Introduction and Guest Background

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is February 8, 2023 and we are super excited for today's episode. Today we are going to be covering a very important topic, Joseph Smith's Secret Education, the Dartmouth Connection. Those of you who follow multiple Mormon themed podcasts, this topic will already be familiar to you because recently on a Mormonism Live podcast episode with Bill Real and Radio Free Mormon, my dear friend Dr. Randy Bell came and shared with us his research and analysis on a very important set of topics of information about Joseph Smith and his background. To kind of summarize, if I may, for the longest time, the Mormon Church has wanted its members and people who are investigating the church to think of Joseph Smith as a completely uneducated farm boy who had no capacity whatsoever to produce anything like the Book of Mormon or Revelation because he was an uneducated farm boy. And what we know from research is that actually Joseph Smith had ties and connections to very formal and prestigious and high quality education. And today we're going to be talking about that. Joseph Smith's Secret education, the Dartmouth Connection. We're going to be talking about how family members of Joseph Smith were connected to an elite, what would now be considered an Ivy League school, Dartmouth College or Dartmouth University, and how there's really good indication that what was taught at Dartmouth likely heavily influenced, if not the surroundings of what Joseph Smith drew from, potentially influenced Joseph Smith himself, not just with the Book of Mormon, but with future revelations, etc. And I'll say it will obviously have a lot of overlap from the presentation with Radio Free Mormon and Bill Real. We're not ashamed about that. We want as many people as possible to learn about this important piece of scholarship and piece of history. So sometimes there will be repetition between Mormonism Live and Mormon Stories Podcast. It is kind of like David Letterman and Johnny Carson. What's wrong with going on both? But also, Randy, you've extended your slides a little bit to give us a little.

Randy Bell [00:02:23] I've done some updates, yeah, a few updates, I learned.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] Yeah, yeah. So that's what you're in store for today. We would ask you to please, if you're on YouTube, to hit the subscribe button. We are growing at. At incredibly significant rates and it's because so many of you have been willing to follow us and subscribe to us on Facebook, on YouTube, et cetera. So please hit the subscribe button, please hit the alarm button so that you can be notified when there's new episodes. And of Course, we always welcome our audio only audience and we'll do our best to describe the visuals, but if you want the full experience for today, you'll do best to check out either our. Our YouTube channel, preferably. But if you're, you know, for some reason can't get to it, Facebook, because Randy's got what, 80 slides you've got

Randy Bell [00:03:06] prepared for us today?

John Dehlin [00:03:08] Yeah. All right, so let's go ahead and jump into it today. We've got some great slides. And Randy, you've been on Mormon Stories now several times. You've told your own story. You've also appeared on a few other episodes. Maybe give us a brief introduction of who you are for those who are newer to the podcast.

Randy Bell [00:03:26] Well, thank you, John. Dr. John Dehlin. I. I am Dr. Randall Bell, but everyone just calls me Randy. I'm from Southern California and I am a researcher. That's what my firm does, and we study disasters around the country, around the world. And I happened across this topic we're going to discuss today. And for the last six months, I've been researching it very heavily, both myself and having some people help me with the research.

John Dehlin [00:03:58] Yeah. Maven wants to add that we should maybe reference Thomas Murphy's work. Dr. Thomas Murphy. I'm not sure how much that influences your presentation today.

Randy Bell [00:04:09] Well, Tom was kind enough to call into the Bill and RFM show Mormonism Live. And we've since talked and, yeah, Tom Murphy, I've always admired his scholarship. And we're going to be collaborating and this is not going to be the end of this research because it's really a game changer, at least for me.

John Dehlin [00:04:30] Yeah.

Randy Bell [00:04:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:31] All right. Well, Randy, maybe before we jump in, are you going to be telling us through the slides how you got interested in this topic, or do you want to?

Randy Bell [00:04:39] I am.

John Dehlin [00:04:39] Okay. All right.

Randy Bell [00:04:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:04:40] Well, then, viewers and listeners, for those of you joining us live, we want to thank those who are giving us super chats. We've already got one super chat from Homestar Junior who said this information is pretty insane. Glad it's getting more exposure. We are, too. And anyone who is in a position to support us financially on YouTube with these super chat donations, they make a big difference. So thank you. Thank you for those donations. And we. We would welcome our livestream viewers, both on Facebook and on YouTube, to send in comments, send in questions, and we'll. We'll bring them to the surface as we're able. Is that all right, Randy?

Randy Bell [00:05:21] That's a perfect segue into my very first slide.

John Dehlin [00:05:24] All right, let's have it.

Randy Bell [00:05:25] Let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:05:25] Let's have it. Randy.

Randy Bell [00:05:26] The first thing is don't believe a word I say. I tell this to kids all the time. Don't believe a word I say. Research what I say. Apply critical thinking skills. I did an episode with juju. John, you'll recall with rfm the importance of learning critical thinking skills and thinking on our own. But here we go. The research question is this. What were the original sources for later became Mormon doctrine? And the story is briefly that I was driving from Park City down to Vegas and. And I started thinking, you know, I think that the podcast and the information from everyone from Sandra Tanner and Lindsay Hanson park and of course your podcast. John and Bill Real, who's brilliant. Jonathan Streeter, RFM has done just an incredibly brilliant job of deconstruction. But then we're kind of left with the question of where did this stuff come from? Because it is impressive library of information. And I have two members of my own family. One who is still in the church and is convinced that Joseph Smith could not have come up with this information on his own, being an uneducated farm boy. And another relative who's out of the church along with the entire family, but still maintains the position that Joseph Smith was some kind of a mystic. So I was kind of contemplating this on the drive. And as I, as I do when I'm up against a wall, can't think of the answer. I called the source of all great information, rfm, and I asked him, where did this stuff come from? Okay, the Book of Abraham's been deconstructed, the Book of Mormon, but where did the material come from? And we're both kind of scratching our heads. And somewhere I seem to have recalled that I had heard something about Hyrum Smith and Dartmouth. I think my best memory is that Richard Bushman mentioned that Hyrum Smith briefly attended Dartmouth. And so when I got to my destination in Vegas, I started googling and I came up with things. And what I want to start with here, which is different than what we did with Mormonism live, is kind of start with a conclusion and tell the punchline right now. And basically, I am of the opinion, and I think other people are beginning to see things the same way, that Mormonism has five essential building blocks. One is ancient American mythology. Now, that happens to be a topic I do have some expertise in because I had a legal case with that. The second is Protestant Christianity. Obviously, there's some Christianity mixed into Mormonism, Greek mythology, Islamic beliefs, and Masonic Temple rites. And what I hope to present today is a compelling case that not only are these the five building blocks of Mormonism, but by the age of 12, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, who actually attended Dartmouth for four years, had this information presented in and around Dartmouth in a very concentrated period of time. And I like to fill in some gaps, but this is the punchline, and this really answers some questions because, you know, we start with an apple, but then you load it up with sugar and bleach, flour and oil and salt and preservatives and chemical flavors, and it's no longer real. Christianity, you've got a lot of Islam in there. You got a lot of Masonic Temple rites, you have a lot of Greek mythology and a lot of ancient American mythology. And this is just my own personal opinion before we get into the data, but I think this essentially answers the question, where did the content come from? And looking at Dartmouth, and this research has just started, I think seems to be the compelling answer. So the research is done this way. We start in research, we start with a baseline. In other words, what were things like before the disaster? What were things like when life was normal? And that's point zero, that's baseline. And then the first or the second phase is the where and the who and the when. And so I'm going to lay out some. Some charts and graphs to show where this geographically took place, who was involved, and the time period was from 1805, when Joseph Smith was born, to 1817, when the Smith family moved to Palmyra, New York. Then the third phase is what. What are the five categories that went into this recipe for apple pie? That is the Mormon doctrine. And then finally the why, which I've kind of already answered why. The. From kind of a pro Mormon point of view and a post Mormon perspective, because a lot of the information I got was actually from pro Mormon sources. Although, be it they're obscure, I had to dig for them. So any thoughts on that, John?

John Dehlin [00:10:26] Yeah. So the sort of, the premise or the thesis that you're laying out is that if Joseph Smith didn't receive the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants and so many Revelations, if he didn't receive that from God through angels, through plates, through the Urim and Thummim, through a stone and a hat, he must have got them from somewhere. And of course, he could have had access to lots of books. He could have had access to things that were talked about orally or in newspapers. But your premise is that through education that was being provided at Dartmouth that was provided to family members of Joseph Smith. There's a good likelihood that Dartmouth is the source for a lot of Joseph Smith's doctrines and theologies and revelations.

Randy Bell [00:11:16] I think that's stated well. I would just add one fine point. I want to be careful what I'm not selling and really conscientiously trying to not oversell Joseph Smith at the age of 12. Left with the exposure to these initial concepts and themes, I'm not supposing for a minute they were fully developed Mormon doctrines that came later as more meat was put on the bone. But in terms of those five building blocks we just talked about, he was most certainly exposed to all five. 100% certain that Hyrum Smith was. And we know how close Hyrum and Joseph were. And while Joseph Smith recovered from his leg surgery, he had four years of tutoring from his brother Hyrum, who was attending Dartmouth just five miles away. So that's the big picture we're going to dive into.

The Dartmouth Connection to Early Mormon History

John Dehlin [00:12:10] Okay, well, let's start diving then.

Randy Bell [00:12:12] Yeah. So there's five. The way I count them, there's basically five periods or eras of Mormon history. We know about Palmyra, and a lot of the literature information out there is that Mormonism started in Palmyra at age 14 or so with the first Vision, and then Kirtland. Well, Palmyra and then Harmony with the Book of Mormon was translated, and then Kirtland in Missouri, that period of time, then Nauvoo and then Salt Lake City. What I'm here to propose is that the Dartmouth period, which we're going to really focus in very directly, really belongs in this list of an already incredible list of great research into the. That includes these four other areas. So there are five areas or eras or periods in total. And I want to start with that zero point, the baseline, the dominant narrative taught by the church. And I want to start with Joseph Smith, Chapter one, verse three in the Pearl of great Price. And I copied and pasted the entirety here. The ellipses are not mine. This is the way it's actually published in Mormon Scriptures, and I'll read it. It's short. I was born in the year of our Lord 1805, on the 23rd day of December in the town of Sharon, Windsor county, state of Vermont. My father, Joseph Smith Sr. Left the state of Vermont and moved to Palmyra, Ontario county in the state of New York, etc. Etc. He says tense year, but that doesn't add up with other literature. It's more like he's 11 or 12, but that's the entirety. There's no mention of Dartmouth, no mention of what happened in Vermont. What happened. And the family actually moved into New Hampshire. So there's. There's a big gap here that's missing from the official Mormon scriptures. So that's part of the baseline. But it gets even better in the book, which is A4. It's a long book for at least 400 pages. The standard of truth, the book Saints. I'm not going to read this whole thing, but the first chapter covers about three pages. The first page and a half is talking about a volcano that went off on the other side of the world that ruined crops. And then I copied and pasted the entirety of the Saints book and it basically mentions again, it starts with the eruption of the volcano, the crops, and then it mentions the leg surgery. And then quickly we're into Palmyra again. It skips over the entirety of the Dartmouth period. We're going to talk about.

John Dehlin [00:14:58] And I guess that you're wondering whether there's an intentional skipping of that time because maybe it's possible that the church wouldn't want us even thinking about what things might have influenced Joseph Smith in his early years. You know, we know that 1820 is kind of when the treasure digging really started. And by that point, that is in Palmyra. So it's what happened before Palmyra, right?

Randy Bell [00:15:26] Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think. I think. I think post Mormons and pro Mormons would agree that Joseph Smith was not a dumb guy. He was a very bright guy. And even though he left the Dartmouth area at age 12, I think he would had enough years on. On him to. To get the concepts and be and get exposed to this era. And you're right, John, you start seeing a trend here where why being omitted. And the reason's a big one we'll get to in a minute. There's a website. This is not an official church website, but historyofmormonism.com what's interesting here is that it starts 1805-1831 and it labels it New York. It doesn't even mention Vermont. It doesn't even mention Dartmouth. It doesn't mention New Hampshire. And this is the narrative that I grew up with that basically he was born in Vermont, leg surgery and off to Palmyra. And that's where things kicked into gear. And then this is really interesting and pay attention to this because I want to really refute Brian Hales in a moment, but listen to the wording here in the Joseph Smith's Papers which are written by Joseph Smith himself. He says that we, referring to the nine siblings in the Smith family, we were deprived of the benefits of an education. Well, Joseph Smith is explicitly saying that he, Hyrum and the other siblings were deprived of an education. That's exactly right. From the pen of Joseph Smith. What was stated. And yet I came across this on Brian Hale's website and it's really kind of baffling. This is a quick reference to the Book of Mormon and the origins of the Book of Mormon, and it's not cited. I don't see a copyright notice on it. In fact, it's not even sourced, which is, which is interesting in and of itself. But if we zero in on what Brian Hales has, and I don't know for sure that Brian Hales authored this, but he's certainly putting it up on his website, keeping in mind the Joseph Smith papers. I'll just quote, Joseph Smith was intelligent, but no acquaintances reported that he had pursued or possessed any remarkable skills in composition or Oratory in 1829. Now listen to this. Joseph Smith wrote that he was, quote, deprived of the benefits of an education. I was merely instructed in reading, writing, and the ground rules of arithmetic. Close quote. Which his family collaborated. Well, what's suspicious about this is he changes, or whoever wrote this changed from we to he talking specifically about Joseph Smith. That's not, that's not straightforward. It says explicitly we, which would have included Hiram. And then Joseph Smith says that he was deprived of the benefits of the education. And frankly, that is simply not true. And, and what we're going to get into will really disrupt that. That narrative.

John Dehlin [00:18:27] Okay, so, yeah, okay, this is great. Let's keep going.

Randy Bell [00:18:32] Okay, so my, my graphic designers in the office had fun photoshopping Joseph and H and Dartmouth T shirts. But the period of time we're talking about specifically is 1805 to 1817.

John Dehlin [00:18:45] And maybe I'll just summarize again. So the church, what I'm hearing from you, Randy, is that it's possible that the Church wants us two things. Wants two things from us so far. To not think about the pre Palmyra years at all. And to not think that Joseph Smith had anything near any sort of education that could have provided him with what he needed to create the Scripture and the revelations that he created.

Randy Bell [00:19:13] Whether it was deliberately concealed, whether it was hidden, whether it was just accidentally omitted, I don't know. I know that when my kids go to a good college, I kind of like to. That's a point of pride that I think Most parents and people would have, but for some reason that information is missing. I'm not in their heads. I can't say what their motives were, but I have my guesses.

John Dehlin [00:19:38] Okay. Yeah. All right.

Randy Bell [00:19:39] Okay. So the first thing I want to. Well, one of the first things I want to get off with a good start is referencing the Richard Barron's article, which was published in 2006. This is the article I found when I got to Vegas in that little story I had when I was talking to rfm and. And Richard Behrens is a Dartmouth graduate. He's since passed away, sadly, from what I understand. I want to explicitly cite this article. He's pro Mormon, as I understand he was active in the Mormon Church. And a lot of the information and certainly the genesis of my research was in finding this article. And I also want to give him full credit, not myself, for a lot of what I'm going to say. And I'll try to remember to interject what additional research I found. And I want to bring this article out of obscurity. You knew about it, but I've talked to a lot of prominent historians that didn't know about it.

John Dehlin [00:20:41] Yeah. And I'll just. I'll just read the title. It's Dartmouth Arminianism and Its Impact on Hyrum Smith and the Smith Family. This was published by RK Barons in 2006 by the John Whitmer Historical association, which is the Community of Christ's version of the Mormon History Association. And yeah, John Whitmer, John Hamer, my dear friend. I believe he either made me aware of this article because he used to be like the editor of the John Whitmer of the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal. I think he maybe had even been the president of the association. But I remember talking to him about this article way back in the day when I learned about it. But it's super important. Are you able to define for us, Randy, what Arminianism is?

Randy Bell [00:21:28] Yeah, it's the counterpoint to Calvinism. Calvinists have kind of the predetermined side of Christianity. Arminians. I can't even say it. Arminian.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] Arminianism.

Randy Bell [00:21:38] Yeah. Thank you. Is more the more Protestant kind of Presbyterian. You have free choice in life, point of view. And that's a debate that's been going on for hundreds of years.

John Dehlin [00:21:52] And I'll just say when I talked to Sandra Tanner about your episode on Mormonism Live and I mentioned Arminianism, Sandra Tanner said, well, that's me. My version of Christianity is Arminianism. So Anyway, you can go, I guess, at least in two directions, Calvinism or Arminianism. And so that's what we're talking about here.

Randy Bell [00:22:15] Yeah. And I guess I better learn how to pronounce it. But thanks for the help, but that's

John Dehlin [00:22:19] an important article and we'll include a link to it. We'll make sure Maven includes a link to it in the show notes.

Randy Bell [00:22:24] Yeah, thanks, Maven. This is a critically important article because in the time we have, there's a lot left on the plate that's in this article, along, as I say, with other things we're going to discuss.

John Dehlin [00:22:35] So your research pulls from this article?

Randy Bell [00:22:37] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:22:38] Okay.

Randy Bell [00:22:39] Yeah. And I want to give full credit where it's due. So one of the problems, probably the primary mistake I made with Mormonism live, is I came across a picture of Joseph Smith's uncle, Dr. John Smith, and it had been mislabeled from the source. And I in turn put the wrong photo of Joseph Smith's uncle. But this is really critical to understanding the whole landscape. Here is the who of this question. Dr. John Smith is a relative of the Smith family. He was the first, first professor of Dartmouth, and he was also the. When he passed away, he was the pastor of Dartmouth Church, which is right across the street from Dartmouth Hall. And I contacted again multiple times, the Dartmouth Library, who I want to thank because they've been very gracious in sending to me my requests, but they did not have a photograph of him. But through other sources, I tracked down this photograph, which is in the Dartmouth Alumni Register's. Excuse me, it's not a photograph. It's a photograph of a drawing. And the gentleman in the lower right hand corner is Dr. John Smith, I've been told. So he was described as a short, portly man. And There he is, Dr. Johnny. And Richard Behrens talks about him in the article in a tremendous way. He's a central figure of what we're talking about. And of course, I had no idea that Joseph Smith was even anywhere near Dartmouth, more or less that he had a relative who was such a prominent person at Dartmouth. And we'll talk more about him, but I want to introduce him into the discussion right away.

John Dehlin [00:24:27] You're probably going to answer this, but was he Joseph Smith's father's brother?

Randy Bell [00:24:32] No, he was Joseph Smith's father. Father's. Excuse me, Joseph Smith's grandfather's cousin.

John Dehlin [00:24:42] Okay. All right.

Randy Bell [00:24:43] We'll just call him a relative.

John Dehlin [00:24:44] I think there is a John Smith that was Joseph Smith Sr's brother.

Randy Bell [00:24:48] As well, by the same name, I think.

John Dehlin [00:24:50] Yeah, there might be John Smith.

Randy Bell [00:24:52] So I get confused.

John Dehlin [00:24:53] There's multiple John Smiths. Yeah, this is the one.

Randy Bell [00:24:55] I think we got the right picture.

John Dehlin [00:24:57] Okay. All right, all right. Okay.

Randy Bell [00:24:59] There's no dispute over him there being a dodger. John Smith. It was just, you know, kind of. What does he look like? Okay, yeah, so we'll talk more about him. And in the Richard Barron's article, he references Dr. John Smith's theological lectures. And from. I couldn't find a transcription or the lectures anywhere, so I contacted Dartmouth and they sent me high resolution photographs of Dr. John Smith's entire theological lectures.

John Dehlin [00:25:28] Wow.

Randy Bell [00:25:28] Yeah. And it was an effort and it took me months to do this, but what I did is I. They were gracious enough to send them in high res. I had them transcribed and they're voluminous. It's well over 100. 100, I want to say 150 pages or so, had it all transcribed. I read the entirety of the transcript at least twice in its entirety. And so what I've done that I'm building on, on Behren's research. And again, I want to give credit to Dr. John Smith, Dartmouth's first professor, with supplying this information that we're going to go through in more detail. But that's what the transcripts look like. And it was a complete volume. And so we'll be talking about Dr. John Smith quite a bit. Okay, now the next thing I want to do is get into some of the geography and talk about the Ivy League. Now, the Ivy League was not a term that was developed until well after Joseph and Hyrum left. But King George III put out charters that brought about or resulted in Dartmouth and Cornell and Harvard and Boston and Yale and Columbia and Princeton and University of Pennsylvania. To this day, they're still elite universities. And even going back to the early 1800s, they were the premier educational institutions. And like anything, things have matured and developed, but for their time frame, they were considered elite.

John Dehlin [00:27:07] They still are.

Randy Bell [00:27:08] Yeah, they certainly are.

John Dehlin [00:27:10] I mean, BYU's up there, but, you know, I'm just being silly. I'm being silly. I love BYU. I'm being silly.

Randy Bell [00:27:17] I love BYU. But the acceptance rate now into BYU, to just put this in perspective, is 69, 70%. Dartmouth is under 10%. Yeah, yeah. So we used to call BYU the

John Dehlin [00:27:28] Harvard of the West. Do you remember that?

Randy Bell [00:27:30] I don't know I hear that much anymore. But I'm just being silly and I say, go Cougars.

John Dehlin [00:27:35] I love byu.

Randy Bell [00:27:36] I love byu. I Have my undergrad degree there. But anyways, moving on. So I'm going to now zero in on Dartmouth and show the. Show the. Show the geography close to Dartmouth.

Joseph Smith's Birthplace and the Dartmouth Region

John Dehlin [00:27:51] Okay.

Randy Bell [00:27:52] Okay. So here, here's a map where we zeroed in on Dartmouth. Now we know that Sharon, Vermont is where Joseph Smith was born. And we have a GIS mapper in the office. And so he mapped as the crow flies 14 miles from Sharon, Vermont to Dartmouth. The red dot is Dartmouth. And of course, Sharon, Vermont is to the far left. And when Joseph smith was about 5 or 6, they moved on the modern day roads. The roads are about 25 miles to Dartmouth. And they moved first to Lebanon, New Hampshire. And I never had heard of Lebanon, New Hampshire at all growing up in the church. But that's where Joseph Smith had his leg surgery.

John Dehlin [00:28:34] Okay.

Randy Bell [00:28:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:35] So born in Sharon, Vermont, but then traveled to Lebanon, New Hampshire. And he probably would have traveled through Dartmouth or Hanover on his way to Lebanon. Maybe.

Randy Bell [00:28:48] Probably. Because when I actually went there. I'm going to show photos in a minute what these sites look like today. Yeah, but yeah, you would have. It was. Dartmouth was in the. Certainly in the neighborhood of both Lebanon, New Hampshire, and then after the leg surgery, he actually had two leg surgeries. The first one unsuccessful. I didn't know that. And the second one was successful. And he did indeed have a very serious ailment with his leg. He moved to Norwich, Vermont. And we hear about the Smith family leaving Vermont. They left from Norwich, Vermont.

John Dehlin [00:29:23] Okay.

Randy Bell [00:29:24] Yeah. So here's the lay of the land. And Dartmouth is always in relatively close proximity. And certainly as he was older, from the ages of, you know, kind of 6 to 12, 11, 12, he was. Dartmouth was in the neighborhood. And it was a good thing because Hyrum Smith attended Dartmouth, specifically Moore Academy, which was an elite prep school under the wing of Dartmouth, along with the medical school and the regular college. So we're going to take a little tour of Dartmouth for a minute. Dartmouth hall was built and constructed at the time that Hyrum Smith attended. He would have resided in this facility along 1784.

John Dehlin [00:30:10] It says.

Randy Bell [00:30:10] Yeah, it was built in 1784, well before Joseph Smith was born in 1805. So Hyrum Smith lived here for four years along with the med students and the Dartmouth College students. And this is what it looks like today. Essentially similar to what it looked like back then. It's iconic Ivy League architecture. I don't know if you're into architecture, but I just love the architecture.

John Dehlin [00:30:36] It's got the 1784 around the clock at the arch of the building.

Randy Bell [00:30:40] Yeah, it does, doesn't it? And then right across the street to my left, behind me, where I just took the picture, Dartmouth Hall. This is really interesting. Dartmouth Church of Christ, constructed in 1771, even before Dartmouth Hall. Now, as a student of Dartmouth, whether you're in the medical school, Moore Academy, or Dartmouth College itself, you would have been required to attend both morning and evening services, theological lectures at this church, Church of Christ. And we all. I presumably know that the official name of the Mormon Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is not the first name of the church. That's actually the third name of the church. The first was Church of Christ, the identical, same name where Hyrum Smith would have attended well over 1,000 theological lectures.

John Dehlin [00:31:38] So we've got a match between the first name Joseph Smith gave to the existing current Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We've got a match between that and the church that Hyrum attended when he was attending Dartmouth.

Randy Bell [00:31:51] Exactly. But to be fair, you know, when I told that to Sandra Tanner, she said, well, hang on, cowboy, because I don't know those are her exact words, but she basically said, you know, the Campbellites also have the name Church of Christ.

John Dehlin [00:32:06] Okay.

Randy Bell [00:32:06] And maybe, maybe they got the name there. I. I don't know. I don't have a videotape of that conversation.

John Dehlin [00:32:11] But Sidney Rigdon doesn't come till later, so.

Randy Bell [00:32:15] Yeah, but then Rigdon was.

John Dehlin [00:32:17] Was Joseph's connection to the Campbellites. I'm just guessing. I don't know.

Randy Bell [00:32:20] And I agree with you. Yeah, the aha moment here. And we're going to see lots of these, dozens of these aha moments. Like, wait a minute, where the name Church of Christ come from. Well, one real possibility would be the Church of Christ on Dartmouth campus where Hyrum Smith attended over a thousand theological lectures. And by the way, Joseph and Hyrum Smith's relative, Dr. John Smith, developed or co. Developed or certainly was one of the first developers of Dartmouth's theological lectures and curriculum. And that's exactly the document I had transcribed. Okay, so this is Dartmouth Church of Christ. And then another fascinating aspect is the Dartmouth Medical School. If you just go down the street, just a minute or two walk, you come to the Dartmouth Medical School, which was established in 1797. And this is going to become very important because it wasn't just some old country doctor that performed surgery on Joseph Smith's leg. And we're going to talk more about the individual, the surgeon that actually performed Surgery on Joseph Smith's leg because he came from Dartmouth Medical School. So I'm just trying to give a big picture now before we dive in some of the details.

John Dehlin [00:33:43] Okay. All right. So far, they're swimming in Dartmouth. The early Smith family is swimming in Dartmouth. We sure are. We sure are.

Randy Bell [00:33:53] A beautiful campus. I really have fallen in love with the place. So here's where you go and I went on family vacations here to Joseph Smith's birthplace. This is Sharon, Vermont, 25 miles away via the modern road system. And this is where Joseph smith lived from 1805 to 1811. And there's a large monument there. And then next to the monument to the left is the actual footprint of Joseph Smith's family's cabin. And that's where Joseph Smith was born in 1805. So that's what it looks like. And it's in Vermont, As I say, 25 miles from Dartmouth. Then we go to the home site in Lebanon, New Hampshire. I tracked it down, and today it's a Kentucky Fried Chicken. But, you know, I don't think a lot of people that actually visit there for, you know, as a fast food restaurant realize that that is the actual home site of Joseph Smith from 1811 to 1814. And this is the site where Joseph Smith had his leg surgery. Right, Right on this site. Okay. And then in 1814, the Smith family moved from this site to this site. And even today, this is a nice home, even by modern standards. And this is where the Smith family lived again, five miles from Dartmouth from 1814 to 1817. So it's. It's interesting to see kind of what the sites look like today and see the geography that in both New Hampshire and Vermont, we're right in the neighborhood. In fact, you literally go by Dartmouth from one home to the other.

John Dehlin [00:35:31] Okay, okay.

Randy Bell [00:35:34] So that's the geography. And now I want to kind of lay out the. The key players and introduce the key players. The furnace. First is John Wheelock. He was the president at Dartmouth, and he developed Dartmouth curriculum along with Dr. John Smith, by all accounts. And I've started acquiring some of these rare documents where Dr. Wheelock or John Wheelock gave the eulogy to Dr. John Smith. They were very good friends, very well acquainted, and worked closely for decades developing Dartmouth curriculum. And you'll see that John Wheelock is a central hub in a kind of the wheel spokes going around to all these people. Everyone knew John Wheelock. Hyrum Smith would have interviewed with him and had periodic interviews with John Wheelock, who was, again, intimately acquainted with Dr. John Smith. And then we know who Hyrum Smith is as Joseph Smith's older brother. And then we come to Dr. Ethan Smith. He is not only the surgeon, and by the way, I put asterisks by the names of Smiths that are not relatives because I want to be clear who's a relative.

John Dehlin [00:36:47] Some are, some aren't.

Randy Bell [00:36:48] There's a lot of Smiths. Ethan Smith is the surgeon that performed leg surgery successfully on Joseph Smith. And so far, I've come across information that. That the Dartmouth medical team made at least 18 visits to the Smith household. And Dr. Ethan Smith is not just any doctor. He's the founder of Dartmouth Medical School. So even by today's standards, there's a lot of. I don't know if reverence is the right word, but respect in terms of the founding fathers and the contributions to Dartmouth College of Dr. Ethan Smith with the medical school specifically, and Dr. John Smith as the first professor, first librarian, first Dartmouth College bookstore, and et cetera. He has a long list. And then.

John Dehlin [00:37:44] Can I just ask, is this the Ethan Smith.

Randy Bell [00:37:47] Oh, you know what? I made a mistake. Excuse me.

John Dehlin [00:37:51] Okay. Because Ethan Smith I'm aware of is the one who wrote View of the

Randy Bell [00:37:55] Hebrews, and I got confused. Thank you for correcting me. Yeah, yeah. Ethan Smith, he's a Dartmouth grad, and his son Levi was Lyndon Smith, and he was contemporary with Hyrum Smith, and I apologize for my slip up there. Dr. Nathan Smith was the medical doctor I was just referring to.

John Dehlin [00:38:18] Yeah. And my understanding is Oliver Cowdery lived in the same town, as I understand it, as Ethan Smith, and would have attended the same church that Ethan Smith was a pastor of during the time that he would have published View of the Hebrews.

Randy Bell [00:38:37] I've heard the same thing. But I think the more interesting connection, in terms of my focus is that Ethan Smith was a graduate of Dartmouth and that his son Lyndon was a contemporary with Hyrum Smith. And then I think in 1823, when view of the Hebrews was published, whatever conversations were going on, like I say, Hyrum Smith would have been nearby or in the same room in terms of that whole air of conversation about the lost ten tribes of Israel. And we're going to get into that in a moment. And then, of course, I have a picture of Joseph Smith, and we all, of course, know who Joseph Smith is. Now, according to the Barron's article, For four years, the recovery of Dr. Nathan Smith's leg surgery on Joseph Smith took years, and Joseph Smith was tutored by Hyrum Smith, who was also concurrently attending Dartmouth. And I guess we could go out on a limb and say he never brought up any of the curriculum he was learning at Dartmouth. But I think a more plausible explanation is that he got his theological lectures and other lectures at Dartmouth and that would have provided ripe material to then tutor his brother with.

John Dehlin [00:39:57] Yeah, I mean, they didn't have Game Boys. They didn't have Xboxes. They didn't have iPads or smartphones or Netflix or TV or radio. They probably didn't even have newspapers. If they're sitting around, if Hyrum's just sitting around taking care of Joseph, if they're spending weekends together, whatever they're doing, is Hiram going to be talking about what he's learning all day long at an elite Ivy League level college when they all care about religion and read the Bible all the time and there's religious conflict in the home? Like it, it would seem it would strain credulity to think that they weren't constantly talking about what Hiram was learning right up the road.

Randy Bell [00:40:38] For me, I feel like we're on the same page. It seems pretty self evident. But of course, there are people that argue with us, but that's okay.

John Dehlin [00:40:47] Yeah.

Randy Bell [00:40:49] Yeah. I think that's the most obvious, plausible answer. So those are the primary key figures. Now, there are others. Joseph Smith, or, excuse me, Hyrum Smith, when he attended Dartmouth, had relatives, cousins attending with him. There were a lot of Smiths and Macs living in the Vermont, New Hampshire area. So these, I don't want to pretend or convey the notion that this is just all the cast of characters. There were others, but I'm sticking with the high points.

John Dehlin [00:41:18] Okay.

Randy Bell [00:41:18] Yeah. And so I was going over this with RFM one day and we were talking about this. Get in this a little bit. But just to kind of reemphasize, we all kind of knew this growing up in the church, but Joseph and Hyrum were very, very close. Of course, they died together at Carthage jail. But here's some language from his mother who said that Hyrum, who had a remarkable tendency and sympathy for Joseph Smith, he spent hours with Joseph Smith tending to him through the leg issues and the pain that he was caused. You know, her words are almost day and night. And then at the bottom is a quote from the Barron's article. And I'll just quote it. It's short. It says Hyrum would remain home for a year to attend homebound Joseph, who remained on crutches for most of four years to be tutored by Hyrum. So that's where this information conveys and it only is conveyed, and this only makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:42:20] Yeah, absolutely.

Randy Bell [00:42:21] Yeah. So I want to add a little bit more about Dr. John Smith. He passed away in 1809. And I want to just go through his credentials because he's really a remarkable guy and I'm kind of a fan of him at this point. But he was a Dartmouth first professor. He had a master in ancient languages, theology, philosophy and Newton Science. He was on the board of trustees. He was the pastor of the White Chapel, the Church of Christ. He was the Dartmouth College bookstore proprietor, college librarian. That's where Hyrum Smith could have checked out innumerable books to take home and. And study from himself and perhaps speculatively even loaned to Joseph Smith. He developed the curriculum with John Wheelock. Now, pay attention to this. He was proficient in. This is a bright guy. Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Syriac, Assyric, Arabic and Coptic.

John Dehlin [00:43:23] Yeah, sounds like David Bachavoy level.

Randy Bell [00:43:27] I don't know. But it's certainly more than mine because I struggle with English and keep track of that because it's going to come up again in a second. He was the chaplain of the Hanover Masonic Lodge. Masonry was a big deal. In fact, that lodge in Hanover and Hanover and Dartmouth are basically synonymous. Hanover is Dartmouth and vice versa,

John Dehlin [00:43:54] with

Randy Bell [00:43:54] little exaggeration, there was established in 1796, again before Joseph Smith was even born. He died before his lectures could be published. He had every intention of publishing the theological lectures that I had transcribed. He's even to this day considered a highly respected intellectual. And he was. And going back to what we discussed, Joseph Smith Sr. S parents, first cousin. That's the actual relation.

John Dehlin [00:44:25] And I'm sure the family was super proud of him. Right? I mean, how could they not be?

Randy Bell [00:44:28] Well, exactly. In fact, some of the things I've read, said that suggested that the reason why Hyrum got into Dartmouth was because of that family relationship.

John Dehlin [00:44:37] Yeah, that would make sense.

Randy Bell [00:44:38] Yeah. So I was mentioning this to rfm, and he brought this. And this is a bit of a tangent, but it. It brings up again this point that there's a story about who was it? Martin Harris going off to Professor Anton to go over the characters from the gold plates and something that never made sense to rfm. And now that he brings it up, it doesn't make sense to me either. And I'm just quoting here, it says, and this is Martin Harris.

Martin Harris, Languages, and Dartmouth Ties

John Dehlin [00:45:07] This is in the Pearl of Great Price, Joseph smith, history section 163 to 65.

Randy Bell [00:45:14] Yes, thank you. That he showed Professor Anton these characters which were Egyptian. I can't read it from this.

John Dehlin [00:45:24] I'll read it. Egyptian, Chaldean, Assyriac, and Arabic. And he said they were true characters.

Randy Bell [00:45:32] Well, this begs the question, why on earth is Martin Harris talking about these other languages? These weren't on the gold plates, these other Arabic. What is that? Why is that list? And why is that list suspiciously close to the languages mastered by Joseph Smith's relative, Dr. John Smith? So just an interesting question. Why is this even here in the first place? Number one. And number two, why is it virtually identical to the list of Dr. John Smith?

John Dehlin [00:46:06] Interesting.

Randy Bell [00:46:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:08] Okay.

Randy Bell [00:46:09] Okay. So to get into Dartmouth College, I. I really have a. This is again, a personal belief. I think Hyrum Smith was the intellectual giant behind Mormonism. He was very, very quiet. I think he was content being a quiet intellectual. By all accounts, he was. He was very bright to get into Dartmouth. Only 1 in 1500 people in the United States at that time even attended college. He was one of them. And to get in, at least in 1823, I think one of the times we have records, you had to be conversant in English, Latin and Greek and translate English into Latin and vice versa. So Hyrum Smith, who again lived in Dartmouth hall, attended Church of Christ across the street, was a very bright guy. And that's the point with this particular slide. And then again, we're going to see a lot of this, but here's a chapel on the far left that I went from Norwich, Vermont to the Dartmouth campus. I passed this chapel and took a picture. The second picture is Dartmouth Hall. The third picture is where Joseph Smith said he had a revelation as to the architectural design of. Of Kirtland Temple. And then fourth is the Nauvoo Temple. They all have the same Federal architecture. It's interesting that the revelation came. It's certainly not identical, but it's certainly similar architecture to what they would have grown up with in New Hampshire and Vermont. Okay, we'll see this theme quite a bit. So this particular slide I can present. Give Maven a PDF, but this kind of lays out and summarizes everything we just kind of talked about with the geography and the key people.

John Dehlin [00:48:02] So it's showing multiple, multiple cities, kind of like we showed before, and the basic sacred Mormon history sites that are tied to these various cities, like Joseph Smith's birthplace and the Smith home site in Sharon, Vermont, the Smith Home site in Lebanon, New Hampshire, etc. And now we're going to add Dartmouth College to the list of sites that we go visit when orthodox Mormons want to do their New England tour of church history. We're going to have to add a stop. After you, Randy Bell. They're going to have to add a stop.

Randy Bell [00:48:36] Well, Richard Barrons gets the credit, but I'm happy to help spread the word. Yeah. Now this is kind of. We're going to talk about the timeline because this is very telling. We can see in 1805, that's when Joseph Smith was born. They left in 1817. This is a timeframe to really pay attention to. And you'll see a gray bar that covers the period of time when the span of time where Hyrum Smith, he took a year off because he got sick, but the span of time where Hyrum Smith would have been at Dartmouth. And you can see a lot of overlap. You can see Lebanon, New Hampshire, Norwich, Vermont. You can see the Kentucky Fried Chicken site and the new home site, which, by the way, is privately owned. Excuse me, Joseph Smith and his surgery, which would have laid him up for a number of years in that period. Dr. Nathan Smith performing the surgery in 1813. And then that relationship would have ended in 1817 when the Smith family moved. We can see Joseph Smith Jr. In that time frame. Hyrum Smith, or, excuse me, Lyndon Smith, who is Nathan Smith's son, who was a contemporary with Hyrum Smith at Dartmouth. And also this is a new name. We've all heard of the Spaldy manuscript, and I don't know that I find it compelling. It was of course, rumored for years that the Book of Mormon was copied from the Spalding manuscript. I don't think that's true, but there are similarities. And it's interesting that Solomon Spalding and his relative Levi Spalding, they both attended Dartmouth. We're seeing Dartmouth as a common theme.

John Dehlin [00:50:21] And Solomon Spaulding, whether or not you believe it influenced the Book of Mormon manuscript, he clearly produced a book like View of the Hebrews, like the Book of Mormon, that tried to explain the origins of the Native Americans with ties to the lost 10 tribes and the Old Testament. Correct?

Randy Bell [00:50:41] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then John Wheelock is kind of say, kind of, I say he's the center's spoke of the Wheel. He would have, as I say, interviewed Hyrum Smith as being well acquainted with Dr. John Smith. I'm sure I can't imagine there wasn't some conversations about his admiration for and Dr. John Smith's theological lectures.

John Dehlin [00:51:06] So what I'm getting from this timeline is that during the years Joseph Smith is, you know, near Dartmouth College, during the years he's laid up because of his leg surgeries, same years Hyrum is spending a lot of time at Dartmouth College. And it's the same year that John Smith that a lot of important characters, whether it's Ethan Smith, whether it's Solomon Spalding, whether it's Hyrum Smith, they're all getting trained on. And in Arminian Christianity in a way that Joseph Smith would likely be marinating in Dartmouth Christian Arminianism. That's what I'm getting from this timeline.

Randy Bell [00:51:53] You're right. And we're going to add to that because there's other topics that are addressed in Dr. John Smith's Theological lectures. And it's even more of these building blocks I referenced at the very start of this.

John Dehlin [00:52:04] Okay, okay.

Randy Bell [00:52:06] So here are the five building blocks. And we're going to kind of just go through the details of these building blocks one at a time. And we're going to start with ancient American mythology. And I actually testified in a trial in federal court on this topic. And the judge, the federal judge was unaware of what I'm about to share. And a lot of people don't believe it until they see it. So I took some pictures to kind of share. But of course, the Book of Mormon, and again, I'm deviating to my personal opinion, is really a combination of Protestant Christianity and ancient American mythology. And I say Protestant Christianity because there's really nothing particularly unique in terms of Mormon theology in the Book of Mormon. There is no pre existence. There's no three degrees of glory, there's no multiple heavens, no celestial marriage, no

John Dehlin [00:52:58] second endowment, no temple ceremony, no baptisms for the dead, no polygamy. It's a very, you know, early 1800s version of Christianity that Joseph Smith likely brought it imported into the Book of Mormon.

Randy Bell [00:53:14] Exactly. And that's why somebody reading the Book of Mormons would say, hey, this sounds very familiar. Amen. You know, because it doesn't have these additional Mormon distinctive Mormon doctrines. So we're going to talk about earthworks, stoneworks, and there's a difference. The local mythology, archaeoastronomy, which is where the stone alignments around Vermont and New Hampshire align with winter solstice and that kind of thing. There were strong rumors and discussions and speculation about the lost 10 tribes of Israel, Solomon Spalding, we've talked about Ethan Smith and View of the Hebrews right, at Dartmouth. And there was this general sense of mystical thinking because these archeological features are to this day, baffling in terms of who constructed them. And there's all kinds of theories. And for the record, I have no opinion who built them. And there were rumors of hidden treasure, so there's a lot of information swirling just by being, you know, growing up in that area. The next exhibit is actually the courtroom exhibit I use in federal trial, and I'm taking some of that information to present here. But, you know, I've heard your podcast, of course, John, and others, talking about the mound builder myths, and I thought it'd be interesting for people to see what a mound looks like. And yes, there's. There's no myth that there are mounds. There's thousands or tens of thousands or. I don't know. I've heard all kinds of estimates, but they're all over the place.

Mound Builder Myths and Ancient American Mythology

John Dehlin [00:54:44] Can I introduce this to the people, listeners that have never heard of this before? Please, just. Do you want to introduce what the mound builder myth was?

Randy Bell [00:54:51] Yeah, I think you would do a

John Dehlin [00:54:52] better job, so probably not, but I'll try. Basically, there are all these mounds like the one that Randy's about to show us here, and much larger ones. And we've done episodes with John Hamer on this. We've done episodes with lds discussions on this with. With Dan Vogel and others. Maven can include some of those links. But basically, obviously, Native Americans that had habited. Had inhabited upstate New York, New England, North America for millennia. Right. And they became quite advanced in their civilizations, agriculturally, domestication of livestock, and in building edifices. And that was just a fact. And so whether you're Joseph Smith or Thomas. Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, if you're hanging around in New England, colonial America, you're running into these, not just mounds, but other edifices that you're gonna be showing us and saying, whoa, who built these? It wasn't me. It wasn't my grandpa who built these.

Randy Bell [00:55:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:59] And so they developed the idea. Well, it could have been these. They would have said the word savages. It could have been these dark. Couldn't have been these dark savages that were killing and displacing. They're too. And I'm using their words, they're too ignorant. They're too uncivilized, unsophisticated to have built these incredible things. So it must have been the white lost tribes of Israel that somehow meandered over here and built them. And so that would have been the mound builder myth. Okay, keep going.

Randy Bell [00:56:30] Well said. Better than me. And. And by the way, there are more and more Mounds as you go west from Vermont, New Hampshire. There are some there in the Midwest. Yeah. More around Ohio and south through the Mississippi Valley and all the way down to where the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico. And some of them are effigy mounds. They're built in the shape of an eagle. There's a serpent mound in Ohio. I'm giving a very brief view, but what I want to focus on are the stoneworks, because I haven't seen this topic come up only once with Dan Vogel, where he's talking about one of the stonework in Ohio. But what's really interesting is that where Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith grew up, there's all kinds of stoneworks. And we'll start with stone chambers. And these are megalithic stones, meaning they're very heavy, very difficult to construct. And it leaves one baffled, certainly me baffled, how they built them, why they built them, who built them, and for what purpose were they built. But they're throughout New Hampshire, if you're going to pick one or two states in the entire 50 states with the most impressive. And again, this is my personal opinion, stoneworks or cultural features. It's the stoneworks right where Joseph Smith was born. And some of them are large chambers where you can walk into them and there's speculation. Well, the pilgrims built these for vegetable storage. I don't know about that. I think there's simpler ways than carrying around megaton stones to do that. But. But maybe I don't have an opinion. And some of them are remarkably small and they don't serve any real practical purpose. And this is what these cultural resources are, what fueled so much speculation as who were these people that constructed these, why? And this brought along the whole ten tribes of the lost, ten tribes of Israel concepts. There's also serpentine walls. These are stone walls. They kind of wiggle back and forth and maybe go for 25, 50 yards. And usually the end stone is triangular shape in the head of a serpent. Again, who built them? Why? No idea. But they do exist. And there are lots of these things, also walls. And these walls are really, again, baffling because they start and end abruptly. They don't contain anything in particular. You couldn't keep livestock in them. They are not any kind of fortress because you can literally hop right over them. And again, very baffling in terms of who built them and why, what purpose, and just the whole thing. Also, these are called windows. These are small. They bring up images of leprechauns and hobbits because there's only about a 18 inch window there. So there's just all these very strange, odd, inexplicable stoneworks throughout the whole region. And then they were not unsophisticated cultures, whoever built them, because I have a friend that actually owns the site that this is on. And summer solstice comes right at the point of this particular stone. That's archaeoastronomy, where there's an alignment between the stones and signs of the heavens or planetary movements, I should say. So these were certainly in place at the time of Joseph Smith. These are dolmens. These are usually large stones on three legs. And again, they're throughout New Hampshire and Vermont in particular. And I don't want to exclude, they're also into Massachusetts and other New England states, but primarily Vermont and New Hampshire. And don't take my word for it, there are professional journals and websites. People can independently easily research what I'm sharing and validate it independent of what I'm saying. And last comment here is there's some great resources. This book on the left, this gentleman has documented over 8,000 of these features in and around where the Dartmouth area. And he only has 300 in the book, but he's identified 8,000. The second book is a book by a University of Connecticut, if I remember right, professor, and he's documented, I'm not misquoted, quoting here, 250,000 miles of these mysterious stone walls. And he puts them off to the pilgrims did it. Other people aren't so sure because they wouldn't have served any real purpose. And so there's still controversy about that. And then another interesting book, although it deals more with the Mississippi Valley, is Dan Vogel's book Indian Origins of the Book of Mormon talks about some of these features as well.

John Dehlin [01:01:33] And I guess if I had to summarize what I think the point is is that Joseph Smith, his parents, his grandparents, his uncles, his aunts, his siblings, everyone was like literally constantly tripping over massive Native American relics that would have been constantly causing them to reflect what are the origins of these people, where they come from, who built these things and what happened to the people who built them. And so what almost my memory of how the church taught me about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon is Joseph Smith is just like standing around wondering what church is true. And he's confused because different preachers are preaching different things. So he prays to God and God says, you know, join none of those churches. I'm going to send you an angel to provide plates. And that became the book of Mormon. What's really important to be left out is that it's one thing if the Book of Mormon comes out of the sky, literally, with golden plates, through Urim and Thummim, when no one had even had a thought about these Native Americans or connecting them to the lost 10 tribes, or certainly not trying to infuse Protestant Christianity into, you know, the surrounding civilizations of Native Americans. If, however, the actual story had been communicated to us, which is, you know, not only were the origins of the Native Americans constantly on the mind of Joseph Smith and his family and friends, but that everyone had already made associations with the lost 10 tribes, with the tribes of Israel, and with Christianity, that was already happening. Then the Book of Mormon becomes just one of several books almost written as Bible fan fiction. Trying to explain all these artifacts that you just showed us. Am I understanding maybe the connections you're trying to.

Randy Bell [01:03:38] Completely. I would add just a couple little points. One is that later, when Ethan Smith wrote View of the Hebrews, and again, Hyrum Smith would have known his son Lyndon, that was a commercially viable book publication, because these conversations weren't going on just with the Smith family. They were going on with everybody in this region of the country with these cultural resources. And the other thing I'd add, John, is that these conversations and debates are still going on today, and there's still controversy who built them. So it was widespread. You know, I grew up in California, you know, a lot of us on the west coast, in Utah and so forth, Arizona wouldn't be familiar with these. But for somebody in that region of the country, these were. I say it half kiddingly, but they're as common as fire hydrants. They're just everywhere.

John Dehlin [01:04:33] Okay.

Randy Bell [01:04:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:35] All right. So this is helping us understand better the context of Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon. Let's keep going.

Randy Bell [01:04:41] Yeah. And then. And the next thing is going back to Solomon Spalding. Now, again, I agree with Dan Vogel, I agree with Sandra Tanner. The Book of Mormon was not copied from the Solomon Spalding manuscript. There's a rumor about another manuscript that hasn't been found yet, but I don't know where that's going to go. But there are some similarities. They found a lost story in a stone box that's very familiar. Translation into English that's familiar. And by the way, these are claims

Spalding Manuscript and View of the Hebrews

John Dehlin [01:05:07] of the Spalding manuscript, right?

Randy Bell [01:05:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:09] Similarities between the claims in the Spalding manuscript text and the Joseph Smith version of what happened with the Book of Mormon.

Randy Bell [01:05:17] Right? Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:17] Okay.

Randy Bell [01:05:18] And again, Solomon Spalding attended Dartmouth. There's an account for a portion of North American's population. There's stories of wars and extermination of two factions and the impossible slaughter of primitive warfare. You know, we talk about the hill, Cumorah and millions were killed. That's kind of an impossible slaughter based upon, you know, all the evidence I've seen. So this was in the air. And again, this is Solomon Spalding, Dartmouth class of 1785.

John Dehlin [01:05:49] Yeah, yeah. And so if I'm thinking about that slide, you know, it doesn't, you know what, what an apologist will do is try and dismiss the, you know, the problems with the Book of Mormon by saying clearly the Solomon Spalding, you know, manuscript is not the source of the Book of Mormon. You know, because they're so different. What's important to understand is the, it fits the book. Knowing about the Solomon Spalding manuscript combined with the view of the Hebrews, combined the Book of Mormon, it helps you fit them into a genre. And once you see the similarities between the various books that come before and after the Book of Mormon, you realize again, Joseph Smith was one of many authors trying to tell a story and sell some books and these similarities with, with story in a lost box, translation of an ancient language in English, you know, trying to account for the Native Americans and then the warring factions. You have to have the warring factions because someone's got to kill off the dark skinned, some. Sorry, someone's got to kill off the light skinned, you know, Native Americans that had the intelligence, and I'm saying this in air quotes, that had the intelligence to build the artifacts. Someone had to kill them off. So thus the rumor of the, of the dark skinned, quote, savages to kill off the light skin. So anyway, these footprints are in so many manuscripts, it starts to make Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon look a lot less remarkable, just like Joseph Smith's first vision looks a lot less remarkable once you realize 15 or 20 other people within a 5 to 20 year period before him had almost identical first visions to the one Joseph claimed to have.

Randy Bell [01:07:35] Exactly. And skipping ahead to Palmyra, the fact that the first vision was a discussed for I think, what, 12 years later after it presumably happened, adds to that problem. I would agree with the apologists that the Solomon Spalding does not explain the Book of Mormon. But there are themes and we're seeing these themes kind of snowballing with other themes that are adding up to the same thing. And certainly by a long shot. The Book of Mormon was far from the first manuscript or publication with these inherent themes of the Lost ten tribes of Israel being found.

John Dehlin [01:08:12] Absolutely.

Randy Bell [01:08:12] Yeah. And then the next thing I think, which is far more compelling, is View of the Hebrews, written by Ethan Smith, Dartmouth Class of 1790, and then Hyrum Smith's Dartmouth contemporary, Lyndon Smith, Dartmouth Class of 1817. This deals with the origins of the American Indians, and it's right in the title, View of the hero, Hebrews. These are the lost ten tribes of Israel. These were settlers in the New World. And these were the kind of accounts for the Indian legends of the lost Book of God, which would one day be returned. And again, View of the Hebrews was a commercial, from what I can tell, and I stand to be corrected. It was a commercial and viable success. You can still buy this book today on Amazon. So, I mean, that's an evergreen title if there ever was one. And there are a number of similarities between the View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon, I think that have been well discussed.

John Dehlin [01:09:18] And we'll have maven include show notes of an episode I did with Radio Free Mormon about View of the Hebrews in the Book of Mormon.

Randy Bell [01:09:24] Yeah, And I listened to that and I started reading it. I got it, and my hat's off to. To rfm because it's a tough read.

John Dehlin [01:09:33] It's a tedious read. It's even worse than the Book of Mormon as a read. And that's hard to do, right? It's hard to make a book more hard to read than the Book of Mormon. But Ethan Smith, whatever they did at Dartmouth, they didn't teach you how to write interesting prose. Is that. Sorry, I'm being silly.

Randy Bell [01:09:50] Well, I have read the Book of Mormon several times, and I couldn't make it through View of the Hebrews. So I think your point's well taken.

John Dehlin [01:09:56] Thinking.

Theological Sources Behind Mormon Doctrine

Randy Bell [01:09:57] All right, so we've covered the ancient American mythology, and both from the stoneworks, the earthworks, and the publications going on around Dartmouth. Research is ongoing here, but I think the case is there. This is one of the building blocks of Mormonism, and it's time to switch to the second one, which is Protestant Christianity, which I think accounts for about 20% of Mormonism. Quickly, a lot of folks say that a lot of the sourcing of the Book of Mormon comes from the Bible, specifically the King James Version from 1769, the Apocrypha, which I have read and I think a lot of people have read, but I didn't know about it until I went on a mission. The name, Church of Christ, the first vision experience. I'm drawing a blank, but There was a first. First vision experience at Dartmouth with one of the students there that went off as a missionary to the Indians, which, again, is a familiar Mormon theme. Dr. John Smith was a translator, legitimately. He was a real professor that really could translate Greek and Latin and these other languages into English and back. And so while Joseph Smith claimed to be a prophet, seer, translator, and revelator, it's interesting that his relative had that same title only, although be it legitimately as a translator, the term school of the prophets, which I heard about, the first time I heard about it, was with Nauvoo Mormon history. That's actually a term from what's now called the Ivy League. There was a School of the prophet established at Dartmouth, and Hyrum Smith would have most certainly either attended it or been familiar with it. A prophet in the terminology and the languaging of Dartmouth was not a prophet like we use the term today. A prophet was considered a professor of theology. So you would go to your professor for science classes, but you would go to the prophet who was somebody who had read the ancient scriptures in their original language and then expounded on those scripture recitals. And that person would be called a prophet. And a revelation wasn't God speaking to you. It was in secular side of school, that would be a lecture. But in theological school, that would be a theological lesson, would be called a revelation. So there was prophets, revelation, school of the prophets. This would have all been everyday vocabulary at Dartmouth College. Dartmouth College had a stated mission to take the gospel to the Indians. Again, we're seeing theme after theme after theme at Dartmouth that later shows up as Mormon doctrine and the theological lectures. There's discussions about Aaron and Melchizedek and that kind of thing. So I'm condensing four years and over 100 pages of Dr. John Smith's theological lectures in just a few bullet points. But these are some of the things that just kind of jumped out at me.

John Dehlin [01:13:19] Okay. All right. So a lot of the Christianity. Well, we can see a lot of things there that sound very familiar to what we know about Joseph Smith's.

Randy Bell [01:13:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:30] You know, Kirtland years, specifically.

Randy Bell [01:13:32] Yeah. And then going back to Dartmouth College, the Church of Christ. Here's an upfront picture of the Church of Christ built in 1771. Again, Dr. John Smith was the pastor here when he passed away. And this is going inside. And, you know, as I happened to be by myself when I was actually in the chapel, and I think it's gorgeous architecturally. And you kind of imagine Dr. John Smith and Hyrum Smith, the fact that they would have attended well over a thousand. Well, Dr. John Smith, well over a thousand times in terms of delivering or receiving theological lectures in this chapel. So the punchline here is that Hyrum Smith was highly educated in Protestant Christianity in all its forms. Or I don't want to say all its forms, but. But many of the forms.

John Dehlin [01:14:25] Okay. It's almost weird that he wasn't the one that became the prophet instead of Joseph Smith. We could talk about that later. That's probably derailing us.

Randy Bell [01:14:33] Well, I don't think it is. I think it's a fair point right now. He was the intellectual and Joseph Smith was the charismatic messenger. I think it was a perfect team.

John Dehlin [01:14:41] Okay.

Randy Bell [01:14:41] That's my own personal opinion.

John Dehlin [01:14:43] Okay.

Randy Bell [01:14:44] Now what's interesting here is. Go to Joseph smith history, chapter one, verses 18 and 19 out of the Pearl of Great Price, which is Mormon scripture. And, and this has always bothered me, even when I was a TBM True believing member, is that according to Mormon God, not Christian God, but Mormon God. Mormon God. In talking about Dartmouth or any other church or belief system or worldview, look for the absolute statement here. They were all wrong. All their creeds were an abomination and their professors were all corrupt. Well, that would include their own relatives. Dr. John Smith. That would include every theologian out there. And what's also puzzling for me is that what's the difference between a Christian creed and a Mormon proclamation? There's no difference. They're just both statements of belief. And I would challenge any member of the Mormon Church to explain what's offensive about the Jesus creed. A lot of people don't even know what that is. But in the Christian community, the Jesus creed is simply a restatement of love your neighbor as yourself from the New Testament. There's nothing abominable about that. So I have a real problem with this being baked into Mormon scriptures that on three absolute, the word all is used three times. They're all wrong, all an abomination, all corrupt. And I think this is an interesting side note when we're talking about Christian theology, but I don't think we have time to dig into this too deeply. But there's all kinds of teachings that when you get into them from the mainstream Christian theologians that later show up as Mormon doctrines. We know about the Adam Clark Bible commentary, and it's showing up in the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. That's just a recent discovery made at byu. And then you got the Campbellites. Well, that's the Restoration movement. Joseph Smith was far from the first to come up with this idea of a restoration movement and restoring Christ's original doctrines that was widespread and restoring the New Testament Church. And they had a church called, what do you know, Church of Christ, the first official name of the Mormon Church. And then you got Jonathan Edwards, who's talking about. There's studies done on a lot of Book of Mormon phraseology showing up that was originally part of Jonathan Edwards theological lectures. And then Emmanuel Swedenborg, which I kind of want to dig into a little bit because this is again, a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's relevant. When I was out there doing this research, I remember Maven commenting on Mormonism live that she had served her mission in Pennsylvania. And RFM got on the phone and Maven, thank you again for making time for me on the weekend to explain what was going on. But I went to Emmanuel Swedenborg's church and you can see it's quite substantial. And to be fair, this was constructed after the time of Joseph Smith. So I want to be clear about that. But it's still, to this day, an enormous following. The theological seminaries and other structures on the campus are just architecturally magnificent. But I actually went into the chapel, here's a stained glass, which is gorgeous. And inside the cathedral, it's awe inspiring. And so what I'm trying to convey here is that Emanuel Swedenborg was at the time in Pennsylvania a big deal. He preceded Joseph Smith in terms of his teaching. There were a lot of people in Pennsylvania, remember, Joseph Smith went to Harmony, Pennsylvania, and. And then I made friends with one of the pastors there and he gave me a pamphlet. And look at this, John. He's a pamphlet on continuing revelation. They believe in three degrees of glory. That's awfully familiar. The top degree is called the celestial kingdom. Here's a pamphlet on eternal marriage, Children have automatic heaven. And Johnny Appleseed is a real guy who was actually a missionary that went around and spread this gospel message throughout Pennsylvania. The punchline of all of this is that Emanuel Swedenborg had these unique Christian main kind of quasi mainstream Christian doctrines that, well preceded Joseph Smith. And at this point I'm having a hard time finding much in a way that eventually ended up as official Mormon doctrine that didn't proceed and was readily accessible to Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:19:52] Yeah, and I just think we need to have an episode on Swedenborg connection because just right there, a huge chunk of Joseph's Nauvoo theology clearly comes from Swedenborg or Joseph's theology. And Swedenborg's theology come from some common source, but there's almost nothing. You know, that one slide, if you can go back to that one slide of the Christian influences of Joseph Smith, there's almost nothing. Joseph Smith came up with almost nothing original. He was a sponge. He was a cultural sponge. You know, Terrell Givens, a Mormon apologist. Terrell Givens likes to use fancy words like inspired syncretist or, you know, bricolage, but really, Joseph Smith kind of, you know, borrowed or a harsher term might be plagiarized other people's ideas and just like pulled him in as kind of like a cobbled together theology. And it's not until we do what you do, which is kind of pull that all together into a single slide where you realize that he was just grabbing stuff from what was around him and calling it his own. Because I don't think he was footnoting Swedenborg. Right. In the Doctrine and Covenants.

Randy Bell [01:21:09] I don't notice the many footnotes at all. And, you know, you've been through a doctoral program. I have too. And that's sin number one is cite your sources and don't take credit or attribute concepts to yourself when they actually belong to someone that preceded you. And that's really problematic.

John Dehlin [01:21:30] Yeah, yeah.

Randy Bell [01:21:30] And I think Maven should be part of that episode along with Mike because he said some really great things on that topic as well. And there's a lot more to say. I spent one entire weekend reading Swedenborg materials. Again, I'm. I'm kind of blitzing through to give a high level, but that would be a fascinating episode.

John Dehlin [01:21:49] Yeah, that slide is just my. My job. I mean, I knew all this, but my jaw. Seeing that slide about Swedenborg's influence in Mormonism, my jaws is open.

Randy Bell [01:21:59] Yes, and. And what? Just this might be a good point to point out. My research is far from over. In fact, it's really just starting. And you know, in the first six months, I was kind of fumbling around in the dark with this because there was. Other than the Barron's article, there wasn't a lot to go on. But as I'm learning more, I'm learning that there's more to learn. And I'm not ready to get into it yet, but I have lots of material sent to me by various sources, including Dartmouth Library, that are yet I can't imagine there's not going to be to be more discoveries down the road. A couple great books I recommend on Christianity and the connections to Mormonism is this book Heaven and Hell by Emanuel Swedenborg. We've just touched on a number of the main in air quotes, distinct Mormon doctrines and also infinite goodness by Jonathan Edwards Nevel. Yeah, he has a lot of the phraseology that later showed up in the Book of Mormon. And I think, as I say, there's a lot more research to be done now we're ready. We've only covered two building blocks. The next three will go quicker because I think people will be familiar with them. The third building block of Mormonism in my view, is Greek mythology. And here Dr. John Smith talks about Greek mythology in a way that he's not really saying. I subscribe to this, he's just kind of reporting as a good high level Professor Wood. Here's what Greek mythology is and here's what they believe. Not necessarily adapting these things. And I didn't know this until I did this research. The pre existence is Greek Mythology discussed by Dr. John Smith. Degrees of glory, a celestial kingdom. Gods are like mortals, Multiple gods, multiple worlds and heavens. This is his term, continuing sexual system. So what he was kind of speculating here was that not Mormon God, but Christian God that preceded time, space and matter, created life, abiogenesis, and then that was perpetuated through the universe as what he calls a continued sexual system and writes for the dead, which is really diverting off to Egyptian mythology.

John Dehlin [01:24:21] Tell me again who this is, who this source is.

Randy Bell [01:24:24] Dr. John Smith. Okay, John.

John Dehlin [01:24:26] So he studies Greek.

Randy Bell [01:24:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:24:28] And then. And then imports into the theology. He's talking about a lot of. Of Greek myth.

Randy Bell [01:24:36] Yes, and I'm glad you said that because in, in that day at Dartmouth, I can't speak to it today. They had a holistic view. When you went to theological school at Dartmouth, you also learned science, you also learned philosophy and theology. The three topics were combined into the one curriculum that everybody immersed themselves in. So that's where the Greek mythology comes up. And as I'm reading Dr. John Smith's explanation of Greek mythology, I don't know how to say this better than this is that as I was reading his theological lectures, it brought back a lot of imagery. When I read the book of Moses from the Pearl of Great Price, just this, multiple planets, multiple gods, multiple, you know, procreation, all that kind of. And I got some pictures from the Hubble telescope because that best kind of brought the imagery to mind as I was reading through his Greek mythology.

John Dehlin [01:25:36] Yeah, that whole idea of council of the gods kind of thing, it is very Greek, isn't it? Very. Yeah.

Randy Bell [01:25:42] I had no idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:45] Okay.

Randy Bell [01:25:47] Now in The Barron's article. This is interesting because Barron's again is pro Mormon. He's an active member of the church who wrote the article that was the genesis for for this research I'm doing. And what he did here I thought was interesting because he's kind of fusing the Greek mythology with Mormon doctrines and saying, gee Whiz, look, here's 20 different distinct Mormon doctrines in the John Smith's theological lectures. I read it a little differently. I looked at it more compartmentalized as here's Protestant Christianity in this box and here's Greek mythology in this box. But Barron's kind of fused the two together and this is literally a copy and paste from his article to kind of show this.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] Can I read these? Is that all right? It.

Randy Bell [01:26:32] Go for it.

John Dehlin [01:26:32] Okay, so these Dr. John Smith lectures trace his evolution from Greek classicist texts specialized to specialists to Arminian theologian and are probably best summarized in 20 topics as follows. So the idea is turn on your Mormon ears. Are any of these going to sound familiar? Is that right? Okay, number one. Greek philosophy provided his concept of the Pre existence. Okay. 2. Atonement covenant was made before the earth was check. That's two checks. 3. Plan of salvation was agreed to in the pre existence. Oh my heavens. That's plan of salvation. So that's three checks. Four. Father, son and sons of men were together in the pre existence. We're basically talking about the plan of salvation, the temple ceremony, etc. 4 checks. 5. Spiritual death was man's condition after the fall. That sounds like Book of Mormon language about the fall. 6. Sons Church would exist in all ages after the fall. 7. Types and shadows of the covenant found in scriptures. 8. Oaths and covenants serve as deities legal structure. 9. Light borrowed light and light of reason would guide. Of course Mormons are very familiar with that term borrowed light. 10. Melchizedek Priesthood is co eternal with God. That is the foundation of the higher priesthood within Mormonism. It's God's priesthood. 11. The priesthood is the source of the Son's authority. Check. Aaronic priesthood promised to Aaron's descendants. Absolutely. That's a check. 13. Free agency and the right to choose is integral to the plan. Check. Check. Check. Free agency. 14. Degrees of Glory is the structure of the eternities D and C 76 is that right? Sounds right. Let's see. 15. Consecration to Christ is required for highest exaltation. 16. Revelation required to know ultimate nature of God. 17. Spirit is simpler form of matter. 18. The prosperity cycle is the natural direction of history that's very Book of Mormon, the prosperity cycle. Nineteen millions of people, the worlds that's very much kind of Abraham, Moses, books of Abraham and Moses theology. And 20 the Father argues for justice and the son argues for mercy. That's super. In the Book of Mormon. Okay, so we're identifying a lot of. Well, I guess we could say Richard Behrens has identified a lot of Arminian, Christian, Dartmouth teachings that were Greek kind of in origins that are are within the Book of Mormon and the book of Moses and the Book of Abraham and the Doctrine of Covenants. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Randy Bell [01:29:30] And we're starting to get back to the original research question as what were the original origins of Mormon doctrine? And we're seeing just dozens of these concepts popping up from the Dartmouth period.

John Dehlin [01:29:44] Yeah. Okay.

Randy Bell [01:29:45] Now the next one is we can go through pretty quickly because most of us are pretty familiar with Islamic belief. And I'll just tell you that again a personal view of my own is that out of all the world religions and when I left Mormonism, I did my best with my bias and we all have a bias, including me, and wiped the slate clean. And I went to Indian, Hindu and Buddhist and I read the Richard Dawkins books on atheism and went to Egypt and Israel and looked at Judaism and Islam and frankly I didn't really realize that Islam today practices modern day polygamy today.

John Dehlin [01:30:30] So the Quran allows I think up to four wives.

Randy Bell [01:30:32] Exactly, yeah. And so you look at Islam and again, again a lot of this came from Dr. John Smith. He's talking about angelic visits of Abraham and God to Muhammad. Focus on one man, Mohammed, Abrahamic roots. Christianity is on the wrong path. There's a theme there. We've seen post New Testament prophet. That would be Joseph Smith New scripture. Well, in Islam it's the Quran and the Mormonism is the Book of Mormon and really the trademark of Mormonism, which is modern polygamy. And I really started thinking about this as I was reading Dr. John Smith's theological lectures. And on the left is a modern day photo of an Islam man with three of his permitted four wives. And on the right is Joseph S. Smith and Joseph Fielding Smith. And as RFM said, he's kind of metaphorically saying, hold my beer. You know, you think that's a lot of wives. Look at this. I mean just dozens of wives.

John Dehlin [01:31:40] And so Joseph Smith out Muslim, the Muslims basically is what you're saying.

Randy Bell [01:31:45] Well, apparently so, because I didn't know he had. I didn't know there was anyone besides Emma until when The Gospel topic essays. I thought that was all anti Mormon lies until the Gospel topic essays.

John Dehlin [01:31:56] Yeah.

Randy Bell [01:31:58] And in fact, here it is. From 1833 to 2014, there was official denials that the rumors of modern day or Joseph Smith's polygamy were all denied. It was in the Doctrine Covenants. What a thing for a man to be accused of having multiple wives when I can only find one. That's Joseph Smith in history of the Church. And then the Doctrine and covenants section 101 is just a flat out statement, which is untrue, that the church only permitted one wife. And so my moment of really the trust of the church being breached irreparably was in 2014 when the gospel topic essays came out. And here's the New York Times and the NPR and the BBC reporting that that was worldwide news. And I really don't like being gaslit by people saying, well, we knew that. Well then why didn't you leave the church? Because maybe those are your values. Speaking to those who make this charge against me, but polygamy is not my values. And I guess the point here is with Islam and Mormon beliefs, and again, Dr. John Smith really is opposed to Islam and modern. Its modern practice, polygamy is that this started with Joseph Smith, then it went to Brigham Young and it continues today. Dallin Oaks has two wives, one living, one dead. And Russell M. Nelson, the same thing. And this is kind of a reality that if you believe in the Mormon Church, that's totally fine. And I'm glad that Brian Hales is openly admitting what is now acknowledges the truth that that polygamy is tied to Mormonism. And it's a. It's a central tenet of Mormon belief, although not temporarily temporarily suspended right now, but I can just tell you that's not my belief system.

John Dehlin [01:34:01] Can we go back to that slide really quick with. And go one. One previous. Okay, yeah, go to the next one. Yeah, that slide. The next one. That's. Nope, sorry. Back to Oaks and Oaks and Nelson.

Randy Bell [01:34:13] Oh, there we go.

John Dehlin [01:34:13] That slide really, really does something that I don't think any Mormon has really consciously processed. I think we conveniently want to dismiss the idea that the Mormon Church today practices polygamy. Not only does the Mormon Church practice polygamy today, but its top two leaders are polygamists today. Now, of course, they're not married to two women who are alive at the same time, but they are absolutely sealed to two women, at least two women. And they're in their minds, in their plans, in their beliefs. Is that they will have not only those two wives, but likely others. And when I say they, I mean Mormon prophet Russell M. Nelson and Mormon First Presidency member Dallin H. Oaks. They are polygamists. They have been married to multiple wives in the eternities, and they believe they're going to be polygamous. And I just, I love that you put that up on the slide because unless you see it visually, you really don't. It really maybe doesn't strike home as much. And you're saying that's not Christianity to you, Randy?

Randy Bell [01:35:27] Not at all. This is not my belief system. And I, I think that it's incredibly disrespectful to women and the value of women. I'm not a woman, obviously, but I, I can only imagine and I just don't buy it. It's just not my belief system.

John Dehlin [01:35:44] Yeah, okay.

Randy Bell [01:35:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:35:46] All right.

Randy Bell [01:35:47] And then we're on the final.

John Dehlin [01:35:49] Okay, so let me just summarize. So, and, and, and by the way, you can read statements by Joseph Smith and you may want to update your slide deck about this. Joseph Smith, at least in one instance, refers to himself as a modern day Muhammad. I don't know if you knew that, and he spells it weird, but Joseph Smith knew about Muhammad and thought of himself as a modern Muhammad. And that drives. Because one of the things you wouldn't want a believing Mormon scholar to accuse you or us of is what's called parallelism, because you can always go back into the past and find parallels. That's what, what nahom is. Nahom is this awful sort of like, oh, we found a word in the Book of Mormon that we can associate with a certain geography. And now we've found some rock somewhere that's got an N and an H and an M together, or an N, a V and an M, whatever. Look, there's a parallel. Ergo, the church must be true. Parallelism can also be confirmation bias, where you're hunting for parallels and then you find them because you're hunting for them, them. So we have to be careful not to do that. And so, you know, when you've got Joseph Smith calling himself a modern day Muhammad, that takes it from being just kind of parallelism, parallelism. To me, that drives it more to the heart of a very plausible theory. And that's all this is, right, Randy? A theory?

Randy Bell [01:37:14] Yeah, I think it is a theory. I think that's fair. I think we're seeing themes. And what really strikes me in this whole concept conversation and this research is we're seeing kind of a one Stop shop for all five building blocks all concentrated in and around Dartmouth in one narrow window of time. So what's always been kind of difficult for me to swallow is how did Joseph Smith know to go to that bookstore 14 miles from Palmyra and look out that one book on page 271 to get that one concept. Here we have have all these dozens of concepts and themes being literally dumped in Hyrum Smith and, and Joseph Smith's laps at one place. It's like going to CostCo rather than 37 different boutique stores.

John Dehlin [01:38:03] Yeah. All right, so we've got the connections to Islam.

Randy Bell [01:38:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:38:09] What's left?

Masonic Rituals and the Temple Ceremony

Randy Bell [01:38:10] The last one is the Masonic rituals. And there's been a lot of conversation about this here. You know, I have family and friends, people I love still in Mormonism. So I am not going to, to discuss anything about the Mormon temple ceremony. Not a word. All I'm going to do is go through the Masonic rituals and people can draw or not draw the parallels. But there was of course a big debate between Christians and Masons going on during the Dartmouth period. And Masons were more deist and universalists versus Christian, which are Christian. But of course Masons have temples, the term holiness to the Lord, symbols and an all seeing God bees. I understand somebody said that Deseret is actually an LDS term. So that's fine. I got it from another source. But that's.

John Dehlin [01:39:05] But the beehive.

Randy Bell [01:39:07] Yeah, beehive and industry. Sense of industry. Temple clothing and aprons as Masonic altars and ritualistic speech. Blood oaths and penalties are Masonic. Hand clasps are Masonic secret rituals and the five points of fellowship are all Masonic. And so here's some imagery I pulled from the Internet on Masonic rituals. And people can draw their own parallels or not, but I certainly am aware of some similarities here. And Masonry is interesting because I think some of the past behaviors of Masons have been kind of sketchy in my book. But I just ran into a bunch of Masons up at a club I belong to in la and, and they invited me to join the Masonic order and, and I didn't quite do that, but they were just, it was kind of a fraternity and they were very fun loving guys. But I don't think Masonry has always been that way. I mean they took their blood oaths very, very seriously. And if you're going to take something like secret polygamy and swear people to blood oaths and keep people from divulging the secrets going on. Masonry was a wonderful tool to create that sense of an inner Circle to keep those secrets secret.

Synthesizing the Building Blocks of the Book of Mormon

John Dehlin [01:40:31] Yeah.

Randy Bell [01:40:33] Great book out. I just got it. I haven't finished reading it. The infinite, excuse me, method. Infinite talks about masonry and want to mention that. And so we come full circle, John, to the research question. What were the original sources for what later became Mormon doctrine? And I think those are the five building blocks. And again, what's so fascinating to me is that the Dartmouth period presented not only a one stop shop, but it was virtually, at least by me, unknown and unheard of. And since doing the Mormonism Live presentation, I've been inundated with messages and Facebook messages and all kinds of conversations where people said I didn't know 99% of this stuff and I didn't myself. And it takes a while to kind of acclimate to this whole new landscape, but it kind of is what it is. And these are the five building blocks. These themes, again, not, not polished, finished doctrines, not promoting that idea at all. But the themes, the concepts from the Dartmouth period remarkably show up later as Mormon doctrines. And I may be wrong, but so far I can't think of a real distinct Mormon doctrine that wasn't made available during the Dartmouth period.

John Dehlin [01:42:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. And so one, this isn't pushback, but one, I can hear kind of my friends like Dan Vogel or even Sandra Tanner or Brent Metcalf or others, my Mormon scholar friends, what they would want to caution us to do is to understand that just like it's erroneous to, to basically, you know, for apologists to say, you know, the Book of Mormon wasn't a plagiarism of the view of the Hebrews, they're too different, or the Book of Mormon wasn't a plagiarism of the Spaldy manuscript. They're too different. It's not necessary, in my view, it's not necessary for Dartmouth and Hyrum to be the direct sources of knowledge and information for Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon and his subsequent theology. For me, what's probably undeniable and what's more important is whether or not Dartmouth and Hyrum were direct influences on Joseph Smith. And surely they must have been. What's important is, is that what we've demonstrated without probably any plausible refutation is that Dartmouth Arminianism and the concepts of Protestant Christianity were the cultural milieu that Joseph Smith was swimming in, that Ethan Smith was swimming in, that Solomon Spalding and Oliver Cowdery and the Smith family and particularly Hyrum Smith were swimming in. And what we know for, well, what seems very Very clear is that all these things that we were told came as revelation from God to Joseph Smith. We now know that they predated Joseph Smith and that they were easily available to Joseph Smith for him to just kind of like a shopping cart, just kind of pick and enter, pick and enter, copy and paste. And I think that's, you know, a challenge to all our skeptical viewers and listeners and, or orthodox or believing listeners or viewers find us a distinctive, important, relevant Joseph Smith doctrine or piece of theology that, that can't be found in, in sort of the late 18th century, early 19th century, New England, Dartmouth, Arminianism, Swedenborg, mound builder myth, Masonic, Greek milieu. Please find us one and then we'll have a conversation.

Randy Bell [01:44:51] Well said. And I'm glad you brought up Sandra Tanner, because I've had some conversations with her and you're right, she is a very reasoned, deliberate researcher. And I really am grateful to her for her time spent in letting me bounce ideas off her. And the same way with Dan Vogel, who's a meticulous researcher. There's a lot more work to do here, but the groundwork is pretty. It is what it is. It's fascinating and it's new and it's dynamic. I wish I had been smart enough to come up with it. That credit goes to Richard Behrens. But I'm certainly appreciative of you, John, letting me talk about it because it's really become a passion to keep up this research.

John Dehlin [01:45:43] Yeah. Well, Randy, I want to return my gratitude for your passion and your zeal and your scholarship on this issue. When Sandra Tanner or Dan Vogel or Thomas Murphy are saying this stuff Randy Bell's looking into is really important. Now, of course they all would have known about this stuff stuff as well previously, but one of the big realizations I had when I was doing the BH Roberts stuff, right. You know, Shannon Caldwell Montez comes out with her amazing multi part, you know, her master's thesis on B.H. roberts and the secret Mormon meetings of 1922. And then she does several Mormon stories, episodes about B.H. roberts, about the secret Mormon meetings in 1922, about whether or not B H Roberts lost his testimony in a historical Book of Mormon, which he almost certainly did. When I realized that she was pulling from dialogue articles and books that were published in the 80s and 90s, she didn't come up with any. I mean, she came up with a few new things, but that whole secret Mormon meeting stuff and the whole BH Roberts stuff and the whole. That was all known in the 80s and 90s to those who read Dialogue Journal or who read Sunstone magazine. And it was then that I realized, yes, we need Mormon historians in 2023, but what we really need are people like you, Bill Real, rfm, Gerardo Nemo, Mike from LDS discussions, you know, whoever, Julia, you know, from analyzing Mormonism. We just need modern day voices that can go back and just find the Sandra Tanner pamphlets, the dialogue articles, the Sunstone articles, the books that have already been published and written and bring them into the modern public consciousness. Because to some degree this stuff has never reached the Mormon public consciousness. In other instances it did back in the 80s and 90s, but then it faded away because how quickly as generations, things go down the memory hole. So I want to thank you, Randy, for bringing to the forefront in 2023 the work of Barron's, the work of Dialogue, the work of others. But then not just sitting with that, but going to freaking Dartmouth, to calling up the librarian, to scanning documents and to adding to the research. And I just want to thank you and I want to call our viewers and listeners, do what Randy Bell is doing, find the cool articles and the cool research that's already been published and let's do episodes about it. Because if it's hidden in a book, if it's hidden in a journal article, if it's hidden in a library at Dartmouth, nobody's ever going to benefit from it. So we've got to bring it to the forefront. And so, Dr. Randy Bell, thank you for doing that for us today.

Randy Bell [01:48:49] Well, yeah, thank you, John. And for the record, I'm not a historian. I'm doing the best I can as a non historian. I'm an economist and a sociologist. So, you know, I am stumbling around the dark and I've relied on a number of people. Rfm, Sandra Tanner, Dan Vogel. Oh, I started mentioning names, you know, you, I've called you on it and others. And you know, it's for me, at least it tells us the five building blocks. And the key takeaway I've gotten out of this is that in looking now, I can kind of figure my own journey out because I like Christianity as you know, in its simple form, the teachings of Jesus. But I don't want to hinge my worldview on ancient American mythology. Certainly not Greek mythology, certainly not Islamic beliefs. With all due respect to my Islamic friends, which includes my best man and Masonic temple rites, those are not my values. So it's really kind of allowed me to break apart the pieces of the experience I've been through and set Aside, the building blocks that don't reflect my value systems retain what, what I do connect with. And it's kind of like I feel like Mormonism sold me an apple pie. And then I realized later, once I get overweight and diabetes and everything else, that there's very little apple in apple pie. It's mostly lard and sugar and oil and all this junk dumped in with it. And I don't want that stuff. I just like the New Testament. And that is no more complicated than that. So that's kind of what I've learned about myself in kind of putting this together and being so passionate about figuring it out.

John Dehlin [01:50:40] All right, well, Randy Bell, please keep up the good work, and we hope to have you back on Mormon Stories to share new cool findings and innovations anytime.

Randy Bell [01:50:50] Thank you, John.

Closing Remarks and Support the Show

John Dehlin [01:50:50] All right, everyone, please, if you can, please subscribe to us on YouTube, please follow us on Facebook. Please like these episodes. If you can hit the thumbs up button or the like button, please share them with as many people as possible. When you do that, it helps boost our channel status. It helps the algorithms want to reshare these episodes with others. We just recently we thought it was miraculous that we passed 100,000 YouTube subscribers, and in less than a month, we're already at 110,000. And a lot of that thanks goes to Gerardo and Julia, who are pumping out these YouTube shorts and these TikTok shorts and these Instagram shorts that are really driving our growth. But it also is is due to great content. So thanks to you, Randy, thanks to Bill Real and RFM for their great work, and thanks to the Mormon Story staff, thanks to Maven and Julia and everyone else who helps make what we do possible, Brooklyn, etc. If you want to see this type of content, continue. We're grateful to everyone who donates to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories foundation, but we lose donors every month. We lose donors for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's because people move on. Sometimes it's because people hit financial hard times. Sometimes it's because there are haters out there that want to smear and destroy the work we're doing. But we're always losing donors. So if you want to see more content like this, continue. We would ask that you consider becoming a monthly donor to Mormon Stories and the Oba Stories foundation. You go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button, sign up for whatever you can afford, and we'll keep creating this content and publishing this content for as long as we can. We're tax deductible in the us we are transparent in our finances and we work really hard to use our money to spread the good word, which is informed consent. And we're actually grateful to the Mormon Church. Just as a side, we found out this week week that for the first time in the history of the Mormon Church, they've made steps towards informed consent, likely listening to many of us who have been calling for it for many years. They just added to the Mormon Temple ceremony at the beginning when they normally invite people to leave. They just added some verbiage describing the covenants that the attendees are going to be committing to before the invitation to leave. And we know that that is the Mormon Church responding to all of us calling on the Mormon Church to not pressure people unduly into lifelong and even eternal covenants that people shouldn't be pressured into. So good job Mormon Church, for making a few steps forward towards informed consent. There's still a ways to go, but we're going to applaud the baby steps and mostly thanks to everyone who has helped join us in the call for honesty and transparency and informed consent within the Mormon Church. Anyway, we love you guys. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we hope to see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care everybody.

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