In this episode, we explore groundbreaking research from PhD student Colby Townsend, who has uncovered compelling connections between The Book of Mormon and Adam Clarke’s Bible Commentary—one of the most widely used biblical resources during Joseph Smith’s time. Townsend’s findings raise fascinating questions about the nature of the Book of Mormon’s translation and the possible influence of contemporary scholarship on its text.
Through in-depth discussion and analysis, we examine how Joseph Smith may have drawn from Clarke’s commentary while producing The Book of Mormon and later during his Joseph Smith Translation (JST) of the Bible. While none of Smith’s contemporaries explicitly mention Clarke’s commentary, the textual similarities suggest a deliberate engagement with Clarke’s insights. Rather than direct copying, Townsend argues Smith selectively borrowed, rephrased, and sometimes misunderstood Clarke’s interpretations—an act that would not have been considered plagiarism by 19th-century standards.
This episode also situates Townsend’s findings within broader scholarly discussions, including Dan Vogel’s “pious fraud” theory, which proposes that Smith believed he was doing God’s work even if he used outside sources. We dive into examples of scriptural overlap—particularly within the Isaiah chapters—and explore why Smith might have inserted or modified entire passages based on Clarke’s commentary, sometimes correcting or reinterpreting them to fit his own theological vision.
We trace how these discoveries challenge the traditional LDS narrative of a purely divine translation process and consider the evolving meaning of “revelation” within the context of 19th-century religious thought. The episode also touches on Smith’s Methodist influences, his connection to Clarke (a prominent Methodist theologian), and the shared Restorationist impulses of the era.
Ultimately, this conversation opens up new ways of understanding how The Book of Mormon was created. Was Joseph Smith restoring lost scripture, or was he an inspired translator deeply influenced by the biblical scholarship of his time? Townsend’s research adds crucial context to this ongoing debate and invites listeners to reexamine the origins of Mormonism’s foundational text.
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-host: Gerardo Sumano
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introduction and Guest Welcome
John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is March 18, 2025. We're doing a live stream today. And today the thumbnail for today's episode is Book of Mormon secret source. And what we're going to be talking about today is brand new research that has come out in a, you know, a peer reviewed journal, academic journal that is basically asking the question, did Joseph Smith borrow from the Adam Clark Bible commentary when he created or produced the text of the Book of Mormon? We're going to be going into this but, but, but a short summary of that is have we discovered a new source of possible plagiarism by Joseph Smith in his creation of the Book of Mormon in addition to all the other sources that we've already discovered? And joining us today on this panel, this is brand new research. As far as I know, no one that I know even knows that this article exists other than the author and Gerardo and Colby. I'm sure there are a few people. But this is in 2025, March of 2025. This is brand new research and as far as I know, there's been no Mormon or ex Mormon themed podcasters or YouTubers that know about or have covered this topic. So do not be fooled. This is breaking research and this is a breaking podcast and it's all about Mormon church truth claims and specifically Book of Mormon historicity or the lack thereof. The Joining me on today's historic panel. Have I added too much hyperbole? Colby and Gerardo, joining me today are my compadre Gerardo Sumano. Hey Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [00:02:00] Hi John. I actually think you understated. Well you're, you're putting, you're putting it in comparison with other sources. I think I would agree that, you know, it has been established that there was things in Joseph's milieu that he would have used as inspiration for, for the Book of Mormon that look really closely to the ideas that are in the Book of Mormon. But where Colby Townsend argues in these and, and he's not asking the question, he's actually arguing that he convincing. He, he's convinced that Joseph had the a source right in front of him as he's dictating the Book of Mormon. So it's not, you know, like others like Dan Vogel and others have said, Graham Palmer, that Joseph was, you know, maybe had heard of be the Hebrews or other kinds of books and then those ideas made it into the Book of Mormon. But he's like I said again, Colby Townsen, is arguing Joseph had it in front of him as he's dictating to Oliver Cowdery the.
John Dehlin [00:03:09] The Adam Clark commentary, Right?
Colby Townsend [00:03:11] Correct.
John Dehlin [00:03:11] Okay. Yeah, perfect. All right, well, thanks for correcting me. And I love it. I love it when the correction goes towards more hyperbole instead of less because that's rare. That's almost never happened. Also joining us today is someone whose vocal cords must be tired. Colby. Colby Reddish. Colby with a K. Reddish. Not to be confused with Colby Townsend with the C, who's the author of this journal article we'll be talking about today. Hey, Colby.
Colby Townsend [00:03:42] Hey, John. Hey, Gerardo. Thanks for having me so much. I'm excited to be the Colby that's adding the second best ideas to today's podcast.
John Dehlin [00:03:51] So you're Colby number two, and the other guy's Colby number one.
Colby Townsend [00:03:55] You know what? I will allow it.
John Dehlin [00:03:57] And, and I joke about Colby's vocal cords because Colby, you. You did two episodes responding to the, to the recent Mormon themed Alex O' Connor YouTube video, is that right?
Colby Townsend [00:04:12] I actually did three. John,
John Dehlin [00:04:15] you're done. You're fired. You are now. No longer. I'm kidding. So there's Nemo rfm. What was the third Em and cult with Cultural Hall. Oh, fun. Was that before. After I fired you for Mormon stories. Okay, you just failed to tell me. That's fun.
Colby Townsend [00:04:32] That's right. That's right.
John Dehlin [00:04:33] That's what lawyers do. They give only the information that's absolutely necessary.
Colby Townsend [00:04:38] Yeah, I'm excited to talk about something else I can tell you about.
Colby Townsend's Background and Research
John Dehlin [00:04:41] Okay, so Colby, in addition to being an awesome attorney and a prominent voice now on the Mormon Internet, you actually, you actually have worked with a professor who we've discussed on Mormon stories. And I assume that you've spent some time studying historical criticism. So we're going to be doing some, some background on today's episode. But before we jump into it, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background as it relates to kind of historical criticism. But Gerardo has one thing.
Gerardo Sumano [00:05:14] Yeah, sorry, John. One more thing that I want to mention.
John Dehlin [00:05:17] Right at the beginning, you mentioned that
Gerardo Sumano [00:05:19] nobody, not a lot of people know that this has come out. I would agree probably among the podcasters, but col. Kobe Townsen actually acknowledges several pretty big figures that reviewed this paper and provided feedback. Some of them are William Davis and Ben park, who are pretty known, well known scholars in. Of the Book of Mormon and, and church history, and Robin Jensen, who is a historian at the Joseph Smith Papers Project.
John Dehlin [00:05:49] Oh, wow.
Gerardo Sumano [00:05:50] Brian Hoglet, who was a BYU professor and we know wrote the. Or was part of writing the gospel topic essay on the Book of Abraham and other really important scholars in. In broader religious and literary like studies like Seth Barry and John Turner.
John Dehlin [00:06:09] Okay. And. And I didn't mean to infer that, like, no one knows this article exists. I'm very certain that those who are really into Mormon studies. Yeah. Would have either collaborated with Colby or provided him input or would certainly know as soon as it came out. I kind of meant people in our world.
Gerardo Sumano [00:06:25] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [00:06:27] But. But are you. Are you saying those people whose names you just mentioned potentially reviewed and provided input before the article was published?
Gerardo Sumano [00:06:35] He says they.
Colby Townsend [00:06:36] He.
Gerardo Sumano [00:06:36] He says they did in the article.
John Dehlin [00:06:38] So that, that means that like several even faithful high level Mormon scholars have reviewed and found value, I'm assuming, in. In this article.
Gerardo Sumano [00:06:52] That's right.
John Dehlin [00:06:52] Okay.
Colby Townsend [00:06:53] Also, Charlie Harrell was on that list who wrote this is my Doctrine for people who are familiar with that book.
John Dehlin [00:07:00] Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that correction as well, Gerardo. Jump in anytime. I. I do want to ask all viewers and listeners whether they're on the live stream or after it. It is super important that, that if you can, if you value this type of content, that you like this episode, that you subscribe to the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel, and that if you do Spotify or, you know, Apple podcasts, if you could leave us positive reviews and subscribe and like us there, that's super helpful. And then the final thing I'll just say is we're able to do these episodes because of the generous donations of our donors who give monthly donations. So thank you. If you're a monthly donor. If you're not a monthly donor and you value this type of content, all you have to do is go to MormonStories.org, click on the Donate button to become a monthly donor. We have a dozen or more donors cancel every month, and if we don't replace them with new donors, so. And we have to start cutting back. So please, please support us if you can. All right, Colby, tell us your background as it relates to kind of Mormon studies slash historical and. Or Bible historical criticism.
The Adam Clarke Commentary Discovery
Colby Townsend [00:08:13] Yeah, so I definitely am more of a novice. I want to be real clear about that. But before I went to law school, I had a chance to work as a research assistant for Professor Tom Waymont. We'll talk about his research and why it's significant to today's episode in just a minute. But Tom was a great mentor to me. One of the things I really appreciated about him, aside from the fact that he helped me get into law school was that he. I always viewed Tom as being a true scholar and that he followed where the scholarship went. He was one of the few Mormon scholars in the ancient scripture department. That's where he was when I was working for him. That really followed. Followed the research and followed the data where it went. At least that was always my experience dealing with him. We're actually going to talk about how the research he started and published with Hayley Wilson Lamond. That was really a kernel of an idea that he floated. I remember one time right before I left BYU and graduated. So I have a lot of respect for Tom. I have a lot of respect for his work, and I followed it ever since.
Colby Townsend [00:09:20] And.
John Dehlin [00:09:20] And Colby, since we're going to be showing a clip with Haley in the next slide, can you just get us up to speed with Thomas Haley and the research that was done prior? Just so that when we. When we show the video we're about to show, along with whatever commentary Gerardo gives, people will know the context before we. We show the video.
Colby Townsend [00:09:43] Just. You want, like, an encapsulation of that. That research? Okay.
John Dehlin [00:09:47] End of our past episode, just all that.
Colby Townsend [00:09:49] Yeah. So Haley, when she was a grad student working with Tom, they put together research looking at textual dependencies between Joseph Smith's inspired translation of the Bible, a project I think he started in 1830. 1831. Dan Vogel's in the chat, so he can always correct me if I have the dates wrong. He knows Mormon history, I think, better than anyone. But Tom, essentially. Tom and Haley were essentially looking at textual dependencies of six words or more. Where Joseph was borrowing is the phrase that Tom used, borrowing from the Adam Clark Bible commentary. One of the things that came out of that research, to me that's very interesting, is that it wasn't always a simple lifting of Clark's commentary into the inspired translation of the Bible that Joseph was doing. He would sometimes negotiate with different intertextual notes and bring certain things to light based on cross references that were in the commentary, in Adam Clark's commentary. I mean, and so it was just a really interesting piece of research for people who really want to understand where the Book of Mormon came from. I think sometimes when we use the word plagiarism, I think sometimes apologists then are expecting for a typical plagiarism, like every word was copied. And I don't think that that's what the research stands for, but I think what the research does stand for is that there were things, things in Joseph Smith's environment, things in the time and place in which he grew up that he was engaging with on a different level than we were ever taught in the church's conventional narrative.
John Dehlin [00:11:27] Okay. And just to even back up even more.
Colby Townsend [00:11:30] Sure.
John Dehlin [00:11:31] If I were to give my layperson summary, Joseph Smith claimed to have provided a new translation of the Bible. Mormons know, or sort of know it as the Joseph Smith translation. And what a BYU professor and his assistant named Haley discovered was that it's very likely that Joseph Smith either borrowed heavily from and or plagiarized this biblical commentary that Joseph Smith would have had access to when he would have produced the Joseph Smith translation called the Adam Clark Biblical Commentary. Joseph Smith likely borrowed from that to produce the Joseph Smith translation. And this was published by a BYU professor and his research assistant. And it was up on the BYU's webpage up until recently. And I've been told that it's been taken down. But how much of that summary that I just made for people who have no idea what we're talking about was correct? And what would you say to amend or change it?
Colby Townsend [00:12:36] No, I think that's all accurate, John. I think what they were looking for is they were looking for possible hooks where Joseph Smith may have come up with some of his ideas. I think another thing that's really significant about Wayman's research, in addition to what you just said, is that Joseph, none of. Neither Joseph or any of the scribes that were involved in that Bible translation process mentioned the use of Adam Clark's Bible commentary. That's very important because I remember listening to Tom on. I don't think it was when he was speaking with. Because he never spoke directly with you, right, John? Just Haley did.
John Dehlin [00:13:12] That's right. Yeah. Colby is not shown, is not demonstrated the ability to come on Mormon Stories podcast as a Mormon Studies scholar. And I'll just say. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What did I say? Colby. Oh, you asked about Thomas, not Colby, correct? Oh, yeah, no. Thomas as a BYU professor. I'll just say it for both. Thomas as a BYU professor would not probably be able to come on Mormon Stories. And someone's asking in the comments, why isn't Colby Townsend on this episode? We did invite Colby to be on this episode. He said that he is too busy right now, which I have no reason to believe is not accurate. I will also say that I've noticed over the past 15 years that anyone who is interested, most of the people who are interested in doing Mormon studies, Mormon scholarship, feels like if they come on Mormon Stories podcast, it could jeopardize their standing in the community. Now there is an exception to that, at least one clear exception to that and that's Matt Harris and I guess Barbara Jones Brown would be another. But there are several scholars that just decline any invite to come on Mormon stories, I think out of fear of what repercussions might be. That's not to say that's the situation in Colby Townsend's case, but I think it's worth noting that when people are wondering sometimes why scholars don't appear.
Colby Townsend [00:14:42] Yeah, that makes sense to just kind of finish my thought. I think one of the significant things that comes out of that research is that there was more to the translation process at least, least when Joseph Smith was working on this revision of the Bible then is reported in his journals or in anything, any of the scribes notes or anything like that. And so that's, that's a big thing that we can take out of Wayman's research. And then I think Colby's research basically takes it to the next level by looking for the same textual dependencies that we see between the Adam Clark Bible commentary and Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible. Now taking that back and looking at the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin [00:15:22] So if somebody just said oh it's a slam dunk that Joseph Smith plagiarized from the Adam Clark Biblical commentary to create the Joseph translation, is that an overstatement Colby and Gerardo, or is that pretty much demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt at this point?
Gerardo Sumano [00:15:39] So, so I think I've seen an interview with Wayman and I think I've honestly have not really read too closely Wayman and Haley's research, although I know it has been additionally reviewed and they have done additional publications after the original 2017 publication of BYU. Like it was recently published in a book, you know, by really, really top high Mormon scholars, some of them involved with the Joseph M. Papers project. The article was expanded and Wayman's article was expanded and published there. But my, am I just responding to your question? My understanding of what women claims is. And, and if it's any similar to the way Colby argues and, and what we're going to be see here in a, in a minute is not that Joseph is seeing Adam Clark's ideas and then directly copying them into, into right here we're going to see in the Book of Mormon he's choosing what to use and sometimes he's misunderstanding what Adam Clark is saying that should be corrected. So it's hard to say that it's like a complete plagiarism when, you know, sometimes Joseph is misunderstanding the notes that Adam Clark is giving. And also, one more thing that's important to note is that at the time, this type of work wouldn't be considered plagiarism. You know, something that Colby points out on. On his paper is that Adam Clark in the Isaiah chapters, Adam Clark is borrowing almost word by word from another scholar. And Adam Clark does not identify that scholar. So it's. It was not considered kind of like sketchy, but it is kind of. It does call into question what does he mean when Joseph says that he received the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God or. Or the jsd.
John Dehlin [00:17:44] Colby, what would your answer to my question be? Thank you, Gerardo.
Colby Townsend [00:17:47] Yeah, I'm gonna give the standard lawyer answer of it depends in the sense of it depends on what someone means by plagiarism. I like the way Gerardo explained it. The reason I try and avoid. When I'm talking about that research, I try and avoid the term plagiarism. And the reason is because when people hear the word plagiarism, what they're expecting is they're expecting that Joseph just copied the ideas from Adam Clark. Now, that's true. There are ideas that Joseph borrowed from Adam Clark and plagiarized those ideas and even plagiarized some phrases. Like I said about Wayman's research, they were looking for textual phrases of six words or more. The reason they were looking for that, that that level of dependency is because that's not explainable away by chance, essentially. But what we'll get into when we look at the examples that Colby Townsend has provided, and I think it's basically the same thing with the Weymouth and Wilson Lamond research, is that it is slightly more complicated in that there were times that Joseph didn't copy what Adam Clark said. There were times he diverged from what Adam Clark said. And so that's where it does get a little bit complicated. I think the big thing for people who want to understand where the Book of Mormon, what they can take from this type of research and is that there's more to the story of where the Book of Mormon came from than the Church's conventional narrative ever taught us. And the other important thing to me is that because we can see textual dependency both in the revision of the Bible that Joseph Smith did as well as in the Book of Mormon as we'll talk about with this research, and that use of Adam Clark's Bible commentary wasn't recorded by any of the Scribes or in Joseph's journals. That's where then it records really opens the door to wondering what other resources was Joseph using, including things like View of the Hebrews and the. The typical ones that people will bring up that have similar phraseology. That's where I think it gets really interesting, John. So plagiarism, I think, is kind of in the eye of a beholder. The. The beholder to come back to answer your question more directly. But it is significant in explaining where the Book of Mormon could have possibly come from.
John Dehlin [00:19:50] Okay, before we jump into the slides, I just have a few, a few other things I, I need to share. Here is a link. We keep talking about the article, but we haven't actually cited it. The article is called early 19th century Biblical scholarship and the Production of the Book of Mormon. It was received on January 17, 2024. It was accepted for publication October 16, 2024. And it was published just, I guess, four days ago, March 14, 2025. And the. Is the journal called Degreter? Is that the name of the journal?
Colby Townsend [00:20:32] I think it's the Journal of the Bible and its reception. Right.
John Dehlin [00:20:36] Is that, Is that the name of the journal?
Colby Townsend [00:20:39] You're muted to writer.
Gerardo Sumano [00:20:40] Yes, that's correct. That's correct. That's the name.
John Dehlin [00:20:42] So who's degruter? Who's that?
Colby Townsend [00:20:46] Probably the publisher.
John Dehlin [00:20:48] Publisher. Okay. Okay. So the Journal of Bible and its reception. All right, really quickly, I, I managed to offend a really important scholar. Not really. He's so good natured. Dan Vogel said only renegade historians come on Mormon stories. I, I didn't mean to give a comprehensive list of all the scholars who will or will not come on Mormon stories, but obviously there are others besides Matt Harris and Barbara Jones Brown. I should probably clarify. Some of the scholars that are willing to come on are ones who are not seeking sort of a tenure track position with one of the coveted Mormon studies academic chairs, like at Claremont or at University of Virginia or at Utah State University. And even so, Patrick Mason did come on Mormon stories at one time. But anyway, I still hold by my point that there's a lot of fear in Mormon studies about talking about. It's not just coming on Mormon stories, it's talking about Mormon Church truth claims.
Gerardo Sumano [00:21:52] Well, and something we do on Mormon stories that I think we're going to be able to do here is not only talk about the research, but like explain the implications. You know, what does this mean for people and their beliefs? What were we taught as Mormons? And that's something that sometimes scholars don't like to get into. They like to talk about scholarship.
John Dehlin [00:22:11] That's fair. And even William Davis came on Mormon Stories. Anyway, we. We beat that point to death. The only other thing, there's a comment that says, can we please find a way to support underpaid grad students like Colby Townsend? Most live off of 20,000 a year to produce this cutting edge scholarship. I will just say that I offered Colby Townsend. I offered to pay him to come on warmer stories. So I'm doing my part. But if any of you want to throw Colby Townsend some donations, he'll just need to let us know what his Venmo is. All right, anything else before we jump in, before we sort of show this next video? Gerardo, anything you want to say to kind of set it up?
Joseph Smith's Use of the JST and Bible Sources
Gerardo Sumano [00:22:53] So this would be an interview that you did with Haley a few years ago, Haley Wilson Lemon, talking about where their research started with the jst, the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible.
John Dehlin [00:23:06] It's given some of that background.
Gerardo Sumano [00:23:07] Right.
John Dehlin [00:23:08] Okay, so this is from Mormon Stories, episode 1338. Haley Wilson Limone, the BYU undergrad who discovered Joseph Smith's plagiarism. So those are my words in his Bible translation, and I have translation in quotes. All right, let's go ahead and roll that clip.
▶ Video Clip 1Video Clip 1 [00:23:27] But after we spent considerable amount of time looking at Buck, I moved over to Clark. And when I started looking at Clark, it occurred to me like, oh, this is basic. This is a Bible commentary. And the JST is kind of a Bible commentary, sort of. So what if we just looked at them side by side and I started with Matthew, and that's when I started noticing the parallels, the very obvious parallels.
Video Clip 1 [00:23:54] So let me ask you. So was Thomas Wayment wanting to figure out the sources of inspiration for Joseph Smith's translations? Like, is that.
Video Clip 1 [00:24:09] I don't think that was the. I don't feel like that was the intention. My perception was that we just kind of wanted to understand, like, the theological influences behind Joseph Smith's thinking. Like what shaped his thinking, his theological ideas. That's initially what we were looking at, like what shaped his idea on resurrection and what shaped his idea, the pre existence or lack, you know, and what shaped his idea on baptism. And that's kind of initially what we were looking at.
John Dehlin [00:24:40] It's kind of interesting because an orthodox Mormon view would just be, well, God did. God shaped his view. God told Joseph Smith what was true and Joseph Smith told us. So there's sort of something in my mind going, wow, why is it byu? And it goes to show What I don't understand about Mormon studies, but in my mind I'm going, why would a, why would a BOA professor be questioning where Joseph got his inspiration? He got it from God. But that's, I know that's a simplistic view.
Colby Townsend [00:25:06] It's quite simplistic. I mean, it's complicated. Yeah, it's complicated. There's, you know, there's like, I mean, there's ranges of opinion and belief within any department. Right. There's ranges of opinions and. Yeah, I mean that, for example, at Notre Dame, there are people who will research, you know, the theology behind the worship of Mary and others who wouldn't dare touch that, you know, because it's a Catholic thing. Like, it's just, it's all over the place.
John Dehlin [00:25:41] All right, quick reactions to that. Points people wanted to make.
Colby Townsend [00:25:46] I, I think I'm completely unsurprised, like, from my experience with Tom. Tom was never afraid to ask those types of questions. That's one of the reasons I loved working with him before I worked with him, by the way. I took, I think, three classes from him on the New Testament and one on the Book of Mormon. I have so much love for the man and admiration for his work that. Yeah, I'm completely unsurprised at the questions that you were asking and Haley's response, that matches and tracks very much with my experience with Tom, that he wanted to understand how this stuff fit together, even if it didn't necessarily fit the Church's correlated narrative.
John Dehlin [00:26:28] Gerardo, anything you wanted to add?
Gerardo Sumano [00:26:30] Yeah, well, I, I wish this was more widespread knowledge. Right. Like, I wish the Church would talk about it. What's, what's interesting is that the Church has created essays about a lot of things. This is one thing that the Church officially has not wanted to touch, which is kind of interesting.
John Dehlin [00:26:48] Can I just note something that's kind of also interesting? So I, I'm wrong. I was able to find.
Gerardo Sumano [00:26:54] Oh, I was going to say, actually it, it is hard to find. I was, I, I, I, I had a hard time finding it. The first time I actually went to BYU Scholar Archive and I typed Wayment and I went through all the pages and I couldn't find it interesting. And I then went and type in on Google the, the original name of the article and I couldn't find it. It seems like they changed the name of the article.
John Dehlin [00:27:21] But anyway, it's, here's what I was going to say. So I was able to find the article, but it says it only has 78 downloads and it says since March 4, 2024. So I'm sure that the article came out, oh, before March 4, 2024, because it's been a long time since I interviewed Haley, so they must have. I don't know, did they take it down and republish it? Because there's no way on God's green earth that this article's only been downloaded 78 times. Right.
Colby Townsend [00:27:53] Well, I also know that's not the publication date because my first appearance on Mormon stories was in 2022, and that was. Haley was on before that.
John Dehlin [00:28:02] Yeah. So something some shenanigans have. Yeah. Because. Oh, the article was published in 2017.
Colby Townsend [00:28:09] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:28:10] So why is it saying 78 downloads since 2024 when the article was published in a 2017 journal?
Colby Townsend [00:28:18] Yeah, I don't know exactly, but I do know that the interpreter kind of ran a smear campaign against this research and against Tom after this research was published. It was pretty aggressive.
John Dehlin [00:28:33] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [00:28:34] I'm not exactly sure how we would get an insight into that internal politics stuff. I haven't talked to Tom about it. I just followed it from afar.
John Dehlin [00:28:41] Well, that's sketchy, but there may be a good reason for it. All right, so here is the article again in our slide deck. Anything else you want to say about it, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [00:28:50] Or that just so you get a picture of Tom and Haley.
John Dehlin [00:28:55] But as far as we know, Tom Thomas Wayman is still a BYU faculty. Is that right?
Colby Townsend [00:29:00] He is, but he's no longer in the religion department. He now teaches classics. So I don't. Again, I'm trying not to put words in his mouth or. Or affect his. His job in any way. I just know that that change happened, that he went from being in the Ancient Scripture department to the classics department. That might have been at his request or as a response to the article. I. I truly don't know the answer to that.
John Dehlin [00:29:22] Or in response also to the. To the attacks that he received from people like Dan Peterson and. And the. The. Let's say, the. The original Maxwell Institute crowd. That fair to say?
Colby Townsend [00:29:38] I think so.
John Dehlin [00:29:41] All right, Ron, what's next?
Book of Mormon Translation Methods Overview
Gerardo Sumano [00:29:44] Yeah, so, John, you had. When we were talking about this, you had the idea of, like, showing to people, you know, for. For people that joined the first time or just reminders for everyone. Why were we taught about how the Book of Mormon was produced?
John Dehlin [00:29:58] Not just what we were taught, but those who were closest to it, what was their testimony. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [00:30:03] That's right. That's right. So we have a couple quotes. The first one's from David Whitmer. And I went and. And did a little bit of magic. So we can. So we don't have to read the quote. We can.
John Dehlin [00:30:14] You created the audio, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [00:30:16] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:30:17] Okay, let's hear it. Joseph Smith would put the Sears stone into a hat and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light. And in the darkness, the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear. And on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear. And under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe. And when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus, the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God and not by any power of man. Okay. Is that okay if I just share a couple things from there that are important to me, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [00:31:23] Yes, of course.
John Dehlin [00:31:24] One is that it's David Whitmer, who is one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. So his. His testimony is very important. If you're an orthodox believing Mormon, you sort of have to believe he's not a lying sack if you're also going to believe that in the Book of Mormon. Because if he's a lying sack or not a credible guy, then all of a sudden, one of the three legs that the Book of Mormon stands on completely collapses. So if he is a credible, reliable witness, then you have to take seriously what he's saying about how the Book of Mormon was translated. And what he's saying is that Joseph was looking at a stone in a hat. He was reading these magical words as they appeared to, and he would read them off to Oliver. And then as soon as Joseph Smith knew that Oliver wrote it down correctly, the words would disappear and new characters or words would appear. So this doesn't leave much open to Joseph Smith injecting common understandings of things or other texts. As I read this slide, Colby and Gerardo, would you guys want to disagree with me or add or correct anything I said to anything I said?
Colby Townsend [00:32:45] Definitely not correct anything you said. The one thing I'd say is that passage, the very last of that passage. If you pull that slide up one more time, John.
John Dehlin [00:32:54] Okay.
Colby Townsend [00:32:56] That the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift of power, gift and power of God, and not by the power of any man. That is literally the quote that's been in manuals and stuff about the production of the Book of Mormon for generations. That they attribute to David Whitmer from this book. So yes, this testimony cannot be dismissed by just a wave of the hand. And I think it goes even further to point out that it's in the same paragraph that this part, which the church has used for generations to salvage the image of the Book of Mormon also basically describes, as you said, a strict tight translation process. It really closes the door on what this research opens the door to. And it also poses a difficulty for any of these expansionist theories of the Book of Mormon where, where Joseph is doing bricolage or any of these things. It just doesn't reflect what David Whitmer says happened. Having been one of the three witnesses, having some of the translation happen in his family home. I really don't know how apologists wiggle out of this or attempt to.
Expansion Theory and Witness Accounts
John Dehlin [00:34:06] And in the recent Alex OConnor episode, the Blake Osler expansion theory was mentioned. And I just don't know. And I've had interactions with Blake Osler. I find him to be a very unpleasant, angry, temperamental, emotional person who,
Colby Townsend [00:34:31] who
John Dehlin [00:34:31] has kind of a disturbing level of anger and emotion when confronted with the possibility that the Book of Mormon isn't what Joseph Smith claimed. So he, he's, he strikes me as problematic to begin with, but I have no idea how he could come up with his expansion theory that Joseph Smith somehow was able to insert 19th century and or his own understandings into his production of the Book of Mormon. How any of that has any leg to stand on, you know, once we're all made aware of this quote. But, but he's somehow gotten away with it to the point where smart, credible people fight him. Do either of you have an explanation for that? Why, why expansion theory isn't dead in the water?
Gerardo Sumano [00:35:23] Well, I mean, something I've been hearing a lot that, that, that is being talked a lot about more in Mormonism today is that revelation is, you know, something like 70 information, 30 inspiration. And, and then, you know, so, so, so this idea that he was amalgamating a bunch of things that he had learned or there were around him into the dictation of the Book of Mormon could still mean that he was being inspired by God to know what to put in or what to dictate. What that doesn't allow though is for Joseph to have a source in front of him and be dictating it, dictating from it.
Colby Townsend [00:36:06] Right?
Gerardo Sumano [00:36:06] Because then now you have the problem that the witnesses were not telling the full truth and that Oliver Cowdery knew that Joseph was using sources when he was dictating the Book of Mormon. And we're going to talk about that because there's actual BYU scholars who had, you know, decades ago have suggested that Joseph Smith could have had something like, for example, the. The King James Bible in front of him when he was dictating those passages on Second Nephi. And we're going to talk about that in a second.
John Dehlin [00:36:44] Anything you want to add, Colby?
Colby Townsend [00:36:46] I do, actually. So I view the expansion theory of the Book of Mormon identical to the Catalyst theory for the Book of Abraham because I think they're the same logic. The logic is. I mean, the logic. I'm putting that in air quotes. The logic of the position is, is that Joseph Smith had no idea what process he was doing. He doesn't understand exactly how it worked, and neither did the scribes. But yet you can trust what comes out the other end of that process as absolute scripture. To me, the expansion theory and the Catalyst theory are useless as theories because they're completely unfalsifiable. So in my view, they're just apologetic attempts to encourage people to continue believing even when there's clear evidence to the contrary. They've invented the expansion theory of the Book of Mormon translation because there are so many problems with the text, including population numbers, anachronisms, other textual dependencies. The argument really arises out of expediency to make the argument, not because there's any indication that that's the way it worked. As we just looked at this quote from David Whitmer, and I know we'll look at a few more from other people involved in the translation process, they all understood that that was the way it worked. When Joseph Smith was asked at a conference in 1831 by Hyrum to tell the people how he did the translation, he was mum on the subject. He didn't say anything about it, aside from gift and power of God. That to me is very interesting and says a lot about Joseph not wanting to talk too much about how the translation exactly happened. So in my view, John, the expansion theory and the Catalyst theory, I understand why people go there because these texts are meaningful to them and so they don't want to throw them out. But if we're thinking critically and we're looking to test these things like a falsifiable proposition, neither of those hypotheses are testable. And so I. I really don't care. They are. They give the same evidence that a knowing fraud would give. And so to me, that just is a bridge I'm not willing to entertain.
John Dehlin [00:38:56] And Colby I don't know if you were quoting or channeling Dan Vogel or if just y' all are on exactly the same pages, but Dan says the catalyst theory or the expansion theory, that they're both unfalsifiable theories. So you and. You and Dan were on the same page, and then Dan added, heads, I win, tails you lose. I'm just going to say I think I understand why someone came up, you know, why Blake Ostler came up with the expansion theory. I just don't understand why he's not laughed off. All reasonable, thoughtful discourse, just like the taper argument has become a mockery of Dan Peterson's attempt to explain away horses. I don't understand why Blake Osler and his expansion theory has it become the butt of jokes for anyone who's thoughtful looking at the Book of Mormon, it seems that level of ridiculous, and it sounds like we agree. Let's go ahead and go to the second, you know, witness to how the Book of Mormon was translated, and that's Joseph Smith's own wife, Emma, who, again, is an important witness to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, because I don't think she ever denied that the Book of Mormon was authentic. But she's also one of the named scribes to the Book of Mormon that the church will list as a scribe. So, again, you're gonna have a hard time dismissing Emma's credibility, but let's hear how she described the translation of the book.
Colby Townsend [00:40:29] I frequently wrote day after day,
John Dehlin [00:40:36] Is he possibly sitting at the table close by him? He's sitting with his face buried in
Colby Townsend [00:40:41] his hat with the stone in it
John Dehlin [00:40:43] and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us. Gerardo, it looks like, however these were cashed or recorded. There's just a slight delay in hitting play. It's fine. People get it. It's just. I think it's going to happen because it happened again anyway. Emma's basically saying she sat at the table, Joseph had his face buried in a hat, stone was in the hat, and he dictated from the stone. So, again, a very, you know, Joseph reading from the stone word for word. What gets written down by the scribe, is that fair to say? Colby?
Colby Townsend [00:41:18] It is. And the one thing I'd add, too, is the churches included lines from Emma Smith's Last testimony, again in manuals and stuff, for generations. So just like with David Whitmer's An Address to All Believers in Christ, it's really difficult for people to not pick up both ends of the stick when they want to hold things that Emma said at that at that level and basically use it in their testimony of the Book of Mormon. They have to. They have to look at the entirety of what she said in that three page final testimony.
Colby Townsend [00:41:49] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:41:49] Just one important thing to note on that one. She says nothing between us. So there was nothing other than the hat and stone.
John Dehlin [00:41:56] Okay. All right. And now the third. Again, this is Martin Harris himself, another one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon. So the only one we don't have is Oliver Cowdery, but we've got both David Whitmer and Martin Harris. Let's hear. And Martin Harris was also, you know, obviously one of the main scribes to the Book of Mormon. He helped. He was the scribe on the 116 pages. Yeah. It ended up getting lost.
Gerardo Sumano [00:42:25] So this is just Edward Stevenson relating an account from Martin Harris.
Colby Townsend [00:42:29] Just.
John Dehlin [00:42:30] Okay. And there may be a slight delay when I hit play, everybody, so don't be surprised if that happens. By aid of the seer stone,
Colby Townsend [00:42:40] sentences
John Dehlin [00:42:40] would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin. And when finished, he would say written. And if correctly written, that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place. But if not written correctly, it remained until corrected so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used. I love the theatrics of those audio clips. Gerardo. Nice work. Anything important to add from Martin Harris's account?
Colby Townsend [00:43:15] I just add that because this is a secondhand account. Right. And apologists will sometimes use that to discount secondhand accounts. That account is completely consistent with David Whitmer's account. Right. They're talking about the same type of process. And so if we're trying to evaluate things using the historical method, at least from what I understand about it, when we have two different independent accounts talking about the same process, it's very difficult to then ignore that in favor of these expansion or looser translation theories.
Gerardo Sumano [00:43:45] Yeah, I will, I will note though, just as a. I mean, I'll say this is what we were taught, you know, that the. Joseph was translating from the. By the gift and power of God. Nothing between him, you know, and. But it is kind of interesting that Oliver Cowdery. There's not a record of Oliver Cowdery saying how the translation happened, which the. You know, the most of what we have of the Book of Mormon was done by Oliver Cowdery. And something Dan Vogel just pointed out is that Cowdery was actually willing to lie about the stone and hat. He claimed it was the interpreters that Joseph was Using when he knew that there was. When it was convenient to change the story for him and. And to save Joseph. But just, you know, something interesting to point out.
John Dehlin [00:44:35] All right, the next slide we have is our own favorite. Brad Wilcox. What do you want to say about that before we show the clip?
Gerardo Sumano [00:44:45] Yeah, this is what he teaches his students about how the translation happens.
John Dehlin [00:44:49] All right, let's see what Brad Wilcox has to say.
Colby Townsend [00:44:54] I'm Brad Wilcox, and I'm starting a new semester teaching Book of Mormon at byu, and I thought I'd share with you some of the visual aids that I use with my students. This is a replica of the seer stone or one of the seer stones that Joseph Smith had. This was the stone that he found in a well when digging a well when he was a young man. And then when he would look into the stone, he would be able to see things that other people could not see. And part of the translation of the Book of Mormon was done with the Urim and Thummim, but part of the translation was also done with a seer stone or several seer stones. Now, people often get confused because they hear that Joseph Smith put a seer stone inside of a hat and then would look into the hat to see the seer stone, and they think it sounds weird. But when I compare for my students, the seer stone to a cell phone and I say, hey, a smooth surface on which words appear that can be read, then it makes more sense to them. I also say, hey, when you're out on a sunny day and you're trying to look at your cell phone, you wish it were darker. We often go like this to try to see the words better. Well, no wonder Joseph Smith put his cell phone or his seer stone in the hat so that he could block out light and he could see what was being written, what was given to him on the seer stone. A little cloth clearer. So maybe with these visuals in mind, then it will help you understand a little better, Just like I hope it helps my students understand a little bit better about the translation process of the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin [00:46:39] All right, what do we want to say about that? Sorry, the audio is a little bit low for some of you. It's hard to get perfectly balanced audio these days.
Gerardo Sumano [00:46:51] So. I don't know. He just. He just. He just showed us how he's teaching his students about it. I wonder if he's gonna now add an Adam Clark to some of those visuals. Adam Clark commentary. But we'll see.
John Dehlin [00:47:07] Okay.
Colby Townsend [00:47:08] I mean, just watching that I. I had to be myself because I was laughing because it's just so absurd. I understand, like, that we grew up with this narrative, and I understand it's important to people, but that's a grown man talking about putting an iPhone into a hat to defend a magic rock like that. That's just objectively what we just listened to. And this is happening at college, at a. At a college, like in a college scholarship. It just is really silly. In line with the comments I made about the expansionists and Catalyst theories, I think sometimes we need to pause and just kind laugh at the absurdity of what is being defended.
Gerardo Sumano [00:47:54] He actually took down the video, so it was reposted by somebody else
Colby Townsend [00:48:01] I met. I can imagine why.
Colby Townsend [00:48:05] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:48:05] Okay. Well, the next slide is about Colby, the. The man of the hour.
Townsend's Published Article and Its Context
Gerardo Sumano [00:48:09] Yeah. So he's. Colby's is. Colby Townsend is the author of the. Of the paper. He's an English and religious studies, PhD student at Indiana University, Bloomington in Early American Literature, Religion, and Print History. He has written other articles as well. One very important one that we covered on Mormon stories, John, if you remember, was the article about Third Isaiah in the Book of Mormon that we covered with David Bocavoy. He published that in Dialogue.
John Dehlin [00:48:41] And.
Gerardo Sumano [00:48:43] Yeah, it was pretty important as well. Basically, the idea is that, you know, the passages of Isaiah that are in the Book of Mormon, it's. It's basically impossible that Lehi, if he was real, would have had access to. To those because they were not written by the time they, him and Nephi and their family left Jerusalem.
John Dehlin [00:49:04] Yeah. Yeah. So he's. He's, you know, he's following academic protocol, I guess, in not writing about truth claims. But he does seem to be choosing topics that touch on truth claims. But that's my. That's how I would. That's how I'm. Those are associations I'm making. I'm not claiming that he would agree to that characterization.
Colby Townsend [00:49:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that. It's. It's interesting if you take these things to their logical end. Right. And I think that's one of the advantages of having Colby with a K here instead of Colby with a C. Here is. We can talk about that part.
John Dehlin [00:49:49] Yeah. Okay. All right, so here's another slide showing the article again, Gerardo, as you. As you corrected me. It's the Journal of the Bible and its reception. And yeah, there's. There's. There's the actual article again, so we don't need to repeat that.
Colby Townsend [00:50:07] Yep.
John Dehlin [00:50:07] Let's go to the next slide.
Bible Commentaries Available to Joseph Smith
Gerardo Sumano [00:50:08] Gerardo all right, so now we're going to get into the article. And, and these are pretty quotes verbatim from the, from the article. I might have changed a couple things here and there just to, to so the order would make sense of the, on the slides. But so I, I thought we could read these and, and then we can discuss it. So Colby starts the article, opening the article by talking about how people in the 19th century America had a growing desire for a more perfect Bible. So I'm going to start reading this slide. So it says 19th century Americans had a growing desire for not only a Bible with minimal to no typographical errors, but one that corrected the errors that had crept into the text over the centuries. Early Americans were aware that European biblical Criticism of the 17th and 18th century had argued convincingly that the text of the Bible had been altered and therefore in their minds, corrupted from the way it had originally been written. The belief in a corrupted Bible also coincided with general anti Catholic sentiment that pervaded in the period. To many Protestant Protestants, the corruption of the Bible occurred while the Catholic Church handled the text in late antiquity. And this was kind of really interesting to me because it seemed really close to the ideas that I was teaching during my mission that I thought Joseph kind of came up with. You know, I thought he, those ideas basically got revealed to him and were original to Joseph. But then knowing that people around him already had an anti Catholic sentiment and they already were talking about a more perfect Bible and the Bible had been corrupted was really interesting.
John Dehlin [00:52:05] I thought so too. Colby, do you want to add anything before I.
Colby Townsend [00:52:08] Well, yeah, and it's, I think it connects very much to the, the later project of Joseph Smith after the, by the Book of Mormon that we've already talked about. Right. His revision of the Bible. You can almost see that maybe his fascination with the Bible and plain and precious parts of the Bible being corrupted, which is in the Book of Mormon, and we, we see that that later develops into his inspired, you know, Bible translation. You can see a potential for where that root started. That's the part that's very interesting to me about this.
John Dehlin [00:52:39] Yeah, I'll never, I'll never forget as a Mormon seminary student growing up, number one, you know, well, even as a child, a Mormon child growing up memorizing the Articles of Faith, we believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly, we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. So clearly this was in the air. But also, yeah, I memorized in Mormon Scripture. Chase that scripture. A Bible. A Bible. We have a Bible. Why do we need a Bible? And you add to that just the mentions in the Book of Mormon of the great harlot, the great whore of all the earth, and then you combine with that Bruce R. McConkie's denunciation of the Catholic Church as the great and abominable church. You just know that prior to the creation of the Book of Mormon, there was a lot of concern about the Bible being aired, the Catholic Church corrupting the Bible, and that even creates the. The need for additional Scripture to clarify the plain, the precious things that were removed from the Bible. And, and it's really important to understand that context because either, you know, God saw ahead and, and made sure that all the Book of Mormon authors, you know, accounted for all of this stuff when they scratched into the gold, their writings that then would eventually get translated. You know, either, you know, all of that somehow weirdly happened magically or through inspiration, or all of these ideas were in the air. Joseph Smith knew it when he was thinking about religion in the 1820s. And that was part of his idea to create the Book of Mormon was to help settle so many of the biblical disputes that were happening. The types of things that Alexander Campbell himself, or Joseph Alexander Campbell himself listed and mentioned from the 1820s that he said were likely questions that inspired the creation of the Book of Mormon. It's, you know, Alexander Campbell, it would have been really clear to him that Joseph likely just said, oh, here are all these questions, all these problems with the Bible, huh? I'll create a new book, claim it was written by Native Americans, claim it was inspired by God, and I'll just happen to answer all the questions and problems that people were having with the Bible at the time. And I think that's really important context to then understand why a biblical commentary published and written in the 1820s might be a potential source for Joseph Smith as he's trying to produce a book that would answer questions around known flaws in the Bible. Does that make sense, Colby?
Colby Townsend [00:55:45] Oh, yeah, it absolutely does. And I, I love what you just said, John, because the other thing it connects to in my mind is In Joseph Smith's 1832 account of the first vision, which is the only account that we have in his actual handwriting, he talks about how his study of the Scriptures had led him to the conclusion that there was no true church, that everyone had apostatized from the true and living church. And then when you understand that and you understand the ideas that go into Dan Vogel's pious Fraud theory of who Joseph Smith was. That, to me, is the best theory I've ever heard to account for all the evidence of Joseph Smith's life. I know it can be unpopular sometimes among the ex Mormon crowd to say that Joseph Smith wasn't just a con man and a fraud. But when you look at evidence like this, you can see that there's at least evidence to support that, even if he was completely wrong, that Joseph Smith thought he was engaged in a legitimate. Some type of legitimate spiritual exploration or some type of spiritual experience. That doesn't mean that you have to take it literally, because obviously we don't close our eyes to. To evidence that's staring us right in the faces. We'll get to with this textual dependency evidence. But that is one of the things that's really interesting to me about this. I feel like the more I learn about Joseph Smith's life from research like this or just from looking at the Joseph Smith papers, it is just an incredibly interesting point in Mormon history to try and figure all of this stuff out and unravel, you know, where all these different threads that continue on in Mormonism today come from.
John Dehlin [00:57:24] I love it. Yeah. All right, Gerardo, should. Should one of us read this next slide or do you want to talk about it first?
Gerardo Sumano [00:57:32] Yeah, well, I'll just talk about it really quick. So it just. Basically, this slide is about how the idea of Bible commentaries was not foreign to Joseph, and we actually know for a fact that he was using Bible commentaries explicitly later, later after the Book of Mormon. So you can. You can read it.
John Dehlin [00:57:51] Colby, do you want to read this?
Colby Townsend [00:57:52] Yeah, of course. Joseph used other Bible commentaries in 2018. Seth Perry, associate professor of Religion at Princeton, demonstrated how early Mormons, Joseph Smith and his associates were utilizing paratextual cross references in Thomas Scott's commentary on the Bible and in their reading and writing of new text, they were using these cross references in the production of the lectures on faith only five years after the dictation of the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin [00:58:20] Colby, do you want to comment on that? I'm just noticing the date there is 2018, and the date on this BYU article with Thomas Wayment is 2017. So Thomas would have known about this. Thomas Wayman would have known about this before Seth Perry would have given the speech. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [00:58:42] He's a book is a book.
John Dehlin [00:58:43] He published this book. Yeah, yeah.
Colby Townsend [00:58:45] And I think that's actually one of the things, as I've listened to interviews, where Tom has explained his research and what he thought the next steps were. I do think that's actually one of the things that Tom was encouraging people to look into with this research is he was, you know, for better or worse, Mormons tend not to engage really with critical biblical scholarship. They're usually more focused on other areas. Tom was actually one of the few people, at least when I was at byu, that were focused on that area. And that was one of his asks when he published his research is that Latter Day Saints need to be more willing to engage with critical biblical scholarship because it matters and it mattered to the early Saints. And so that's where Tom was coming from. So I agree, John. He probably would be supportive of that next step.
John Dehlin [00:59:33] Anything else we want to. That's worth mentioning about Seth Perry? Do we know the source? Like, do, do, do we know if, like, the church has Joseph Smith's original library and there's a copy of the Adam Clark commentary? Do we know if in the Times and Seasons or any of the church newspapers, prominent Mormons in the 1830s mentioned or make reference to Adam Clark commentary or anything at all that we can cite as a reference? They're sort of showing awareness of, of, of the Adam Clark commentary.
Gerardo Sumano [01:00:10] There is one reference about the Adam Clark that, that Colby talks in the article, and we're gonna. Where there's a slide about that.
John Dehlin [01:00:16] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:00:17] As far as Joseph using other commentaries or Bible scholarship, we like. He would cite it later down the road after the Book of Mormon. He would cite other people sometimes are. Are engaged with Bible scholarship.
John Dehlin [01:00:32] Okay. So what I'm taking from this is that, is that, you know, it's well established that Joseph and people in his circle were aware of biblical commentaries and used them.
Colby Townsend [01:00:44] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:00:45] And. And that probably would have been true prior to the production or the printing of the Book of Mormon. It's probably safe to say.
Colby Townsend [01:00:52] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [01:00:52] Yeah. And one thing I wanted to say before we moved off this slide is I think when you asked the question at the beginning, John, about plagiarism, this is one of the reasons that I was kind of wrestling with the answer to that question is if they're using another commentary in their work on the Lectures on Faith, Joseph Smith and the people connected to him. It's really not as simple as direct plagiarism. Right. This, this is where I think it really. This research really adds a lot to understanding. That pious fraud theory that I think was first offered by Dan Vogel is. It shows that they were wrestling with these things. And, you know, whether one believes those things are true or not. It seems like they did and that they believed that it was Part of what their spiritual experience was was to. To wrestle with these things and try and incorporate them into the church's narrative.
John Dehlin [01:01:42] Got it. Okay. This is. This is really. This is really good. I'm glad we're taking the time to explain this. All right, what's the next slide, Gerardo?
Textual Connections Between Clark and the Book of Mormon
Gerardo Sumano [01:01:51] Yeah, so this is just kind of, like, about Adam Clark and. And how it relates to the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin [01:01:57] Okay, so I'll read this one. It says, the Book of Mormon shows that Joseph Smith was directly engaging with biblical scholarship at the start of the Second Great Awakening, as anti Catholicism reached a fever pitch and calls for returning to primitive Christianity and. And the original Bible intensified. So you're saying this is a.
Gerardo Sumano [01:02:21] This is a quote from the. From the article.
John Dehlin [01:02:23] So this is Colby's. Is this a conclusion that Colby has reached?
Gerardo Sumano [01:02:27] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:02:28] Colby Townsend is reached, yeah. Okay.
Colby Townsend [01:02:32] And he. He's reaching that conclusion, John, because of the textual dependency. We'll get in a second. So I know we do have a later slide to answer your question about how do we know that he was accessing the Joseph Smith, or, I'm sorry, the Adam Clark commentary. But the other reason we know he was accessing the Adam Clark commentary, and I can't stress this enough, is because there's textual dependency. So when I'm talking about textual dependency, what I mean is there are words in there that are like, enough words, a phrase that's unique enough, and that's in Adam Clark's commentary that is also then in the Book of Mormon. That really, the only way to explain it, aside from, like, astronomical chance, would be that there's some borrowing going on. Because when you look at. When we look at some of the examples, I think it'll be clearer. But when we say textual dependency, I would almost look at that like a DNA test. Like, it's that level of looking at where these things came from, because that's something that can't be explained away. If you had. In other words, if you had 30 words in succession that were borrowed between Adam Clark's Bible commentary and the Book of Mormon, the odds of that happening by chance would be basically impossible. Right. And so when we're looking at textual dependency, it really doesn't matter. If we can prove that Joseph had access to a copy of Adam Clark's Bible commentary, Colby will establish how easy it would have been for that to happen, and that one of his family members did. But textual dependency kind of gets around that question in an interesting way.
Colby Townsend [01:04:05] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [01:04:06] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:04:06] And just one more thing. I would Mention there's a sentence in the article. I didn't include it on the slides, but I just thought about it. It's important. As we're talking about this, Colby says that, he says, I have not been able to find these exact phrases, meaning the ones that Joseph used in the Book of Mormon in any other commentaries for the passages in Isaiah of the English speaking world prior to 1830. So he's basically under, if I'm, if I'm understanding correctly, saying Adam Clark would have been the only source that, you know, that would have had this type of suggestions that made it into the Book of Mormon.
Colby Townsend [01:04:44] Yeah, that's the way I understood it too, Gerardo. That's basically almost like genetics, but for text. Right. That's what he's looking at, his textual dependency.
John Dehlin [01:04:54] All right, what's this next video clip?
Gerardo Sumano [01:04:58] So instead of reading the boring scripture in First Nephi 13, I thought we can watch this, a couple entertaining few second videos from the church.
John Dehlin [01:05:06] Okay, so why is first. Why have we chosen first Nephi 13 in the article?
Gerardo Sumano [01:05:11] Yeah, because this is a representation of what's going on on First Nephi 13.
John Dehlin [01:05:16] Okay. And that's, and that's text that's going to be analyzed in, in Colby.
Gerardo Sumano [01:05:22] Not necessarily. So this is going to show us kind of what we've been talking about about the Catholic Church and how the Bible was corrupted.
John Dehlin [01:05:29] Got it.
Gerardo Sumano [01:05:30] That idea makes it into first Nephi 13 right before starts quoting Isaiah.
Colby Townsend [01:05:37] Sorry, John, before you play this clip. Oh, sorry, before you play this clip, I was going to say, I do think this actually comes on the latter half of, of Colby's article. But for people who aren't aware, Colby takes the Messiah priority view of Book of Mormon dictation order. And I'm only bringing that up to say because this is in First Nephi 13. I should probably give an overview of that. The idea is that when Joseph Smith and Martin Harris Lost the lost 116 pages of the first draft of the Book of Mormon dictation, they didn't restart with Oliver Cowdery back at First Nephi or the, you know, the substitute text that would have been the Book of Lehi, they kept going with Messiah and wrapped back around. My point being that this would have been on the tail end. First Nephi 13 would have been on the tail end of that dictation process with that view, with that Messiah priority view. And that's important because it shows how much time Joseph had to think, reflect and incorporate these ideas that were swimming around in his milieu into the Book of Mormon.
Gerardo Sumano [01:06:42] That's right. I think Colby even talks about how Joseph pauses right before he gets into Isaiah. I can't remember exactly.
Colby Townsend [01:06:50] He does. You're right, Gerardo. Yep. That's in the conclusions.
John Dehlin [01:06:54] Yeah. I mean, so again, either God planned all this ahead of time, and if he did, then why would. Why wouldn't he have planned it in a way to where Martin Harris wouldn't have lost 116 pages, you know, to begin with? But. But anyway, either. Either God planned this, you know, a knowledge of. Of there being problems with. With the accuracy of the Bible before the Bible was ever even written or published, which is kind of preposterous, or this thing we're about to show from the Book of Mormon shows that Joseph Smith had biblical flaws on his mind in the 1820s before the book of Mormon was ever published. Right, right.
Colby Townsend [01:07:39] Exactly.
John Dehlin [01:07:40] Okay, let's play.
Colby Townsend [01:07:43] Proceedeth forth from the mouth of a
John Dehlin [01:07:45] Jew, it contained the fulness of the
Colby Townsend [01:07:48] Gospel of the Lord, of whom the
John Dehlin [01:07:50] twelve apostles bear record.
Colby Townsend [01:07:54] Thou seest the formation of that great
John Dehlin [01:07:56] and abominable church which is most abominable
Colby Townsend [01:07:59] above all of the churches.
John Dehlin [01:08:02] They have taken away from the Gospel of the Lamb many parts which are
Colby Townsend [01:08:06] plain and most precious, and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away. Because of these things which are taken away out of the Gospel of the Lamb, an exceedingly great many do stumble so much that Satan hath great power over them.
John Dehlin [01:08:23] I mean, that's. That's so striking to me because it's. Not only is the Book of Mormon, you know, showing an awareness of, you know, flaws in the Bible, but. But it's saying that those flaws are so serious that they're keeping people out of heaven, that they're causing people to be basically encompassed by the powers of the evil one and causing them to slip into darkness and sin. So, I mean, it's basically saying this is a critical, urgent, horrible problem that the awful, wicked, evil Catholic Church has inflicted upon Christianity, and it's super serious and God needs to fix it, you know?
Colby Townsend [01:09:09] Right.
John Dehlin [01:09:09] And who. Who might that man be?
Gerardo Sumano [01:09:12] Well, you should play the. You should play the next slide. It's a couple seconds as well.
Colby Townsend [01:09:17] Proceeded forth.
John Dehlin [01:09:19] All right, I'll just play the next slide. Okay. So there's others, too. Okay. All right, we'll play. We'll play the next slide. Behold, these things shall be hit upon
Colby Townsend [01:09:29] to come forth unto the Gentiles by the gift and power of the Lamb. These last records which thou hast seen among the Gentiles shall Establish the truth, the first, which are the twelve apostles of the land.
John Dehlin [01:09:44] Okay, there it is.
Gerardo Sumano [01:09:47] So the Book of Mormon is supposed to come and, and, you know, complete the things, the precious things that were lost in the Bible.
John Dehlin [01:09:56] Yeah. And it reminds me of Joseph in the amazing technical color dream code, who this man might be. I just don't know. You know, it's, it's obviously a setup for how, how incredible and important Joseph Smith is. Right. It's like he's writing the book that predicts how important he's going to be for the salvation of mankind.
Colby Townsend [01:10:18] And people are going to think you're joking about that, John. I know. Since a lot of your audience are never Mormons, I think it's second Nephi 3, like, literally has an entire prophecy that's supposedly written by Joseph out of Egypt. Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat that talks about a choice. Seer will be raised up and his name shall be Joseph, like unto his father. And I remember the first time I read that, I probably in seminary, like the first time I read it away from anyone explaining what it meant to me, I remember just sitting there and kind of sitting with it for a second and saying, like, wow, none of the other, none of the other prophecies I've ever learned about my entire life ever have been this specific. You know, not even Jesus. Not even Jesus, exactly. The God of the Book of Mormon knew everything right up until about 1830. And then it just didn't. Didn't know a whole lot after that.
John Dehlin [01:11:15] All right, all right, so let's go to the next slide.
Gerardo Sumano [01:11:18] Yeah, so this is second Nephi 11. So this is, you know, just a few chapters after what we just saw. And here is where Nephi is going to talk about the importance of Isaiah. And this is right before he's gonna, you know, they're going to start quoting all those passages on Isaiah and. Do you want to read it, John?
John Dehlin [01:11:40] Sure. So second Nephi 11, verse two. And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah. For my soul delighteth in his words. For I will liken his words unto my people, and I will send them forth unto all my children. For he verily saw my redeemer, even as I have seen him. And for the never Mormons out there, I'll just say it. If you've never read the Book of Mormon, you're reading First Nephi. It's the first book in the Book of Mormon and it just, it's basically telling the story of Lehi and Nephi and Laman and Lemuel and Sam and their family escaping Jerusalem, you know, and eventually coming to America. And I don't know if they come to America before, after this verse in Second Nephi, but what I do know for sure is that in Second Nephi, you hit this wall of just totally boring and tedious text. And it's basically Joseph Smith apparently just, basically just inserting chapter after chapter after chapter of Isaiah from the Old Testament inexplicably in the middle of some otherwise also relatively boring storytelling. And so that's what this verse is. It's basically the precursor to chapter after chapter after chapter of Isaiah inserted into the Book of Mormon. Am I wrong?
Gerardo Sumano [01:13:11] You're right. I think it has happened for a few chapters by then.
Colby Townsend [01:13:14] But.
Gerardo Sumano [01:13:15] Or, or one, sorry, one chapter before a couple in First Nephi. But, but then. So that's why he says, I'm going to continue to do it because now he's going to go. And if you, if you put the other slide up, then we can see the visual right there. Of all the chapters of Isaiah, the red ones are the ones that are quoted, you know, almost the entire chapter. And the ones in orange are the ones that are partly quoted in the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin [01:13:40] And for those just listening, there's basically about 20 chapters from Isaiah that are just copied, basically copied and pasted maybe with a little bit of exception into the Book of Mormon from Isaiah's 2 through 14. And then 29 and 48 and 49 and 50, 51. And then there's, you know, basically five orange chapters, which means what again, what does orange mean? Repeat that, Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [01:14:10] Part of Isaiah, part of those Isaiah chapters.
John Dehlin [01:14:13] Plenty of chapters are just copied and pasted as, as chapters in the Book of Mormon. And then five parts of Isaiah are copied and pasted into chapters in the Book of Mormon. Is that right, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [01:14:25] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:14:25] Okay.
Colby Townsend [01:14:26] Including. Including parts of Isaiah that current biblical scholarship indicates had not even been written at the time that Lehi and Gerardo, you already mentioned this, but I'm just reiterating that since we have it on the slide, including chapters of Isaiah that had not been written according to current biblical scholarship at the time, Lehi and his family would have left Jerusalem. To also connect it to my comments about the Messiah priority dictation of the Book of Mormon, if you'll leave that up actually for a second John, if you look. So second Nephi, I believe, has 33 chapters in it. Look at how many of those closing chapters. Right. If we're thinking that that Second Nephi is basically the end of the book, aside from those small books between that and Messiah, the beginning of Messiah, which is where the original manuscript continued from. You can see that if Joseph Smith is in a rush or is needing to fill space, you can see how many of these chapters in Second Nephi are exactly that. If we're entertaining that hypothesis. Right.
Isaiah Chapters and Joseph Smith's Biblical Knowledge
John Dehlin [01:15:30] Can I just ask. So, so again, we've already talked about this, but I'm just going to ask a question. So Joseph Smith sits down with Martin Harris. He transcribes. Martin Harris basically is the scribe for 116 pages of the Book of Mormon. Martin Harris takes those 116 pages to his wife. His wife destroys them or hides them. So then Joe and that, that takes us up through Mosiah. Is that right?
Gerardo Sumano [01:15:54] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:15:55] And then, so Joseph, we know now, writes for whatever reason, picks up on page 117 somewhere in Messiah, finishes the Book of Mormon, and then. And then has to go back and replace the original 116 pages. Can anybody tell me their theory on why Joseph decided that he needed to insert 25 chapters of Isaiah in the middle of his attempt at replacing the 116 pages? What was Joseph thinking? Why did he feel the need to do this? Any theories?
Gerardo Sumano [01:16:32] So I say it was a big deal at the time, is my understanding among Christians, they saw, you know, the revelations on Isaiah talking about the destruction of. The destruction of Jerusalem and predicting that and, and, and all of that language. They saw it as the end of the time, as kind of like the prediction of the end of times. And so, you know, you have to remember, I mean, we're called, it's called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So Joseph was seeing Isaiah predicting the end of the, you know, like the, the conquest of. Or Jerusalem falling as also predicting the end of times. And that's why he would quote a lot of these chapters. And he quoted them something, I'll say, like the ones in red are quoting almost verbatim. But there are some changes, and some of those changes that he made seem to be dependent on Adam Clark, which is the point that we're going to be making, you know, but if I
John Dehlin [01:17:34] could just push back a little bit and maybe y' all just don't know. But if I'm Joseph Smith and I'm. I'm replacing the 116 pages, it just seems really odd that I'm just going to basically input. You know, he's going to assume that people have Bibles. He's going to assume that anyone who's reading the Book of Mormon can just go look at their Old Testament in the Bible that they have. So in my mind it just seems off that he would just copy and paste, you know, 25 chapters basically into the middle of second Nephi versus make reference to them or have prophets who are, you know, he would be telling his story, weaving in principles from Isaiah, but not just like importing 25 chapters basically in the middle of this long story that he's trying to tell it it. Colby, do you have a thought on that? Does anybody tried to explain that? Because it just doesn't make sense to me.
Colby Townsend [01:18:36] Yeah, one thing I think is that Gerardo said that is interesting to me is remember that Joseph Smith wasn't the only person who had the idea of like restoration of. Of bringing back like a true version of. Of Christ's original primitive church. In fact, Alexander Campbell, right, who was a significant figure in that same kind of area that like he was a restorationist as well. And when you're a restorationist, I think you have these connections to belief in this, this connection to the house of Israel, the whole idea of like a promised and a prophesied people. And I just don't know any other book in the Bible other than Isaiah that does such a thorough job of talking about that. There are some chapters, John, where, like the ones that Gerardo had delineated with the. The different color that basically had partial quotes where Nephi and I think Jacob in some parts his brother, they're weaving in parts of Isaiah into the rest. But it is kind of an odd thing. And you're right. I mean, I think probably every, every person who grew up going to seminary or, or being woken up early by a parent to do scripture reading remembers hitting that second Nephi block of Isaiah because it is re if you don't understand one, if you don't understand King James English language and then two, if you don't understand the references to ancient, you know, ancient Jewish practices, it's really tough to get through. But I don't actually know the answer to your question. There's part of me that wonders if Joseph Smith felt like he needed to fill space and remember that I don't think the original 1830 version of the Book of Mormon called out that it was quoting directly from Isaiah. So I don't know that people, unless they were really well acquainted with the Bible would have recognized fully that that's what was happening in those chapters. But I'm not sure. I do know that there's a verse in third Nephi where Christ Supposedly is recorded in third. Nephi at least says that great are the words of Isaiah. So we do have that connection that would have been dictated earlier in the book. But it's a, it's a great question. I don't know, I'll have to think about it a little bit.
John Dehlin [01:20:48] Well, I can see why, you know, maybe verses would be, would be shared or it could be referenced. It's just the act of 25 basic chapters being just copied and pasted in when people are going to know that they were copied and pasted in. It just doesn't make sense to me. So we can, we can, you know what? If any of you know, even if you're watching this later, please add it to the comments because we read every comment and I would love anyone's explanation or theory for why Joseph Smith did it because it, it doesn't make sense to me. It just seems off. But anyway, filler, filler is, it is an excuse. I've heard before that he just had to come up with 116 pages and that was the way to do it.
Colby Townsend [01:21:34] If I can kind of reverse your question too though, John, like if we're taking the narrative at face value for what it says, it definitely doesn't make any sense for Nephi to chisel records that they already have onto a separate set of records. Right. Like that, that part of taking the story at face value makes absolutely no sense for Nephi to copy the Isaiah records from the brass plates. Again, makes no sense.
John Dehlin [01:22:04] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:22:06] Also some of these chapters are important to Joseph. For example, the, the Isaiah chapter that's supposedly predicting the Book of Mormon. The book, the sealed book, you know, and, and some, and you know, that can be read by the learned and that kind of stuff. Some of those are the chapters that he, he includes. I, I think some, some of those chapters could be explained as him seeing that Isaiah is, is predicting the Book of Mormon or the Messiah.
Colby Townsend [01:22:36] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [01:22:38] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:22:39] All right, let's go to the next slide. Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [01:22:43] Yeah, so this is another part of the article. So it says Nephi becomes for an early 19th century audience, an early 6th century BCE recorder of a presumably pristine version of the Book of Isaiah. That's another thing that I was going to mention. You know, for Joseph, including Isaiah into the Book of Mormon and then making changes or additions to it, it's kind of like restoring those precious truths that were lost. Smith was highly attuned to discussions surrounding the complex textual history of the Bible, just as other early 19th century Americans, American Protestants were though from a Rural and less fortunate background. He was a capable and creative thinker, not Unlike other uneducated 19th century authors like Walt Whitman and Herman Mulville, which, that part was kind of interesting that he, he mentions two other authors who were also uneducated and who also produced kind of interesting works.
John Dehlin [01:23:49] So is this basically. So this is Colby Townsend basically saying, even though Mormon apologists like to say that Joseph Smith was a dumb, uneducated farm boy, he was actually quite well versed in discussions. He was, he's well versed in the Bible and he was well versed in controversies and, you know, intellectual topics related to the Bible, its history and theological questions related to the Bible. Is that, is that what this is saying?
Gerardo Sumano [01:24:24] That's right. I think so.
John Dehlin [01:24:26] Okay. All right. That's good context as well. Okay.
Colby Townsend [01:24:33] Hey, John, John, Dan Vogel did have a comment in the live chat about his theory of what was going on with the, with the Isaiah chapters. He said, I think the copying of Isaiah coincides with Joseph smith's trip mid June 1829 to the printer and Utica for copywriting. So someone copied those chapters while he was gone. That's at least Dan's theory.
Colby Townsend [01:24:59] The.
John Dehlin [01:24:59] Dan. I'm just going to read that again. The copying of Isaiah coincides with Joseph smith's trip mid June 29th to the printer. So someone copied these chapters while he was gone. So somebody. Wait a minute. So that's bizarre. Somebody is just inserting text in the Book of Mormon while Joseph's away. I, I didn't know that was even.
Gerardo Sumano [01:25:24] Yeah, I heard about that.
Colby Townsend [01:25:25] I've never heard that theory before. But one thing I do know, because we, we do have some of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon dictation, but it's very little. If I remember right, it's like somewhere around 30%. But in that version we have the handwriting of scribes that we didn't know participated in the project. So to make the point that what was going on with the translation process is much more complicated than we really probably will ever know because I don't think the people involved kept very clear records of what was going on.
John Dehlin [01:26:00] Okay. And so Dan's saying, so either Joseph Smith made changes in the Bible or afterwards when he returned. All right, well, I've got a lot to learn, obviously, but let's go ahead and go to the next slide. All right.
Why Adam Clarke Was a Likely Source
Gerardo Sumano [01:26:18] Joseph A Methodism. So this is answering your question. Why? Why Adam Clark, you know, is there something that we can look at that tells us that maybe he heard or
John Dehlin [01:26:29] words from the Article again, Gerardo?
Colby Townsend [01:26:30] Yes.
Gerardo Sumano [01:26:30] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:26:31] Okay. Colby, Reddish. Do you mind reading those?
Colby Townsend [01:26:34] Of course. It is well known that Smith was first attracted through his wife Emma's family to Methodism. Smith's uncle in law, Nathaniel Lewis, was a prominent Methodist minister in Harmony, Pennsylvania. Lewis asked Smith if the spectacle Smith claimed to have found with the plates, the main tool he said he used to translate the record, would work only for him or if they would work for anyone that used them. Lewis claimed Smith said they would. They would work for anyone. Lewis responded by saying that if he could use the spectacles to try to read the variety of ancient scripts in Adam Clark's commentary, that he would then believe the story about the gold plates.
John Dehlin [01:27:12] All right, so what should we be gleaning from this quote, fellas?
Gerardo Sumano [01:27:17] So, oh, one. One thing to mention. Adam Clark we're going to mention in a second, but Adam Clark was a Methodist preacher. So Methodists. Methodist preachers at the time would have probably been familiarized with Adam Clark commentary. We know that Joseph was fascinated with Methodism. He participated in kind of Bible debates, clubs in. In the Methodist Church. I. I think some claim that at one point he tried to join the Methodist Church.
Colby Townsend [01:27:47] And.
Gerardo Sumano [01:27:48] And then we have Emma Smith's uncle, who talked to Joseph, who claimed to have talked to Joseph about Adam Clark in. In relation to the Book of Mormon translation.
John Dehlin [01:28:03] So this gives at least more explanation or. Or at least credibility to why Joseph would have an Adam Clark commentary. It was a Methodist commentary, is that right?
Colby Townsend [01:28:18] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:28:19] And Joseph was very well connected with Methodists.
Colby Townsend [01:28:22] And we know that Lewis had a copy of it, if I remember correctly. Right, Gerardo? Doesn't it talk about that?
Gerardo Sumano [01:28:27] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [01:28:28] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:28:29] Okay, so at least of a family member of Joseph's. We know how to copy.
Colby Townsend [01:28:35] Yeah. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that it talks about Joseph's. Joseph's interest in joining Methodism after he'd met Emma because of Emma's family's connection to Methanism. Remember that if we take Joseph's 1838 account of the first vision as true, that he's been told by God not to join with any other sect or religion because there is no true religion on the earth at the time. And yet we see him getting to the level of participating in. In being a Methodist exhorter later after that supposedly happened.
John Dehlin [01:29:13] Okay, now we're at Adam Clark's biblical commentary. Do you want me to read this, Rardo? Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:18] So we have a picture of what Adam Clark would have looked like A painting and then a picture of the. Of the Bible commentary of what it would look like. It's six volumes.
Colby Townsend [01:29:28] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:29:28] Okay, so I'll read it. Adam Clark's extensive Bible commentary was published in six or eight volumes filled with textual and historical analysis. A Methodist scholar, Clark was born in Ireland in 1762 and ordained in 1782. He studied at Kingswood School and earned a master's from the University of Aberdeen in 1807. He mastered multiple languages, including Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit. I'll just go ahead and keep reading. Individual numbers of the volumes of Clark's commentary, separated into gatherings that covered one tenth of the volume, were readily available for sale at $0.50 each. Or you could buy quarters of those tenths at 12.5 cents each. How Joseph Smith accessed Clark's work remains uncertain. He may have borrowed it from a Methodist preacher or obtained it in smaller published sections. Here is a picture of it. And does it say anywhere what year it was first published? Because I think that's really important to establish.
Gerardo Sumano [01:30:36] Yeah, so. So the one that Colby thinks Joseph would have used is the 1825 edition of Adam Clark.
John Dehlin [01:30:44] Okay, so Adam Clark is publishing a version of this. Right. A year or two before Joseph Smith commences. So the timeline really matches up. It's not just, whoa, is. Is the text or the ideas in the Book of Mormon. Like, is this book literally showing up as a likely source in the. In the environment, in the air? Right. Magically, right around the time of the creation of the Book of Mormon. And it is. Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:31:16] And this printing happened in America too, like, because he mentions that in. In Europe, it would have been. They would print it in eight volumes and in America would be six volumes.
Colby Townsend [01:31:26] But.
Colby Townsend [01:31:26] Yeah, okay, yeah. One other potential connection. I saw someone mention it in the chat, but our mutual friend, Dr. Randy Bell has been working on research that he calls kind of his Dartmouth hypothesis, which is Hiram's connection to the Moore's Indian Charity School, which was at Dartmouth's campus. That may have helped give Joseph more of an. A thorough education than we were raised believing, John. And so that was another comment that someone in the live chat mentioned. May be a potential way that Joseph could have gotten a hold of at least the ideas in the Adam Clark Bible commentary. It's through Dartmouth, that Dartmouth connection.
John Dehlin [01:32:13] Got it. Yeah. Because we know Hiram. Hiram was schooled at Dartmouth.
Colby Townsend [01:32:18] Right.
John Dehlin [01:32:18] And would have been. Would have certainly learned about this important, groundbreaking biblical commentary while he was studying theology at Dartmouth.
Colby Townsend [01:32:30] Right, Yeah. I would have to double check the years on that. But we definitely know that he was at least exposed to lectures. And the start of these thoughts that would get Joseph interested in biblical commentary.
John Dehlin [01:32:43] Was 1825 the first edition of the Adam Clark commentary?
Gerardo Sumano [01:32:49] I'm not certain.
Colby Townsend [01:32:50] I don't. I don't believe so. I think it was the first time it was published in America when I was looking before the show, if I'm.
Gerardo Sumano [01:32:57] If I'm correct, it was published also in New York, but. Yeah, New York.
John Dehlin [01:33:07] Okay. I'm reading that Adam Clark's commentary on the Holy Bible is originally published in English between 1810 and 1825. It says
Colby Townsend [01:33:18] that makes sense because it was an eight or six volume set, depending on where it was published and who the publisher was.
John Dehlin [01:33:25] Okay. All right. Okay. So the timeline's matching up. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide. Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [01:33:32] Yeah. So this is again, Joseph's access to
John Dehlin [01:33:36] Clark, again quoting Colby from the article.
Gerardo Sumano [01:33:40] Right, Right.
Colby Townsend [01:33:41] Do you want me to read this one, Gerardo?
Colby Townsend [01:33:42] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:33:42] Okay, go ahead.
Colby Townsend [01:33:43] Colby Smith had access to Clark's commentary and used it in an idiosyncratic, often eclectic way to think through how to revise and restore what he believed were the plain and precious truths that had been taken out of the Bible. There are several key phrases that Smith added to the text of Isaiah that match either word for word or nearly. So what Clark had revised or suggested the text should read. Joseph Smith integrated into, wrestled with, and sometimes ignored or misunderstood the critical notes in one biblical commentary, that of Adam Clark's as he created his own text.
John Dehlin [01:34:22] Okay.
Colby Townsend [01:34:22] Yep.
John Dehlin [01:34:23] And what do we want to take from that, Gerardo and Colby?
Gerardo Sumano [01:34:27] You know, it's just giving you. Giving us kind of like a preface of what's good, what he's going to show through the examples. Are we going to show the examples here in a second?
John Dehlin [01:34:36] Okay. And Dan Vogel is saying that in his understanding, I think he's saying the first version of the Adam Clark commentary was available in 1811 in New York. Is that what. Yeah, he's saying several editions. So it would have been much earlier than 1825. That could line up with Hyrum learning about the commentary while he was studying at Dartmouth. Right.
Colby Townsend [01:34:59] Yeah. I'm seeing that he started working on it in the late 1700s, and it was first published in 1810. So. So that lines up with what Dan's saying.
John Dehlin [01:35:07] Okay, so again, this stuff is available. Yeah. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:35:11] And this idea that Colby, because he. He's talked about it extensively in other podcasts as well, that it was readily available. The fact that you could buy it in quarters, like each volume in quarters or in a tenth of a quarter, like for 12 cents. It was, it was really easy to access.
John Dehlin [01:35:32] Okay. All right. And again, it's a straw man to say that this is like word for word, plagiarism, sentences and sentences. Sentences. The question is, can we establish that there's a credible link or influence between Adam Clark's biblical commentary and the Book of Mormon? We've established that Joseph clearly could have had access to it. Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:35:59] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:36:00] This next article, this next slide. Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [01:36:03] Okay, so this one is about this idea. So Sydney sparium was a BYU professor and he had a student, H.G. grant Vest, who published an article at BYU. It's in the scholars archive. It's called the Problems of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. And they basically both eventually argued was that Joseph's inclusion of Isaiah in the, in the Book of Mormon is way too extensive for him to be had memorized it. So basically they, they, they have this. They give this idea that what Joseph maybe did was he was reading of the stone or the plates or whatever, and then he realized, oh, Nephi is about to start quoting Isaiah. So he would just bring the King James Bible and put it on the table and then start reading from the King James Bible. And that's how they can also explain why are the King James Bible errors or translation errors, why did they make it into the Book of Mormon? And that's basically the idea that Joseph either eyes were too tired or it was a lot easier for him, instead of looking into the stone, to just pull the Bible out. And this is an idea that came out of BYU in several years ago or decades ago. That's what, that's what this slide is about. And if you go to the next slide, it just tells us kind of like where Colby is going to expand on that theory. John, do you want to read it?
John Dehlin [01:37:44] Yeah. So this is again, this is Colby Townsend, right?
Colby Townsend [01:37:49] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:37:50] However, the edition that the King James Version was working from was the volume of Clark's commentary that included all of the Book of Isaiah, not just a simple King James Version Bible. Joseph was dictating the text of Isaiah out of Clark's commentary to Oliver Cowdery. Joseph may have been using volume four of Clark's commentary, possibly the 1825 edition published by Abraham Paul in New York. So Colby's able to kind of narrow the source text.
Gerardo Sumano [01:38:21] Yeah, that's right.
John Dehlin [01:38:22] Okay, cool.
Gerardo Sumano [01:38:26] So again, this is just very similar to what we already talked about. Joseph engaged with Clark's notes, occasionally pausing to modify the text. And rather than copying Clark's wholesale, he used the KJV text. And when we talk about the kjv, the commentary will have the King James Bible text, and then underneath is Adam Clark's commentary, and we're going to show a slide of that as well. So, anyway, so Joseph's own theological interests ultimately shaped the revisions in the Book of Mormon. That's what Colby argues.
John Dehlin [01:39:02] Okay, all right, so we're actually ready for the big reveal. We're an hour and 40 into providing context because we have so many people new to these questions, new to the podcast, new to doubting or questioning Book of Mormon historicity along with all the other Never Mormons. So we, we're grateful for everyone's patience as we kind of lay down the track for the train to run on. The tracks are laid. It's time for the train. Here we go. What do we, what do we see it here?
Specific Examples of Clark's Influence on the Text
Gerardo Sumano [01:39:32] So this is example one, I should say that I've talked to Colby. He said he found multiple connections, and in the article, you know, there's a word count, so he could only include some of them. So, but he, he found many of them. So we're going to include just some of the ones that are on the article individuals. So, okay, you can pull up the first example. This is Isaiah 11:6, which happens to be on second Nephi's 30:12. And in the KJV, if you look at the right with the picture, this is what, what the page looks like on Adam Clark's Bible commentary. So that very, at the very top you have verse 4, 5 and 6 of Isaiah. And then you have a little bar, you know, right, right below the verses. And that bar has, is kind of citations to other, to other biblical verses or books, kind of like referencing, you know, like cross referencing some of the ideas that are on the verses. And then below it are most of the content there is what Adam Clark is saying or his comments.
Colby Townsend [01:40:49] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:40:49] Okay. So in verse, in the slide that we have up, it's kind of hard to see, but I'm going to try my best to, to read it right here. So in verse six, what Adam Clark suggests is that the KJV says the wolf also shall dwell with the lamp. And on the commentary, Adam Clark says that the wolf also shall be, should be replaced with then shall the wolf be. And he gives an explanation about the Greek and, and why it should be read that way. And so then what we see Joseph doing in second Nephi 3012 is doing exactly what Clark recommended. And he goes and puts, and then shall the wolf, instead of also shall dwell with the lamb. So that's example number one.
John Dehlin [01:41:51] Okay, I'm just going to. Can I just give my reaction really quickly?
Colby Townsend [01:41:54] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:41:56] So it's problematic enough that Isaiah is appearing in the Book of Mormon because it just doesn't make sense. Just as someone's thinking rationally, Nephi's writing about his story. We've already heard from past episodes that there was no such thing as a triple combination back in 600 BC where like you lugged around your scriptures in a little carrying case. Right. But not only that, but like books didn't exist in ways that we're familiar with them now. These would have been scrolls, right? And these weren't scrolls that were bound together in a book because the technology for books hadn't been developed yet. So. And we've already established that Deutero Isaiah was, wouldn't have even been available. So like it's already kind of a non starter ridiculousness that, that, that Lehi and Nephi would have even had Isaiah when they, when, you know, when they came to the new world. So that's already ridiculous. Then it's ridiculous that Joseph Smith would just randomly that, that, that, that Nephi would have been writing a story and then write a second book of his story and then all of a sudden just start sticking multiple chapters of Isaiah in. That doesn't make sense. But what really doesn't make sense is that, you know, that Joseph Smith is reading from a stone. Right? Words that would have allegedly been written by Nephi that was copying, you know, chapters of Isaiah into the Book of Mormon, but that miraculously, you know, Nephi would have added changes to Isaiah that Isaiah may not have probably written, but that just coincidentally would have been changes recommended by, by a Methodist Bible scholar whose book Joseph Smith would have had direct access to when he's producing the Book of Mormon. These already are striking me as coincidences. Way, way too unlikely Now, Colby, am I. I'm just trying to think this through for the first time with my uneducated, you know, unexposed shallow brain. But that's already problematic, really problematic for me. Colby, what do you think?
Colby Townsend [01:44:37] Yeah, and that's exactly why when I was talking about textual dependency, when we're talking about textual dependency, there are obviously interesting questions about how Joseph Smith exactly got a hold of this, hold of the text, the Adam Clark Bible commentary. But when you see that level of dependency, that's exactly what I was trying to Compare it to genetics for is. That type of coincidence just can't be explained away. While you were on that ramp, which I loved, John, one of the things I looked at too, is I went and looked at the Dead Sea Scrolls material, which is a later discovery after Joseph Smith, you know, after Joseph Smith has long died. This was in the 1900s, to look and see if the changes that Adam Clark recommended that Joseph Smith adopted date back to earlier manuscripts that we discovered with the Dead Sea Scrolls. And they don't. So if the idea. Adam Clark got it wrong.
Gerardo Sumano [01:45:34] Adam Clark got it wrong.
Colby Townsend [01:45:35] Exactly. Adam Clark got it wrong. Exactly, Gerardo. So that means that if Nephi is supposedly copying down and Joseph Smith is copying down what Nephi saw and Nephi is recording from this earlier version, why doesn't it match with the Dead Sea Scrolls? And instead it matches with this 18th century, 19th century biblical commentary from someone from another faith system. It just shows, like you said, John, this is a huge problem.
Gerardo Sumano [01:46:04] Yeah, I, I want to acknowledge that. Dan Vogel said this one seems weak. There's a couple more slides to expand on this one. I think it gets stronger.
John Dehlin [01:46:12] I think it's weak at all.
Gerardo Sumano [01:46:14] I mean, well, it gets stronger. It gets stronger. So just wait a second.
John Dehlin [01:46:17] But, but, but again, like, you know, that. I just don't know it's so ridiculous that. That Isaiah is appearing in the Book of Mormon at all. But, but again, we have to, we have to reflect your minds back to the fact that Joseph is reading this text from a stone in a hat. So why it either, you know, you have to make up all sorts of explanations for why what Joseph Smith's reading from a stone in a hat that's supposed to be translating reformed Egyptian, which is a language no one's familiar with, that then is supposed to be Nephi's original writing or changed, you know, by Mormon or Moroni when it was. It's. It's so convoluted, but the words should be pristine by the time. By the time Joseph dictates them to Oliver. So that leaves no room for one of Adam Clark's errors to just mysteriously appear in this text when we know that Joseph Smith would have likely had access to Adam Clark's commentary. Again, remember, Joseph is supposed to be reading this from a stone. All right, I'm sorry that. Oh, I'm seeing why you were so excited about this article. Gerardo. When you describe the importance of this article.
Colby Townsend [01:47:51] What.
John Dehlin [01:47:52] How did you describe it to me? Do you want to share that in terms of the importance of these findings?
Gerardo Sumano [01:47:58] I thought it was the.
John Dehlin [01:48:00] Probably the.
Gerardo Sumano [01:48:01] I described it as the biggest blow to the Book of Mormon in. That has been discovered probably in the last few decades.
John Dehlin [01:48:07] In the past few decades.
Colby Townsend [01:48:08] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:48:09] Okay. Now that I'm really thinking it through already, I can see why.
Colby Townsend [01:48:14] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:48:15] Colby, are you agreeing? Is that as someone who's done some textual analysis? Colby?
Colby Townsend [01:48:19] Yeah, I don't know how much textual analysis I've done, but as someone who. Who reads and writes words that are important. Well, people tell me they're important for a living. Yeah, I can absolutely see, because I think as we go on through the rest of the examples, too, the case only gets stronger. And the other thing that's really interesting, too, and I think this is on one of the next few slides. Gerardo, if I remember correctly, in this particular example. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:48:46] When I said it gets stronger, this example will get this.
Colby Townsend [01:48:49] Okay, let's. Let's keep going through this example, because as I was going through it in the paper, I was really interested in this particular one because it's kind of a unique one among the examples he offers, too.
Gerardo Sumano [01:48:58] Yeah. So this is the next slide.
Colby Townsend [01:49:00] And.
Gerardo Sumano [01:49:00] And this is from. From Colby. Joseph incorporated these passages twice in the Book of Mormon. So he incorporates this, this particular verse in second Nephi 20, first 21. And then he. He incorporates it again on second Nephi 30. But in second Nephi 21, Smith exactly replicated the KJV without modifications. And in Nephi 30, Smith altered the text, adopting Clark's alternative phrasing. Then shall the wolf go to the next slide.
John Dehlin [01:49:34] John, I just want to. I mean, I just want to stop and say, that's ridiculous. If God's. It's. It's. You can't have it both ways. God's going to have it right in both instances or wrong in both instances. But he's certainly not going to have it right in one instance and wrong in another.
Colby Townsend [01:49:51] That was my. That was on this particular example. That was the thing that also stood out to me like a sore thumb, John, is it doesn't make any sense. Well, first of all, why in the world would Nephi be quoting blocks from Isaiah 11: twice within the space of less than 10 chapters? That doesn't make any sense to me anyways. But let's set that aside.
Gerardo Sumano [01:50:10] Especially when there's not a lot of space on the plates. Remember, they tell us.
Colby Townsend [01:50:15] Yeah. If they told us how little space they had on the plates, a little less, they could have fit more in there. Yeah. One of the things that just stands out to me is that doesn't make any sense. This is the same thing we see when Joseph Smith makes changes to scriptures that are quoted in the Book of Mormon from the Bible that he changes in his revision of the Bible that don't match with changes he necessarily made in the Book of Mormon. It doesn't make any sense to believe that God is behind that process, at least in my view.
Gerardo Sumano [01:50:46] Yeah, yeah, agree.
John Dehlin [01:50:48] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:50:49] The next slide is the same. So we're talking about the same thing. So remember 2nd Nephi 21 and 2nd Nephi 30. Right. That's where we see this chapter of Isaiah being quoted.
Colby Townsend [01:51:01] And.
Gerardo Sumano [01:51:01] And I love this slide that you put together, Colby, because, you know, we have 11 Isaiah, 11 on the left side. In the middle we have second Nephi 21. And then on the right side we have second Nephi 30. Again, remember, second Nephi 30 is where Joseph did the Adam Clark or suggestion change. Now what you see on second Nephi 30 that he didn't do in second Nephi 21 is he added like an entire new verse. And, and the verse says, for the time speedily cometh that the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people. And the wicked will he destroyed, and he will spare his people. Yeah. And even if it's so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire. So he includes that which is not on Isaiah and It's not on second Nephi 20. First, if you go to the next slide, John. So Colby offers a possible explanation as to why 2nd Nephi 30. Where did that come from? And what we see is that right on the same page where Joseph would have taken the. The change to then shall the Lamb dwell. Then we can see that Adam Clark includes some references to Psalm 7:72, to Malachi and to Job.
John Dehlin [01:52:23] Job, Job.
Gerardo Sumano [01:52:24] Yeah, and say it again, John. There we go. And then if you. What's interesting about it is that if you go and look up those passages, they look quite like the ideas and the wording look really familiar, like close to the verse that Joseph added into second Nephi 30. Does that make sense?
Colby Townsend [01:52:49] Yeah. If we could go back for one second, I wanted to kind of explain this table so that people can understand.
John Dehlin [01:52:54] Yeah, I don't understand it.
Colby Townsend [01:52:57] Gerardo's explained that the author of the Book of Mormon. I'll put it that way. The author of the Book of Mormon incorporates this same text, Isaiah 4 through 9, twice into the book of Mormon, once in this middle column, which is second Nephi 214 through 9. And it's just copied over straight. So in this table, what I did was I put together all three of these scriptures that are, that are, that have this relationship to each other. And what I did in the fourth column, the one where Joseph introduces changes, the one we've already talked about, you can see there at that bolded. And then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb. Those are the changes that Joseph introduced. You know, Colby's theory on this is based on the, the Adam Clark Bible commentary. And I think he's got a pretty good case for it. The other bolded language you can see there, there's slight changes to the first verse and then that second verse there adds entirely new language that says for the time speedily cometh that the Lord God shall cause a great division among the people. And the wicked will he destroy. And he will spare his people. Yeah. Even if it so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire. Now, if you'll go to that next slide, John, I'll explain the connection that Gerardo's talking about here. That language that's added, which Gerardo's highlighted there on the left hand side of the screen, that, that language about division and God destroying the wicked by fire has relationships to the language that's quoted by Adam Clark offered as cross references.
John Dehlin [01:54:28] Wow.
Colby Townsend [01:54:30] The language in Malachi 4. 6. Do you have those in the slide? The next slide.
Gerardo Sumano [01:54:35] I should have included them.
Colby Townsend [01:54:37] Let me pull them up.
John Dehlin [01:54:38] Let me just, let me just see if I can understand what you're all saying. So in the middle of quoting Isaiah 11, 4, 9, in one of the two instances, Joseph Smith is doing that in the Book of Mormon, he's inserting some partial sentences that literally draw from other Old Testament sources or New Testament sources that Adam Clark is mentioning around the exact point that Joseph Smith is inserting those verses.
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:18] And, and, yeah, right.
John Dehlin [01:55:20] Outrageously ridiculous.
Colby Townsend [01:55:22] And it isn't. I, I will say the one thing, it isn't necessarily one for one like that. That added language comes right from Malachi4.1, for example. That's one of the scriptures that's referenced there. But the themes and some of the language is almost exactly the same. So that last phrase, if you see it, that if it must be, if it must, so be that he must destroy the wicked by fire. That's talking about God coming and doing this great division. Here's, here's back from Colby's paper where he's quoting and it says the first phrase speedily cometh Connects to Malachi 4. 1 and other verses in the Book of Mormon that are likewise about the day of judgment. Clark's cross references on verse 4 include a note to Malachi 4.
Colby Townsend [01:56:09] 6.
Colby Townsend [01:56:09] This contains the notion that at the end time, God would divide the people and would destroy the wicked and spare the righteous. And that connects to Psalm 72, verses 2 and 4, which reads in the King James Version. So I want people to look at that verse 10 that Gerardo has highlighted while I read this verse from Psalms so they can see the connection. It reads, he shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. He shall judge the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. So it's not exactly the same, but you can see thematically and even some of the language is exactly the same. So then he continues and says the final idea that Smith added in the text, that he must destroy the wicked by fire, has connections with other cross references in Clark's commentary on Isaiah 4. The first is Job, chapter 4, verse 9, which says that, quote, by the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed. And so you can see blast, meaning like a blast furnace. Right? So you can see this connection with God destroying the wicked by fire. And so I think Colby's thesis is basically, we have these thematic elements that are being pulled from the cross, from the very cross references that. That we're seeing in the Adam Clark Bible commentary that are inserted here by Joseph. And again, while you two talk about that, I'll look at the Dead Sea Scrolls and see if there's any reason, at least in the earliest manuscripts in the Dead Sea Scrolls that would explain this, aside from Adam Clark's commentary.
Gerardo Sumano [01:57:46] And John, remember, we're still in example one, right?
John Dehlin [01:57:49] Because I know I'm just reacting to a cold, like, kind of representing viewers and listeners that haven't read the article yet. Right?
Gerardo Sumano [01:57:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but what I'm saying is the. The reason why this cross referencing is important is because we know we. It. You know, Colby's arguing that Joseph was on this page of Adam Clark because he made that one change earlier on verse nine. Remember, the. The lamb shall. The shall. The whatever shall do, and then shall do.
Colby Townsend [01:58:21] And then shallow.
John Dehlin [01:58:22] Yeah, yeah, got it. Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [01:58:29] All right, so let's go the next example.
John Dehlin [01:58:32] Okay, the next example. Isaiah 52.
Gerardo Sumano [01:58:35] Yeah. Isaiah 52. So do you want to read what the. The slide, John.
John Dehlin [01:58:44] Okay, so Isaiah 52, chapter 50, verse 2. The King James Version says, quote, their fish stinketh because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. So the Fish is stinking because there's no water, and it dies because it's thirsty. Okay. The Adam Clark commentary changes it or recommends a change to say their fish is dried up because there is no water and dieth away for thirst. So it's basically saying instead of stinketh it, it says it's dried up.
Gerardo Sumano [01:59:30] Right.
John Dehlin [01:59:31] And dieth for thirst instead of dieth away for thirst. All right. Okay. And then the smith, Joseph Smith, second Nephi 30:12, he changes the version of Isaiah that he has in front of him to say miraculously and their fish to stink because the waters are dried up. So he adds the dried up words before he then continues, and they dieth because of thirst. So it's adding the two words dried up.
Gerardo Sumano [02:00:13] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:00:14] Adam Clark is recommending. And that Joseph Smith is magically inserting. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:00:23] If you go to the next slide, you can. I have a little bit of a. Because what Colby argues is that Smith revision, and I'm going to read from the article, allows their fish stinketh to remain in its place. But the last part of the verse is imperfect in Clark's revision because it seems to say that the water dieth for thirst. And in order to make it clear that it is the fish that are dying and not the water that are that is dying, Smith adds the pronoun they, and then adds. Because in the last part of the second half, to follow the parallel structure of the first part of the second half, because the waters are dried up and they die because of thirst. So he basically agrees with Clark that dried up has to be there, but he kind of disagrees with him on where to put it. Right. Because if he puts it where Clark recommended, it kind of sounds strange that the water is dying of thirst. Does that make sense?
John Dehlin [02:01:30] Yeah. Colby, tell us your reactions to this.
Colby Townsend [02:01:33] Yeah, Well, I think this is a good example, again, to kind of drive home the point I was making earlier that it's not as simple as strict plagiarism. Right. This shows Joseph engaging with this in some way that is really interesting because like Gerardo just explained, he's trying to keep the syntax of the verse intact while also adding this language that Adam Clark suggested needed to be added. And again, this is another example. I just went and checked the Dead Sea Scrolls online. There's no reason, according to the Dead Sea Scrolls translations, to add that language. So this is another one where if Joseph is making these changes to them because the Bible itself has been changed, why does his. Why does his change not reflect what the earliest manuscripts would from the. The Earliest manuscripts we have from the Dead Sea Scrolls. And instead they mirror Adam Clark's.
Gerardo Sumano [02:02:32] Right. And it's interesting because Adam Clark on. On the. The reason why he gives. The reason he gives for adding this phrase is because he found this phrase in an earlier manuscript. So Joseph must have said, oh, Adam Clark is telling me that this. This phrase disappeared and in early. You know, in. In. And that in. In. In older manuscripts, it was there. So I'm gonna add it, but then I'm gonna add it my way. You know.
Colby Townsend [02:03:05] Can. Can you highlight that comment there from Justin that says LDS apologists have addressed these concerns? I hope they rebut the. The apologist arguments rather than just rehash criticism. Justin, that's ridiculous. This paper is four days old. Like, to just say something like that just shows that you have no idea what you're talking about. They haven't rebutted this brand new research that's four days old. No one else has even talked about this.
John Dehlin [02:03:29] I wonder if he's referring to the Haley. Just to give him the benefit of the doubt. I wonder if he's, like, listening.
Colby Townsend [02:03:36] You're gonna make me be nicer.
John Dehlin [02:03:38] Okay, but I. I'm sure you're right, Colby. Okay, so why is this extra significant? Because not only is Joseph incorporating Adam Clark, but then he's also correcting Adam Clark. Right?
Gerardo Sumano [02:03:54] Yeah, that's right. That's right.
John Dehlin [02:03:58] So it shows both Adam Clark's involvement and Joseph Smith's involvement.
Colby Townsend [02:04:03] Right. And that's why. I think. That's why I think this is a really interesting piece of evidence for Dan Vogel's pious fraud theory. Because it's not him just copying Adam Clark blindly. It's not him just trying to rip off Adam Clark's ideas. It's actually him engaging with them in a way that's. That's more complicated than that. And that's. To me, that's really interesting. I don't know exactly how to fully explain it yet, but it's really interesting research.
Gerardo Sumano [02:04:27] Yeah, I agree. And remember, these are illustrative examples that Colby includes in the paper to show his point that Joseph is not plagiarizing.
Colby Townsend [02:04:38] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:04:39] That he is engaging with Adam Clark and having a conversation with him. This doesn't mean that these are all the examples he found. Again, he found a lot of them, but only, like, some of them made it into the article.
Colby Townsend [02:04:51] Right.
John Dehlin [02:04:54] Okay. All right, what is this next slide about, Gerardo?
Detailed Comparison of Isaiah Passages and Changes
Gerardo Sumano [02:04:59] Okay, so this one is example number three. And this is. So we have Isaiah 2.
Colby Townsend [02:05:05] And.
Gerardo Sumano [02:05:06] Okay, so you have the. The three, three verses from Isaiah 2, you have verse 10, 19 and 21. And what you see there is. Do you want to read the red. The red line in, in verse 19 and 21, John?
John Dehlin [02:05:24] Yeah, yeah. So it says, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. And that's in verses 19 and 21.
Gerardo Sumano [02:05:35] Right. So what Adam Clark recommends there is that. That. That section should also be on verse 10. Because if you read a few. A few words before, you know, all verses say lord, and for the glory of his majesty. Right. For the fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty. That phrase is on verse 10, 19 and 21. But then the last phrase when, when he. When he ariseth to shake terribly the earth seems to be missing on. On verse 10. And, and Adam Clark points that out. So, so then if you go to the next slide, John Clark is saying,
John Dehlin [02:06:18] when you do Isaiah 2. 10, you should include that extra text that's in 19 and 21.
Gerardo Sumano [02:06:25] That's right.
John Dehlin [02:06:26] When he arises to shake terribly the earth. Can I just make a prediction? I'm predicting that Joseph is going to magically insert when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth, where he replicates Isaiah 2. 10. That's just my prediction. I haven't read the article. I haven't really read these slides. That's just my prediction.
Gerardo Sumano [02:06:47] He seems to do something actually different and maybe either more creative or like Colby said, he might have misunderstood what Adam Clark was saying.
Colby Townsend [02:06:58] Can you pull that, the actual commentary up again?
John Dehlin [02:07:01] John?
Colby Townsend [02:07:01] I want to read the reason Adam Clark gives for the. Maybe it's back. One slide.
Colby Townsend [02:07:05] Sorry.
Colby Townsend [02:07:07] Can you make it full screen? It's kind of hard to see.
John Dehlin [02:07:10] Yeah, full screen.
Colby Townsend [02:07:12] Okay, perfect. It says. So it suggests that change to verse 10 and then says, on the authority of the Septuagint confirmed by the Arabic and an ancient manuscript, I have added here to the text a line which in the 10th and 21st verses is repeated together with the 19th.
John Dehlin [02:07:30] It might be 19th and 21st.
Colby Townsend [02:07:31] Oh, it might be. Okay. But what he's explaining is he's justifying this based on some ancient manuscripts. So it'll be interesting to see how the, how this resolves this time.
John Dehlin [02:07:41] Basically, if I'm reading it right, Joseph Smith is being put on notice that. That. By Adam Clark that there's a problem with verse 10 and that leaving verse 10 as it is is not sufficient. There needs to be a change to verse 10.
Gerardo Sumano [02:07:56] Yeah, Adam. And that there is a connection between 10, 19 and 21.
John Dehlin [02:08:03] Okay. All right. Okay. So what, what, what gets Changed.
Gerardo Sumano [02:08:08] So then he goes and to 10, he adds.
John Dehlin [02:08:11] He being Joseph Smith. Allegedly.
Gerardo Sumano [02:08:15] Well, yeah, Joseph Smith.
John Dehlin [02:08:16] You're using a pronoun. I just want to make sure we know who you're.
Gerardo Sumano [02:08:18] Joseph Smith. So on the right side you have second Nephi 12, and on the left you have Isaiah too.
John Dehlin [02:08:24] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [02:08:24] Do you wanna.
John Dehlin [02:08:26] Okay, so in. So in. No, so in 10, in second Nephi 12, verse 10, which corresponds to Isaiah 2, 10, he has quite different text. O ye wicked ones. So that wasn't there before. And then he's got, enter into the rock and hide thee in the dust for the fear of the Lord and the glory of his majesty. That's pretty comparable. But then he adds, shall smite thee, shall smite thee. Which then he adds, he inserts into 19 and a 21. So he's inserting new text into this cluster of three verses that Adam Clark has sort of already signaled need to correspond or have parallels that should be reflected across all three. Is that right, Colby? Is that right?
Colby Townsend [02:09:31] Yeah, that's the way I'm understanding it.
Gerardo Sumano [02:09:33] Yeah, that's correct. So basically what Colby says is that Joseph is put on notice that there's a connection between 10, 19, and 21, and that there's something missing. But he. He seems to misunderstand what's missing because Adam Clark, I think Colby just read it and Adam Clark is not super clear to what. What's missing is kind of hard to understand. So he goes and inserts his own words and then connects the three verses by inserting the same new words into the three verses.
Colby Townsend [02:10:03] So why. Where.
John Dehlin [02:10:04] Where did Joseph Smith get. Shall smite them. Is that anywhere in Adam Clark's commentary?
Gerardo Sumano [02:10:11] No, that's not on Adam Clark commentary. It's. It's also.
Colby Townsend [02:10:15] So basically, he pulls the idea that there's a connection between 10, 19, and 21 from Adam Clark, but doesn't make the change that Adam Clark is suggesting. Right, change.
John Dehlin [02:10:26] And so if Adam Clark is. Is saying these three verses need to be connected, the likelihood that Joseph would connect them randomly when we know that, that he would have had access to the Adam Clark commentary is. Is it's unlikely. That's an unlikely coincidence. Is that what Colby Townsend is saying?
Gerardo Sumano [02:10:50] That's right.
Colby Townsend [02:10:51] The other thing I'd go. The other thing I'd point out about these verses is on the great Isaiah scroll, the. The basically complete scroll we have of Isaiah in the Dead Sea scrolls Collection, Isaiah210 is not present. It goes from the verse we know as 9 right to 11. So what that suggests when you don't see it on an early manuscript like that is that that verse was added by a later author or was later added by a scribe. Right. And so if. If Joseph Smith were making a change based on making a change to the text of Isaiah, based on what Nephi would have likely had from the brass plates, we would expect that verse 10 would have been removed. Not adding this shall smite the language to the end of it.
Colby Townsend [02:11:39] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:11:41] Okay. Okay. Well, that's interesting. You know, I don't see that convert deconverting a bunch of orthodox Mormons. That coincidence. But, I mean, for people who get into this stuff, I can see how they could find that to be an important find. Right?
Gerardo Sumano [02:11:59] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [02:12:00] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:12:00] Okay, cool. All right, next slide.
Gerardo Sumano [02:12:07] All right, so on this one, it's somewhat. It's somewhat similar where, like, he. He'll get ideas from Clark, but, like, not incorporate exact wording Clark.
Colby Townsend [02:12:18] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:12:20] So we have Isaiah. Number Isaiah 2. And in Isaiah 2, you know, it's talking about. It mentions the word cedars and oaks and high mountains and lofty hills. And that's in. In the verses. And Adam Clark goes ahead and explains that cedars. Oak. Cedars and oaks means kings, rulers, princes, and high mountains and lofty hills means kingdoms, republics and states. And basically talks about. And Adam Clark talks about this idea that these verses are talking about the.
Colby Townsend [02:13:05] Re.
Gerardo Sumano [02:13:06] You like, reunification of. Is Israel of. Of the. Of the tribes, basically. I'm gonna try to read what Adam Clark says. He says, thus you will find in many other places behind this before us that cedars of the living and oaks of Lebanon.
John Dehlin [02:13:25] Lebanon of Lebanon.
Gerardo Sumano [02:13:26] Hard to. Yeah, sorry.
Colby Townsend [02:13:28] Good.
John Dehlin [02:13:29] Keep going.
Gerardo Sumano [02:13:30] I'm making it big for myself.
Colby Townsend [02:13:32] All right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:13:33] Are used in the way of a metaphor. An allegory for kings. Princess.
Colby Townsend [02:13:40] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:13:41] Of the highest rank. High mountains are lofty hills for kingdoms, republic, states, cities, towers and fortresses for defenders and protects protectors.
John Dehlin [02:13:54] Basically, Adam Clark is giving us interpretations for what's meant by cedars and oaks and high mountains and lofty hills.
Gerardo Sumano [02:14:03] That's right.
John Dehlin [02:14:04] Okay.
Colby Townsend [02:14:04] He's using them as metaphors, which Gerardo spelled out here at the bottom, that cedars and oaks equals kings, rulers, and princes. And the high mountains and lofty hills are like the actual places, the kingdoms, republics and states.
John Dehlin [02:14:16] And just to be clear, Isaiah doesn't tell us. Doesn't mention kings, rulers, and princes when it talks about cedars and oaks. And he doesn't mention kingdoms, republics, and states when he mentions high mountains and lofty hills. Correct.
Gerardo Sumano [02:14:32] Desiree.
John Dehlin [02:14:33] Okay. All right. I think We've set this up.
Gerardo Sumano [02:14:36] So then you have Isaiah 2 on the left side on the next, next slide and second Nephi 12. And you can see that in second Nephi 12 Joseph will go and add this wording of upon all nations. Do you, do you want to, do you want to read it, John?
John Dehlin [02:14:59] Well, I, I mean, I'll just say that, that you're underlining in verse 12, Joseph adding the words upon all nations. In 13 Joseph is adding, yea, and the day of the lord shall come. 14, Joseph Smith is adding, and upon all the nations and upon every people. Okay, so how are we tying that back to kings, rulers, princes, kingdoms, republics and states?
Gerardo Sumano [02:15:27] We're tying the kingdoms, republics and states and, and you know, several other things that, that Clark mentions. Basically he, he's adding the word upon all nations right next to when, when he mentions hills and cedars.
John Dehlin [02:15:47] Tell me if I'm getting this right. So that nations sort of puts this in the political realm basically. So kingdoms, republics and states implies sort of nation state, political territory.
Colby Townsend [02:16:04] Right.
John Dehlin [02:16:05] And you wouldn't naturally read the words cedars and oaks or mountains and lofty hills and think nation states, countries, you know, political territories.
Colby Townsend [02:16:19] Right.
John Dehlin [02:16:20] And so the idea of Joseph inserting nations and the idea of nations is sort of Joseph's way of saying, whoa, we're talking about politics here. So let's include reference to, to the existence of political entities.
Gerardo Sumano [02:16:38] Yeah, you can see it on verse 14 very clearly.
John Dehlin [02:16:45] Nations.
Colby Townsend [02:16:46] Right.
John Dehlin [02:16:47] Now he's not using the words kingdoms, republics or states.
Colby Townsend [02:16:50] Right.
John Dehlin [02:16:51] But he's using language to represent political entities.
Gerardo Sumano [02:16:57] That's right, yeah.
Colby Townsend [02:16:58] And for what it's worth, again looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls as a comparison, there's nothing in the Dead Sea Scrolls that makes that connection between like nation states, kings, rulers, peoples. It's, it's more or less right along the lines of the normal King James version we would be familiar with. So that's interesting. It's also interesting that Joseph added to the beginning of verse 13 inside the second Nephi version, another reference to the day of the Lord coming. That's also not supported by the, the Dead Sea Scrolls.
John Dehlin [02:17:36] Okay, so again, like, I think this is probably a Colby wouldn't be including it and it wouldn't be published in a peer reviewed academic journal if it weren't an important or at least an interesting find. I don't think this is deconverting orthodox believing Mormons, but I think it's, it is interesting. Yeah, that's my take of this one.
Colby Townsend [02:17:58] Yep.
John Dehlin [02:17:58] Anything you want to add Colby or Gerardo?
Colby Townsend [02:18:01] No, no, I. I think that's exactly the way to take it, John, is. I think. I think in Waymont said this and Haley said this of their original research too. Right. Like, these are interesting things to look at, but there's. I still feel like it. It hasn't been completely fleshed out. Like, this is an interesting first take on this connection to the Book of Mormon with the Clark's commentary, but I think with the advent of AI and how quickly it can go through and especially look at language, it'll be interesting to see where the research evolves.
Colby Townsend [02:18:33] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:18:34] Okay, cool. All right, well, that's super interesting.
Gerardo Sumano [02:18:40] Okay, so the next example we have Isaiah 9:3. And in the KJV it says, Thou has multiplied the nations and not increase the. The joy, not increase the joy. And Clark says that the word not needs to be removed. So Clark has. Thou has increased their joy. So basically the opposite. And Joseph Smith in 2nd Nephi 19 3, he basically adopts the same
John Dehlin [02:19:20] the
Gerardo Sumano [02:19:20] recommendation that Adam Clark gave.
John Dehlin [02:19:23] Okay, this seems significant. So the King James version says, thou has multiplied the nation and not increased the joy. Adam Clark is saying, take out the knot. And mysteriously, magically, Joseph Smith in second Nephi 193 drops the knot and says, and increase the joy. That's. To me, that's obvious and blatant and significant. Colby, how are you. How are you umping this, this pitch? Is it a strike, a foul, or a ball?
Colby Townsend [02:19:57] Well, this one is interesting to me in that when we're looking at that great Isaiah scroll in the Dead Sea Scrolls, this is actually one where Clark and Smith are correct according to that great Isaiah scroll that dates earlier than the Masoretic text. So we have. Their translation is you have expanded the nation, you have increased its joy. So that, that's one where Clark and Smith are more consistent with the earlier.
John Dehlin [02:20:23] In other words, Clark got this one right. He didn't. He didn't bungle this one. And the scrolls confirm Clark's fix.
Colby Townsend [02:20:33] That's right. So all the apologists that are. That are hate watching us can take that one home to. To the apologetics.
John Dehlin [02:20:41] All right. Okay, that's. That's interesting. And again and again, is it worth mentioning, Colby and Gerardo, that like one parallel with the Adam Clark commentary, you know, could be chance. Okay, two. Okay, that's starting to get interesting. Well, then we've got the entire Joseph Smith translation, which adds to the complexity. Now we've got a third just in the Book of Mormon. The more parallels we get to the Adam Clark Commentary. The more and more and more this becomes a problem. Is that fair?
Gerardo Sumano [02:21:17] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [02:21:18] Yep.
Gerardo Sumano [02:21:18] Don Vogel said another interesting parallel. I agree with you.
John Dehlin [02:21:22] Yeah. Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:21:23] And something Colby says in the article. I have a slide that. Quoting or paraphrasing Colby, if you want to put it up, John.
John Dehlin [02:21:36] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [02:21:37] Is regarding this example.
John Dehlin [02:21:38] Okay. Do you want. Who do you want to read this?
Gerardo Sumano [02:21:40] You can read it, John.
John Dehlin [02:21:41] Okay. Joseph Smith most often does not remove words from the King James Version unless they are italicized, which provides him a reason to think the text has been tampered with. Okay, can somebody explain italicized words in the King James Version? Why were they italicized in the King James Version?
Colby Townsend [02:22:08] Those were words that were added by scribes and translators to make the English work. Because. Because Hebrew and Greek have different constructions than English does. Right. So a lot of times you'll see, like, articles added or sometimes you'll see verbs added in italics. And so they were added in italics so that people knew that. That they weren't in the original text, but they were added to make sense of the original text.
John Dehlin [02:22:33] What original text? In the.
Gerardo Sumano [02:22:35] The manuscript.
Colby Townsend [02:22:36] In the oldest manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments. So in Hebrew and Greek, they. They. They didn't. Their languages don't work the same way, so they needed to add English words to make it make sense. Otherwise it would have been very stilted.
John Dehlin [02:22:50] And every time they added an English word that wasn't in the original text, they would italicize it.
Colby Townsend [02:22:56] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:22:57] And that would be a key to Joseph Smith that. That the word was potentially problematic.
Gerardo Sumano [02:23:02] Right.
Colby Townsend [02:23:03] Right.
John Dehlin [02:23:03] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [02:23:04] So what. What. What Colby Townsend's saying basically is that Joseph would not like. He did not remove words from the KJV unless they were italicized.
John Dehlin [02:23:15] And then. Can I finish reading it, Gerardo?
Colby Townsend [02:23:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:23:17] In this case, Smith had Clark's notes that suggested the deletion of not. And the ex was not was not italicized or was not not italicized?
Gerardo Sumano [02:23:29] It was not italicized.
John Dehlin [02:23:30] Okay. So this is one not have been given a cue through the ital it for the italicizing. That it would have been problematic.
Gerardo Sumano [02:23:40] Right.
John Dehlin [02:23:40] So in this case, Smith had Clark's notes that suggested the deletion of not and the explanation of how the verse had been misunderstood and mistranslated over the centuries. This was enough for Smith to delete the negation. So that strongly suggests he's getting this from Clark.
Colby Townsend [02:23:59] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:24:00] That Clark's the source for this change.
Colby Townsend [02:24:03] Right. Because he's not making the other changes that he probably would have if he was just doing it based on italics. Exactly.
John Dehlin [02:24:11] Interesting. Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [02:24:13] This is my own example. I found a couple of them actually, while I was putting these lights together.
John Dehlin [02:24:18] Okay.
Gerardo Sumano [02:24:20] And this is not on. On Colby. And I did not talk to Colby whether he found this one as well in his notes. But anyway, so I was looking for Isaiah 28. I was trying to figure out where he was on the Book of Mormon just to put one to put. To create a slide. And I found this article on the Religious Study center at BYU called precept upon precept, line upon line, An Approach to understanding Isaiah 28, 7, 13. And what he basically argues is that that phrasing precept upon precept, line upon line, is a really hard. Like the wording in Hebrew are really hard to translate. And, and basically translators disagree in the meaning of that phrase. So he, he gives a. Terrell Ball, which is a professor at byu, I believe, gives a few examples of that and shows how some Bible versions translate these, this verse into something like, into something more kind of like ironic or like I'll. I'll show you. For example, the contemporary English version says they don't, they don't even listen. All you hear is senseless sound after senseless sound. So it's a very different translation from precept upon precept, line upon line. Anyway, so that's what made me want to go look at what Joseph did with this wording in the Book of Mormon. And if you go to the next slide, John. So here's Isaiah 28. First I went and looked what Adam Clark had to say about precept upon precept. And he basically agrees with, with the translation of precept, of precept, and adds the word. He says that he gives the explanation that this phrase signifies a little precept, such as suited to the capacity of a child. God raises the line and builds another, thus building in by degrees regularly completed. This is the method of teaching children, giving this such information as their narrow capacity can receive. So he's talking about children. He mentions children twice. And if you go to the next slide, then it will show what Joseph smith did in second Nephi 28. He says, for behold the. Thus saith the Lord God. And then he inserts, I will give unto the children of men, line upon line, precept upon precept. So he inserts the word, the word children in there, which is not on the original Isaiah text is. But Clark talks about children, which I thought. I thought it was interesting.
John Dehlin [02:27:14] Interesting. Colby, any. Any reactions?
Colby Townsend [02:27:18] Well, I'm just checking the. The. That great Isaiah scroll again. And the addition of children isn't justified by that. So it definitely came from somewhere and not from the earliest manuscripts. So that would suggest that it didn't come from the brass plates from an earlier record. So, yeah, that's an interesting parallel you found, Gerardo, for sure.
John Dehlin [02:27:39] Maybe Mr. Calling is a. As a textual scholar, as a biblical criticism textual scholar, who knows?
Gerardo Sumano [02:27:47] Or maybe Joseph used Adam Clark too much, because I found a couple, but I just included that one. But anyway.
John Dehlin [02:27:54] Okay. All right, so what, what do we get from this slide, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [02:27:59] This one is just about how Joseph seems to be declining changes to the KJV and second Nephi in. In chapter 14 to 19th. So. So chapter 12 and 13th have the
John Dehlin [02:28:12] most changes declining in terms of volume. You're saying that over time, the farther he gets into Second Nephi, he must just get tired and he makes less and less substantive changes.
Colby Townsend [02:28:26] Is that.
Gerardo Sumano [02:28:27] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:28:28] Keep, keep going. I just want to make sure I understand.
Gerardo Sumano [02:28:30] Just something to point out, you know, like, I mean, you have to remember that there are not that many changes in, in the, in the Second Nei for the kjv and, you know, the ones. And you know, just consider that when thinking about the parallels with Adam Clark, you know, like, if they seem. If the changes seem to coincide with Adam Clark. That's kind of interesting.
John Dehlin [02:28:53] So, so second Nephi 12 through 13, there are major changes, entire lines added in second Nephi 14 through 19, very selective edits, small one or two word modifications. And then by second Nephi 20 to 23, almost no changes, only two single, single letter differences.
Gerardo Sumano [02:29:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:29:16] Okay, I'm just going to make this point again. If, If God had Isaiah, get this right. When Isaiah wrote it, and then Lehi Nephi took it to America and translated it, you know, incorporated it appropriately into the Book of Mormon. And then from there, you know, it was written on the plates. And then Joseph Smith used his stone in the hat to accurately, with the gift and power of God, translate what was on the golden plates into English. Why were any changes at all necessary to fix the words of Isaiah? Because it was from prophet to prophet to prophet. It was from Isaiah to Lehi Nephi to Moroni, Mormon to Joseph Smith. It should have been perfect and word for word and identical by the gift and power of God. Why would Adam Clark's suggested corrections ever be necessary in the final version that Joseph Smith produced? Can anybody answer that question?
Colby Townsend [02:30:40] Hmm. Well, Colby, the way I like to think about it, is this right I like to entertain the two hypotheses. If the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, like you just explained, John, what we should expect to see is that the changes that Joseph Smith made to the. The King James Version, that's incorporated into the Book of Mormon, and. And his revision of the. The Bible should match earlier manuscripts, and it doesn't, I think, really ever. And that's a huge problem for taking the narrative at face value. So while I can understand people looking at the parallels and looking at this research and saying, oh, I don't know if that's as significant as they're making it out to be, I think it's important to remember that. It's important to remember the magnificence of the claim. Right. This is supposed to be the most correct book of all of the books that was written. And it was written to return back where we started. It was written to help restore the plain and precious parts of the Bible that were lost. That's not what we're actually seeing. We're seeing that the changes that Joseph Smith made oftentimes to the text of Isaiah lined up with Adam Clark's commentary, not with earlier manuscripts. That's a problem for the claim. And so while I can understand people looking at this and saying that's technical and confusing, I think it is really significant for people who really want to understand what was going on with Joseph Smith and the production of the Book of Mormon.
Gerardo Sumano [02:32:14] Yeah, great.
John Dehlin [02:32:17] All right, what's this next one?
Gerardo Sumano [02:32:18] A few more examples. Sample 6, Isaiah 14:3. Do you want to go ahead and read it, John?
John Dehlin [02:32:27] So the King James Version says in verse 3 of chapter 14 of Isaiah, and it shall come to pass that in that day that thou shalt. And the Adam Clark commentary is to
Gerardo Sumano [02:32:41] pass that in the day that.
John Dehlin [02:32:44] Okay, I'll try it again. Isaiah 14:3. King James Version. And it shall come to pass that in the day that. Okay. The Adam Clark commentary says you should change that to read, and it shall come to pass in that day. So adding that in front of day, and miraculously, when Joseph smith reproduces Isaiah 14:3 in 2nd Nephi 24. And it shall come to pass in that day. And that's both in verse three and in four. And it shall come to pass in that day. Day.
Colby Townsend [02:33:31] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:33:32] So Joseph is inserting the vats exactly as Adam Clark recommended. Correct.
Gerardo Sumano [02:33:39] Yeah. And it's not just a. A word. It changes the meaning too.
Colby Townsend [02:33:43] Right?
Gerardo Sumano [02:33:43] From the kjv.
John Dehlin [02:33:45] Yeah. From in the day that. To in that day.
Colby Townsend [02:33:48] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:33:49] Okay, that seems Pretty, pretty clear.
Colby Townsend [02:33:54] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:33:55] And Adam Clark claims that, you know, that was restoring that from a missing manuscript. But okay, and then on the right side is Isaiah 14:32. KJV says, what shall one then answer? The messengers of the nation.
John Dehlin [02:34:15] So the nation is singular.
Colby Townsend [02:34:17] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:34:18] And Clark says, what shall one then answer? The messengers of the nations plural.
John Dehlin [02:34:25] And he makes nations plural.
Gerardo Sumano [02:34:27] And then Smith on second Nephi 2432
John Dehlin [02:34:30] miraculously makes nations plural.
Gerardo Sumano [02:34:35] Right.
John Dehlin [02:34:36] And Adam Clark is recommending that nations be plural.
Colby Townsend [02:34:39] Right.
John Dehlin [02:34:40] That's a direct hit again.
Colby Townsend [02:34:42] And neither of those changes in either part of Isaiah 14 are supported by the great Isaiah scroll in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So the earliest scroll we have, it doesn't line up with these changes. So Clark and Smith got it wrong. And Smith agrees with Clark. That's pretty significant.
John Dehlin [02:35:02] Yeah. Wow. Okay, that's good. Good find, Colby. Colby with the C. All right, so we've got more Colby Townsend language here. Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [02:35:12] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:35:13] Do you want to read this, Colby Reddish?
Colby Townsend [02:35:16] I sure do. Joseph was not a machine, and it was reading Colby. Go ahead, Colby Squared. Joseph was not a machine. And it is well within human behavior to be inconsistent with one's process of reading, especially when engaging. Engaging a resource like Clark's commentary, where the reader has three separate sections of information vying for their attention, I. E. The KJV text at the top of the page, Clark's notes in two columns at the bottom, and the scripture references in between the two. If he skimmed version 10 and the note and did not see any need to make changes, then there was no need to focus on it further. Smith could move on to the next verse. If something struck him in verse 11 that he felt needed clarification, he could spend time with it and engage the material that held his attention. Recent scholarship has highlighted how this type of non linear reading was general practice in early American reading habits.
John Dehlin [02:36:14] So, Colby, can you give us a non academic interpretation of what Colby's saying here?
Colby Townsend [02:36:20] Yeah, I think what he's saying is that I sure hope folks who've listened to this episode don't represent it as Joseph Smith just directly plagiarized from Adam Clark, because he did borrow from Adam Clark, but it's a little bit more complicated than that. And that's again where I'd kind of return to my recurring point of why I think this matters is I think this is very consistent with Dan Vogel's pious fraud theory because it shows that Joseph is engaging with this scholarship and using that almost as a starting point for whatever people want to call that process, whether they believe there was some revelation behind it, whether they think, you know, Joseph was making it all up.
John Dehlin [02:36:58] The.
Colby Townsend [02:36:58] What he's doing here is more complicated than just straight copying. And I think that's what makes it so interesting.
John Dehlin [02:37:05] Yeah, that almost makes it more problematic because he's. Because there's the text, then there's Adam Smith's changes to the text, and there's Joseph Smith changes to the Adam Smith changes. Next.
Colby Townsend [02:37:20] Yeah, you said. You said Adam Smith, and while he was a great thinker, wealth of Nations, Adam Clark.
John Dehlin [02:37:26] Yeah, yeah, it's Joseph Smith changes to Adam Clark's changes to the original text. Thank you.
Colby Townsend [02:37:32] Yeah, I don't think he borrowed any ideas from Adam Smith. Although wealth of nations, Heaven. Heaven with streets paved of gold sounds pretty close.
John Dehlin [02:37:41] So. Okay. All right. So basically, Colby's. Colby Townsend saying, don't. Don't support the straw man, like some have tried to erect with the view of the Hebrews that. That Joseph Smith just copied long paragraphs and sentences from view the Hebrews. It's more. Just analyze the changes that are made and then ask yourself, is it. Is it likely that Joseph Smith both had in his possession or his. An understanding of Adam Clark's recommended changes, and is it likely that. That Joseph Smith was influenced by those changes in. In the wording that he included in the Book of Mormon while still potentially adding his own commentary as well to the text?
Gerardo Sumano [02:38:40] Right, right.
Colby Townsend [02:38:41] Yeah.
Colby Townsend [02:38:41] Either that or that Rock was a huge fan of Adam Clark.
John Dehlin [02:38:47] All right, what's this one, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [02:38:50] Yeah, what was that?
John Dehlin [02:38:52] What's this next one?
Gerardo Sumano [02:38:53] Okay, I said 49. 1. Do you want to read it, Colby?
Colby Townsend [02:39:01] Yes, I do. So the KJV, Isaiah 49:1 says, Listen, O isles unto me. And then Clark suggests adding or changing it to read, hearken unto me, O ye distant lands. And then when it's included in the Book of Mormon, in 1st Nephi 21, verse 1, it's changed to read, and again, hearken, O ye house of Israel.
John Dehlin [02:39:24] So it's adding the word hearken. Joseph's adding the word hearken that. That Clark is recommending. But then he's adding, oh, ye house of Israel, which is I. I could be wrong.
Gerardo Sumano [02:39:38] I think the word harken is there. I built in the kjv.
Colby Townsend [02:39:43] I'll look.
Gerardo Sumano [02:39:44] Yeah, while you.
John Dehlin [02:39:45] But understand the. The how, Joseph.
Gerardo Sumano [02:39:48] So, yeah, so the thing is, like Clark in the right side, in the image I have, he's explaining that the reason why he thinks it should be oh, you distant lands. He says. He says that Jesus commission is not only to restore the Israelites and reconcile them to their Lord and Father, but to be a light, to lighten the Gentiles, to call them to the knowledge and obedience of the true God, and to bring them to be one church together with the Israelites. So he's adding all of that, Right. The Israel, the idea of bringing together the Israelites, the lost Israelites, and bringing together with the Gentiles. And so here Joseph adds these words of Ye, House of Israel. And it gets this idea that the aisles means, you know, restoring Israel, basically.
Colby Townsend [02:40:44] Yeah. Which is interesting because earlier, John, when you asked, you know, why Isaiah, why so much Isaiah did. Why did Smith incorporate so much Isaiah or Nephi? I guess I think it's because Isaiah does have this. This focus. Right. On the House of Israel. It's interesting that when we look at. When we look again at the Dead Sea Scrolls version, it actually translates as, listen to me, O coastlands, Pay attention, ye peoples from afar. So it doesn't really track with really the. The KJV or Clark or Smith's changes either. Either way.
John Dehlin [02:41:23] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:41:24] The next slide explains a little bit more about the House of Israel words.
John Dehlin [02:41:29] Are these Colby's words?
Gerardo Sumano [02:41:30] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:41:31] Do you want me to read them?
Colby Townsend [02:41:32] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:41:32] Okay. The House of Israel pattern. In Smith's revisions, the phrase House of Israel appears far more frequently in the Book of Mormon than in the original. Original Isaiah text. Joseph Smith consistently inserted House of Israel when it was not in the original. In Isaiah 49:1, Clark's notes emphasized Isaiah's message as a prophecy about the gathering of Israel. And Joseph expanded on this to make it even more explicit. Joseph wasn't just copying Clark. He was reinterpreting Isaiah in a way that fit the Book of Mormon's restorationist theology. And that makes me want to just share a couple comments that I think are kind of summarizing pretty well. What's going on here? Chuck? KV Says he clearly is not correcting Bible passages back to their original. This is not a translation. It's Joseph in the text. So that's a good point. Joseph isn't restoring the text to the original. And he goes on Eagle 13559, basically summarizes that this is Joseph Smith's commentary on Adam Clark's commentary on the Bible. And that's an interesting way to come kind of summarize what's going on. What would you add, Colby or Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [02:43:04] I agree.
Colby Townsend [02:43:05] Yeah. I think this one's interesting to me because it's very close to the first example we Looked at from Isaiah 11, I think it was where it looks like Smith is expanding on themes and then taking a theme from notes that, that Clark had and working them into the text. This is why it's a little bit more interesting than just the standard copying that we saw in the, in Wilson and Wayman's work.
Gerardo Sumano [02:43:31] It becomes more obvious. This same example that we're talking about the house of Israel in the next slide, John, because he, let's jump to it. He added more than just the house of Israel. He adds that whole chunk of text which looks really, it's pretty similar to what Adam Clark was saying.
John Dehlin [02:43:48] Okay, so the original Isaiah 49:1 says, Listen, O isles, unto me, and hearken ye people from far. The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.
Gerardo Sumano [02:44:01] It doesn't mention Israel at all.
John Dehlin [02:44:04] And then, and then Joseph Smith in 1st Nephi 211 writes, and again, hearken, O ye house of Israel. There it is. All ye that are broken off and are driven out because of the wickedness of the pastures of my people. Yea, all ye that are broken off that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, O house of Israel. Does the word pastor even make sense in an Isaiah context?
Colby Townsend [02:44:37] Oh, that's a great question. I'm going to look that up. That's a great question.
John Dehlin [02:44:41] But was Isaiah aware of pastors?
Gerardo Sumano [02:44:45] Clearly not Christian pastors.
John Dehlin [02:44:50] What in the world? Why is Isaiah talking about pastors?
Gerardo Sumano [02:44:58] I'll just read this. What, what Colby says in the article. It says traditional interpretations limited the scope of meaning to the ancient Israelites return returning from exile to restore Jerusalem. Clark extends the interpretation of the metaphor beyond the return from the Babylonian exile to include a time in the far distant future when the Gentiles will presumably obtain a correct knowledge of the of God and. And the Israelites would embrace the Christian gospel after having been scattered throughout the world. Clark's footage.
John Dehlin [02:45:29] Sorry.
Gerardo Sumano [02:45:30] Clark's footnotes provides an interpretation of the second half of Isaiah 49:1 that specifically points to the gathering of Israel in the last days. Furthermore, it is here in this exact location that Smith inserts an interpolation that refers to the scattering and gathering of Israel.
Interpolations and Additional Textual Evidence
John Dehlin [02:45:50] So.
Gerardo Sumano [02:45:50] So Clark is talking about the scatteredness and. And gathering of Israel. And that's the theme that Joseph puts in in this verse.
Colby Townsend [02:45:59] Okay, so I'm sorry, I got distracted. Gerardo. I was looking at the etymology of the word pastor. So pastor comes from an Anglo French word and its first known use dates to the 14th century. As a noun, in case people aren't aware, Isaiah lived a long time before the 14th century, and he didn't speak French.
John Dehlin [02:46:27] So this is like a dew. This is like the appearance of the word a dew in the Book of Mormon.
Colby Townsend [02:46:31] This is like a dew.
John Dehlin [02:46:32] And it's also a total. It's an anachronism within an anachronism, basically.
Colby Townsend [02:46:39] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:46:39] Isaiah shouldn't be using the word pastor, and none of that should be appearing in the Book of Mormon.
Gerardo Sumano [02:46:44] And Isaiah, I can guarantee you Isaiah was not talking about the gathering of Israel in the last days either.
Colby Townsend [02:46:50] And none of it was consistent with the great Isaiah scroll at the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Colby Townsend [02:46:55] Right.
Colby Townsend [02:46:56] Again, if. If the Book of Mormon's story is true, and we're taking it at face value, that's what we should expect, is that it matches most with the great Isaiah scroll. So far, the only example we've seen is that one time that it was consistent with striking out the knot.
Colby Townsend [02:47:15] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:47:16] Yeah. All right. Well, that is deeply problematic. So I think that's a big one. I'm. I'm. I'm persuaded at the problems.
Colby Townsend [02:47:24] Just.
John Dehlin [02:47:24] Just the appearance of the word pastor. Insertion of the word pastor is problematic, but House of Israel, too. Yeah, total hit for me. So I'm persuaded. Thou persuadeth me. Colby Townsend on this one as well. Not that he's worried about my. My persuasion. Okay, last one, Last one. Okay, last one.
Gerardo Sumano [02:47:46] I said 21 11.
Colby Townsend [02:47:48] 29.
John Dehlin [02:47:48] 29. 11.
Gerardo Sumano [02:47:50] 29 11. Sorry. KJV. It says I cannot, for it is sealed.
John Dehlin [02:47:57] Okay, we're familiar with that. That's. That's one we've heard before.
Gerardo Sumano [02:48:02] And Clark says that the word read it should be inserted. So Clark says I cannot read it.
John Dehlin [02:48:09] And he adds the word up after sealed, or it is to be. I cannot read it, for it is sealed up.
Gerardo Sumano [02:48:17] Right.
John Dehlin [02:48:17] And that's how he changes. I cannot, for it is sealed. So look for read it and up added to sealed. And miraculously, coincidentally, in second Nephi 27, Joseph Smith adds the up. The things which are sealed up. He adds up, and he adds the. Read it to verse 18. I cannot read it. Those are clear hits. Colby, are thou persuaded?
Colby Townsend [02:48:50] This I am persuaded. And I was also laughing at someone's joke in the live chat, saying that maybe it was al pastor, as in Nephite street tacos, which is actually the last lunch that John and I had together was tacos al pastor, brought to you today by.
John Dehlin [02:49:09] What's the taco place downtown Salt Lake on the west side. I Don't remember.
Colby Townsend [02:49:13] But it was good.
John Dehlin [02:49:15] Okay. Behold. It was good.
Colby Townsend [02:49:18] Yes. And I. At the same time, I was laughing at that comment. I was looking at the Great Isaiah scroll again. Again, the changes are not consistent that Clark and Smith make with the Great Isaiah Scroll.
John Dehlin [02:49:30] Well, Gerardo, you're. You're like, you're. You're a laymanite. Do you think Nephi enjoyed Tacos al Pastor? What's your. What's your conclusion?
Colby Townsend [02:49:39] Maybe.
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:39] Maybe.
John Dehlin [02:49:40] Do you like Tacos al Pastor?
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:42] I do.
John Dehlin [02:49:44] Well, maybe it's.
Colby Townsend [02:49:46] Should I.
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:47] Should I say which one's my favorite one? And so it's all lake.
John Dehlin [02:49:50] Yeah, yeah, please. So
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:55] Tacos Lopez in West Jordan. Best. Best al Pastor tacos you'll ever try. Yeah, you should ask for sponsorships.
John Dehlin [02:50:06] All right. Anyway, this is the last one. All jokes aside, those are two hits. Those are two hits that are pretty significant.
Colby Townsend [02:50:13] The other thing that's interesting to me about this one, John, is we know. And Colby's article deals with this a little bit or his essay. We know that Joseph thought Isaiah 29 was very significant because of how it connected with the story with Martin Harris and Charles Anton. And so it's interesting to me that we can see him engaging with this one in particular. That makes a lot of sense to me. Right. Because if he's interested in what that prophecy means in the details, then that makes sense that he's going to go be looking at what Adam Clark had to say about it and engage with that.
Colby Townsend [02:50:51] Right.
John Dehlin [02:50:53] Got it. All right, well, that's the end of our slides. Gerardo and Colby. We've gone almost three hours. We've got a thousand people viewing and listening. Sometimes this geeky, nerdy stuff makes it hard to reach an audience of a thousand in our livestream, but we reached it, so people must think this is at least somewhat interesting. Gerardo and Colby.
Colby Townsend [02:51:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:51:19] Any. Any final. I mean, I guess I do want to just for one last time, credit Colby Townsend in the Journal of Bible and its Reception, published in March of 2025, literally four days ago. Now, the article is early 19th century biblical scholarship and the production of the Book of Mormon. Good work, Colby Townsend. This is important work. Thank you for the work, Gerardo. Thank you for bringing this to Mormon Stories and to our attention. Colby, thank you. Colby Reddish, thank you for being willing to appear. Colby Reddish, Any final summation? Do you want to give the closing argument? As an attorney.
Colby Townsend [02:52:06] Oh, man. As an attorney, give the closing argument. Yeah. I think these parallels are interesting and they're significant in the sense that they can't just easily be hand waved away. We see that Smith is engaged with the Adam Clark's Bible commentary now on multiple of his translation projects. And I think it's important that people think about what that means. That's where we have to think critically and entertain, you know, the two different hypotheses. If you think that Joseph was a prophet, what are these errors that in some sense they're errors that were introduced to the Book of Mormon because he was relying on Adam Clark's Bible commentary, What are they doing in the Book of Mormon? How does that make sense? Why didn't any of the witnesses talk about the use of, of Adam Clark's Bible commentary if that is indeed what happened and the best explanation for these parallels? That's where I think this research is really interesting. I'm excited to see where it goes. I hope Colby and other people keep looking at this again. I think with the advent of AI, we'll learn a lot about textual dependencies. So I'm excited to see where that goes with the Book of Mormon, but I guess my close would be simply for people to look at this, to engage with it. And I hope the work continues on discovering where the words of the Book of Mormon may have come from.
John Dehlin [02:53:25] And Colby, if the Book of Abraham is a 10 in terms of smoking guns against the validity of Joseph Smith and his prophetic powers and Mormon Church truth claims, how would you rate Colby Townsend's findings on sort of the smoking gun 0 to 10 scale? How would you rate these? If you had to give them a number, put you on the spot.
Colby Townsend [02:53:52] My honest assessment of that question. I do think the Book of Abraham is a 10, and I think I would probably rate these parallels right now as they're presented at like a five or six. I don't think they're. I don't think they're as significant as Weymouth's findings because Weymouth was looking for. Waymont was looking for direct borrowing of six words or more. And that's really hard to explain away. The problem from my point of view with parallels is parallels are always very subjective just by their nature. Now, these parallels are pretty compelling. Like especially the use of, in the first example we looked at with God talking about his burning the people with fire, and the parallel talking about a blast furnace. That is very significant to me because that's very specific language. So that's a parallel I don't think I can explain away. So maybe that particular one gets a little bit higher. But yeah, that's my Honest assessment. The other thing I'd add, since we're talking, since you asked me about Book of Abraham, is remember that Joseph Smith had an understanding of Egyptian. And I would say, including reformed Egyptian, that one character could produce an entire, like, paragraph or sentence length of English text. And one of the things that's a real problem for this level of minutiae of editing words is I don't understand how you get that level of specificity and precision in your language when we know that Joseph Smith thought that that's the way that reformed Egyptian works.
Colby Townsend [02:55:23] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:55:25] Yeah. How mad should I be if Colby Townsend goes on Radio Free Mormon or Mormonism Live after declining to come on Mormon stories?
Colby Townsend [02:55:34] Who in the world would go on Radio free Mormon?
John Dehlin [02:55:36] John Deland, 0 to 10. How mad should I be, Gerardo? 0 to 10. I imagine Colby, if he declines Mormon stories because he's too busy, but then he goes on Radio Free Mormon or Mormonism Live. What do you think?
Gerardo Sumano [02:55:48] We'll see. We'll see. I don't know.
John Dehlin [02:55:51] I'm gonna be a 10. I think I'm gonna be a 10 angry. Where do you rate these changes? Where do you rate this? This Colby's recent findings on the smoking gun scale?
Gerardo Sumano [02:56:06] I would rate it quite a bit higher, probably in. In the ninth. Just because you don't really need to believe that. That Joseph had Adam Clark with him in front of him while he was dictating to Oliver Carter, which is what I. After reading this article, I, I believe it's strongly. But you don't even have to go that far. You just have to think about what are Adam Clark's mistakes doing in the Book of Mormon? You know, like biblical scholarship from Joseph's time that is. Has been proven incorrect. Why did that make it into the Book of Mormon if it's supposed to be the most correct book on earth? And if it's supposed to be, you know, Nephi won't shut up about how he's restoring the precious truths that were lost because of the Catholic Church. So, yeah, I, I think it, it is a lot higher just because of that. The implications.
John Dehlin [02:57:12] Yeah, I, I actually agree. I think Gerardo Colby, no offense, I think Gerardo's number is more accurate than your number. I think this is 8, 8, possibly 9 territory. Because we already know that Joseph Smith likely drew from Adam Clark's commentary without citing it as the inspiration for the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. And to know. So that gives us every reason to think that he would have been influenced in the creation of the Book of Mormon. And now that we've got six or seven super clear parallels or, you know, Adam Clarkisms just mysteriously appearing in the Book of Mormon, there's no way that's coincidental. And if you add to that the fact that we've got Deutero Isaiah that shouldn't be in the Book of Mormon as well, and then you add to that the fact that we know how Joseph Smith and anyone near him claims he translated the Book of Mormon, which is with the. With the stone in the hat, reading the words off the stone. Then we've got Prophet Isaiah to Prophet Nephi Lehi to Prophet Mormon Moroni to Prophet Joseph Smith. That leaves no room for error. So there's no reason why Adam Clark's often incorrect recommendations that we already know Joseph Smith has been tainted or poisoned by through his alleged retranslation, the Joseph Smith translation. There's no reason that Adam. Adam Clark's false corrections should be magically and mysteriously appearing in the Book of Mormon. So I think this is an 8 or 9. Great work, Colby Townsend. I'm teasing you about not coming on Mormon Stories. I will forgive you if you go on Radio Free Mormon or Mormonism Live. I'm not calling you a coward. I think you're courageous. I think you're honestly courageous and heroic to be doing this research. This is hard work. This is tedious work. This is meticulous work. This is heroic work. And Colby Townsend, you get an audible clap from me. Not that you need it or want it, but great work. Go on anyone's effing podcast you want to or don't want to. Great work. I salute you. How hard is it in 2025 to come up with new smoking guns about any of Joseph Smith translations? Who else has come up with smoking guns? Like, to your point, Gerardo, who else has come up with smoking guns in the past 20 years regarding Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon?
Conclusions, Implications, and Closing Remarks
Colby Townsend [03:00:23] Yeah, yeah, And I will. I will agree with your 8 John on the. On the argument that this really just blows a hole in the conventional narrative of how the Book of Mormon came to be. So that part I completely agree with. Yes. And agree with everything else you said.
Colby Townsend [03:00:42] Yeah,
John Dehlin [03:00:45] yeah. Excellent. All right, well, great work, everybody. Great work, Colby. Great work, Gerardo and Colby. And yeah, please, everyone take a minute to like this episode right now. Please comment on it, please share it, Please subscribe to Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. All of that will help this get out and help encourage YouTube to recommend it. So much of Mormon Stories viewership is literally YouTube recommending the episodes to people in their algorithm recommendation feed. And so everyone liking and subscribing and commenting adds what Gerardo tells me is called engagement. And engagement is what motivates YouTube to share these episodes far and wide. Am I wrong, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [03:01:42] That's true. That's true.
John Dehlin [03:01:44] Okay. All right. I love Stephen's comment. John Dehlin gave Colby Townsend the clap. Something tells me there's a. A dual meaning to that comment. Anyway, are we done, fellas?
Gerardo Sumano [03:02:01] We're done.
John Dehlin [03:02:02] All right. Thanks, Gerardo. Thanks, Colby.
Gerardo Sumano [03:02:03] Thank you.
John Dehlin [03:02:04] Y' all come back, come back often, and we really appreciate it. Thanks, Colby.
Colby Townsend [03:02:11] Oh, of course. As often as you'll have me.
John Dehlin [03:02:14] Colby, any anything else you want to say before you go?
Colby Townsend [03:02:18] No, I, I, I think I just want to tell people, you know, as I'm not a podcaster with my own platform, I just want to echo your call to support these episodes and to support the work that goes into them. Having done, you know, a number of different interviews this last week on a number of different topics, there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes and a lot of good work that, that will go away if people don't support it. That's just the reality of the situation. And, and so please support Mormon Stories and the other post Mormon podcasters that you listen to and enjoy, because that's how they're able to do this and create this space for people and engage in this type of reporting on scholarship that affects Mormonism. And it's important that people understand that we have to put our money where our mouth is and support the causes that we care about. And from my experience, John, you are there for people at a time that's one of the hardest times in their life. You've done it for me in moments and for my family in moments that no one else knows about. So I always like telling people that because I really appreciate it and appreciate the mission of Open Stories foundation and Mormon Stories. And I think it is so important that people understand that without support, it can't happen. So thank you for letting me be a part of this episode. And, Gerardo, great job on taking a very technical article and making it understandable. You're not just a. A closet lawyer, you're a closet. A closet biblical scholar, apparently.
Colby Townsend [03:03:49] So.
John Dehlin [03:03:51] All the good things. All right, thanks. Thanks for that, Colby. That was great. Gerardo, any final words?
Colby Townsend [03:03:57] Just.
Gerardo Sumano [03:03:58] Yeah, just the same, echoing what Colby said, please support us. This episode probably took me longer to plan than any episode I plan on Mormon Stories just trying to understand the article, like trying to pull out the images from, from a really long commentary and exactly the pages that Kobe was citing. So yeah, it took a long, long time. So yeah, please support us.
Colby Townsend [03:04:25] And it was much better than talking about bad apologetics, I can tell you that.
John Dehlin [03:04:31] I wonder who you're talking about, Colby. I wonder. He who shall not be named. All right, thanks brethren. And by the way, your donations will go to pay Gerardo and Colby both for appearing today. And maybe Colby Townsend, if you're watching and you send me your Venmo or PayPal, maybe we'll throw you a little donation as well because we would love to support your great work. So Colby Townsend, if you're watching or listening, message me, send me your Venmo or paypal and we'll send you a little cheddar cheese as, as they say. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thanks for your donations that make it possible. If you're a monthly donor or an annual donor or a weekly donor or a one time donor, thank you. We couldn't do without you. If you are not a donor but you value this type of content. We lose donors every day. We lose donors every month. Certainly 10 to 20amonth we lose. If we don't get donations to replace the donors that drop off, we have to start cutting services. So please, please, please, if you value this content and you're not a donor and you want to see it continue and you want to see people like Gerardo and Colby get paid along with Maven and all the other members of the Mormon Stories team, please go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor and we promise that we'll keep bringing to you cutting edge scholarship and analysis and great Mormon stories interviews and current events analysis in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. Also, thank you for the super chats. John Aburnham, thanks for that super chat. It's very much appreciated. Others of you gave super chats as well. Eagle13559 wrote. Colby, you win. Thank you for that super chat. Kiki wrote. Thanks for everything y' all do. Here's some of what would have been tithing money. Thank you, Kiki, for that super chat donation as well. And we should also just thank, we should probably thank Dan Vogel. He's sort of like an informal panelist. He shows up and provides important commentary and analysis. Please support signature books as well. And that's the best way. Buy all of Dan Vogel's books. They're all worth reading. He does great work so thanks, Dan Vogel as well. Thanks to all of you. Join 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.
Thumbnail Credits: Main image of the plates from Utah Lighthouse Ministry; Background images from the public domain
One Response
Exceptional discussion. The reality is that knowing that the BoM came from words appearing on a stone makes the text itself indefensible. As more and more scholarship like this becomes common knowledge within the membership, the Church will have to abandon the claim of it being historical.