sweatt acknowledges that the Nauvoo Expositor was destroyed for a number of reasons, including exposing his practice of polygamy. Plural marriage was directly involved in the death of Joseph Smith. And that's Anthony Sweatt.

John Dehlin [01:52:17] Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's go to the next one.

Emma Smith, Plural Marriage, and Church Art

Julia [01:52:22] So this one is a very interesting image to me. It's called Purgatory. Joseph, Emma, and the revelation on plural marriage. And this, you see Joseph Smith is sitting in front of a fire. It's a very. It's very dimly lit, the fireplace. You can see all the bricks everywhere. And he's sitting in a chair and he's holding a paper of Revelation. And Emma is standing in front of him with their arms crossed. And neither of them look very heavy.

John Dehlin [01:52:46] This is probably an understatement, because I'm guessing Emma probably resulted in rage. Probably threw stuff, probably hit Joseph.

Nemo [01:52:54] Like, you thought she was mad about the tobacco in the School of the Prophets.

Julia [01:53:00] Yes. Or the alcohol in her house. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:53:04] Did she throw it in the fire?

Julia [01:53:05] Like, there's different versions of this because there's a version where Hiram says he's going to give her the revelation, and then she, I think, burns it for. From him. And then Joseph says, you don't know Emma like I do. I don't know exactly what. What images is taking, but as far as I know, I think somebody delivered the message to her and it wasn't Joseph directly. But I don't. I could be wrong.

John Dehlin [01:53:25] And y' all will have to check out the LDS discussions episodes about this. But one of the reasons she's mad is because she finds out that Joseph had already married 22 women. He had already sealed himself to 22 women and had sex with a number of them before he ever even gave this revelation to Emma.

Julia [01:53:46] Well, I don't know when she found. Finds out exactly because, like. Because they had that faux wedding for the. The sisters.

Nemo [01:53:52] Yes.

Julia [01:53:52] And so she wasn't aware that he had married them. So they had to. They had to redo the ceiling, or a fake ceiling, I should say. So I don't know how aware she was whenever he gave it.

John Dehlin [01:54:01] Like the 23rd wife sealed to Joseph.

Julia [01:54:04] As far as my numbers, I think it's 20. I thought it was 26. Okay, as far as what?

John Dehlin [01:54:08] Somewhere in the mid-20s.

Julia [01:54:09] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [01:54:10] So she's furious not just because he got the revelation, but because he started practicing it years previous, hidden from her, lied to her about it, and now he's adding her as the 20. Whatever 25th wife, when. When the d. When the revelation that he's holding says, has what's called the Law of Sarah, where God says the first wife needs to be able to consent to subsequent wives, and even if

Nemo [01:54:39] she says no, she'll then be destroyed, but she at least gets an opportunity to say no.

Julia [01:54:43] Oh, my gosh. And the revelation, the word destroyed, I think, is 11 times in the revelation itself.

Nemo [01:54:48] Yeah. The word love is zero.

Julia [01:54:51] Right.

John Dehlin [01:54:51] And that's why people need to check out our episode on DNC132, because, yeah, just how evil God is for supplying that revelation where he talks about women as cattle, where he threatens Emma with destruction. What kind of God is literally going to tell a woman if you don't let your husband have sex with 30 other women, many of them teenagers, are married to other men, I'm going to destroy you. Like, what kind of God, you know, acts that way?

Nemo [01:55:20] And there's so much wrong with the heading of DNC132, where it tries to couch things and say. And soften the blow and say, oh, well, although revealed in, you know, the 1840s, this was known to Joseph, some of this as early as possibly 1831. Right. So they're trying to cover the scope of the Fanny Alger affair in 1835 and. And all this sort of stuff they're trying to say, oh, he was. He knew about this throughout. But ultimately what this does and this painting does is it undermines what we were shown in Joseph Smith's prophet of the restoration, this one loyal woman by Joseph Smart by Joseph's side, his true love that he had to elope with because Isaac Hale was mad with him for some reason. Who knows why, but he just didn't approve of Joseph. You know, there's legitimate reasons why there, as we know now. But again, none of it shows or gives any inclination that actually what Joseph was doing was having one big, long, protracted affair over nearly 10 years that his wife didn't know about or certainly didn't know about fully. And then when this revelation finally comes out, she kind of gets added to the harem spiritually way later down the line. He didn't prioritize her and make her the first that he'd be sealed to. And the thing I always feel the need to mention, DNC132 says that polygamy is explicitly for providing bodies to bear the souls of men. Right. And Joseph Smith didn't have children with any of his polygamous wives, so he couldn't even follow the rules. Of the revelation he gave to try and justify his behavior, which is just bizarre to me.

Julia [01:56:59] Well, and then from Emma's perspective, I was going to add, the Relief Society started in March of 1842, and she doesn't hear about this revelation, I think, until 43. And while. While she's the relief side of president, she's hearing rumors about Joseph Smith starting polygamy, you have John C. Bennett, who's publishing his expose in 1842, and she's completely in denial that it's happening. And then here her husband is handing her this revelation, saying, yeah, I'm doing it. I'm living polygamy, and God says I need to be doing it. And you can understand how furious she's becoming because she's been backing her husband and defending him for a year or more, and now she's finding out that that's not the case, that she doesn't. She doesn't know who she's married to in a way.

John Dehlin [01:57:38] So you had this follow on slide, Julia.

Julia [01:57:40] Yeah. So while Joseph Smith had been taking wives for years, the first was Fanny Alger, happening in 1835. Little evidence exists that Emma was aware of her husband's polygamy at least until May of 1843. During this month, Emma participated in four of Joseph Smith's plural. Eliza Partridge, Emily Partridge, Sarah Lawrence, and Mariah Lawrence. By this time, Joseph had taken at least 19 wives. The revelation on polygamy was not introduced to Emma until July of 1843.

Nemo [01:58:08] And I would just ask the women of the church to just stop and think about that. Even if you believe God did it, even if you believe that God told Joseph to behave like this, you've just got to feel sad for Emma that she didn't know about this. Imagine if your husband was told by God to do that for all these years, and then you found out after wife number 19, and then you felt that you got some control over the situation by at least getting to choose some of them or, you know, approve some of them nominally.

Speaker E [01:58:37] Just.

Nemo [01:58:38] Just like we told to liken the scriptures unto ourselves. If you're sat here going, oh, well, you know, God told him to do it, so he had to, fine, but at least be aware of the human cost of this and. And sit with the human cost of this and liken it to yourself, imagine what you would feel if this were you. That's. That's what I would say to that, really.

John Dehlin [01:59:00] I would add God says in his own scriptures, according to Mormons, that he's not a God of confusion. Well, if God can appear to Joseph, if God can produce scripture, God can give Joseph the revelation in 1830 or 1832 or whenever Joseph's going to begin. He can give the rules up front, and he can, you know, required. Send an angel with the flaming sword to force Joseph to follow the actual revelation. So all of that should cast suspicion on the legitimacy of this. So what's Anthony got to say, Julia?

Julia [01:59:40] I think here he's talking about his choice to depict Emma and Joseph in that. In that moment by the fireplace. He's talking about the idea of painting controversial aspects of church history.

John Dehlin [01:59:51] All right, let's roll the clip.

Speaker E [01:59:55] Not all of my images are mantelpiece images. I like to paint things that are even uncomfortable. President Kimball, in his classic talk on the gospel vision of the arts, said that we should also paint and portray the difficulties, the apostasies, the. The arguments. And so this is literally an argument I wanted to do a painting of when Joseph Smith brought home the revelation we know is the revelation on the eternal and plural Marriage in section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I want to do an image of the difficulties, trying to express the difficulties that showed in Joseph and Emma's marriage.

John Dehlin [02:00:41] Wait, that was just that. That was just a portrayal of women doing a washing and anointing. Did you notice that, Julia?

Julia [02:00:50] Well, yeah, we're going to talk about that soon, too.

John Dehlin [02:00:51] Okay? Okay. All right.

Julia [02:00:52] Yeah. Okay. So here I just wanted to. He's quoting Kimball, and he's saying we should depict other things, maybe ones that aren't so rosy, as far as church history. And then on the next slide, there's the full quote there.

John Dehlin [02:01:04] Okay. Oh, wait, let me. Sorry, my. My slide's acting up. Give me just one second. We're getting there.

Nemo [02:01:22] Thank you for holding.

Julia [02:01:23] Oh, yeah. 40 seconds.

John Dehlin [02:01:24] Okay. There we go. All right, so there's Kimball's quote.

Julia [02:01:27] Thanks. Do one of you guys want to read it?

Nemo [02:01:29] Yeah, I'll do that. For years, I have been waiting for someone to do justice in recording, in song and story and painting and sculpture, the story of the Restoration, the re. Establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, the struggles and frustrations, the apostasies and inner revolutions and counter revolutions of those first decades of the exodus, of the counter reactions, of the transitions, of the persecution days, of the miracle man, Joseph Smith, of whom we sing. Oh, what rapture filled his bosom. For he saw the living God and of the giant colonizer and builder, Brigham Young.

Julia [02:02:07] So here he was. So the prophet Spencer Kimball is saying we should. We should paint all the things. Paint all the things. Paint the hard things, the good things. Just do all of it. And what we're seeing is the church is not doing that. The church is not taking the prophet's suggestion and just showing what they are the most comfortable showing. And if the next slide I think is when is this is me. So this is from my channel and the church recently. I explained it in the video, but I can explain it again. So the church recently released two videos called Days of Harmony. And then I can't remember the other one, but they're depictions of the. Of the beginning of Mormonism, the translation process, and then other aspects of it. And so during the translation one, they try to show images of the stone and hat. And then I. This. I explained it in the show, in the video, but in the short. But.

John Dehlin [02:02:59] All right, let's go ahead and roll it.

Seer Stone Disclosure and Restoration Paintings

▶ Video Clip 2

Video Clip 2 [02:03:00] Okay. So in 2016, just months after the KUTV and the Salt Lake Tribune published rare pictures of Joseph Smith's seer Stone, the first time that pictures of his seer stone had ever been published, the church released two films. One was called Days of Harmony and the other was called A Day for the Eternities. These two films are shown in many of the church's visitor centers, where members and non members can learn more about church history. During the filming, pictures were taken of Joseph Smith in the translation process. Pictures like this and this and even this. However, from what I can find, these pictures were not actually released to the public until 2018, when the church released this film with historian Mark Ashurst McGee. Now, I could be wrong, but from what I can find, these images were not released until two years after the films were published. The thing that gets me is that when this film was released in 2016, what made it into the final cut is so different than the 2018 pictures. Here, let me show you. These next clips are every single time Joseph Smith's white top hat made it into the final cut. The seer stone, which is presumably inside the white top hat, was never depicted in either of these films.

Video Clip 2 [02:04:06] Za.

Video Clip 2 [02:04:07] Did you catch that? Let me slow it down a little bit. Now, these are all the clips from A Day for the Eternities where it shows Joseph Smith's white top hat. Did you catch it again? I'm going to slow this down for you. It's interesting to me that the church waited until 2016 to finally depict Joseph Smith using a rock and a hat, and that it took them another two years to make those depictions public. It seems as if the church is trying really hard not to show the rock and a hat. Almost as if they're ashamed of it. Almost as if they want to hide it.

John Dehlin [02:05:04] That was really good.

Nemo [02:05:05] Julia reminds me of those. I don't know if you've seen those reels doing the rounds where it's like Lord of the Rings. If it was just every time two female characters interact, it's like one word spoken between two women and then cuts to credits directed by Peter Jackson. It's the same thing there essentially. Right? Is. Is. Is. That's insane. And I've got an image in my head somewhere and someone in the comments reach out and tell me where I might be plugging this from. Or if either of you two know, I've got an image in my head somewhere of like a grainy shot of someone's editing screen showing that this was part of the original edit and was actually chopped out, that you can see it as part of an editing timeline. I don't know where that image in my mind is from, but I feel like there is a story out there somewhere about how those images were part of the original edit and they were cut from the original edit of the film because they didn't want to show them. And then that's where those stills have then come from for later.

Julia [02:06:03] Well, I feel like that's the point I'm trying to make. Is that like.

Nemo [02:06:05] It absolutely is, but I think there's some evidence somewhere of it actually getting cut onto the cutting room floor somewhere. But interesting in the recesses.

Julia [02:06:13] Well, I mean, the pictures exist and they. The props were there. They just cut those parts out. So like the church. And those are recently done 2016. And so like the church is still to this day trying really hard to. To. To give that curated image of Joseph Smith, you know, not using this magic worldview stuff.

Nemo [02:06:32] Yeah, it's the same as like when Russell goes to put his head in the hat and then doesn't I. I often wonder whether it was him realizing it doesn't look good or whether his handler stood off screen is like, no, stop. No, don't. Don't do it. Either way, it shows the church. Like you said, it's probably embarrassed of it and it's not going to. What is it? It's not going to communicate what the church wants it to communicate. As Anthony Sweat said.

Julia [02:06:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:07:00] It's also worth noting that Kimball sweatshirt W. Kimball would have made that quote. He died in the 80s, so he would have made that quote in the 70s or 80s. So why did it take the church so long to follow its prophet.

Julia [02:07:11] Right, right, exactly.

Nemo [02:07:13] And then kind of still try really hard to not follow him.

Julia [02:07:17] Right, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:07:18] So what's this clip we're about to see, Julia?

Julia [02:07:20] Yeah, I watched it just before we pushed record, and I remember being really good, but I should have put a title, but this is Anthony Sweatt again. This title of this one is called Adjusting Our Eyes. Latter Day Saints. And they're developing religious imagery.

John Dehlin [02:07:33] All right, let's play it.

▶ Video Clip 3

Video Clip 3 [02:07:37] That's not what they look like.

Video Clip 3 [02:07:39] They look like this.

Video Clip 3 [02:07:40] They almost always show Joseph sitting with open plates with his finger studiously on the plates, as though the Book of Mormon translation was some sort of an academic translation or enterprise. I tried to say to the student, you know, up front, by the way, that these images are not historically accurate because you have been taught from the time you were a child that Joseph translated the Book of Mormon by means of Urim and Thummim, however you want to define that. And none of these images show the Urim and Thummim. Some of the research that I've done is actually looked at how the church in The Ensign from 1971, when I published this article in 2014, was how they used the Book of Mormon. It was depicted 55 times in the Ensign, used 17 different paintings, and every one of them, Joseph was shown looking into open plates. And 11 of them, he has his finger on the plates. And only in one painting ever produced was Joseph shown using the Urim and Thummim. And it was this one that was produced by Gary Smith. I actually talked to Gary Smith about this painting, and you can see Joseph in his right hand holding what looked like the spectacles. And he said that the church actually asked him to redo the painting later and had him remove the spectacles because they felt like they were too sacred to show.

John Dehlin [02:09:01] Oh, yeah, sure.

Nemo [02:09:02] That's it. That's what it was.

John Dehlin [02:09:04] That's why.

Nemo [02:09:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:05] Too sacred. Absolutely.

Nemo [02:09:07] Not secret, guys, just sacred.

Julia [02:09:10] Yeah.

Nemo [02:09:10] I have a. I have a question for him, actually, about that, which is he talked about through to 2014, which I don't know when that video was produced. Maybe that's all he had up to. But I swear there is an enzyme where the front cover is with some spectacles. Am I. That's one of the images that we've certainly shown on these slides. It's the quite serious Joseph with the spectacles.

John Dehlin [02:09:31] Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's true.

Nemo [02:09:33] But then the other thing is, right, he goes, oh, well, I've only looked at when it was depicted in the ensign. But why? Because Emerald. So Ballard was trying to say, oh, in the 1970 church magazines, millennial Star, whatever that was. At that point, he's trying to say, oh, look, we see, we talked about it in the church magazines in 1970 about the multiple first vision accounts. So why is Anthony limiting his scope of search to just the Ensign in 1971? Why is he not looking back further at other depictions? Because if we're looking to how the church depicted the first vision back then, and that's really important, and we should look all the way back there, then why is not. Why is Anthony not looking all the way back there for the history of how these things were depicted to us?

Julia [02:10:13] True.

John Dehlin [02:10:14] It's also just really, really gross and deceptive and unkind that he just won't take a minute to say, you know what? We've got egg on our face. Because, you know, people like Sandra Tanner and Fawn Brody and others, you know, we're trying to get the church to be honest and come clean about this for decades. And unfortunately, the church just wasn't ready to tell the truth. And so we kind of do owe, you know, current visibility, current honesty, and transparency to people that, you know, were punished and kind of made casualties for fighting for true and honest depictions. Like, it would be classy to just acknowledge that the church was drug, you know, crying and screaming, to be honest, in its depictions, but they just act like those people never existed, that Jeremy and Sandra and Fawn and. And Grant Palmer and others, you know, were punished to make it possible, such that now they can speak honestly today.

Julia [02:11:26] And.

Nemo [02:11:27] And also, again, we've got this Anthony sweat victim blaming thing going on where he's saying, you know, these aren't historically accurate. Right. Because you've been taught since the beginning that he used the Urim of Thummim, and none of them include the Urim and Thummim. And implied in that is. So you should have all. Where you should have clocked that these weren't accurate anyway before the other thing that we hid from you about the rock in a hat, you should have already known that these weren't accurate. So why are you surprised that they're not accurate? And why are you surprised then that they didn't include. Do you know what I mean? Right, right.

Julia [02:12:03] Exactly.

Nemo [02:12:04] There's that. Oh, you should have seen it.

John Dehlin [02:12:07] Yeah. All right. Well, here's another quote from Spencer Kimmel. Julia.

Julia [02:12:12] Regardless of President Kimball's call to do justice in painting, this painting, the story of the restoration, according to Anthony Sweatt. The church specifically reached out to an artist, Gary Smith, and asked him to remove his depiction of the spectacles or Urim and Thumma. Even in their recent films, Days of Harmony and A Day for the Eternities, the church was not fully transparent with Joseph Smith's use of a stone and a hat. And so. And like the. The Urim and Thummim is published in the Scriptures, but the church says, please take it out. The church was all ready and prepped to have these scenes in this film. And they're like, nope, take it out. We don't like this. This is not. This will not help the people. This is what I'm imagining. This will not help the audience to feel the spirit and to believe that this is the true church.

John Dehlin [02:12:50] And again, this can condemns, contradicts Elder Ballard's claim that they're as honest as they know how to be and that they've never hit anything because it's obvious. This is just another example of a gazillion that they. That they have and they still are, you know?

Julia [02:13:07] Right. Okay, so here's where that. Here's that other image comes in that you were talking about. So this is other depictions from Anthony Sweatt that. That are not in the CS letter.

Women's Ritual Practices in Early Mormonism

John Dehlin [02:13:16] Yeah.

Julia [02:13:17] So this one is called Relief Society Healing by Anthony Sweatt. And it's a woman in bed, and she's surrounded by three other women and a child. And one of them is anointing her head with oil. And then the other one is getting, I guess, water or something ready for her. So I don't know. This woman looks like washings.

John Dehlin [02:13:32] I think it's washings and anointings.

Julia [02:13:34] Oh, washings and anointings. You're right. Okay, so often what would happen? And this woman doesn't look like she's pregnant or anything. She looks like she might be ill. But with that, the women would go to these other women and they would wash and anoint them, and they would do that in preparation for childbearing as well. And they would give them priesthood blessings. And sometimes even the prophet, I can't remember which one, but he would go with his wife pretty often, and they would go and give blessings of healing. One would. One would give the first part, and the other one would give the other part of the blessing. And so, like, it was very common for these women to use the Melchizedek priesthood. And D. Michael Quinn, in his research, he says that he speculates that in the endowment ceremony, women are just like, kind of automatically given this Melchizedek priesthood. And because that's the only thing that could make sense to him. And I mean, it makes sense to me. Whereas the men, I think, I don't know how the temple works with them with the men's side. But you guys are actually ordained to. I don't know how that works. So that doesn't happen with the women, but the women use the priesthood up until. For really a long time. And then into the 19.

John Dehlin [02:14:29] Into the 1900s.

Julia [02:14:31] Yeah, for sure. And then the leaders were saying, no, I mean, if you need a blessing, go to the elders. But they didn't ban it. They just said, go to the elders first. And then eventually they started taking away this. Right. Or this ability of the women. And so that's what Anthony Sweatt is depicting here, is women using the priesthood.

Nemo [02:14:47] And I'm so torn with Anthony Sweatt, like, through all this, because on the one hand, he's kind of a badass for painting this and kind of putting it in front of people and going, yeah, no, women used to do this. Let's not minimize the role that women played in the early church in the way that they used to interact. But he seems to get away with it by essentially throwing the audience under the bus by going, well, I'm just painting stuff that you guys should have already really known about. And, you know, I'm just, yeah, it's your fault if the old artwork led you to believe something that wasn't quite true. And I'm just putting out. Do you know what I mean? He's like, that seems to be how he's getting away with it. Because I can't stand how else he's getting away with it. Because what he's doing here is he's showing stuff that the church doesn't really want out there, as we've proven with the way that they've hidden things.

Julia [02:15:35] Right.

Nemo [02:15:35] So I'm really torn, and maybe some more of these will help me come to a conclusion by the end. But I wanted to share that before I forgot.

John Dehlin [02:15:45] Also, I just want to share, if you want to read an article which goes into detail on women doing washings and anointings and blessing the sick, invoking the priesthood using sacred oil. The source article that I think is the best. It's called A Gift Given, a Gift Taken, Washing, Anointing and Blessing the Sick among Mormon Women by Linda King Newell, who I think also was a co author on Mormon Enigma, the biography on Emma Smith. Yeah, so that's. That's the. The reference reference there. And it's something the church is hidden because they're trying to disempower women. And so they don't want modern Mormon women to know that they used to have the power to heal the sick and now they can't do it anymore.

Julia [02:16:39] Women have the most power in the Mormon Church than any other church.

John Dehlin [02:16:46] You've gone too far, Julia.

Nemo [02:16:48] Jet Dennis.

Julia [02:16:50] Right, okay, so this one. This one is a very interesting one to me. This one's called Michael Detecting the Devil by Anthony Sweatt. And you have the image of Joseph. He looks like he's kind of crouched down. He's kind of near the banks of the river. And then you have an angel who looks like he's might be casting out this other character who is the devil. He's got black on and a red coat. And so. Yeah, that was just. I've just never seen this depicted before.

Nemo [02:17:12] Has he modeled the devil there after Michael Balam or himself?

Julia [02:17:18] They look very similar to me. The angel and the devil look very similar.

Nemo [02:17:21] Yeah, but the devil's definitely giving Michael Balam vibes.

John Dehlin [02:17:26] Or Anthony Sweat vibes.

Nemo [02:17:27] Or Anthony Sweat vibes. True.

Julia [02:17:30] That would be very.

Nemo [02:17:31] Yeah. Okay, so what is the story that this is?

Julia [02:17:33] If you go to the next slide, it shows this historical story. So this is from, I think, the Revelations, I think, is directly from the Doctrine Covenants. And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Moroni. An angel from heaven declaring the fulfillment of the prophets, the book to be revealed. A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book. The voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light. The voice of Peter, James and John in the wilderness between Harmony's Susquehanna county and Colesville, Broome county on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom and of the dispensation of the fullness of times. And I did not leave a reference, but I'm pretty sure it's from the Doctrine Covenants.

John Dehlin [02:18:17] Okay. And that's. I mean, the Doctrine Covenants does have that weird part where it's like, how do you detect a righteous angel or spirit from an evil one? And it's, you know, offer to shake the hand. And if they did, if they refuse to shake the hand, then it's a good spirit that's not resurrected. And if it goes to shake your hand and then you can't feel the hand, then it's a deceptive evil spirit that's literally in the Doctrine and Covenants today.

Julia [02:18:46] Right.

John Dehlin [02:18:47] So that's. I think that's associated with this story. Right.

Julia [02:18:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:18:52] Anyway, just kind of weird folk magicy kind of stuff.

Julia [02:18:59] And then this one is called First Baptisms for the Dead by Anthony Sweatt. And I think I have a slide on it next. But the interesting thing here, so this is so on the horse, there's Fianna jocks. She's one of Joseph Smith's later plural wives. But the woman getting baptized, she's getting baptized for her deceased five year old son, if I'm not mistaken. So a woman is getting baptized for a male, even though it's her son. And so Brigham Young, what he did is he was like, no, we're not doing that. If you're male, you do work for males, and if you're female, you do work for females. And. And they. And he's like. And you have to do it in the temple. Whereas before Joseph was like, he wasn't. He wasn't segregating the genders and he wasn't making everything have to be done in the temple. Here they're doing baptisms out on the Susquehanna River, I think, and then even a lot of the ceilings. Yeah. And the witness is a woman. You're right. And then. Yeah. So there's just a lot of differences between how Joseph ran the church and how Brigham Young ran the church.

Nemo [02:19:47] That's really interesting because you know how the church claims to be a restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Right. It is really interesting that Joseph Smith allowed women to be witnesses to baptisms. And it took the church until the 2000s to allow women once again to be witnesses to baptisms. Like it was some revelation and they were empowering women. Whatever. They were just putting back something that they took away that had been put back originally. So it's like it's doing a really bad job of being a restoration. If they restore something and then take it away again for like a good 150 unrestoring.

John Dehlin [02:20:24] The restoration.

Nemo [02:20:24] Yeah, exactly. Then bringing it back.

Julia [02:20:27] Same with the priesthood, with the black members. Like Joseph gave it taken away. And then 1978. Yeah, yeah. It's a very backwards.

Nemo [02:20:34] But this one took until the 2000s to come back.

Julia [02:20:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:20:37] I have to note it's not a particularly courageous artistic depiction because to any other observer it just looks like a baptism. Right.

Nemo [02:20:45] Yeah.

Julia [02:20:46] Right. Which is what I. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:20:48] If it had like a spirit above it who was like nodding in thanks as if it's someone in spirit prison

Nemo [02:20:55] or a little teleprompter. With a card slid into it.

John Dehlin [02:20:59] I. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, do baptize you?

Nemo [02:21:05] Indeed.

John Dehlin [02:21:06] All right.

Nemo [02:21:07] There's something to make it clear. That's what it is, you know?

Julia [02:21:09] Right.

John Dehlin [02:21:09] I mean, it's a baby step. So we'll give them a baby step.

Julia [02:21:12] Yeah. And. Yeah, it was for her son. So the first recorded baptism was performed by James Harvey Olmstead, who's the man in the water who baptized Jane. Jane Neiman in behalf of her recently departed son Cyrus. And then, as I said, Vienna Jocks was a witness. Anyway, so I just think, you know, without. Without knowing that it doesn't really look like very. A bold picture, but knowing that, like, this woman is a witness, that now women. Or women couldn't be women, she was getting baptized for her son. Women can't do that anymore. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:40] Well, having the woman as a witness is actually a bold. A bold artistic move.

Julia [02:21:45] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:46] Because it's basically signaling to modern Mormon feminists that they should be asking to be witnesses. Oh, but now.

Nemo [02:21:53] And they've got it, right? They've got it now.

Julia [02:21:55] Yeah, now they've got it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:56] Okay. So that's a change that the church made after ordained women, basically.

Nemo [02:21:59] It was a few years ago, but they. They were allowed to be witnesses to baptisms, like live and proxy baptism.

John Dehlin [02:22:06] It's like the crumbs that they gave Mormon women in response to.

Nemo [02:22:10] Yeah, but to the point. Right. It's the crumbs of something that they had, like, nearly 200 years ago and got taken away from them.

John Dehlin [02:22:18] Crumb. Given a crumb taken away.

Julia [02:22:19] Yes. Right.

John Dehlin [02:22:21] All right, what's this one, Julia?

Julia [02:22:22] This one Nemo and I were debating on which ones to keep in. This one is called After Liberty by Anthony Sweatt, and it's a picture of Joseph, and it doesn't look like the Joseph that we're familiar with. He looks very haggard. He looks very worn down. His pants are, like, torn. His jacket's all his. His jacket looks really rugged, and his face is. He's got covered in hair. It's just not a very similar. It's not a very, like, normal depiction of Joseph. But this is after. He's been in Liberty jail for however long he was there.

Nemo [02:22:48] Modeled the facial hair off me and me. I know. I just.

Julia [02:22:54] Yeah.

Nemo [02:22:55] I'm seeing my own beard in that man.

John Dehlin [02:22:57] No. Yeah, mine's gray. So it's yours. Because I'm old. I'm old as dirt. I'm 55. Old as dirt. Okay, well, that's. That's. That's Interesting. At least Joseph's not like white chiseled chin, you know, Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt. Joseph Smith.

Nemo [02:23:14] Right. And that's why I really liked it. That's why. Why this one kept in was because, like, this is almost heresy to depict Joseph Smith in this way. Right. To not depict him as glorious and, and bold.

John Dehlin [02:23:26] He looks like a river guide.

Nemo [02:23:28] Yeah, yeah, looks like he's just. He, he, he does a ferry. He's a ferryman. Right?

John Dehlin [02:23:32] Yeah, ferryman. Yeah. Okay. All right, what's this next one?

Julia [02:23:37] This next one's called Washing the Feet of this in the School of the Prophets by Anthony Sweatt. And I just think that's a really interesting. Normally this is associated with the second anointing where they're washing the feet and I'm pretty sure he's washing. I don't know who that is. Brigham. That looks like his dad in the background too. And Oliver Cowdery. So it's Joseph sees down and he's washing the feet of his. These members here, I think they're apostles. But anyway, that just made me think of the second anointing. How.

John Dehlin [02:24:03] No, for sure. I'm remembering my interview with Brian Buchanan about the history of the second anointing. And he, he basically, if I remember right, attributes the washings and anointings in Kirtland as the precursor to the full second later.

Julia [02:24:23] Okay, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:24:25] Evolution. Right.

Julia [02:24:26] Okay. Yeah. Well, that's how Joseph seems to do everything is throughout an evolution of. But yeah, okay, yeah, so, so second anointing, basically, which I just, you know, the church doesn't talk about that. The church, in fact, in their manuals they say don't talk about the second anointing at all. Like, if anyone talks about it, don't, don't bring it up. And here at least. But yeah, he's.

John Dehlin [02:24:44] That is kind of edgy of sweat

Nemo [02:24:46] to show that because there he is bringing that up.

John Dehlin [02:24:49] Okay, good job, Anthony. Sweat. We'll give you credit on that one. Okay.

Julia [02:24:53] You kind of need context behind it in order to understand. Yeah, yeah. So these are. It's eight things so that they both, I guess you can say, agreed on. So the contradictions with the first vision, the plates were not used during. During the translation. Joseph Smith using a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith was hired as a treasure seer. Oliver Cowdery used a divining rod, the priesthood ban on black members of the church, polygamy, and the angel with a drawn sword. Joseph Smith ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor.

John Dehlin [02:25:23] And I think. I think it may be more. Because you don't have. I don't think you have the. The polygamy revelation there, which was the last one we showed this one.

Julia [02:25:38] Well, so I say polygamy and the angel with a drawn sword. So maybe you could see them as two separate.

John Dehlin [02:25:43] Oh, so you consolidated.

Julia [02:25:44] Right, because he's. Yeah, right.

John Dehlin [02:25:46] Okay. Yeah.

Julia [02:25:47] Because, like, he's.

John Dehlin [02:25:48] I think there might be at least 10 or 11 total.

Julia [02:25:51] Oh, sure. Yeah. There's quite a lot.

John Dehlin [02:25:53] Yeah.

Julia [02:25:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:54] Okay, cool. So. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Anthony Sweatt, for validating so many aspects of Jeremy Runnels CS Letter. And thank you, Jeremy, for getting it right and having the courage to express legitimate concerns that modern Mormon apologists want to invalidate by claiming that Jeremy didn't have sincere concerns, which is so silly.

Defending the CES Letter and Final Reflections

Julia [02:26:17] Like, if you can't. If you can't attack the arguments that he's making because they're being supported by documents and by professors, then attack the person, because that's. That makes the most sense. Right?

John Dehlin [02:26:27] Yeah.

Julia [02:26:28] No, he. If you watch his interviews with you, he's a. He was very sincere in trying to seek out answers to his questions.

John Dehlin [02:26:34] Yeah, I think this is a good time to bring up. So for a long time, we were mad that these apologists, that they had grabbed the domain name cesletters.com or cesletters.org and that they were doing an SEO play both to directly attack CES letter, but also to use a derivative of the name CS Letter to try and redirect people. And this is the first episode where we can now formally announce that the CES Letters people caved, and they have now changed the name. So if you go to CES letters now, cesletters.com it redirects to the churchofjesuschrist.org and they caved. And so they've now renamed their campaign, and the CES Letters campaign no longer exists. They ran away with their tail.

Nemo [02:27:49] What caused them to cave?

John Dehlin [02:27:51] What?

Nemo [02:27:51] What caused them to cave? What's the backstory there?

John Dehlin [02:27:55] Okay, so there's csletters.org see that? Check that out, guys.

Julia [02:27:59] Oh, my God.

John Dehlin [02:28:00] So if you go to Google now, it's because of us, and also, I think, because Jeremy started to threaten them with the trademark lawsuit, I believe, because now if you hear you click on it and what does it say? Julia?

Julia [02:28:17] Study and Faith. This is wild to me.

John Dehlin [02:28:20] So if you sweat, change the name of it from CS Letters to Study

Julia [02:28:25] in Faith, and that's the name of their YouTube channel now as well. So if you're looking for the videos that we've done in the past, they should be there, and there's the videos.

John Dehlin [02:28:33] But now they're totally rebranded as.

Julia [02:28:37] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [02:28:39] That means we're making a difference, right?

Julia [02:28:42] This is vile to me.

John Dehlin [02:28:46] There it is. Those are the episodes. And you. You remember me threatening them, right? I'm like, yes, stop demeaning Jeremy Reynolds.

Julia [02:28:54] Oh, my God.

John Dehlin [02:28:55] And if you don't stop, I'm gonna just bring up the CES letter in every single Mormon Stories episode until you change the name and stop doing it. And I don't know why. It's either Jeremy's threat or us or a combination of the two, but they're not running away with their metaphorical tale between their legs.

Julia [02:29:14] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [02:29:16] Study and Faith.

Julia [02:29:17] Wait, how did the CS letters directly go to the church's website? Are they both owned? Because I thought.

John Dehlin [02:29:22] Come on, they're all in this together. I mean, oh, my gosh.

Nemo [02:29:25] This is authorized by Boeing.

Julia [02:29:27] Yeah, yeah. Like, this is like church. So with the CS letters. The CS letters was church owned because I thought that the one, Professor Harper was.

John Dehlin [02:29:39] Yeah, this is Harper.

Julia [02:29:41] This is so wild to me.

Nemo [02:29:44] Yeah, yeah. So it says, Study in Faith is an experiential learning project authorized by Brigham Young University.

Julia [02:29:51] We've got a Dan Vogel quote.

John Dehlin [02:29:55] They're quoting Dan Vogel.

Nemo [02:29:56] Stephen Harper is. What does it say? Stephen Harper is one of the top

Julia [02:29:59] historians of the first vision. Oh, that's so funny.

Speaker E [02:30:04] Wow.

John Dehlin [02:30:06] Anyway, we could declare victory that we're making a big difference.

Julia [02:30:10] Oh, my gosh.

John Dehlin [02:30:12] Along with Jeremy, you know.

Julia [02:30:15] Huh.

John Dehlin [02:30:16] So anyway, I thought y' all would find that interesting.

Julia [02:30:19] Yeah. This is so fascinating.

John Dehlin [02:30:21] Okay, what's this last slide, Julia? Oh, eight.

Julia [02:30:23] Oh, I was just trying to count. It might have been 10, though.

John Dehlin [02:30:26] I think it's 10.

Julia [02:30:28] I should probably retype either way.

Nemo [02:30:29] It is a solid amount of the issues that Jeremy Reynolds brings up in the CES letter that are confirmed by BYU artist Jeremy Sweat.

John Dehlin [02:30:39] So thank you, Stephen Harper. Thank you, Brother Sweat, for promoting the CES letter. Everybody needs to go. I'll go to it right now. Go to cesletter letter.org, download the CES letter. There it is. You can buy it. Julia's got it. Buy a copy of it. Buy it for your bishop. Buy it for your stake president. Buy it for your Relief Society president. Buy it for your dad, your mom, your siblings, your children. Flood the earth with the CES letter. Because it's so true. It's so true that BYU faculty are now painting Paintings that support the things that Jeremy expressed concerns with back in 2014. And to be. To give good credit that Mormon stories, the Grant Palmer that Michael Quinn, that the Tanners that Mormon think. And there's so many truth tellers. Fawn Brody, for so many decades have been trying to get the church to come clean on. Thank you, Anthony Sweatt. Thank you, Mormon Church for acknowledging the truthfulness of the CES letter.

Nemo [02:31:57] Cheers.

Closing Remarks and Donor Appreciation

John Dehlin [02:31:59] All right, Nemo, any final words before we part?

Nemo [02:32:03] No, not really. Other than I'm glad that Brother Sweat hasn't been excommunicated for doing this. Not that I'm salty at all.

John Dehlin [02:32:15] Yeah, yeah. Julie, any final. Oh, and also check out Nemo the Mormon on YouTube. Subscribe to it. Donate.

Nemo [02:32:22] Do that. I'm coming to you soon. It's gonna be fun times. I think Thrive St. George is sold out, is it not, John?

John Dehlin [02:32:29] It is. And it's not just sold out. Well, I think they may have opened it up.

Nemo [02:32:33] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:32:34] They reconfigured the seating to add like seven. They used to. They used to do thrive over tables where people would sit around tables so they could get to know each other because St. George Thrive sold out. They. They're changing the seating to theater style so that at least 70 more people can attend. There will be a tour of the Mountain Meadows Massacre with Barbara Jones Brown. There'll be Nemo there. There'll be other great, great speakers. So we definitely.

Nemo [02:33:05] Julie Hanks.

John Dehlin [02:33:07] Oh, yeah, Julie Hanks. Who else?

Nemo [02:33:09] Brett Hartley from. I forget what her channel's called.

Julia [02:33:14] No nonsense.

Nemo [02:33:14] No Nonsense spirituality. Yeah, yeah, that. Those are the two that I remember. But it's gonna be good.

John Dehlin [02:33:22] And they asked me to speak every.

Nemo [02:33:25] Oh, yeah, John will be there too,

John Dehlin [02:33:26] but yeah, he's not. He's not that. Not worth promoting. Right.

Nemo [02:33:34] Well, John's at everything. Right. You turn on hbo, they're talking about Mormons. John's there. You know, you get a thrive. John's there. Like, it's not. Not a surprise to people, is it?

John Dehlin [02:33:45] So there's St. George Thrive. Amy McFal, best from breaking Down Patriarchy will be there. Melissa and Sam Zitting Weissen. They're from the growing up polygamy YouTube channel.

Speaker E [02:34:01] Yeah.

Julia [02:34:02] That's one of your most popular episodes, right? With them.

John Dehlin [02:34:05] Yep. Some guy named Joss Larsen will be singing. And. And I'm just trying to see if there get tickets. Oh, look, there's 29 tickets. 29 tickets available. So you. If you order now, you can be one of the final 29 people to attend to to meet us at Thrive St. George to see Nemo and all these other wonderful guests.

Julia [02:34:31] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:34:32] So get your ticket. Get your tickets today, Julia, Why don't you come to that?

Julia [02:34:36] I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:34:38] All right, well, we'll talk. We'll talk after about getting Julia there. Well, Julia, thanks for. Thanks for organizing today's episode.

Julia [02:34:47] Yeah, of course.

Julia [02:34:47] Email.

John Dehlin [02:34:47] Thanks for helping Julia organize today's episode. Thanks to Gerardo for the thumbnail and his help. And also thanks to Anthony Sweatt and Stephen Hart. What is it, Harper? And all those who help promote the CES letter. Everyone should read it. Everyone should buy it. And thanks to Jeremy for. For writing it and sacrificing that it might be made possible.

Nemo [02:35:14] And thank you to the donors who make sure that I get my quid and Julia gets her quid.

Julia [02:35:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:23] Mormon Stories donors. Thanks to everyone who donates to Mormon Stories and makes this series possible. Go to MormonStories.org to become a monthly donor. Thanks to Mike from LDSDiscussions.com for making this series possible. We miss you, Mike. Come back and see you soon. Yeah. And please know that you can check out the full LDS Discussions library on Spotify under LDS Discussions Podcast on Apple Podcasts under LDS Discussions. And you can go to the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel, find the playlist for LDS discussions, and you can watch it start to finish. And that's the way. And please recommend that series to all your friends and family as well.

Nemo [02:36:06] Cool.

John Dehlin [02:36:07] All right. Thanks, Julia. Thanks, Nemo. Thanks again for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.