Today we are joined with Sandra Tanner to discuss Mormon historian, Richard Bushman’s recent response to the CES Letter. Bushman’s response was on the topic of the translation of the Book of Mormon. Did Joseph Smith really use a seer stone? Is the author of the CES Letter, Jeremy Runnells, wrong for feeling betrayed by the church? Did the church really hide that Joseph Smith had and used a seer stone to translate their most sacred text? Join us to find out these answers!
Episode Transcript
Host: John Dehlin · Co-hosts: Gerardo Sumano, Julia · Guest: Sandra Tanner
This transcript is machine-generated and lightly edited for readability. The audio is authoritative. Please excuse occasional errors in names and spelling.
Introduction and Episode Overview
Julia [00:00:00] Foreign.
John Dehlin [00:00:04] And welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is August 28, 2024 4:19pm we're broadcasting live today from the Mormon Story studios somewhere in a undisclosed hidden bunker in somewhere in Utah or in the Mountain West. Is that clandestine enough, y'? All? Yeah, it's good. Is that good? We're joined by the queen. And when I say the queen, I mean Sandra Tanner. Hey, Sandra.
Sandra Tanner [00:00:36] Hi.
John Dehlin [00:00:37] And by the king, Gerardo Sumano. Hey, Gerardo. So this is a wide shot of the king and queen. Somebody used to make a meme with. With the crowns on their head. But we're here today to talk about the thumbnail is top Mormon historian admits issues raised in CES Letter. And it's a really fascinating story. Basically, recently the CES letter and Jeremy Reynolds have been under attack.
John Dehlin [00:01:08] Again, we have to assume he's under attack because like Sandra, he's been so successful. Do they come after successful people, Sandra? Do they come after people that are effective in it seems that way. So they're coming after Jeremy full force. We're going to talk about it today. And interestingly, they brought on Richard Bushman, Dr. Richard Bushman, Columbia emeritus professor, former stake president, former patriarch. They brought him on world's most renowned Joseph Smith scholar. They brought him on an anti CES letter YouTube channel to comment on the CES letter. And to all of our amazement, I mean, our interpretation was, was that he pretty much validated most of what. What most of what Jeremy writes in the CES letter. You're laughing, Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [00:02:00] Yeah, I mean, he did. But I mean, some interesting arguments here and there that we're going to be discussing.
John Dehlin [00:02:08] But, but we'll, we'll let you be the judge. So that's we're going to be talking about today. We also have in studio, not in studio, we have joining us remotely from an undisclosed satellite location in a bunker somewhere in the Midwest, we have Julia. Hey, Julia.
Julia [00:02:27] Hi.
John Dehlin [00:02:29] Thanks for joining us.
Julia [00:02:30] Yeah, of course.
John Dehlin [00:02:32] And Julia has been helping us with the LDS discussion series. She's our resident historian. Sandra, you're sort of our emeritus. Your Mormon Stories is emeritus historian. And Julia sits in the Sandra Tanner chair of History for Mormon Stories podcast.
Sandra Tanner [00:02:51] Glad to pass the wand on.
John Dehlin [00:02:54] Are you okay with that characterization, Julia?
Julia [00:02:56] I don't think I could ever take Sandra's place. I don't know.
John Dehlin [00:03:00] Well, it's an endowed chair.
Sandra Tanner [00:03:02] There you go.
John Dehlin [00:03:02] In her name. I think we started pretty silly. Okay, let's get more serious. Anyway, we welcome our live audience Maven is gracious enough to join us in the live chats. She's going to star any questions or comments that she thinks we should pay attention to. She's going to ban all the baddies.
John Dehlin [00:03:22] And please share. Please feel free to make your comments on YouTube with super chat donations that'll make sure your question or comment gets read. And then finally, we want to thank all the Mormon Stories donors that make all this possible. But also we want to make a call for people to apply to be on Mormon Stories. So we have a new website. Gerardo was instrumental, along with my friend Dave, in designing it and upgrading the website.
John Dehlin [00:03:56] And we have a new application process for people who want to be on Mormon Stories. And we're looking for certain types of interviews for the next couple months. We're looking for anyone who wants to share kind of a young, single, adult dating experience and what that's like to try and date Mormons in the modern age, preferably someone in their 20s to early 30s and someone who's willing to just be candid about the dating experience.
John Dehlin [00:04:26] That's the YSA panel that we hope to do. We've got a couple of people for that. We're looking for people, if anybody wants to be a part of a panel on infertility, we're looking for one or two more people to be on that. And then we're looking for grandparents. We're looking for people who experienced a faith crisis later in their life as grandparents in their golden years, their 50s, their 60s or 70s, even their 80s. And we would love to interview some couples who are grandparents who experienced their faith crisis at that point. And then we're always interested in just people who are superstar Mormons.
John Dehlin [00:05:00] And what I mean by that is they were in it to kind of Leah Cody, young Donna Showalter types, former bishops, former Relief Society presidents, just people who are really intensely devoutly Mormon. We're always looking for those types of stories. If you fit any of those or if you just have a really cool story that you want to tell, go to MormonStories.org and apply to be on the show. We would love to have you. Okay, that's enough business. Now, Gerardo, I think you're producing, you're kind of leading us in today's episode, is that right?
Background on the CES Letter and Its Origins
Gerardo Sumano [00:05:34] Yeah, I mean, along with Julia, we. We both together worked on this on putting together the clips that we're going to show. I think you wanted to cover a little bit of the background of what's been going on with the CS letter. I. I did Wanted to say that it seems like this YouTube channel is an independent organization, as far as I could tell this morning. I was trying to do some research on it. I. They don't seem to be associated with. Know. One of the organizations that we know most like. More Good and. And Book of Mormon Central and others.
John Dehlin [00:06:05] But aren't they all funded by shadow nonprofits?
Gerardo Sumano [00:06:09] Yeah, I mean, we. We can never know. What's interesting, there's no way to donate on their website, but I did think it was a really different approach than some of the slides you're going to share by Meridian. Like their website, the way they talk about Jeremy is as if he was a sincere believer, you know, who was actually having questions. And. And even the way that Bushman talks about him and the. And the host are pretty respectful towards Jeremy, in my opinion.
John Dehlin [00:06:34] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:06:34] A very different tone from. From these other attacks. But it is kind of interesting that it's all coming at once. Right, right.
John Dehlin [00:06:41] I feel very confident that the CES letters. And so that's one of the things. I guess we should just talk about it. The organization is calling itself CES Letters. Yeah, plural. I would imagine Jeremy Runnels would have something to say about the fact that they're basically taking the branding. His branding and exploiting it for SEO purposes. Maybe he'll have more to say about that. But it's called CES Letters, and my sense is it's a coordinated effort because why would all of these different independent publications basically be promoting. Be promoting it all at the same time?
Gerardo Sumano [00:07:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely possible. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:07:23] Okay. All right, so do you want to. Do you want me to do these first couple slides, or do you want to do it? Okay. Is that you?
Gerardo Sumano [00:07:31] Go ahead.
John Dehlin [00:07:32] Okay. So y' all will be familiar with Meridian magazine. Meridian Magazine has been sort of an online web zine for many, many years that defends the church, does faith promoting stuff, but also attacks critics of the church. Maureen Proctor is one of the leaders of Meridian magazine. And so here is a new article by Maureen Proctor, and it's entitled Unveiling the Truth. The Real Story behind the CES Letter. Does that look like an AI generated photo, Gerardo? Yeah, it does. I mean, unless it's an actor. What do you think, Julia? Is that an. Is that an AI?
Julia [00:08:16] I think it's absolutely AI.
John Dehlin [00:08:18] Okay. And how would you describe that, Julia? That photo?
Julia [00:08:22] This. It's a man. He's, like. He looks like a Hugh Jackman type with glasses, and he's, like, really, really trying to look into this book. Like, trying to Think about stuff.
John Dehlin [00:08:31] He's got, like, a furrowed brow, but he's a beard. So, Cedar, what do we. What do we think about people with beards?
Sandra Tanner [00:08:38] Oh, they aren't Faith.
John Dehlin [00:08:42] So he's got a beard and he's got a furrow brow, and. And so Maureen Proctor is going to unveil the truth, the real story behind the CES Letter. Another one is Public Square magazine. As I understand it, this publication may have been started in coordination with Ralph Hancock, an old professor of mine. Anyway, the article in Public Square is entitled the True origins of the CES letter. This one, it says C.D. cunningham. I don't know who that is. And then also research by Michael. Does that say Peterson? Julia?
Julia [00:09:19] Yeah, that looks like Peterson published Peace.
John Dehlin [00:09:21] And then the next one is again published Peace. And it says, were these ever the sincere questions of an earnest truth seeker? And it's written by Michael Peterson and Jacob Hess. Now, Jacob Hess is a name that we've covered on Mormon Stories podcast before. Gerardo, do you remember covering Jacob Hess?
Gerardo Sumano [00:09:40] I was not on the episode.
Guest 1 [00:09:41] But you.
Gerardo Sumano [00:09:41] You covered it with Kara. I think you did a response to one of his videos. Yeah, Apologetics.
John Dehlin [00:09:47] Yeah. Yep. And I. I see him as. I think he. He's almost inheriting the mantle of Daniel Peterson. Not as a legitimate scholar. I think he has a PhD in some family focused, family studies kind of PhD. I don't think it's clinical or counseling psychology, but somewhere in Indiana, I think. And I think he writes for the Deseret News now. He's actually one of the writers on the Deseret News. Sandra, is it fair to call the Deseret News a propaganda newspaper for the church these days, or is that unfair?
Sandra Tanner [00:10:22] Well, from an apostate point of view, I would think that sounded fair.
John Dehlin [00:10:30] Julia, does that seem fair to you, or.
Julia [00:10:31] Yeah, that's probably fair.
John Dehlin [00:10:33] Okay. All right. So Jacob, of course, now writes with them. You know who else writes? There's another former. Do you remember the kind of BYU female. Hannah. Hannah. No.
Julia [00:10:47] Oh, wait, who?
John Dehlin [00:10:48] She. She used to work of Abraham stuff.
Guest 1 [00:10:51] Oh, my gosh.
Gerardo Sumano [00:10:51] What's her name?
John Dehlin [00:10:54] You have to look it up.
Julia [00:10:55] Dixon Everett Judd. I don't know. I can't remember.
Gerardo Sumano [00:10:58] I can't remember.
John Dehlin [00:10:59] You know what?
Julia [00:10:59] I'm talking right ahead.
John Dehlin [00:11:00] She. She was. She was doing articles with. With Brian. How glit about Book of Abraham. You know what I'm talking about. You look it up. Just a recent faith writer for Deseret News Religion. She's writing for them, and Jacob has, so they're really Going apologetic with the Deseret News. Anyway, this article really goes after Jeremy and we're just going to share the bullets of basically the allegations they're making that basically, you know, Jeremy was an adversarial church bashing person long before the CES letter was written. The whole purpose of this is to smear Jeremy's reputation. It's basic poison. The well ad hominem, the CS letter based on Sandra's good work is, I'm sure, harming the church. And so what are they going to do, Sandra, if you can't, if you don't have good arguments, what do you do? You do spin and you attack the author. Right? You attack the author.
Gerardo Sumano [00:11:59] Hannah Syriac and I believe she was doing stuff with John G. I think if she had done with Brian Hogley, she would have come the other way.
John Dehlin [00:12:07] Yeah, yeah. So Hannah Syriac and Jacob Hess are writing for the Deseret News. Who knew? Anyway, we wish them well. So here's some of the examples of how they're poisoning the well with Jeremy that he's, he was adversarial church bashing before the letter was written. That he was disinterested in available and established channels for member questions. Yes, if he had just gone to the right channels, he could have got all the right answers, right, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [00:12:34] Well, yes, if he got to the right ones.
John Dehlin [00:12:37] And pray tell, which are the right channels to get the right answers?
Sandra Tanner [00:12:40] Just anything except those put out by byu.
John Dehlin [00:12:45] I mean, what do you think they mean? The gospel topic essays.
Gerardo Sumano [00:12:47] I mean, had they come out?
John Dehlin [00:12:49] I don't even know.
Sandra Tanner [00:12:50] No, there wasn't any.
John Dehlin [00:12:51] No, they weren't out yet. They weren't out yet.
Sandra Tanner [00:12:53] Where would he have turned?
John Dehlin [00:12:54] I mean, farms, Maxwell Institute, Fair Mormon, but that's all garbage. We all know that stuff's garbage.
Gerardo Sumano [00:13:02] Yeah, like that's, I mean, it's evident that it's not working. Right. That's why they keep attacking.
John Dehlin [00:13:07] Exactly. It's just that it's not. And that's why so many people are leaving the church. Because Fairmormon, Maxwell Institute, they're, they're not, you know, and FARMS is gone. So I mean.
Guest 1 [00:13:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:13:18] Where was Jeremy supposed to turn anyway? 3 Seeking feedback from church antagonists prior to publication. I wonder who he means.
Sandra Tanner [00:13:26] Oh dear. Oh no.
John Dehlin [00:13:27] Is that you? Did Jeremy ever meet with you?
Sandra Tanner [00:13:29] I think he read Our Shadow. A reality.
John Dehlin [00:13:32] Yeah. And I mean, I, I, you know, I don't know that I was in touch much with Jeremy before CES letter, so I don't know. Reddit. I think he Means the ex Mormon Reddit for public statements revealing a much broader intended audience. So they're basically saying he was always intending the CES letter to. To. To be published to the world to embarrass the church.
Gerardo Sumano [00:13:54] Well, if you are someone. I mean, I think he acknowledges from the be. From the letter at the beginning, because I read it just a few weeks ago, that he already is not a believer. And that really doesn't matter if the CS director responds or whatever he tells him, because he already kind of decided that there's not really good answers, but he's still opened. So I don't know. They're trying to portray him as, like he was still believing when he wrote the letter, when that. That's not what Jeremy has ever tried to portray in my. From what I read.
Sandra Tanner [00:14:25] But this is the same tact they were using when Gerald and I started questioning back in 1959. We were listening to the enemies of the church. I was listening to Gerald. I mean, it was just. It was. It passed the buck. Everything was because we listened to somebody. El.
John Dehlin [00:14:43] You listen to Fawn Brody?
Sandra Tanner [00:14:44] Yes, we read apostate literature. So, of course we were having problems. And I went into my bishop about this, and the guy he brings in to be the big answer man, he says, well, if you'll just read Joseph Fielding Smith's books, Answers to Gospel Questions and Doctrines of salvation, it will solve all these things.
Guest 2 [00:15:05] The.
Sandra Tanner [00:15:05] The game hasn't changed. It's just the people that are writing the material has changed, but the arguments haven't changed.
John Dehlin [00:15:14] No, I'm glad you're here.
Gerardo Sumano [00:15:15] And what I was going to say also, if. If I'm gonna write a letter to a CS director, take all the time to gather all the answers, of course I'm gonna want to publish whatever his response is gonna be.
John Dehlin [00:15:26] Yeah. It's so dumb. It's so dumb. All right, really quickly. 5. Is textual similarities mirroring other published dissidents. Again, I'm sure they're finding they're probably. Do you think the CS letter borrowed from your work?
Sandra Tanner [00:15:41] Oh, I think Jeremy acknowledges that he read our Mormonism shadow or reality first, that it was part of his process of figuring out the real story. Yeah, we look to Fawn Brody. I mean, yes, each of us builds on those that have gone before, but it's because the evidence is there. It isn't just that we're just mimicking the guy before. It's that we read the guy before and checked out the references. Well, that makes sense. Yes. This. This is the real story.
John Dehlin [00:16:12] Yeah, yeah. Like. Yeah, like, why wouldn't. Where else are you gonna go? Like, if you want an honest. If Jeremy. Let's just say it's 2012 and Jeremy wants the truth about Mormonism, where else is he gonna go? But. But. But Mormon think. Sandra Tanner, Shadow and reality. Fawn Brody, Mormon stories. Where else is he gonna go?
Gerardo Sumano [00:16:36] Plus, why does he matter? Any. Why does any of this matter?
John Dehlin [00:16:40] Yeah, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:16:40] If the questions are valid.
John Dehlin [00:16:42] That's right. Yeah. I mean, the gospel topics essays were created. Why? Because whatever the church was putting out was inadequate.
Guest 1 [00:16:48] Right.
John Dehlin [00:16:49] Am I wrong?
Sandra Tanner [00:16:50] Right. Well, I mean, you got the problem starts back with Joseph Smith. The neighbors all said he was involved in magic, and everyone's just been pointing that out ever since. And the church, just, like Bushman, they want to downplay what the neighbors said. So just because I tell you what the neighbors said doesn't invalidate the fact that's what the neighbors were saying about the origins of Mormonism. It all came out of magic.
John Dehlin [00:17:20] Absolutely.
Gerardo Sumano [00:17:21] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:17:21] And, Julie, you jump in anytime you want.
Guest 1 [00:17:23] All right.
Julia [00:17:24] Okay, perfect.
John Dehlin [00:17:25] Thanks to Jake for the super chat. Those. Those are really helpful. Okay, we'll just quickly do some of the others. He took a hostile and disparaging tone in the original essay. In other words, you're not allow to be angry if you're upset, if you're angry, if you feel betrayed, you have to hide that, because anger is an illegitimate emotion that I guess apparently disqualifies you.
Gerardo Sumano [00:17:46] Disqualifies your questions, I guess.
John Dehlin [00:17:48] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:17:49] Or the facts.
John Dehlin [00:17:50] I mean.
Sandra Tanner [00:17:50] Yeah, yeah. You just found out that the fellow that sold you all those stocks was not really buying anything with that money, but he bought a Cadillac. And. And you sound hostile when you find this out and go to question him about it. You just have a bad attitude.
John Dehlin [00:18:07] I mean, honestly, being angry shows he was sincere. Like, if. If he wasn't angry and he was just all calm, and then it would show that. That he didn't really passionately care about it. Care about it.
Sandra Tanner [00:18:19] Right, right.
John Dehlin [00:18:20] And if you watch his Mormon Stories interview, it's really obvious Jeremy cared and tried and believed anyway. It's so dumb. 7. Immediately promoting and personally disseminating the letter online. Like, yeah, the church with 80,000 missionaries. And how many missionary couples are criticizing people for, like, evangelizing or publishing?
Sandra Tanner [00:18:43] Yes. Who has the biggest publishing outfit?
John Dehlin [00:18:49] Somehow publishing is a bad thing, I guess. Okay. Disparaging attitudes and manipulative actions towards church leaders. So he's mad at church leaders. I guess. That's inappropriate. Discrediting extensive and ongoing branding expansion efforts over subsequent years. So the fact that he improved the CES letter, created a website, even. Even he actually made a new version to improve the tone, take out things that were inaccurate and that sounded too angry or hostile. And so they want it both ways. They want to criticize him for being angry, but when he improves it to make it less angry, they're going to say that. That he made edits over time. Does that seem weird?
Sandra Tanner [00:19:34] Well, they've made edits on theirs over time.
John Dehlin [00:19:39] They stopped dating the edits on the Gospel Topics. That says they changed them so much. I hear they put out New Gospel Topics essays just this week. Did y' all hear that?
Sandra Tanner [00:19:47] I heard something about it, but I haven't checked it out.
John Dehlin [00:19:49] Yeah, there's like four new essays. So we need to get on that. LDS discussions, Julie.
Julia [00:19:54] We need to get on that.
John Dehlin [00:19:55] All right, last one is malicious personal attacks upon many who dared to disagree. Oh, they're getting on Jeremy for. For malicious personal attacks. What is this whole article? Like, are these people? Like, are they serious? Are these people serious? They're getting after Jeremy for personal attacks.
Sandra Tanner [00:20:16] With a personal attack.
John Dehlin [00:20:17] His personal attack. These people are not serious. Yeah, these are not serious people. Okay, so anyway, I want to give a personal message. Julie, I want you to make this an Instagram and a tick tock clip, and I want you to tag Jacob Hess, Hannah Syriac, CES Letters, and Maureen Proctor of Meridian Magazine. Okay? We are doing this episode, and I will continue to do episodes promoting the CES Letter. We haven't talked about the CES Letter as a feature in a long time on Mormon stories. All right? But because you have chosen Jacob Hess, Maureen Proctor, all you people, because you've chosen to go after Jeremy and attack his character, I'm going to dedicate many, many, many, many episodes on Mormon stories to the CES Letter until you take down your disparaging attacks on Jeremy Runnels.
John Dehlin [00:21:14] So just know you are Jeremy's best friend in promoting the CES Letter as long as you continue these attacks. Mark my words, we are going to do a deep dive into the CES letter over the next 12 months, thanks to you. With our subscriber base of 250,000 people. Thank you, Jacob Hess. You're doing the Lord's work. Okay, without any further ado. Gerardo, take it away.
Guest 1 [00:21:38] Yeah.
Richard Bushman Interviewed About the CES Letter
Gerardo Sumano [00:21:39] All right, well, let's, let's, let's dive in. So I think you already gave a little bit of an introduction of, of this channel and, and website, CS Letters. Do you want to Put. Yeah, there we go. So here it is.
John Dehlin [00:21:51] So that's the website.
Gerardo Sumano [00:21:52] Yeah. Another reason why I don't think it's associated with more good is the branding looks a little bit homemade and it's more good when they do things. They do things by the hundreds of thousands.
John Dehlin [00:22:04] But why would you even want to, I don't know, create that, that appearance that that connection isn't there?
Gerardo Sumano [00:22:08] I, I don't know. I'm. I'm just saying I try to research it hard and it just seems a little bit so far smaller, but I don't know.
John Dehlin [00:22:15] All right, who knows? Okay.
Julia [00:22:17] Yeah, that's. That slide is the YouTube channel. So they, and they have like less than, what is it less than 400 people?
John Dehlin [00:22:22] So they're about to have a few more.
Gerardo Sumano [00:22:25] Yes. And so they have a few videos where they're responding or you know, in a faithful way to certain aspects of the CS letter. So for the section on the translation of the Book of Mormon regarding the Seer Stone and how the Book of Mormon was translated, they, they brought Richard Bushman, who is an expert in Joseph Smith. And I think there's you and Sandra have, uh, an expertise on, on who Richard Bushman is and do you want to talk about it?
John Dehlin [00:22:57] Oh, Sandra, do you or do you want me to?
Sandra Tanner [00:23:01] Well, he's written numerous books on the early Joseph Smith period since back in. He was in writing in 1980s forward. I don't remember when he first started writing on Mormon issues, but he's been out there for 40, 50 years at least.
John Dehlin [00:23:23] Actually, let me just say what I do know. When, when Leonard Arrington was church historian.
Sandra Tanner [00:23:28] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:23:28] He was commissioned to do like a 10 volume series on the church history.
Sandra Tanner [00:23:33] Right.
John Dehlin [00:23:33] With like a book for every 10 years of the church's history for the. Maybe 15 for the sesquicentennial.
Sandra Tanner [00:23:40] Yes.
John Dehlin [00:23:40] Would that have been 150?
Sandra Tanner [00:23:42] Yeah, I think so.
John Dehlin [00:23:42] Okay. And so Richard Bushman was asked to write the book on the beginning years of Joseph Smith's life. And so he wrote the book Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Early Mormonism, which for me was one of the most damaging books to my faith back in 2000, 2001, because I had read Fawn Brody, but in my mind it's like, well, she's an apostate, so I'm going to hold everything she says with a grain of salt. But then when I read Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Early Mormonism and as a patriarch and as a Stake president, and he may not have been a patriarch back then, but he I think he was a Stake president, but as a faithful, eminent Mormon historian, he was validating all the same stuff that.
John Dehlin [00:24:25] That Fawn Brody, you know, wrote in no Man Knows My History. That was actually more devastating to my testimony than Fawn Brody was. So, anyway, that's how he got his start. And then my understanding is he just imported Joseph Smith in the beginnings of early Mormonism into Rough Stone Rolling. That was. The first several chapters was like an update and a rewrite of that original book. And then he. He continued and wrote about the rest of his life in Rough Stone Rolling.
Sandra Tanner [00:24:52] Right. And in Rough Stone Rolling, you will find that he references Fawn Brody's book in the footnotes all the way through. He. He validates many of the things that Brody brings out. He just wants to give a softer landing to what you conclude from it. So, yes, the Smiths were involved in magic. Yes, they were involved in money digging. Yes, there's different accounts of the first vision. History said he did it, and so he admits all these things, but he wants to soften it by fuzzying the conclusions to make it palatable to you. But it's still, I think, a very disturbing story when you admit that he's using a rock in the hat. How do you make that sound reasonable in today's world? So even though he wants to say it's reasonable, obviously many Mormons today are struggling with even the soft version of admitting Joseph's magic and money digging.
John Dehlin [00:26:05] Yeah, absolutely.
Guest 1 [00:26:06] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:26:07] Really quickly, I'm just going to show the. The YouTube channel. And they've got, you know, Stephen Harper talking about the priesthood restoration. They've got Brian Hales talking about polygamy. So they've got all the.
Gerardo Sumano [00:26:19] Yeah.
Guest 1 [00:26:20] Main.
John Dehlin [00:26:21] They've got Steven Smoot talking about the Book of Abraham. So, you know, they're going to be getting the, The. The best and the brightest. I, I anticipate that this is good. And everyone is trying to just go at the CES letter for specific subjects.
Guest 1 [00:26:38] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:26:38] And undermine. Undermine it.
Gerardo Sumano [00:26:40] Well, what's so shocking, though, is about Richard Bushman, bas, in my view, acknowledging a lot of this. I mean, just like Sandra said, she does this. He does the same thing in the video as she. As he did on. On his book Rough Stone Rolling, admitting of all these things that can be problematic, but then trying to soften them. And, and that's what I think would be really interesting to.
John Dehlin [00:27:02] To.
Gerardo Sumano [00:27:02] For us to try to respond to his, his arguments.
John Dehlin [00:27:07] Yeah, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:27:07] As to why. Why you should come out of it as a believer, even though it's really kind of shocking.
John Dehlin [00:27:14] Yeah. So that's what we're going to be doing today is responding to Richard Bushman's interview on the CES Letters YouTube channel. And this is just part one of a multi part series. Now, Jacob Hess, if you go to Maureen and all these people and shut all this down and stop, you know, cheating Jeremy and using his, his name, smearing him, you know, violating his trademark or whatever it is his brand and attacking the person, then maybe I'll stop this series. But until then, I'm going to do it. Here's the slide that they put together on Richard Bushman. Three of his books we already mentioned Rough Stone Rolling. There's also a new book called Joseph Smith's Gold Plates. And then there's one called Believing History, Joseph Smith, the Beginnings of Early Mormonism. And sit there. So we're going to just dive in. Right. And start responding.
Gerardo Sumano [00:28:07] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:28:07] And we have Sandra here along with Julia and Gerardo to provide their reactions. Now, Sandra, how many times have you watched this video?
Sandra Tanner [00:28:15] Oh, at least four times.
Guest 2 [00:28:16] Wow.
Sandra Tanner [00:28:17] Maybe five.
John Dehlin [00:28:18] You're prepared.
Sandra Tanner [00:28:19] I don't know, but I've. Listen.
John Dehlin [00:28:23] All right, well, we're really excited for your reactions. And Julia, you jump right in. Okay?
Julia [00:28:27] Sure.
John Dehlin [00:28:27] Okay. And who's this dude? Who's this guy?
Julia [00:28:31] This is a, this is the host. He, this is the guy that hosts the YouTube channel. His name is Easton. I don't know his last name. I don't think he, he's the. Of this essay or in this video. He doesn't say his last name. So I don't know if other, if other viewers or other people would know, but it's Easton and I don't know anything about him. I couldn't find anything.
John Dehlin [00:28:50] I mean, just the fact that he's getting Richard Bushman shows that he's got endorsements.
Gerardo Sumano [00:28:55] Yeah, I, I don't think he's the owner of it.
John Dehlin [00:28:58] I mean, if Smooth doesn't Smooth work for BYU at some level, like, I'm not sure these are, these are the church's all star apologies.
Gerardo Sumano [00:29:06] I mean, getting Richard Bushman is a big deal.
John Dehlin [00:29:08] So. Yeah. So I am betting that the church money is behind this. Whether or not it's more good directly, I don't know.
Julia [00:29:14] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:29:15] So it's Easton. Is that his name? I'll try and remember that.
Guest 1 [00:29:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:29:18] All right, let's go ahead and jump and we'll just play the first clip and then we'll have the panel react and we, we hope you viewers and listeners will give your responses too. And we'll have Maven. Maven's been starring him, so we're in good shape.
Julia [00:29:30] Sorry.
Gerardo Sumano [00:29:30] One thing. I think another thing. What I thought it was really important to cover this is because if you are someone who has family members who are still believing, which I think we all do, this is a really good episode, even. Not ours, but the episode with Richard Bushman to send. To send to them so they can learn about the true history of how the Book of Mormon was translated.
John Dehlin [00:29:52] Wait, what are you saying?
Gerardo Sumano [00:29:53] I'm saying that it's a really good introduction for. For a believing member that has belief.
John Dehlin [00:29:58] Oh. So Gerardo's recommending if you've got believing family and friends and you don't want to send them the CES letter. Right, Send them the CES letters. And. And that'll be a great introduction to the CES letter.
Guest 1 [00:30:10] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:30:11] By showing them CS letters. Because, hey, Richard Bushman's on it.
Gerardo Sumano [00:30:13] Yes, yes.
John Dehlin [00:30:14] Yeah. And lots of BYU people and good things, so it's safe. Right, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [00:30:18] Well, one with hope, I guess.
John Dehlin [00:30:22] Let's look at it really quick. Thanks to Jake again for the super chat. Thanks to Cairo's fury. And then I don't get this joke. The Sandy Stone writes CES letters is Stephen H's first presidency assignment. Do we know what. What Sandy Stone's talking about there, Julia? Any idea?
Julia [00:30:43] I don't. Stephen H. Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:30:46] All right. Well, he'll have to tell us what he means in his joke. And we love. We love Colby. So Colby writes, all due respect to Jeremy, but it's honestly kind of funny. The apologists are still coming after him for the CES letter. I mean, it's. Because it's been devastating to the church.
Julia [00:31:04] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [00:31:04] Yeah. Obviously it is affecting a lot of people or they wouldn't have all these responses.
John Dehlin [00:31:10] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, I mean, attacks mean you're being successful in this church. Okay, well, let's go ahead and roll. Roll the first clip.
▶ Video Clip 1Video Clip 1 [00:31:23] Richard. As we get started, we're going to be talking all about the Book of Mormon translation, and I think that there's some important context to give before we dive into the actual topic of what does the translation process look like. So I want to just kind of run through some of the dates and who is involved. So Joseph Smith has his first vision in 1820. He eventually receives the golden plates in 1827. Is that right? I think after he receives the plates, he receives those in September of 1827. When does he begin the actual translation process, and who does he start the translation Process with.
The Book of Mormon Translation Process
Video Clip 1 [00:32:05] There's a little bit of dispute. The. The sources differ a little bit on it. The 1838 version is history said he did a little bit of translating shortly after he got the plate, so it'd be in the fall. Sure. Of 1827. And he took this. Martin Harris took that translation, as well as the characters from the plates to Charles Anthon. The other sources say Joseph Smith was buffaloed by the problem of how to translate. And it wasn't until the winter after Martin Harris came back that he really began translating Ernest. So there's a little disjuncture there, which hasn't been explained. But the fact is that time when he sat down and the translation just flowed from him, and he sat there day after day, that begins in the winter of 1828.
Video Clip 1 [00:33:06] Okay. And so.
John Dehlin [00:33:09] Okay, so what's interesting, I mean, the premise here is that Richard Bushman, by and large, admits whatever's in the book, whatever's in the CES letter. What's interesting about that clip. Anyone want to share? Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [00:33:23] Yeah, I mean, I could start.
Guest 1 [00:33:24] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:33:25] But I'm sure.
John Dehlin [00:33:25] Sandra, do you want to go first? Go ahead, Sandra.
Sandra Tanner [00:33:28] Well, my thought was that this for the Mormon, this implies that there was this short period of composing the book, and he's making it to this 28, 29 frame. But you have to understand that Joseph first started talking about the Book of Mormon in 1823. And so he's had years to get his story practiced and put together mentally before he starts dictating it. So to me, the length of the dictation process is just the culmination of him writing his story. So right there, you have to understand that it wasn't. That it wasn't something that just suddenly popped on the scene in just this very short time.
John Dehlin [00:34:23] Yeah, got it.
Gerardo Sumano [00:34:24] I saw something I hadn't understood until recently is that. And if you. You can put the other slide up, John, because Julia was gracious enough to put up all the timeline and the timeline of what's. From the moment that Joseph started talking about the. The plates. And like Sandra said, it's. It's pretty early. He starts in September of 1823.
Guest 1 [00:34:51] And.
John Dehlin [00:34:52] Okay, so you have me to show that slide. Okay, I'll show it right here.
Gerardo Sumano [00:34:55] And he. Something I had understood until recently is that he was not just telling stories. And I. And I could get that wrong. And please, for anyone, if. If I'm wrong, just correct me on the comments. But my understanding recently from an interview that Dan Vogel did was that he was not Just like sitting around and telling the stories to his family about the. About the Indians in the area. He was actually telling the stories that he was channeling from the plates through the stone. So he was already kind of doing and practicing some kind of translation or, or like channeling of the. Of whatever was on the plates as. As early as. As this date.
John Dehlin [00:35:36] So he was storytelling with the stone. Yeah, not long before he ever got translated. Is that.
Gerardo Sumano [00:35:42] And Julia, the right.
Julia [00:35:44] I just want to say, not only that, so if you, if you read, you can go directly, you can go to archive.org and look up his mother's book, his. The. The Life of Joseph Smith. I can't remember what it's called.
John Dehlin [00:35:52] Lucy. Lucy's book. Whatever.
Julia [00:35:54] Yeah, Lucy Max Smith biographical sketches. Right, exactly. And then. So what she says is that Joseph Smith started telling stories in 1823 and told his family not to tell these stories to anyone else. What happened in what stories were told in the home, stayed in the home. Which I think is really interesting, especially if you think of Joseph as an author or a writer to like, not, you know, he hasn't published his work yet. He doesn't want to share it. So that's how I think of it as is that he doesn't want this to be out there yet because it hasn't been published.
John Dehlin [00:36:18] Like he's protecting the IP and. And he doesn't want to get out there.
Gerardo Sumano [00:36:23] That's kind of interesting. Yeah. But.
Julia [00:36:25] But.
Gerardo Sumano [00:36:26] And anyway, I don't know, just like when I, when I. I mean, I knew that. That he had been telling the stories about. About the Indians early on, I just. I just didn't know that he was like, you know, that he was a little bit more developed that to the fact that he was actually channeling the plates that were on the Hill and that.
John Dehlin [00:36:47] That speaks to how long he had, Right. To think up the narrative in the stories in the Book of Mormon in his mind. Is that right, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [00:36:54] Right. Right. So he's rehearsing his story. Not just entertaining the family, he's rehearsing his story of the whole Book of
John Dehlin [00:37:04] Mormon scenario seven years before it ends up getting publishing.
Sandra Tanner [00:37:09] Right.
John Dehlin [00:37:09] Which kills the like, what, six weeks or whatever.
Sandra Tanner [00:37:12] They want to make it this short amount of time, 60 days, that he's just simply dictating this story.
Gerardo Sumano [00:37:18] Richard is also leaving out. Richard Bushman is also leaving out the 116 pages, which we don't have and we don't know how good or bad they were, which would have served as practice for, if you believe that he was, you know, making the story up. So he did have some period of practice with Martin Harris before he. This period of where Richard Bushman says that he. He sat day after day with Emma and just, you know, like, dictating the place, like, because there's the 116 pages, too.
John Dehlin [00:37:49] Yeah, we've. We've covered on LDS discussions. You know, when the 116 pages gets lost and then he sort of picks up whatever book in the book. Is it. Is it where he picks up in Mosiah, finishes it because it was clearly working from some basic text instead of stories, and then he has to go back and start over and replace the beginning.
Sandra Tanner [00:38:11] Right, right.
John Dehlin [00:38:12] Yeah.
Guest 1 [00:38:12] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:38:13] Was there anything else you want to say about this slide, this timeline?
Julia [00:38:17] Well, if we. If we show the other clip, it kind of supplements this. This slide as well. Do you want to just play.
John Dehlin [00:38:23] Oh, the second clip?
Julia [00:38:24] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:38:25] Okay. Okay, I'll play that right now. Here we go.
▶ Video Clip 2Video Clip 2 [00:38:30] Translation process starts. How long does that translation process take? When is he finally finished translating the Book of Mormon?
Video Clip 2 [00:38:37] He finally finishes in the summer of 1828. So he did it in spurts with Martin Harris up through June of 1827, then a hiatus, then through the fall and winter. Probably doing some translation with Emma. Oliver Cowdery arrives in the spring of 1820. All right, where am I? 1829. And then they finish it up by June. Okay, 1829.
Video Clip 2 [00:39:07] Very good.
John Dehlin [00:39:09] All right, Sandra, the reactions.
Sandra Tanner [00:39:11] Well, like I said before, that's just when he's do it, giving the final telling of his story, but it's not the limited time that he has to create it.
John Dehlin [00:39:24] Right, right.
Gerardo Sumano [00:39:25] We're also seeing, I mean, something that's really interesting of the work that Dan Vogel has done is looking at what Joseph Smith was translated, translating during that period and looking at what was happening in his surroundings. You know, when he starts translating Messiah and the section where he says, like, if you have ever borrowed anything from your neighbor and don't return it, that's like a sin. And that's around the time, you know, when Martin Harris has taken the 116 pages and not returning them. Or it happens to be like, when Emma is the one doing the describing. All of a sudden there's this part on the Book of Mormon where he talks about, you know, the babies that are. That died before they know the truth, they're saved in Jesus, which, you know, for Emma would have been really important because that was. That was something she had experienced.
John Dehlin [00:40:18] Children died.
Gerardo Sumano [00:40:18] Yeah. So things that are happening in his Surround. Not only he had time to prepare the story for many years, but also it's. It is, it is clear that whatever is making it into the Book of Mormon is somewhat related to what's going on on Joseph Smith's story at the time. He's translating.
Guest 1 [00:40:35] Yeah.
Julia [00:40:35] Well, and then to add to that, you have Dan Vogel also pointed out that he right away, in Mosiah, at the beginning of what was saved, he saves Alvin, where he says, those who haven't heard the gospel will be able to hear it in the, in the spirit realm and then be able to accept it. So. So right away, he's saving Alvin.
John Dehlin [00:40:51] Interesting.
Guest 2 [00:40:52] Wow.
Sandra Tanner [00:40:52] And then as the story goes on, when you have the Masons and the problem of what's his name, Morgan, that ends up dead, that's attributed to the Masonic people getting rid of him. And you have a big Masonic uproar in the. What is it? 27, which causes a big backlash against everything Mason. And so then you find in the Book of Mormon we suddenly get the Caddy ant and robbers and people that swear an oath on their life. And so it seems to be. The Book of Mormon story seems to be including, as he goes along, events that are happening outside of the book. Why else would you suddenly have this secret society thrown into the Book of Mormon story? It's just convenient that it happens right at the same time as you have the Masonic uproar over Captain Morgan.
Gerardo Sumano [00:42:01] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:42:02] Yeah. It's William Morgan. Is that right?
Sandra Tanner [00:42:04] Yeah, William Morgan.
John Dehlin [00:42:05] Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to learn more about that, just Google the anti Mason William Morgan affair. And wasn't there a judge, Weren't there judges involved in exonerating the Masons? And so this idea of corrupt judges in the Book of Mormon. Yeah. Comes from that as well. So. So, Julia, do you want to take us through the rest of the timeline real quick or Gerardo? Either one.
Julia [00:42:28] Main things are the ones I bolded and read. So the top where you have those extra four years where Joseph's telling these stories to his family, and then you have this, you know, Richard Bushman kind of brushes it off, but the, the nine months or so of him taking this break because he loses the 116 pages, I think those are. Those two points are very crucial in the writing process in my, in my view of how he's coming up with these stories.
John Dehlin [00:42:50] So if he takes a break from July to March after he loses the 116 pages, it's pretty obvious he's. He's writing what becomes the replacement. What becomes Nephi to Mosiah. He's writing that, right? It's not the Lord made him stop and gave him a stupor. It's that he's got to go come up with a replacement so that he can finish the book that he's already written, but now come up with a new beginning. Is that right?
Sandra Tanner [00:43:15] Yes. And that's. Isn't it interesting that it takes him a while to figure it out, but then. So God tells him, well, we got this all worked out. Don't panic, because if you just look at those plates again, you'll find there's a small set that's more religious, and so this can be even better book now. So don't worry, Joseph, we're going to switch over to this other set that's going to have all this better stuff anyways. So forget trying to reconstruct Nephi's war stories or who's King. We'll just skip over to some bunch of chapters of Isaiah and we can fill in the same number of pages that are missing and make it look like all's well.
John Dehlin [00:44:04] And if this episode were not weren't awesome enough, we've got Dan Vogel in the comments. And Dan. Dan writes secret combinations was introduced in Helaman during a disputed election, similar to Andrew Jackson in the 1828 election. And Andrew Jackson was a Mason. Dan, we warmly welcome any comments you want to share today. Dan Vogel's a legend. Check out his books, his many books from signature books. He's a legend. Okay, Julia, anything else you want to say about that, about the timeline?
Julia [00:44:34] No, I think that was the main. Those are the main things.
John Dehlin [00:44:37] Okay.
The Seer Stone and How Joseph Smith Translated
Guest 1 [00:44:37] All right.
John Dehlin [00:44:39] All right, so let's go to the next clip.
Gerardo Sumano [00:44:41] Let's do it.
John Dehlin [00:44:42] All right, let's go to the next clip.
▶ Video Clip 3Video Clip 3 [00:44:46] I'm going to jump over to the CES letter. This section of the CES letter, the Book of Mormon translation, actually starts with a quote from you. Very, very famous. But one of the things that the author of the CES letter is really trying to focus on is you ask the question, what in the world are the plates for? Why do we need them on the table if they are just wrapped into a cloth? While he looked into a seer stone, what does the translation process actually look like? Is he reading the plates and looking at them, as we've seen much artwork show? Is he looking into a hat with the seer stones? Is he looking into the breastplate with the. With the spectacles, the Urim and Thummim? What does it look like?
Video Clip 3 [00:45:34] There was One picture that showed him like a conventional translator sitting there with his finger on the plates.
Video Clip 3 [00:45:43] Right.
Video Clip 3 [00:45:43] Writing it down. That's totally inaccurate. He was either looking at the Seer Stone or looking through the Urim and Thummim stones, the crystals, one way or the other, and dictating.
Video Clip 3 [00:46:01] So he probably did both, I guess, is what you're saying.
Video Clip 3 [00:46:04] Well, the best guess we could come up with, I think, is that he looked through the crystals using the Urim and Thummim while he was with Martin Harris up through June of 1828. Then when he began again, David Whitmer and Emma Smith say that he began to use the Seer Stone that he himself had discovered. Okay.
John Dehlin [00:46:35] All right. So Julie, I'm gonna have you keep a tally. We're running tally. It's going to be Jeremy versus the Church. And question number one is, is Jeremy accurate when he. When he claims that the plates weren't anywhere in the room and that a stone in a hat was used and that the Church has misrepresented for 100 and whatever years the actual process for the translation of the Book of Mormon as verified by Richard Bushman? I think it's one to nothing. So, Sandra, you go first.
Sandra Tanner [00:47:09] Well, the whole story is kind of mind boggling, but Bushman admits, and I think when he gets to the end of the whole thing, that the whole Book of Mormon was done through the Seer Stone. And so you have two questions. What was the value of the plates since they're covered on the table or over hid under the fireplace, or maybe even stored outside the house? But what about the God saves these spectacles for what, 1500 years anyways, that these.
Sandra Tanner [00:47:53] And the Mormons, when they show any kind of drawing of this, they always draw them as a normal sized glasses. But that's not the story. The story is they were big glasses for a big person. And so Joseph couldn't use them because they were for too big of a head.
Sandra Tanner [00:48:14] So the thing, you don't need the plates and you don't need the Urim and Thummim. You don't need either one of those. You could just go out and find a rock in your well and take it home and put it in your hat. And that works better because Joseph Smith's on record of saying one time, well, he used the stone because it was easier. It didn't hurt his eyes like using those big glasses did. I mean, when. When you take away the word Urim and Thummim and get rid of the prettier way of phrasing it that these are just crystal rocks. You either got two rocks set in some sort of big frames that are not usable unless you're just looking in one side or the other.
Sandra Tanner [00:49:09] That's not any more of a convincing story than using a rock. And I brought my rock with me. So your girl, your daughter comes home one night and says, dad, I want you to meet my boyfriend. And he's been talking to God. And he let me show you his rock that he puts in his hat and gets revelation.
Sandra Tanner [00:49:43] Now, I don't know how many people will be impressed with this, but Mr. Hale did not think this was a selling point. To the point that Joseph and Emma have to elope. And they always downplay this one. But why do they elope? Because the dad can't accept Joseph Smith, the glass looker. He's opposed to his line of work.
Sandra Tanner [00:50:07] It's not because he talks to God. It's because he's got a rock and a hat looking for buried treasure. And they can make it all sound so pretty and logical until you stop and think about it. I mean, if your daughter brought home some guy to your house and said, hey, Dad, I want to marry this guy, isn't it wonderful? He has this rock that tells him all sorts of wonderful things. I mean, it's just. And Richard wants to paint this as some sort of higher technology.
John Dehlin [00:50:38] It's a feature, not a bug. It's a feature. Sandra, is that a bug? Gerardo's losing it.
Sandra Tanner [00:50:46] He talks in this interview about, well, this is some sort of advanced technology.
John Dehlin [00:50:51] He does use the word technology. Sandra, you're really awful with spoilers. No, that's fantastic. Love that you brought your own rock. Yeah. Like, let's not lose the point. Richard Bushman is brought on to attack Jeremy Runnels. And he has just validated.
Gerardo Sumano [00:51:12] Yeah.
John Dehlin [00:51:12] Something super important. Gerardo, do you want to add to
The Spectacles Versus the Stone in the Hat
Gerardo Sumano [00:51:14] that what I was going to say about the spectacles? Why would God preserve these massive things for thousands of years and then have Joseph not use them? But then he can also predict that Joseph is going to lose the 116 pages and that he's going to have Nephi rewrite everything that his dad wrote and make it more religious in a smaller set of plays so he can have all that prepared. But he couldn't foresee that the spectacles for a thousand years were going to be too big for Joseph Smith or,
John Dehlin [00:51:44] I don't know, Julia.
Julia [00:51:46] Or why did Samuel Lawrence, one of his fellow treasurers, why could he see the spectacles and Joseph knotted. See that?
Gerardo Sumano [00:51:51] Oh, yeah, that story is very interesting.
John Dehlin [00:51:53] Vogel. Dan Vogel writes, the spectacles were suggested, Right. By Samuel Lawrence about 1825, and Joseph Smith worked them into the story.
Guest 1 [00:52:03] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:52:03] Do you remember that story? So they basically. So. So Joseph will take Samuel to the.
Guest 2 [00:52:09] To the.
Gerardo Sumano [00:52:09] To the hill. So that Samuel. Because Samuel is known for being a treasure digger too. So then Samuel would validate the story of the plates.
Guest 1 [00:52:18] And.
Gerardo Sumano [00:52:18] And then, you know, they both go into like, oh, can you see it? And can you see the. The plates? And, yeah, I can see the plates. Oh, but. And then Samuel is the one that says, well, I see a pair of spectacles with them. Can you see them?
Guest 1 [00:52:31] Crap.
John Dehlin [00:52:33] The story.
Guest 1 [00:52:33] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:52:33] Joseph said, no, I don't see them. It's like, well, look again, you know, and Because. Because as Dan Vogel says, Samuel wants to be the better seer if he wants Joseph to. Or if he wants, you know, to validate. Yeah, to validate Joseph's story.
Sandra Tanner [00:52:50] I think people need to keep in mind that the stories of the Smith's involvement in the magic and money digging, Joseph's multiple stones, Joseph Smith's appeal to different magical incantations in his treasure digging and in which is mirrored in how he gets the plates at the. It's all part of a whole picture of the magic. This is coming from the neighbors. This is all the people that knew Joseph. If we look at the earliest accounts of the people that knew the Smiths, this is the story they tell, which Dan Vogel recorded in his early Mormon documents, where he gives all the statements of the early people associated with the Smiths that show this is the story of early Mormonism.
Sandra Tanner [00:53:40] And Bushman knows this. All the church historians know this is the early story. So what do you do with it? You have to some way sugarcoat it to where it doesn't sound ludicrous to the modern mind that we can accept that this is. That this rock is some sort of higher technology. And it's. It's just. I don't care. It's not higher technology.
John Dehlin [00:54:09] It's the literally the lowest possible form of technology. It's a rock. It's like earth. You don't get any lower technology than, like, a rock.
Sandra Tanner [00:54:21] Yeah, but Bushman is a he. Bushman is conceding the accounts of all these early people. He just wants to paint it in a. A fuzzier picture that you don't. When you say Urim and Thummim, you don't think about two magic crystals in some silver setting like eyeglasses. Or something. When he talks about seer stone, you don't think about just some rock you found in a well.
John Dehlin [00:54:51] Think about the fact that, first of all, Mesoamericans didn't know how to refine gold back then. But let's just say that we suspend reality and allow Mesoamericans to refine gold to the point of making gold books. And by the way, books weren't a thing back 600 BC books didn't exist. So this idea of compiling chapters, like a Bible, into a book that didn't exist. But anyway, put all that aside. Think about how much they would have had to work to dig out the gold, to refine the gold, to smelt the gold, to hammer out the sheets, and then over generations to scribble on the gold pages and fight and preserve it so that then when Moroni is on his deathbed and he's wandering around as the last Nephite, he finally buries it in the hill cumorah, so that 100 and whatever years later, Joseph can dig it up.
John Dehlin [00:55:51] And so Joseph digs it up and fights off bad guys and protects the plates and, you know, runs through the forest and preserves it, and then he doesn't use it.
Sandra Tanner [00:56:03] Good. So what is that? So that's one of the questions these guys are asking. And that Bushman's talking about, why did we need the plates?
Gerardo Sumano [00:56:11] He didn't respond. He didn't answer his question.
Sandra Tanner [00:56:13] Yeah, you've got to have. The reason you have the plates is so that you have some sort of physical object for people to believe your story. Otherwise, you're just talking about some rock that you put in your hand. So what's the evidence? Well, I have these plates. Now, you can't see them, but I got them.
John Dehlin [00:56:34] No one could see them.
Sandra Tanner [00:56:35] No one can see them. They're wrapped in this cloth. You can't look at them because if you look, you're gonna die. I mean, this is. Poor Emma. She's going to move them to dust, but they're covered. And she doesn't dare lift the COVID because she'll die if she does. You know, but.
John Dehlin [00:56:52] But then. But doesn't like, one of the Whitmer women, like, actually get this.
Sandra Tanner [00:56:56] Yes, a lot of other people can see him in visions, but that's okay. No, what. And what that tells me is that Emma is the shrewdest one in the room. And so she doesn't get to have these vision experiences. It's just like when you get to polygamy. Emma's the last to know why? Because I think Emma's just a little too shrewd. I mean, you remember the story in Nauvoo there where she goes shopping in St. Louis and comes back and Joseph's had Porter Rockwell set up a bar in the front room for the Nauvoo house. And she comes home and tells Joseph, you know, Joseph, either that bar goes or I do.
Sandra Tanner [00:57:38] And if you don't get rid of that, I'm moving the kids across the street. Emma was just. She could stand up to Joseph and she could see through some of the things that he did. That's why the plates have to be covered and Emma can't look at him and she doesn't get a vision.
John Dehlin [00:57:58] Was Emma shrewd? Was she shrewd enough to look under the cloth?
Sandra Tanner [00:58:02] Well, you wonder.
John Dehlin [00:58:03] She's dusting.
Sandra Tanner [00:58:04] I would have dusted.
John Dehlin [00:58:04] She's dusting around. She's like lifting the plates and dusting, but she doesn't peak.
Sandra Tanner [00:58:10] Well, if you really believe.
Gerardo Sumano [00:58:11] If you really believe. Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [00:58:13] If you really believe, you wouldn't look.
John Dehlin [00:58:15] I mean, I mean, Marshall Applewhite had a guy castrate himself because he believed in heaven's gate. So, I mean, I guess it's possible.
Sandra Tanner [00:58:23] Oh, yeah. If you really believe.
Gerardo Sumano [00:58:25] I mean, these are people that are believing. Joseph can find treasured that's buried under the earth.
Guest 1 [00:58:33] So.
Sandra Tanner [00:58:33] And it isn't just Joseph. Hyrum Page has a stone he's given revelations through. He's one of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Mike Quinn says in one of his things, the first hundred converts into Mormonism in the New York area were all out of this magic worldview, magic association, money digging community.
Sandra Tanner [00:58:57] So they are easily persuaded. They already believe that you can go out at midnight and have magic circles and incantations to find treasure. How hard would it be to move those people into the realm believing instead of ghosts and magic treasures, we have an angel and a set of gold plates. But not to get money from the plates, but it's a divine record from God. So you can see how Joseph moves his story from the magic into the religious realm because he needs a new audience. He needs a new.
Sandra Tanner [00:59:35] You have. If you're going to run a scam. He can only get people to believe in his money digging skills so long because if you don't find a treasure, you got to get a new claim. So, okay, we're not going to look for buried treasure to get money. We're going to look for buried plates to get a sacred record.
Guest 1 [00:59:54] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [00:59:55] And that's why he's later gonna have to change the story. He becomes, he becomes more Christian or, you know, he has to get rid of this here. So, yeah, we can.
John Dehlin [01:00:04] Julia, did you have something you were going to say? And then I want to show these, a couple of these slides.
Julia [01:00:08] Oh, I can't remember. So it's okay.
John Dehlin [01:00:10] So, so Bushman. So I wrote down some notes. So Bushman, he said there was one. Did he say there was one drawing or one painting showing Joseph Smith looking at plates? Did I get that right?
Gerardo Sumano [01:00:23] Yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [01:00:24] Because here we've got. I don't know if I misheard him, but here we've got at least six
Julia [01:00:30] different paintings that's just what would fit on the slide. I'm sure there's more.
John Dehlin [01:00:35] Yeah. So here Julie was able to find at least six different artistic renderings of Joseph Smith with the plates in the room. And Oliver Cowdery's there listening. And this is the garbage that we were fed as faithful, Devout Mormons for 150 years. And I just don't understand why it doesn't bother Richard Bushman.
Guest 1 [01:00:58] He just.
John Dehlin [01:00:59] Oh, it's. Oh, there's one little painting. You know, why isn't he outraged at the deception? And why does he never actually criticize church leaders for deceiving us? Now, I know we're going to get to a clip about that, but so, so, I mean, that's something that I wrote down. Also. He wrote a whole book on the plates. But why would he even care about the plates if they weren't even used in the Book of Mormon? Why write a whole book on plates that were never used to create the thing that the plates are known for? As a Columbia level tenured scholar, it's, it's kind of weird.
John Dehlin [01:01:39] It's. He's a brilliant man. He's thoughtful, he's sensitive, he's beloved. He has a lot of integrity. He deserves a ton of respect. But that's weird to me that he actually wrote a book on gold plates when the gold plates were never even used. Sorry, I'm ranting. Julia. I guess I'm caffeinated today. Julia, what did we want to say about this slide?
Gold Plates and Their Role in Translation
Julia [01:02:03] So I think this is the picture that he was referring to because this one has been in my, from what I've researched, this has been at least in like Jeremy Reynolds lifetime or our lifetimes. This is the one that's been the most published. And so I think that's what he's referring to is this one here with Joseph having his finger on the plates. And, you know, Oliver can clearly see them.
John Dehlin [01:02:20] I'm pretty sure that I. That's the photo when we were missionaries that we showed.
Julia [01:02:24] Oh, yeah, it's in. It's in Preach My Gospel. For sure.
John Dehlin [01:02:26] Yes, it's in Preach My Gospel. Yeah.
Julia [01:02:29] And that's by Del Parson.
Gerardo Sumano [01:02:30] Is by. Del Parson. Is from Rexburg, Idaho. Did you know?
John Dehlin [01:02:33] Oh, nice. So he's your buddy.
Guest 1 [01:02:35] Mm.
John Dehlin [01:02:36] Okay.
Guest 1 [01:02:36] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:02:37] I think either him or. Or some of his family members either teach or. And have paintings.
John Dehlin [01:02:44] Got it. Okay. I just wish Richard Bushman would hold the church leaders accountable for deceiving us, but he never goes there. I mean, I think, Sandra, I think we know why he doesn't criticize the Brethren for deceiving us.
Sandra Tanner [01:02:58] Well, because he values his position in
John Dehlin [01:03:01] the Mormon Church membership.
Sandra Tanner [01:03:03] You have to be careful. Careful what you say.
John Dehlin [01:03:05] And he values his status as. As a celebrated.
Sandra Tanner [01:03:08] Right.
John Dehlin [01:03:09] Historian who affirms the church's narrative.
Sandra Tanner [01:03:12] Right, Right.
John Dehlin [01:03:12] Yeah. Okay. All right, so let's go ahead and go to the next clip. Is that. All right?
Guest 2 [01:03:17] There we go.
Julia [01:03:18] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:03:18] All right. This is called dedicating. Dedicating through just a rock.
Guest 2 [01:03:25] This seer stone that he uses for the translation process, where did he get the seer stone? Where did he find?
Guest 1 [01:03:33] Well, there is evidence of a variety of seer stones. One he found while he was digging a well, and there are others he may have found here and there. I've never been sure if we really have nailed on how many they were and what they looked like, but he found it. It wasn't giving him. By God. An angel didn't come. He found it, and he recognized its properties as they applied to him, and he began to find lost objects with that. That seer stone.
Guest 2 [01:04:01] Are these just normal rocks that he then dedicates to be a seer stone, or are these specifically, according to the historical record, are these like, actually special spiritual rocks that he is then able to see things with?
Guest 1 [01:04:20] There is no way really to know. But we do have one seer stone remaining, and it's, so far as anyone can tell, just a rock.
Guest 2 [01:04:30] Right.
John Dehlin [01:04:31] All right, Julie, you're laughing. I'll let you go first. Why are you laughing?
Julia [01:04:34] I just think it's really funny that it's just a rock. And I think maybe if Danville was in the. In the comments, I think the church actually has. I think Joseph had five seer stones, and I think they still have other ones in their. In their vault. But I just thought it was really funny. He's just like, we don't know how these work. And, like, it's.
Gerardo Sumano [01:04:50] That would be an interesting thing to write a book about. About the stones that actually exist, existed, not the blades that I think nobody really saw.
John Dehlin [01:04:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sandra, did you have any comments on that one?
Sandra Tanner [01:05:05] Well, it all comes back to the. He doesn't know what makes the rocks work. He's not sure if Joseph brings the power to the rock, in which case my rock would work just as good as his. You just had to be a seer, and any rock would do. But it doesn't seem like that in the early accounts. I mean, when he's digging a well, he had. He went through a lot of rocks digging that well. So obviously it wasn't just any rock would do. It was a particular rock.
John Dehlin [01:05:41] No, for sure. When you read the accounts, Joseph told everybody it was a magic rock.
Guest 1 [01:05:46] Rock.
Sandra Tanner [01:05:46] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:05:46] With power.
Sandra Tanner [01:05:47] It was special. Yes, it was special rock, which is borrowing. Yeah, he's gotta borrow it from Sally Chase so that he can. Because it works for him.
Julia [01:05:57] Right. I'm sorry if. It's okay. There's another story that I. I love telling about Martin Harris where he switches. So I got the. Yes, I have the 3D version of his rock. So. Yeah, yeah. So he switches it out. He puts a different rock in, and Joseph, he puts his face in the hat, and he's like, all is as dark as Egypt. He's like, why isn't this working? And then Martin confesses that he switched the rocks. And so, like, in Martin's mind, it was like, it's a specific rock, like you were saying, Sandra. You know, he digs through a bunch of rocks in these. In these wells, but he found this specific one that. That worked for him. So. Yeah. Anyway, I just like that story.
John Dehlin [01:06:31] So it was a magic rock. And, Julie, I just want to know. You've got to feel great that every comment you make is mirrored by a comment by Dan Vogel.
Julia [01:06:39] Very validating.
John Dehlin [01:06:40] Paris's substitute stone didn't work. This is like somebody wrote that. This is like the Avengers Mormon stories panel. Sandra, were you gonna say something?
Sandra Tanner [01:06:50] No.
John Dehlin [01:06:51] Okay. Yeah. But was. Did I. Do I remember right in the video that Bushman says there's no power in the rock? It's Joseph's power.
Gerardo Sumano [01:06:59] Well, it's. It's kind of interesting the way he words. I think he's careful to how he's wording it. I noticed. Because he wants to say the rock has power, but he wants to say it apparently applies just to Joseph because it obviously begs the question, well, why are Serious prophets and revelators not using it today. So he does try to say, well, this was especially Joseph's gift, but the rock thus had power. And it's just a little bit confusing.
John Dehlin [01:07:26] This whole story is so ridiculous. When you dig into it, it is so.
Sandra Tanner [01:07:32] But he is conceding the whole story of the rock that is just found accidentally is more advantageous, evidently, than using what God preserved for 2000 years. It doesn't make sense in the worldview of Mormonism that God would preserve both the plates and the medium to translate. That's why he's saving them. These are the way you're going to be able to translate these plates. So you got to have those spectacles in that box for since 400 A.D. there is those spectacles been in that box for Joseph to use to translate. And then he doesn't need anything in the box.
Gerardo Sumano [01:08:21] Yeah, that's a good point.
John Dehlin [01:08:23] Dad writes the stone was either special or Joseph Smith was lying. And I'm going to add, the Church has the stone.
Sandra Tanner [01:08:31] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:08:32] So if this stone has special powers, it's either Joseph Smith is lying or the stone has special powers. Which means by the Church's perspective, the stone has special powers. Why the freak is Russell M. Nelson not using the Seer stone today to channel. We could get revelation on transgender people. We could get revelation on gay people. We could get revelation on women. We could get revelation on the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. He could translate. He could translate the gold plates. He could translate all sorts of things if he just looked into that magic stone, used his prophet, seer and Revelator powers, who knows the wonderful things. And instead we're compounding our assets at Ensign Peak, and that's basically what we're doing, and building temples with large steeples
Gerardo Sumano [01:09:20] and fighting little towns so we can.
John Dehlin [01:09:22] Yeah, like why. What is. What does a prophet, seer and Revelator do these days, Sander? And why aren't they using the special stone that has special powers?
Sandra Tanner [01:09:31] Obviously, the brethren know that is not going to help their situation any. Or they would be using the rock.
John Dehlin [01:09:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Gerardo Sumano [01:09:42] I also want to say it's really interesting that the host and I feel a little bit bad about him because he. He's really trying to get Richard Bushman to spin this a little bit more Mormon sounding, you know, when he uses the word, when he asks the question, did Joseph dedicate this, this, this stone so he could use it for translation of Book of Mormon? Like it's trying to use Mormon words, you know, that Mormons are going to be familiar with today when that's not Joseph's worldview in 1829.
John Dehlin [01:10:14] No, he found the magic stone. He didn't do a special ink, although I wouldn't put it past him to do an incantation on the stone. But that's not the story.
Gerardo Sumano [01:10:23] I mean, but when he's saying dedication, like, yeah, they're thinking, you know, the oil, the, the dedication of the, of, you know, the temple kind of thing.
John Dehlin [01:10:32] So we had us, one of our sleuther viewers and listeners let us know that the Easton is named Easton Harrell.
Guest 1 [01:10:38] Okay.
John Dehlin [01:10:39] Okay, so now we know his last name. And I'll just add, somebody made a joke about Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper apparently is like a partner on the CES letters thing, and he's a bona fide professor at BYU. He's a. Of church history and doctrine. Stephencragharper.com and I guess the joke was that it's the first presidency assignment to Stephen Harper is to go after the CES letter as a president, as a BYU professor. So again, it's the Church paying its employees to attack critics of the church or honest truth tellers, historians using their salary, their pension, their benefits to do the Church's dirty work through byu. Does that sound familiar, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [01:11:27] Yes. Isn't it curious that the Church does not have their official explanation of why all these things are lies? I mean, they always, the Mormons want to always say, oh, these stories of the stone and all come out of Ed Howe's book in 1834, Mormonism Unveiled. And I was always told, those are lies. You can't believe any of those neighbors stories. They all lied. And yet Bushman is conceding the neighbor stories. He's admitting that when you admit that he uses the stone found in the well, you are admitting to the neighbor's recollections of the Smith family. That's the kind of stories they told. So why have they told us for years that we can't trust the neighbor's statements in Ed Howe's book? Bushman sees that they're valid. That is the beginnings of Mormonism.
John Dehlin [01:12:29] Bushman validates Fon Brody as well. Yes, really quickly, I'll share another Dan Vogel comment. He says the stone represented Joseph Smith's earliest source of authority. So originally, Joseph didn't claim to have special powers. He claimed to have found a special rock, a magic rock.
Gerardo Sumano [01:12:47] So that's. Yeah, that's, that's interesting.
John Dehlin [01:12:49] And that's why he had to use it for the Book of Mormon, because it was the rock that was famous. It was the rock that had the power. And that's why he had to use. People are like, oh my gosh, it's so scandalous that Joseph Smith used the treasure digging stone to translate the Book of Mormon. Well, of course he did. Why? Because it had special powers.
Julia [01:13:08] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:13:09] So he had to use it. Let's go ahead and go to the next clip. Because it talks about the technology.
Gerardo Sumano [01:13:13] How come people could see the stone but not the plates or the urim and thumb.
Sandra Tanner [01:13:19] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:13:20] If it had special powers, why didn't that strike people dead?
Gerardo Sumano [01:13:22] That's interesting.
John Dehlin [01:13:23] That's a great point, Heroda, because. Okay, I want to answer that question. I'll let you viewers and listeners answer that question. All right, here's the next clip about the technology of these things.
Seer Stones, Treasure Digging, and Folk Magic
▶ Video Clip 4Video Clip 4 [01:13:37] There were some fears that if an unauthorized seer looked into the stone, they would see things that would be disastrous for them.
Video Clip 4 [01:13:50] Sure.
Video Clip 4 [01:13:51] That's just a story. My own feeling is it's his powers using the stone. The stone. Who knows the technology of these things? You know, it's just. No, really no point in speculating about it. But the key thing is he received this by revelation, by the spirit of God, as he tells us, Right?
John Dehlin [01:14:15] What? Why are we laughing, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [01:14:20] Yeah, I mean, what we said earlier, it's calling the. The stone a technology.
John Dehlin [01:14:24] I mean, I don't. Yeah. So like, Richard Bushman is viewed as sacred. Literally, he's sacred to Mormon faithful, Mormon historians. So to make fun of him or to laugh at him is sacrilegious. And. And people hate you for it. But I just have to say it's weird. And I've already made this point to have a Columbia level scholar speculating about magic stones. But. But it's also weird that he's saying it wasn't the stone that had special powers. He's saying it was Joseph. But if Dan Vogel knows that, that it was the stone that was thought to have the powers. If Dan Vogel knows that, Shirley Bushman knows better.
Gerardo Sumano [01:15:07] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:15:08] So what is he doing here?
Sandra Tanner [01:15:10] Well, he has to normalize all this story at the end of the whole thing. Bushman's testimony for the Book of Mormon, his testimony to Joseph Smith's prophetic calling, and the Book of Mormon is the Book of Mormon itself. So that the story of how you get it becomes irrelevant. The very fact that Joseph produced a 500 page book is what convinces him that the whole thing's true. But that to me is too easy a path to just dismiss how the book was produced. I Mean, a lot of people written 500 page books. I don't know why the fact of its existence proves anything for Joseph. He tells specifically. Joseph tells specifically how the book was produced, how it came to us, how it was translated, and we have to take that seriously. Then if we look at it seriously, the story doesn't make sense.
John Dehlin [01:16:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Guest 1 [01:16:24] yeah.
John Dehlin [01:16:24] It's just, it's kind of silly. It's kind of, it's kind of ridiculous and it's weird that, that a scholar of Richard Bushman's stature.
Gerardo Sumano [01:16:33] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:16:33] Is entertaining this sort of nonsense.
Gerardo Sumano [01:16:38] Yeah. And he's also trying to be. To use kind of like a distraction. Let's not concentrate on the seer stones so much. Let's just think that this is. Was done by the power of God. But is this how God actually acts? I mean, not, not. And this is, I think why so many LDS people have a problem when they find out about this is because this is not the God that they were taught about or that they believed in when they were members of the church. It's not the God that, you know, acts through magic or rocks or, you know, mysterious ways and then have the, the prophet Joseph Smith change his story after this starts just not making sense with, you know, the God that they believe in.
Gerardo Sumano [01:17:18] So why would we believe that? Why do we need to just take Joseph's word that this was done by the power of God when, you know, it's. I think that's why people have a problem with it when they find out about him.
Guest 1 [01:17:31] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:17:32] Julia, tell us what, make any comments you want, but also tell us about this slide that we've got ready with Bushman's quote.
Julia [01:17:39] Yeah. So these are images that were released. I, I can't remember if it was 2015.
Gerardo Sumano [01:17:45] It was when, when this Joseph Smith Papers project came out.
Julia [01:17:48] Right. So they released these pictures and that was the first time I saw them. I was shocked when I as a member because I didn't know they had the stone still. But yeah, he says it's just a rock. And so that's why I'm showing these pictures and the little bag that it was kept in. But I imported another clip from Holland because I want to make this other point and you guys kind of made it already. But can we just play the Holland clip really quick?
Gerardo Sumano [01:18:09] I just want to say something really quick. This story that we mentioned about Martin Harris could sound a little bit faith promoting to, to some people, you know, oh, it was a special rock, but if you look at the rock, it's a Pretty particular rock. And if Joseph has been looking at it for years, it would be pretty easy to identify that. That Martin Harris had switched it. Even though. Or, you know, really hard to find a. A rock that looks exactly the same. And then. But Martin Harris was, I guess, a little bit too gullible to. And. And then he believed that. That Joseph. That the rock had power, I guess.
Julia [01:18:46] Yeah. Yeah. For those just listening, the rock, if you'll look. Show the pictures again. It's like this. It's. It's stripy. It's almost like a tiger's eye stone. It's like brown and black. It's like. I don't know, it just has stripes on it. So it's very unique. I haven't seen a stone like it before. Yeah, like, other than, like, other tiger's eye. But anyway, so, yeah, I think Joseph wouldn't recognize that Martin switched it.
John Dehlin [01:19:08] Okay.
Guest 1 [01:19:10] All right.
John Dehlin [01:19:10] You want to play the clip? You want me to play the clip?
Julia [01:19:12] Yeah. It's just a few seconds.
▶ Video Clip 5Video Clip 5 [01:19:15] Modern day, the first presidency and quorum
Video Clip 5 [01:19:18] of the 12 are commissioned by God
Video Clip 5 [01:19:21] and sustained by you as prophets, seers and revelators, with the president of the
Video Clip 5 [01:19:29] church sustained as the prophet, seer and revelator, the senior apostle, and as such, the only man authorized to exercise all of the revelatory and administrative keys for the church.
John Dehlin [01:19:44] What's your point, Julia?
Julia [01:19:46] I just. I don't know. Why. Why is Nelson not using the stone that they have in their vault? Why? Like, one of the things that the. That I pointed out on my TikTok is that the. The Book of Mormon has been translated in over a hundred languages, and there are 7,000 languages in the world. Like, why are we not. Why are they not using the stone to even just promote the Book of Mormon, to just make it available in more languages? Like, these 15 men are called as prophets, seers and revelators. Seers. Like. Like Bushman said that Joseph was, like, unique, that he was the only one that could use the stone.
Julia [01:20:17] But, like, does that mean Brigham Young couldn't use it? Like, does that mean no one else can use it? Even other. Like, why are we calling them as seers? Why are we sustaining them as seers when they don't really do any searing or. You know, why? I just had that question, Sandra.
John Dehlin [01:20:31] What was the word that preceded stone? This is a what stone? This is a what stone?
Sandra Tanner [01:20:37] I'm not sure what you're after.
John Dehlin [01:20:39] This stone is a what stone? What's the word that comes before it? It's a what Stone.
Sandra Tanner [01:20:43] Magic.
John Dehlin [01:20:44] Magic stone. Is it a seer stone?
Sandra Tanner [01:20:48] I'm not sure what you're getting at.
John Dehlin [01:20:50] Are they. Was this stone known as the seer stone?
Sandra Tanner [01:20:53] No, it was known as. Well,
John Dehlin [01:20:57] I've heard that term used a lot. Seer stone. Is that not how it was used?
Julia [01:21:01] Well, I think Peepstone is another one that they use too. So I don't know, maybe that's Sandra, what she's thinking.
John Dehlin [01:21:05] I guess what I'm asking you is, to Julia's point, what does the term seer mean? If prophecy means to pro, if prophet means to prophesy, if revelator means to provide revelation, what did the early church members think the word seer meant? What Joseph was a seer. What did they think he was able to do?
Sandra Tanner [01:21:26] The seer. Yes. That attached to the ability to see in a crystal ball, see in a rock or whatever, the searing. But before the church started, it wouldn't have been a seer stone. I mean, when he's doing magic.
John Dehlin [01:21:43] Right.
Sandra Tanner [01:21:43] It's just a magic rock.
John Dehlin [01:21:45] It's a peep stone.
Sandra Tanner [01:21:46] It's a peep stone.
John Dehlin [01:21:47] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [01:21:47] And so when you have to make it religious, then you have to have a new name. So now it's going to be a seer stone, which makes it sound like a special God given instrument that makes it sound more redeemable as a respectable thing to use than. Than just a peep stone.
John Dehlin [01:22:08] Right. And I. And you know, there are different words. You need to check out the LDS discussions series where we talk all about this. But this was a, this was a conversation. This was a common con. It was called scrying. It was called glass looking. It was called juggling. Peeping. It was called peeping.
Sandra Tanner [01:22:27] Right, right. Well, the reason it was illegal was that it was considered like the gypsies having crystal balls going from city to city and you could pay them to read your future or whatever. Looking in the crystal ball. The whole assumption of the legal status was that if you were going around city to city with one of these stones is that it was a con game. That's why it was illegal. That's why he's called up in 1826 in the charged as Joseph Smith, the glass looker. What's illegal about it is that everyone figured it was a con game. It was a magic trick. It was like crystal ball gazing, that there was no real ability to see the future or to read someone's fortune in the stone. It was some sort of con to get money out of you.
Guest 2 [01:23:20] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [01:23:21] So Joseph's just running around from city to city with a con game that if you pay me so much money, I will walk over your farmland with my stone in my hat and tell you if there's buried treasure. And if you dig at this spot, you dig down six feet and you're going to find a treasure. The problem is they never found anything. That's why we know it was a con game, because no treasures are ever found. Yet they've been doing money digging for years.
John Dehlin [01:23:50] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:23:50] Yeah. And John, you asked the question, like, why is Russell M. Nelson or Brigham Young and all these people, prophets after Joseph not looking at the Sears and producing revelation like Joseph did? I think that tells us a little bit more about, about whether it is the actual power of God that they supposedly have to lead the church and receive revelation versus, you know, this is a special gift that Joseph Smith had a special talent that he had to be able to produce words that sounded like God or the King James Bible.
Gerardo Sumano [01:24:25] And it's evident, right, that this is because we don't see Russell M. Nelson doing it today. It is evident that it's something that was special to Joseph, this ability to produce words that sounded Bible like, revelation like, and make people believe that it was coming from God. And Russell M. Nelson doesn't do it because he doesn't have the talent to do it. So it tells you that it's not the power that he has that he inherited from Joseph. It is, you know, when people ask, well, how can like, a person like Joseph do that? Well, Joseph was a special person and he was, you know, just like bean or, you know, like Shakespeare.
Gerardo Sumano [01:25:04] You, you make your peak on, on someone that has done something important in history. Joseph Smith has his special talent, and his special talent was producing words that sounded like God and make people believe that it was coming from God.
Guest 1 [01:25:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:25:17] I believe that Joseph Smith's special power was being able to convince people that he had special powers.
Guest 1 [01:25:22] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:25:23] And. And if you just think about it, I love that we're distilling this. He starts out as a scryer, a peeper, a charlatan with a peep stone. And then when he gets religion, he graduates to a seer with the seer stone. And then he adds prophet and revelator later. And by the end, he's as great as Jesus pretty much. Right. I mean, he's next to him.
Sandra Tanner [01:25:44] Right. And the reason that he makes the shift is in 1826, he's hauled into court for running a scam. Joseph Smith, the glass looker. And the whole point was that was This a con game of telling stole where to find buried treasure.
Sandra Tanner [01:26:07] So he testifies that he doesn't do it much anymore because it hurts his eyes staring at that stone all the time in the hat. And then his benefactor that hired him testifies in his behalf. Oh, I know. Joseph really had this power because he told us if we dug at this one space, we'd dig down and we'd find a feather. And past that, we'd find the treasure. And we dug down and we found the feather, so we know he was of God. This was really true. But then we hit the hard place, and the treasure slipped away, so there's no treasure found. So at this point, Joseph's got to plead to the judge.
Sandra Tanner [01:26:51] I have real power, but I quit doing it anymore because it hurts my eyes. Because he has to convince the judge that he is not running a con. So if. But you can't. He never finds a treasure, so he's got to come up with a new game. So, what, we're going to go look for new treasures now? It's going to be the word of God. Instead of selling the gold plates for money, we're going to translate them into a new book of scripture.
John Dehlin [01:27:23] And for me, the biggest condemnation of this whole story is that the church hid it from us for 150. 150 years. If this weren't a problematic story, why didn't they just tell us it?
Gerardo Sumano [01:27:33] Well, not just the church. Richard Bushman is going to tell us who hit it first.
John Dehlin [01:27:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, really quickly, I just want to read one comment. Stephen Robbins, he writes, deconstructed my faith in the BYU Library circa 2004. The attack on the CES letter reminds me of no, ma', Am, that's not history. Which was Hugh Nibley's attack on Fawn Brody. I never read it, but for a while, its very existence was comforting enough to stick around. But that didn't last too long. Julia, did you want to say anything else about this, this next slide?
Julia [01:28:09] No. I think I made the point, too, that we have 15 prophet seers and revelators.
John Dehlin [01:28:12] Why are they not using seeing, using the search especially? It's like, are there enough problems in the world where a magic seer stone could come in handy? Sandra, what do you think?
Sandra Tanner [01:28:23] Well, I could think of quite a few things they could solve with that
John Dehlin [01:28:26] Covid they could have prevented. Covid?
Sandra Tanner [01:28:28] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [01:28:28] There's, like, missionaries that were stranded on countries because they couldn't get out.
John Dehlin [01:28:32] There's 10 missionaries who have. I think nine missionaries have already died. This year in service. Maybe that seer Stone could have been used to prevent missionaries death. Maybe.
Sandra Tanner [01:28:40] Yeah. Yeah. So it just boggles mind when you think that if you truly had a gift of a divine instrument that had such advanced technology that you could solve all the questions of the ages, that you would just lock it away in the back of the vault.
Gerardo Sumano [01:29:06] One wonders why didn't he use. Why Joseph didn't use the Seer Stone to find the 116 pages.
Sandra Tanner [01:29:11] Yes. Very good.
John Dehlin [01:29:14] To sum it all up, Dan Vogel writes, Mormon leaders have no stones. Okay, but a bump. Thank you, Dan Vogel. All right, so let's go ahead and. Let's go ahead and go to the next clip. And the clip is entitled. It's not widely told. It wasn't part of the story. And I just. By the count, is it. Is it, Jerry? Is, is it Richard Bushman declaring Jeremy Runnels 20 or 3 0? I'm already losing count.
Sandra Tanner [01:29:40] Oh, I think we're up to three.
John Dehlin [01:29:41] Is it three zero, Julia?
Julia [01:29:43] I think so.
John Dehlin [01:29:44] Richard Bushman declares Jeremy Runnels three Mormon Church zero. All right, let's go to the next clip.
Bushman Responds to CES Letter Claims on Translation
Guest 2 [01:29:52] Throughout the CES letter, the author, he talks about how he was raised, kind of thinking what you said, how he had the plates right here. He'd write it down right here where he just read directly from the plates to whoever the scribe was at any given time.
Guest 2 [01:30:11] And he then shares how he felt so betrayed by the time he realized, oh, he probably was looking into a seer stone and a hat. He says he talks about how he felt as if he was gaslit and how he feels he was lied to throughout his entire life, how it caused all of this cognitive dissonance for him because it was so different than what he taught. He then explains how he felt kind of hurt because so many scholars are like, well, this has always been here. You could have studied it. But he then cites some BYU articles written by prominent professors as they share how it wasn't in the Seer Stone, how they believed it was just the Urim and Thummim.
Guest 2 [01:30:56] So there's all of this contradictory research out there. And the author feels so betrayed and hurt because he's like, how could I have known these things?
Guest 1 [01:31:07] That's very important because a lot of people feel they were lied to and feel betrayed. So far as I can recover, recover the story, it was known that he had a Seer Stone. BH Roberts spoke about it. John Widtso spoke about it in the 20s. So I was aware of a seer stone, partly because, you know, I poke around on these things. So the knowledge was there, but it was not widely told. It wasn't in manuals. It wasn't part of the story of the gold plates that we was told in Sunday school. So it was just the standard view was some simplified version of the seer stone of the German Thummim and the translation coming.
John Dehlin [01:32:01] All right, so he's basically saying they knew. Yeah, I. I think that's 4,0. Because it's Bushman agreeing with Jeremy Runnels that people deserve to feel that he knows. A lot of people, not just Jeremy, feel betrayed. Which means he's validating Jeremy's feelings of betrayal. But he's also saying leaders as early as B H Roberts, who was living in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:32:25] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:32:27] He mentions Widstow. Widstow as well.
Gerardo Sumano [01:32:30] And that becomes problematic. And Julia has a couple slides. He tries to be a little sneaky, I think, with Witstow.
John Dehlin [01:32:38] But let's let Sandra answer and then we'll go to those slides.
Sandra Tanner [01:32:41] Well, this whole problem that covers the 1900s is Joseph Fielding Smith.
Guest 1 [01:32:50] Right.
Sandra Tanner [01:32:51] Joseph Fielding Smith, as an apostle, becomes church historian. And he's the custodian, the keeper of the gate that keeps the story of the stone and the hat and all of the magic and those things out of the manuals. He's making sure it doesn't come through to anyone. Bushman in this interview, talks about, oh, well, the people that talked to Jeremy, they weren't lying to him. They just didn't know. No one knew. Well, the reason they didn't know was because Joseph Fielding Smith had made sure no one knew he knew about it.
Sandra Tanner [01:33:34] And like Bushman says, the church historians knew. Everyone was put on notice in 1945 when Fawn Brody brings out her book. No one has an excuse after 1945 for not knowing or telling the right story. She brought it out then, but how come no one else knew about it? Because just like what my grandma said, they stood up and Relief Society and told all the women, don't go down to the bookstore and get that apostate book. No man knows my history because it's full of lies.
Sandra Tanner [01:34:10] Yeah, of course my grandma went down and bought it, and here you are, and here I am. But Joseph Fielding Smith is the one that really put the kibosh on the knowledge going out into the manuals. But Brody blew the lid off of that and made the church face that this is a problem. And that's when you get Hugh Nibley and The different modern apologists coming up because ever since Brody, they've been trying to downplay all of these problems.
John Dehlin [01:34:45] Yeah. All right, Julia. So I do think we have a couple slides. This one's okay to show, right, Apostle Woodson?
Julia [01:34:51] Yeah, of course.
John Dehlin [01:34:52] Yeah. So talk us through these, Julia.
Julia [01:34:54] So hang on. So Bushman in his clip just now and maybe he. I don't, maybe I don't have the source, but he said in the twenties Apostle John A Witso knew about the stone. So if he, if he published in the 20s, I don't have that source. So if somebody else has it, please drop it in the comments. But the ones that I did find were from the. Right after Fawn Brody wrote her book or published her. So these are, these might be reactionary. I know the other one.
Gerardo Sumano [01:35:17] This is a year after. After no man knows my history.
Julia [01:35:22] Exactly. Right. Okay. Yeah. So what, what he says here. So you know, Richard Bushman uses him as a. Oh, he knew about that. But let me read you the quote that it was.
John Dehlin [01:35:31] So this is from the improvement era, right?
Julia [01:35:33] Right. From 1947.
John Dehlin [01:35:35] Yes.
Julia [01:35:35] So it says he says Joseph Smith was not a money digger nor did he deceive people with Peepstone claims. It is almost beyond belief that writers who value their reputations would reproduce these silly and untrue charges. It suggests that they may set out to destroy Mormonism rather than to detail true history.
John Dehlin [01:35:54] I mean I'm, I don't like that quote because it makes it seem like. Like was wid so lying or, or did Widow just not believe the treasure digging stuff?
Sandra Tanner [01:36:06] It's hard to know how much is
Gerardo Sumano [01:36:10] the thing is they knew it.
Sandra Tanner [01:36:12] They have knew that that was the story. I. Yes. I think they are just being deceptive.
John Dehlin [01:36:18] I mean we know that Joseph Fielding Smith when He found the 1832 account of Joseph Smith's first vision which contradicted the official account. We know Joseph Fielding Smith did what
Sandra Tanner [01:36:30] he cut it out of the book. To take that account out of circulation.
Guest 1 [01:36:34] To hide it. Right.
Sandra Tanner [01:36:34] To hide it from other historians.
John Dehlin [01:36:36] So we know that, that it's not beyond Mormon apostles to outright deceive people. Correct?
Sandra Tanner [01:36:43] Absolutely.
John Dehlin [01:36:44] I mean we also covered in the, in the, in the second Class Saints book Black Mormons and the struggle for Equality. That they knew about Elijah Abel.
Sandra Tanner [01:36:55] Yes.
John Dehlin [01:36:56] That Joseph Smith gave priesthood or that black men were allowed to receive the priesthood during Joseph Smith's time. They intentionally withheld that from the way to perfection. Joseph Felix Smith's book and subsequent books because it was an inconvenient truth.
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:12] Not only leaving it out, but then coming up with super stupid explanations.
John Dehlin [01:37:18] Did you know that? Did you know that Matt Harris has come up with that? Joseph Fielding Smith would tell people there were two Elijah Abel's, a white one and a black one.
Sandra Tanner [01:37:25] Oh,
John Dehlin [01:37:28] that's actually literally in the book. Or the. Or that it was a mistake that Joseph made. But we know that the church leaders can and have deceived people.
Sandra Tanner [01:37:37] Absolutely.
John Dehlin [01:37:38] But it's hard to know whether Widzo is doing that here. Go ahead, Julie. I didn't mean it to steer your thunder.
Julia [01:37:42] Oh, no. I can't remember what I was gonna say. We can. We can go to the next one.
Gerardo Sumano [01:37:45] Well, if we take Richard Bushman's word for. For, you know, him saying that WITSO did know about the peepstone in the 1820s, that means that 20 years later, someone changed his mind about it and decided to campaign against it.
John Dehlin [01:38:02] And if you knew about it, why wasn't. Why were they hiding it? If you knew? All right, next slide. Julia, what about this one?
Julia [01:38:08] So the source that I pulled this from said that this wasn't. This book was published in response to Fawn Brody's no man knows My history. I don't know. I can't verify that, but it makes sense.
John Dehlin [01:38:17] That makes sense. Yeah.
Julia [01:38:19] Yes. And it takes a while to publish a book and to gather all the stuff, but this is published in 1951. And he says, again, you know, he's. He says enemies have suggested and widely circulated the suggestion that Stowell employed Joseph because he said he was said to have had to have a peep stone by which lost treasure could be located. The suggestion is, of course, based upon his claim of having had communications with heavenly beings. In fact, shortly after the church was organized, Hyrum Page, who claimed to have to have a stone by which revelations from the Lord could be obtained, was sternly rebuked by the prophet.
Julia [01:38:50] And so here he's saying to me that, you know, he seems to be suggesting that Joseph didn't have one. They're like, oh, they're getting it confused because he's talking to God. And that's why, you know, people can communicate through God, I guess, through seer stones. But then, like, he's. He brings up Hyrum Page and he says he was sternly rebuked. Never in here does he seem to suggest, if I'm reading it correctly, that Joseph validated or used a seer stone or like the use of one.
Guest 1 [01:39:12] Right.
Sandra Tanner [01:39:13] Yeah. And the funny thing there is we have Joseph Smith's Own mother in her history telling about that. Stowell came up from Pennsylvania up to the Smith's home specifically to hire Joseph Smith because he had heard of his ability to use a stone in his hat to find buried treasure. Stole came up across the state specifically because of hearing of Joseph Smith's power. And so this whole idea that it's the enemies of the church that got up these stories, it was the normal story to Joseph's family. His mother sees no problem with this to say that, oh, she's proud of this stole, had heard her son has these wonderful powers and came up to hire him to go down there and look for that silver mine.
Gerardo Sumano [01:40:07] Yeah, you have to remember there a lot of this. The historical sources that we have about the use of the Seer Stone for the translation of the Book of Mormon are the same sources that they are using to quote faithful. To grab faithful quotes. You know, like for example, the. The same source where Emma tells the story about Joseph translating day after day. And like the story about is Joseph not knowing that there was a wall in Jerusalem. And that kind of stuff is the same source where Emma would have told the story about the Seer stone and the hat. So they, they had to not had known that that was there, but they intentionally was. Were leaving it out.
Julia [01:40:51] Right.
Sandra Tanner [01:40:52] Well, and all of those historians knew about David Whitmer's pamphlet. They all want to use David Whitmer's dying testimony in 1887 that he believed and was faithful to believe the Book of Mormon even though he left the church. Here's his dying testimony of truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. But they don't tell you that the rest of the book is a validation of Joseph Smith's Seer Stone. Whitmer's fully invested in that whole story, and he believes that that's the way the Book of Mormon is translated through this stone and hat. It's amazing how they want to pick and choose and then they want to get after those of us that are shocked, dismayed and disappointed when we read about this. Well, you should have known all along. How would we have known all along?
John Dehlin [01:41:39] Yeah, I think that's behind the host of this podcast question. He's kind of doubting that Jeremy really felt betrayed. He's doubting that church leaders deceived Jeremy Runnels and the rest of us and that Jeremy feels genuinely betrayed. And that's, that's, you know, when I get so angry and I go at Jacob Hess and I go at Maureen Proctor and apologists, it's because like they don't acknowledge the legitimate pain, not just of like five people or three people or a dozen people, over hundreds of thousands of people have left the Mormon Church now over the Church's deceptions around history. Clearly, it's a valid, reasonable feeling that even Richard Bushman himself acknowledges. And I just wish the apologists could just please, just give us the respect of validating that it's reasonable that we felt deceived. And if that weren't enough evidence, Julia, why don't you read us from the King himself, Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of salvation.
Julia [01:42:46] Right. So Joseph Feeling Smith was the Church historian. Just to make that clear, he. He would know what these documents say. But he says in his book, while the statement has been made by some writers that the prophet Joseph Smith used a seer stone part of the time in his translating of the record. And information points to the fact that he did have in his possession such a stone, yet there is no authentic statement in the history of the Church which states that the use of such a stone was made in the. In that translation. The information is all hearsay. And personally, I do not believe that this stone was used for that.
Julia [01:43:17] For this purpose. The stones, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared, were preserved for this very purpose of translating the record, both of the Jaredites and the Nephites. It hardly seems reasonable to suppose that the prophet would substitute something evidently inferior under these circumstances.
John Dehlin [01:43:36] I mean, we now have two choices. Either they're intentionally lying to us and deceiving us, or they're clueless and they're incompetent. And by the way, you know, what's one way that they could find out whether Joseph Smith used a seer stone? They could grab their seer stone and then look into it and ask the seer stone, which they had in the vaults. Am I wrong, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [01:43:57] That's right. They've got it.
Gerardo Sumano [01:43:59] They probably were trying and that was not working. And that's why they're trying so hard to deny that it was the real story.
John Dehlin [01:44:06] Yeah, like freaking use your seer stone. But they're either incompetent or decept. Deceptive. I don't know if there's a third option.
Sandra Tanner [01:44:12] No, and that's clear in that statement of Joseph Fielding Smith. He knows what the history is. He knows that the seer stone was the main use of translating the plates, not the Urim and Thummim, the supposed eyeglasses saved with the plates. He knows all of those things. He's read all of the same stuff we've read now of the statements by the early witnesses, Whitmer Harris, Emma Smith, everyone that's in the room where it happened describes using a seer stone. They are not talking about him putting on spectacles.
Guest 1 [01:44:57] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:44:58] And prophet citizen revelators who talk to God and are special witnesses of Christ. Yeah. If you're going to claim that power and authority and you're going to claim that direct communication. I heard recently that one of the apostles is going around saying he's seen the face of Christ and he's heard the voice of Christ. If you're going to make those bold claims. Yeah. We're going to expect you to get your story straight about your founding prophet and the most sacred correct book that's ever been written on the earth. More correct than the Bible, by the way. Right, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [01:45:29] That's right.
John Dehlin [01:45:30] Yeah. You got to get your story straight. Okay. All right, the next clip is around the brethren and their need to be educated by us and by Richard Bushman. So let's go ahead and play that clip.
Were Church Leaders Aware of Hidden History
Guest 1 [01:45:45] In this person's view of things is to feel he was betrayed. That implies that the general authorities all knew the truth and then they hid it from other people. They didn't all know the truth. They were taught the same thing that your friend was. It was just standard belief. And the other things, partly because Mormons were a little embarrassed by them, a seer stone didn't seem quite right for a prophet of God, were just sort of kept in the background. So it was just a standard view of. Of how the translation worked and the whole church had to be educated, including the general authorities.
John Dehlin [01:46:28] So now I'm confused. Did Joseph Ealing Smith and Widtsoe and B H Roberts, did they know or did they not know and they had to be educated? I'm super confused.
Sandra Tanner [01:46:39] Well, they're the ones that knew and they're the ones that covered it up and made the narrative. The one we all grew up that said he didn't use the stone in the hat. And that's why all of us peons downriver from those guys had to get re educated. But that's the whole point Jeremy's making is why do we all have to get re educated? The church leaders were the people we look to to tell us the truth. And obviously there was some point along the way when they quit telling the truth and developed a narrative that everyone realized didn't match the actual occurrences. So now we have to tell it straight.
Sandra Tanner [01:47:23] And so Bushman talks about, well, maybe you have the clip there. When he talks about, like, from 1990 onward, they had to get out the right story. They. Well, at least you're speechless. They knew the right story from day one. They have. Joseph Smith started the process of camouflaging what really is going on. He's the one that originally starts taking out of the records the use of magic and stones and these types of things early on in his history.
Sandra Tanner [01:48:05] When he writes his 1838 account of the history, he's already downplaying the magic elements of the origin of a story. They're changing the doctrine of Covenants to take out Oliver's magic. Working with the rod, the rod of nature, this witch hazel stick that supposed to point you to minerals or water or gold or whatever.
Sandra Tanner [01:48:32] The whole early church was in New York was steeped in these magical practices. And the church gradually deliberately starts eliminating those things from the telling of its history. And Joseph Fielding Smith is the main one in our day, in my day, that promoted that false narrative.
Sandra Tanner [01:48:57] And. But now it's caught up with them because of photography, because of professional researchers getting in and finally getting to see things. In all the records, we know the real story. So now they've got to re educate. But the re education means getting us to accept a very unusual story as being normal. It isn't normal to think of someone using a rock and a hat to get a translation. So there is all this smoke and mirrors to make it seem like this rock is high technology. This isn't technologically valid.
John Dehlin [01:49:43] And why is it? What happened to Fawn Brody? What was her ultimate fate?
Sandra Tanner [01:49:48] She got excommunicated for writing her book.
John Dehlin [01:49:50] And what happened to you?
Sandra Tanner [01:49:51] And, well, Gerald and I asked for our names to be taken off the rolls.
John Dehlin [01:49:56] What would have happened?
Sandra Tanner [01:49:57] What would have got thrown out if we hadn't have asked?
John Dehlin [01:50:00] And what happened to me for doing Mormon stories?
Sandra Tanner [01:50:02] You got thrown out.
John Dehlin [01:50:03] And what happened to Jeremy Runnels?
Sandra Tanner [01:50:04] He got thrown out. Everyone gets thrown out that tries to.
John Dehlin [01:50:08] And what happened to what happened to Brett Metcalf who was talking about the Book of Mormon?
Sandra Tanner [01:50:12] Yeah, he got thrown out.
John Dehlin [01:50:13] Okay, so. And what happened to Grant Palmer, by the way?
Sandra Tanner [01:50:15] He got thrown out.
John Dehlin [01:50:16] Okay, so what we've got here is the Brethren. Think about what it means that these, you know, special witnesses of Jesus Christ, prophets, seers and revelators, talk to God and Jesus. We've. I just listed eight historians who at one point were faithful members. And all they were trying to do is to just kind of like, hey, hey, brethren. Hey, listen, guys, you've been telling a story that isn't quite right. So we're going to make this huge sacrifice and, like, make our parents mad and our grandparents mad and lose all our friends and family. But we're going to go ahead and do a really courageous thing and just kind of help you know the truth, because you've been misleading people for a long, long time.
John Dehlin [01:51:01] And we know you don't want to lie, and we know you don't want to deceive people and mislead people. So let us, like, sacrifice our whole lives to help you. And then what do they do?
Sandra Tanner [01:51:12] Throw you out?
John Dehlin [01:51:13] They do the. They guillotine them. They spiritually assassinate them. What does that say about these people? What does it say about their character? What does it say about their integrity, their humility, their openness to learning, their hubris, their pride? What does it say? Julia, were you trying to say something?
Julia [01:51:32] Oh, no, that. No, you're good.
Sandra Tanner [01:51:33] Keep going.
John Dehlin [01:51:33] Sorry, I'm monologuing. Okay, really quickly, a couple. A couple super chats we have to share. Spaniel, 53, writes, Love, Sandra and everyone in the Mormon Stories team. Thanks for all you do to generate this extremely important content. Sandra, they love you. How does it feel to be so loved?
Sandra Tanner [01:51:51] Well, I really appreciate it.
John Dehlin [01:51:53] Yeah. So thanks, Spaniel, for that super chat. Rebecca Raven writes. So wonderful to see, Sandra. These doves, these dives into history are my favorite type of content. Thank you, Rebecca Raven, for that super chat. Richard Burton writes, Bushman says that his goal is to reveal Smith as he saw himself quote, to recover the world of a prophet. That's the rough Stone Rolling preface. This would be like writing a biography of L. Ron Hubbard that has a working assumption that Xenu is actually real. So stupid. And again, we're laughing at, like, the sacred cow of Mormon historians. We. We don't. We all love and respect Richard Bushman on some level.
Sandra Tanner [01:52:41] He's a very nice guy.
John Dehlin [01:52:43] But he also has probably done more than almost anyone to. To push the Brethren to tell a more truthful history. Would you say he was more successful than you, Sandra, in getting the Brethren to own up to their truthful history?
Sandra Tanner [01:52:57] Well, yes. His Rough Stone Rolling is a monumental book, and it is the most frank telling of Mormon history that I think the Mormon historians have been able to do so far, and I commend him for that. But it's not quite to the point of full disclosure. It still is sugarcoating the real history of Mormonism and the implications of it. Right? Yes, the implications.
John Dehlin [01:53:25] And he stands on the corpse the spiritual corpse of Von Brody, he stands on the corpses of Gerald and you. Like, he's, he has privilege in being able to now tell the truth because really what happened is people like you, Sandra and Gerald, they, along with the Internet and Jeremy and others, to like, to like propel your work forward.
Sandra Tanner [01:53:51] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:53:51] That basically beat the brethren into submission to the point where Richard Bushman would then be able be forced to publish a book like Rough Stone Rolling because the brethren were literally on their knees begging for mercy because the truth was destroying them. Is that not right?
Sandra Tanner [01:54:12] If I would have had Rough Stone Rolling at the time that I was doing my quest, my talks with my bishop would have been a lot easier because no one was conceding the things that he's conceding in his book.
John Dehlin [01:54:29] Yeah. And to his credit, he, he says Fon Brody was a great historian. Like.
Sandra Tanner [01:54:32] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:54:33] So I mean he deserves a lot of respect.
Sandra Tanner [01:54:35] And so he did bring the story forward. I believe he's helped a lot in bringing the Mormons forward into a more reliable telling of the story. Yeah, but I think it's a first step. It's not the end goal.
Gerardo Sumano [01:54:53] Yeah. And he's doing great.
Guest 2 [01:54:54] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [01:54:55] But then also, how many Mormons know about Bushman or Roughston Rolling?
John Dehlin [01:55:00] Oh, like less than 1%.
Gerardo Sumano [01:55:01] And like my sister, when he, she was on her mission, her mission president wouldn't let her read Roughstone Rolling when she had questions, you know, and so yeah, I mean he's done great, but it's still. We're not close to where this disclosure should be. Right.
John Dehlin [01:55:21] Here's a great comment. Does Sandra Tanner have a website?
Sandra Tanner [01:55:25] Oh yes, yes. Utlm.org no.
John Dehlin [01:55:31] I don't know if Daniel John Kerry knows who you are and what Utah Lighthouse Ministry has been. We're looking at a legend here. You probably know that, but how many books have you guys published over the years?
Sandra Tanner [01:55:42] I don't even know. We've written dozens of books on Mormon history which we've put all up free on our website. You can, you can print them off. I mean, PDFs, right? PDFs.
John Dehlin [01:55:55] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [01:55:55] Mormonism shadow Reality is on our website for free. Anyone can print their own copy off. Takes a rim of paper. Well, more than reema paper. You'll have to have about 600 and something pieces of paper to print it off. But you could do this and, and
John Dehlin [01:56:11] they ask if you. If you could recommend one or two books, I guess. Mormonism, Shadow and Reality.
Sandra Tanner [01:56:16] Right. And I think that Gerald's Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of The Bible in the Book of Mormon is one of his Gerald's top research projects beyond the Mormonism book and then our book on Mormonism, magic and masonry, where we go into all this money digging kind of stuff. So there's a lot of stuff on our website that go into these topics we're talking about.
John Dehlin [01:56:43] We'll have Julia put these links in the show notes where you can get@mormonstories.org we'll include links there. Really quickly, Dale, Holly writes, you are all awesome. Thank you for your content. You are saving everyone's mental health. Thank you, Dale. And then Exmo Shirts is in the house and they say, I love Gerardo's shirt. Gerardo tells. Show us. We can't see it. Lift it up.
Gerardo Sumano [01:57:09] You can put it on the, on the big screen.
John Dehlin [01:57:11] Oh, we'll show the big screen. What does it say, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [01:57:13] That's the church.
John Dehlin [01:57:14] And you, you got that from, from XMO Shirts, Is that right?
Gerardo Sumano [01:57:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [01:57:18] Okay. All right, thanks. XMO Shirts. XMA shirt says we love Mormon Stories podcast. We love you too. XMO Shirts. Okay. All right. I'm kind of ranty a little bit today. So Julia, did you want to talk to us about this quote from George Q. Cannon?
Russell M. Nelson and the Seer Stone Revelation
Julia [01:57:33] Yeah. So really quick, let me just preface this just to remind because like in the clip he said that, oh, the brethren even needed to be educated on the Seer Stone because they didn't know about it. And so Jeremy shouldn't be so surprised that he didn't know about it. So but what I have here is that there's. I have four slides. So the serious one really wasn't talked about very much in the, in the church's history. But I have four slides of apostles talking about it and admitting that it was there and including our, the current prophet right now. But this one's from George Q.
Julia [01:57:59] Cannon and it was published in his book in 1888. And the book is called Life of Joseph Smith. And so he says in it, in it Cannon writes about Joseph Smith's use of the Seer Stone, calling it a peculiar pebble or rock. And then he tells the story of Martin Harris slyly substituting another rock resembling the Seer Stone for the prophets real medium of translation. And so like they know. He, he's aware of it. He knows about it. This is an apostle of the Lord. And if you go to the next slide, okay, so we have now we have Lorenzo Snow. In September of 1898, he was called as the prophet, the new prophet of the church and one early member named Frederick Kensley wrote in his.
Julia [01:58:36] In his diary about an experience he had with President Snow. And this is what he writes. He says, I called on President Lorenzo Snow, whom. Who I found in his office alone. He was feeling. I think it should be unwell or. Well, I can't remember. He was feeling well. He had an extremely interesting. We. We had an extremely interesting interview. He showed me the Sears Seer stone that the prophet Joseph Smith had, by which he. He had done some of the translating of the book. So, like these.
Julia [01:59:01] So even. Even Lorenzo Snow, the new prophet, he has the stone and he's showing it off. Like, I think that's really, like, the brethren need to be educated. And so you go to the next one. And this is. This is Russell M. Nelson. And he. This is published in the Ensign in July of 1993. He says Joseph Smith would put the seer stone in a hat and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light, and in the darkness, the spiritual light would shine. And this is super interesting. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear on the stone, and on it appeared the writing.
Julia [01:59:30] One character at a time would appear. And under it was the interpretation in English. It was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct. Then it would disappear and another character with the interpretation would appear. And for those just listening, there's a little black and white image here of Joseph and Oliver. There's a sheet between them. And Joseph's looking over the plates with his fingers on his forehead, like he's really concentrating. But, like, even though. So I don't know why they did this, but the artwork.
Sandra Tanner [01:59:55] Well, that's a quote from. Is it Martin Harris?
Gerardo Sumano [01:59:59] Harris.
Sandra Tanner [02:00:01] Is that the Tiffany Monthly article?
John Dehlin [02:00:04] It's Ensign, the July 19th. But what.
Gerardo Sumano [02:00:07] What Russell M. Nelson is referring there. He's quoting Martin Harris.
Sandra Tanner [02:00:11] Yeah, right. People need to realize. Yeah, that's not Nelson saying that. Right.
Julia [02:00:15] You're quoting Very right.
Sandra Tanner [02:00:17] Martin Harris.
John Dehlin [02:00:18] But he knew. In 1993. I mean, that's the year I graduated.
Sandra Tanner [02:00:21] Yes, he knew about Martin Harris statement.
John Dehlin [02:00:23] That's not just the year I graduated from BYU. It's the year the church excommunicated the Sept. 6, again for telling factual history.
Sandra Tanner [02:00:31] Yeah, yeah.
Julia [02:00:31] I just.
John Dehlin [02:00:32] Go ahead, Julia.
Julia [02:00:33] Oh, I just wanted to point out that, like, in that. If you'll show that slide again. I just think it's interesting that even. Even alongside this story published in the Ensign of using the stone in a hat, that's not what the artwork. The artwork reflects.
Gerardo Sumano [02:00:45] It reflects so in the. In the article where Russell M. Nelson is quoting Martin Harris about the Sears and on the hat, they have an artwork. In that same article, there's a picture of Joseph Smith looking at the plates directly. No, there's no picture of.
John Dehlin [02:00:58] So he's not using the seer stone that Nelson is acknowledging he used.
Gerardo Sumano [02:01:02] Well, and. And that never happened. He never looked at the. Richard Bushman already told us he. He never looked at the plates.
John Dehlin [02:01:07] Not while Oliver was translated.
Julia [02:01:09] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:01:09] Or. Or Martin Harris.
John Dehlin [02:01:10] Right. Yeah.
Guest 2 [02:01:11] Yeah.
Julia [02:01:11] And then if you go to the next one, it reflects the same thing. This one's from Apostle Neil or Neil A. Maxwell, and he says Martin Harris related of the seer stones sentences would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin. So he's also talking about the seer stone. But in the. In the image reflected in this ensign from 1997, it doesn't show that. So I just think that's interesting that the church, like, I know later we'll even talk about how the church wants to throw these artists under the bus. But like, the church can also commission artists to do things. Hey, this. This is an article where they. They mentioned this seer stone. Can you. Can you do some artwork about this that reflects the story? And that doesn't happen. We don't see that happening at all.
Guest 1 [02:01:50] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:01:50] And what's this next slide? This is a cool. This slide's pretty cool.
Julia [02:01:54] Right? So if you. Yeah. So these are manuals that I have personally. These are ones that I grew up with, that I had around me. And. And I'm sure Jeremy Reynolds had similar things.
John Dehlin [02:02:03] Read some of them for the listeners.
Julia [02:02:05] So the gospel principles. Preach my gospel, which I had as a missionary, the Book of Mormon. So I went to byu, Idaho, and we took Book of Mormon classes. So that's what the. In the corner is. And then you have the. There's several of them. The Doctrine Covenant Student manual, the restoration pamphlet that you give as a missionary. The newer Gospel principles.
John Dehlin [02:02:22] The Book of Mormon reader.
Julia [02:02:24] Yeah. Our heritage, the Book of Mormon stories, Mormon doctrine. Yeah. Things that are being published now. And these are all specifically published by the church. Like, they have the church's little logo on it. But if you go to the next slide, this is how many were published about the stone in the hat.
Julia [02:02:42] All of them have little X's on them because none of them reflect the story. So. So I'm not surprised that Jeremy Reynolds feels. And I felt, and I'm sure many others felt that they were betrayed, that they were gaslit. They were lied to. Because nowhere would he have been exposed to this. Like Richard Bushman says, oh, yeah, it was out there, and it was. But you have to, like. And as he says, he went digging for it or he poking around for it. Jeremy doesn't think to go poking around because he doesn't even know that's a thing. So I just don't.
John Dehlin [02:03:08] So are we. But this is something that apologists say. They'll say, well, it was in the Ensign at least twice. So Jeremy should have known. Sandra, you know, Gerardo, you should have known. John, you should have known it was in the ensign twice.
Gerardo Sumano [02:03:20] I was looking at the picture right next to it.
John Dehlin [02:03:24] So, Sandra, what's. What's the response if they. I mean, we're at.
Sandra Tanner [02:03:29] We.
John Dehlin [02:03:30] Bushman's saying multiple things, and we're actually saying multiple things. On the one hand, we're saying they hid it from us, they deceived us, they lied to us. On the other hand, we're acknowledging that it was in the Ensign at least twice.
Sandra Tanner [02:03:41] Well, that twice hardly counters the hundreds of times in their articles. They all said the opposite thing.
Gerardo Sumano [02:03:49] They denied it.
John Dehlin [02:03:50] And in the missionary lessons and in church curriculum. Because nowhere.
Gerardo Sumano [02:03:55] Not only the omissions.
Guest 2 [02:03:56] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:03:56] Because you. Those manuals are the omissions where it's not mentioned. Yeah, but then how many quotes are there where they're denying that it was ever used, like Joseph Fielding Smith or the other quotes that we showed, you know?
John Dehlin [02:04:09] Yeah,
Sandra Tanner [02:04:12] right. When I was having my questions and I talked to my bishop and this guy's brought in to answer all my questions, their big answer was Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation. We just saw where Joseph Fielding Smith absolutely lied about the whole story of the Stone and Plates thing. So of course, you end up feeling like you've been gaslighted and lied to. The sources I had around me all were opposite of what you actually find Bushman conceding today.
John Dehlin [02:04:52] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [02:04:54] The public narrative has changed.
John Dehlin [02:04:56] Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, I think we under mention Doctrines of Salvation, volumes one, two, and through here on Mormon Stories, and we always talk about Mormon doctrine. On my mission, you couldn't go to the church, you know, supply office, the area office in Guatemala and buy Mormon doctrine, But you absolutely could buy doctrines of salvation 1, 2, and 3. Not just in English, but it was available in Spanish. I read Doctrines of Salvation multiple times, all three volumes on my mission in Spanish. So in some ways, it was more influential on me than Mormon doctrine was.
Sandra Tanner [02:05:32] Yeah, right.
Guest 2 [02:05:33] Right.
John Dehlin [02:05:34] Yes, for sure, Julia.
Gerardo Sumano [02:05:36] It's also quoted a lot on Manuals.
John Dehlin [02:05:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the big thing is these little Ensign articles that if you didn't happen to read that one page on these magazines with literally 150 pages that's published monthly over multiple decades. And by the way, we're all kind of kids or teens at that point. How could we pay attention to that when we're being inundated and flooded with the official curriculum at seminary, at institute, in Sunday school, in general conference with the false narrative involving the plates in the urim and thumb?
Sandra Tanner [02:06:09] Right.
John Dehlin [02:06:10] So, Julia, tell us about this next slide.
Julia [02:06:12] So on the KUTV in 2015, they published the first time that the church showed images of Joseph Smith Seer Stone. So that was like, that was big. They said it was an ongoing effort to demystify some of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints, the history. And so they say that this is the first time officials just released this. So, like. Like, this is the first time they're showing the Seer stone is in 2015. And so. And Jeremy Reynolds, he published a CS letter in 2013. So, like, even after he publishes it, they're still not showing it. They're not being transparent or open that the fact that they have it.
Gerardo Sumano [02:06:47] And you won't find these pictures in any of the manuals from the church to. Even today. This is on the Joseph Smith Papers project that you have to pay, you know, like $90, I think it's for each book. Who. And there's like, you know, like, I don't know how many. Like 20 of them. And you have to find the right page to find the picture, you know.
Sandra Tanner [02:07:06] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:07:08] 2015 is ridiculously late.
Gerardo Sumano [02:07:10] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:07:10] You know what I mean?
Julia [02:07:11] Right.
John Dehlin [02:07:11] There's Fon Brody. There's all of Sandra's decades of work. There's again, Grant Palmer, like, so many decades where the church could have come clean about this. And it literally took the Internet and websites like MormonThink, podcasts, like Mormon Stories, and of course, Jeremy Runnels's CES letter that finally beat the brethren into submission to acknowledging the Seer Stone in the hat in 2015. Think about that. And that's the same year I was excommunicated.
Sandra Tanner [02:07:41] And I think one of the big reasons that you have the church finally coming to talk about the magic and the stone and all of this is Mark Hoffman. We owe him a great deal of thanks because of his documents that he made up about magic. It forced the church to try to do an apologetic of why Salamanders were all right.
Sandra Tanner [02:08:08] And so you had all the BYU guys telling us this was a wonderful example of angels and everything. And salamanders were a beautiful picture of this. And then we find out Hoffman's documents are forgeries. But it launched the church into talking about magic because of Mark's documents.
Sandra Tanner [02:08:30] First, because the church was trying to spin on why his documents weren't damaging, and then trying to explain why they were buying them when they were forgeries. But ever since then, you've seen the Church dealing more with the magic worldview of early Mormonism. So I think we are seeing the fruit of Mark Hoffman's efforts to make the Church face its original history.
John Dehlin [02:09:01] A few other things that also deserve credit. I agree, Sandra. I think Leonard Arrington deserves credit. The church administration, the history department that he ran for 10 years, Dialogue, Journal of Mormon Thought, the Journal of Mormon History, Sunstone. I think they all play an important role. I also think the sort of Hans Matsen Swedish Rescue and then the intervention that, you know, Travis Stratford and me and Greg Prince, along with Hans Mattson, where we interviewed with Marlon Jensen to sort of. Where we did a study of 3,000 ex Mormons to try and understand why so many people were leaving the church. Seer Stone in the hat was one of the top three reasons, if I remember it.
John Dehlin [02:09:44] We bring that to the church in 2012, 2013, 2014 timeframe. And that's when the brethren knew that, number one, they were losing their best and brightest, which means tithe payers. And then secondly, the Church knew that they felt betrayed. And it was that study that came out of Hans Mattson and the Swedish Rescue that let Marlon Jensen argue to church leaders that they needed to come clean in 2015. All right, so what's this next slide, Julia?
Official Church Acknowledgment of Stone in the Hat
Julia [02:10:17] This is just the Salt Lake Tribune also. This is in August of 2015. They're also publishing about it. And then I think if you go to the next slide, I think in efforts to, like, try to, like, answer questions about why we haven't seen these before. This slide talks about how. I don't know if your little side panel, John, is showing.
Gerardo Sumano [02:10:34] Oh, yeah, John, you're showing your text.
John Dehlin [02:10:36] Oh, sorry. Okay. I'll. I don't. Go ahead, keep going.
Julia [02:10:40] Okay, I'll just read it. Okay. So it says, over the years, artists have sought to portray the Book of Mormon translation, showing the participants in many settings and poses with different material objects. Each artist's interpretation is based upon its artist's own views, research, and imagination, sometimes aided by input and direction from others. And so to me, they're sort of throwing Artists under the Bus. And one thing I was thinking of is in Matt Harris's book, he talks about, and I think Haror, you've even mentioned this, too, where the church is very specific about what they want to show. They don't want to show interracial couples.
Julia [02:11:14] They'll even, like, substitute out couples. Like, if you're. If they are mixed race, they'll switch one out to take the pictures. So, like, they're very specific in what they show. And I think the reason we have not seen or we did not see this year Stone, is because the church didn't want to show this year. So the church didn't want it to be out until 2015, I think. You know, John, with what you were saying is they're pushed so much that they're like, we have to. We have to show this.
Guest 1 [02:11:36] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:11:36] And people are asking what that photo is. It's. It's basically Russell and Nelson in a.
Gerardo Sumano [02:11:41] No, Rachel.
John Dehlin [02:11:42] Richard Turley. Oh, Richard Turley, the assistant church historian.
Gerardo Sumano [02:11:45] Yeah, because he's the one that wrote that or wrote that statement.
Julia [02:11:49] What a great picture.
John Dehlin [02:11:50] Oh, okay, okay. So he takes over for Marlon Jensen as church historian. He's an attorney, by the way, not a historian. And it shows him driving a bus. Is that like a hole in the windshield where the rock has been thrown through it? And then it's got an artist on the ground drawing a false depiction of the church's of Joseph Smith's translation process, and he's about to get run over by Richard Turley. That's a great. I'd never seen that before. That's a great. Who found that?
Gerardo Sumano [02:12:17] I made it.
John Dehlin [02:12:17] Is that. Did you make that? Did you really?
Gerardo Sumano [02:12:20] It was a mix of AI and Photoshop.
John Dehlin [02:12:21] Oh, my gosh. We've got to share that photo far and wide. That's brilliant.
Guest 1 [02:12:27] All right.
John Dehlin [02:12:27] And Richard, Charlie's a super nice guy, by the way. I. I don't mean to. Anyway, we're having to. Way too much fun. Let's go ahead and go to the next clip. The clip is. Jeremy shouldn't feel offended. I think it is a six zero. Are we now six zero? Richard Bushman validated.
Sandra Tanner [02:12:40] Oh, yeah, right.
John Dehlin [02:12:42] All right, we're at 6 0. All right, let's go to the next one.
▶ Video Clip 6Video Clip 6 [02:12:45] And so we all went through this fairly painful process from the early 1990s on till the present, where these things come. Come into the open, and it's been hard on a lot of people, but I think he's a mist. The error is this feeling of betrayal.
Video Clip 6 [02:13:05] Right. It's our own decision to be offended towards something. Sometimes, obviously there can be offense to be taken in some of these things because there probably were some people who weren't the most kind or loving to him, as he did grapple with some of these, These questions and concerns, but
Video Clip 6 [02:13:22] only because they thought he was truly wrong.
Video Clip 6 [02:13:25] Right.
Video Clip 6 [02:13:26] They weren't hiding anything from him. They thought he was. Didn't have a basis for his belief.
Video Clip 6 [02:13:33] Right. It's important to recognize the intent behind many of this stuff.
Video Clip 6 [02:13:37] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:13:39] Oh, my gosh, there's so much there. Sandra, you want to start?
Sandra Tanner [02:13:43] Well, yes, if we're talking about Jeremy's bishop probably really believed that the story was just the Urim and Thummim and not the stone and not magic and all those things. So, yes, on the lower levels, Mormons tell you you're wrong because they really genuinely believe the standard story. But Bushman's conceding that the historians already knew the story in 1990. He's already conceded that the church historians all knew what the real story was. So of course we felt betrayed. And they're conceding that. Yes. Well, yeah, I can see why you'd feel betrayed. Well, I guess. But to dismiss it. Well, they didn't know. Just the lower levels didn't know. The people in control of the printing press knew.
John Dehlin [02:14:47] Gerardo.
Gerardo Sumano [02:14:48] No, I would agree. I think we've.
John Dehlin [02:14:50] Oh, my gosh, I. I have so much to say here. Colby makes a funny point. Colby Reddish writes, it's our own decision to be offended. Says the group that started an entire podcast based on their offense to Jeremy Reynolds's letter. That's brilliant. Like again, I hate to come down on Richard Bushman because everyone loves him, but he lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. He literally watched Leonard Arrington. His whole history department goes from 1972 to 1982. It was completely shut down. Tell us, Sandra, why was Leonard Arrington's historical department shut down?
Sandra Tanner [02:15:32] Because he was putting out, or planning to put out to Frank a history. And he's doing this 16 volume sesquice centennial history. And when the brethren started reading some of the drafts, they realized, oh my goodness, this is all too frank. We can't have this. So they want to shut it all down. So they promote him to BYU out of the church historian's office.
Gerardo Sumano [02:15:57] They get rid of the calling.
Sandra Tanner [02:15:58] Too right to get rid of the calling of church historian.
John Dehlin [02:16:01] And they don't even release him in general. They called him in general conference. They release him not in general because
Gerardo Sumano [02:16:06] it was a general authority position. Right.
John Dehlin [02:16:08] I don't know.
Sandra Tanner [02:16:08] Yes, it was.
John Dehlin [02:16:09] Okay, yeah.
Sandra Tanner [02:16:10] Church historian.
Gerardo Sumano [02:16:11] It was the last one.
John Dehlin [02:16:12] Okay.
Sandra Tanner [02:16:12] Last one with the. Yeah. Ecclesiastical position.
John Dehlin [02:16:17] But for. But for Bushman to sort of make the narrative say that it's in the 90s and 2000s where the brethren start this painful process of learning the truth about the Church's history. Like, again, I don't know if Bushman's lying intentionally or if he's just compartmentalized his memory.
Guest 2 [02:16:35] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:16:36] Because we've got the. The Church history department shut down between 72 and 82. What happened with Dialogue and Sunstone in the Church's treatment of Dialogue and Sunstone, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [02:16:47] Well, they started telling everyone to avoid reading them. We weren't to go to any symposiums. They were all evil, which was a direct hit at Sunstone. So while. And they used to have. The B.H. roberts Society had annual meetings. Journal of Mormon History had annual meetings. And we were all being warned that we shouldn't be looking to these scholars. We should just be using the Church manuals, where what is official? You ask any Mormon questions back in those earlier days and bring up any of these problem areas, and it's, oh, well, that's not official. That's not official. That's not printed by the Church. Well, when you went to what was official and printed by the Church, it had the wrong narrative.
John Dehlin [02:17:39] And I'm just. Again, I don't know if he's intentionally misleading people or just compartmentalizing, but he knows that the Brethren knew the history was embarrassing and problematic and that the factual history was a problem. He knows they knew in the 60s and in the 70s and in the 80s. So for him to make it sound like El Tom Perry and Marvin J. Ashton, it wasn't until the late 90s and early 2000s that Boyd K. Packer learned about the truth about the Church history. That seems to be what he's saying here. And he knows better. He knows that they knew all along, and we're excommunicating and punishing historians for telling truthful history all the way along.
Gerardo Sumano [02:18:23] He also knows about the resistance in Inside Church headquarters to publish the gospel topic essays that would finally come make the Church come clean on all these issues. He knows that it was not a. Oh, yeah, we. We just learned about the Seer Stone. Let's write an essay about it. It was like he says, he uses the word painful. It was literally painful for the Brethren to want to come clean about all these issues because the. I. I think the, the unwritten policy for the brethren had been to not talk about things that are inconvenient for the church. You know, like, okay, Packer said, some things that are true are not useful.
Responding to Critics of the CES Letter
John Dehlin [02:19:03] Yeah. Can we please respond to this allegation this dude makes? I'm already forgetting his name. What's his name? The host guy?
Gerardo Sumano [02:19:11] Easton.
John Dehlin [02:19:11] Easton.
Julia [02:19:13] That.
John Dehlin [02:19:13] That. That people who feel betrayed, disillusioned, deceived for the church, misleading them about their history, are choosing to be offended. I mean, can we please address that?
Gerardo Sumano [02:19:26] He's taking the. The playbook from David Bednar.
John Dehlin [02:19:29] No, but can we just give our honest reaction?
Guest 1 [02:19:32] Well, that's.
Gerardo Sumano [02:19:32] What.
John Dehlin [02:19:32] Offensive and insulting. That we're just choosing to be offended.
Sandra Tanner [02:19:37] It's like telling the wife who finds out her husband's been cheating on her for years. You're just choosing to be offended.
John Dehlin [02:19:44] Yeah. Or. Or how about the LGBTQ community, Gerardo?
Gerardo Sumano [02:19:47] Like, yeah.
John Dehlin [02:19:49] Like, oh, we wanted to kill ourselves because you told us that we were choosing to be gay because we masturbated or because we didn't have a good relationship with our dad, and so we want to die. But we're. But what? We're just choosing to be offended? Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:20:03] Now that you change your mind, you know, and don't take a position on the.
Guest 1 [02:20:06] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:20:07] I mean, Julia, do you have a reaction? Can. Can we just get them to stop saying that?
Julia [02:20:13] Right? Or, like, even these new trans policies, it's like, these are. They're having to be followed to the bathroom. They're having to be, like. They. They're, like, treated like a criminal. Like. Like they can't be around kids or, like, youth. Like. Like, they're. Yeah, it's really silly to say that they're being. That they're choosing to be offended.
John Dehlin [02:20:28] Not. I don't mean to correct you. Not silly, demeaning, and insulting. Yes, and it's offensive. Cut it out. Stop it. Stop saying we choose to be offended. And Bushman himself agrees with me. Yeah, that's the crazy thing. All right, so. So should we keep going? Let's go to the next clip. The next clip. Joseph Smith's treasure digging is degrading. I think it's 7 070. Bushman validating Jeremy and the CS letter. Go to the next one.
Guest 2 [02:21:05] As. As we go through the. The response that you wrote, you. You say the CES author of the translation entry also described the Seer stone as faintly absurd. Quote, joseph. Joseph used the same magic device or Ouija board that he used during his treasure hunting days. He put a rock called a peep Stone in his hat and put his face in the hat to tell his customers the location of buried treasure on their property. The whole scene is made to appear ludicrous. How would. How would you. Or why. Why is it not ludicrous? The CES letter author says these are kind of crazy things. And you're saying, well, they're not as ludicrous as they may seem. Why is that?
Guest 1 [02:21:50] Well, this is an old Mormon embarrassment that the Seer Stone was something that had to be obscured because it was degrading to think of Joseph Smith as a treasure seeker. That I think is a mistaken historical outlook.
John Dehlin [02:22:15] Okay, I mean, what's Bushman saying there? What's Bushman saying there, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [02:22:20] Well, he wants to downplay the absurdness of the story by saying, oh, well, it was common in the area. Everyone was doing magic. It wouldn't have been absurd in the time. And it just looks absurd to us now because we don't believe in those kinds of things. Well, yes, that's why it looks absurd, because we now know that rocks don't really work.
John Dehlin [02:22:47] But what I heard him say is that Mormons have been embarrassed about this stone in the hat narrative from the very beginning. They viewed it as embarrassing and degrading. So I think that's 8, 0, wherever we are in the number. Because Bushman's basically agreeing with Jeremy that it's an embarrassing story. Am I wrong? Is that what he's saying?
Sandra Tanner [02:23:10] Joseph saw it as embarrassing once he moves to Kirtland, away from the money digger crowd up in New York work. That's why he has to change the revelations about the Seer Stone and Cowdery's rod and these different things is because he is embarrassed about it in his 38 history when he writes about his working for Stoll. Oh, well, this is how all these stories came about, about me being a money digger because I worked for Stoll. Well, yeah. The reason he's working for Stol is because he had the rock that gave us a special magical direction of where to go dig for the treasure. Joseph sees the embarrassment of it and they've been downplaying it ever since.
John Dehlin [02:24:00] Isn't there an account of Joseph, like sobbing to his father in law saying he's going to stop doing this crazy stuff?
Sandra Tanner [02:24:06] Yeah, right.
John Dehlin [02:24:07] That's Isaac Hale. Isaac Hale, right.
Sandra Tanner [02:24:10] Yeah. Well, yeah, after the 26th trial, then the next year he tells Hail that he's given up on. Well, the angel tells Joseph he's got to give up the money digging stuff. And so he finally does and tells his father in law, I've given up all that sort of stuff. And so he goes to live, well, on the father's in law's farm. And I thought, oh my goodness, what a surprise to poor Mr. Hale. Because when he moves down there with Emma, yes, he's not digging for treasures anymore. No. He ends up telling his father in law, oh, by the way, we're going to be spending all our time in the front room with me with a rock of my hat translating a book from plates you can't see. So, yeah, Joseph switches careers, but it's no better than the one he had before.
Julia [02:25:05] JULIA well, that account, like I love that story, that account comes from Peter Ingersoll from Edie Howe's Mormonism Unveiled. And so a lot of people just discredit the whole thing. It's like, oh, it was published in that book, so we can't, we can't accept it.
Sandra Tanner [02:25:18] But.
Julia [02:25:18] So it wasn't Isaac Hill specifically. But yeah.
John Dehlin [02:25:20] How do you find Edie Howe credible or not?
Sandra Tanner [02:25:23] SANDRA Well, I think that the stories from the neighbors all are credible. Now there start parts of Ed how I don't like, I don't care for the he's the one that got us all sidetracked on Solomon Spalding stuff. And I think that's a whole nother issue. But the stories of the money dean that are in Ed Howe are not just dependent on Ed Howe's book. We have Mother Smith verifying the magic involvement in her manuscript history. She talks about the family seeking the faculty of Abrac. That's magic Abracadabra stuff. It's not just from anti Mormon sources. You have Mormon sources that concede the magic money digging scenario.
John Dehlin [02:26:16] Julia, tell us why you've got a photo of Hannah Stoddard here. We were dying to know.
Julia [02:26:21] So this book, so she, is it her husband? Who's this other guy? There's two this book, I don't know who the other author is specifically in relation to her, but he's James Stoddard and Hannah Stoddard. So they wrote this book. And the whole book, I think is, and I read it as a member or I tried to, but even then I could recognize that it's not, they're, they're not accepting a lot of parts of history. So anyway, but she writes in here.
John Dehlin [02:26:43] What's the name of the book?
Julia [02:26:45] Oh, sorry, Seer Stone versus Urim and Thumb, the Book of Mormon translation on trial. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to weigh the evidence for the. The spectacles or the seer stone. And they. They come out saying, oh, the seer stone. Here, I'll just read it. She says, if we accept that Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon using a dark occultic seer stone he presumably found from an alleged career in treasure digging, scrying, and magic, this means the Book of Mormon was revealed through an occultic instrument and not by revelation and instruments provided by God. No true Christian can accept as God's word a book which came from this bitter fountain, the very foundation of our faith. Crumble.
Sandra Tanner [02:27:22] Amen. Preach it, sister. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:27:25] Who does she think she is, being a believing Mormon, basically telling the modern prophetess and revelators that they're all wrong, that she's got the story right, but that they've all got it wrong. But she still sustains the church. Yeah. And sustains the brethren. By the way, Julia, the other dude, the other Stoddard, according to Dave Vogel, is the dad.
Julia [02:27:46] Oh, it's the dad. So his father, Daughter. Okay.
Sandra Tanner [02:27:48] Not.
Julia [02:27:48] Not okay.
John Dehlin [02:27:49] But how does she think she's okay correcting the brethren? I'm confused. Like, the church has released its.
Gerardo Sumano [02:27:57] I mean, she has a point. She has a point. If she accepts it, everything crumbles. And I don't think she wants to let her faith crumble.
John Dehlin [02:28:04] I mean. Yeah, she's admitting it's ridiculous. Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [02:28:06] Yes. And she's directly opposite of what Bushman is conceding in all of his books. And in this interview, Bushman is freely conceding in this. It all came through the stone. And he says in the interview, I'm not ashamed of this. Yes, it all came through the stone.
John Dehlin [02:28:26] So this next clip we have, I want to meet the person that convinced Mormon president and prophet Russell Nelson to do this.
Julia [02:28:35] And he did it.
John Dehlin [02:28:36] Go ahead, Julia.
Julia [02:28:36] I think he did it June of 2020. So this is like. So like, Hannah Starter wrote her book in 2019, and this is just like a year later. This is the. That's the best date I could find for this clip is.
John Dehlin [02:28:46] And tell us what people. Tell us what we're about to see. Julia. For those who are just.
Julia [02:28:49] I can't remember. I can't remember the sister involved in this. Does. Does anyone recognize her? That she's.
Gerardo Sumano [02:28:53] I don't know, primary presidency or primary.
Julia [02:28:55] Oh, yeah, it's the primary presidency. You're right. I can't remember her name, but. So President Nelson is going to demonstrate how the translation process looked like what that looked like.
John Dehlin [02:29:04] All right, you got a hat on. A table. And I'm wondering if there's a stone in the hat. So let's play the clip.
▶ Video Clip 7Video Clip 7 [02:29:10] Miraculous, really, through the gift and power of God.
Video Clip 7 [02:29:13] We have a lot of suggestions about
Video Clip 7 [02:29:16] how it was done. We know that they had a table like this. We know they had the golden plates covered usually.
Video Clip 7 [02:29:22] And Joseph used these Urim and Thummim
Video Clip 7 [02:29:26] Seer stones in the hat. And it was easier for him to see the light when he take that position.
John Dehlin [02:29:39] Can you just say it's easier to see the light when you stick your face in a hat?
Sandra Tanner [02:29:43] Well, you can see the writing on the stone. The light from the stone would shine better. Like reading your text message in the dark.
John Dehlin [02:29:52] I just want to be in the strategy meeting where it's like, here's what we're going to do. We're going to have Nelson with the primary president in a room with a white hat, and he's going to pick it up and bring it towards his face. What did they think they were accomplishing?
Gerardo Sumano [02:30:07] It was scripted, and you can tell that it was not scripted.
John Dehlin [02:30:10] Everything they do is scripted. Everything they do is planned and scripted. The camera's rolling. Like, do you think they just accidentally had a hat on the table?
Guest 1 [02:30:19] Well.
John Dehlin [02:30:19] And he accidentally mentions the hat in the translation.
Sandra Tanner [02:30:22] Well, it makes you wonder if the prop was planned. But it makes you wonder, though, if they really practiced him picking up the hat, bringing up to his face.
John Dehlin [02:30:33] Yeah, of course they did.
Guest 1 [02:30:36] You think?
Gerardo Sumano [02:30:36] So he looks a little awkward. And then I think after he does that, he's kind of like, I must
John Dehlin [02:30:41] look really stupid right now. Right.
Julia [02:30:44] So. So I want to. Also, something that I thought was interesting is that the church released these new videos that they sometimes play at the visitor centers. I've seen them in Nauvoo, and they. I can't. They're like Days of Harmony or the. Something like that. There's two. There's two newer ones that they put out, and they. They released pictures of Joseph Smith using this hat on the table. And. But in the film, you only see a tiny corner that kind of sticks out. That's the only time they show the hat in the stone. So like, even, like, they'll use the. In their photography, they'll show the stone just, you know, putting his face in the hat. But in the video itself, they never show that. So I thought that was interesting, too.
Gerardo Sumano [02:31:16] And it's also interesting how he's trying to be a little sneaky. Nelson, when he's saying seer. He would put the seer stones in the hat. I think he's trying to appeal to those people that believe of a year, pair of glasses of two things and, you know, trying to make those people still believe that it was the Urim Thummim that he was putting in the hat.
Sandra Tanner [02:31:41] Yeah, but the Urman Thummim would have been too big to use in the hat, which is why he's using a rock.
Gerardo Sumano [02:31:46] Right, right.
John Dehlin [02:31:48] Really quickly, we've got some comments we need to read. Nathaniel Wilkerson writes, you are all legends and your work will impact thousands for many years to come. Thank you for waking up the Mormon world. I think that's 99% Sandra and 1% the rest of us.
John Dehlin [02:32:06] But thanks for that comment. Susan Groom writes, thanks for these valuable conversations. Julia, Gerardo, Sandra and John, you are the voices of truth. Isn't it nice that people are, are, are kind? A couple others, thank you. Thank you, Darlene Lane, for that super chat.
John Dehlin [02:32:25] Thank you, A. Adams and Brian Feldman. And then finally, Sentient Dreamer writes, thank you for doing. Thank you for your outrage and acknowledgment. So he's allowing us to be angry. He's not invalidating our feelings by saying that anger means that we're just bitter in choosing to be offended. Okay, we have a lot of clips to show. Should we speed it up a little bit? Yeah. All right, let's go to the next clip and it's entitled Part of working class Culture. Julie, I need your help. Are we at 8 0? What are we at?
Julia [02:32:58] You got to keep it right now is it 9?
John Dehlin [02:33:00] Now is it 9 0? Okay, write down 9O. And then you got to remind me so I'll forget. Okay. Part of the working class culture, the
▶ Video Clip 8Video Clip 8 [02:33:08] folk magic which we're talking about here was prevalent all through the Western world. I'm talking about Europe.
Video Clip 8 [02:33:16] Right.
Video Clip 8 [02:33:17] And England. Now, right up to the middle of the 18th century about then, as enlightenment comes on, what was commonplace, belief in seer stones. As a member of Parliament who uses a seer stone? In the 1600s, that was just part of sort of the edges of Christian belief. Then as science began to increase in authority and influence, that became considered below grade, crude, raw. But it remained in the farm, lower class levels of society, especially all over England, but especially in New England and Pennsylvania in the United States. So the Whitmers were into folk magic, as many Germans were. And so what we think is shameful was just part of, of sort of working class.
John Dehlin [02:34:25] Did, did Richard Bushman just call Joseph Smith's practices crude, raw, lower class and shameful? Did I hear that. Right.
Sandra Tanner [02:34:34] Yes, that's what I heard.
John Dehlin [02:34:38] And is that what Jeremy was basically saying?
Sandra Tanner [02:34:40] Yeah, yeah. This is a number 10, I think, on what we've all been saying, Julia.
Julia [02:34:47] Well, also, like, he's also saying, you know, oh, David Widmer was also, you know, gullible and, you know, involved in all those things.
Sandra Tanner [02:34:53] Like, so they don't believe in all this stuff.
Julia [02:34:56] Right. And I think Jeremy also had a problem with that in a different section, talking about the witnesses, how, like, why are we taking these men seriously? Because they're stooped in these things.
Guest 1 [02:35:03] Right.
Julia [02:35:03] So, like, maybe a lot of them.
Sandra Tanner [02:35:04] Well, it isn't just that they're stooped in magic. It has to work.
Julia [02:35:09] Right.
Sandra Tanner [02:35:09] Because the stone works. It's not that they were just superstitious. Bushman has to be confirming its value when he says the stone really has these abilities.
John Dehlin [02:35:24] Is anybody bothered that? But when we like what they say, they're prophets and revelators. When we don't like what they say, they're products of their time.
Sandra Tanner [02:35:32] Yes.
John Dehlin [02:35:33] Which isn't that heads I win, tails you lose, basically.
Julia [02:35:37] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:35:39] How prevalent was it?
Sandra Tanner [02:35:40] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [02:35:41] Because if I remember right, you found a quote by.
John Dehlin [02:35:44] Was it Benjamin Franklin, like in the mid-1700s, was saying there's this ridiculous con called treasure digging. Like Benjamin Franklin was calling out in the mid-1700s.
Gerardo Sumano [02:35:54] And not only that, but then it was illegal.
John Dehlin [02:35:56] Oh, 100%. That's why there were laws against it when Joseph was doing it, because it was a long known con.
Gerardo Sumano [02:36:03] So was it a practice that everyone was doing?
John Dehlin [02:36:05] No, it was a kooky, fringy, rare, ridiculous, culty fraud.
Joseph Smith Changing His Personal History
Sandra Tanner [02:36:12] Well, and this is.
Gerardo Sumano [02:36:13] I said Kales didn't believe it.
John Dehlin [02:36:15] No.
Sandra Tanner [02:36:15] This is the reason that Joseph Smith couldn't join the Methodist Church when he tried. Because when he was going to the Methodist meetings, we don't know how weekly, I assume, the probationary class to join the Methodist Church. You have this discussion of how long he was actually a member of the class by men that ran the class, but they wouldn't let him join ultimately because he wouldn't repent of his magic money digging claims.
Guest 1 [02:36:52] Oh, wow.
John Dehlin [02:36:52] I didn't know that.
Julia [02:36:53] I didn't know that either.
John Dehlin [02:36:54] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [02:36:55] Yeah. Well, Wes Walters did an article on his attempt to join the Methodist Church. We have an article on our website about this.
Guest 2 [02:37:02] He.
Sandra Tanner [02:37:03] Yeah, after the. Well, it would be after the. He gets
John Dehlin [02:37:09] married to Emma 24, 25.
Sandra Tanner [02:37:11] Oh, no, I think it's after.
John Dehlin [02:37:13] Okay, okay.
Sandra Tanner [02:37:15] That he tries to join the Methodist.
Julia [02:37:17] That was after one of Their children died. Right. To seek comfort, I think is one of the reasons why people say, try to join.
John Dehlin [02:37:24] Dan Vogel writes they didn't want a necromancer in the class.
Sandra Tanner [02:37:29] Right? Yes. So, yes, it was the lower class families in New England that followed these magic practices. And the Methodists were not thinking it was a cool practice and they weren't going to let a necromancer join their church.
Guest 1 [02:37:45] Yeah.
Julia [02:37:46] So, but it wasn't, it wasn't all of the lower class. I'll just save that too because like if you research Joseph Smith's certain digs where it's like the pirate that he was digging for in the local newspapers, they were saying, don't give into this con. This is just silly. Like, don't do it. And so like, and then like you have the 1826 trial where his. I can't remember the relation of the. But the, the nephew of the one doing the treasure digging, he was worried that his uncle was being conned. Like, so it wasn't all of the lower class did not accept this as, you know, as a thing. It was just certain people. Yeah. Like even.
Sandra Tanner [02:38:20] Well, and that this is the reason Joseph has to elope with Emma. Because Isaac Hale is opposed to Joseph's necromancy. He doesn't think Joseph has any decent job.
John Dehlin [02:38:34] We have the coolest fact checker on the planet. Dan Vogel says yes, right after the baby died in June 1828. Can someone explain to me if Joseph was visited by God and Jesus in 1820 and told not to join any church, but to start the one and only true church, to restore the one and only true church, why was he trying to join the Methodist Church in 1828? Can you explain that to me, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [02:38:55] Well, it leaves you a little wondering on that, isn't it? And if his mom believed his story, why does she take her kids into the. The Presbyterian Church right after he supposedly has had the first bishop?
Gerardo Sumano [02:39:10] Morona is instructing him of all this doctrine every year before, for four years before the plates. But then he doesn't know that Alvin is going to be saved. He doesn't, you know, and all this stuff happens, making the, the his family join the Presbyterian Church. And he doesn't seem to think, oh, I gotta tell him that God and Jesus appeared to me and told me that all these churches are corrupt.
Sandra Tanner [02:39:36] Yeah. Why is he trying to be a Methodist?
John Dehlin [02:39:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a reason that the first account of the first vision that we have is 1832. It's because he made it up sometime right before 1832, right?
Sandra Tanner [02:39:50] Yeah, evidently.
John Dehlin [02:39:51] I mean, because in 28 he's tried to join another church.
Sandra Tanner [02:39:55] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:39:55] All right, next clip is entitled Joseph Smith changed his History. Wait, Julia, what's the count?
Julia [02:40:03] Oh, are we at 12? Are we at 12 now?
John Dehlin [02:40:05] 11.
Sandra Tanner [02:40:05] 12.
John Dehlin [02:40:08] Write it down, Julia. All right, all right. Joseph Smith changes history.
Guest 1 [02:40:12] What happens is in 1834, Ed Howe, a journalist from Painesville, nearby to Kirtland, published a book in which he trotted out all the evidence he could find from the neighbors that the Smiths were practicing money digging. And this was to discredit them. And I think that's the first time that the Smiths began to feel like, well, this is a. This is something to be embarrassed about. And so they began to change the story. Instead of talking about seer stones or spectacles. Spectacles. They use the word Urim and Thummim. And because that was a biblical term and sort of. Sort of gave some dignity Right. To this searching. And so ever since then, we've been embarrassed. What, by something that for the Smiths was part of everyday life? Wasn't embarrassing at all. In fact, it probably played a large part in their ability to accept the gold plates as legitimate.
Guest 2 [02:41:26] Right. There's a lot of presentism in that. Right. Of recognizing, well, we're in the 21st century, so it's going to seem a little bit different than it would have been the 19th century.
Gerardo Sumano [02:41:37] Did he just say that God had to go to people that are gullible to give them the golden plates because otherwise other type of people wouldn't have believed it?
John Dehlin [02:41:46] Why are you laughing, Julia?
Julia [02:41:48] Well, at the end, just like, where he was. What did he say at the end? It was really funny where he's like, oh, I can't remember, but that was a good point. Harado.
John Dehlin [02:41:57] Like, I mean. And did he just admit that Joseph Smith changed the narrative once he realized it was an embarrassing, ridiculous, unbelievable narrative that he embarrassing, rewrote and changed his history? Called, Gave. Gave things new names, biblical names, and gave it a more religious and spiritual context because he knew the folk magic context was both illegal and fraudulent. Did he just admit that?
Sandra Tanner [02:42:26] Yes. And I mean, it's astounding that he needed to go to people that believed in magic rocks showing you where to divine for treasure in order to believe that God could use a magic rock to translate gold plates that no one gets to see.
Gerardo Sumano [02:42:44] Yeah, conveniently, once the Joseph wants to start converting other people that are. Do. Are not really into seer stones and, and treasure digging, that's when Moroni takes the plates up to heaven.
John Dehlin [02:42:56] Yeah, yeah, exactly. Dan's fact checking me. He says that. Sorry, Dan writes 1832 account has no command not to join any church. But Joseph Smith is saved by. By faith. I was referencing the official narrative. Yeah, the 1838 official narrative contrasted with his actual behavior in. In 1828. But Dan, we love you keeping us honest, so keep that up. Julie, any. Any other comments?
Julia [02:43:25] I remember Maven, you. You had her comment poke up really fast. But the presentism idea, because Easton's like, oh, people are getting confused because they're bringing presentism in. But like, no, we've already established like, like, like that's why he was brought to trial. It's. It was against the law. They were warning people against treasure digging in the newspapers. Like Benjamin Franklin in The, in the 1720s was like, this is, this is like hogwash. Don't buy into it. Like, it's not presentism. It's just not.
John Dehlin [02:43:48] All right, so the count. What's the count? Julia may have been saying 13. Is that where.
Julia [02:43:52] Yeah, I guess we're 13 now.
John Dehlin [02:43:53] All right, Richard Bushman as the referee says. Jeremy Reynolds, 13. Mormon Church Honesty, 0. All right, the next clip is entitled. It wasn't a real lie.
Guest 2 [02:44:08] As part of that though, I think that some people may have concerns that the history was changed or that the narrative was changed a little bit. How would you help those people recognize the history and what is actually true and how to determine what is changed of the narrative or what is the actual truth of it?
Guest 1 [02:44:26] Well, it was changed. The Smiths immediately began trying to bury the fact Joseph Smith played down his treasure seeking background as just a little episode with Josiah Stowell. You know, just to miss dismissed this something. Lucy Smack did the same. And what's I think significant is they changed the from the Book of Commandments to the Doctrine and Covenants. They changed one of the revelations to insert the word Urim and Thummim. See, that's acceptable desirable versus seer stone. So the church was trying to cover up, in that case, Joseph Smith's involvement with treasure seeking.
Guest 2 [02:45:14] I think that may make some people nervous that the church is trying to
Guest 1 [02:45:17] cover up the truth.
Guest 2 [02:45:18] How would you help them through a. Something that might cause dissonance like that?
Guest 1 [02:45:26] You just have to accept the fact that they didn't want to be made to look silly. Who wants to be made to look silly? So if Joseph's put associated with the wrong class of people, you do your best to make him look better. It Wasn't a real lie. It was just sort of subordinated or retelling the story. And who doesn't retell the stories of their lives to make them look better?
Guest 2 [02:45:53] Right.
John Dehlin [02:45:54] I could not believe that.
Gerardo Sumano [02:45:56] One thing I just realized, Richard Bushman is acknowledging that Urim and Thumb, the God preserving Urim and Thummim thing is all made up.
John Dehlin [02:46:05] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [02:46:06] And was added later.
John Dehlin [02:46:07] Oh, absolutely.
Gerardo Sumano [02:46:08] So he doesn't believe in a year.
John Dehlin [02:46:09] Not just that, but he's admitting that the Joseph Smith changed scripture.
Gerardo Sumano [02:46:14] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:46:14] That the Book of Commandments, that was revelation. That was scripture. And he's admitting, which we've shown in the LDS discussion series, that they literally, just when they would print a new version of the Doctrine and Covenants, they would take out stuff they didn't like. They would. They would add things that weren't there before, and they would change things that they didn't like. And Bushman just admitted that. That not only do they lie and deceive, but that they literally alter scripture to lie and deceive. That's outrageous. But it gets. It gets even worse. He admits that. He admits that Lucy lied. He admits that Joseph lied, that they changed scripture.
John Dehlin [02:46:53] And then he even just. He admits that why they did it, that they did it so they wouldn't be made to look nervous, so they wouldn't be made to look silly. And then he says. And I think he's. He's giving his own signals there. Right. He says, who doesn't lie to try and make themselves look better?
John Dehlin [02:47:14] Which means that he must do that or he wouldn't be saying it. And I'm. I'm gonna say I don't. I don't think I lie to try and make myself look better. I would rather say something bad about myself. That's true.
John Dehlin [02:47:31] Than lie to try and make myself look better. So, number one, I disagree with him that most people lie to make themselves look better. Sandra, do you lie intentionally to make yourself look better?
Sandra Tanner [02:47:43] Well, maybe. It depends on who you ask. I try not to.
John Dehlin [02:47:48] No, I. I. Do you, Gerardo, do you lie to try and make yourself look better?
Gerardo Sumano [02:47:54] Well, even if I. I'm trying to think really hard
John Dehlin [02:47:59] on
Gerardo Sumano [02:48:02] where I would have done that, but, I mean, certainly it would be something that you wouldn't expect to. From a prophet of God, you know, who's telling the story about how the church came about to be doing that.
John Dehlin [02:48:15] Yeah.
Guest 1 [02:48:16] And.
John Dehlin [02:48:16] And what did the church teach us about honesty?
Guest 2 [02:48:19] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:48:19] What did that. Like, what happens if you're.
Gerardo Sumano [02:48:22] It's a temple recommend question.
John Dehlin [02:48:23] What Happens. What happens if you're going to go on a mission and you kind of, you know, lie to make yourself look a little bit better in terms of what you did or didn't do with your girlfriend before your mission. What. What is. What does the church do? Do they patch on the back and say, oh, you're just, you know, doing what Joseph Smith did. What do they do?
Guest 2 [02:48:45] What do they do?
Gerardo Sumano [02:48:46] They discipline you.
John Dehlin [02:48:48] Yeah. They, like, literally shame you.
Guest 1 [02:48:51] They.
John Dehlin [02:48:51] They make you come home early from your mission. They may disfellowship you, and they embarrass you in front of your parents, your family, the entire congregation. They don't laugh and go, you were just trying to make yourself look a little bit better than you really were. But Bushman is just totally saying, that's what people do.
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:09] Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, no, we should accept it.
John Dehlin [02:49:14] And he's saying that's what the leaders do. That's what Joseph Smith did. Like, for me, this was probably the most disturbing part, and I don't mean to be unkind or unfair to Bushmen, because it's true. People embellish. I mean, what he's saying is, it's the fish story, right? The fish was this big. No, wait, it was this big. No, wait, it was this big. He's saying humans have a tendency to embellish. But does that trivialize the severity of this particular situation? When people are paying 10% of their income, consecrating their entire lives to their church, making all the most important decisions about who to marry, when to marry, how many kids to have? Like, is it trivial? You know? And is he just. Is he downplaying the severity of what's going on here?
Gerardo Sumano [02:49:58] Definitely downplaying.
John Dehlin [02:50:00] Julia, do you have a thought? You seem.
Julia [02:50:01] No, yeah, I absolutely agree with you. Like, this is. This is a big deal. And for him to say it's not a real lie, like, what is it? Like, it is a lie. Joseph's taking the Seer Stone out of the picture, and he's like, oh, no, it was these divine things that. That were preserved. Like, he is lying.
John Dehlin [02:50:16] Lying about something very, very serious.
Julia [02:50:18] Right.
John Dehlin [02:50:19] I guess we're beating a dead horse. But I. I think this. This is this dismissal, like, the fact that Bushman would show up and talk about it. I mean, it explains why Roughstone Rolling is so apologetic. Right? Because he's willing. Like, isn't Roughstone Rolling an example of Bushman stretching the truth to make Joseph Smith and the church look better than it probably would if he told the real truth? I mean, Certainly we have to give him credit that it's the most accurate and honest portrayal of Joseph Smith written by a faithful Mormon. Yeah, but that's not saying a lot.
Guest 1 [02:50:56] Right?
Sandra Tanner [02:50:57] He's still sugarcoating it.
John Dehlin [02:50:59] Yeah, he is. Right. And he's basically telling the Joseph. The Joseph Smith. Rough stone rolling. He sugarcoated it probably to make Joseph Smith look better.
Sandra Tanner [02:51:09] Yeah, Right.
John Dehlin [02:51:10] Which he did. Right.
Guest 1 [02:51:11] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:51:12] Anyone who's read it would say it's. It's not fully honest and fully accurate.
Gerardo Sumano [02:51:17] Well, yeah, and the arguments don't really make sense. You know, this idea that he tries to advance, that the treasure digging Joseph Smith was engaging in was him practicing his powers. I mean, that doesn't make any sense when you put it into context and then. And then listen to what he's saying later where, like, Joseph is embarrassed about it. Why would he be embarrassed about it if he was practicing. Practicing his powers?
Sandra Tanner [02:51:42] Well, his powers weren't working very good because they never find anything. So he was. It was not a good schooling.
John Dehlin [02:51:49] He was going to jail and changing a story later and apologizing for what he did. So. So it was a good thing anyway. All right, next clip. This clip is entitled what was the purpose of the plates? Good question. Wait, Julia.
What Was the Purpose of the Gold Plates
Guest 2 [02:52:04] What?
John Dehlin [02:52:04] Where are we at? I think there were two or three in that one, but where are we
Julia [02:52:07] at if there's two in that one? So we're at 15.
John Dehlin [02:52:10] Okay, I think there was more, but 15.
Julia [02:52:12] Oh, there might be.
John Dehlin [02:52:13] Absolutely 15. All right, next clip.
Guest 2 [02:52:16] Is the purpose of the plates if they lay covered on the table while the translation commenced and proceeded.
Guest 1 [02:52:24] It's hard to answer. We don't really have an answer. But they are important. They're not just left under the bed. They sit on the table wrapped. So their presence is significant. And the problem is we don't know the technology of translation reveal translation here. So just how it works. But it's sort of like the Book of Abraham manuscripts seems to show that what was on the scrolls we actually have is not what's in the Book of Abraham.
John Dehlin [02:53:12] Right.
Guest 1 [02:53:13] And so the scrolls are sort of like the plates. They're present, but they are not really containing the message.
Gerardo Sumano [02:53:23] Maybe they're fake too.
Guest 1 [02:53:24] So there's some kind of stimulus or provocation or something that starts the revelatory process. On the other hand, you take the. The Kinderhook plates, these little sort of brass, like tablets that had writing on them, and Joseph Smith looks at him for a while, maybe tries to translate them, and then gives up on it. They don't perform that function. They don't, they don't work. So there's some difference in what will start this process going and whatnot. But I think it's an error for us to try to figure out how that really works. It's. It's a couple of centuries ahead of us, right? Engineering knowledge, what the heck?
John Dehlin [02:54:21] Why? So, like, in a couple centuries, there's going to be some scientist that's like study,
Sandra Tanner [02:54:41] But he gives away the game in this, this, this is the most astounding segment that you could get that he. The plates are like the papyri.
John Dehlin [02:54:55] He's not doing the Book of Mormon any favor comparing it to the Book of Abraham.
Sandra Tanner [02:55:02] So there's no connection to reality because the document is not going to be what produces the final product. And then to bring in the kindergarten plates, which were a forgery by someone else to trick Joseph Smith. I mean, his whole scenario. I don't think he thought this through well enough.
John Dehlin [02:55:30] What is he talking about? Some engineer in 200 years? Oh, my gosh, I figured it out. You can talk to rocks and they'll tell you exactly what God wants you to know. And he's going to publish this in Nature magazine. Like, what's going to happen in 200 years? Literally, what's good? Can someone tell me what's going to happen in 200 years?
Gerardo Sumano [02:55:52] Well, that's kind of what he's implying is going to happen.
John Dehlin [02:55:55] It's. It's this advanced technology. It's like nuclear fission, like fusion. What is it?
Sandra Tanner [02:56:00] Yeah, but he's admitting that the Book of Mormon, what Joseph's saying has no basis in reality. Because when he compares it to the Book of Abraham. Yeah, when he says that the papyri have no connection to the message of the Book of Abraham and he compares that with the Book of Mormon, then is he saying those plates have no connection to what Joseph's dictating?
John Dehlin [02:56:32] Well, they weren't in the room. Of course they have no connection. That's why it really is an apt comparison. Like, for those of you who don't know, the Book of Abraham allegedly was translated by papyru that had, quote, reformed Egyptian on it, or Egyptian. But we now know that the word Abraham didn't even appear on the papyra. And the Church admits this. So now the Church has this catalyst theory idea that the Egyptian scroll, even though it wasn't written by the hand of Abraham, which Joseph claimed the scroll was necessary to inspire Joseph to channel direct revelation from God. Even though Joseph thought he was translating the Egyptian hieroglyphs into something. So it's ridiculous. And now Joseph has been. Richard Bushman is actually admitting that the Book of Mormon was on the same level of ridiculousness as the Book of Abraham.
Guest 2 [02:57:22] Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:57:22] And this is the move that Spencer Fluman from the Maxwell Institute signaled to us 5ish years ago when he started telling people that the Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith's greatest. What?
Gerardo Sumano [02:57:34] Revelation.
John Dehlin [02:57:35] Revelation, not translation. So now the church is backing away from the idea that he was a translator, which was his original gift, by the way, wasn't it?
Sandra Tanner [02:57:45] Yes.
Gerardo Sumano [02:57:46] And didn't deduction and Covenant said something like he should not aspire for any to any other gift other than translate.
Julia [02:57:52] And that was changed later. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sandra Tanner [02:57:55] Until he is finished with that one. But yeah. Well, I think this segment, it just, it's a classic. I just. Everyone needs to listen to that segment again to, to realize the concession he's making that the Book of Mormon is a revelated book. It is not a translation of an artifact. It is something that Joseph Smith is dictating that is not connected to the plates.
John Dehlin [02:58:30] Yeah. And yeah, it makes no sense. And we're having way too much fun.
Gerardo Sumano [02:58:39] And he cannot really, he really concedes the. The idea that, you know, that Dan Bogle has proposed that Joseph Smith fabricated the plates and that's why he had to cover them up, because they couldn't pass physical inspection. But he be. But Richard Bushman is advancing this idea. Well, he needed to make the plate, so then this would make his revelatory juices start working. So even though they're probably. I mean, they could be fake, just like the Book of Abraham Papyri had nothing to do with Abraham. They had to be in the room so. So Joseph could be inspired to produce the Book of Mormon.
John Dehlin [02:59:15] Yeah. And again, you got to watch the LDS discussion series. You can find it on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or on the playlist on the Mormon Stories podcast page. But we've already established. Sandra, I remember for the first time picking up a replica of the golden plates made with a lighter metal than. Than. Than would have been than gold was.
Sandra Tanner [02:59:37] Right, Right. Yeah.
John Dehlin [02:59:38] And I could barely lift them. I could like barely stand to lift a replica of the golden plates that was lighter than what the golden plates would have been. And so it. And so if the golden plates had actually been real, made with gold, Joseph couldn't have even lifted them, let alone Emma dusting under them. Right.
Sandra Tanner [02:59:58] Yeah. So the size of the plates that Joseph smith gives us six by six by eight a piece. Gold plates would have weighed over 200 pounds. The model we had in our bookstore was 118 pounds.
John Dehlin [03:00:15] And there's a video of me trying to lift that. Yeah, there's a video of my interview with you. Yeah, yeah.
Sandra Tanner [03:00:20] And so you can't pick it up and dust underneath at 118 pounds. I don't care if it's 50 pounds. I don't see Emma picking those up to dust under them. The plates cannot be a genuine artifact because everyone says they had. The witnesses talk about something that weighs around 40 pounds or thereabouts, but the story makes no sense if you're using actual gold plates. That's why the church has to say, well, they were gold. Like, they weren't really full gold, other than the fact that the angel said they were gold, but other than that.
John Dehlin [03:01:05] And I take Bushman as word that he believes there were gold plates, which is ridiculous in and of itself.
Gerardo Sumano [03:01:11] I mean, fake or real, though.
John Dehlin [03:01:12] I mean. Yeah, but I mean, that's the thing is that on the one hand, Bushman really thinks the existence of actual plates is important, but he's smart enough to know that Joseph could have made them out of tiny or brass or whatever, probably tin, and that. That because he wouldn't let anyone actually see them except by, you know, second sight or like, their spiritual eyes, like, the fact that he was covering them up. He knows that they could have been manufactured. And Dan Vogel. That's Dan Vogel's view, that, yes, there were plates, but when Joseph came back with an injured hand, it's because he was actually fashioning the plates out of common tin that would have been made available.
John Dehlin [03:01:52] There's an episode on Mormon stories where we had someone actually make replica replicas of the plates using tin and tools that would have been available at the time. I've got those plates over there. My point is that Richard Bushman, on the one hand, wants to say the plates were incredibly important because people needed an actual artifact, but he doesn't acknowledge that it's very. They could have very easily been faked and had to have been faked. Yeah, they had to have been faked because there's no way golden heavy plates could have ever been practical in the lib scenario.
Sandra Tanner [03:02:25] Right, Right.
John Dehlin [03:02:26] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:02:27] And he concedes when he. When he compares it to the Book of Abraham, that's a concession that the place could have said anything about anything. You know, even if. Even if they were real, they could have been fabricated by. By someone like real as, like, a physical object. Who knows if they what they. What was written on them actually said what the Book of Mormon claims they said, because the Book of Abraham clearly doesn't, and we have the Papyru to prove it.
John Dehlin [03:02:56] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:02:56] And he. I do want to call him out on the Kinderhook plates when he tries to say, well, because the Kinderhook plates were fake, he gave up on them. I think Julia has a slide for it.
John Dehlin [03:03:07] All right, let's go. And what's the slide, Julia?
Julia [03:03:09] Yeah, so this is taken directly from the history of the Church. So like Richard Bushman says, oh, he tried and it didn't work. And. But that's not what the history of Church says. This is Joseph. This is being written in Joseph's voice. It says, I, Joseph Smith, have translated a portion of them, meaning the Kinderhook plates, which they're displayed here on this slide and find that they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth. And so he's saying that he translated some. And so like Richard Bushman, I don't know why he says that it didn't work, because it did. Like, like, I. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
Gerardo Sumano [03:03:45] He tries to say that he looks at them and then he gave up on the project, which is true.
Julia [03:03:49] He.
Gerardo Sumano [03:03:49] He didn't really ever produce a. Finish a translation project. But he didn't finish the Book of Abraham. He didn't finish the Book of Moses.
John Dehlin [03:03:57] He didn't finish the Book of Mormon.
Gerardo Sumano [03:03:59] He didn't finish. I mean. Yeah, right.
John Dehlin [03:04:01] And the seal portion.
Guest 1 [03:04:03] Yeah, yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:04:03] And he didn't finish the translation of the Bible. Like, there's a lot of. Most of the projects, especially the ones that he was speaking of in Naboo, just were, like, left unfinished.
John Dehlin [03:04:13] So he either got that wrong, didn't know it, misremembered it.
Gerardo Sumano [03:04:17] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:04:18] You know, but it's misleading people. Yeah, he just misled people there.
Guest 2 [03:04:22] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [03:04:23] Right, right.
John Dehlin [03:04:24] Yeah.
Julia [03:04:24] Yeah. I also think it's really interesting when scholars try to answer a question, like a concern. Like we're. We're concerned about Joseph Smith's use of the Seer Stone. And I think it's funny when they, when they're like, oh, yeah, but the Book of Abraham, like, if you weren't aware of the Book of Abraham, now, you know, are. Or if you weren't aware of the Kinderhook plates, now you are. Or now you might go look into it. I Just think it's funny that they try to answer concerns and then bring up other concerns too, but maybe they're just trying to be more open.
John Dehlin [03:04:45] Yeah.
Guest 1 [03:04:46] All right.
John Dehlin [03:04:47] The next clip is entitled it doesn't matter if the Book of Mormon was broadly Reshaped.
Guest 2 [03:04:54] A question people often ask is, was it a word for word translation? Was it just kind of the message translated or was it just direct revelation? And from what I've read, it doesn't matter as much what the exact answer is to that. No.
Guest 1 [03:05:13] It used to be that if you had any kind of language that seemed to be 19th century, not ancient Nephite language, that was a stroke against the authenticity of the translation. That's no longer true. There are faithful church members who say it has to have 19th century language in it in order for it to be intelligible. And it might have been quite broadly reshaped in order to make it valuable in the 19th century. So at this point, this is not an argument between believers and non believers. It's among believers who are trying, struggling to find the evidence and to dope out somehow how it all happened. I personally don't think there's a lot at stake. It's a. It's an interesting curiosity and worth looking at, but it doesn't really affect the truth of the Book of Mormon. Right.
John Dehlin [03:06:20] All right, Julie, you're audibly gasping. We'll let you go first.
Julia [03:06:23] Where he's like, it doesn't matter if it was broadly reshaped. Like it. Like I used to matter if there was 19th century writing in there. Like, it doesn't matter anymore. Like, yes, it does. If this book is not historical, it's not real. Joseph just. Joseph just wrote it. He just made it up. Like, I feel like he's saying it's not a historical text. Did you guys get anything different than that?
John Dehlin [03:06:40] No.
Guest 1 [03:06:41] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:06:41] He's basically saying if it was plagiarized and if there are anachronisms that invalidate the book. And like you said, Julie, if it's not historical, it doesn't matter. By the way, what's the committee that decides if 19th century text in the Book of Mormon is a problem or not? It's like he's saying that because progressive Liberal Mormons in 2024 have been able to use motivated reasoning and bad logic to provide self justification for this stupid catalyst theory and applying it to the Book of Mormon that somehow that, that obviates the problem. He's pulling like a. He's pulling like a Yoda. These are not the Droids you're looking for sort of thing. But how in the world do plagiarisms and anachronisms and 19th century relics not invalidate the Book of Mormon in 2024? Sandra, who's the. Who's the committee that gets to decide this?
Sandra Tanner [03:07:33] Well, I'm not sure, but I think scholars that I know would think that would be an important factor. How are we to determine if something is an ancient text? I would think the discussion of the literary composition would be important. One of the important things in determining whether something's an ancient text. If I told you I had found Columbus diary about coming sailing to America and you're reading along and all of a sudden it says they listen to the radio in the evenings for entertainment, that would invalidate the record. You would say, that can't be Columbus record because it's anachronism in there. One anachronism would disqualify the whole product. And the Mormons are trying to get away from this problem that scholars outside of the faith thinks pretty obvious when you find anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, it does affect the validity of claiming it's an ancient text.
John Dehlin [03:08:43] It absolutely does. And again, this is where Richard Bushman is getting more respect than he deserves because he carries the mantle of a scholar. He brings Columbia University and like best historian in the world on Joseph Smith and the whole world of academia. He brings that with him. But he knows full well that there's not a single credible academic, scholarly historian outside of Mormonism that would find any of this believable. In fact, they would all find it ridiculous.
Guest 1 [03:09:16] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:09:17] And so he's basically saying we can find faithful, progressive Mormon scholars, and I say that in quotes at BYU who are still believers.
Gerardo Sumano [03:09:26] Well, they're being kicked out of BYU nowadays.
John Dehlin [03:09:29] Right, but I mean, but, I mean, yeah, but. But the fact that he can name some BYU scholars who would literally lose their jobs and their livelihood and their, Their respect and their reputations if they denounced the church in the Book of Mormon's truth claims. The fact that he can find BYU scholars on the payroll who will still sign up to the Book of Mormon being valid, he thinks that that's somehow credible evidence that, that the Book of Mormon shouldn't be disregarded as a fraud. It's weird. It's weird logic for someone who claims to be a scholar from, from a university like Columbia. Am I wrong?
Sandra Tanner [03:10:05] Yes, it's very disappointing. But it's understandable when for those of us raised in the Mormon system, it's understandable that he has to go that route. But it's an embarrassment for the academic world that he can go that kind of a defense.
John Dehlin [03:10:27] Yeah, it really is. It really is embarrassing. All right. Do we know the count? Julia, What's.
Sandra Tanner [03:10:33] I mean, I think it must be up to 25. I don't know. After all that, I mean. Yeah, 20 at least. So we're.
John Dehlin [03:10:43] We're. We're already over the three hour mark in, and Gerardo is saying it may make sense to kind of skip a few of the slides. So, Gerardo, what slide do you think we should.
Gerardo Sumano [03:10:51] So we can go to? The next one? I think the next one is.
John Dehlin [03:10:53] Which one?
Gerardo Sumano [03:10:54] The one right next, after this one.
John Dehlin [03:10:56] So did Joseph fabricate the place?
Gerardo Sumano [03:10:58] Yeah, let's.
John Dehlin [03:10:58] Okay, we'll just do a couple more viewers and listeners. You've been very patient. We've got a live audience of over a thousand, so we know you're loving this. At some point, Sandra and Gerardo have to go home. Julia's got stuff to do. Margi's waiting for me. We just got a couple more clips we'll play. Watch the whole thing when you have a minute. This. This is. Did Joseph Smith fabricate the plates? Good question.
Witnesses to the Plates and Fabrication Questions
▶ Video Clip 9Video Clip 9 [03:11:19] As we talk about the. The golden plates and how they were there and wrapped. Wrapped with a cloth. There are people who did see them. We have the three and the eight witnesses and Joseph Smith and a number of other random people. But there are many people who didn't see them. Who People are concerned that they should have. Such as Emma Smith. Why were. Why do you believe some were able to see it and some were not able to? Especially somebody so close who helped with the translation process. Like Emma Smith.
Video Clip 9 [03:11:50] Yeah. Why would Emma Smith not see them? In David Whitman's mother.
Video Clip 9 [03:11:56] Exactly.
Video Clip 9 [03:11:56] Supposedly did say them. Of course, that's a modern feminist question, and rightly so. It's hard to know how those. Those witnesses were. But she did feel the plates. I mean, granted, seeing is a little different than feeling. But she wasn't cut off from the plates. She probably knew as much about them as anyone did. She was closer to them. Maybe only Oliver and Martin Harris had a greater connection with them. And all sorts of people, you know, touched them, put them in boxes.
Video Clip 9 [03:12:40] There was something there. I think that we have to agree. Even Dan Vogel, who's critical of this whole story, believes Joseph had something. He thinks Joseph made, fabricated the plates himself, but there was something there. There are so many testimonies of their existence. So it's not like they're, you know, buried in under the dirty laundry in the back room and never seen. They're present. They're a very strong presence. All through the. While the.
Video Clip 9 [03:13:14] All the.
Video Clip 9 [03:13:14] While the translation went on.
John Dehlin [03:13:17] Wow, Sandra, you were laughing when he was saying it's a feminist issue about whether or not Emma got to see the plates. Why were you laughing about that?
Sandra Tanner [03:13:24] Well, it has nothing to do with feminism. It has to do with who was gullible enough that Joseph Smith could convince to see them in a vision. It's the old emperor's new clothes story. Emma's the kid that's going to stand up and say, the emperor doesn't have any clothes on. So you're not going to show her the plates. She's going to see through it. So you got to show the gullible people that you can get to have visions.
John Dehlin [03:13:56] Yeah, it's.
Sandra Tanner [03:13:58] It has nothing to do with feminism. Well, I mean, there may be feminists that make an issue of it, but it is not a feminist issue. It is a credibility issue.
John Dehlin [03:14:07] Any other reactions to that clip?
Gerardo Sumano [03:14:09] Yeah, that's exactly. Well, I. I thought it was interesting that he mentions Dan Vogel, you know, proposing that Joseph Smith fabricated the plates, and he doesn't discount that. Yeah, but he doesn't say. And he doesn't use the witnesses, which I thought was really interesting. He doesn't. He could have said, well, there was eight and three witnesses who saw. Who saw the plates. So, like, we know they were not fabricated. He doesn't say that. I think he knows that there's problem. Problems with the witnesses. But. But I. I thought it was interesting that he. Basically, everything he said on that clip could have worked just as well for real plates and for fabricated plates.
John Dehlin [03:14:50] Absolutely.
Julia [03:14:51] That's a really good point.
John Dehlin [03:14:52] Yeah, absolutely. A couple comments we just have to read. Richard says Sandra needs a podcast. Call it Coffee, Coffee with Sandra, Sunday mornings at 9am what do you think, Sandra? Do you want to do a podcast? I mean, you're only 80. What? 82.
Sandra Tanner [03:15:08] 83.
John Dehlin [03:15:08] 83. Yeah. It's time for. To start a podcast.
Sandra Tanner [03:15:11] Oh, is that what it is?
John Dehlin [03:15:14] Stephen writes, Emma lifted the plates with her spiritual arms. And then Zelig reminds us that David Wright was excommunicated for just. He was a BOA professor.
Sandra Tanner [03:15:29] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:15:29] He was David Bachavoy's mentor at Brandeis. He was excommunicated just for saying that the Book of Mormon was inspired but not translated. So check that out. Now Terrell Givens and Richard Bushman can apply the catalyst theory not just to the Book of Abraham, but to the Book of Mormon and not be excommunicated, Whereas back in 93, 94, 95, that was an excommunicable offense. Isn't that a double standard, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [03:15:55] Yes, well, the church is morphing as we watch.
Gerardo Sumano [03:15:59] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:16:00] Really quickly. Dan Vogel writes 19th century language carries theology that doesn't fit ancient America. But anachronistic use of the King James Version is a serious problem.
Sandra Tanner [03:16:12] Yeah, absolutely.
Gerardo Sumano [03:16:13] Are they? I mean, the, the issues are endless. You know, third Isaiah and second Isaiah that we covered with David Bocaboy.
John Dehlin [03:16:22] That, that's just deutero Isaiah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:16:24] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [03:16:25] King James Sermon on the Mount from Matthew is a bit of a problem.
John Dehlin [03:16:29] Well, just Christian baptisms before Jesus was even born. Why did the, why did the Lamanites and Nephites know the name Jesus and start talking about the Holy Ghost and Jesus and baptism and faith when they were Jews before Jesus was born? That it's the most ridiculous. It's ridiculous that we just spend hours or lives talking about this stuff.
Sandra Tanner [03:16:50] Right. And Mormon scholars that are grappling with these things have to come up with some sort of theory that allows for Joseph to expand on the actual text that the Nephites would have written down and put in all these 19th century theological constructs into the story. But once you start allowing Joseph to include all these 19th century influences, then the question is, what was on the plates? Was it just that I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents and the rest is all just Joseph expanding on his theological knowledge? It just undercuts the whole historical record of what's the value of this book? Is it actually what the Nephites were experiencing or is it just Joseph's novel?
Guest 1 [03:17:47] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:17:47] And it sounds a lot like 19th century Protestant sermons. Wyatt. Or Alma and King Mosiah and king Benjamin preaching 19th century Protestant sermons.
Gerardo Sumano [03:17:57] Right.
Sandra Tanner [03:17:58] Yes. It's a little odd.
John Dehlin [03:17:59] It's, it's, it's anachronistic and it just
Gerardo Sumano [03:18:02] happens to solve all the main issues that were being contested at the time by, by the different churches. Right?
Sandra Tanner [03:18:08] Yeah. But why are they arguing about infant baptism?
Julia [03:18:13] Universalism?
Sandra Tanner [03:18:14] No.
John Dehlin [03:18:14] John the Baptist existed, by the way. Right. John the Baptist wasn't born yet. That and the Catholic Church, of course, hadn't been started yet. And they're arguing about infant baptism in the Book of Mormon.
Guest 1 [03:18:24] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:18:25] And not only that, but also the, the, the issues, the religious issues that are arised in Joseph's own family. Right. Like the universalism of his father and how Joseph didn't think that was right. So he. So the Book of Mormon becomes a really anti universalist book, correcting his father's visions and by, you know, as in the form of Lehi's dream. And. Yeah, so there's that.
Julia [03:18:54] Great.
John Dehlin [03:18:54] There's like. Oh, go ahead, Julia, go ahead.
Julia [03:18:56] I was just gonna add that, like. And treasure digging is also in the Book of Mormon, where, like, the treasure slips beneath the earth and they can't get it back, and the Lord cursed the land and things like that. It's all. All of it is in the book.
Prophecies About Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon
John Dehlin [03:19:04] And somehow the Book of Mormon predicts that the prophet who's going to reveal the Book of Mormon is Joseph, son of Joseph. How did the Book of Mormon know, sir?
Sandra Tanner [03:19:13] I wonder. I suspect the translator had something to do with that.
John Dehlin [03:19:17] No, that proves the Book of Mormon is true because it knows that Joseph's son of Joseph would produce the book.
Sandra Tanner [03:19:22] Yes. Very hard to imagine.
John Dehlin [03:19:26] And this is, again, Richard. Richard Bushman deserves a ton of respect. He's an amazing historian, and he is also playing a ridiculous role, betraying the discipline that he trades on and misleading a lot of people. It's both. It's honor and respect him, and he's doing a lot of harm and a lot of deception. And I'll just share a couple quick quotes. Half Blood Prince writes, isn't it crazy that Bushman's one of the most decorated historians and he's hawking a story about plates? And then Colby Reddish writes, here's an easy tip. When you ask somebody a pretty logical question and they tell you it doesn't matter either way, they're probably peddling. I'll. I'll not use the word that Colby used, but something that isn't credible.
Guest 1 [03:20:16] I'll say.
John Dehlin [03:20:17] I'll reinterpret what Colby is saying. It's just sad that a scholar of Richard Bushman's stature is stooping to this ridiculousness because he's betraying the scholarship that he uses to bolster his own legitimacy.
Gerardo Sumano [03:20:35] Yeah. And all along, he plays into, like, he gives the impression. And I think for any member of the church, regular member of the church who watches this are gonna come out seeing Richard Bushman as someone who really believes on the. In the angel and the plates and Nephites and Lamanites and the Amlicites and. And the dark skin that's on the. Like, he believes it all. That's the impression he gives. But then if we watch this last clip that we're gonna play, I think it really gives away how. How Richard Bushman is able to reframe truth to be Able to believe all this stuff.
John Dehlin [03:21:17] Yeah, yeah. Truth is fungible and he gives it all away at the end. Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:21:22] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:21:22] So Dan Vogel. I gotta share this quote. Dan Vogel writes. This is just classic Dan Bogle. It's too good to not share. Alma. Preaching against universalism using anti universalist proof texts from the New Testament in BCE time or before Jesus was born. How's that for summarizing the problem?
Sandra Tanner [03:21:43] Is this a problem?
John Dehlin [03:21:46] It's only a problem if you care about truth. And if you care about evidence and history and fact, well, you just have
Sandra Tanner [03:21:53] to believe in rocks. That's a problem.
Gerardo Sumano [03:21:55] Technology.
John Dehlin [03:22:01] Oh, my gosh. We're gonna. We're gonna get so much hate for being so merciless. Are you worried that the scholars are going to be mad at you, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [03:22:09] Oh, they're always mad at me. It doesn't matter. I like him. He's a nice guy.
John Dehlin [03:22:15] He's a great man. He's a gentleman. He's.
Sandra Tanner [03:22:18] It's a real shame that he has to play a double game of appeasing the church position on the one hand and yet really conceding the unlikeliness of the whole story on the other.
John Dehlin [03:22:34] Yeah. All right, well, we believe it or not. We've skipped a couple of clips. Julia, what's the count? What are we at?
Julia [03:22:41] Oh, you know what? I lost count. Probably like 25 to.
John Dehlin [03:22:44] Yeah, like literally. Richard Bushman is referee. He's saying Jeremy Reynolds of the Mormon church. Jeremy Runnels, 25, Mormon Church, 0.
Gerardo Sumano [03:22:55] I think he even gave Dan Vogel one.
John Dehlin [03:23:00] So. So it's Mormon Church. No, it's. It's Jeremy Rose 25, Dan Vogel 1, Mormon Church 0. Okay, we've got a final clip here where Richard Bushman gives it all the way. He tips his hand and he tells us. And it's kind of like a. It's like a Kerry Molstein quote.
Gerardo Sumano [03:23:16] Yes, yes.
John Dehlin [03:23:17] Where he tells us what his foundation really is. Spoiler alert. It's not truth. It's not facts. It's not history. It's not evidence. And in here is what. What he's basing it all on.
Guest 1 [03:23:32] And be content with partial or imperfect truths. You. You're not going to be able to answer every question you have. For me, the key word is not truth in the knowledge sense, but goodness. It's the true way of life. What you want to do is be redeemed, to be the kind of person you really want to be worthy to be loved. And so when you're seeking for truth, you want to also seek for personal Growth for redemption from your sins, for godliness.
John Dehlin [03:24:16] So, Sandra, you're still a believing person. What do you think about this idea that it's not really about truth, it's about redemption and being a good person? He seems to say that's what it's really about. But does it have to be one or the other?
Sandra Tanner [03:24:34] Well, honesty, I thought came into this somewhere
Julia [03:24:41] is,
Sandra Tanner [03:24:43] oh, I'm lost for words. It's so astounding to make it this simplistic of truth. The whole thing they present the Book of Mormon to us is because it is truth. Joseph went out in the woods to pray. Truly. He saw God and Jesus truly. These were actual events. He dug up real plates. He made a translation of an actual history of the American civilization before the Europeans arrived. It's all presented by the missionaries as factual. And that's why we can have a testimony to the truthfulness of Mormonism, because it's all based on factual things. That's the way I was raised. It was all provable because it was reality.
Sandra Tanner [03:25:37] And now they're trying to say, oh, reality doesn't matter. You can't get all the answers. Well, the reason you can't get all the answers is because it doesn't make sense. And to say that those things don't matter is so belittling to those of us that took them at their word that this was all truth.
Sandra Tanner [03:25:58] And now they're saying it's irrelevant because you're just seeking for good. If you found good in Mormonism, that's sufficient, well, then any truth is. Any other claim is. Is equally valid.
Gerardo Sumano [03:26:12] Yeah. What is outstanding to me is the Richard Bushman's definition of truth is the exact definition that Joseph Smith used to, I think, to justify lying to people and deceiving people. And he puts it right there in the Book of Mormon. And this is something also Dan Vogel points out. You know, I think that on the last slide, I have the Scripture, chapter 10, verse 6. Yeah. And it says, and who whatsoever thing is good is just and true. Wherefore nothing that is good denyeth the Christ, but acknowledges that he is.
John Dehlin [03:26:55] What do you think that means?
Gerardo Sumano [03:26:56] So Joseph Smith's definition of whatever is true is whatever is taking you to do good. And that's how he was able to justify being able. I mean, I, like others, don't believe that he, Joseph, was delusional and that he believed really that there was Lamanites and Nephites running around in. In New York. I think he knew that this was not true, but he was able to Justify it or think that God approved of his methods because he would take people to do good. And that's the exact definition that Richard Bushman's using for truth.
Guest 2 [03:27:32] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:27:34] Do you have a comment on this, Julia?
Julia [03:27:37] I was just thinking about the. The first thing he said was he was like, be content not having all the answers or something like that. Like, I. In the church, I was really struggling with, Like, I just had a lot of questions. I didn't have answers. And then once I was allowed myself to look at other sources, that helped answer questions. And by that, that helped me leave the church. I have answers now. I have far more answers now than I did in the. Like, out of the church that I did in the church. And I just think that's interesting because he's restricted to this little belief box, and he. And there's not all the answers in there. There's just not. And so, like, if you. If you step out of that and look elsewhere, you can find answers.
John Dehlin [03:28:13] And anyway, yeah, if. If truth is just goodness, then we don't need the word truth, Then we
Sandra Tanner [03:28:20] just don't need Mormonism.
John Dehlin [03:28:22] Yeah, yeah. Just be good. It's like Oprah. It's just like, be kind. Be nice to people. Don't hurt people. Don't steal, don't kill, don't lie. Moses, like, go the Ten Commandments and just kind of stop. Right, right, right. And. And so that's ridiculous. I mean, it's. I understand that he's saying, what's most important is just to be kind. I agree with that. The most important thing is to be kind. But if truth is really just goodness, if the most important truth is just goodness, then we don't need the word truth. And we certainly don't need hymns like, oh, say what is truth? Tis the fairest gem that the riches of men can produce.
John Dehlin [03:29:01] And prices the value of truth will be when the proud monarch's costliest diadem will be casted as dross and refuse. We don't need that song. We don't need to be told, do what is right. Let the consequence follow. All we need to be told is to be kind. And we certainly don't need to be told that Joseph Smith found gold plates and translated them, and that he had the Melchizedek and the Aaronic priesthood, and that we have exclusive authority and baptisms for the dead and women don't get it. And prophets, seers, and revelators. No, no, no, no, no. Throw all that away and just be kind to people, which I actually agree with.
John Dehlin [03:29:34] So in a sense I agree with Richard Bushman, but what he's not doing is acknowledging that we've been all told, we've been all sold for 10% of our income and the rest of our lives, that truth is what matters and the prophets, sees and revelators won't lie to us and that the official narrative that was given to us is true with a capital T. And we're taught when we're two years old to get up to the pulpit at sacrament meeting and say, I know this church is what? Not good, not good. What are we whispered in our ears? Our parents say, hey, say this, we get up, we don't go, oh, I have a testimony.
John Dehlin [03:30:10] I like to bear my testimony that I know this church is good. No, it's true, it's true. So Richard Bushman, I love what he's saying here, but he's enabling a mass deception when he tries to do this sleight of hand and switch what's important from good from true to good. And honestly, if you go back and listen to my interview with him on Mormon Stories episode, I don't know, 30 somewhere around there, he says the exact same thing, which I believe him. I believe that what he thinks is really important is if Mormonism has a good community. Mormonism has treated him well. Mormonism makes people be good people. And so none of the other stuff really matters.
Gerardo Sumano [03:30:57] If you're white and heterosexual though, what do you mean? Well, because it obviously damages a lot of other people. Like we damaged black people for many, many years by excluding them from all the blessings of the temple and you know, LGBT people who are excluded all the time, just as recent as a week or two ago.
John Dehlin [03:31:17] And don't forget women. Yeah, and women half of the church are excluded from, you know, from so much. Yeah, like that's always been my biggest issue with Bushman and people like him. All the apologists, they don't acknowledge the harm that the church causes.
John Dehlin [03:31:33] And so by perpetuating non credible explanations, using their credentials as scholars to perpetuate and enable the harm that's being caused, never hold the brethren accountable, sweep the harm under the rug or ignore it, and then make up harebrained, lame excuses for deception and dishonesty and corruption, they're enabling abuse and harm. And I know that's harsh on him, but that's what's frustrating. And I'm going to end with this. I'm going to bring it back to Jeremy Runnels because Bushman says, be content.
Final Reflections and Audience Comments
John Dehlin [03:32:15] You're not going to get an Answer to every question. How about an answer to any question? Like, they literally have given us no good answers to any of the questions. And that's exactly what caused Jeremy Runnels to write the letter to the CES director. He could not find any good answers. Not some good answers, not mostly good answers. He found none. Did the CES director ever answer his letter? Jeremy, Sandra, and Gerald, did the CS director ever answer his letter?
Sandra Tanner [03:32:50] Not that I'm aware of, no.
John Dehlin [03:32:52] He got no answers. And to this day, the Gospel Topics essays don't give any good answers. They give crappy, partial, apologetic, drively answers that are deceptive and unsatisfying. So there are no good answers. That's why Joseph. That's why Jeremy Runnels wrote the CES letter. He never got any answers back from the CES director, and that's why he went on to publish it and share it and improve it and market it. Because he was representing all of us, and he was standing on your shoulders, Sandra.
Sandra Tanner [03:33:27] Right.
Gerardo Sumano [03:33:28] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [03:33:28] Yeah. For all of us that have gone through the great struggle of dealing with all that we were raised to believe was 100% direct from God, and now the Bushmans of the world are trying to tell us we are the problem. We took that too serious when that was what we were raised on. So of course we're disappointed when we find out the narrative is completely different from that.
John Dehlin [03:34:07] How about outraged and rightfully. Rightfully outraged.
Sandra Tanner [03:34:10] Yes.
Guest 1 [03:34:11] Right?
Sandra Tanner [03:34:12] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:34:12] Yeah. Rightfully outraged.
Guest 1 [03:34:14] I agree.
John Dehlin [03:34:16] So. So. So, please, Jacob Hess, Maureen Proctor, all of you people, please keep denouncing Jeremy Runnels in the CES letter. Please keep doing more advertising. Please make the entire Mormon world more familiar than the CES letter than they otherwise would have been if you would have just been quiet about it and left it alone. But more important, keep advancing ad hominem attacks on Jeremy Runnels. And if. For as long as you do, I promise you, for as long as I'm working on Mormon Stories podcast, I'm going to promote the heck out of Jeremy Runnels and the CES letter until you take down that garbage and stop attacking.
John Dehlin [03:34:59] Stop attacking the victims, stop attacking Jeremy, stop demeaning people and saying that we're taking. Choosing to be offended or. Or not. And we'll just. We'll just see how this ends up for you guys. And I'm curious to see how long their garbage lasts, because there's a chance they'll shut this. The church will realize how stupid this is to be promoting the CES letter and to be, you Know violating Jeremy's trademark, if he has one, There's a chance they'll shut this down. What do you guys think?
Sandra Tanner [03:35:30] Who knows? My stone is not giving me any answers today. I'm sorry.
John Dehlin [03:35:39] All right. I've ranted enough. Colby. Colby. We got to share his comment. Colby writes, great episode. Thanks to all of you for this response to the interview. So glad to see Sandra again. Getting to give her a hug at Sunstone was a real treat for me. And then he says, stay caffeinated. John, I have no idea. What. What does he mean, stay caffeinated? I. I don't know what he means.
Sandra Tanner [03:36:01] He thinks you've had a few cups today. You're pumped up.
John Dehlin [03:36:06] I'm a little. I have not had coffee since about 6:30 this morning.
Sandra Tanner [03:36:10] Oh, okay. Well, good for you.
John Dehlin [03:36:11] Does it last 24 hours? Does last 12 hours?
Sandra Tanner [03:36:14] Well, I don't know.
John Dehlin [03:36:15] I don't think so. I think it's.
Sandra Tanner [03:36:17] Mine hasn't.
John Dehlin [03:36:19] I think it's Jacob Hess and. And Marion Proctor, not Kevin. All right, anyway, final words. Gerardo.
Guest 2 [03:36:26] Yeah.
Gerardo Sumano [03:36:27] Share this interview with this. The CS letters before it's taken down with your family members who are believers, they need to know.
John Dehlin [03:36:34] Yeah. Yeah. Give, please, please. All in the earshot of please give all your believing family members the CES letter and the website CES Letters and this interview. And while you're at it, Mormon Think and the entire LDS discussion series along with the podcast, give them all this information and let them decide for themselves what is true. Julie, any final words?
Julia [03:36:59] Well, I've. So I've listened to Jeremy Reynolds episodes with you. I've listened to his. The audio for his trial. And like, even, like, I think he's a very sincere person. I think he really, really wanted to know these answers. But what they're trying to spin or what they're trying to say is that he wasn't sincere. He was doing it in anger. Like. Like, first of all, faith crisis has kind of happened. I think they should do more research on faith crisis or watch more of your episodes because people don't just lose belief right away.
Guest 2 [03:37:21] They.
Julia [03:37:22] They. It's a process. But also, like, even. Even if he did write the CES letter in anger, these questions deserve to be. To be answered. All the members of the church deserve answers to these questions. So I don't think, like, why go after Jeremy? Like, it doesn't matter. Like, go after the things in the book. Like, go. Yeah. Answer some of the questions.
John Dehlin [03:37:40] Yeah, yeah. But they can't, because there are no good. Right, Sandra? I Mean, you've been doing this how long, Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [03:37:46] 60 years.
John Dehlin [03:37:47] Are there good answers to the questions you. You've been asking for 60 years. Have you ever found a good answer?
Sandra Tanner [03:37:52] No. And Bushman concedes, you won't find the
John Dehlin [03:37:55] answers, so stop looking for them. Focus on the goodness.
Sandra Tanner [03:37:58] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:37:59] Focus on what's good. Don't focus on the truth and the answers. You won't really find the answers to all the questions. And what he means by that is any of the questions.
Guest 1 [03:38:06] Yes.
John Dehlin [03:38:07] Yeah. Right.
Gerardo Sumano [03:38:08] I mean, he answered them by conceding every problem that, that the CS letter brings up.
John Dehlin [03:38:15] I mean, again, 25, 30, 50 to nothing.
Guest 1 [03:38:17] Yeah.
Sandra Tanner [03:38:18] Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:38:18] Jeremy Reynolds wins. So checkmate.
Gerardo Sumano [03:38:21] If those are the answers, I mean, I think most people are gonna not come to that side.
John Dehlin [03:38:28] I gotta share a couple more comments and then we're done. Dan writes, anger is a good thing when it leads to creativity. John. John Levitt says, donate to Jeremy in the CES letter. You can buy the CES letter. You could buy it as a Christmas gift for all your friends and family.
John Dehlin [03:38:43] Share it with everyone. Dan Vogel also writes fun episode. Glad to hear these subjects getting out there. Minor writes, my husband met with our bishop tonight and told him that we won't be back. Thank you. Mormon Stories podcast. We can't believe how we fell for all of this. And I'm just gonna add like, like Mormon Church. You're hurting yourself by giving bad answers, using ad hominem attacks, demeaning the people and excommunicating the people who ask hard questions and tell the truth. Just stop it. If anything, just leave it all alone and just focus on goodness. But stop allowing your apologist attack dogs to deploy ad hominem attacks.
John Dehlin [03:39:32] It undermines the churches credibility and it advertises the arguments of the critics to which the church has no answers. Just in all the ways Mormon Church, you're hurting yourself. Stop. Jacob Hess. Maureen Proctor. For your own good. That's it. Are we done?
Gerardo Sumano [03:39:51] Awesome.
John Dehlin [03:39:52] Are we done? Can we go home now?
Gerardo Sumano [03:39:54] Let's do it.
John Dehlin [03:39:54] Thanks. Aaron Himes. She says love a good tirade. Was that a tirade?
Sandra Tanner [03:40:00] Sorta.
John Dehlin [03:40:02] All right, well, Julia, thank you so much for putting this together. Julia, you're the best. Show yourself one more time.
Julia [03:40:09] Oh, yeah, yeah.
John Dehlin [03:40:10] And we've got more. We've got more teaser. We've got some art. We've got some really good art that we're going to be showing as a part of an LDS discussions. We're not going to give it away, but Julie, you've got more. LDS discussions episodes up your sleeve. Is that right?
Julia [03:40:24] Absolutely. I'm excited about this next one. I think it's really interesting and it'll be really fun to talk about.
John Dehlin [03:40:29] So stay tuned. Gerardo, thanks so much. You all also helped co produce and edit and I think this was successful.
Gerardo Sumano [03:40:35] Yeah, it was great.
John Dehlin [03:40:35] Nice.
Gerardo Sumano [03:40:36] Super fun.
John Dehlin [03:40:36] Good work. Sorry I got too ranty. And Captain.
Gerardo Sumano [03:40:39] That's fine.
John Dehlin [03:40:40] And Sandra, you're a legend. We will have you anytime. You'll come.
Sandra Tanner [03:40:43] Okay.
John Dehlin [03:40:44] You doing okay? You're 83?
Sandra Tanner [03:40:46] Yes, I'm in good health. I'm doing well.
John Dehlin [03:40:48] So are we going to get you for another 20 years? How long are we going to get you?
Sandra Tanner [03:40:51] Oh, well, yeah, I figure I ought to make it at least tell as long as Nelson.
John Dehlin [03:40:56] So you're another 17 years of Sandra?
Sandra Tanner [03:40:58] I think so.
John Dehlin [03:40:59] All right, well, can we have you back?
Sandra Tanner [03:41:01] We're aiming on that. Yeah.
John Dehlin [03:41:02] Can we have you back on Mormon Stories?
Sandra Tanner [03:41:04] Sure.
John Dehlin [03:41:04] Okay. All right. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks. Dave Vogel, for being in the comments. Thanks for all the great comments. Thanks for all the super chat donors. But mostly in addition to that, thanks to all the regular donors that just regular donate through mormonstories.org they click on the donate button. They're monthly donors. That's why we're able to do this. That's how we pay our staff and that's how we make all this happen. So thank you. If you value this type of content and you're not a donor, we would love it if you would become a monthly donor. We lose donors every week and if we don't replace them, then we have to cut down our services.
John Dehlin [03:41:39] So please become a monthly donor@mormonstories.org also we're looking for guests on Mormon Stories podcast. We've got a brand new website. Gerardo and Dave helped make it happen. Please go there. There's a new application process. We're looking for people who participated in the young Single adult program Dating as an adult Mormon and they want to tell their stories. We're looking for people to interview about that. We're looking for infertility stories. We're looking for grandparents who lost their faith as grandparents who are willing to come on Mormon Stories podcast. And we're always looking on best and brightest, top notch star super orthodox Mormons that just want to tell their regular old faith crisis story.
John Dehlin [03:42:25] And we've got some great stories coming up in the weeks and months ahead. So thanks for joining us today. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. And I say these things in the name of Sandra Tanner and Gerald Tanner. Amen. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.
Sandra Tanner [03:42:43] Bye.
Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.
Gerardo’s creation of Richard Turley throwing the artists under the bus as published in the October 2015 Ensign two months after the church released photos of Joseph Smith’s seer stone
Thumbnail Credits: Main image of Bushman taken Study & Faith; Painting of Joseph looking into his hat by Anthony Sweat
One Response
Oh this episode rocks!
Julia: It was just a rock.
John. It was a magic rock. With powers.
Gerardo: Why didn’t he write a book about a rock that actually existed?
Sandra: Wait! I have a rock!
Dan: Don’t switch out the rock!
You all were on fire. Great job! Such a fun episode and still very informative and relevant.