Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, Joseph Smith Podcast Edition. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It's August 22, 2025 and today we are on part 13 of our multi part series on Joseph Smith, beginning with this book, Joseph the Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by Professor John G. Turner. So just really quickly, I have some really Good news. We're 13 episodes in and we've been trying to raise sufficient funds to be able to fund my time and John's time all the way through this series and also the production work that happens behind the scenes. And I have really good news. The good news is, is that thanks to one very large generous donor, I think we're fully funded through the end of this book, which is I guess the epilogue, which is I guess technically 32 episodes. So we're funded. So thank you to that one very generous donor that made this possible, in addition to thank you to all the donors who have independently contributed to make this possible. Now I talked to John about this. We are still welcoming your donations, number one, because the truth is this isn't fully funded. We have production costs behind the scenes that the OSF is just up until now funding ourselves. So anyway, and also there's possible future episodes that John and I might consider doing beyond the 32 episodes, depending on his availability and demand and interest and other sorts of things. So if you want to continue supporting this collaboration, we welcome it. You just go to donorbox.org Jo Joseph Smith and John and I will figure out what other mischief we can be engaged in. Okay, so today we are going to be covering chapter 13 of this book, Joseph Smith, the Rise and Fall of an American Prophet. And the chapter is entitled Zion is Fled. We're going to be talking a lot about Kirtland and school, the prophets and, you know, adversity in Kirtland, including the hurlbut stuff and other things. But we're also going to be talking about the ramp up of anti Mormonism in Missouri that leads to very, very severe persecution. And so the Zionist fled chapter covers 1830-1834. And we're also going to be talking about the Solomon Spalding manuscript. So a lot of really interesting cool stuff today. And so without any further ado, with my BYU hat on my head, I bring back to you Professor John Turner, who has a T shirt that is actually very applicable because we're also talking about word of wisdom today as well. So, John Turner, welcome back to the Joseph Smith Podcast and Mormon Stories Podcast.

John Turner [00:03:12] Thanks John Delenn Glad to be back. Thanks for everybody who has supported this. And I've been saying I've wanted to make sure we get to the later chapters of the book. So I'm really excited that we're going to be able to do that. Thanks to all of you for listening and for commenting and sending questions. I just love talking about Joseph Smith. I can't get enough of it. I'm glad that a lot of you can't get enough of it either.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] Yeah, I was telling you before the show that I'm listening to your book on the audiobook, which people should get. I think the audio narrator's really good and I think I'm actually at chapter 22 in the audiobook. But then I reread every chapter and take copious notes and in preparation for every episode. And I'm reading Fawn Brody's no Man Knows My History. So I am like wading knee deep or waist deep in Joseph Smith and I'm loving it. And I've been doing this like 30, 40 years at this point and I'm learning stuff I've never learned before. This book is fantastic. John Turner, you somehow are teaching me a gazillion things I never knew before, in spite of reading Rough Stone Rolling and no Man Knows My History and it doesn't feel like a slog. It doesn't feel like it's too big of a book or too long. So I'm loving your book more and more as I get into it.

John Turner [00:04:41] That is super gratifying. Also, I will just mention that if you are listening out there and you're part of a book group or some sort of group and you'd like to have a conversation if your group would like to have a conversation with me. I love doing book groups. I love talking to all sorts of people. I've got a few on the calendar this fall, but that's always a joy. Reading books is a fun thing to do with other people.

John Dehlin [00:05:09] Absolutely. Absolutely. That's fun. It was fun to see you speak at Sunstone, and we need to figure out how to get you out in front of more people as well. I will just say really quickly, please buy this book. You can buy it at Benchmark Books, which is our favorite bookseller right now. If there are other good bookstores that want us to plug them, you need to reach out to me because Chris Bench reaches out to me and that's part of why I feel the love. You can also buy this book on Amazon or on or from Yale University Press. But please Buy the book. Let's make it an international bestseller. But also, you'll learn a lot. Okay, so. All right, John Turner. So there's so much to cover today, and let's just begin on page 129. And I've taken so many notes. It starts with Joseph boasting of all his lofty titles. That's like the first sentence in this chapter. And I'm going to list them. Prophet, Seer, translator, Revelator, first Elder and President of the High priesthood. And I've. We've covered this a little bit, but I just want to ask you point blank, can we talk about what each of these titles likely meant to Joseph Smith and his followers? Just briefly, can we talk about each one?

What Does a Prophet Mean to His Followers?

John Turner [00:06:32] Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [00:06:33] What's a prophet to someone in 1833?

John Turner [00:06:37] So that's a great question. I'm actually, I'll just go out of order slightly because I think it'll be helpful. One of the most. I would say, in a way, the most significant title for Joseph in the early 1830s was seer. So if you look at the manuscript copies of many of Joseph's early revelations, including the revelations that became the basis for the book of Moses, they often will say something like a revelation of Joseph the seer, you know, at such and such date and place. So I think that's. That's significant, that seer meant, among other things, the ability to receive revelations. So there's, you know, there's. There's a lot of confluence, I think, between prophet, Seer and Revelator during these early years. I do think translator was.

John Dehlin [00:07:41] Wait, wait, can we go back to seer for just a second?

John Turner [00:07:43] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:07:44] So tell me if I'm wrong, because my impression of the word seer, it's almost like a euphemism for scryer, peeper, glass looker. In other words, I associate stone with seer, and I associate his prior activities of treasure digging with the word seer. And again, as a euphemism, don't call me a peeper.

John Turner [00:08:09] Right.

John Dehlin [00:08:09] Call me a seer. But still, there's a stone involved. Am I wrong? Is that fair or totally unfair?

John Turner [00:08:15] No, I mean, I don't think that's unfair because that word was used in connection with seer stones in particular, and as the word suggests, the ability to see, and in particular in Joseph's case, to see treasures under the bowels of the earth. So, absolutely. But I think it's worth noting, as I said, Joseph continued, and his followers continued to lean into that title, sort of that description, into the 1830s, as an individual who received revelations. And so I do think there's a lot of crossover between those activities.

John Dehlin [00:09:06] And that makes the term revelator a bit redundant, because if seer means revelator, then why does he need prophet, seer and revelator? So that's why I want to. That's probably also why I want to distinguish between that and somebody who receives revelations. You probably know that modern Mormon prophets and apostles carry the title of prophet, seer and revelator. You probably know that.

John Turner [00:09:32] Which I think goes back to 1830, if I'm not mistaken. I would say, in a way, the least redundant of the title would be translator, which I think very straightforwardly meant the ability to translate, to bring forth documents that, at least in their conception, would have been originally not in. In English. So straightforwardly, the ability to translate ancient documents in a way, whether or not they actually were in Joseph's possession. So one small episode that we didn't talk about from 1829, you mentioned that my book is not too long, so I couldn't get everything in there. But Joseph translates what he refers to as a parchment of John, so the author of John's Gospel, that there was a piece of writing that in a way, you could say that Joseph could access spiritually and by revelation and bring forth in a. In a way to translate even without having it in his possession, which is kind of a wild little story that didn't. Didn't make the final cut of my book.

John Dehlin [00:11:05] Yeah, that's fascinating. And I really want to talk about that because just this month, the Mormon Church, you know, sort of fulfilled a prophecy that I made years ago. And maybe I've told you the story, John Turner. But years ago, a couple came to me and said we were having a faith crisis. We went to Spencer Fluman, who at the time was the head of the Maxwell Institute, and we sought help and asked him a bunch of our questions. And one of the ones was the seer stone in the hat and the plates not being in the room during the translation and what Spencer Fluman told this couple at the time. And they actually recorded the conversation, which is legal in Utah. But it's also something that probably Spencer didn't know about, which I don't think he was happy with. But he basically says, I'm paraphrasing, maybe we shouldn't really think of Joseph as a translator. Maybe we should think of the Book of Mormon not as a translation, but as a revelation. And. And I predict, you know, I predicted then that at some point, the Church is likely to try and shift the narrative because, you know, if the plates aren't in the room, that's probably not a translation, right? If he's just reading off a stone, he's not really translating. He's reading off a stone and it's God. If anyone who's the translator, not Joseph, but if the plates aren't even in the room, is there really even any translating going on? He's literally just reading English off a rock, right? And so, and lo and behold, the prophecy kind of comes true in August of 2025. Because I think in one of the three essays that the Mormon Church released this month, they literally address Book of Mormon translation and they, they call it a revelation, right? But then isn't that kind of a bait and switch? Because all of these titles, Prophet, seer, translator, Revelator, what they do to me is they project power, special powers. It's like, you know, Superman can fly, the Hulk can smash things. Joseph Smith can prophesy about the future as a prophet. He can see in a stone and see magical things. He can translate ancient languages through the gift of power of God that no one has the power to do, and he can reveal a future. Well, those are all superpowers, right? And so then if you, if you, all of a sudden, if, if he was claiming that superpower of translation, but now all of a sudden we're going to say, well, it really wasn't translating, it was more revelation number one, you got to take away that claim, and then two, you got to acknowledge that there's revisionist history going on and, and that that's a bait and switch and actually was a false claim. Am I being too hard on Joseph in the Church? Is there some merit to these concerns?

The Book of Abraham and Joseph as Seer

John Turner [00:14:06] That's a great question. So let me share a couple of thoughts in response, some of which gets us a little bit ahead of where we are in the book chronologically. So in a couple episodes from now, we're going to be talking about the Book of Abraham. And so that's another instance in which perhaps a faithful explanation has evolved from translation to Revelation, you know, so I think that, I think that would sort of be fair with, in a sense, leaving room perhaps for either possibility. So a little bit of fuzziness. I think Joseph wanted to be a, wanted to be able to translate ancient records, and when it came to the, sort of, wanted to prove that he could do it, and when it came to the papyri that served as the inspiration for the Book of Abraham, I think Joseph actually Spends a lot of time trying to be able to translate them. I think that's the reason for the Alphabet, for the grammar, for the time spent pondering over the glyphs. I also think for Joseph, that was a bit of an exercise in frustration in that he couldn't decipher ancient Egyptian writing. I think that's one. One reason Joseph actually was keen to learn Hebrew in 1836. He did want to be able to understand and to translate ancient languages. And Egyptian proved impossible. Hebrew proved, you know, you could make a little bit of headway without becoming an expert. So that's a long way of saying, I think Joseph put that claim out there of the ability to translate, wanted to develop that ability, and found it sometimes a very frustrating exercise. I mean, and I do think. I do think you're right to pinpoint, you know, an evolving, you know, church explanation for that.

John Dehlin [00:16:45] Yeah. And I even hear people that I normally would respect, like Richard Bushman, Terrell Givens, Patrick Mason and others. And I know these are dear friends of yours. I remember when I was at Utah State University, they literally held a conference, it was like a full weekend conference on what the word translation might really mean. But as soon as you have to take a word where we all know what it means and then spend a whole weekend as a bunch of academics creating alternative meanings for the word, to me, that's the worst type of apologetics. Just say he didn't translate. Don't try and manufacture or stretch the, The. The meaning of the word translator into other things. That. It's clearly not what he meant. But is that. Again, I don't mean to be harsh on them, and I'm not asking you to attack your friends, and I probably made the point now, but I. I guess I. I guess I. If we were going to call balls and strikes, I'd be like, hey, John Turner, what grade does Joseph get on being an actual translator, A through F? You know what I mean?

John Turner [00:17:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:49] How much is he really translating?

John Turner [00:17:52] How much? Great inflation. Right. I mean, and if. If only he had had the access to generative AI tools, you know, it would have been so much easier, especially on the Hebrew, I suppose. No, I mean, I think that. I think that's a fair question. And I'm not. I'm not either going to attack or defend other people. I do think I would also say. I noted I don't have the reference handy, but in one of the early Joseph Smith papers volume, there is a reference to the Book of Mormon, as I think something like Joseph's first inspired translation or something like that. It's revelation dictation, different than translation. I do think, I do, I do agree that Joseph uses the term in an ordinary sense and I think with a self awareness that he didn't have that superpower. I think he did want to, I do think he wanted to show that he could do it with the papyri, which may also, maybe that's an element of self belief as well. And then I do think that that to a large extent was an exercise in frustration. I guess the only thing I would say in terms of, you know, some of the more recent, I guess you called it apologetics, more recent explanations is I think for people, people who find truth of some sort of in the Book of Mormon or Joseph's other textual productions, you need to have an explanation that can correspond with the existing evidence. And so some of these, some of these theories, at least they, they allow for that possibility more than, you know, defending actual translation.

John Dehlin [00:20:06] Okay, let me ask you quickly. Is there, what's the difference between prophet and revelator? So I think a prophet is prophesying, which sounds a lot like revealing the future. But then I also think of prophets as people who talk to God and who kind of lead, who kind of communicate God's word to the people. So anyway, I don't know how to distinguish between those terms.

John Turner [00:20:29] I'm sure there are really smart people who have looked at this more precisely. But my first thought actually goes in two directions. Number one, for Joseph, the model for prophets were always biblical prophets and less predicting the future sort of prophets or even more revelation sort of prophets like Isaiah. And instead people like Abraham and Joseph of Egypt and Moses, sort of God's appointed men for particular times who had the authority to bring forth law and who led people with authority. So I think those biblical models were very significant. Hyrum Smith once commented that Joseph has the spirit of all of the prophets. And I do think Joseph took these biblical models as precedents for himself. I think you can see that in the Book of Mormon itself. And then secondly, I do think prophet it is. You know, that's a, that's a claim to authority and leadership. And I think at least as we move along, for Joseph, that's a primary meaning of that term. So priesthood authority as it develops and then revelator. Revelator, yeah. And I, I've already suggested a lot of confluence with.

John Dehlin [00:22:07] Okay, with seer.

John Turner [00:22:08] With seer. But no, no, but specifically, you know, the individual who dictates revelations that can command the church.

Grading Joseph Smith as Prophet and Seer

John Dehlin [00:22:18] Okay. All Right. Well, I'll just. I'll. I'll call balls and strikes. I'll give grades on this one. I'm giving him an F for being a seer because we know he never really could demonstrate that he saw anything on the seer stone that that was material because the. So and, and eventually he abandons the seer stone. And when other people trying to see, he kind of wants to shoot down, you know, their use. And nowadays the, you know, there's not even a seer stone being used. So to me, I think Joseph and subsequent prophets kind of get an F with the seer label. That's my personal opinion. I think he also gets an F with the translator label because I don't think he's ever produced an accurate translation of any language that can be verified. That's just my opinion. I think on the Prophet, he kind of gets an A. He certainly had the authority to lead the church. And honestly, people think I'm down on Joseph Smith. Your book and Fon Brody's, frankly, are causing me to have more and more respect for this person as a leader. And I don't mean that he never hurt people or made mistakes, but just his ability to engender loyalty and to get followers and to grow a movement. How do you argue. How do you argue with his effectiveness as a leader who has authority? He's great at amassing authority and at leading people. Even when things go wrong, he triples down and doubles his movement. So I'm giving him an A as a prophet. An F is a seer and F is a translator. And honestly, I think he gets like a D on revelation just because so many of his prophecies don't come true in according to your book and the ones that do, like the healings, you know, he doesn't heal people with severed limbs. He'll heal people with the disease, like cholera or whatever that half the time is. You know, two thirds of the time they're going to get better anyway. So so many revelations seem to fail. I'm going to give him a C or D with revelations or as a revealer. And those are my grades.

John Turner [00:24:36] This is great. I mean, here I am, I'm the college professor, and you're grading Joseph Smith. Yeah, I'm not going to hand out letter grades, so I'll just. I'll throw out one other notion sort of from the realm of the academic study of religion, which, you know, that's. That's the way I'm approaching Joseph Smith. So there's another Famous Smith in the field of, I guess you could say religious studies. A scholar, a late scholar named Wilfred Cantwell Smith, who has a book on scripture that I like, which he wrote in part as a response to other scholars who thought that scripture was not a very useful category, that there isn't any essential literary or historical traits that distinguish, say, biblical texts from other ancient texts. You know, you can find a lot of parallels between texts in the Bible and other ancient texts. So how would you actually define scripture? So Wilfred Cantwell Smith says, I think very intelligently, scripture is a human activity by which groups of humans assign authority, special meaning, sacredness to particular texts, and that's what distinguishes them. So in a sense, wherever Joseph's texts came from, and I don't think, as we've discussed before, I don't think the Book of Mormon is an ancient record that's engraven on gold plates. It's no small feat to get millions of people to regard these texts as scripture. In a sense, that's what makes them scripture. And if people stop treating them as scripture, they would no longer be scripture, then they would just be historical artifacts. And, you know, in a way, the same is true for Joseph's revelations. You know, there, there were, you know, at the time, we're still talking about a small church, but there are hundreds of people who, they can't wait to get their hands on Joseph's latest revelations because they grant them authority. So the authority doesn't come from the texts themselves or from Joseph's talent. It's because, yeah, Joseph claims authority, but people have to grant it to him. And I guess that gets to your A for leadership. No, no.

John Dehlin [00:27:20] Okay. No, I like, you know, these days, people are like, Adam Miller, I'm watching this. There's this new documentary out that my friend Robert Reynolds produced called An Inconvenient Faith. And there's this part where Adam Miller. Have you met Adam Miller? Do you know who that is? Love that guy. He basically says, you know, what I know is that the Book of Mormon, regardless of its historicity, I don't have a faith in its historicity. I have a faith in its ability to motivate people to have a testimony of Christ, basically, or of spiritual experience in a Christian context. And if that's, if that's how you judge the Book of Mormon. And I think Greg Prince makes the same point in the documentary, that the power or the value of the Book of Mormon is in its historicity. It's in its ability to transform lives. And if you look at it that way. It's a whole different way to look at the Book of Mormon. And what I'm hearing you say is with Joseph's revelations, if all you do is look about whether his prophecies come true, then it's problematic. But if you look at how valuable people and his time and afterwards took his revelations to be, how important they took them to be, if that's how you judge him as a revelator, then his. His grade goes up considerably.

John Turner [00:28:45] Well, I think the, you know, the acceptance of Joseph as a translator, seer, revelator, those were among the things that brought people into this movement and shaped it and made it work and gave it its distinctive place. So, no, I think that's definitely true. And as we've talked about before, the fact that some of the content, some of the predictions, some of the directions don't work out or don't come true.

John Dehlin [00:29:27] A lot.

John Turner [00:29:28] Yeah, a lot. But I think that's not the primary way that people within the movement are assessing them. Yeah, no. Which is. Yeah. I don't know if that's a paradox or that simply says something about the way that religious movements work. And honestly, Mormonism is not the only religious movement with that issue. Even early Christianity, there are these predictions that Jesus is going to return in imminently, like really imminently, and that doesn't come to pass, and that doesn't cause people to rip, you know, at least the. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke out of, you know, out of their New Testaments.

John Dehlin [00:30:21] Yeah, yeah. I had a guy write me this week. He's a BYU attending education week or whatever, and he's like, john, how can so many smart people believe? I'll use, I'll paraphrase his words, this junk or this garbage or this stuff that's clearly false. And I just wrote back and I said, there is no correlation between intelligence and belief. Like, there's this world of wanting to know what's real and true, and we call that science. And then there's this world of wanting meaning and wonder and awe and community and spirituality. They're just separate worlds in my view. And super intelligent people can want community and spirituality and meaning and purpose and awe and wonder and miracles and a resolution about the afterlife. And guess what? They don't probably really care about historicity or facts or science when their brain is in that realm of wanting the other thing. And I think that's what religion is. It's wanting awe and wonder and community and spirituality and power. And the only final thing I'll say is, on the one hand, I'm salty that Joseph makes claims of power that he doesn't really seem to have. It feels like a misrepresentation for him to tell the world he translates languages and can see in a stone and can predict the future and that he talks with God. On the one hand, that feels like deception. And he's banking on the deception that people believe he has special powers because that's why they want to follow him in the first place. But I'm also going to agree with you that he's giving people that second world of awe and wonder and meaning and purpose and community and spirituality and beliefs about the afterlife, and that's what they want. So he is a prophet and a revelator in that sense, in a very real way. And your book goes on to talk about. By age 27, he's got thousands in this church. It's in multiple US states and it's in multiple countries because it's in Canada. Like, that's an amazing accomplishment for an upstate New York farm boy who's now only 27 years old. Right.

John Turner [00:32:38] Yeah. Well, I, you know, I think sort of your part of your comment gets to the moral assessment of Joseph Smith. You know, in, in that we both agree that Joseph didn't have gold plates. So there's deception involved in how he first makes his mark. And misrepresentation, which comes after the deception

John Dehlin [00:33:11] of the treasure digging, which is also deception. Because there's never treasure.

John Turner [00:33:14] Right. Well, there's never treasure. I mean, I, I mean, just so I don't digress on that. I mean, I think you could argue, you could argue about whether Joseph thought he could do that or not, but.

John Dehlin [00:33:24] Okay.

John Turner [00:33:25] But I think Joseph knew he didn't have gold plates and does deceive people by saying that he does. That's how he makes his mark. He couldn't have done what you just summarized, you know, creating. I don't think he could have created this church. He couldn't have formed this movement and taken it in the directions that he did without those initial claims. And I see that as a bit of a. I don't know if that's a moral conundrum or, or how different people are going to assess that in different ways. But it's the, it is the way that Joseph accomplishes what he does.

John Dehlin [00:34:13] Yeah. And I think it'd be worthwhile to do a study. Has any person ever started a successful cult or religion without either people perceiving that they had that original founder, had special powers or the the, the founder of the cult or religious movement fooling them into believing that he had, he or she had special powers. Like one of the two. Either they have the perception of it, or it's literally, you know, they're led to believe that in, in some sort of fraudulent way. I, I, I'd be curious to know if there's other significant religious movements that didn't start in one of those two ways.

John Turner [00:34:56] Well, I think the other part of this, and we've talked about this in prior episodes, is one thing I think we can be sure of, is that large numbers of people who joined this movement in the early 1830s, they are experiencing those special powers, if you will. They are experiencing speaking in tongues. They are experiencing either being healed or seeing people healed. They are experiencing exorcisms. So people, and people convert for a variety of reasons. Many of whom, you know, convert because they have family members who convert, but others convert because they experience the, what they understand is the power of God in this movement. And for them that's a, that's just a first order concern. And it almost provides, I think for some people, it provides the surest sort of evidence they want for everything else.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] Yeah. Well, this is fun. We're not far into the chapter, but I'm really loving this conversation. Um, let's go to the next thing that I had planned, which is he's getting at the beginning of the chapter, he's getting criticized by people like Abner Cole and Alexander Campbell. There's a quote that you have. So, so his critics are calling him Joe. And whenever you see, like a depiction of anti Mormons, it's always like, what you gonna do now, Joe? You know, that's, that's such a trope, right, of calling him Joe. But, but it looks like they did. And there's this, you, you highlight, you know, the fact that so many of his critics viewed him as unsophisticated and uneducated. And yet people like Bushman or Givens or Bob Reese will, will basically say the Book of Mormon is either like Richard Bushman says this in, in, in An Inconvenient Faith. Either the Book of Mormon is a, is a work of genius or it's inspired of God. But either way, Joseph comes out looking like a genius. And so there's this contrast between believers of Joseph that think he's a genius and everybody else that thinks he's a rube and a, you know, and a fool. And you've got this quote that I loved, you wrote quote, a crude imposter who Dictated his golden Bible with his head in his hat completely closed up like a dog's head in a black yarn stocking. Where in the heck does that quote come from? Because it's an interesting framing. I can see where that person ends up with that conclusion. Golden Bible, Joe Smith, head in a hat, yokel producing Bible fanfiction gobbledygook. Right?

Early Criticism and Literary Merit of the Book of Mormon

John Turner [00:38:01] Yeah. So that particular quote you read is from an English newspaper in 1838. So that's just after Mormon missionaries have begun showing up in places like Manchester. And so, yeah, no, one of the very common lines of criticism against Joseph, honestly, from the start down to the present, is that this guy, like you said, he's just, he's uneducated, he's ignorant. And I think, you know, we, we might to some extent. I think for Joseph was a little bit double minded in his response. And I don't mean that negatively. I mean actually trying to think about Joseph on a, on a really human level. I think on the one hand that, you know, this could be sort of a badge of honor. You know, I'm from humble circumstances. I'm not ashamed of who I am or where I'm from. And I think he got a little bit of that from his mother who talks about, you know, more uppity neighbors who looked down on her or felt pity for her because of her family's poverty. She would, she would say to them, I don't need your pity. We're very comfortable with who we are. So I think Joseph had a bit of that, but at the same time, sort of like a, you know, an athlete who acknowledges that he sees what the media is saying about him. I don't know that Joseph acknowledges this, but I do think he could feel the sting when people repeatedly criticized him along these lines. And he did want to acquire more learning. He did want to be able to defend his ability, his intellectual. And I think that's one reason for Joseph's repeated efforts at self improvement and education within the church.

John Dehlin [00:40:28] And I actually get it. When I started the podcast in 2005, immediately scholars and lawyers and mostly faithful people would be just like, you're just a podcaster, you're just like a blogger, you're just a tech bro. You don't, your opinions don't matter. It literally made me want to get a PhD, which I did. So I get, I get feeling that elite blue blood discrimination of like, you're not smart, you're not educated. I actually get that on one level, I, I want to ask you a question. I think I've been triggered by this Inconvenient Faith documentary, you know, and I want to. I want to. I probably asked you this from previous episodes when we talked about the production of the Book of Mormon, but I just want to ask you again, you know, going back to Richard Bushman's claim that the Book of Mormon is clearly either a mira, it's either genius or the work of God. You know, that's one point of view that the book is just so phenomenal that no one could have ever written it. You know, and even the Spalding manuscript basically assumes that it's better than what Joseph Smith. The Spalding theory assumes that the Book of Mormon is better than what Joseph Smith could have produced. And that's why we'll talk about Hurlbut later, desperately wanting to make the Spalding theory true and involve Sidney Rigdon because it. I guess what, I guess Hurlbut feels like it's too good for something that Joseph himself could have come up with. But I'm going to ask you this question just very directly. I've also had other people say to me, and I forget if this was John Hamer or somebody else, where they basically said, not only is the Book of Mormon not a miracle, it's not even impressive. It's not really a good book. It's kind of a bore. Twain called it chloroform in print. But I had someone tell me once, not only is the Book of Mormon so amazing that there's no way Joseph Smith could have produced it, the Book of Mormon is so obviously a product of Joseph Smith's own biography of the mound builder myth and the anti Masonic stuff and the Bible plagiarisms and Protestant sermons that were going on during Joseph's time. It's so obviously a product of Joseph Smith and his surroundings in 1830 that no one but Joseph Smith could have produced the Book of Mormon. Where do you. Will you just come down on work of genius or just an obvious creation of Joseph Smith's and not that impressive? Where are you on that spectrum? Because I know you're going to come down somewhere in the middle. Because that's what you do. That's what you do, John Turner, you come down in the middle.

John Turner [00:43:19] I don't want to. I don't want to disappoint you, John De Lin. Yeah, I am.

John Dehlin [00:43:22] At least give you a spectrum. I know to give you a spectrum.

John Turner [00:43:24] All right, so no, I've got this line in one of the earlier Book of Mormon chapters where I say, even as critics have disparaged the Book of Mormon. Many of them have doubted that Joseph Smith could have written it. Like, this book is bad. But Joseph Smith is so wretched, he couldn't even have, he couldn't even have produced this not really good book, which I've always thought is, that's a little bit strange, right? So, yeah, I am gonna, in, in a way take a bit of a middle of the road approach. So I don't think the Book of Mormon is like genius level. Could only come from God. Right. And you know, a lot of those arguments, they honestly, they have less to do with the literary merit or even how profound the text is. People more often point to the complexity of multiple editors, authors, and things like that. So I do think the, I do think the Book of Mormon, it's complex. I certainly grant that. I don't think it's so complex and so profound that Joseph couldn't have dictated it. And I don't think the length is something that could not be accomplished as a dictation within a couple of months. So I guess the answer, the short answer is, yeah, this is pretty good and Joseph was talented enough to do it. I don't think the book is so remarkably complex or intricate or profound that it could only have come from God. But I also don't think it's so wretched that if Joseph produces it, it says nothing about his talent. I do think, I do think it's, it is indicative of a certain amount of theological and literary talent, but I think Joseph could get, get above that bar. Was that a good enough answer?

John Dehlin [00:45:36] That was great. No, that was great. I'm going to end this thread with this question. So Bob Reese, who still believes the Book of Mormon is historical, by the way, Bob Reese says in this documentary, to say that Joseph Smith could create the Book of Mormon is like saying some minstrel that can barely pluck out Yankee Doodle Dandy on a banjo could write like Beethoven's Night Symphony. That's, that's the analogy that Bob Reese uses to try and bolster the divine origin of the Book of Mormon. Is that in your view, is that an accurate analogy or metaphor?

John Turner [00:46:16] Well, I don't, I don't think so. And I think we also have to be. I mean, I haven't, you know, I haven't read that argument at length from him, but I would say, you know, this is the early 1800s. There are a fair number of Americans without a lot of formal education who accomplish impressive things in terms of writing, and Joseph is not at that level But I do think there's, there's a difference in literary attainments, say, between somebody like Joseph Smith and somebody like Brigham Young, like Joseph. Joseph has more of an education within the household and a little bit outside of it. His, his ability to write is, is stronger. I think when you look at Joseph's letters, when you look at his later discourses, I think you see the same sort of engagement with the Bible and with narrative and ideas that you can find in the Book of Mormon. So, yeah, I think, I think he definitely, I think he was, he was up to it.

John Dehlin [00:47:28] Yeah. Okay. Well, that's fun. Thanks for, thanks for entertaining that.

John Turner [00:47:34] So

John Dehlin [00:47:38] we go on. And next point of the chapter that I wanted to talk about was Joseph, you know, acknowledging that he's a rough stone rolling. And he says there's a quote, I desire the learning and wisdom of heaven alone. He's basically saying, you know, worldly wisdom, whatever. Even though I want to learn stuff, what I'm really interested in is the wisdom of heaven. Right? And then he goes on to saying he wants the key of the knowledge of God. What do you think he means by that? And what I get from that is that he's giving snuffer vibes that it's, and there is that quote, and this is life eternal to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. I think that's a New Testament quote. But it's this idea that snuffer, Denver snuffer, a modern, you know, quote, offshoot apostate Mormon prophet, is trying to get his followers to see God and Jesus like, well, see Jesus like he's seen Jesus. Right? Is Joseph pushing himself and others to have personal theophanies with Jesus, not just where they see Jesus, but where they get to know God and Jesus? Or am I reading too much into that sentence?

Personal Visions, Signs, and Spiritual Experiences

John Turner [00:49:03] Well, I mean, you have to keep in mind that, I mean, I'm not an expert on contemporary movements, you know, way more about them than I do, but, you know, it's, it's not Joseph acting like snuffer, right? It's snuffer taking inspiration from Joseph. So I would say that one of Joseph's persistent promises to church members throughout the 1830s in particular, is the promise that they will be able to see the Savior. And so, yes, a personal theophany, not in the sense of receiving direct instruction or revelations from the Savior, but simply, I would say, an appearance, you know,

John Dehlin [00:49:54] not a conversation, just like, see the dude, but not talk. Is that right?

John Turner [00:49:59] I mean, I, I, I can't Say for sure there. I can't remember if there was. I, I, I think more, more a vision and seeing rather than a conversation, though. I'm not, I'm not super confident that the idea of conversation or hearing something was never there. But that wasn't the main point.

John Dehlin [00:50:20] Okay, and what's the. Like, I always got mixed messages growing up in the church about that because on the one hand, I think, is it Jesus that says it's a wicked and perverse generation that seeketh a sign? Like, don't try and have a sign. But then there's scriptures where Joseph's saying, try and try, you will see Jesus, or try and see Jesus later in the school of the prophets. He seems to literally be encouraging or promising those participants in the school of the prophets that the pure in heart should see a heavenly vision. He's almost kind of stoking it. So which is it? Don't seek a sign or seek a vision? Or is there a difference between the two? And I'm missing something.

John Turner [00:51:03] I think the simplest answer is that Joseph is telling his followers that if they are faithful and righteous, that is a blessing that they should anticipate receiving.

John Dehlin [00:51:15] So is that in conflict with Jesus saying don't seek a sign, or are you just saying it's not a sign, it's something else?

John Turner [00:51:22] I don't know. I would say that it is put out there as a blessing rather than a sign. In terms of you need evidence. It's more. It's not that you're going to get a vision of Jesus and therefore you'll believe. It's that you're already in this movement. If you're, if you're faithful and you're righteous, that's a blessing that you should, you should anticipate.

John Dehlin [00:51:51] Got it. So don't try to see Jesus so that then you can really believe for sure. Become a believer, give yourself to Jesus, follow him. And a side benefit, a consequence of that could very well be you get to see him.

John Turner [00:52:08] I mean, I don't know that seeing Jesus is just a side benefit. That sounds like not good enough, but yeah, I mean, let's say a rich and high, maybe even the highest blessing.

John Dehlin [00:52:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I just meant after. I was more focusing on the sequence, not on the, the coolness of the experience.

John Turner [00:52:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:29] You know what I'm saying?

John Turner [00:52:30] No, absolutely. And yeah, not, not everybody, not everybody does see the Savior, but there are, there's no shortage of reports in the 1830s, and I'm sure stret beyond as well.

The School of the Prophets and the Word of Wisdom

John Dehlin [00:52:45] Okay, well, let's Jump to that. So, so we talk about the school, the prophets for some reason. I think we mentioned it in a past episode as well. So I don't want to repeat it because I think you already talked about the fact that the main curriculum in the school, the prophets, when it founded, was grammar. Right. And I think we talked about that in a previous episode. And Morrison Hyde is the teacher. There's 20 elders. What, what struck me that I didn't know, like, you know, you say that they fasted before, you know, they, they would have these experiences or lessons and that they would then take the. You called it the Lord's Supper in the book. But, but you also mentioned that they drank wine and even spoken, sang in tongues. Yeah, and again, we talked last episode about Joseph and Brigham Young speaking in tongues. But, but then I didn't know that they were drinking wine and fasting. And you know, I actually looked up because then Joseph says to these guys, as I just mentioned, that, you know, I think he's, it seems like he's encouraging the participants in the school, the prophets, while they're there, to, to, to see heavenly visions. And I even looked up, does fasting plus alcohol increase your likelihood that you're going to have a spiritual experience? And the overwhelming feedback I got from my 10 minutes of research was absolutely yes, that fasting sensitizes the body and brain to altered states. And wine or other substances like psilocybin, which we talked about last time, can push a person into euphoric, visionary or hallucinatory states. And that's to your point that you don't need mushrooms for these people to be having hallucinations or visions. Alcohol plus fasting plus a desire probably is enough. Right. And so like, it made me wonder, what's Joseph doing here? Like, there's one, I'll give you a spectrum again, there's one spectrum where he just wants everyone to have theophanies like he did. But also I'm thinking if I want to build a religious movement, it's one thing, if I'm saying I've seen Jesus and let me tell you all about it, it's another thing if your followers are claiming that they had profound spiritual experiences that they will never deny. So there's a real function, kind of a pragmatic function of stoking and encouraging and even fomenting your followers to have life changing, quote, spiritual experiences. And if you get them to fast and then drink wine and then you tell them you need to have spiritual experiences, well, guess what? They probably are. Especially if there's also social reward and reinforcement for, like, people's awe and wonder that now you've seen Jesus too. And so I guess on the one hand there's Joseph sincerely wanting to people out theophanies. On the other hand, there's a lot of benefit, probably even if you don't believe anything at all. And this is totally cynical. There's probably a lot of benefit to your movement if a bunch of your followers are claiming to have theophanies as well. So is there anything worth responding to in that. That long question?

John Turner [00:56:11] Yeah, no, that's. That's a great question, actually. It makes me. So I think we. I think there's a number of things you said which are absolutely true, that fasting, so deprivation in general, either food, sleep. I think, yeah, you. You could certainly find a lot of evidence that that creates an openness to spiritual experiences of. Of all sorts. We could find lots of parallel examples. I'm sure that's true of drinking wine as well. I'm sure, absolutely. The desire for spiritual experiences also contributes, although a lot of people who want spiritual experiences don't get them. So it's not dispositive. I think the thing that's always hard with analyzing these sorts of scenarios is no single thing is dispositive. Right. Or necessarily responsible. And people certainly have. Seem to have spiritual experiences outside of those inducements. I think also it would be interesting to know to what extent participants and organizers are aware of how efficacious some of these techniques or inducements might be. So I guess what I'm saying is, yeah, there's a lot behind the various elements of your question. I'd sort of. I'd like to look more into to what extent are people aware of that. I think the other thing that I'd say, which is not what wasn't in your question, is I always find it interesting how many different things, if you will, Joseph is doing at the same time. So there's a desire for education, and so they're doing English grammar. Well, that can't be too exciting, right? And so I just think these, these people don't want grammar all day long. So then there's also fellowship. I think that, you know, it's the dead of winter. I think this is in early 1833. I think these men, they're really enjoying meeting together, spending this time together. Then there's these spiritual experiences. And Joseph's also always thinking about church leadership and ordination. So there's, you know, you have this. What sounds at first like a pretty mundane Thing School of the Prophets, English grammar. But it's going in a number of different directions at the same time.

John Dehlin [00:59:09] While we're on the School of Prophets topic, it's worth mentioning the Word of Wisdom again. What Mormons absolutely are told is that Joseph was sitting around with his colleagues, chewing tobacco, spitting it on the floor. Emma, Emma hates it because she's cleaning it up. And from that engagement of Emma basically complaining about all the tobacco spit on the floors, the Word of Wisdom emerges. Two things. One is it was fascinating, like you mentioned that when Joseph comes up with this revelation, like several of the participants immediately throw away or burn their tobacco, it sounds like they really quit their tobacco usage at that point. At least it seems that way. What I didn't know was that they were all drinking wine to begin with. And then what you also thoughtfully mentioned is that it seems like in spite of the Word of Wisdom being revealed, not only did Joseph not give up the drinking of wine, but you said for the next 10 years he continued to drink wine in spite of of the Word of Wisdom revelation being given. That's something the church doesn't teach its people. And again, I never associated school the Prophets with drinking wine. And I'm wondering, did they throw the tobacco away but ignore the wine part? Or is wine not forbidden in the Word of Wisdom? Maybe it's only like distilled spirits that the Word of Wisdom. Now that I think about it, I don't think the Word of Wisdom forbids beer or wine. It only forbids spirits. So wine. I guess it makes sense that they were both drinking wine during the School of the Prophets and that Joseph kept drinking it because I guess it wasn't forbidden or I'm confused. Help me out.

John Turner [01:00:52] So I. My recollection, I think I just verified it. I had to glance at DNC89. I'm not such a good Joseph Smith scholar to have all the revelations memorized. I'm still working on it. John de Len so no, I think the Word of Wisdom counsels against wine. Strong drinks such as whiskey and then hot drinks, which is, you know, coffee and tea are not. Not specified. But it's later.

John Dehlin [01:01:24] Oh, Julia shared the quote. Thanks Julia. It says, and behold, this should be wine. Yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine of your own make. Now does that imply non fermentation or just you need to make your own?

John Turner [01:01:41] So I think that is actually from elsewhere. So let me read you another quote from DNC89.

John Dehlin [01:01:52] Okay.

John Turner [01:01:53] That in as much as any man drinketh wine or strong drink among you, behold, it is not good. Neither meat in sight of your father. And then this is key.

John Dehlin [01:02:06] Is he saying wine is not good?

John Turner [01:02:08] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:02:08] But listen, probably under the influence of wine as he's giving the revelation.

John Turner [01:02:13] Well, no, but actually. Actually, there's. There's an obvious loophole which gets to that point only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments before him. So. So you. You Latter Day Saints, you are used to receiving water as part of the sacrament, Correct?

John Dehlin [01:02:34] Correct.

John Turner [01:02:35] That is a much later development. So there's.

John Dehlin [01:02:38] What we're told is that bad people wanted to poison us and put poison in the wine, and you wouldn't be able to tell it was poisoned because it was masked by the strong flavor of the wine. So we switched to water so that we wouldn't be poisoned anymore. But I think I was told that when the saints used wine for the sacrament, originally it was grape juice, not actual wine. But anyway, that's just folk stuff.

John Turner [01:03:03] No. So, no, I think it's pretty clear. No wine only for the sacrament. So what they're doing with the Lord's Supper that is entirely consistent and going. I see in the Kirtland temple, when they take the Lord's Supper, it's obviously wine. So nobody thinks at the time, let's switch to grape juice or water.

John Dehlin [01:03:23] Because Jesus drank wine. Right.

John Turner [01:03:25] Jesus drank wine. I think, you know, at first, when the saints get to Utah, they're going to develop their own wine industry. When that doesn't work out, they don't want to import wine. I think that has something to do with the switch to. To water. The idea of enforcing the word of wisdom, there's a lot of back and forth on that. During Joseph's lifetime, there are people who take this word of wisdom as a strict commandment. That is true in Kirtland in particular, for a time especially. That seems to be a bit less prominent by the time the saints get to Nauvoo. And as I mentioned that you already. And you already brought up. Emma is serving a coffee and tea in Nauvoo. Joseph drinks wine hours before his death. Right. They're drinking. They're drinking wine to sort of steady their spirits in Carthage jail.

John Dehlin [01:04:30] Yeah. Julia mentions that Brigham Young made his own fermented wine, I'm assuming after he gets into Utah. She also reminds us that the word of wisdom states that it's not a commandment, it's just, you know, like advice, but not commandment. That's always important to mention.

John Turner [01:04:48] Yeah. And there are. There are definitely church leaders during Joseph's lifetime who talk about it as a commandment. So there's. There's a. There's a decided lack of clarity on the point. One other minor detail that I like is in 1847, after Brigham Young and the apostles vote to reconstitute a first presidency, and this is after a lot of contention, they drink strawberry wine.

John Dehlin [01:05:22] Nice. And what's cool about that?

John Turner [01:05:26] I don't know. I just think that's kind of. I just think that's a nice image.

John Dehlin [01:05:30] Have you ever tried strawberry wine, John Turner?

John Turner [01:05:33] I have never. I have never had strawberry wine. I actually. I actually there. There's a. I don't know when it was from. There's a. There's a country song, Strawberry wine from, like, 20 or 30 years ago. So I know it exists, but I actually keep two thirds of the Word of Wisdom. Inadvertently.

John Dehlin [01:05:54] Deanna Carter sings Strawberry wine.

John Turner [01:05:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:58] All right.

John Turner [01:05:58] We're getting. We're getting pretty far afield, I guess, from. From Joseph.

Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, and Church Dynamics

John Dehlin [01:06:03] One of the other things I love about this chapter, you. You know, we talked in past episodes about Joseph being a bricolage or inspired secretist guy. Basically, he borrows ideas from his surroundings. You know, to what extent are you. Were you able to identify maybe the potential inspirations or origins for various aspects of the Word of Wisdom? There's little meat, lots of vegetables, you know, tea, coffee, tobacco, stimulants. Do you want to talk about possible sources of inspiration for. For the Word of Wisdom?

John Turner [01:06:41] Sure. Well, there's a sort of early temperance movement in the United States which. About which Joseph would have been very well aware because there was a temperance society in Kirtland. So alcohol. Alcohol use in particular is. Has become controversial in a way it wouldn't have been a generation earlier. I think a major reason for that is Americans are actually drinking a ton. By the 1820s, whiskey has become much cheaper and more accessible. So American men in particular, they're drinking a lot. Joseph's certainly aware of that. I don't know how aware he is of some of the other contemporary medical advice and nutritional fads that are out there. There's a lot of. There are a lot of people out there who are encouraging people to avoid tobacco, to avoid coffee and tea. So that's very much part of Joseph's culture that. Yeah, I think he's grabbing a hold of with this revelation.

John Dehlin [01:08:01] Okay. So it's probably fair to say that most of the things he interjects into the Word of Wisdom, Joseph Smith, can be tied to folk teachings around health that are pervasive in the environment around him.

John Turner [01:08:18] Yeah, yeah. You know, to. I would say, if you want to know a little bit more about some of these immediate antecedents or possible inspirations. Right. On the Joseph Smith Papers project, if you look at the. Their annotations to the earliest manuscript copy of DNC 89, they point to a lot of these parallels. So it's no secret that this is very much part of Joseph's culture.

John Dehlin [01:08:53] All right, you mentioned that Sidney Rigdon gets back into Joseph Smith's good graces. Remind me what he did to get out of Joseph's good graces. I'm forgetting.

John Turner [01:09:07] So in July of 1832. So the previous summer, he had proclaimed at a church meeting the keys of the kingdom had been taken from the church and given to him, I think.

John Dehlin [01:09:20] But that was a head injury, right? That was just his head injury.

John Turner [01:09:23] Well, we don't know for sure, but it does seem that he was also upset about having not been provided with a new home after that mob attack, and in general, then seemed to seem to be acting erratically and suffering from some mental afflictions. But now, By March of 1833, as you said, he's back in Joseph's good graces. Joseph ordains Sidney Rigdon and Frederick Williams as presidents of the high priesthood. Alongside Joseph Williams is a replacement for Jesse Gauss, who was excommunicated the previous December.

John Dehlin [01:10:12] And does this represent Oliver falling a bit out of favor again? Does this say anything about what Joseph feels about Oliver at this point or not? Oliver's in. In Independence, Right?

John Turner [01:10:24] Yeah, no, I. I think it does to some extent. I think it's significant. I think the next year Joseph ordains Oliver and at least one other person, I think Joseph Smith senior, maybe a third, as well as assistant presidents. And I think that perhaps is attention to the fact that Oliver's been a bit left out and as is then, you know, given a bit of elevation after he's back in Kirtland.

John Dehlin [01:11:04] Okay. Is there anything else you want to say about School of Prophets before I talk about the Peter French farm really quick? We good?

John Turner [01:11:12] Well, no, I just, you know, I would just mention that after those ordinations, there do seem to be a lot of people who have remarkable visions. Frederick Williams makes a note of that at the time. Wait, what?

John Dehlin [01:11:26] Remind me what the ordinations are for

John Turner [01:11:29] Rigdon and Williams as presidents of the high priesthood.

John Dehlin [01:11:32] Okay, okay. After they're ordained, what happens?

John Turner [01:11:36] Apparently it's after that that Joseph promises that the pure in heart should see a heavenly vision. And we don't know actually that much about what transpires. But apparently the men who are present pray and then they behold many things. Their eyes are open. Some of them see the Savior, some of them seem angels. That's sort of a culmination of these two months of. There's a bit of English grammar, but then also just these spiritually intense meetings. And then at that point, school's essentially over and Joseph is going to send the elders out.

John Dehlin [01:12:25] Okay, so school of profits this year lasts a couple of months, right? Is that what you're saying? And I would just say, you know, I always like to think about what Joseph's special powers actually were. And I, you know, during the treasure digging years, I always conclude that one of his special powers was convincing people that he saw stuff that he actually never saw. But they still believe that he saw whatever, even if he wasn't able to produce it. But clearly that evolves into the ability, and this probably might even be reflected in the three and the eight Witnesses stories. He clearly learns how to set an environment or a context where other people are able to have profound spiritual experiences. And that's, you could say again, on the spectrum, on the one hand, spiritually prophetic and amazing. On the other hand, you could say it's manipulative, but it's certainly powerful to the people who have the experiences. Right. And meaningful.

John Turner [01:13:27] Yeah. Well, you gave him an A for leadership a little while ago, so. Yeah, no, I mean, he's. He wants everybody to have a vision that's congruent with his. And a lot of the time they do.

John Dehlin [01:13:41] Yeah. And I'm sure that's deeply meaningful. I even allow that it's sincere, both on Joseph's part and on the participants. I also was just kind of flabbergasted that immediately, as soon as the School of the Prophets ends, Joseph's like, all right, I spent all this time with you. These are my words, not his. I spent all this time with you. You had these amazing theophanies. Now go out and fundraise for me. In other words, go raise money, because there's this farm I want to buy. And I didn't realize what the significance of the farm was until later I realized it's where the Kirtland Temple gets built, is on the Peter French farm. Right. So basically, whether or not Joseph is sincere in the School of the Prophets, clearly, if you want to lead a successful religion, if you can get people, if you can spend enough time, intimate time with people to get them to have powerful spiritual experiences, then those People can be used to go do things you really want them to do that are probably really hard and that normally people wouldn't want to do. Because fundraising. I'm a nonprofit leader. Fundraising is not the funnest part of running a nonprofit. And yet now these guys have talked to Jesus. They're eager to go out and raise money for Joseph, which actually benefits Joseph quite a bit.

John Turner [01:15:03] Right.

John Dehlin [01:15:03] You see what I'm saying there?

John Turner [01:15:05] No, I do see what you're saying. I think I'd say that. Well, a couple of things. Joseph is, you know, regularly connects, be filled with spiritual power and then go out. You know, there's. The whole idea of the Kirtland temple is people are going to have. The elders are going to have an endowment of power which is going to spiritually prepare them to go out and preach the gospel. I think then also people are always. When they're sent out, they're always doing multiple things. So it's preach the gospel. And especially going forward, it's often raised funds for whatever the church needs at a given time. I mean, you know, the last year of Joseph's life, it's go out, preach the gospel and campaign for, you know, Joseph's election as president. So, you know, people are always being asked to do a couple of things at the same time.

John Dehlin [01:16:13] I mean, I guess on the one hand, you could say it's manipulative of Joseph to do that. On the other hand, I think that's just religion. That's church. That's. That's how churches grow. If you don't like churches and religions, fine, but that's how religions and churches grow. People have spiritual experiences, and then they go out and spread it and fundraise and help build the church.

John Turner [01:16:35] Yeah, well, and I think in this particular case, this is really different than if you are a Methodist preacher. Right. Because if you're a Methodist preacher or an itinerant. If you're an itinerant, you just need a little bit of money to support yourself. If it's a church, you're just asking the members to, you know, you're asking our members to probably tithe or at least give enough to support you and the church's, you know, operations and ministries. In Joseph's case, he has these really ambitious ideas. He. He needs land. First and foremost. They know they're trying to acquire as much possible land in Jackson county and then in Kirtland, they need. They need land. And the only way, like you said, the only way to. To pull that off is to solicit funds and that can't just rest on those church members who are in Missouri or in Kirtland. So they have to go out and raise them.

John Dehlin [01:17:48] Makes sense. Okay. And I, I, apparently they're successful because the Kirtland Temple gets built on that

John Turner [01:17:55] farm, so they're successful. But actually, in the end, Joseph on for, for himself and for the church accrues a lot of debt in the construction of the Kirtland temple. And that's going to become a big problem later on.

John Dehlin [01:18:17] Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll get, we'll get to there soon. So, so when they're planning the Kirtland temple, I think, does Joseph foresee a translation room as part of the temple? Did I get that right? Where does the translation room. I'm fuzzy. I wrote that down. But now I'm forgetting where the translation room.

Joseph's Bible Translation and Theological Development

John Turner [01:18:48] So during these years, wherever Joseph is living, he usually has a translating room or a translation room. So at this time, he's got a translating room on the second floor of the Whitney store. He had a similar space that he used at the John Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio. And I actually, I think that points to the fact that during the early 1830s, the translation of the Scriptures is one of Joseph's chief activities. And also the dictation of revelations is a, is a significant activity. So Joseph feels like he needs a particular space for that. I'm trying to think, I don't know that he conceptualized a translation room in the Kirtland Temple. He might be, I might be forgetting that there is, there is an idea, I think, initially of having a room in the top floor floor for the school of the Prophets and for more intimate meetings. It's, you know, it's, it's from the start, it's, it's a different, very different idea than would have been the case for a Protestant church.

John Dehlin [01:20:06] Okay. Yeah. In that sense, he's very creative. What he wants to do with churches and temples and schools is, is quite creative.

John Turner [01:20:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:17] Okay, so you mentioned that at this point in his story, and again, what we're mid-1833 right now in the story, is that right?

John Turner [01:20:26] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:20:28] He decides to pause his, his translation or revision of the King James version of the Bible. Do you get a sense for why he wants to pause it?

John Turner [01:20:39] Yes, that's a great question. So Joseph, you know, he's kind of worked on this episodically over the last few years, and then he sort of just wraps it up quickly by the middle of 1833, you know, he worked really intensively on the early Chapters of Genesis worked intensively on some portions of the New Testament. And for a lot of the rest, he just sort of sped through it and maybe made a few minor corrections. I don't think he, you know, I think he did want and talked about publishing his translation of the Scriptures, but I don't think he. I don't think he felt that he was ever ready to do so. I think, according to one of his associates, he wanted to go through the whole thing again. And I think perhaps one reason for his hesitation is this. You know, he's got parts that he's changed and expanded in significant ways. He's got many parts that are untouched. And you can see that in later editions of the Joseph Smith translation that it's just much more meaningful in some parts than others. I think this also points to the fact that Joseph always has a lot of projects going at the same time. He really wasn't going to sit down for five or six years, stay in his study, and intensively work on the entirety of the Bible.

John Dehlin [01:22:17] Maybe you just mentioned this, but you mentioned in your book that he never really wanted this translation to ever be published. Right?

John Turner [01:22:24] Well, it seemed like he intended to, but he never felt that it was ready. So, you know, they do publish a few excerpts during Joseph's lifetime, portions of the book of Moses, I think Matthew 24, 25, some things that are now in the pearl of great price. But he never publishes the entirety, and I don't think it's seriously considered after 1833.

John Dehlin [01:22:55] Okay, okay, so this was just a geeky question, but you say that he stop the Bible revision, and then you talk about, like, his changes to John 1, you know, and some of the other doctrinal innovations. Were you just sort of explaining some of the most important outcomes of that project? Is that. Or. Or was that something different?

John Turner [01:23:21] Yes. And also connecting. Connecting it to a May 1833 revelation, which I think is now DNC 93.

John Dehlin [01:23:30] Oh, okay. Yeah.

John Turner [01:23:32] How well do you know your. Your Doctrine and Covenants? I'm rusty.

John Dehlin [01:23:35] I'm really rusty.

John Turner [01:23:36] Okay. I'm pretty sure it's d. Communication makes

John Dehlin [01:23:39] you quite rusty with Mormon scripture.

John Turner [01:23:41] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:23:42] Unless you're a scholar, which I'm not.

John Turner [01:23:44] Well, no, fair. Fair enough. Like I've already said, I don't. I don't have it all memorized. I included this because I did think it's a significant theological development. So the beginning of the Gospel of John, I might not get the King James language all correct in my brain or not, but in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, was with God, and the Word was God. And then the passage goes on to say that this divine word that had created all things became flesh and dwelt with us, bringing us grace and truth. And I forget exactly when Joseph revised that verse as part of his Bible translation, but he made really, he made a really significant change. He said instead of in the beginning was the Word his translation read in the beginning was the Gospel preached through the Son, and the Gospel was the Word. And the Word was with the Son and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God. So that's a big change. It's different to be of God than to assert that the Word was God. And so I think we see a significant development in Joseph's thought of the Father perhaps not being, excuse me, of the Son not being the Father, or perhaps not being the same being as God, but growing in, into the fullness of divinity.

John Dehlin [01:25:38] Okay, and what I wrote down is that this, it seems like what you suggest in the book, unless I'm totally misreading it, is that this seems to be the beginning of the death of Joseph's trinitarian, modalist view of deity and that this is when Jesus starts becoming his own individual, we'll call it soul or person or spirit. And then you also go on to talk about the emergence of a belief in the pre existence at this point, which is sort of the stuff that I, that isn't in the Book of Mormon, that I end up associating with kind of, you know, Nauvoo type innovations once we're. But, but it seems what I wasn't fully cooked in my brain is that these innovations were really starting to crystallize in Joseph's mind as early as summer of 1833. Am I wrong? Am I wrong about that?

John Turner [01:26:43] No, I think you're right. I do think these are two really significant developments. So for Joseph, he doesn't abandon the affirmation that Jesus is divine. And you know, that's a contested point in the early 19th century. It's sort of always been a contested point to some extent. So Jesus is divine, but Jesus is not identical to God or, but rather has grown into a fullness of divine glory. And then secondly, and this is from the May 1833 revelation, you were also in the beginning with the Father that you know as light in truth, as divine intelligence, as spirit. Human beings are just as eternal as Jesus Christ. And then also there's this idea of divine potential that humans can also grow in light and truth. And they can partake of the same divine glory, I think, in many ways, for the rest of Joseph's life. What he continues to elaborate on or to work out is what do you. What. What does that mean, number one? And then number two, what do humans. What do men have to do in order to attain to the highest level of that glory?

John Dehlin [01:28:27] And Remind me, is DNC 76 been released yet at this point, or not yet? The three degrees of glory. We talked about that last time with Swedenborg. Okay, so he's already got the three degrees of glory. So this is really interesting. I'll just. I'll give a quick shout out just because it's fun. I had Ganesh cherry in on last week on Mormon Stories where he talked about his book, Joseph Smith, the Architect of Mormonism, a topical biography. And the whole idea of. Of his book is to kind of try and provide cultural context and historical context to maybe try and explain evolutions of Mormon doctrine and theology. That's how I think about the purpose of, of his book. And so, you know, and I'm always thinking about this type of stuff. So if I'm thinking timeline here, we've got 1830 Book of Mormon has trinitarian slash modalist, you know, God and Jesus, where God and Jesus are basically one. Right. Then you've got 1832, where Joseph puts to paper his first attempt at writing down his first vision, where the Lord visits him, which is not God and Jesus, but it's the Lord, which is consistent with God and Jesus being one being. Right.

John Turner [01:29:50] And sure. I mean, I think I see the 1832 history as simply seeing Jesus Christ.

John Dehlin [01:29:58] Okay, Right. But definitely not God and Jesus, which is what the 183842 version says. And. But I don't think. I don't think it. Is it fair to say that in Joseph's 1832 mind, Joseph and Jesus would never appear as separate beings? Likely,

John Turner [01:30:18] I would say. Probably.

John Dehlin [01:30:19] Okay, probably, yeah. All right, so we've got 1832. We got. We've got Trinitarian modalist divinity in 1830. We've got a trinitarian modalist consistent appearance of just Jesus to Joseph at 1832. Then we have this 1833 set of revelations where all of a sudden Joseph is changing his view of the Trinity, it seems to me, and also starting to think about three degrees of glory. And now he's starting to think about the beginnings of theosis, the seeds of divine power and humans becoming Godlike. Seems like that's emerging at this point. And Then he's also, just for the fun of the timeline, he's thinking about premortal existence, which is kind of newer in terms of humans being premortal spirits, potentially along with Jesus. And then lo and behold, as soon as the Book of Abraham papyrus show up, it's like, what's he going to put in there? And it doesn't seem coincidental. So when did the papyri show up?

John Turner [01:31:33] 1835.

John Dehlin [01:31:35] Okay. The papyrus show up in 1835. Lo and behold, what do we associate with the Book of Abraham? It's Abraham 3, 22 and 23, where there's this telling of a premortal existence, where there was a war in heaven and there were noble and great spirits. And that timeline all of a sudden makes a lot more sense. Like, okay, mummies are going to show up with papyri. Joseph's going to say, oh my gosh, this is Joseph and Abraham's writings. I'm going to translate them. What's he going to put in there? It's probably going to be stuff that he's thinking about in 1830-1833.

John Turner [01:32:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:16] So for me, this is, this through line is starting to really come together and make sense. By the way, that whole book of Abraham 3, 22 and 23 thing has God and Jesus as separate beings. So I mean, this is all sort of evolving and growing and making sense now as a. I'll just call it a theological build. Does that make sense?

John Turner [01:32:38] Sure. No, that makes sense. Just one. One minor thing. So Abraham three, I don't think that's dictated until 1842.

John Dehlin [01:32:46] Two.

John Turner [01:32:48] So he only, he only makes a start with the Book of Abraham in 1835 and then comes back to it later, which also I would say that, you know, Joseph being straightforwardly and bluntly anti trinitarian, you really get that by the late 1830s, early 1840s, he's definitely pushing in that direction, I think, in 1833, but really articulates that, you know, sharply later on, so. Absolutely. And I think, you know, one thing we don't know, and I don't really try to unravel this in the book, but I think it's an important point. I really keep the focus in my biography of Joseph Smith on Joseph Smith, but, you know, he spends a lot. You know, I think he's probably fleshing out these ideas in conversation with his associates. You know, Sidney Rigdon, William Phelps is a very theologically creative mind. So I don't think it's just Joseph sitting in his translating room and Happening on these ideas. I think these are evolving in community and conversation and in the book, for obvious reasons, I make it really a matter of Joseph. But a lot of this is almost certainly a group effort.

John Dehlin [01:34:15] Yeah. And to that point you've got this quote I wrote down antecedents and parallels do not detract from Joseph's creativity. And two questions I wanted to ask there. One was, I'm sure you're familiar with the work of. I think it's Thomas Wayment and his grad student or undergrad at the time, Haley, I think that's her name. Where they were. They were able to tie the Adam Clark commentary to some of Joseph's writings or even workings with the Joseph Smith translation. Does any of this stuff that we've just been talking about also appear in the Adam Clark commentary? And I'm kind of putting you on the spot that you might even have recall of that.

John Turner [01:35:04] Well, I do, I do.

John Dehlin [01:35:07] One, one, you know, modifications.

John Turner [01:35:09] Yeah, no, I do.

John Dehlin [01:35:10] Park.

John Turner [01:35:11] I, I don't think so. No, it wouldn't have been because Clark was and you know, just down the road trinitarian Methodist. I, I do like their work on the Clark commentary. I think Colby Townsend has also done work on that as another source of Joseph's thought. I, in, I think my, maybe in my Mormon Jesus book. I do a little bit with the Clark commentary on a, on a couple of. They're not like earth shattering things, but I do think, yeah, that's something that Joseph was familiar with.

John Dehlin [01:35:54] Do you think he's, he's potentially accessing it during the school the prophets in middle 1833. Do you, do you have any idea?

John Turner [01:36:01] I really don't have any idea and I, I don't think it, I don't think that's what's pushing him in the directions that we just talked about because I don't think Adam Clark would have, would have liked the revision to John John 1.

John Dehlin [01:36:16] Okay, got it. Makes sense. Okay. But you seem to allude to the fact that there might have been not just Sidney Rigdon and others around him, that there were other people talking about things like a premortal existence or I don't know, God and Jesus being separate. Because that quote about antecedents and parallels do not detract from Joseph's creativity. It was almost like you were saying, don't just write him off as a plagiarist. There was still creativity involved. But by inferring that, it seems like you were referring to other potential sources of inspiration by other non LDS thinkers. Is that. Right. And if so, who might those people have been?

John Turner [01:37:02] Yeah, so that's a great question. And I think the thing that's always hard to know. So the Adam Clark commentary is a good example of a text that may have had a direct influence on Joseph's ideas or even in some cases language. And obviously the Bible itself is the foremost example of that. When it comes to texts like the Book of Mormon, I think in a lot of other instances there are ideas that are more in the ether rather than, you know, Joseph finds a text and uses it as a direct source. So for instance, Joseph is, you know, his ideas become very much aligned with the idea of an infinite, infinite expanding universe with a multitude of inhabitable worlds. You could find ideas roughly like that in the writings of the, I think he's Scottish philosopher and thinker Thomas Dick. I think other people have written about some of those parallels. Ben park might have authored an essay on that. In terms of premortal existence, I mean you can find, or fortunate fall, you can find those ideas that, you know, stretching back to John Milton. So they've been around a long time. I think I, you know, my own view is, yeah, Joseph latches on to ideas that are current, presents them in creative ways. I sort of don't like the, you know, I, I, and you, you, you, you said something like everything is remix maybe a few episodes ago.

John Dehlin [01:39:05] Yeah, that's not original for me, but I heard that.

John Turner [01:39:08] Yeah, I mean, I think, I think sometimes it's easy to say, oh well, okay, that idea is already out there. So therefore it's, you know, really invalid or unimpressive. I mean, yeah, I think it's rare that Joseph simply repeats or apes another idea. I think it, more often it's, it's creative engagement. I mean, some of the long quotes from the Bible in the Book of Mormon, that's a different sort of thing. But for the most part there are these ideas out there. Joseph finds some of them congruent with his own thought, reworks them in new ways. I mean, masonry is another example later on where it's more often creative engagement and going in some new and different directions.

John Dehlin [01:40:02] You may have mentioned Origen, a third century theologian. Did you already mention him in this episode and I missed it?

John Turner [01:40:08] I don't, I don't think I have.

John Dehlin [01:40:10] Okay, so you mention someone named Origen, O R I G E N as believing in a premortal existence of human souls as early as third century.

John Turner [01:40:23] Mm.

John Dehlin [01:40:24] What is that A.D. what do they say now?

John Turner [01:40:27] Well, people now say C.E. but C.E. you can stick with A.D. as far as I'm concerned, because you could call it anything, but it's still dating everything after Jesus. So.

John Dehlin [01:40:38] Yeah.

John Turner [01:40:39] Okay. You can't get away from it too easily.

John Dehlin [01:40:41] So do you think Joseph had access to origin?

John Turner [01:40:44] No, I just think, you know, back in the third century, it wasn't. You can find a number of examples of theologians who believe in, you know, some sort of pre existence of human souls, some sort of premortal existence. That does not stick for most little O orthodox Christians. But it's not basically just saying it's not an idea. That's totally original to Joseph Smith. Terrell Givens wrote a great book on the subject. When souls have Wings. There are a lot of antecedents for the idea of a premortal spiritual existence.

John Dehlin [01:41:29] Yeah. There's that scripture mastery quote I memorized as a freshman in high school. Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. Right. That's Old Testament.

John Turner [01:41:40] Yeah, I think. I don't know. I think it's from the book of Psalms, but I could be wrong.

John Dehlin [01:41:46] It's not Psalms, but I guess I'm

John Turner [01:41:48] not as good at scriptural mastery as John Dehlin.

John Dehlin [01:41:51] Well, I had to memorize 40 scriptures a year for early morning seminary.

John Turner [01:41:57] Okay. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:41:59] Before I knew the in the belly. Jeremiah 1:5, Jeremiah. I knew that. Oh, no, no, no. It's good. But that, that would lead people. That's a scripture in the Old Testament. That would lead someone to believe that there was a premortal existence. Right, sure.

John Turner [01:42:15] It hasn't led most people to believe that, but. Yeah, I mean, actually I. I do sort of like it. I do like the fact that for many of my fellow Protestants who really want to write Mormonism out of the boundaries of Christianity, there are a lot of Christians who played around with some of the ideas that Joseph Smith developed in earlier centuries.

John Dehlin [01:42:45] What do you think? What's your bet? That you existed in a previous life? John Turner, do you have a over under on that?

John Turner [01:42:52] I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:42:53] Or a personal belief? Don't you like the idea that you existed before you came to the earth? I think Mormons like that. Yeah.

John Turner [01:43:00] No, I think that's. That's true. I mean, it's just not part of my tradition. So I.

John Dehlin [01:43:06] You. You started at birth.

John Turner [01:43:08] Yeah, I just think. I think I started at birth. I'm just trying to figure out this existence

John Dehlin [01:43:15] sufficient. The evil of the day thereof.

John Turner [01:43:17] Right.

John Dehlin [01:43:18] All right. Okay. So you go on in the book to talk about the two temples. He has designs for the kirtland Temple and the School of the Prophets is going to move right into the upper, you know, level of the Kirtland Temple. Certainly a different design than, you know, the way Mormon temples end up being designed post Nauvoo. Because he doesn't envision, I don't know, theater rooms. He doesn't envision multiple rooms that you move to, to do the temple endowment ceremony. And that's because the endowment hadn't been developed yet. He hadn't gone through the Masonic ceremony yet. So it's more like a, it's more like a worship chapel, meeting house, but on steroids with the school above. Is that fair to say? With some curtains and some pulpits? Right.

Plans for Zion and the Kirtland Temple

John Turner [01:44:10] No, that's a pretty good description. Right. So no, there's no Baptistry because Joseph hasn't thought about baptism for the dead yet. And you're right. I mean, it's interesting that from the start he's thinking about these two main floors, an upper and a lower court. So there's going to be a lot of space for worship and for large assemblies, especially as Joseph thinks more about this in the coming years. The, the main purpose is the endowment of power. And then, yes, there's, so there's room for smaller meetings in the school upstairs. And then he's, he's got grand aspirations for how to develop Zion. You know, not just a single temple, but he envisions 24 temples at first, which he describes as houses of worship and schools.

John Dehlin [01:45:09] Okay. Now we're Mormons, sometimes think of Zion as kind of nebulous, but now we're moving. Independence, Missouri.

John Turner [01:45:16] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:45:16] Okay, yeah. Let me, let me read what I've got there. It's, it's almost like a modern develop, like property development. So I've got, and this is from you, of course, like 49 blocks farm surrounding 20.5 acre lots. 24 temples. 15 to 20,000 people would live there.

John Turner [01:45:38] Right.

John Dehlin [01:45:38] That sounds like property development, but pretty fancy suburban property development. Right.

John Turner [01:45:43] It's a planned Zion community. Yeah, absolutely. And the idea was you would fill up this. It's a 1 mile square, and then you're going to replicate it. And as always, Joseph is, he's thinking big. And you know, you can look at the plat of Zion, which, you know, you know, diagrams this.

John Dehlin [01:46:09] Wait, 24 temples in one square mile.

John Turner [01:46:12] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:46:14] That's intense. Yeah, that's more intense than Utah is today.

John Turner [01:46:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:19] You don't have 24 temples in one square mile. Even in Utah.

John Turner [01:46:23] Not even in Utah. You don't. I don't think you usually even have 24 meeting houses in one square mile.

John Dehlin [01:46:29] Maybe that could be possible.

John Turner [01:46:33] Not quite maybe, but yeah, I want to do that.

John Dehlin [01:46:37] Julia, do that math of like average number of Mormon chapels in Cache Valley in a square mile. I want to say it's more than two.

John Turner [01:46:47] More than two, sure. I don't think 24, but yeah, so Joseph has this, has this really, you know, and again, there's only a few hundred, well, more, maybe more than a few hundred by now. But I don't think there's more than a thousand Mormons in Jackson County. So this is, this is quite something. And you know, it's, it's in a way a little bit fanciful. It's sort of a, you know, almost semi utopian vision. You're going to have this, this community, there's going to be farms all around it to support it. And yeah, it's going to thrill. This thrills some of Joseph's followers. The plaid itself, but the, not the plaid itself, but the movement of, ongoing movement of church members to Jackson county that, that alarms everybody else who's there.

John Dehlin [01:47:52] Yeah. And it's interesting because the one thought that I had is, okay, they weren't able to fulfill that prophecy back then. So of course I've got my failed prophecy question mark. I'm not going to ask you if that was a failed prophecy. I think that'd be ham fisted, which, you know, is not beyond me. But you know, I'm not going to do it now. But I did think about it. I thought, well, clearly this was a revelation Joseph received. And now the Mormon church has 300 billion plus, you know, dollars in net worth. That is literally a design that the church could build today. They could literally just build. I mean, they own the Mormon Church. I did not plan to talk about this. My understanding is the Mormon Church is the number one or the number two landowner in almost all 50 of the US states. So clearly they could acquire the property. And clearly they've done a ton of real estate development in Florida and in Utah and in other places. So they're into community planning. Like one question that came to my mind is why doesn't the Mormon Church now use its money and land and power to try to build one of these, you know, 49 block, 20.5 acre lot 24 temple, 15 to 20,000 people communities that Joseph envisioned it'd be a way for, it'd be a way for them to fulfill Joseph's prophecy.

John Turner [01:49:19] Well, there's one, there's one big problem for this.

John Dehlin [01:49:23] Okay.

John Turner [01:49:23] Supposed to Be an independent,

John Dehlin [01:49:27] I bet. I mean, the church just bought from the Community of Christ pretty much all the sacred relics and property. Like, it seems like they could find a way to pull that off. If they could buy the Kirtland Temple from Community of Christ maybe they could acquire that land.

John Turner [01:49:43] Well, we'll see. I mean, the temple lot, maybe, but a square mile of independence, that. That would be a heavy lift, even. Even for. Even for your brethren.

John Dehlin [01:49:54] Why? What. Wait, wait. A square mile? How much the church, doesn't it own thousands and tens and twenty thousands of acres of cattle land in Florida. Why would that be so hard?

John Turner [01:50:07] Well, I mean, it's one thing. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it is more feasible than I'm suggesting but it's one thing to buy a cattle ranch or, you know, an orange grove. It's a. I mean, independence is not the frontier anymore. So there's a lot of stuff there and that square mile. And I don't. I don't just mean the temple lot or the Community of Christ Temple. There's just a lot of. There's a lot of property. There's a lot of buildings. I'm not saying the church wouldn't have the resources for that value but I just think that would be. That actually would be hard to pull off. All right, don't get too excited, John Delenn. That's what I'm saying.

John Dehlin [01:50:50] Hey, I've got the spirit of Joseph in me. I think it's a pretty cool vision. I might. I might want to move into a community like that. I think the property values would be pretty high. Honestly, whenever a temple goes up, property values go up. Imagine what the property value is with 24 temples surrounding you.

John Turner [01:51:07] Yeah, that is. That is true. But I guess if they're going to do that they'd better do it in Utah rather than an Independence because you at least need a concentration of church members to be coming to all those temples.

John Dehlin [01:51:21] All right, well, we'll have to leave that for now. But it's still. I'm going to give it to Joseph Smith. It's a pretty cool vision. He gets a 10 for visionary for me.

John Turner [01:51:29] Okay. Giving him an A, right?

John Dehlin [01:51:31] I'm giving him an A. It's not a backhanded compliment. He is a. A plus visionary. Fair.

John Turner [01:51:38] No, I think it's totally fair. It's always. I mean, his ideas are always audacious. They're always far beyond the current capabilities of his people. They're very aspirational. I think that's actually probably a good way of understanding them. They're. They, they. They are designed to, in part, at least, to motivate and galvanize his people and his movement.

John Dehlin [01:52:12] Amen. All right, well, John Turner, it's time for us to call or not call in audible. The. There. There's a whole nother section of your chapter for me, that's probably longer than what we've talked before. It's basically all about the, the antagonism and antipathy and persecution, the anti Mormon persecution, both in Kirtland and in Missouri. And because we're an hour and 52 minutes in, I. I could go another two, but I don't know that I want to do a four hour episode. And I'm starting to think that what we've covered merits its own episode. And also that the persecution in Kirtland in Missouri might warrant its own episode. But what that means is for the first time in this series, we're going to make two episodes out of a single chapter. Tell me, I'm kind of asking you on the spot to call an audible. What do you say we wrap up this episode so that it's not four hours and then break this chapter up into two episodes? Because now we're funded through at least I think 40 episodes. So that gives us the liberty of not having to necessarily do one episode per chapter. Tell me what you think.

John Turner [01:53:36] I'm. I'm down with that. That sounds totally good.

John Dehlin [01:53:39] Okay. All right, so it's settled. So part so you don't stop donating because we just made the decision that we're gonna do more. If you love these episodes, we're gonna do more episodes than 32, so. So there you have it. Today we have covered the first half, or maybe the first third of chapter 13. Zionist fled 1833 and 1834. What you have to look forward to next is Hurlbuts, the persecution in Kirtland. The trial of Dr. Right. Dr. Philostus Hurlbut. Is that his name? Yeah, we're going to talk about that next. We're going to talk about the Solomon Spalding manuscript. We're going to talk about Joseph. One of the things that blew me away. You said that Joseph compared the persecution in Kirtland to the persecution in Independence, which. How in the world could the persecution have been as bad in Kirtland as in Independence? But Joseph said it so clearly, he felt it. And then we're going to go deep on the precursors to Zion's camp, which is all the really dark and sad persecution that I think is un American, frankly, that the Saints in Zion face by the Missourians prior to Zion's camp. And I was gripped by the second half of this chapter. Anything you want to say just as kind of foreshadowing for our viewers and listeners?

Persecution Ahead and Closing Reflections

John Turner [01:55:19] No, that's good. I mean, so I could have flippantly said your people are taking it on the chin next week. But yeah, there really isn't anything funny about it because what the Saints repeatedly endure in Missouri is, is just dreadful and it sometimes is is heartbreaking. And I agree with you about it being un American and only disagree to the extent that in at this time period, majorities often tyrannize minorities. It's sort of the dark side of democracy in, in a way. So yeah, we will have plenty to talk about. This is actually one of the longer chapters. So we'll, we'll do the second half the, you know, some, some tough stuff. And also talking about Hurlbut and Solomon Spalding. I think those are. That's an important subject as well.

John Dehlin [01:56:26] I'll just say Julia did her quick analysis. I think she found one chapel per 2.5 square miles. Maybe that's for all of Utah. I went ahead and asked Chad GPT to do the same thing. It found 3.92 estimated chapels per square mile in Orem, Utah. Bountiful had 2.73. South Jordan had 1.85. So the best we can get in Utah of chapels per square mile, According to Chad, GBT is rounding up to 4. I asked it to look at Logan and Cache Valley and it's still thinking. But I guess I'm going to say that just again. Joseph is ambitious because he wants more temples per square mile in Independence or Zion than there are chapels. No, let me say that differently. He wants 10 times the number of temples per square mile as there are chapels in Utah per square mile in 2025.

John Turner [01:57:33] Yeah, fun stuff.

John Dehlin [01:57:36] All right. Sorry, you may you make me nerd out, which is kind of weird for me. John Turner but that's what, that's what your book does. So everyone go buy Joseph Smith and the Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John Turner. Buy it Share this Episode subscribe to this Channel Share this Like it? Comment it, Give us your feedback and please continue donating. If you want to see us do more cool stuff. We'll do more than 30 chapters or 30 episodes if y' all support it. So don't stop supporting us. Who knows the great things we can do? Maybe we'll start a church. John Turner or maybe Maybe we'll just help convince the Mormon Church to develop land in Missouri according to Joseph Smith's revelations. Maybe that should be our purpose.

John Turner [01:58:29] Look, I'm just trying to get people to love history. It's priceless.

John Dehlin [01:58:36] All right. Thanks, John Turner. Thanks, Julia, for your help behind the scenes. Thanks to the donors of To Mormon stories and to donorbox.org Joseph Smith, all the donors to this specific project. We couldn't do without you. We're super grateful. Thanks for tuning in today. Join us next episode for part two of chapter 13 of this book. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of the Joseph Smith Podcast and Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody.

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