Introduction and Episode Overview

Part 1 of 6 · Ep. 493

John Dehlin [00:00:00] This is mormon stories. I'm John Dehlin.

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:08] Where can I turn for peace?

John Dehlin [00:00:14] Few people today have more of a front row seat to the fascinating and ultimately tragic events surrounding Mark Hoffman and what would eventually be dubbed the Mormon Murders. As a researcher working directly for and with Mark Hoffman, Brent Metcalfe watched the whole episode unfold before his very eyes. In this two part series, I sit down with Brent to discuss his background in the church, his days working in church security, and the events that led to his excommunication. We'll also discuss his interactions with Mark Hoffman and the events surrounding the deadly events of October 1985. Brent Metcalfe's story today on Mormon Stories.

Brent Metcalfe [00:01:36] The kindly light amid encircling gloom

John Dehlin [00:01:43] Lead

Brent Metcalfe [00:01:43] thou me on the night is dark and I am far from home.

John Dehlin [00:01:54] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. John I'm your host, John Dehlin and today I am very, very excited to have with us a guest who I've wanted to have on Mormon Stories, I think since the very beginning.

John Dehlin [00:02:11] I think he's been on my list for probably nine years of someone I wanted to interview. And I think at first I was probably just too intimidated to ask him and then eventually I did approach him and we probably had some scheduling conflicts and it hasn't been until recently that we've been able to pull it off. But his name is Brent Metcalfe. And Brent, for those of you who are aware of sort of Mormon studies and Mormon scholarship, Brent's been around a long, long time.

John Dehlin [00:02:45] I guess we're going to talk about so much, but I just want to give you sort of an idea of who Brent is. If you haven't heard about him, his time with Mormon studies probably began back in the early 80s when he worked with the 7th East Press, which we could talk about what that was, but it was like kind of an underground newspaper that was published at BYU.

John Dehlin [00:03:12] He very quickly, in the early 80s, became friends with Mark Hoffman and Steve Christiansen, who was one of the victims of the Mark Hoffman bombings. So in some ways, Brent got a bit of a front row seat to the whole Mark Hoffman forgeries and murders. And we're going to talk about all that afterwards. He began doing research on the Book of Abraham, which probably continues to this day. So I would say he's one of the world's experts in understanding the Book of Abraham from, I think, what apologists would call a critical perspective, even though I hate that term, critical.

John Dehlin [00:04:03] He also was the editor of a very important book called New Approaches to the Book of Mormon, which in the early 90s explored the book of Mormon from a. I would say from a historical perspective. And this book actually led to his excommunication in 1994.

John Dehlin [00:04:24] So, you know, within a year of the September 6th. So we're going to talk about that, about being excommunicated, in addition to his work with both the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon and their historicity. And, you know, we're going to kind of finish off our interview getting his feedback on the church, their recent essay on the Book of Abraham, their recent approaches to these new essays that are out, and the Book of Mormon and other things.

John Dehlin [00:05:00] I hope to get into a bit about apologetics because Brent's had some sort of highly visible interactions with some of the classic apologists of our day, like Louis Midgley and Daniel Peterson and others. So I hope to have a good little section on Mormon apologetics.

John Dehlin [00:05:22] You know, we want to get his view on the church today and what's going on both with apologetics and the church overall. And then I want to end with something that I hope is very constructive, which is just an understanding of how he's navigated his own spirituality, his own life, his own morality, his worldview as a post Mormon, just because I think those stories are important.

John Dehlin [00:05:49] And in that way, it's more than just digging into story, digging into the past, digging into church history, but it's also helping us understand and model sort of healthy, happy living in a post Mormon orthodoxy world. And I'll just add that I've received a lot of feedback lately that, you know, that sometimes the tone and balance in Mormon stories over the past few months especially, has sort of nudged into the negative.

John Dehlin [00:06:21] And, you know, part of that, I'm just going to say, is likely because of the disciplinary stuff that I've been facing since February of 2014. But I do want to promise my listeners that I'm going to work really hard to stay positive, to stay constructive. You know, not to lead Brent and to let him tell his story, but also to do it in a way that feels positive and constructive and not negative and unpleasant and disturbing to people to the extent that that's possible. So with all that sort of intro and disclaimer, Brett Metcalfe, welcome, welcome, welcome to Mormon Stories.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:59] Hey, thank you very much, John. And I was just going to ask, does all that positive stuff apply to me? I'm just kidding. I mean, I'm fine with your take. In fact, I prefer your take on it coming from a more positive perspective where, where that's appropriate rather than a negative tone, because I think that that has been bludgeoned to death, given too much press and everything else. And I think that there are ways that we can talk about our differences with our faith traditions and not be so negative or condescending towards those who, who retain faith.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:49] Just because I may not share their perspectives at this time doesn't mean that I'm somehow the enlightened one who needs to lead them along a new path or anything else. I still have tremendous respect for family and friends who are devout Mormons and continue to believe in their traditional beliefs. I just happen to have a few different perspectives on some of the things that they believe in.

John Dehlin [00:08:20] Yeah, and I'm not worried at all about that. I think you're going to do great. And I'm just sort of trying to promise my listeners I'll get back to the sort of neutrality and constructiveness that I've tried to carry over the past nine years.

John Dehlin [00:08:38] So. Thanks, Brent. All right, so let's just, you know, I think there's going to be different segments. I think we're going to start with the early stuff, just kind of your early years and what led to you being interested in Mormon studies and your work with the 7th East Press. That's kind of, you know, part one. Part two, I think, is going to be the Mark Hoffman stuff. Part three is probably going to be, you know, what led to the, the book that you published that led to your excommunication and processing that. Then maybe we'll dig into the Book of Abraham research, and then we'll end with sort of modern, contemporary Mormonism and then your journey. Is that all right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:20] That sounds great.

Childhood, Family, and Early Church Life

John Dehlin [00:09:21] All right, so let's go start from the beginning. Tell us about your story and your background.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:28] Well, I was born into the LDS Church. My, my parents were both converts. My mom joined when she was a teenager with the rest of her family. And my father joined the LDS Church when he met My mom.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:49] And just around the time I was born, they served a temple building mission for the New Zealand temple. And then not long after I was born, we made a trek to the United States. And they had become good friends with Matthew Kelly's family as well, as they actually were briefly interviewed by David O. McKay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:22] And he actually encouraged them to come to the States, although that was at a time when they were beginning to discourage people from coming to the States. And so we moved here. And pretty much from the time that we arrived, my father quickly got employment with the genealogical society of the LDS Church and eventually went on to become the system recorder of the Salt Lake Temple, and then the recorder of the Salt Lake Temple. And then after that became managing director of temples for the LDS Church, which is basically the equivalent, I guess, in a more corporate setting of consider it to be the chief operating officer of a large corporation. And so he was effectively over all the LDS temples throughout the world.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] So your. So your parents would have had. So are your parents still alive?

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:27] My mom passed away the year after I was excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:11:31] Oh, okay. Okay. And I'm sorry.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:37] My father's still alive.

John Dehlin [00:11:39] Okay. So would they both have had thick sort of New Zealand accents?

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:43] Yes, my dad's New Zealand accent is still very detectable. I guess I don't hear it right because I've been around in my whole life, and so I don't hear it anymore. But anybody else who meets him will ask me where he's from, which is kind of funny because I don't notice it myself.

John Dehlin [00:12:08] Interesting.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:09] But evidently he does.

John Dehlin [00:12:11] And you've never had a New Zealand accent, did you know?

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:14] Evidently when I was younger, I did, even though I was very young when we came here, I used a lot of terms that friends found odd and strange, and because they came from that upbringing. In fact, it's funny because I, you know, I recently moved, and as I was packing up some of my boxes, I found the copy of the Book of Mormon that was given to me on the day of my baptism. And in it, you know, my. My mom wrote the inscription, and at the end of it, she signs it Love Mummy.

John Dehlin [00:12:56] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:57] Because that's how we would refer to our mothers.

John Dehlin [00:13:01] Oh.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:01] In New Zealand. And so that was the term that she used. And so I thought that that was kind of interesting.

John Dehlin [00:13:09] Tell us quickly what a temple recorder did back when your dad was recorder.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:14] Again, a temple recorder is effectively the managing director of temple's position, but more on a local level. So essentially, again, they're the chief operating officer for the temple.

John Dehlin [00:13:29] Okay. So it has nothing to do with, like, recording things like, you know, records of who gets baptized for the dead. Like, that may be part of what they oversee, but recorder is sort of just manager, is that right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:44] Yeah. And they would just ensure that everything that has been recorded has been recorded properly and stored properly and so on.

John Dehlin [00:13:57] Yeah, got it. Okay. All right. So your dad rises up to eventually become sort of a managing director for the church. That's kind of a big deal, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:11] Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, essentially the only position above him in the department would be a general authority position. And so, you know, he worked directly with, you know, Gordon B. Hinckley and others throughout the years in establishing where temples should be built, you know, the time frame in which they should be built, built, and that type of thing. And interestingly enough, that rise to that specific position occurred while I was serving on my mission in England from 1977 to 1979.

John Dehlin [00:14:55] Okay. Which mission?

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:57] I was in the England London South Mission. And Richard Iyer, who is, I think, known within certainly a certain segment of the Mormon community as a prominent author, along with his wife Linda, was my mission president.

John Dehlin [00:15:17] Okay, that's the author from Harvard. Right. That does the family kind of stuff. Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:26] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:15:27] Like 12 kids or tons of kids. And a lot of kids. Yeah, a lot of kids. Okay, cool. And how would you describe your teenage years in the church? Would you say you were kind of traditional? Were you like, a black sheep? Were you totally hardcore devout? Did you have wonderful spiritual experiences? Talk a bit about what the church meant to you in your adolescence?

Teenage Years and Mission Experience

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:54] I think in my adolescence, I was a traditional teenager, I guess, is how I would say it. You know, by the time I got to high school, everything was about social activity, and that came with all the playing and partying and everything else with my friends, and that's all that mattered. But when it came to the church, I was very defensive of it. I was very devout. Although my behavior did not always exhibit that or match with my belief, nonetheless, you know, it. It meant a great deal to me, and enough that. That I went on a mission and which, you know, was. It was a. A very big decision for me, honestly.

John Dehlin [00:16:58] Now, that wouldn't have been a. I mean, you know, growing up in Texas, there were these sort of rumors that in Salt Lake, you know, the kids, because they're all LDs, you know, that it's not totally abnormal for kids to kind of party in high school like kids do all around the world, you know, and then they kind of clean up for their missions. And that's, that's just kind of as old as the church has been around, you know. So you did, you did kind of have fun and do normal partying stuff, I guess. Would you say that was completely atypical for kids where you were growing up?

Brent Metcalfe [00:17:34] Oh, not at all. In fact, geez, I'm not going to name names here, but you know, when my dad, I guess he was in the stake presidency at the time, my high school drinking buddy was the bishop's son.

Brent Metcalfe [00:17:54] And that was kind of what we did. When you went out to a game or a stomp and there's a throwback term, we'll see how many even recognize what that means. You know, it was pretty much let's go play. And it really wasn't until after high school that, that I got a part time job working at the genealogical department.

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:23] And still my behavior wasn't completely in line with my beliefs. But then a situation came up where I had to make a really clear and decisive decision on my mission and what I wanted to do as far as my participation in the church goes.

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:46] And, and I don't want to play that up too much. It's not like anyone was threatening me with anything. It was more of a personal journey and just trying to say, you know, what do I really believe? What do I really think about this? And it was, you know, the, my devotion to my faith that led to a very serious decision to go on a mission. And that was the path that I took.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:18] And I went at a fascinating time. I mean, let's face it, it was, you know, the birth of punk rock had just happened in England and it was a very interesting time in England. And you know, and so culturally it was fascinating.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:38] And is this like the Clash and Sex Pistols? Oh, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, the Sex Pistols are formed by Malcolm McLaren in 1976 and there I am arriving in 1977 and you know, you've got these punk rockers, the Teddy boys, the Mods, and you know, and they all dress in very stylized clothes. And so it was really interesting, for example, in, in one of the, the branches I was in where the Elders Quorum president was a Teddy boy. And so he would come to, you know, pre sub meeting completely decked out as a Teddy boy with, you know, his hair in this extreme style that's think about it as almost, you know, a style that Elvis Presley would have worn in the 1950s, but now turned it into a caricature. And so it's completely exaggerated in every way and this was the elders quorum president.

John Dehlin [00:20:42] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:42] And so, you know, it was just a very interesting time socially, but I just really enjoyed the climate and the artistic freeness with which, you know, kids express themselves. It was really quite remarkable, unlike anything I had experienced growing up in Utah.

John Dehlin [00:21:08] And were there any. Would you. Would you say that by the time you finished your mission, you had maybe really strong convictions about the truthfulness of the church? And as a second part question, were there any experiences on your mission that you look back as being really important, either for belief or against belief?

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:31] Yeah, I would say that on my mission, I had, you know, several experiences that I interpreted as deeply spiritual, deeply personal, and they reaffirmed, and many ways my conviction of the truthfulness of Mormonism. You know, keep in mind, while I was on my mission, that was at a time in 1978 when I received a telegram from my parents. And I remember it just carried some very simple words. It just simply said, blacks can hold the priesthood. Love mom and dad.

John Dehlin [00:22:17] Oh, wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:19] And that. That was pretty emotional. In fact, I remember when I received the telegram, my companion and I immediately went to a phone booth and called the mission president, Richard Iyer, and said, you know, president Iyer, we just got this message, and blacks can hold the priesthood. And he was very, very skeptical and just said, you know, I have not heard anything from Salt Lake elders. Please don't share this with anyone. We need to receive confirmation of this. And I'm thinking to myself, look, I just received a telegram from my parents who, quite frankly, I trust their truthfulness more than yours. And so it was like, for me, it was a done deal. That that's what had happened.

John Dehlin [00:23:23] Right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:23] And sure enough, that is what had happened. And what made it particularly emotional, evocative for me was that I had actually baptized a young man who was of African descent only a few weeks previously. And I had given him the part of the discussion where, in fact, I went alone with him. My zone leader wanted to come with me, and he came to the house, and I asked him to actually wait in the front room because I knew exactly what my zone leader wanted to do. I think he was a bit of an opportunist, and he wanted to be the one to break the news to my new convert or potential convert about the prohibition on priesthood.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:17] And so I actually told him to wait in the living room. And I went with, you know, this potential convert, and we went into his room, and I talked with him about it, and I remember praying with him, and, you know, both of us in tears you know, crying and hugging each other and, you know, and he just said, this doesn't change, you know, the spiritual confirmation I've had for the church.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:54] And he went ahead and got baptized. And then it was amazing that it was just, you know, a few weeks later that I was back with him again after he was baptized, telling him that the prohibition had been removed. And that was a profound, you know, experience for me.

John Dehlin [00:25:20] Right,

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:22] Very profound. And because I had always grown up with this notion that this was never going to change, and to have that happen while I was on my mission, shortly after I had baptized somebody of African descent, was pretty remarkable.

John Dehlin [00:25:43] So as you finished your mission, do you feel like you had a pretty strong testimony?

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:50] Absolutely. It was while I was on my mission that I had one companion in particular who had studied clearly far more than I ever had on Mormonism before he came on his mission. And he was the one that really ignited the desire within me to understand more Mormon history.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:24] And it started, quite frankly, as a desire to respond to anti Mormon critics. And, you know, I had several exchanges with prominent anti Mormons over in the uk and that kind of escalated my interest in Mormon history. And when I came home, you know, all I wanted to do do was spend time in the archives, learning as much as I can or could and, you know, and trying to find other mentor. Mentors who could share their insights with me.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:05] And so not. Not long after my return, actually, I began taking an institute class from Reed Durham at the University of Utah. And that kind of prompted me all that much more to want to find out as much as I could about the history of the Church.

John Dehlin [00:27:25] What's his place? He worked with Arrington directly. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:30] Well, he was actually the director of the LDS Institute at one time at the University of Utah, and he was the person who gave the controversial presidential address for the Mormon History association meeting that was titled Something to the effect Is there no Help for the Widow's son?

John Dehlin [00:27:56] Right. About Santa Claus stuff. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:58] Correct. Analyzing the confluence between Mormonism and Freemasonry. And so he. He was a very interesting person and a very dramatic, engaging teacher. And he and I became friends over the years, and interestingly enough, we. We really did not hit it off very well when we first met and I was in his class, but over the years, that just changed dramatically to the. To the point that we actually became very good friends.

John Dehlin [00:28:41] Wow. Yeah. Okay, so that's a real exciting time. And you're. You. You studied from him at the institute, is that right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:28:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:28:50] University of Utah Institute.

Brent Metcalfe [00:28:51] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] So he would have been a successor to Lowell Bennion. I'm not exactly sure the time frame,

Brent Metcalfe [00:28:57] but probably so, because I think he would have been the director, I want to say, in the early 70s. And then by the time I got home, he was, you know, one of the regular teachers and they really had a stellar staff up there. I mean, that was at a time when, you know, Max Parkins was up there. And I mean, there were just a whole crew of them that were just remarkably talented historians.

John Dehlin [00:29:32] Yeah, T. Edgar Lyon had served there with Lowell Bennion before. A lot of, a lot of really great people. Was Marion D. Hanks there at one point? I'm trying to remember.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:41] I don't recall.

John Dehlin [00:29:42] Okay, all right, no problem. So, okay, so you're, you come home, you're, you're studying church history, you're taking institute classes, and what happens next?

Working as an LDS Church Security Guard

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:55] Well, not long after I get home, one of the first things I do is I apply for church employment and I become a security guard for the LDS Church. And so that, that was a significant point for me because, you know, my brother was employed by the LDS Church, my brother in law was employed by the LDS Church, and my dad of course was managing director of temples for the LDS Church. And so I kind of saw this natural fit that I would end up working for the LDS Church.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:40] So I initially went to work for the church security department and which is, you know, don't consider this even, quite frankly, as elaborate as church security is today. Think of us more as night night watchmen essentially for some of the key church buildings.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:03] And you know, we did have unique exposure to certain elements of the, the processing of the church and so on. We would see things that would occasionally take us back, which we can get into a little bit more maybe in a minute. But you know, I had some wonderful colleagues there and some of them still work there. And I, you know, I cherish their friendships then and now.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:34] And you know, it was actually an enjoyable experience for me until I published a couple of essays in the 70s press and then things kind of went south from there.

John Dehlin [00:31:53] Okay, so any, any cool or fun stories from, from your days working with church history? I, I don't expect you to say anything you're not comfortable saying, but like,

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:03] oh, we're working with the church security. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:08] Apostles or prophets.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:10] Oh, absolutely. And you know, you realize, see, I was fortunate to have grown up in a home because of my parents association with certain general authorities and so on is in recognizing the innate humanity within the church leaders. And so there Wasn't much that, that I could see personally that would shake me. But I know that there were church security guards that definitely had their faith tested as a result of working so closely with some of the general authorities. I remember when President Kimball was in his declining years and he was living in the Hotel Utah at the time, and there was constant church security presence.

Brent Metcalfe [00:33:12] And some of them, quite honestly, as he kind of receded into dementia and, you know, would kind of spout off profanities at nurses and so on who would come in to aid him, some of them had to be pulled off the detail because it was just too traumatizing for them to see this, to think that this is a prophet of God. And it's like, well, yeah, he's a prophet of God. I mean, this is my perspective at the time. Yeah, he's a prophet of God, but he's a human.

Brent Metcalfe [00:33:44] Becoming a prophet doesn't make you something other than a human. And he's going through the natural process of essentially dying. And so for me, I felt actually very protective of Spencer Kimball in many respects because he had become such a good friend of my father's.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:10] And my father just told me some amazing stories of just an undying love for. For other people that he would exhibit. And. And so I. I actually felt very protective of him. Now, other general authorities also would show their human side. I mean, I recall, you know, I was over working at the back entrance to 47, 47 East South Temple, which is where the Quorum of the twelve First Presidency at their offices. The back entrance is actually in the first level of the parking garage for the church office building.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:57] And Tom Monson had called down for a security guard to come over with a small, you know, shuttle cart to take him over to the lower entrance of the. The temple because he was, you know, going to be performing a marriage.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:15] And I'll just never forget this because he went running out the back door. He was late for it. Went running out the door. And as the doors, the electronic doors were closing, I could hear him just yell, where the hell is that cart?

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:33] Because the security guard had to run arrived yet. And so, you know, just a kind of very loud yell. I won't say it was at the top of his lungs, but it very well could have been. And. And then I have my own personal experiences too, you know, shuttling general authorities back and forth from the airport.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:56] Markey Peterson, strangely enough, who would figure into kind of a darker part of my involvement with church security. I remember when I took him to his home One night I came and picked him up. He got right into the front car seat with me. So he was sitting right next to me and we talked the entire way to his house.

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:26] I even remember bringing up to him because one of my friends, very Van Hale, was working on an apologetic piece about Brigham Young and the Adam God theory and taking the position that Brigham Young had taught the idea, but he was still a prophet of God, but the idea is wrong.

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:50] And I remember saying to Elder Peterson at the time, I said, what would you think if somebody were to write an article where they took the position

John Dehlin [00:37:05] that

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:08] Brigham Young taught the Adam God theory, but that it was wrong? And before I could even get those words out of my mouth, he was shaking his head and he said, no, no, no, no. We can never acknowledge that Brigham Young taught the Adam God theory. And then what came next was the shocker, he said, because what Brigham Young taught was wrong.

John Dehlin [00:37:38] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:39] And I sat there as a church security guard, completely dumbfounded, because here's Markey Peterson, who in print, for example, in the book Adam who Lizzie had adamantly denied that Brigham Young ever taught this. And here he is, you know, telling me that yes, Brigham Young taught this, but he was wrong. And that's why we can never acknowledge it, because then he goes on to say that people would apostatize from the church and join polygamous groups if we ever did such a thing.

John Dehlin [00:38:15] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:17] And that was pretty shocking. But now, having said all that, Marky Peterson was probably one of the most cordial, down to earth apostles I ever met, which was just shocking. He was so friendly and talkative the entire time.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:43] Now, my experience with taking Boyd K. Packer and his wife home from a trip one time was the precise opposite. And that is that I went and picked them up. They both got right into the back seats of the car.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:00] And on the way we're driving back, I just tried to be friendly and said, how was your trip? And he just said, fine. And for the rest of the trip home, which was a fairly long ways because they live over toward Cotton Heights area in the Salt Lake Valley, neither did he or I speak to each other, but neither did he or his wife speak to each other the entire way. It was complete silence the rest of the trip. Not a word spoken between anyone.

John Dehlin [00:39:42] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:43] And so a very different experience in that case. But so. So yeah, you did have those experiences that were interesting and that you kind of never forget. Another big one that, that I've, I've mentioned before is when I worked in the security control center, which. Which was essentially the dispatch unit for the church security guards.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:10] I remember that there were a number of ERA meetings being held in Utah at the time. And on one particular occasion when a rally had been held, and I think it was up at the Capitol, and then the folks who had attended that had receded to another location where they were going to, you know, kind of hold their own private meeting.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:36] And I remember getting calls in from certain security guards who were out in the field who were giving me license plate numbers and what we were told to do, which I even found extraordinarily troubling at the time, as, you know, if faithful Latter day Saint was that we were to call the numbers into the police department and find out the owners of these vehicles.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:07] And then we got that information from the police department, and in turn that was turned over to the upper echelons of the church security department, who then forwarded that information onto the respective stake presidents who oversaw the owners of these vehicles.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:29] And so basically that was a very strange interplay between, you know, the police department and the security department. And I don't put any fault on the police department because we would call in all the time with license plate numbers of vehicles that were improperly parked around Temple Square or around the church office building.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:55] And. And they would give us the appropriate information so the owners could be contact, contacted and asked to take care of the parking situation or whatever the vehicle.

John Dehlin [00:42:08] So they didn't know why you were calling?

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:10] No.

John Dehlin [00:42:11] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:11] No, no, we didn't say, you know, these people are attending an ERA meeting.

John Dehlin [00:42:17] Yeah, right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:19] We would just call them and say, hi, you know, this is so and so. We had a direct line to them. And we would call and say, hi, this is so and so from the church security department. We've got a license plate number that we need the information on, and they would provide it.

John Dehlin [00:42:35] Interesting.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:37] Excuse me.

John Dehlin [00:42:38] Fascinating. So how many. How many years did you work for church security?

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:42] Well, from. Let's see. I guess it would have been, I want to say, late 1979 till April of 1983.

John Dehlin [00:42:54] Okay. So maybe four years.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:56] Yeah. So. And interesting years as well for the church. You know, I mean, that's at the time that the ERA was going on. And then of course, the. The issue with the 7th East Press, which eventually led to my leaving church employment.

John Dehlin [00:43:18] Okay, so I have a really weird question, something that I planned to mention at the outset of our interview that I neglected to mention, is that in addition to all the other cool things I said about you, you happen to be one of the people with the largest pair of biceps that I've ever met. Oh, my God, your biceps are massive.

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:40] Okay. I'm so embarrassed.

John Dehlin [00:43:42] No, it's true. And so, like, where did that was. Did that have anything to do with you being a security guard?

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:49] Yeah, you know, funny enough actually didn't.

John Dehlin [00:43:54] And.

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:55] And yet kind of the events of the time did. And so I'll explain that in a moment. But I know that when Lindsay wrote his book on the whole Hoffman thing, he has the opening of a chapter says something like standing 6 foot 3 and having the beefy body of a football player. Brent Metcalfe was a likely candidate for church security where what he doesn't really realize and is that up until around the age of 28 or so, I weighed 165 pounds.

John Dehlin [00:44:39] Really?

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:40] Yeah, I, I was, you know, stick thin. And so, you know, not at all. What, What? But he was judging me based on the person sitting in front of him doing the interview, which is now somebody who's 6 foot 3 and weighs 230 pounds. And, and, you know, works out incessantly. And so he was kind of projecting back that this would make a good storyline when in actual fact, it had nothing to do with it.

John Dehlin [00:45:11] Interesting.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:12] If, if that were the, the criterion, I would never ever have got the job. I mean, my goodness. Not never.

John Dehlin [00:45:21] Okay, so the, so the massive biceps came later.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:24] Yes, yes.

John Dehlin [00:45:25] All right, well, why don't you weave

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:26] that into this and that. That is very embarrassing.

John Dehlin [00:45:29] No, but it's true. It's not just like, wow, he's got big muscles. They're massive. And so I just had to mention it. I'm sorry, I just had to mention it. So, so you'll have to tell us what, what led to bodybuilding, but we don't know. Weave that into the story in the chronology as it fits.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:44] All right.

John Dehlin [00:45:46] Okay. So, yeah, so what tell. You know, I mean, the 70s press, I'm thinking like Maxine Hanks was a part of that, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:54] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:55] And Gary Bergera.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:58] Right. Ron Predis.

John Dehlin [00:45:59] Ron Pretis, Both of those guys who help run. Who, who help run. What's the. Tom Kimball, the whole Signature books.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:08] Yeah, right, right, right. So. So Ron's over Signature Books now. Gary's over the Smith Pettit Foundation.

John Dehlin [00:46:14] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:15] Albert Peter Peck, who became the editor of Sunstone, was also one of the editors of the seventies Press. The list of cast and characters goes on and on, and they're actually some of the luminaries of Mormon studies today.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:31] And just such an interesting period I mean, that was at a time when I. When I first met Maxine. And so I've known all of these folks as dear friends from the early 80s. And it was funny because there was a friend of mine who would later become a member of the team that was the predecessors to the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:00] And that Scott Fallring was somebody who knew all these folks at the 7th East Press. And he introduced them to me when I was a security guard for the church. And I met him when I would be doing research in my off hours in the Church Historical Library. And Scott introduced me to them and they liked my ideas and they asked if I would write a few articles. And I agreed to. And the articles I wrote were actually quite, quite apologetic. I mean, I tried to grapple with some fairly important ideas, but I did it in a way that I thought would build people's faith and not diminish it.

Early Historical Research and the Seventh East Press

John Dehlin [00:47:49] So real quick, what topics were you studying prior to writing for the 7th East Press? While you were the security guard? What were the big topics that were interesting to you?

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:59] Probably the. The two areas of research in general were the foundational events of Mormonism and then the foundational texts of Mormonism and in particular the scriptural texts. So I was fascinated with the Book of Mormon, with the Doctrine and Covenants, the dnc, but also with Joseph Smith's early involvement and money digging and so on. And I had been researching this stuff for years after my mission. Right. I just launched right into that. So I was looking into things that many LDs wouldn't be that familiar with until years later, but I found it fascinating.

John Dehlin [00:48:53] I mean, how did you. How did you know about. So this would have been pre Michael Quinn's, you know, magic Joseph Smith and the Magical Worldview or whatever it's called. Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:05] In fact, I'm thanked. I'm one of the people thanked. And Mike's acknowledgments for contributing some of the information to his.

John Dehlin [00:49:12] So how would you have learned that? Was it through dialogue or Sunstone? How would you have learned about Joseph folk magic stuff in the. In the late 70s, early 80s?

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:24] It was actually.

John Dehlin [00:49:26] Or the Tanners? Was it the Tanners?

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:28] It was a combination of Reed Durham and the Tanners.

John Dehlin [00:49:31] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:32] And that alerted me to these issues. And then I also read Wes Walters material. And a very important thing that I think I need to mention as part of my history during this time is that while I was on my mission, there was an anti Mormon who was also a minister up in Northern England or farther north from where I was anyway, who.

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:06] He and I actually exchanged letters and had a couple of phone conversations with each other while I was on my mission about Mormon issues. Because I. People were giving me his pamphlets. As I would go up to their door, they would say, here, read this. And almost all of his material came from the Tanners. And so I became very familiar with what the Tanners were arguing and so on. And, you know, I felt like, I'm going to write a response to this. This is, you know, I think some of this material is outrageous and I'm going to reply to this. I'm not going to be afraid of it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:50] I'll let you know. The chips fall where they may, but I am going to do something about this in terms of confronting it intellectually and preferably publicly. And so.

John Dehlin [00:51:06] Okay, so if I had asked you in the early 80s, hey, Brent, what do you think about the Tanners? What would you have said?

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:12] Oh, I would have said that because I met them shortly after my mission, I would have said they are very nice people to chat with, but they are misguided and they are leading people astray.

John Dehlin [00:51:29] Okay, so you were concerned about them.

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:31] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:32] And when I met them, they were actually wonderfully kind to me. I mean, I had some great talks with Sandra when Gerald was there. Whenever I came in, if Gerald was there, Sandra would go get him. He would come out. And it wasn't this, you know, harsh exchange or anything. In fact, on the contrary, we had pretty amiable conversations and I think we kind of liked each other even then.

John Dehlin [00:52:03] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:03] You know, and so it was kind of an interesting phenomenon. But the reason why I bring that, that anti Mormon up is because when I got back from my mission, he sent me another letter. And it may have been the last one that I ever received from him. But he wanted to tell me about this returned missionary who had left Mormonism and that I should read one of the articles that he wrote for the Journal of Pastoral Practice. And he sent it to me. And the author of that article was Dan Vogel.

John Dehlin [00:52:42] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:44] And so what ended up happening is Dan Vogel and I met at the next Mormon History association meeting after that. And I was an apologist and he was a critic in the negative sense. Right. Not a critic, and necessarily the full on scholarly sense. But he was no longer a believer. I was a believer who felt that things could be, you know, explained well and so on and still retained belief. And from that day on, Dan and I began talking regularly. There were periods of time where we were probably talking almost every day on the phone. And we became incredibly good friends. Despite our differences, we became incredibly good friends. And to this day, of course, Dan is one of my dearest friends that I have. And it. Our friendship was over and above our religious beliefs. And this is like a 45 year friendship.

John Dehlin [00:54:04] Did I count right close to it?

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:06] I think we're talking 35.

John Dehlin [00:54:08] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:09] Am I right? I. I just don't want to make myself out to be too old.

John Dehlin [00:54:12] Yeah, no, no, no. There's the 80s, then there's the 90s, then there's the thousands, and then.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:18] And then us.

John Dehlin [00:54:19] Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. 35.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:21] Yeah. And. And we have been dear friends ever since. And you know, we talked to each other on the phone on a fairly regular basis. Basis. You know, just even when he was back in Utah. We were on the phone a couple of times while he was back there doing some research over Sunstone. And so that's, that's a friendship that's been very enduring and a highly valued friendship.

John Dehlin [00:54:50] So. So, yeah. So what were your articles about in the, in the 70s press? It was this. This was an underground newspaper, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:58] Yeah, yeah. I refer to it actually as an off campus newspaper.

John Dehlin [00:55:03] But was there a feeling that it was dirty or dangerous or edgy at the time?

Brent Metcalfe [00:55:09] It became that way because keep in mind, some of the original contributors to the 70s press were actually professors at BYU. So Marvin Hill, for example, wrote one of the pieces for one of the articles for the 70s press and he was a professor of history. And so, yeah, it was considered off campus, but legitimate until I want to say that it was January of 1983, where it was basically moved completely off campus. Meaning that it went from being distributed on campus, though produced off campus, to being both produced and distributed off campus. So it was completely removed from any BYU repository. And there was just no more 7th East Press on BYU campus.

John Dehlin [00:56:12] And this would have been right around the time that Arrington and Quinn were moved to byu. And Quinn Packer would have come around this time to give his famous talk about the three great enemies to the church and. Right. And Quinn would have been giving his talks in response to Packer. All that's happening around this time.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:33] Right, right. And it's my understanding that the request to move, you know, basically ban it from campus was at the behest of one of the general authorities. I can't recall if it was Bruce Armaconki or Ezra Taft Benson, but I know that there was definitely a high ranking general authority involved.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:01] And so when it got banned from campus, that's when it complicated my relationship with the 7th East Press because what I had written on, the types of topics I had written on. For example, one piece that I wrote was on the plurality of worlds concept in early Mormon scripture.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:25] I wrote another piece on a text, critical analysis of a specific passage in the new translation of the Bible that some Darwinian evolutionists had used to support their view of the gospel. And yet some creationists had also used the very same passage to defend their view of the gospel. And basically I was saying that both of their positions were precarious because the text itself had gone through multiple stages of evolution that didn't support either of their views. Views and seemed to support a notion, an underlying notion that was more firmly grounded in early 19th century thought rather than in any scientific thought at all. It was a theological concept from the early 19th century.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:23] And so, you know, that was kind of, you know, basically I was trying to give it as a cautionary tale on how we should approach scripture and realize that the final text, as we receive it, may not in fact, reflect the underlying textual transmission that has occurred for it to get to that state.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:47] And so, again, you know, I would try and end all of my articles on a faithful note. And in fact, I remember. I remember Gary Bejera telling me one day that we had all these hopes that you were someday going to become a general authority to the historians. And I had to laugh. And thinking back on that now, it's like, wow, that's crazy talk, Gary.

John Dehlin [00:59:21] And what were you really thinking when you're writing these articles? Are you like, I'm in a. You know, the church is true and I've got to prove it? Was it, oh, the church? You know, it's not what I thought it was, but I want to help, you know, help members find a way to find meaning in it. Were you trying to be nuanced and sort of bridgy to a new enlightened approach to Mormonism? Were you secretly a doubter and you were trying to plant seeds? If you could. If you could channel your motivations during these early 80s, what were you really doing?

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:01] I was a believer who was beginning to realize that things are not always as they seem. And by that I mean that I. Well, let me back up a minute. I read a book that had a profound effect on the way I not only would interpret scripture from then on, but completely on the way that I would view texts from that then on. And that was, I believe that the original printing was in 1977, but it was a book by the late Father Raymond E. Brown, who was a priest from the society of Saint Sulpicius, I believe, which is the patron saint of history, if I remember correctly.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:02] And he wrote a book called the Birth of the Messiah. And this mammoth volume, all it is, is, is a commentary on the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. That's all it is. And it's this mammoth volume. And I began reading that, and I remember that there was a statement that he makes in it, and I'm not sure if I can quote it completely accurately, but effectively what he said, that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:34] That the thesis of inspiration cannot be invoked to guarantee historicity, for a divinely inspired text is not necessarily historical. And that that phrase just literally penetrated every fiber of my being. And it freed me to a certain degree to begin looking at Mormon scripture as inspired, but leaving open or bracketing, if you will, the concept of historicity.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:14] And it kind of revolutionized for me anyway, the way in which I saw this text from then on, and it sent me on a very interesting journey.

Questioning the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham

John Dehlin [01:02:28] So at that point point, were you questioning the historicity of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham?

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:36] I had decided that with the Book of Mormon that there was almost certainly Joseph Smith's hand was involved. You could not have a text produced the way the Book of Mormon was without Joseph Smith being involved. And my own encounter with the text, especially in the portions that borrow from the King James version of the Bible, that led me to feel like this text requires a much more nuanced approach with regarding to its historical status. But in my mind, its inspirational or inspired status was never in doubt during that stage. I mean, I believed that what Joseph Smith did was that the Book of Mormon, that the Book of Abraham, these other texts were the products of Joseph Smith's experience with God. And they may be imperfect products of that experience, but they were products of that experience nonetheless.

John Dehlin [01:03:56] You know, I'm just thinking, like, I wouldn't have even known if somebody came to me in, I don't know, 2000, 2000 or 2001 and said, what do you think about the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Like, I wouldn't have even know what they were talking about.

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:13] Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:04:15] And, you know, that's something that came along as I read Grant Palmer's book and started to really think about the text itself. So the early 80s feels like a really early time to be pondering this sort of inspired but not necessarily historical view of the Book of Mormon. Were there other people thinking about this or talking about it back then? Because I could be betraying my own ignorance. Right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:46] No, no, no, let's put it this way. There were people talking about it. And what I discovered was, is initially I felt I was in a club of one, right. That I was the only one who was contemplating Mormon scripture in this way with these possibilities.

John Dehlin [01:05:11] And you were reading Dialogue in Sunstone and attending mha.

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:15] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:05:16] And Book of Mormon historicity wasn't in the public discourse at that point that you were aware of.

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:21] Right. And then I began to meet others. For example, Ed Ashmund, who was the director of Translation and Exegesis or the translation department. He and I met each other because I attended. I actually attended his Sunstone presentation. That was within a year or so after I returned from my mission. And it's funny, because that was the first Sunstone conference I attended.

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:59] And I remember my dad actually went with me. And. And, you know, I had no idea what to expect. I just knew that Ed Ashman, who works for the LDS Church, you know, in the building where I'm a security guard, he's going to be speaking about the Book of Abraham, and Hugh Nibley was going to be giving the response. And I thought, oh, this is just going to be marvelous. I remember going with my dad, and I actually wore a suit to the event, right. Because I had never been to Sunstone before.

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:30] So there, my dad and I, you know, we're both in su. Like, we just had walked out of church and we attend this meeting. And Ed's presentation was just wonderful. And it's funny because I remember Hugh Nibley giving this incredibly glowing response. And then when it came to time for it to be published in Sunstone, he changed it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:03] And the Sunstone editors really annoyed him because what they did is they took his change and they added it as an addendum to his response in the printed version so you could see what he had said during the actual presentation that was recorded versus what he was adding for the print version. And I know he was absolutely incensed at that because the intention was to make it look like he had given the entire thing as the response at the session itself. And because in his. His response, he starts off with something like bravo or Three cheers for Brother Ashmund, you know, and this type of thing, only to add on this kind of very cynical piece at the end where he's basically kind of challenging or calling into question what Ed had said.

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:05] But I realized in that presentation that Ed was approaching scripture in a way that I had begun reading about. And so one of my days when I was working in church, Security. I went up to Ed's office and introduced myself to him. And that too began a very long friendship and many, many long conversations about Mormon scripture.

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:38] And then the realization that there were others who had similar things, thoughts to mine and were grappling with similar issues. And then the world began to open. And I remember at a Sunstone presentation where David Whitaker and Grant Palmer were together, and I remember them telling me at the time that they were both 45 years old and thinking, oh, my God, you guys are like old guys, right? But Grant expressing some of these concerns. I believe it was right after we had listened to Ray Matheny give his speech at Sunstone where basically he.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:30] The low, you know, the low and down on the whole presentation was there's no archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon. And here he is, one of BYU's premier archaeologists, probably and arguably the most qualified archaeologists in Mormonism at the time.

John Dehlin [01:09:53] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:54] And that was essentially. And. And so here we are out in the hallway talking about this. And again, you know, I'm just this young kid and. And that's how, you know, Grant and I are talking. And Grant and I actually met just a year or two before that. Maybe we can get into that in a bit too. During the Hoffman time period is when Grant and I first met.

John Dehlin [01:10:19] Okay. Okay. So crazy times. So up until. So up through your writings of the 7th East Press had the idea that. Had the idea that the Church might not be true ever. Because I remember this moment where I'm like, I allowed myself to ask myself the question, is it possible that the Church isn't what it claims to be? And for all the doubts and worries and whatever knowledge that I had before then, there was like this marked moment where I was like, wow, could it not be what I thought it was? Do you. Do you remember up until that point? Had you even reached that point?

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:02] I would say at that stage of my life, it was almost inconceivable to me that the Church could not be true. Although the model of what it meant for the Church to be true was evolving, for me, it still.

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:24] For me it was still as true as it was to anyone who believed that, you know, there were Nephites and Lamanites that, that covered the Western Hemisphere. And, you know, it was every bit as real to me in terms of truthfulness as it would have been to them. It's just that my model of. Of what that constituted was evolving because I felt like there were these two dimensions. There was the spiritual dimension, which is the fundamental truth of the Church versus the empirical dimension, which was, what are these texts that I'm looking at?

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:07] Right? And it's kind of never the two shall meet. And because it didn't matter. I mean, I think at one point before I ended up having my own crisis of faith, I was at the point where I could view the Book of Mormon as literally like the Book of Jonah, as a fictional narrative that reflected divine and inspired ideas. And even to the point that the inspired idea reflected was man's struggle in trying to understand God's revelation through Joseph Smith. Right. Not through ancient Nephites who are struggling to try and understand God, but Joseph Smith struggling to try and understand and apprehend God. And that, that was enough for me to realize.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:14] In fact, quite honestly, it brought the church, the truthfulness of the gospel, if you will, more resonant with me because it made me realize maybe the prophets are just like any one of us, right? And that they don't really have a better pipeline to God than we do.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:40] And what we're supposed to learn from them is that they have this continual drive to grapple with this otherworldly experience and to try and understand what is this thing that we call God and what is God trying to get communicate to me. And that these very fallible words which we take as scripture are in fact the byproduct of a revelatory experience in and of itself. They are not the revelation themselves. The revelation is that prophets experience with God. The byproduct of that experience is what the prophet dictates through humanity. Words.

John Dehlin [01:14:25] Okay. And so, and so as I think about my discussions with, like, I don't know, Phil Barlow or, you know, what I've heard of David Bulkavoy or Brad Kremer, you know, pick, you know, Terrell Givens, you know, pick any modern, you know, Mormon believing scholar in 2014, when, when they talk about now the Book of Abraham, the Book of Mormon, I think they're likely to sort of characterize revelation and belief and text of scripture in a very similar way that you're sort of characterizing your beliefs in the early 80s. I mean, isn't that kind of true?

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:07] I think in many ways that's true.

John Dehlin [01:15:09] Yeah. Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:10] Yeah. I mean, I've read. Well, I continue to read numerous books that come out and. And I think to myself, you know, wow, you know, I really am not alone now. You know, I mean, these guys are publishing their ideas widely.

John Dehlin [01:15:30] Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, like just the Book of Abraham essay the church put out, basically saying, who knows where the text came from. But it's inspiration and it's. It's all about revelation. It's not about translation.

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:45] Right.

John Dehlin [01:15:45] And you're sitting there in the early 80s, sort of not only agreeing with that, but in somehow feeling like it was even more empowering, because then prophets are flawed, and we're all trying. And you're trying, too. And for you, it wasn't necessarily chipping away at your faith.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:04] Right, right, right, right.

John Dehlin [01:16:05] Because you put a firewall between your faith and textual analysis.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:11] Right, right. And. And so. So where I had ended up is that I had started viewing the truthfulness of Mormonism as the truth of a journey rather than the truth of a destination. Right. Because earlier on, my. My belief was growing up, as I was younger and on into my mission was that. That I had already arrived.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:37] Right. I had completed the path and the destination had been achieved. And it was the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ is found in Mormonism. Whereas now what I found in Mormonism was the truth of the path. And that is that we were all on this road trying to understand God and trying to get closer to God, to become one with God, if you will, through our journey. And it was the journey that mattered. And realizing that prophets were also on the path and also on the journey and that they had not arrived at the destination either. That. That was the thing that enabled me at that time to retain a belief in the truthfulness of Mormonism.

John Dehlin [01:17:30] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:30] Because I believed that the path was true and that this path just everywhere manifested nothing but the divine, and that I had to stay on this path because that's what resonated as spiritual truth for me. And then that was about to change.

John Dehlin [01:17:53] Yeah. And frankly, as I think about my interactions with my former and current stake president, there's a degree to which that's where they are now. And we don't need to dig into that. Maybe we'll talk about at the end, but the basic point is it makes you a better person. The gospel makes you virtuous and happy and good, and it helps you with your family. And yeah, maybe the science conflicts with the evidence that we have. You know, the evidence conflicts with the narrative that we've constructed. But that just must mean that the evidence is wrong or we're interpreting the evidence wrong, or we don't understand the narrative. But the gospel, the truthfulness of the gospel is kind of unassailable, and it's evidenced by the feelings that we feel and the fruits of the gospel.

Brent Metcalfe [01:18:42] Right, Absolutely. It allowed us to create personal rather than institutional narratives. And by creating those personal narratives, we could share ideas with each other freely without ever being threatened by them. Right. Because there's nothing to be threatened by, because you're hearing another person who is on their journey expressing their experience. And just like, if you and I were to take. Take a road trip, we would see things differently. We wouldn't see things identically in every way, but we would know that we were on the same road trip together. Right. And it was that kind of effect that I was experiencing back during that time. And while it may not be as expressed and as sophisticated terms as others may today, I'm trying to describe it as I was experiencing it at the time.

John Dehlin [01:19:46] Oh. Not only does it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:47] And that's what I was feeling, not

John Dehlin [01:19:48] only does it sound interesting to me, there's a part of me for which that. That narrative still resonates. Like, I still love so much about the gospel and the fruits of it, because the. The. My. My interactions with Mormonism have been so overwhelmingly positive for almost all my life. And so, you know, I'm just saying even now as I. As I'm facing excommunication, that that narrative still resonates with me on a level.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:18] Right, right, right. And too, John, I would have to say that there is a certain level on which it resonates with me as well. The problem is, is that as time went on, I came to realize, because, see, in my. In my model of the journey, right, it doesn't necessitate that somebody always believes in God or whatever. I mean, if I were to borrow from a Book of Mormon example where you see the sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger, you know, trying to lead people out of the church. I mean, they are intentionally trying to lead them out of the church. No bones about it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:05] They're never excommunicated. Right. What happens is, is that an angel appears to them and they become reconverted and they're back, you know, part of the church again and in full fellowship. But the thing is, they're never excommunicated. That's never part of the path that they go down. And so in my mind, the journey could accept anyone, whether they're believer, non believer, or whatever, as long as you recognize the journey and the path.

John Dehlin [01:21:38] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:39] And it's kind of the realization that, no, at some point, there really is no place for you on the path anymore. That becomes disheartening. And, you know, by the time I was excommunicated, I had fully adjusted to that, and that was no longer a dilemma for Me.

John Dehlin [01:22:02] Okay, so we won't. We'll come to that in a bit. I have to. Before we. Before we end this section and then start the section about Mark Hoffman. What was it like to have to be forced to resign from your job at Church Security because of what you wrote at the 7th East Press?

Forced Resignation from Church Security

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:20] Well, that actually dovetails right into the whole Hoffman episode. Because what ended up happening is that to make a very long story as short as I can here, you know, basically I believe it was Markey Peterson had sent over some of the essays that I had written to my superiors in Church Security.

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:49] They were told to deal with the matter, which essentially meant terminate me. But they, I guess misunderstood. And what they did is they put me on a 30 day probation where I was asked to adhere to certain things.

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:05] You know, I was told that I could no longer publish. In fact, I was going to write a book review for BYU studies and I was told that I had to contact them and that I could no longer write that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:20] And it was during that period that, you know, because I had been told I could continue to research and so on, I just couldn't publish. And so I did. I continued researching into the library when I would get off work. And that's when things got complicated. Because Roy Doxy, who was over the church correlation committee at the time, was a friend of one of the folks receptionists as you walked into the Church Historical Library. And I had gone in there and requested a book that had been written by Elias Smith in the early 1800s. And.

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:06] The book was up in the reserve section of the Church Historical Library. And they had to call it down. So you had to wait for it. You filled out a card, it would come down, you would get the book. I got the book. It had been owned by Wilford Poulson, who was a professor of professor at BYU in the early 1900s. And he had an insurance inserted this card in the inside cover showing parallels between the life of Elias Smith, which you know, this was his autobiography, and the life of Joseph Smith, including right down to the first vision and so on. And Elias had lived when again in the early 1800s. Oh wow. And you know, the book was published in 1816.

John Dehlin [01:24:58] Got it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:59] And on the spine of the book, right, it said 1840. But where the mix up came is that when it said that the date of the publication, it said that it was published in the year of our Lord, 40 years after the revolution.

Brent Metcalfe [01:25:18] And so actually the date was from 1776, right? That was 40 years after that. Whereas they had counted from 1870. And so they put 1840 on the spine, whereas the. The actual publication date was 1816. And so the book, you know, I photocopied the pages out of the book, took it over, sat it on the receptionist desk, and then it was a few days after that I received a call late at night from the director of security who I reported to, and he said, we need to have you meet with us and some representatives from the human Resources department tomorrow.

Brent Metcalfe [01:26:04] And. And I was just so concerned. I had no idea what was going on because, see, I had been taken off my 30 day probation. I had been told that I had done everything to a T that they wanted and that everything was original and all was forgotten. And here I am being called back in. And I go in and there's not only a representative from the human resources department for Church Security, but the director of human resources, the managing director, and the managing director of security as well as the director over me. And they began what can only be described as an interrogation, asking me for names of friends that I had, asking me for names of books that I had been reading.

Brent Metcalfe [01:26:55] And then they got to, when they got to the part about the books, they asked a very leading question. They said, have you been reading any old books lately? And I said yes. You know, I had, you know, called down from the reserve section, this book by Elias Smith.

Brent Metcalfe [01:27:16] And they asked me if I had made any photocopies out of the book. And I said yes, I did, you know, you're allowed to with these. And then they informed me, you know, basically that they would get back to me shortly. And I believe it was the next day, I was called in by the director and in security as well as the director in Human Resources, and told just point blank, you're being terminated from your job.

Brent Metcalfe [01:27:50] And I asked why? And they said, under Utah law, we are not obligated to give you a reason why. And that was it. I was fired at that point. So immediately after that happened, I went straight over to the historical library and the receptionist who was there, Bevine was her name, happened to also be a friend of mine.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:17] And I said, has anybody been in here the last couple of days asking about me? And she said, yes. And I said, I don't want you to tell me a thing. I want you to write it down, exactly what happened.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:32] And I don't want to hear it. Don't tell me anything right now. I want you to write it down and sign your name to it. And she did. And basically what had happened is as the story as she told it, was that when I had taken the book back to her desk for it to go back up to the reserve section, Roy Doxy had come in and sat down at her desk. And he picked up the book and started thumbing through it. And he saw that parallel between the life of Elias Smith and the life of Joseph Smith. And he saw the request form that had my signature on it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:09] And he turned to Bev and he said, what does Brent want with this book? I mean, he knew who I was. And he said, what does Brent want with this book? And she said, I have no idea. And he, he left for a while, came back and took the book and went over to the photocopy machine and started making photocopies. And she said, what? What do you want with those? And he said, I need to take these over to Elder Peterson's office.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:36] And so evidently what went on behind the scenes? And I found out more details later because the managing director eventually came to my dad's office who, who was the managing director of temples. And they had to work together on a regular basis because of openings of temples and so on. And he came up to my dad's office and he told him, point blankly, he said, I want you to know that this was not my decision, but we were told to do this by three members of the Quorum of the twelve, and we had no choice.

John Dehlin [01:30:13] And what do you think? What do you think they were worried about?

Brent Metcalfe [01:30:17] Well, according to Roy Doxie, what he had evidently also told Bevine was that this material could be damaging to the church. But he never clarified what he meant by that. And I think that they thought I was going to somehow release this. Well, little did they know I had more examples of parallels to Joseph Smith's first vision during that time than you could imagine, because I had spent hour upon hour going through early 19th century autobiographies at BYU and I had collected numerous examples. In fact, several of them are actually published in Mike's book, Early Mormonism and the Magic World Worldview, because I shared them with him.

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:08] And so, you know, this had been research that I had been doing for some time now. And, and so this wasn't particularly shocking to me to see this, but evidently it was to him and the concern that this could somehow get out. I still have the photocopies of that book somewhere in my files.

John Dehlin [01:31:30] So you were kind of on thin ice because of the seventh decade press stuff. And then when they see you checking out books that, that they perceived could have been damaging to the church, they're like this guy's asking too many questions. He's, he's digging up too much stuff.

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:46] Oh, and even more, even more than that, John, is that Markey Peterson thought that I had been fired the first time.

John Dehlin [01:31:55] Oh.

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:56] So he was finding out that I was still working there.

John Dehlin [01:31:59] Oh, because they take care of him and they didn't.

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:02] Right, right, right. And they thought put them on probation. Right. And so that's what they had done. They had put me on probation, whereas Markey Peterson had thought that I had already been terminated. And they said that's it. Well then at that point, of course, things really hit the fan because my stake president, who I believe at the time was the dean of the science department at the University of Utah, calls up church security after he finds out about this and basically reads them the riot act and said, what is going on? This is a member of my stake in good standing. What has happened?

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:42] And so basically, after his exchange with them, they agree to let me resign from my position so that my position would not show that I had been terminated. And it was within a day or so of that that I went in and signed the appropriate paper saying that I had actually resigned from my position and had not been terminated.

John Dehlin [01:33:08] Okay, last, last question before we end this segment and start up with the Mark Hoffman segment. What? Why didn't you stop and go get a Ph.D. like, you're, you're clearly doing deep scholarly level work at this point in your life. You're in your early 20s. Why not like, go, go to Yale and get your PhD and like, just go the scholarly route? Because one of the questions some snarky apologist wrote was like, what makes, he doesn't have any credentials and you know, what makes him, you know, why should we listen to him? Because he's having credentials. Like, it's clear that I, I, I

Brent Metcalfe [01:33:52] have to, I have to tell you, I will never read that post the same way again after hearing you just do that.

John Dehlin [01:34:00] I'm sorry.

Brent Metcalfe [01:34:00] Oh my God. No, no, that's funny.

John Dehlin [01:34:02] I mean, I, I, I, honestly I'm, I, I really, I really value having a neutral tone, but that, that comment came across, I actually, I, I'm probably not being fair because he wrote, this is a sincere question. I don't mean it in a snarky way. So it came across to me as smart snarky, even though I take this gentleman as word that he didn't mean it that way. But I'm sure that other people have tried to kind of tear you down that way. And so I'M just curious, was that ever in your mind?

Brent Metcalfe [01:34:33] Absolutely. And yeah, it absolutely was. And I will tell you in all honesty, and you know, many close friends are aware of this, but I, I guess I would describe myself in, you know, my childhood and, and well into adulthood as that I could have easily been the poster child for add.

Brent Metcalfe [01:35:07] And what I mean by that is that I could. When I worked in the church security department in the, you know, control center, I worked very, you know, long hours. They were 12 hour shifts. And I had a goal set for myself that I would read a book a day as well as several articles. And that was just kind of how I plotted out my life, right, Because I wanted to get as much information as I could. And so I did. I would go in to work with a book and a bunch of photocopied articles and all of them would be read by the time I left.

Brent Metcalfe [01:35:49] And so what I would do is that that would take me almost into a hyper focus mode where I could focus on what I was reading and so on. But the minute you put a test in front of me where I'm not gathering information, but I'm required to repeat it back to you at the time, I mean, if you're familiar with descriptions of what ADD is like, it's almost like listening to a raw cassette record recording of someone who's in an airport talking to you. And that what you really hear in the recording is unlike being in front of that person at the time, where really you're focused on their voice and just hearing their voice.

Brent Metcalfe [01:36:40] You're hearing all the background sounds, you're hearing the passengers walking by, you're hearing somebody tipping over their coffee cup. You're hearing all these things. That was what my experience, my sensory experience was like for most of my life.

Brent Metcalfe [01:36:59] And I thought everybody experienced it this way. And it wasn't until decades later that I finally approached a doctor and said, you know, is this different? You know, is this somehow unusual? This is my experience, my sensory experience.

Brent Metcalfe [01:37:22] Is there anything different about this? And he just, you know, was shocked. I mean, he didn't know what to say. He was like, how long, how long have you lived with this? And, you know, I said, my whole life. And he just said, no, that's not normal. It's not how everyone is. You know, I had never even thought to ask.

Brent Metcalfe [01:37:59] And I mean, I would go to school and teachers would send home report cards, you know, saying, you know, how bright I was and how talented I was, but I just needed to apply myself. And yeah, pretty So I guess I would have been the ADD poster child.

Brent Metcalfe [01:38:24] And that went on for a very, very long time. And then that changed, and I ended up in the technology, secular or sector having a very successful career. But that was almost debilitating at times. And how do you describe that to someone else?

John Dehlin [01:38:57] So you had the. You had the ability to concentrate when it came to reading, but when it came to sort of being tested or other types of things that academia might require, you not only lacked confidence, but you had a disability that you felt. And that likely did sort of just preclude you from that life, career, path.

Brent Metcalfe [01:39:19] Yeah, I mean, I still have these horrible thoughts of being tested on the most simple things, even though, you know, when I take tests now, I, you know, I can score as high as I want to score, you know, But. But at the time, it was just devastating. And so. Yeah, so kind of test anxiety. Right, right. And. And, And.

Brent Metcalfe [01:39:54] And I never really understood why. I just thought that I was, you know, less than others and other people were far brighter than I was and that this is something I just had to deal with and, you know, and accept. And so, you know, I just never imagined that, you know, that that would materialize in a way for me. I mean, it just wasn't. You know, some people, like, had the whole academic thing down, and I just wasn't one of them, and I just had to come to terms with that. And that was probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life in the sense that I wish I.

Brent Metcalfe [01:40:42] I could have gone back, because I think had I immersed myself in the experience, I probably would have done well and succeeded. But now, at this point in my life, the thought of pursuing that is not as exciting.

John Dehlin [01:41:09] Of course. Of course.

Brent Metcalfe [01:41:10] You know.

John Dehlin [01:41:11] Of course.

Brent Metcalfe [01:41:11] Yeah. And. But, yeah, I mean, again, to experience something like that for so long and have no clue what's going on, and to think that everybody is like this and because I can't do this other thing well, that somehow I'm inferior was unfortunate because that's changed and changed dramatically, you know, over the last 25 years, so.

John Dehlin [01:41:45] Right. Well, that's a tough story, but thanks for sharing. I'm sure people will be inspired by it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:41:54] Well, I hope so. You know, it's been an interesting road, to say the least.

Brent Metcalfe [01:42:32] Anger or malice? I draw myself apart searching my soul.

Part 2 of 6 · Ep. 494

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:36] The kindly light amid encircling gloom Lead thou me on. The night is dark and I am far from home. Lead thou me on, Keep thou my feet.

John Dehlin [00:01:01] Hello and welcome. Welcome back to Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin, and I'm so excited and honored to be sharing with you part two of my interview with Brent Metcalfe. In part one of my interview with Brent, he talked about his, you know, being born in New Zealand, about, you know, growing up in a devout Mormon family where his father worked at high level for the church, talked about his mission in England, coming home, working for LDS Church security, publishing some articles for the 7th East Press at BYU. And we sort of ended his interview talking about his being forced to resign from his church employee at the behest of Mark e.

John Dehlin [00:01:48] Peterson and two other members of the 12 in April of 1983. And he also shared with us some very touching stories, frankly, about his battle with attention deficit disorder. And if you didn't listen to that first hour, I just can't actually, it's an hour and a half, hour and 40 minutes. I can't recommend it enough. So now we're going to dive into sort of what led up to Brent getting to know Mark Hoffman. And we're going to talk about the whole Mark Hoffman affairs.

John Dehlin [00:02:25] So, Brett, let's start after you get fired, like, did that cause a crisis of faith for you? Did that, you know, at any point up until then, was there ever a part of you that was like, you know, I'm sticking to the church or I'm trying to hurt the church? Was there anything up until that point where your motives might have been in question?

Brent Metcalfe [00:02:50] No, no. And not, not even after that. You know, I'll be honest with you, the experience was very traumatic in the sense to know that, you know, that high level leaders in the church were involved in, you know, you losing your livelihood. And it was actually during the time that I was continued to do research in the church Library. I believe that this was right before I was forced to resign that I met Mark Hoffman in the Church Historical Library.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] Bumped into him.

Brent Metcalfe [00:03:42] Well, somebody, I believe it was. I want to say it was Lyn Jacobs who introduced us one day, because Lyn and I had got to know each other because Lynn worked over in the genealogical department. So I would see him on my rounds as I would go through and so on, and church security.

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:01] And Lynn introduced me, I believe, to Mark, and we, you know, started talking on a fairly regular basis. And he asked me what I had been researching. And among the topics I had been researching was Joseph Smith's early involvement in money digging and how that related to the acquisition of the gold plates and so on.

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:31] And so that. That definitely caught his attention. And from there, we started talking every time he would come in, which was on a regular basis. And, you know, we. We started to become, I think, friends, you know, as well as people who just had common interests in terms of church history.

Meeting Mark Hofmann and Loss of Faith

John Dehlin [00:04:55] So tell a little bit about what you know about Mark's time before you met him. Like, let's just, you know, we could talk about just your impressions. But what do we know about his life prior to, you know, to when you would have met him now? What do we know now? Not what did you know then, but what do we know now?

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:19] You know, a fair amount. And actually, I learned much more as time went on because we became good friends. As, you know, within a year or two, we were quite good friends and to the point that, you know, he and I, along with our wives, would go over to his house and, you know, have dinner, go out to dinner.

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:50] We were over there one night when Kurt Bench was there with his wife, and Shannon Flynn and his wife would come over and, you know, we would all hang out together. And so, yeah, we became pretty good friends. And so during that time, I learned a lot about his earlier years because, you know, I was going through my own crisis of faith that actually, funny enough, had very little to do with church history.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:29] And it was through the time when. When I lost my employment and so on that I went through a phase where I was really seeking to. To know God and to, you know, come closer to God and. And that. That was something that. That, you know, I wanted more than anything in my life during that. That phase.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:05] And so after the Salamander letter was found and sold to Steve Christiansen and everything else, I mean, I still was grappling with this, and both my wife at the time and I were dealing with this.

John Dehlin [00:07:23] So the firing did trigger a crisis of faith for you?

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:27] To the degree that I started trying to find comfort in God more than ever in my life, I think I just wanted to feel that there was something beyond me and something that cared about me and could, you know, that there was more to this world than what you could observe with the natural eye.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:55] And, you know, I remember my former wife and I going to the temple, the West Jordan temple one night. We had been, you know, fasting all day and just praying non stop and going there and doing some sealings for the dead. And I remember we came back to our vehicle and we both got in the car and we just sat there in silence for, you know, what seemed like an eternity. There probably wasn't more than just a couple of minutes.

Brent Metcalfe [00:08:40] And finally I just said, you know, did you feel anything at all? And she just said, no. And I said, neither did I. And that was such a. A puzzling effect to me because I wasn't looking for a sign. I wasn't looking for, you know, an Alma the Younger or Sons of Mosiah moment where an angel appears. I was just looking to feel, just feel something.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:18] That there was something beyond me that ultimately had control of our universe. Something beyond me. That's all I wanted to know. And, you know, I've referred to this a number of times to other friends of mine who think it's quite funny, but I refer to my kind of born again agnostic moment.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:48] And it happened as I was driving in front of the Cathedral of the Madeline in downtown Salt Lake City. And I remember thinking to myself, for the first time, you know, in my head, there. There is no God.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:14] You know, we are alone, and we are the only ones who can make a difference. And that was a remarkable epiphany. You know, that was the first time that I think I had ever allowed myself to think those types of thoughts. Because like I said before, it was inconceivable that there may not be a God. Absolutely inconceivable. And so I think that that was a first for me.

John Dehlin [00:10:56] And you think this is around 83. 84.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:00] That was in 84.

John Dehlin [00:11:02] Okay, okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:04] And that was. Yeah, that was a life changing moment for me because this no longer. It had nothing to do with history. Right. I wasn't mulling over, well, did Joseph Smith translate the Egyptian heretic accurately? That wasn't the issue at hand at all. It was purely.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:31] I just want to feel inside in a meaningful way. That's not something that I've conjured up to feel inside that there Is something greater than me that's guiding all of this. That. That's all I wanted to feel. It wasn't, you know, I don't need a vision, I don't need to see divine beings. I don't need anything. Just give me the comfort. And you know, inside that there's someone else out there bringing this all together. And.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:09] And then, you know, like I said, it was literally how people describe, and I'm using literally as it's now accepted now is figuratively as people describe, you know, born again experiences. It was kind of like this. I felt like this load had just been lifted off my shoulders.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:35] I don't have to contend with this issue anymore. You know, it's just gone. I don't have to deal with it. And it was emancipating.

John Dehlin [00:12:47] So you would have left that experience saying, I no longer believe in God at all.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:54] Yeah, yeah. Or at least to say that we are the guardians of our own destiny, that no one else is going to come in and intervene for you. You, as humanity, need to come together and make things work.

John Dehlin [00:13:16] So something between no God or a distant God.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:13:20] But certainly not an involved God.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:23] Right, right. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:13:26] And so would you say that everything else fell? Your belief in Christ and your belief in the church, did it all collapse at once?

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:37] Pretty much. I mean, I would say that that was. As my old friend Clifton Jolly described it once. He said, you didn't have a crisis of faith. You had something that's so much more disconcerting. And that is you had a failure of faith. And that is. That really encapsulates my experience. And it was something where I just felt like, what else is there left to hold on to? And I guess the invigorating part of it, if you could call it that, was the realization that humanity, literally we are the masters of our own destiny. And whatever good or evil that we see in the world is of our creation, and we need to figure out what we want and how to fix things and make things better.

John Dehlin [00:14:44] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:45] Because nobody else is going to do it for you.

John Dehlin [00:14:48] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:48] You know, it's. It's kind of like what I guess, and I don't mean to say in saying this, that the believers are somehow not mature in their belief system, because I know that people have had profound experiences that lead them to continue in belief, and I admire that to some degree. Right. It's just that that's not my experience. But I would say that it is kind of a process of when you realize as an adult that at some point There may not be a safety net around you to catch you anymore. And the only way that you're going to forge ahead is by you creating the path that lets you forge ahead. And I guess that was sort of the feeling that, that I experienced.

Hofmann's Background and the Salamander Letter

John Dehlin [00:15:43] Okay, so let's back up and talk to us about what you know about Mark Hoffman's history up until the point you met him.

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:53] Very little. I mean, I knew that he had

John Dehlin [00:15:57] what you know now.

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:59] Oh, okay.

John Dehlin [00:16:00] About his history before you met him.

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:02] Well, now I know firsthand certain things. I mean, he had told me after we had known each other for a while that at the age of 14 he decided that there was no God. And yet he remained active in the LDS church, served a mission for the LDS Church.

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:28] You know, I know that he had growing up, even I think, disagreements with his father and so on over rigidity of belief and so on. And he just had a very difficult time with kind of anti science attitudes. I remember being over there one night and you know, both Dory and his wife then, now his ex wife both told me about his father coming over and seeing a book. It was children's book on how the dinosaurs were on the earth. And it was a children's book from a very scientific standpoint and how upset his father was at seeing this. Why would you let your children read this?

Brent Metcalfe [00:17:28] They had no idea that Mark was not a believer at all and hadn't believed for years. And so yeah, that's the irony, I guess a lot of this is that Mark had all these very intimate dealings with general authorities. And yet the entire time that he was doing this, he wasn't a believer at all.

John Dehlin [00:17:57] Right, okay. So. So Mark's not a believer from age 14 on, you're thinking, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:04] Yeah. He told me that at the age of 14 he decided that there was no God.

John Dehlin [00:18:09] Okay, so he's just, in some ways you could just say he figured it out from a non believing perspective. He figured it out 10 or 20 years before you did, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:20] Okay. But he still goes on a mission. He went to England, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:24] I believe so, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:26] So he still served a mission. But what's he thinking? Do you have any idea?

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:30] Oh, I think that he's just kind of going along with a social script at that point. He's viewing life as I'm part of a community, this is what you do. And so he did. He just played out the actions with no real feeling or any of it.

John Dehlin [00:18:52] And there's an old term from the DSM 4 which is antisocial Personality disorder, which is this condition where someone's sort of born without a conscience and they could torture somebody and not really feel bad about it. They could kill somebody, and it just doesn't register. And we all can't imagine that because theoretically we all have consciences. But do you think Mark was. Was that person?

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:23] That. That wasn't the. The person that I experienced. Which is why when all this happened, it was so devastating. Because, I mean, you know, we would joke around together and, you know, we went to. Let's see. I guess it was one of the ward. It was his wards New Year's Eve party.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:48] And we all had on these hats and these funny horns and Mark was just going on and on with his horn in the funniest ways. We were just all laughing. And I even remember when we went over for a party one night at his house and we all got in their hot tub out back of their house and it was the middle of winter and we were. We would jump out just in our, you know, our swimming suits and go make snow angels in the snow. And if you've ever done that, it's crazy because it feels like, you know, an infinite number of needles are piercing your skin all at once when you hit the snow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:35] But, you know, we did things like that and we would laugh and have fun. And that was my experience. And that's why it was so traumatizing when all this happened and why, for a fairly long period of time, I had an extremely difficult time believing that he had any involvement in any way, shape or form.

John Dehlin [00:21:01] Now, when I asked Sandra, Sandra Tanner described having met him, she described him as completely, you know, unmemorable, just quiet and boring and understated. And that's a very different personality profile than what I'm hearing you offer.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:21] Yeah. And the thing is, what she is describing is absolutely your first encounter with Mark Hoffman and perhaps even subsequent encounters, depending on what your relationship is to him. And so I think that if you asked Kurt Bench or Shannon Flynn, you know, what they thought, they would describe something quite different than that. It was only, I think, a few people that he really showed that toward. And yeah, so that was another side of Hoffman that I certainly saw on occasion and that many people would never have seen. And so that doesn't surprise me at all. I think that Sandra's telling is probably very authentic and true to her experience.

John Dehlin [00:22:30] Very true. Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:32] Okay. So were you hot tubbing with Mark Hoffman after your crisis of faith or before or during?

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:43] It could have been during, because to be honest, with you. I mean, we're only talking about a two year time Spanish. And so it could have been before, during, after. I couldn't really tell you for sure, but I do know that we were doing things before, during and after. I just don't know when that particular event happened.

John Dehlin [00:23:06] So did you ever have this heart to heart with Mark Hoffman about your doubts and your disbelief and his doubts, his belief? What was that conversation like?

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:16] Yeah, because I think that that was probably the context in which he told me that he hadn't believed in God since he was 14. Was me, you know, disclosing that. You know, I. I'm not sure that there's a God anymore.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:36] And I'm not sure that I can believe in, in. In that fundamental element. I mean, I remember during this time because my former wife and I lived in Bountiful. And I had the unusual blessing and curse at the same time that every ward I moved into, within weeks of moving in, I'd be called to be the gospel doctrine teacher.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:03] And so I was the gospel doctrine teacher out in Bountiful. And there were some things that, that I had talked about that some class members kind of found troubling. And eventually I had the elders quorum president monitoring my classes and then a member of the high council monitoring my classes. And the funny thing is that I was talking about some of the most innocuous stuff. I mean, I'm talking about stuff that makes the new gospel topics that they're putting out look absolutely mind blowing. I was talking about the most mundane things imaginable, but I thought were interesting. And evidently a few of the members of the class didn't think so.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:58] And anyway, what transpired from there was after my failure of faith, the stake presidency showed up at our house one night. And I remember the stake president asking me, you know, so do you have a testimony that the prophet is a prophet of God? And I said, well, the problem is that I'd have to believe in a God and in order to, to think that.

John Dehlin [00:25:34] And what could your state presidency in that there was a problem.

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:37] Oh. Because they said that they had heard from members that, that I had somehow lost my faith.

John Dehlin [00:25:43] From your gospel doctrine classes?

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:44] Yes. Yes. And so. So the entire stake presidency shows up at the house and, and I had never met any of them before. And, and so, you know, I said, well, first I'd have to believed that they were, you know, and a God in order for him to be a prophet of God. And they were just like looking at each other like they had no idea what to say. And it's funny, because this particular stake president called my dad the next day and said, you know, brother Metcalfe, I want you to know. Because I told him, you know, the position my dad was in with the church.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:30] And he said, brother Metcalfe, I want you to know that your son is one of the most honest young men I have ever talked to. You know, because I was just very candid and didn't try and conceal anything or anything like that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:48] And. And my dad was very appreciative of all that information. And then it was about a week later, Elder Scott comes over to my dad's office and said, derek, did you know that this stake president, President Lehman, I believe was his name, is filed to have Brent excommunicated?

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:18] And my dad was, I think, absolutely livid. He was like, how dare you call me and tell me how honest you think my son is and then file to hold a church court on him. And anyway, as I understand it, Elder Scott and possibly Gordon Hinckley basically contacted the, say, the stake president back and told them that the matter was to be dropped.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:55] And so there was never any court held. I was never even asked to attend one. They just. They just told him that the matter was to be dropped. But it was during that time, right, that Hoffman and I were having these conversations about belief.

John Dehlin [00:28:13] So do you think Hoffman, maybe your conversations with him were a major contributor to your loss of faith?

Brent Metcalfe [00:28:21] No, no, I wouldn't say that at all. In fact, if anything, if you knew kind of his modus operandi and how he played people, this was stuff that I was informing him of. It wasn't the other way around. Do you see what I'm saying? In other words, he would reveal to me as much as I would reveal to him. So as soon as I'm telling him that I no longer believe, then that's kind of an inch he feels that he can give back. Do you see what I'm saying?

John Dehlin [00:29:01] Sure, sure.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:02] And so that was sort of the process that this whole, you know, dance would go through, this very bizarre dance of him playing other people. And, yeah, I saw it right up until the end. And, you know, everybody around him was being manipulated by him. Everyone from general authorities to local leaders, to spouse, to children, to parents, everyone who came into contact with him was being manipulated in some way and ruthlessly. So, quite honest.

John Dehlin [00:29:50] Okay, but at some point. At some point, you're both acknowledging to each other that you don't believe the church is true anymore, and yet you're both still Heavily involved in researching and. And you know, whenever I think a really natural leaning for people to have once they lose their faith is to say, well, then this is a fraud and this has got to come down. We've got to. Maybe we've got to bring it down. Like, you know, it's hurting people and we can't just sit quiet and we've got to be part of its undoing. So would that type of conversation have ever occurred between you guys?

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:32] No. In fact, on the contrary, I was working for Steve Christensen at the time. And that's the part of the entire story that dovetails into my forced resignation from the church security department. Is that what happened?

John Dehlin [00:30:57] Was.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:57] Is that not long after I was forced to resign, I mean, I continued doing research in the historical library. I ran into Scott Kenny there one

John Dehlin [00:31:08] day, who's one of the founders of Sunstone. Correct. I interviewed him as one of my first Mormon stories episodes.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:14] Yeah. In fact, I think he was the founding editor of Sunstone.

John Dehlin [00:31:18] Right? Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:19] And also edited the multi volume Wilford Woodruff diary series from Signature Books and Ghost wrote, by the way, Saints without Halos, which is attributed to Leonard Harrington and Davis Bitten, but he was actually the ghostwriter on that. But that's a story for another day.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:43] Anyway, Scott happened to run into me and he said, have you heard from Steve Christiansen? And I had no idea who he was talking about. And I said, no, I haven't. He said, well, Steve is trying to get a hold of you. And he gave me a number and Steve and I finally contacted each other and Steve said that he had heard about my situation and being forced to resign my job. And he said, I would like you to come and work for me.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:17] And. And so I said, great. I mean, I'm unemployed and that sounds awesome. And it was an offer that I could never refuse. He said, I want you to come on and be my personal research assistant on Mormon history.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:35] And so we went and I met him at the CFS building, which was Coordinated Financial Services where he worked. And. And the old Sears and Roebuck building, I believe, or Arbex Building. That's it. It's the old Arbex building that was on the corner of State street and Third South.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:57] And on one of the floors in that building, he had a room that he had actually rented out, a very large room that had a little piece of paper taped on the outside of it that said the B.H. roberts Library.

Brent Metcalfe [00:33:17] And I walked into that room and that room had floor to ceiling bookshelves all the way around it that were just packed with books, thousands and thousands of books. And he said, you know, I want you to be the person who is ordering all the books for me, and I want you to be the person who reads these books and then reports to me on what they're about.

Brent Metcalfe [00:33:46] And I was just, you know, in heaven and in shock all at the same time. And I remember the first time that Steve gave me a catalog from an academic publishing house. And, you know, the books in this catalog, some of them cost hundreds of dollars. And, you know, probably the least expensive may have been 50 and above, but most of them were, you know, $100 or more. And he said, I want you to go through and mark off the books that you think I need to have in my library. So I went through and probably marked off a good 20 volumes in there that would have cost hundreds of dollars and so if not thousands.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:40] And so Steve went through, he looked at it, and he said, you've done a great job. And yes, these are books that I want, but I want to show you how I would mark them off. And he went through and started putting all these check marks, buy all these different books. And by the time we were done, I think that the order was over $20,000 of books from this one single catalog.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:07] And that was the order we placed. And off went the order, and the books came back in, and I went through and basically would order them according. You know, place them according to category and so on. And of course, there's no way that humanly possible that you're going to read every one of these, But I would ask him, which ones do you want me to go through? And I would read them and give. Give him a verbal report on the content, and that would often turn into additional book orders. That would be thousands and thousands of dollars. I mean, he was on a decent income. I honestly don't know how he completely, completely support his book habit.

John Dehlin [00:35:50] Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:51] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:35:51] So, like. So this is Matt Christensen's son. Matt Christensen is known as Mr. Mac, you know, the missionary apparel store owner here in Utah. He's also recently served, I think, as the president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:07] Correct. And I've got to say that Mac is just a wonderful, wonderful person.

John Dehlin [00:36:14] So you've met Mack?

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:15] Oh, many times. And Mac is just for me, you know, again, I've never been employed by him, so I'm not giving that perspective, which others may tend to come away with a different perspective. But just as somebody who has befriended me over the years, he is everything I would see a Christian to be. And I remember when my mom died, and this is after I had been excommunicated, I was over there with my dad because we were looking for. To buy suits for the funeral and Mac came over and said, I'm putting you with this person, you know, the salesperson. This salesperson. And you know, you take care of them, you get them the best top of the line suits, everything.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:20] Get them the best quality ties, shoes, anything they want. You take care of their needs. And after we were all done and we were walking up to the checkout, Matt came over to me and my dad and I believe my brother was there with me and he just said, I'm so sorry for your loss and just know that I love all of you and have a great day. And he sent us out the door without paying for a thing.

John Dehlin [00:37:52] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:55] And yeah, he's. He's a remarkable.

John Dehlin [00:38:02] This was after your son had been. His son had been killed.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:05] Right, right. And after I had been excommunicated.

John Dehlin [00:38:08] Okay, okay. So. So what was behind Steve? What was he doing? Why was he doing it? Was he having a crisis of faith? Was he like working for the church in some backhanded way?

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:19] No, no, Steve. Steve loved church history. He was a voracious reader. You know, he was an autodidact completely. Even in his own profession. You know, he had done his own study of, you know, economics of tax law. And he knew it better some than some of the tax attorneys that worked there.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:52] He was very, very bright. And now, oddly enough, I would say young man because we were also young at the time. I was in my 20s, Steve was only 32. I think Hoffman was about the same age as well.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:12] And he had this conviction that you just let things unfold as they are. You don't cover up things, you don't try and change things. History is what it is. And I remember even said to me at one point, which, funny enough, when Alan Roberts and Linda Sillitoe wrote their book on the called Salamander, which was on the whole Hoffman episode, they actually modified what I told them in it because they were concerned that some family members of Steve's may not have known just how open minded he was. But Steve had actually said to me one time that even if I came to the conclusion that there were no God, I could not, I would still continue to pay tithing because he said, I think the church does that much good in people's lives that I would continue participating in every way to the best of my ability and continue to pay tithing.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:40] And Steve was an original, to say the least. He was a bishop in a Centerville ward. I remember one Sunday he was concerned about the priests in his ward, you know, who were all young men. And he felt like he wasn't connecting with them as well as he should.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:07] And so what he did is he went and got the priests and they all skipped sacrament meeting and he went to the local Dairy Queen and bought them ice cream. They all sat around and just talked the whole time, not about church at all, just talked about what's going on in their lives and everything else. And so of course, you know, two taboos all at once, right? Skipping church and then going out and buying on Sunday. Right. And he's doing both of them right in one shot. And he's doing it with the priests and he's the bishop and he's doing it just to make sure that everyone's doing okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:51] And, and you may find this interesting as well, especially given your current circumstances. Circumstance that he was adamantly, in fact, he told the stake president when he was called to be a bishop, I'll never excommunicate anyone. And he said, if that's something you can't accept from me, then don't call me to be a bishop.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:17] Because he just said, there is no circumstance where I think that I am justified making a decision that God can take care of far better than I can.

John Dehlin [00:42:30] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:32] And so he was just adamant, I will not excommunicate anyone. And if that's a problem that you've got, then, you know, you need to make your decision now before you formally put me in as bishop.

John Dehlin [00:42:44] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:46] And yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:48] So what were you doing for Steve?

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:50] I was basically his personal research assistant. So I would research non stop from morning till night. And that's, you know, during the time that I am asked incredible amounts of information on early Mormonism. And then it was during that time that I was working for Stephen in that capacity that I ran into Mark Hoffman again in the church historical library.

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:25] And he, you know, asked me, he had learned that I was working for Steve. He had learned that Steve, you know, was fairly wealthy. And he said, do you think that Steve may be interested in buying a document?

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:44] And I said, well, maybe I could talk with him about it certainly. And you know, what is the document? And as it turns out, it was the so called Salamander letter. And I even remember going with Mark Hoffman down to Steve's office and sitting on the bench, which was like an old church pew, sitting outside of Steve's Office and you know, reading the letter, holding it right there and reading it and in preparation for meeting with Steve and that began the formal transaction of purchasing the Salamander letter.

John Dehlin [00:44:38] So you, you held that letter in your hand?

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:40] Yeah, yeah. In fact, in fact, when, after Steve had purchased it, I was the person who took it over to Borg Anderson, who's, who was, excuse me, a well known photographer in Salt Lake who photographed the document. And so, yeah, I mean I had the document on more than one occasion in my possession. And other than that, we kept it in a, I believe he kept it in a safe vault and, and tell

John Dehlin [00:45:17] it just for those who don't know, tell us quickly what the letter basically was or said.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:22] Well, the, the letter purported to be written by Martin Harris to William W. Phelps and which is convenient because we have no known, anyway, handwriting samples of Harris that we can clearly point to and say that's you know, a Martin Harris holograph. All we have are signatures. And so basically what he came up with was a consistent writing style that represented Harris's and it was a telling of, you know, the foundational event of Mormonism, of the coming of Moroni, who now is coming as almost a trickster spirit who is trying, almost trying to trick Joseph out of acquiring the plates and in a very foreboding tone that he used to look to the stone to find his answers and so on. So it's steeped in kind of a folk magical tradition. And that was the document that he was, you know, trying to sell to

John Dehlin [00:46:37] Steve and it has Moroni, you know, emerging from a white salamander that's running around on the ground or something like that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:45] Correct. The white salamander transforms into the spirit and the spirit functions very much as a treasure guardian that you would hear about in money digging lore from the early 19th century.

John Dehlin [00:47:02] Yeah. So it's almost like you, Hoffman and Quinn were all kind of onto the same kind of narrative in different ways.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:12] Yeah. And at around the same time. And of course I had shared with Mark a great deal of my research just in casual conversation. But you know, I don't know what may or may not have influenced him. I think that there were other things such as the Willard Chase letter and so on. They had much more and act on, on the creation of the Salamander letter than anything I would have contributed.

John Dehlin [00:47:43] So what's it, what's it, what do you have a theory about what's in Hoffman's mind as he's, as he's forging letters? Like is he just trying to make a buck. Is he, is he like the joker in, in, you know, the Keith, the Heath Ledger version of the Joker, which is just like, I'm just going to create havoc, but because I love to create havoc. Or was this a guy who was like, I think the church is a fraud and the church has hurt people and I'm going to do mischief because I really want to take this puppy down. Do you have enough about that?

Brent Metcalfe [00:48:19] Yeah, all of the above. I mean, he's. All of that. And you know, a lot of his money was coming from other, you know, more secular sources. For example, when he was forging the oath of a Freeman that he could have got a million or more for.

Brent Metcalfe [00:48:46] And that's, you know, purports to be the earliest known document printed in America. And so I think that he had a model set up and I think undermining the church and, you know, its truth claims was a part of his game. And I can only call it a game because he is the trickster character.

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:20] He's the trickster character that's in the Salamander letter. You know, he's the one who kind of pulls the rug out from under you at the last minute every time. And that was his personality, I think. And so it began with the, you know, the Anton transcript and then spread to more ambitious projects and they became increasingly ambitious and that was eventually his downfall with the so called McClellan McClelland Collection, where it was ambitious beyond his ability to produce it. And that was absolutely his undoing.

Steve Christensen, the Salamander Letter, and the Church

John Dehlin [00:50:05] Okay, so back to Steve. Why was Steve purchasing the Salamander Letter? Like someone wrote in, why didn't the church just pay for their own documents? Were they hiding behind Christensen for some reason? How was Christensen reimbursed or rewarded by the church for his document ventures? I mean, there's a lot in those questions. Right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:25] Right. Well, Steve had no formal connection with the hierarchy at all through any of this. And I believe that it may have been offered to the church and possibly Brent Ashworth, but I'm not sure about that offhand. I'm sure we could look it up and find out, but prior to it being offered to Steve.

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:51] And Steve just became a good candidate because in Steve's mind, Steve didn't want to see this buried away. He felt like if this is a true part of our history, it deserves to see the light of day. But he also believed that it deserved its day in the proper context.

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:15] And so consequently there were three of us who were commissioned to write a book giving the background history of the document. And so I was one, because I was Steve's research assistant. I was one who was going to be involved in this. And then Ronald Walker and Dean Jesse from the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of Church History at BYU were chosen by Leonard Arrington to also participate in the project.

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:51] And so, you know, all of us met regularly on, you know, on a regular basis, and we. I would come in with literally, reams of paper of photocopies of documents and articles I had found pertaining to Joseph Smith's involvement in folk magic and his quest for buried treasure.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:19] And these meetings went on for months. And that was. That was the project to get this meeting published and to get it out. So that was Steve's, I think, ultimate aim was it was to make this public, but to do it in a way that placed it in a proper historical context that was not judgmental about the impact of it on faith and so on. The church hierarchy had nothing to do with any of this at the time stage. Nothing.

John Dehlin [00:52:55] Okay, but. But then there's this famous photo, right, of some general authority with the magnifying glass and Hoffman standing next to him. And, I mean, am I imagining that photo or there's some photo like that, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:53:07] No, that photo is Hoffman with the. The Anton transcript. And it is pronounced Anton, by the way, not Anthon. But that's a whole nother story as well. But yeah, with the Anton transcript. And you see Spencer W. Kimball there, and I believe he's surrounded by Anne Eldon Tanner, Marion G. Romney Boyd, Kate Packer. I'm not sure if anyone else is there, but they're. They're all gathered together with the magnifying glass, looking at that document.

John Dehlin [00:53:45] And that's before the Salamander letter, correct?

Brent Metcalfe [00:53:48] That's, I believe, 1980.

John Dehlin [00:53:50] Okay, so that's Hoffman fooling the apostles and presidency, first presidency members, where he brings them a forged document, but they don't really catch on to it and they purchase the document. Is that right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:07] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:54:09] And they purchase it because in some way that document's embarrassing.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:13] No, in this particular case, I think the opposite is almost the case because they publish it almost immediately. And it allegedly had a transcription on the back of the document in the handwriting of Joseph Smith, along with his signature and the document. What was particularly interesting and where. Where Hoffman, I think, was, you know, again, manipulating and playing on people's desires to understand church history, is that when he created this document, he took certain characters that were found on the. What we would call the Whitmer Anton transcript today, the one that most people are familiar with that has the horizontal line you if characters. And he took those and placed them in a vertical, in vertical columns, ending with this circular figure that also had characters inside of it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:55:18] And much like an Egyptian hypocephalus and the way the characters are arranged. And the thing that's interesting about that is that that's what matches Charles Anton's description of the document. Because his description of the document doesn't match this other document that came through David Whitmer. Right. Through the Whitmer family.

Brent Metcalfe [00:55:45] And so basically, in a very subtle way, Hoffman was providing both support for the LDS church in the sense that now you have the original of this document with handwriting by Joseph Smith on the backside of it. But the description of the document and the physical manner the document is created now matches the description given by Charles Antin, who was critical of the document.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:21] And so it was kind of like this dual thing going on at the same time where it was on the one hand buttressing belief, but on the other hand, kind of this backhanded buttress of belief by having it support a critic of the document.

John Dehlin [00:56:40] Right, okay. And in some ways he's probably just trying to establish his legitimacy as a document trader collector with the Brethren, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:50] Oh, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:56:51] Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:52] And he does. I mean, that document definitely put him right in there. Not their crosshairs, but he got their attention. And the documents that would come over the next few years would add to that.

John Dehlin [00:57:10] And were you aware at the time, when you're hot tubbing with him that he's coming up with these documents? Is that stuff you talk about?

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:19] Yeah, some, because he actually told me about the Joseph Smith money digging letter that purported to be written in, I want to say, 18, 26 or 25, but it purported to be the earliest known handwriting sample of Joseph Smith written to Josiah Stowell and talking about their money digging adventures. And Gordon Hinckley had purchased that, I believe, for $10,000 and had made it a private purchase.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:59] So that afforded plausible deniability in the sense that. Did the church buy this document? No, the church did not buy this document. Right. It was a private purchase that was then tucked away. And he supplied me with all that information.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:18] And then he actually requested that Dean Jesse give me a photocopy of that document, which Dean did, because Dean was the person who Gordon Hinckley had authenticate the handwriting as Joseph Smith. And so Dean gave me a copy of it. And then Hoffman gave me permission to leak the document.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:49] And so that went to a third party who in turn Sent it to John Dart of the LA Times. And John Dart of the LA Times then called Church headquarters and asked for a comment on the document. And they got back to him and said no such document exists. The church has never purchased such a document. There isn't one. And he said, okay, I'm giving you fair warning, I'm going to publish it in tomorrow's LA Times.

John Dehlin [00:59:23] Huh.

Brent Metcalfe [00:59:24] And so that created a flurry that you would not believe up in Salt Lake. And I guess what ended up happening is the Church was racing to try and get it published in the Church News and acknowledging that yes, the document does exist, but no, the Church has not purchased it and that it was a private acquisition by Gordon B. Hinckley. And so that's kind of how that all went down.

John Dehlin [01:00:01] So is it fair? So two of the main criticisms during this time period, one is that the brethren were fooled multiple times by Mark Hoffman. That's true, correct?

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:00:16] And the second is that they, in some instances there appears to have been cover ups where documents were being secured or purchased and then hidden so that they wouldn't see the light of day. True or not true?

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:30] Absolutely true.

John Dehlin [01:00:31] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:32] I mean, this is a case in point, right? Yeah. With this Joseph Smith money taking letter. There was no intention of this letter ever being published.

John Dehlin [01:00:46] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:46] I mean, it was purchased by Gordon Hinckley and that was a done deal. Right. And the only person outside of Hoffman who knew about it was Dean Jesse, I believe, and me.

John Dehlin [01:00:59] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:02] And then others learned, of course, very soon after that. But yeah, there absolutely was an effort to secure documents and then have them effectively disappear.

John Dehlin [01:01:17] And as Hoffman was like fooling everybody, did your Spidey sense ever go off like, whoa, this guy, this guy's, you know, something weird about him, something off like, you know, he must, I'm, you know, maybe, maybe he's not. Maybe these documents aren't authentic. Like, anything for you?

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:35] No, in fact, you know, people have asked me that question on numerous occasions and I guess the best way that I can describe it is empirically when he took the lie detector test after the bombings had happened. And you know, I guess anything from what I recall, and I hope I'm even getting this approximately right. If you score a minus 7m below your line, and I may have these inverted, so don't hold me to this some number. Right? Right. If you're scoring a plus 7 and higher, you're telling the truth. And in between is kind of this nebulous region where they're not sure what you're saying. And he had scored, I believe leave a plus 15 and. And so.

John Dehlin [01:02:42] Good liar.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:43] Yeah, so. So you know it. And the reason why I bring that up is because it's hard to describe to someone, you know, how couldn't you have known? And it's. I can only say you weren't there. You know, you had to be there because everybody was buying it, you know, and the Tanners weren't buying it, but for reasons very different than other folks. And for that matter, they didn't actually know Mark Hoffman that well, but they had real concerns about the authenticity of it. I don't think that they thought that he was necessarily the forgery, but they had really concerns about just overall authenticity. And then that turned into. Now we have concerns about the whole thing with him because he's finding too many documents. And I think that they nailed it, quite honestly. I mean, you know, because they weren't blinded by friendships and other relationships.

John Dehlin [01:03:55] They're distance.

Brent Metcalfe [01:03:56] Yeah. And that distance served them well.

John Dehlin [01:04:00] And it was just Gerald's. I mean, I referred our listeners to the Sandra Tanner interview, but it sounds like it was just Gerald's, almost like Asperger's, like geek geeked out, you know, passion and intensity regarding Mormon history that gave him enough depth in understanding the documents to know that something was fishy. Right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:25] Yeah. And. And it's funny that you would describe Gerald that way because it's a very fitting description. And I don't mean that in. In dispersion way and not at all.

John Dehlin [01:04:39] Yeah, right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:40] Maybe because I enjoyed my conversations with Gerald, you know, I mean, he understood what I was talking about. I would try and describe to him a, you know, pretty complex thing that I had found. And, and he would get it right off. I didn't have to over explain myself. He would just get it and. Yeah. So I think it was primarily Gerald's concern. Why is one person finding all of these documents and how could that be?

John Dehlin [01:05:15] Right, okay, so you're working on this book with some BYU professors about the Salamander letter. Did it ever get escalated? How did that whole thing end?

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:29] Well, it was actually a really enjoyable project and I have tremendous respect for Dean Jesse and Ron Walker and Leonard Arring as well.

John Dehlin [01:05:43] And you met Leonard Errington?

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:44] Oh, yeah. In fact, Leonard was just a very kind person to me. I mean, even after I had my falling out with the church and so on, he would go out of his way at conferences to come up and greet me. And he was a very special person and I have very fond memories of him.

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:14] And you Know again, somebody who would go out of his way to come and say hi to me and ask me how I was doing and everything else. A very genuine down to earth person. And Ron and Dean were just, you know, marvelous of scholars. I remember Leonard referring to Ron as the best writer that they had among all the historians. And, you know, and Dean, he just considered was, bar none, the documents expert among all the historians.

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:54] And so it was very enjoyable. I had a. Here's an interesting anecdote that you might find interesting. When I was working on the project, Steve had just purchased what was believed at the time to be the Hiram Page Seer Stone.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:19] And he paid tens of thousands of dollars for it. And he actually let me take it home one night and I took it to the meeting, you know, that was the intention was to take it to the meeting with Ron and Dean, which was actually in the church office building in the conference room right across the hall from my dad's office.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:45] And I took it in and I said, I have something to show the two of you. And I pulled it out of my pocket and they all knew what it was right off because it's so distinctive looking. It looks like a stone cassette tape, for lack of a better analogy. And Ron Walker came over and took it out of my hands. And he walked over to the light switch and he hit the button. The lights went out and everybody was completely silent. Not a word was said.

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:21] And then after probably about 20, 30 seconds, light comes back on and Ron goes, well, I couldn't see anything. And then he hands it back over to me. And we actually had fun with the project, but that was one of the lighter moments to say the least.

John Dehlin [01:08:43] And it turned out not to be the Hiram Page Stone.

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:48] We're thinking it's probably more closely connected with the Whitmer family. Now, keep in mind, Hiram Page was brother in law of David Whitmer and so on. He married one of the daughters in the family, as did Oliver Cowdery. And so there's a whole bunch of interrelationships there, but we're thinking that it may have actually been even more. More directly attached to the Whitmer siblings. And so whether or not that proves to be true, we'll see.

John Dehlin [01:09:19] But it was a Seer Stone in theory for somebody.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:09:24] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:24] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:09:25] Okay. So how did the Salamander thing kind of come to a close?

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:32] Well, what ended up happening is, you know, we had been pursuing the book and I can't remember exactly which year. I want to say October of 1984. I believe there was a conference talk in which Bruce Elmer Conkie made a statement to the effect. And you know, this is all from memory, but I believe he made a statement to the effect that no member should be involved in writing or publishing something that could be harmful to the church. Well, as it turns out, Steve wasn't the only person financing the book. His business partner, Gary Sheets was also involved in the underwriting of the book project. And Gary heard that talk and became very, very concerned. And essentially with. Well, not even essentially, he just withdrew his. Of the project, which placed the full financial burden on Steve, which I don't think at all he can support. And that was the end of the project.

John Dehlin [01:11:08] Okay. That was basically your salary and buying out the time of the BYU professors.

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:16] Yeah. And because there were financial compensation sensations, I'm sure, because a lot of this was also done on off time right outside of byu. And then so what, what happened after that is, is when the, the Book of Abraham project kicked in with Ed Ashmund. And that was going to be something personally funded by Steve. And so that would revive my income. But that didn't last for long either. And that project came to an end. And then George Smith actually, what was

John Dehlin [01:12:00] the purpose of the Book of Abraham project?

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:03] Ed Ashman and I were going to write a commentary on the Book of Abraham. And so he actually gained permission from the Church Historical Library, from the archivist Don Schmidt at the time to have Borg Anderson, who was the photographer of the Salamander Letter, to come in and photograph the entire Book of Abraham collection, which he did. And so we all received life size, full color photographs of the entire collection of the papyrus everything, all the English manuscripts of the papyrus, everything.

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:48] And so, you know, which is hundreds and hundreds of pages long. And we had photographs of the entire collection. So for example, the grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian language, the bound volume, we had photographs of that. We had photographs of all the Book of Abraham manuscripts. We had photographs of all the Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts. We had photographs of the, you know, the two twin notebooks that have the Tale of Kutumen and Oneidis.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:26] You know, we had photographs of all the papyri fragments, everything. And so Ed Ashman and I were going to write a commentary on the Book of Abraham. And again, the funding for that project quickly ran out. George Smith tried to pick it up again.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:48] And when Steve left Coordinated Financial Services, I know that George had purchased the, the negatives for all those photographs from Steve, which included full shot of color photographs as well as a full shot of black and White negatives. And so, you know, he had tried to pick up the project, but that didn't last long either. And so that project eventually was abandoned.

John Dehlin [01:14:21] And it's weird because you're not believing the church is true, but Steve's a believer, and yet he's hiring you to do work, you know, that. That he feels like is important. That's an interesting pair of bedfellows, right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:14:39] Yeah. And a lot of the reason why is because, you know, it's funny because Steve. It came to me one day because I had been working really arduously on one of the projects and just putting in inordinate numbers of hours and trying to complete it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:05] And he came to me one day when I was in the photocopy room, and he said to me, you know, I. It's because we understand each other that we do this. And. And I knew exactly what he was talking about because he and I had talked about this before. And that is the feeling of, you know, looking at a document and thinking that you may have discovered something for the first time that no one has ever seen, seen before, that you may have been able to actually decipher an erased word on a document that to most people would be utterly meaningless, but to you, literally transforms your view of that document, you know, or your entire approach to looking at that document.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:00] If you've never experienced anything like that, then you probably understand people like Steve and I or how we could have a connection together. Right. And we had that connection. And it's hard to translate that excitement, that passion for learning something new to discovering the missing word in the crossword puzzle. How do you. How do you transfer that excitement to someone else? It's very difficult to do. But it's what we experience, whether believer or non believer, that doesn't matter to me. When I look at these documents, I see a microcosm of humanity. Right. And I'm looking at a piece of it that I can pick out and try and understand and interpret in the most minute way ways that. That is a thrill that is really hard to convey to others. But it's something that I feel, and

John Dehlin [01:17:08] it's got to be a huge part of what's fueled you for 35 years to be studying this stuff.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:13] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:17:14] Yeah. Even long after your. Your beliefs kind of faded.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:19] Right.

John Dehlin [01:17:20] Okay, so what. So let's move to the, you know, so you, at some point, you stopped working for Steve?

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:29] Yes, it was when the money ran out on the. The Book of Abraham project, which was summer. I want to say summer of 1980. Five.

John Dehlin [01:17:46] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:47] And so Mark Hoffman, who was my friend at the time, he of course found out that I no longer was employed. And so he said, why don't you come and work for me? Whoa. And I said, okay. What will I be doing? And he said, well, I'm going to provide you with a group of Jenny Lodge cards with descendants of early mission presidents that served in a variety of missions. Because what a lot of people aren't aware of is that there are actually editions of the Book of Mormon, for instance, that are more valuable than the first edition of the Book of Mormon. And some of these editions, if not many of them, are actually foreign editions.

Brent Metcalfe [01:18:43] First printings of foreign editions of the Book of Mormon, where there were fewer, there are fewer that have survived. And so he had gone through and had someone, I believe I want to say it was Noel Barton, but I'm not entirely sure. He was a genealogist, a very gifted genealogist who worked for the genealogical library, go through and find descendants of various early mission presidents to see if these mission presidents had left any papers or books behind.

John Dehlin [01:19:17] He was trying to get money correct

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:20] with an eye specifically on these very, very rare editions of the Book of Mormon. And so that was basically my job, was to follow through with these. And he, you know, paid me for doing. Didn't last more than a couple of months, for one thing.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:45] A number of the checks that he gave to me bounced. Had very strange experiences. One being with my family in Liberty park one evening after one of his checks had bounced, only to turn around and see him and his family driving into the parking lot.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:07] And I walked over and he was surprised to see me. And, and. But, you know, we of course greeted each other as friends like we normally did. And he said, oh, yeah, that, that check, it should have gone through, but no problem, because I've got some money with me. And he pulls out his wallet that is just stacked full of hundred dollar bills and he starts going through them and he pays me in cash right then and there.

John Dehlin [01:20:39] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:40] At Liberty park, in the parking lot. And it was just a very strange experience, but not atypical of, you know, just overall strange experiences that I had with Hoffman from time to time.

The Bombings and Their Aftermath

John Dehlin [01:20:55] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:57] So, yeah, so we're barely getting that project off the ground, and then the bombings happened.

John Dehlin [01:21:06] Okay. And do you remember where you were when you heard about them?

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:10] The bombings? Yeah, yeah, I actually.

John Dehlin [01:21:14] So the first bombing, who was that? Was that Steve?

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:17] Yeah. And I was at home, it was early morning, and I just started getting phone calls and Kurt Bench Called me, I recall, and, you know, said, have you heard that there's a bombing that went off at the Judge Building, which we both knew was the new location that Stephen moved his office to after he had left Coordinated Financial Services. And, you know, I said, no, I haven't heard about any of this. So I turned on the TV and tried to find any news reports. And then I started getting random calls from different news reporters. And I remember one reporter calling and saying, so how, you know, how do you feel? It was a reporter from, that wasn't local at all who happened to be here and said, how do you feel about, you know, hearing that your friend Steve Christiansen was killed in a bomb blast?

John Dehlin [01:22:32] How'd the reporter know who were friends with Steve?

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:35] He had got the information from someone to have. No, no idea how.

John Dehlin [01:22:39] Yeah, yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:40] And, and, and, and see, I did not know at that point. And I said, I said, well, what do you mean? And the reporter suddenly realized by my voice that no one had told me. And, and he said, well, you know, we're not really sure what's going on, but, you know, there's been a bombing and it sounds like it may have been in the vicinity of where his office was.

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:13] And this kind of went back and forth for minutes. And finally I just came out and said, so are you telling me that you've heard that Steve has been killed? And he said, yes. And it was just absolutely devastating for me. I mean, I can't even begin to describe feeling, you know, your soul sucked out of you and, you know, just crying uncontrollably and it was just, it was devastating. I couldn't believe what he was telling me.

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:56] And I think the reporter genuinely felt, you know, devastated himself that he was realizing that he was the one who broke the news to me while assuming when he called that I would have already known and I didn't.

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:15] And after that phone call, I know that Kurt Bench and I talked again and we were just both, you know, just devastated and it was heartbreaking.

John Dehlin [01:24:29] So two things. Did you, did you suspect Mark Hoffman at that point? And two, do you know, do you have a theory about why Mark targeted Steve?

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:42] Yeah, in answer to the, the former question, by no means. I mean, that was the farthest thing from my mind. I mean, I couldn't even imagine that he would participate in something so gruesome or so brutal and cold blooded is this. And no, no, that.

John Dehlin [01:25:08] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:25:09] Never even crossed my mind. And not at all. Not even remotely.

John Dehlin [01:25:18] Okay. And then, and then now do we know why he went After Steve,

Brent Metcalfe [01:25:27] I think it had everything to do with the McClellan Collection transaction that was supposed to be happening. Hoffman evidently had been working with Dallin Oaks, I believe, and Hugh Pinnock. He had taken a loan, I believe, from Hugh Pennock to, he claimed was for purchasing the collection or something like that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:26:00] And Dallin Oaks had become involved. And I know that on the day of the bombings, I believe that Hoffman contacts Dallin Oaks because his intention was to put off a meeting that was supposed to happen either that day or the next or that day it was. And that they had brought a mission president, last name was Sorenson, I believe, from Canada, and who was fairly wealthy and brought him to Salt Lake, away from his mission, while he was still the mission president, to purchase this collection from Hoffman. And that would satisfy the loan that he had taken from Hugh Pinnock that I believe was also associated with Wells Fargo Bank.

Brent Metcalfe [01:26:54] And that loan was coming do. And so that all had to be paid off. And I think that Hoffman's intent was to try and delay that transaction. But when he spoke with Oakes about the matter, from what I remember, and again, you know, I'm doing all of this from memory, I believe that Oaks basically delayed the transaction until the following day. And so Hoffman had bought himself nothing with that bombing. And so then there was the. The Sheets bombing that also.

John Dehlin [01:27:38] Okay, so that's pretty. Yeah, like, I want to delay this, so I'm going to kill somebody. Like, that's pretty awful.

Brent Metcalfe [01:27:44] Oh, it's. It. Get. It's. It's that and then some. Because the next day, when this. The third bomb goes off, which is at his vehicle.

John Dehlin [01:27:58] Oh, wait, let's do the second bomb first.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:00] Okay. Yeah. Okay. So. So Kathy Sheets picks up the second bomb, which I think is purely diversionary. I think that, that, that's. He's trying to tie it to the financial problems that Coordinated Financial Services had been having. And that, you know, and that's among the reasons why Steve leaves the company and so on. And so I think he was trying to connect that together. And the point is that it doesn't work. Nothing works. Nothing is going his way at this point, unlike other transactions in the past, where everything seems to fit into place, nothing is fitting into place at this point for him.

John Dehlin [01:28:47] And he. And he means to kill Gary, but. But the wife picks up the bomb and. Okay, correct.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:54] And, you know, again, it speaks to the utter ruthlessness with which he's carrying out his. His plan. And so the next day, because it's been, you know, again, it's Been delayed for a single day. Right. So the meeting is still supposed to happen, but now with Steve not present, but with the others present. And so.

John Dehlin [01:29:22] So Steve was supposed to be at the original meeting. Correct. And so by killing him, that could delay the meeting.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:29] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:29:29] But Oakes is like, nope, we're still having it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:32] Correct? Yes. Yes. You know, I'm sorry for the loss, but let's meet tomorrow. And. And so that's basically what just happened.

John Dehlin [01:29:43] All right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:43] And. And so Hoffman calls me the night of the first bombings. And he's just. He says to me, oh, my God, can you believe what's going on? You know, he's just telling me this is. Is insane. He's, you know, here I am talking to the. The murderer right on the phone, and he's. He's telling me how crazy this all is. And, you know, I told him, you know, eventually that one of the checks that he gave me had bounced again.

Brent Metcalfe [01:30:19] And he said, well, you know, let's meet for lunch tomorrow. Come by my house. We'll get together and. And go have lunch, and I'll get you the money. And I was like, fine. You know, we'll do that. And as it turns out, he had also made lunch arrangements with Brent Ashworth, who works downtown.

Brent Metcalfe [01:30:47] And so I went out to Hoffman's house at lunchtime the next day. He never shows. So I went back into town, and I happened to drop by Signature Books. And while I was there, Don House, who was a reporter with the Salt Lake Tribune, calls. And I think it was Ron Prittis or one of the staff members, mentions that I was there. And she said, oh, can I talk to him? Because she knew that I knew Steve and so on. And we were talking, and she said, can you hold on just a second? There's a report coming in of another bombing.

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:35] And then she gets on the phone, and she says, a car bomb has just gone off, and the car is. Is over by the Deseret Gym. And I said, can you give me a description of the car? And she said, It's a Toyota Mr.2.

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:54] And, I mean, that was Mark's car. Right? I knew the car he drove. And I just. I literally hung up the phone, went running out of the building, went and jumped to my car, went racing over to the Deseret Gym and pulled my car over kind of askew on the street, jumped out, went running over. And they had set up a police line, and there was a police officer standing there. And I said, I think I may know whose car that is. And I'M looking right at his car and it's just blown to hell.

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:36] And they bring a detective over and, and he says, he says, can you tell me your name? And I said, my name is Brent Metcalfe. And he says, you're to come with me immediately. We've been trying to reach you all afternoon and we have reason to believe that your life may be in danger.

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:54] And he immediately pulls me to the side and we're standing across. And I don't know if you know how narrow the street street is or was, I should say above the Desert Gym. It's now where the new conference center is, right?

John Dehlin [01:33:09] Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:33:10] But I was standing literally within feet of this blown apart car while this detective is trying to explain to me that we need to take you into protective custody. We believe that somebody may be trying to kill you and so on. I mean, it was the most surreal, real experience I've ever had in my life.

Brent Metcalfe [01:33:33] And I mean, I could barely even hear the words he was saying. And I remember that they had Detective John Johnson, who, you know, you mentioned the size of my biceps. Well, he had me beat by a long shot and he was taller than me.

Brent Metcalfe [01:33:54] He was absolutely, absolutely huge. And he was a full on bodybuilder. And he was the guy that they put me in protective custody with and took me down to the station and you know, they had my former wife came down there. I mean, I was just so concerned with, you know, finding out where my daughter was, who was a daycare at the time. And it was just nightmare, a surreal nightmare.

John Dehlin [01:34:23] Okay, why was Ochs having Christiansen meet with hoffman about the McClellan papers first? What was potentially, I assume that oaks wanted the McClellan papers because they were somehow embarrassing or damaging or not.

Brent Metcalfe [01:34:40] Yeah, I mean, from what I've gathered in subsequent conversations, it sounds as though the papers themselves had materials in them that would have been, you know, extraordinarily controversial, including additional papyri fragments, you know, again, showing that Joseph Smith didn't know how to translate Egyptian. There would also be be a critique of McClellan, of the book of Mormon and so on, saying that he no longer believed it was historical and that it was a product of Joseph Smith. The list went on and on.

John Dehlin [01:35:34] And these are papers that theoretically do exist somewhere or that did exist at one time.

Brent Metcalfe [01:35:40] No, they didn't. That was the problem that Hoffman. Hoffman tried to prepare some of the papers, but he couldn't do it in time. So, for example, one of the papyri fragments that he was bringing to the meeting was a Real piece of Egyptian pyrite.

Brent Metcalfe [01:36:06] But it was something that he had taken from document dealer Ken Rendell, I believe. And you know, he had showed it to both me and Ed Ashman, and Ed thought, yes, it could possibly be from the same time period. But I remember that Ed was very cautious about saying that this doesn't seem to belong to the rest of the papyri fragments that we have, even though it could potentially be of the same era or what have you.

Brent Metcalfe [01:36:48] And so Hoffman obviously would not have wanted to bring him along. But it's those types of things, things that Hoffman had been showing people to get them to believe that a collection actually existed when in fact no collection existed. And that's where, that's where the Oath of the Freeman came into play because he was trying to sell that forgery to the Library of Congress. And I think his intention was, was to sell that to them and then pay off Hugh Pinnock so that he wouldn't have to produce a collection at all. Unfortunately, none of the sales were coming through in a timely manner. So he was left trying to wheel and deal a non existent collection.

John Dehlin [01:37:42] Okay, and this is the collection he made up because he felt like he could inject into it all the dark secrets and controversy and embarrassing things that could both expose the Church and earn him a lot of money.

Brent Metcalfe [01:37:56] But more specifically, not that he ever had any intention on producing the collection, that he could get the initial loan for $170,000 from Hugh Pinnock and then he would have that money and say, well, the way that I'm going to pay you back is to sell you this collection. But in the meantime, I think his effort was actually to sell the, the forged Oath of a Freeman and get the cash so that he would not have to produce the McClellan collection. Do you see what I'm saying?

John Dehlin [01:38:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:38:31] And so, so it's a very round, it's a very convoluted way of doing things. But the bottom line is everything was crashing in at that point, right? He had no mobility, right. Everybody was closing in on him and pressuring him to produce the documents and. But the ones that were supposed to be for sale were not selling in a timely manner. If they had. I quite honestly, I hate to think what, what could have potentially happened from there. I mean, whether he may have killed people, possibly, but then come up with the money and actually paid off the loans. It would, it could have been, you know, worse all the way around. I mean, he could have been a murderer, got away with murder and paid off the loans. But none of it happened. It did not happen in a timely manner. And so everything came crashing down.

John Dehlin [01:39:34] Oakes brought in Christensen. Why? To validate.

Brent Metcalfe [01:39:38] Yeah. It's a weird way that Steve is described in all this because he's described as being some type of authenticator. And I don't even know what that means for this collection. But that was completely secret because that actually came up in a conversation that Steve and I had at Sunstone before the transaction was supposed to occur. Because Hoffman had mentioned something about this collection once before. And Steve kind of jokingly said, you know, isn't it funny that we may have had the opportunity to buy that at one point? Well, little did I know that he was already involved in all of these negotiations over this collection, this fictional collection.

John Dehlin [01:40:38] So is it possible that he was, like, being paid by the church to help learn about documents and research and help protect the church, that somehow the church was bankrolling all his efforts?

Brent Metcalfe [01:40:50] No, I don't think it would have run that deep. I think it would have been much more that Steve felt a kinship with certain of the brethren and was willing to participate. I don't know that any money ever exchanged hands between Steve and the church. You know, I mean, it was my understanding that when the Salamander letter went to the church, it was my understanding that that was a donation and that no money ever exchanged hands. Of course, at that point, the document had been, you know, published in numerous periodicals, so.

John Dehlin [01:41:35] But Steve bought the Salamander letter from Hoffman?

Brent Metcalfe [01:41:39] Yes, he did.

John Dehlin [01:41:40] For tens of. How much, you think?

Brent Metcalfe [01:41:44] Well, I know I still have the photocopy of the contract, the document, as it turns out, the way the transaction went down. And I can't remember all the details of this, but the actual formal seller of the document wasn't Mark Hoffman. It was Lynn Jacobs. Lynn Jacobs was the one who signed his name as the seller of the document to Steve Christiansen. And I think the part of the reason for that may have been that Hoffman wanted to tell people that he had sold it to Lyn, and then Lyn had sold it to Steve. So that Hoffman would not appear to, whether it's Brent Ashworth or to certain church leaders, that he had sold it to Steve. So it appeared as if he had sold it to Lyn. And then Lyn, in turn, sells it to Steve, and he sells it to it to Steve for $40,000.

John Dehlin [01:42:45] Wow. That's a lot of money.

Brent Metcalfe [01:42:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:42:47] Okay. Okay. And so back to the third bombing. I remember Sandra talking about this, but who. Who do you think Hoffman was trying to kill with that third bomb?

Brent Metcalfe [01:42:58] Well, from what I learned after, you know, and this. This came to me from Alan Roberts, and I believe it was at parole board hearing on the whole thing. And because they asked him that, you know, what was going on with the third bombing. And he was saying that he had intended on killing one of his friends or associates.

Brent Metcalfe [01:43:29] And because he thought that then they would surely have to delay the transaction because he would tell them outright that he was busy, involved in, you know, funeral services and so on. And you'll recall that he went to lunch with Brent Ashworth that day, but he also had a lunch appointment with me. And I guess he was trying to decide between me and Brent Ashworth which one of us would be killed.

Brent Metcalfe [01:44:05] And he decided on, from what I understand, he decided on Brent Ashworth. And he went actually to go to lunch with Brent, and Brent was supposed to come back to his car, but he couldn't because he had some other business transaction that he had to attend to or something. And again, this is just going off of. Of, you know, things I've heard after the fact.

Brent Metcalfe [01:44:31] And then it's then that he goes back to the car and the car blows up. And so, you know, I have my own questions, quite frankly. And that is, did he intentionally blow himself up or was that an accident?

Brent Metcalfe [01:44:46] You know, and him trying to reposition the bomb once he goes back to the vehicle, because he has to get back in the vehicle. Right? That's his transportation. But what does he do with the bomb? And the bomb goes off? I don't know. I don't actually have answers right now.

John Dehlin [01:45:05] What I think I remember Sandra telling me is that the way that they had left it, he supposedly had rigged the car so that when he met. Is it Ashcroft?

Brent Metcalfe [01:45:16] Who is it Brent Ashworth?

John Dehlin [01:45:18] When he met Ashworth, he would say, hey, Ashworth, there's a box of some stuff in my trunk that I want you to get.

Brent Metcalfe [01:45:29] Right?

John Dehlin [01:45:30] And what that would do when he opened up the. When he opened up the trunk and picked up the box, it would explode. And that would make it look like Hoffman was actually a target of the bombing, which would then make. Make no one ever believe that he was the bomber. But also, I guess, according to your story, would make it so he could delay the McClellan Papers meeting because he was now a target of a bomb.

Brent Metcalfe [01:45:59] Right, right, right. And that's kind of part of the theory that the police were working with originally as well, because, I mean, when I get. When I got home that night, we actually, the police drove us home. They did a complete bomb check on all our vehicles, on our apartment, our townhome that we were living in at the time.

Brent Metcalfe [01:46:28] They went through the entire place. And when I got home and I was listening to my voicemails, I actually had a message from the police chief of Salt Lake City. Multiple messages saying, you are to contact us immediately. We're trying to reach you, we think your life may be in danger, you know, and so on. So that, that was kind of the initial impression of the police in general. They were thinking, oh, somebody's going after everybody who was involved in the, the Salamander letter. And, you know, and they figured that I, that I may well be next on the list.

John Dehlin [01:47:10] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:47:10] And so it's, it's pretty unnerving to, to hear those types of messages.

John Dehlin [01:47:15] Yeah, you were, you were close.

Brent Metcalfe [01:47:17] Yeah, yeah. Right after, you know, one of your, your good friends has been murdered the day before, and another friend has just been blown up in his vehicle that day.

John Dehlin [01:47:29] And you had heard about Gary's wife, right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:47:34] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:35] Okay. And it's.

Brent Metcalfe [01:47:38] See, the threat of connection was that unbeknownst to a lot of people, Gary Sheets was also funding the book project for the Salamander letter.

John Dehlin [01:47:50] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:47:50] Because you recall, it's when Gary pulls his funding that Steve can't support.

John Dehlin [01:47:55] Right, right. And then the final thing is whoever, you know, the guy that Hoffman was gonna meet with for lunch, somehow he didn't show. And so Hoffman was stuck having to go back to his car that had been originally booby trapped for the guy, but now the guy didn't show, so he can't just leave his car with the bomb in it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:48:15] Right, right. And the thing is, is that Brent Ashworth does show up for lunch. He just can't go back.

John Dehlin [01:48:22] He can't go back to the car.

Brent Metcalfe [01:48:23] He doesn't have time.

John Dehlin [01:48:25] And so Hoffman, the way Sandra tells it, Hoffman has to open up the trunk, take out the box, but not trip the trigger.

Brent Metcalfe [01:48:33] Right. And I think that the, the box was actually on, on the front seat of the car. On. I think it's on the driver. From what I recall, it's on the driver's side seat of the car.

John Dehlin [01:48:45] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:48:45] Yeah. He has to go open and open the car door without tripping it.

John Dehlin [01:48:50] Right. Okay. Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:48:51] And then, and, and, and you know, again, I just, I, I have all these questions myself because, you know, the thought has gone through my mind, you know, is that really what he, he was trying to do or was he trying to commit suicide? I Mean, there was a mention by one of the police officer detectives to me too, that there wasn't nearly as much shrapnel in that bomb, in terms of nails packed around the bomb and so on, as there was in the other two bombs. And that made me wonder, you know, was Hoffman trying to do something to himself that could have potentially killed him, but not necessarily killed him, you know, to set people on another trail?

John Dehlin [01:49:39] And I mean, the Sheets bomb like annihilated the woman, right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:49:43] Yeah, yeah. And the same thing with Christiansen, with Steve. And that's what I'm saying is that they were gruesome, brutal, callous, cold blooded murders and yet the bomb with the car isn't as brutal. But that, that could be that maybe he hoped that the impact would kill whomever opened the door, but with him standing back, not kill him.

John Dehlin [01:50:19] Right, yeah, yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:50:21] And so who knows? I mean, you know, the whole thing is utterly insane.

John Dehlin [01:50:28] Yeah, yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:50:29] So it's like to try and think rationally about it and say, well, what about if he intended to do this or that? I mean, who knows? You're trying to get inside the head of a psychopathic sociopath. And that may even be redundant in using those two terms. That's what you're trying to do. And how on earth can you think about that rationally? I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:50:58] And ultimately, as Sandra told it, he gets blown out of the car, like his kneecap gets blown off, but he kind of is okay, you know.

Brent Metcalfe [01:51:09] Yeah. And loses parts of, I guess a finger or something. And. Yeah, yeah. And you know, through all that, I believed he was absolutely in innocent and a victim.

John Dehlin [01:51:25] And do we know how they, how they realized it was him?

Brent Metcalfe [01:51:31] Everything started to unravel. In fact, it took quite a long time. I remember when I had moved to. I actually my marriage fell apart at that point after the bombings and I had moved to Arizona and had some family there and was working there and

John Dehlin [01:52:00] I had a pizza joint. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:52:03] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:52:04] I have a friend who. I have a friend who worked with you at that pizza joint.

Brent Metcalfe [01:52:09] Oh my gosh. He didn't say anything embarrassing? I hope so.

John Dehlin [01:52:13] No, no, no.

Brent Metcalfe [01:52:13] Yeah, yeah. That's. Wow, that's so long ago now. But yeah. So I was an assistant manager or something like that back in the day. And I remember one night hearing some news somebody had contacted me about. Did you hear this about what market said? And it ended up not being true. And I believed it involved something about him saying that a vehicle had been trailing him or something.

Brent Metcalfe [01:52:49] And I remember calling Hoffman's house that night. And Dorie, his then wife, answered the phone. And I said, I really need to talk to Mark about this because it was very unsettling to me. And she said, you know, our attorney has told him that he is not allowed to talk to anyone.

Brent Metcalfe [01:53:16] And I was pretty upset. And I said, look, you know, there are those of us who have staked everything we are on defending him in the media. I think I have the right to spend five minutes talking to him on the phone.

Brent Metcalfe [01:53:37] Angie absolutely refused and eventually hung up on me. And it was months later, it was around Halloween of 86, that I was contacted by the prosecution. And they said, we'd like to fly you up to Salt Lake and have some interviews with you.

Brent Metcalfe [01:54:04] And I remember, you know, I flew up there, spent a few days in very detailed interviews. I remember the actual recorded portions of the interviews, took up 13 cassette tapes. And during that time, they showed me the actual forged oath of a Freeman, all these different documents, and they showed me what they had found out about them and how they had been forged. And by the time I was through with meeting with the prosecution, I firmly believed that he was absolutely guilty of the murders and the forgery.

Brent Metcalfe [01:54:56] The evidence was overwhelming that they had. The problem that they had, I think, in going to trial and why they accepted the plea agreement is because this data was so detailed, so sophisticated at certain levels, that they had an incredible fear of taking this to a common jury. And I don't mean that they even thought for a minute that there aren't intelligent people out there. They were concerned about just having one juror on the jury who did not get what they were talking about and still held out belief that he may not have done this.

Brent Metcalfe [01:55:44] And I think that they felt a little bit overwhelmed with the amount of evidence that they had and how they could present a compelling story that would show how forgery led to murder. And. But in my opinion, they had an open and shut case.

Brent Metcalfe [01:56:09] It was beyond any reasonable doubt by the time you saw the forensic evidence that they had gathered. And I had no reasonable doubt at that point that he was guilty as hell.

John Dehlin [01:56:27] Right. But even though this is pre O.J. it sounds like they didn't want an O.J.

Brent Metcalfe [01:56:32] right. Yeah, exactly right. So I don't think that they were negotiating with church leaders or whatever. I mean, if that did happen, it's almost irrelevant because I saw the evidence and I sat there wondering to myself, how on earth are you ever going to present this to a jury?

John Dehlin [01:56:56] Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:56:58] A jury of folks who have never thought about these types of issues.

John Dehlin [01:57:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:57:05] You know, and so the fact that Hoffman got thrown away for the rest of his life with no possibility, possibility of parole. Wow, good on them.

John Dehlin [01:57:16] So he admitted to it. He admitted to it, yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:57:19] Absolutely. And if you, the entire thing, were

John Dehlin [01:57:24] you ever able to talk to him after that or confront him at all?

Brent Metcalfe [01:57:27] No, I have no interest in ever, ever holding a conversation with him again. As far as I'm concerned, the day that bomb went off and his car, the friend that I knew as Mark Hoffman died and that person is gone. And I have no interest in what this shell of a figure is who sits in at the point of the mountain, you know, arguing theology with Dan Lafferty or whomever all day long. I could care less. You know, I have no interest talking to him. I have no interest in what his life has held or holds for me. He's been dead for decades.

John Dehlin [01:58:15] Right, right. There are times where I want to kind of look at Mark Hoffman is like, you know, he just got disillusioned and maybe got hurt. Maybe he had a hard up upbringing and he was just trying to, in a, in a really twisted way, trying to help the. You quote, what he thought to be the truth to prevail. And then there are other times I just want to say he was just completely mentally ill.

Brent Metcalfe [01:58:47] Right, Right. I would go with the, the mentally ill theory.

John Dehlin [01:58:54] Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:58:55] I think, I think that there are sociopaths that you can meet in life. In fact, I think I've met some since knowing Hoffman that I've recognized as such who are highly functional people. And in some cases they're remarkably successful people. Right. But they understand where their disorder places them the food chain and in the scheme of things.

Brent Metcalfe [01:59:26] And Hoffman, I think, was not a functional sociopath. He was a dysfunctional sociopath. And everything caught up to him. He didn't know how far he could take things. He didn't know his boundaries. Right. And the minute he got into this spiraling model of forging documents, that was his undoing right from the beginning. Right from the Anton transcript. In fact, I would take it back even farther than that, back to, you know, when he was like trying to forge rare coins by changing dates on coins.

Brent Metcalfe [02:00:11] Right. By electroplating them and so on. I think that that was his undoing is that he couldn't stop that cycle. And it got bigger and bigger and with bigger issues. It wasn't just about trying to create a greater value in something that intrinsically had no value, but now was Overturning an entire religious tradition.

Brent Metcalfe [02:00:37] And he couldn't stop, I think, the fact that he was still trying to come up with ways to lie about the McClellan collection. Right up until the end, right up until those final days, he was still trying to come up with ways to lie about it. And the minute that he finds himself in the hospital and he has to hire an attorney, he no longer has to speak to anyone.

Brent Metcalfe [02:01:04] So it's been delayed for who knows how long now. Right. There's not going to be any transaction. And it just went spiraling out of control for him, and he had no way to recover from it. And, you know, he reaped the rewards of his labor, so to speak.

Brent Metcalfe [02:01:27] And, you know, like I said, he. The Mark Hoffman I knew died decades ago, and I couldn't give a damn about whomever this shell of a human is who spends his day at the point of the mountain.

John Dehlin [02:01:47] Right. And Steve's family, have they done okay?

Brent Metcalfe [02:01:53] Yeah, I mean, I think a whole lot of folks have had their challenges, but, you know, humans are resilient. And I remember years back, Kirk Bench and I went to lunch with Steve's wife and his son, who now is a newly returned missionary.

Brent Metcalfe [02:02:29] And it was just a really interesting experience because he had acquired the same interest in church history that his dad had, but he was also very vocal about his concern about church history. And it was a very interesting lunch because the last time I had seen him was when I was working for Steve and CFS had a. A some type of affair where we went and saw a movie at one of the local theaters, and the two. His two oldest sons were there.

Brent Metcalfe [02:03:15] And it was so funny because they had both given each other haircuts. They were very young, and their hair was going off in every direction. And that was the first time that I saw Steve as. Instead of being a corporate exec who had everything together, kind of being a little bit in disarray with these two very active kids. And it's a very fond memory, actually. And so to see, you know, one of those boys as a returned missionary was an interesting experience to see.

John Dehlin [02:03:58] How long ago was this?

Brent Metcalfe [02:04:00] Oh, gosh, it's been years ago now. I couldn't even tell you, I want to say in the 2000s. But.

John Dehlin [02:04:11] Okay, so this son would now have been home over 10 years from his

Brent Metcalfe [02:04:14] mission, or at least a number of years. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:04:17] Yeah. Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [02:04:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:04:20] It'd be interesting, you know, if any of our listeners know, I'd be curious to hear where all these Christensens are today.

Brent Metcalfe [02:04:28] Yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [02:04:31] And the sheets,

Brent Metcalfe [02:04:36] the last contact I think I had with any of them was actually at the Sunstone session, which was the 25 year anniversary of the bombings. And one of the daughters has actually become a law enforcement officer. And she was just very impressive in her presentation. She was young when her mom was murdered and just a very impressive person, you know.

John Dehlin [02:05:20] Was this the 2004 Sunstone?

Brent Metcalfe [02:05:23] Yeah, 2005, I believe.

John Dehlin [02:05:26] I think that may have been one of my first Sunstone stones ever. And I saw you, I saw you present.

Brent Metcalfe [02:05:31] Yeah, yeah. And Mark's ex wife spoke at that one. I believe that Shannon may have also spoke at that one. Kurt Bench spoke at that. And yeah, that was an interesting presentation because I remember seeing, sitting down and looking over at Kurt's copious notes that he was going to be speaking from. And I turned to him and said, okay, now I'm really nervous because I have no clue what I'm even going to talk about. So I hadn't written anything down, no notes, no anything. And so, but it went okay.

Personal Fallout, Funerals, and Emotional Recovery

John Dehlin [02:06:17] So I remember, you know, I'll close with this. I remember you talking about. Did you talk about someone a little, a child that got run over when someone was backing out of their car. I remember you talking about the death of your faith at that point. And did you remember the talk you gave at all?

Brent Metcalfe [02:06:40] Yeah, I do a little bit. And well, I remember going through, talking about the various, you know, three vignettes of belief of, you know, general authorities talking about revelations that they had and God's intervention in the world. And one of them that I referred to was specifically that, that picture that you mentioned earlier of Spencer Kimball and Marion G. Romney and, you know, Ann Alton Tanner and Boy K. Packer and so on, all looking at the Anton transcript along with Hoffman. And I remember making the comment something to the effect that, you know, if God can't speak to us about the things that matter most, such as saving a person's life or exposing all these forgeries to the Mormon Church, why should we care if God speaks to us about the things that matter least, such as revealing an ancient Book of Mormon name, who cares about whether or not we know where the land or city of Nahum is in the Book of Mormon if God can't even tell all of these prophets, seers and revelators and translators who are all looking at this fake document that you've got a forger in your midst who will one day become a murderer.

Brent Metcalfe [02:08:38] And that to me, you know, has always been a profound personal thing to say. Nothing of the global tragedies that we see every day, with seemingly no intervention or explicit revelation to prophetic leaders on how to resolve these crises.

Brent Metcalfe [02:09:03] Which goes back again to my view of faith that I was ending with that I mentioned earlier on. And that is the idea that humanity is on a path, and those of faith have chosen a path. But we are all struggling to understand this otherworldly thing, whatever it may be.

Brent Metcalfe [02:09:30] Just like the same person next to us, whether they be the ward janitor or the president of the church, it doesn't matter. So that's my take.

Brent Metcalfe [02:10:10] When with the wounded heart hanging, anger or malice I draw myself apart, Searching my soul.

Part 3 of 6 · Ep. 497

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under Support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:36] The kindly light amid encircling gloom

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Lead

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:43] thou me on the night is dark and I am far from home.

John Dehlin [00:00:54] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John delinquent. It is September 11, 2014, and I have with me the wonderful and insightful Brett Metcalfe. Those of you who tuned in previously will know that I've already done a few segments with Brent, episodes 493 and 494.

John Dehlin [00:01:23] Brett Metcalfe is fascinating and important for so many reasons, but in episodes one and two of my interview with Brent, we talked about his early years in the church, his mission experience, his participation in the 7th East Press and later as a security guard for the LDS Church, his participation early on in Mormon scholarship and apologetics that ultimately actually got him fired as a security guard from the church.

John Dehlin [00:01:56] And then we talked about how he started working with Steve Christiansen, who was the son of Mack Christensen, Mr. Mack, and an important researcher in Mormon studies back in the 80s, and how he eventually met Mark Hoffman, ended up collaborating some with Mark and being close friends with Mark Hoffman, which of course preceded the famous Salamander Letter, the forgeries, the Hoppin forgeries, and eventually the bombings that killed two people and injured Mark before he got sent to jail forever. So that's kind of where we left off with Brent Metcalfe's interview.

John Dehlin [00:02:39] Over the next couple interviews, we are going to a couple hours with Brent. We're going to cover a couple more things. We're going to talk about kind of Brent's crisis of faith, kind of the the aftermath and the repercussions of the Hoffman affair and what it did to his marriage and other types of things. We're going to talk about some of his subsequent research in the 80s, still about both the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon, which unfortunately led to a disciplinary council for Brent, and ultimately it led to his excommunication. So we're going to talk about that and then we're going to circle back and talk about, you know, from a Scholarly perspective from someone who spent more time studying these texts than anyone.

John Dehlin [00:03:33] You know what the challenges are to traditional, let's just say, literalistic approaches to the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon. And we're going to go in depth on each one. We're going to talk about the Book of Mormon and problems with it, and we're going to talk about the Book of Abraham and challenges there.

John Dehlin [00:03:53] Then we hope to talk a little bit about modern day apologetics. You know, Brent's views on where apologetics have been and where they are and where they're headed. We're going to talk a little bit about maybe the future of the church and then end by Brent talking about where he is today with spirituality, with health, with happiness and well being. And I should say that we recorded this interview once already, but that some software that I was using ruined over half the interview. So Brent's super kind enough to come back on to re record an interview that's already happened. But also he caught a terrible bug or flu or something and he's been under the weather for the past week or two.

John Dehlin [00:04:42] And you may hear a little bit of that in his voice. So with all of that introduction, Brent Metcalfe, thanks for joining us again on Mormon Stories.

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:50] Thanks for having me, John. I appreciate it.

John Dehlin [00:04:53] Yeah. All right, so, so let's pick up where you left off with regards to the aftermath of the Hoffman affair. Where, you know, where did you, where did you go and what happened?

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:09] Well, after, after everything transpired and you know, the funerals that happened and you know, I attended Steve's funeral and I can't remember how much detail I got into that in our last interview or how much was lost from our previous interview.

John Dehlin [00:05:33] But if we have to repeat, that's okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:36] Okay. Because the funeral for Steve was pretty devastating for me emotionally. And it was very, very difficult to see his family, to see, to see other friends and relatives whom I had known for some time, and to go to his grave site. He was buried in the same cemetery that B.H. roberts was buried in. And B.H. roberts was a longtime hero of Steve's and kind of a paragon of what history should be about. And the library that Steve had set up in the CFS building, the Coordinated Financial Services building, he actually had posted on the outside of the door, the B.H. roberts Library. And that that was kind of his model for how church history should be done. And so I, it seemed remarkably fitting that that should be the location for Steve.

John Dehlin [00:07:02] What, what is, what is that resting place? What is the cemetery called for those who want to go find the tombstones of Steve and B.H. roberts.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:11] Right. I don't know name offhand, but I can tell you that it's located in Centerville, I believe.

John Dehlin [00:07:18] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:19] And it. It may. May well be the Centerville City Cemetery.

John Dehlin [00:07:25] Okay. All right. Well, we'll challenge our listeners to let us know if anybody.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:31] And if I miss and if I'm misremembering any of those details, just chalk it off too. And older person rambling.

John Dehlin [00:07:40] Okay. All right. All right. Okay. So, yeah, so devastating funeral.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:48] It was. And, You know, I remember again, and, and I think I may have mentioned this in the last interview, going to the funeral site, and Mary D. Hanks was there, who also was one of Steve's heroes, modern day heroes within the church hierarchy. And, you know, his comment to my dad that if Steve's death could bring Brent back into the fold, that his death would not be in vain.

Brent Metcalfe [00:08:37] And I just remember a visceral response of, you know, I don't need an object lesson of that magnitude, and I would rather go on for an eternity as an unbeliever than to see somebody of Steve's caliber murdered in cold blood.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:04] And I know he meant well, but it was. Things like that did not help under the circumstances. But then again, under those types of circumstances, it's very difficult to come up with the types of things that can help.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:25] I think everybody was reaching and searching for anything that they could to give comfort to those around them. You know, Steve's dad, Mac, came up to me and we were at the cemetery and gave me a big hug and I just had no words. I, you know, what do you say to, you know, someone whose son was murdered? I mean, what do you say? You know, there aren't words of comfort that immediately come to mind. And, yeah, it's pretty amazing. I mean, how many years. And yet all those emotions can still come flooding back. So, yeah, pretty amazing times. Something I hope never to repeat.

John Dehlin [00:10:46] Sure.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:47] Yeah. So sorry.

John Dehlin [00:10:49] No, I'm sorry. We're sorry. We're sorry.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:53] And we're grateful to everyone who kind of was trying to do what was right, you know?

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:02] Yeah, I. I understand. And just an extraordinary time. And, you know, I've got to be honest with you, I think back on it on occasion, and if I hadn't have experienced it, I could never have really fathomed what it entailed. I mean, it was just this whirlwind of activity and emotion, and it just consolidated into such a relatively short period of Time. And like I said, it's not something I would ever want to go through. But, you know, life, of course, has gone on and presented new challenges and so on over time. But things like that, you obviously don't easily forget, and they retain the emotional reverberations over time. They just don't really go away, even in those quiet moments when you think they have. They really haven't in so many ways, and they do come back from time to time.

John Dehlin [00:12:37] Sure, I understand. Well, thanks for sharing with us something so personal and sensitive. So what happened after the funeral? What did you do to pick up the pieces of your life?

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:54] Well, after that time, it was, you know, very difficult on my interpersonal relationships with everyone around me. I basically shut down. Didn't want to talk to people, didn't want to really be around people. And, you know, my marriage at the time didn't withstand any of those challenges. And, you know, there were other underlying issues that were already being dealt with. And then to have this on top of everything just brought everything tumbling down. And so my brother had moved to Arizona, and I decided to move down there, where I ended up staying for about a year.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:50] And that's where I think I began to come to terms with the prospect that Mark Hoffman was guilty. And because prior to that, in fact, I remember one, one night there was, you know, and I hope I'm not repeating other things that were already in the other interview, but when my then wife and I, we went with Shannon Flynn and his wife and then Mark Hoffman and Dora Lee, and we went to a restaurant in Trolley Square to eat. And this was when Hoffman was still in the wheelchair and after the bombings. And so he had his pins going through his knee and his hands were wrapped up.

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:49] And I can't remember all the details of what his physical appearance looked like, but it was very clear from a minute we came to the restaurant that folks knew exactly who it was. But I remember Hoffman saying to me on the way to the restaurant while we were in the van that he looked right at me and he said, I hope they get the bastards who did this.

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:21] And that to me now, even now, it sends a chill up my spine because it makes me realize just how callous and ruthless he was. Because little did I know at the time that I was sitting there looking at the very bastard who had done it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:48] And, yeah, I guess I'm glad I didn't know that at the time. So when I moved to Arizona, I had heard rumors about, you know, some problems with the supposed truck that had Been following him or something else. And I remember calling his wife Dori one night asking to talk to Mark.

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:18] And Dorie said that Mark couldn't talk because his attorney had told him that he wasn't allowed to talk to anyone. And I just became very upset and just said, you know, that there are those of us who have put our names on the line and everything we have on the line to support him, and the least that he can give me as an explanation for what's going on.

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:47] And if I remember correctly, she may have hung up on me at that point, but it was a very emotional time. And then, to be honest with you, Arizona was a complete escape for me. I feel like I reverted back to my teenage years and wanted to escape every responsibility to do with adulthood.

John Dehlin [00:17:16] And just as a side note, I don't know if I mentioned this in the first interview either, but I had a friend that I met professionally who remembers working at a pizza joint. And he remembers actually working with you as a delivery pizza boy in Arizona.

Brent Metcalfe [00:17:36] Yeah, I was one of the, I guess, assistant manager of this place. And. Yeah, and yes, I remember that place well. And that was part of me just getting away from life. I mean, I just wanted to. Nothing to do with Mormon history or anything else. Although I took all my books with me and they basically formed my entire front room was, you know, pretty much floor to ceiling bookshelves.

John Dehlin [00:18:18] But,

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:21] yeah, it was just a time to get away. I was in my, you know, mid to late 20s by then and just wanted to be away from everything. And then it was in October of that year that I was called.

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:44] I got a call from the prosecutor's office in Salt Lake, and they asked if. If I would fly up and meet with them. And I believe it was over Halloween, weekend of October of 1986. This would be. And that was the time that I went up there and they interviewed me for three days. In fact, I remember that they. Because they had cassette tapes at the time that shows how old I am.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:20] And they filled up 13 cassette tapes that I think were each an hour long. And during that time, they showed me the evidence that they had amassed to go against Hoffman as evidence of his forgeries. And the evidence at that time, because my mindset had shifted to the point where I think I could have been open to seeing the evidence and understanding what its implications were for not only someone who I considered to be a friend, but also in grappling with the fact that my judgment of who this friend was could be so severe wrong.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:13] That was something that was just extraordinarily difficult to deal with. And so when they showed me the evidence, the evidence was, in my opinion, overwhelming. That these. Doc. Well, that several of the documents, anyway, the key documents that he had claimed to have found were, in fact, forgeries.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:40] And it was at that point that once you make the step from going from, you know, a genuine document dealer to someone who is forging documents, the next step to someone who is also behind these hideous acts of murdering innocent people is not such a giant leap, because you're dealing with someone who you thought, by all appearances was the most trust, one of the most trustworthy people you've met has turned out to be anything but that. The antithesis of it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:20] And that's when, you know, I finally kind of came to. To peace with myself that, yes, this person is responsible for this. And then it was only I went back to Arizona for a short time before I moved back to Utah.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:44] And it was only a few months after that, in January, I believe it was January 1987, that the plea bargain was announced where Ron Yangich had settled the issues with the prosecutor's office, with Bob Stott and others, and they had accepted a plea agreement where Hoffman would get life in prison. So crazy times, to say the least.

John Dehlin [00:22:18] Yeah. Well, did any church leaders reach out to you at any point kind of during this aftermath?

Church Leadership Response and Lack of Apology

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:29] Not so much during the aftermath. There was one attempt to reach out to me in particular after I had been forced to resign from my church security position. I don't think I mentioned this in the previous episode, but Tom Monson's office contacted me in November of 1983 and said that, you know, Elder Monson would like to meet with you. And of course, I was forced to resign in April of 1983 that Elder Monson would like to meet with you. And so I went in and we. We had a very cordial conversation. And it was very interesting because he gave me his own perspective on his approach to church history, which was actually pretty revealing and may, in fact, reflect some of the increased openness that we've even seen today with the Joseph Smith papers and so on.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:36] Because he mentioned to me when Dean Jesse had come out with his book of letters of Britain Young to his son, there was a letter in there that is speaking to his son who has now gone on a mission or about to go on a mission. He says that this will be a great time for you to give up tobacco.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:05] Right. And then he says that because it's been a few years since I gave up that Habit. Well, you know, here's Brigham Young as the president of the church long after the word of Wisdom was given, basically saying that he had a problem with tobacco, probably into his presidency.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:27] And Tom Monson mentioned that there were some members of the 12 that were concerned about that and actually wanted that letter removed from the compilation. And Tom Monson's response was that this is part of our past. This is what transpired. This is what he wrote to his son, and we have no right to remove that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:56] And so I thought that that was a really intriguing perspective coming from Tom Monson. And I've wondered since then if that hasn't had some type of impact on what we've seen now. You know, people have referred to the Leonard Arrington era of the church history department as the Camelot days. Well, the fact is, is that whatever those Camelot days were, there has never been as much transparency and openness in the church archives and the historical department as there is today.

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:39] This is. You know, if that was Camelot, you know, I don't. This is nirvana, right? I mean, we're in a whole new era of transparency that I think, you know, the church should be credited for. Because even if we say that, oh, well, the only reason they're doing this is because of the Internet and so on, well, that's fine and good. Let's say that the Internet is exposing people to a lot more information, but the fact is that they are expending considerable resources to not only be transparent, but to produce high quality work.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:24] And that's something that they don't have to do. Right? They could just throw stuff up on the Internet anywhere they want. But I see a really concerted effort to attach the highest scholarly levels to the types of things that they're putting out.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:45] And in saying that, I'm not saying, well, I agree with everything they've put out. I don't think any scholar would necessarily say I agree with everything that anyone puts out, but I think that they have done a remarkable job.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:01] So anyway, that. That's just an interesting aside. So then the second part of my meeting with Tom Monson, and that is that it was the apology without giving an apology, because he said to me that members of the 12 had been involved in what had happened.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:27] And he said, we cannot apologize for what a member of the 12 does because that would expose them to public humiliation. And he's looking at me the entire time while he's saying this with the look in his eyes, as if he's saying a. Trying to tell you I'M sorry for what's happened.

John Dehlin [00:27:58] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:59] We just can't publicly say this. And it was very clear he was not acting on his own. He was asked to have this conversation with me, clearly and explicitly said as much. And so it's interesting that more recently, a dear friend of mine, Gary Brigeira, is working on the diaries of Leonard Arrington. And in those diaries, Leonard records a conversation with my stake president after I had been forced to resign. And they both agree that this was

John Dehlin [00:28:53] a good thing from church employee, not from church members

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:00] from the security department. And both are agreeing that, yes, this is a good thing for Brent. He's too thoughtful and. And so on to be stuck in a job like this the rest of his life. And the stake president mentions to Leonard, if I'm recalling correctly, that he had spoken with Gordon Hinckley about the matter and that Gordon Hinckley had actually said that he had sent me a letter of apology.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:36] And curiously enough, that's a letter I never received. Now, that letter may well have been sent because if you know how many of those things work, they'll come through your priesthood channel down to you. And it may have been that at some level it just got stopped and never got all the way down to me. I don't know. But I just thought that that was interesting that Gordon Hinckley had actually told my stake president that he had sent a letter of apology about the whole matter. And unfortunately, it's only, you know, preserved in Leonard's journal. And because it's a letter I never

John Dehlin [00:30:28] received, maybe Hoffman can come up with that letter, too.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:31] I'm sure he could.

John Dehlin [00:30:32] I'm kidding.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:33] And it could be signed by Abraham Lincoln and several others. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:37] Sorry, I shouldn't joke.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:38] I just know.

John Dehlin [00:30:39] Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's. It's fun to imagine what that letter might have said.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:46] I would. I would be very curious to know myself. So. But, yeah, Gordon Hinckley and I had a few interesting contacts over the years, and I actually came to appreciate him in many ways that maybe others who are more cynical or what have you may not have seen kind of what the types of things that he would occasionally do behind the scenes to try and help ameliorate difficult and hurtful situations. And that's something that maybe we can get into a little bit more when we talk about my disciplinary council and so on.

John Dehlin [00:31:41] Yeah. So tell us briefly how you got back into Mormon studies after your Arizona time.

Return to Scholarship and Excommunication

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:48] Well, after Arizona, I came back to Utah. I remarried, settled down, and became interested in what was going on with Sunstone again. They invited me to speak at a few of their symposiums or respond to papers. And that rekindled my interest in research I had done on the Book of Mormon earlier, and I wanted to flesh it out more. And that eventually became a chapter in a book where I brought together a group of scholars with specialties in very specific areas, including Stan Larsen, who has a PhD in New Testament textual criticism. So he analyzed textual criticism of the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Temple and Third Nephi, Sermon on the Mount, from specifically the King James Version of the Bible and how that gets adapted into Third Nephi.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:57] David Wright did just a wonderful exegesis of Hebrews text on the Book of Hebrews on the Melchizedek priesthood, and how that relates to similar passages that appear in the Book of Mormon. DM Metheny, who is the wife of Ray Matheny, who I think most would agree is probably in the last several generations, the premier archaeologists of Mesoamerica, BYU Deanne is just a remarkable person and stellar archaeologist and anthropologist, PhD, I believe, in anthropology with a law degree on top of that, as well as years of fieldwork in Mesoamerica. And she analyzed the material culture of Mesoamerica and compared that to the material culture as presented in the Book of Mormon.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:02] So I gathered together these various scholars to basically apply the same types of critical methods that scholars have been applying to the Bible for decades and, and ostensibly hundreds of years, if you look at various threads of critical scholarship leading up to the modern era, and the attempt was to say, what would these results yield?

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:33] And so I would say that the, you know, when all is said and done, because people will say, well, does your book, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon Explorations and Criticism Methodology, does it support the Book of Mormon or doesn't it? And I would say that what the leitmotif that occurs in the book is that there is a very, very strong relationship, if not the dominant relationship, between the production of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, and that Joseph Smith is best considered in an authorial role rather than merely as a translator of the Book.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:24] And that's not to even necessarily, in my mind anyway, pass a judgment on what Joseph Smith thought his role was in the creation of the Book of Mormon. But in saying that in analyzing these certain features, we're discovering that the author of this book shares a worldview that we would expect from Joseph Smith's time period.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:52] And that was really the thing again, we couched it, I think, in the most Positive terms. We could not that that was an effort on anyone's part, because I didn't dictate to anyone. This is how you need to say things about Joseph Smith.

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:15] And, you know, we need to keep this as positive as we can. I just basically said these are your areas of expertise. I want you to come up with the analyses and conclusions that you feel comfortable with.

John Dehlin [00:36:33] Okay. A couple quick questions.

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:35] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:36:36] So first, you know, now that we have, you know, Grant Palmer's book, we have mormonthink.com we have letter to CES director, we have the, you know, the work of those who are compare, you know, who are finding, you know, I guess the view of the Hebrews isn't new, but we have now, you know, the. The various texts that people are now possibly attributing, at least stylistically, you know, as the inspiration of the Book of Mormon. Like, I think it's the late war or the war of Napoleon or whatever those books are. I forget the names of them now. Like, now Book of Mormon historicity is sort of on everybody's mind. It's almost like if, you know, along with the Book of Abraham for some, it's like the. The smoking gun. How much of that was going on in the. Now, now, when. When were you finishing up this book? Was it the late 80s?

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:35] Yeah, yeah. I mean, the. The book itself finally came to publication. I want to say that the actual month I. That it came out was, I believe, May of 1993.

John Dehlin [00:37:49] 93, yeah. Okay. And that's. So that's a long time between Hoffman's death in this book.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:56] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:37:57] Hoffman's, you know, sentencing in the book.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:59] Right.

John Dehlin [00:38:00] So, I mean, you worked on it quite a long time. So my first question is how much of this had been already discussed, or was this a relatively new idea that Joseph was the author of the Book of Mormon? From a scholarly perspective, I think that

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:15] you had different scholars toying with these ideas for generations. I mean, if you go back to BH Roberts. Right, yeah. And M. Wilford Poulson, who was professor at BYU in the early 1900s, you know, he toyed with these ideas. And so you had people toying with them within the church, but not many, really, who you would consider to be faithful believers who remained within the church. Thomas Ferguson, for example, started having problems with the Book of Mormon archaeology.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:01] Excuse me. And so he ended up effectively abandoning faith over time, although I think he remained a member, as far as I know, throughout his life. But you had other folks from. Without the church also, because to look at the Book of Mormon a little bit more seriously, such as Christer Stendahl, very talented scholar, and he analyzed a number of things dealing with New Testament related passages in the Book of Mormon. And clearly he was one of the early non Mormon scholars who first attached the word pseudepigrapha, I believe, to the Book of Mormon.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:01] Which means what basically? I mean, literally false writing. But effectively within the biblical community, they would see this as a text in which, which somebody has written a document and then ascribed some type of hero's name from the past to it. So I may go ahead and write a text and ascribe Isaiah's name to it or ascribe, you know, Jeremiah's name to it and so on.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:39] And he was one who tried to approach it in that way. And, you know, some Mormon scholars took that as being a compliment, whereas I think he was just basically trying to very kindly say that this is a recasting of the biblical text under somebody else's name.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:06] And I don't. Well, obviously Kirster Stendahl was not trying to impute any type of authenticity to the work in terms of antiquity and historicity, though, authenticity in terms of spirituality or religious significance. I don't think that he would have passed a judgment like that. That doesn't strike me as the type of person he was.

John Dehlin [00:41:32] Is this a non LT DS scholar?

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:34] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:41:34] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:35] From Harvard.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] From Harvard. Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:37] Yeah, If I remember correctly.

John Dehlin [00:41:38] Wow. Okay. So, so, you know, there was, there were decades of theories and toying around with the idea, but, but maybe was this the first book to really take Book of Mormon historicity kind of head on? Maybe.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:54] Well,

John Dehlin [00:41:57] in a scholarly way.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:59] Right. I mean, the way that Lou Midgley put it in an interview, I think if I'm remembering correctly, he said something to the effect that this is the most sophisticated attack on the Book of Mormon ever published. And so if that's any indication. Okay, all right, That's, I suppose, coming back from, from Lou, I would take that as a compliment. But, yeah, that, that was kind of that, that was his appraisal anyway, at the time.

John Dehlin [00:42:34] Okay. And this is this, this question I, I'm sure I asked you in the last interview, but I'm going to ask it again, so why bother? Like, you've had friends die, your faith had died before, your, your friends died, your family friend died. You, you, you know, were no longer active, you'd been burned. You, you probably didn't believe in, in God anymore. Why bother spending another, what, five, ten years working on this book about the Book of Mormon, you know, some would say, oh, he's just trying to stick his finger in the eye of the Church. Or, oh, he's, he's bitter, he, he's, he's been harmed and now he's, he's left the Church, but he can't leave it alone or he's trying to bring the church down. You know, those would obviously be what, what people, you know, let's just say less well intended. Apologists might, might assume about your motives. What were your motives?

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:38] My, my motives were actually very personal. Intellectually, definitely, emotionally, almost certainly. And Mormonism was and remains, quite honestly, the faith heritage of my youth. It was my identity when I was growing up and I was taught that truth matters. And when I say truth, I don't want to get into this all encompassing, eternal or infallible truth, that somehow I've discovered something that others haven't. That's not all what I'm saying.

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:43] What I'm saying is that as I began to research church history, I discovered something much more fascinating than just the past of my faith. I felt like I was seeing a microcosm of our past, our human past. Here we had in this young man who formed this relatively new church.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:15] We were seeing the creation of actual scriptural texts, irrespective of where we believe they came from. We were seeing the formation of these foundational documents of a new religious movement. We don't have that with Christianity, we don't have that with Judaism.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:36] Those documents are long gone and perished. But here we have an example of the formation of a religious tradition that would affect and alter the lives of millions. And I looked at that as just such a remarkable opportunity to try and explore the human condition and who we are as humanity.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:07] And so that became a motivating factor. But as to trying to get inside the head of a historian, when it comes to talking about documents and so on, that's not an easy task, first of all. But secondly, I've tried to explain it to others before.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:32] If you've never had the experience of looking at a historical manuscript and you, you've discovered something that you feel nobody has noticed before, it could be that there's an erasure of a word in a text that's been written over by another word, and no one has been able to decipher what the original word was.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:03] When you suddenly realize what that word was, and the feeling and exuberance that you get in that simple discovery, if you've never experienced that, then you probably won't understand my motivations. Well, because I find incredible fulfillment. I don't know why. I don't know if it's in my genetics or if it's just me imputing significance to things that otherwise shouldn't be imputed significance to. But the fact is, is that I find them remarkably intriguing. It's like when.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:45] What is it? The. One of the early drafts of. Is it the Declaration of Independence where the word citizens is written and another word is erased underneath, and as it turns out, the word is subjects, that it was actually referring to the people of this nation, using the term with which England referred to the people of this nation.

Brent Metcalfe [00:48:19] And then that word got erased and the word citizens was written over the top of it, that type of thing. When you discover an element like that that transforms the meaning of a document or gives or lends complete new insight to a document, or lets you understand the evolution of the thought of a document or the thought that went into creating the document, that's just a remarkable feeling to me. And I'm not sure that it's anything that I can separate from who I am.

John Dehlin [00:49:03] So there's a genuine love of just scholarship. Would you also say that there was even love for Mormonism in that effort? Because, I mean, a five to ten year effort, that's either a lot of hate or some love. It's got to be one of the two, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:19] Yeah, I guess. I mean, I would say that that evolved over time because, you know, as I've described it to friends of mine before, if you're a zealous defender of the faith and you come to the conclusion that. That things are not fitting together right, or you have a failure of faith and you just say, this isn't at all what I thought it was.

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:54] That exuberance to express your opinion about your views doesn't really die down with your shift in thought and ideology. And mine, I don't think did either. But over time, you know, I came to appreciate basically people of all faiths. And, you know, I have members of my family who are devout lds, and, you know, I feel almost protective of them at times just because I don't want things to be disruptive in their life. And so in my mind, the audience that I'm speaking to are those who would want to seek out and read what I write.

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:52] They're those who wonder, as I have, you know, my entire life. And those are the folks that I'm talking to. And I have no interest in destroying faith. But I also feel that a faith that is ignorant of a broader context is a very Weak faith and one that is very susceptible to being undermined. And I think strength and faith will ultimately for Mormonism come through exposure to information, not from trying to suppress it.

John Dehlin [00:51:44] Right, okay, so did you have any. And we're going to talk more about, you know, the, the challenges to a historical. To a traditional approaches to the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham in the next episode. But, but, but now we're going to talk about the actual disciplinary council, if that's okay. And.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:04] Yeah, that's fine.

John Dehlin [00:52:05] Did you have any idea that. That this book had the potential to lead to a disciplinary council?

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:15] Not. Not fully. And that's probably some naivete on my, my part, you know, because the September 6th had happened. But I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, that that was September of 1983, which was 93.

John Dehlin [00:52:33] 93.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:33] Right, right, 93. Thank you. Months after my book had come out. And so.

John Dehlin [00:52:38] Yeah, but your book came out before that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:40] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:52:41] So you didn't have that warning ahead of time?

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:43] No, no, I wasn't. I did contact each of the contributors to the book right before the book came out. I remember this. I contacted each one of them and I said, you know, this is. I want this to be your opportunity to withdraw from the book because there is the prospect that this could result in you being contacted by your church leaders and it could be very uncomfortable for you. I mean, I didn't, you know, give any doom and gloom warnings of excommunication, but I just said, you know, we're kind of doing something different here, and I want to give each of you the opportunity to, to withdraw, if that's what you prefer. And not one did. And, and so the book went forward and came off the presses in May of 1993.

John Dehlin [00:53:50] Right. Okay. So you knew that it was. You knew that it had some risk.

Brent Metcalfe [00:53:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:58] Okay, that makes sense. But, but, but you said there was some naivete because maybe you didn't think that necessarily could lead to excommunication.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:08] Right, right. I, I didn't think it would go that far. And, you know, I, I know that my friend David Wright was experiencing some difficulties with his position at byu.

John Dehlin [00:54:25] He's the mentor to David Bolkavoy.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:27] Right, correct. And I think that, you know, again, I didn't know how far this would go. I remember when David was let go from BYU and his termination letter, it was really interesting because he was essentially accused of not believing in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. But what makes this particularly fascinating is that they actually acknowledged explicitly that they were not accusing him of having ever taught that in any of his classes, but for merely believing it and that that was the ground for ultimately for his termination.

John Dehlin [00:55:27] He had written it in the book, so he published about it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:55:29] Right, right, right. But what makes that interesting is with all the conversations that I see going on on the Internet and within different forums that you can believe whatever you, you want. It's when you publicly teach it. Right. Because see, at this point, he hadn't publicly taught it. Right. It hadn't been published or anything else when he was let go from byu. And.

John Dehlin [00:55:56] Okay, so he, so he was let go before he published. Oh, okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:00] Yes. And so how they know, how they

John Dehlin [00:56:03] know his, his concerns? I would.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:05] Oh, they, they, they had heard, I guess, rumors from other teachers that he worked with and so on.

John Dehlin [00:56:13] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:13] And you know, I mean, it's hard to keep everything you believe completely to yourself over time, but it's not like he was going out and teaching any of these things in any of his classes or anything like that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:29] Excuse me. And the letter explicitly, explicitly acknowledges that he had not taught those things in his classes, but those were beliefs he held. And there's just so much irony in that, given all the conversations now. Right. With Kate Kelly and others, you and so on, that, well, if you just kept quiet, if you, if you weren't teaching this publicly, it would be okay. And yet the fact is. No, it wasn't okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:09] It wasn't okay at all for him. And he ended up losing his job, which turned out to be more than a blessing in disguise because he ended up going to Brandeis. Right, right. And you know, perform professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaic studies there. And I know he's been the chair of that department and has had a remarkably successful career.

John Dehlin [00:57:38] Yeah. Okay, so how did you start. When did you start hearing rumblings about disciplinary council?

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:47] Well, you know, so going back to David for just a second.

John Dehlin [00:57:52] Sure, sure.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:53] In April of 1994, David was actually called before disciplinary council and he ended up being excommunicated before you. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:58:08] For his chapter in your book.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:10] It involved the chapter in the book. And then I think that there was a sunstone article in. Had published. But yeah, it was basically those things that they said. Now you've publicly come out and stated what you believe. And so he was excommunicated for that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:31] And then I heard and Ed Ashman, his stake president, tried to contact him and his wife Nancy, I believe, intercepted the phone calls and just said that Ed's not interested in having a conversation with you. At this time. And they dropped it. They just basically let it go.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:59] And then it was in. I want to say it was late November of 1994, just one night. There was a knock at the door, went and opened the door, and my stake president, whom I had never met before, was standing there.

Brent Metcalfe [00:59:20] And he asked if he could come in and chat with me for a moment. And so I invited him in. And after we exchanged pleasantries, I said, for some reason, I don't think you're here for. For a home teaching visit.

Brent Metcalfe [00:59:39] And he looked at me and kind of smiled for a second and said, you're right. There are some concerns that have come up within your work regarding a publication that you put out. And he mentioned the name of the book, and. And I said, well, so what do we do from here? And he said, I think we need to hold a disciplinary council. And I said, okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:15] And that was. Wasn't a very long conversation. I mean, he was there for probably, maybe, I don't know, half hour, 45 minutes. And so he left. And. And a few days later, I got a letter in the mail inviting me to a disciplinary council.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:38] And I believe. I want to say it was December 4th of 1994, but don't hold me to that failing memory and all that, but it was the first week or so of December, and so, yeah, I decided to attend. I mean, there were folks at the time who offered to hold a candlelight vigil and so on outside the Stakes center while it was happening.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:13] And I declined that just because I. I saw this as a very personal experience. And oddly enough, as I was growing up, I remember vividly to this day my experience being baptized. It's when I got my first copy of the Book of Mormon that was inscribed by my mom. I remember walking up to the font that was in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, the back of it, and I remember putting my hand into the water and feeling the temperature of the water.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:57] I just remember those details so vividly. And my dad, of course, was the person who baptized me. And I kind of felt like that I had heard about these disciplinary councils, courts of love, however you want to name them, throughout my entire life. And I just thought to miss this would be like. Almost like missing your baptism. So.

John Dehlin [01:02:38] How so?

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:40] It's. It's a rite of passage, I guess. So I. I was just very curious as to. Sure. What it would entail.

John Dehlin [01:02:49] Sure. So you. And there were some. There was some bad timing about this whole thing. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:55] My. My mom wanted to come and defend me because she had very strong feelings about the whole thing. And her and my dad had literally dedicated their lives to the LDS Church. And I think that she was kind of the position of feeling that given how much they had sacrificed for their entire lives toward the church, that how kind of. How dare you even think about excommunicating our son?

Brent Metcalfe [01:03:49] We don't care what he thinks, what he. He believes. We have given everything to this movement, and now our reward is that you're going to excommunicate our son. I think she had a very difficult time, I think, coming to terms with this. And I was just really adamant that, no, I. I do not want you to attend. I don't think it would have been a pretty scene.

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:27] I don't think it would have been good for her ultimately or for anyone in attendance. And. And she respected that. I mean, it took a little bit of getting used to on her, but she respected that. And so I decided to attend. Other friends had decided not to attend their courts. But I was curious, what's this all about real quick?

John Dehlin [01:04:57] Didn't someone offer to intervene on your behalf? Am I remembering that right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:02] Yes. Yes. And that actually comes after the session.

John Dehlin [01:05:07] Okay. Okay, so tell us about the court itself. Sorry.

The Disciplinary Council and Its Aftermath

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:10] So. So. So when. When I went to the court, I was really intrigued by the process. When. When you walk into the room, for instance, there's the. You know, the three tables are basically placed in a U shape where you have six of the high council members of one end, six at the other, and then the stake presidency, and I believe the state clerk sit at basically the top of that U formation. Then there's one more table that closes off the aperture at the end where the person who is being invited sits.

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:53] And there were a lot of things that were interesting about it to me, because when you walked in, they're all standing at attention, which was unusual for me. I wasn't expecting that. And it's not until you go sit at the end that the stake president invites everybody else to sit. And so it was. That part of it was more formal than I expected, but the rest of it lacked formality after that. In fact, I expected something much more formal than what ended up proceeding after that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:34] And I should say that I think that there is a real misunderstanding, a common misperception, that in these disciplinary councils you have six high councilmen who basically are, for all intents and purposes, the prosecution, and then six that presumably act in a defensive role or as the defense. But that's not at all the case.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:03] What the situation Is, as it was explained to me anyway, is that you have six who are responsible for taking a prosecutorial role, but the other six are only there to ensure that you're not being abused in that process.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:23] And so that was something that was, quite honestly, new to me. I mean, I had always had the other misperception, but they were all I have to say. I mean, even though there were a few aggressive questions and so on here and there, I. I would not want to leave the impression that anyone was trying to be overtly abusive, verbally or in any other way.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:55] But it seemed from the outset that I could see where this was going. And so for the first hour of the Council, much of that time was actually spent with me basically talking to them about, you know, my life experience and what's brought me to this point. And it was facilitated by sporadic questions from the High Council members. And then the last hour was very specifically questions directed at me where I spoke very little. My answers were much more terse and just kind of a barrage of questions. And again, in saying that, I don't want to try and imply that there was any undue abuse or anything like that.

John Dehlin [01:09:00] Any content you want to share with us about the exchanges, or. Is that too much detail?

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:04] No, I mean, there were some interesting ones. You know, one of the, I believe, was one of the State Presidency members was Hoyt Brewster, who's, you know, published on the Doctrine and Covenants and so on. And he and I had, you know, kind of a back and forth over the textual development of the Doctrine and Covenants. And I could tell, I felt, anyway, that we weren't going to get anywhere with that conversation. You know, I respect the fact that this is somebody who has clearly spent years researching the dnc, but there were things that we were getting into where I felt like. I felt like we weren't going to be productive. And, you know, I was confident that I knew the information I was talking about, but I didn't see this going anywhere. And so I just. I quickly dropped it.

John Dehlin [01:10:15] Okay. Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:16] And then. And then there was also. One of the curious things that came up was the question of. Because, you know, I had mentioned that there were some who wanted to hold a candlelight vigil. And, you know, and there were kind of rumors going around that certain general authorities had been involved in some of these actions.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:44] And one of the High Councilmen asked me the question of, do you believe that any general authorities were involved in having you called here today? And this was a very interesting moment because during my conversation with the stake president, he. He had told me that all of this was precipitated from a member of my ward, whom I had never met, had reported to my bishop, whom I had never met, about some information that I had written that disturbed him, and it ended up being the book. And so I should point out that the whole time that this disciplinary council was going on, Stake president has my book, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon, sitting right in front of him.

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:41] It's right on the table in front of him. And so this High Councilman says, do you have any reason to believe that general authorities were involved in having you called in?

John Dehlin [01:11:53] That's a weird question. I guess that's because of all the hubbub about Packer and whether he was involved with the September 6th and Steve Benson dialogue. But had that. Had that all come out prior or did that all come out later? Do you know?

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:08] Yeah, because, you know, September 6th, of course, was the year before.

John Dehlin [01:12:12] No, but I mean. I mean, the Steve Benson aftermath and discussion about Packer's involvement, had that happened by the time your court happened, or did that happen after? Do you remember?

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:24] I would say that. That rumors of that were. Were clearly circulating.

John Dehlin [01:12:29] Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:33] And I thought that was a really interesting question. And so I responded and said, no, I take the state president at his word that a member of my ward contacted my bishop over something that they had read that I had written that they were offended by, and that the bishop then referred my name to the stake president for action be taken.

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:55] And it was. Aside from. You could have heard a pin drop in the room, it was all of the awkward looks going back and forth between the high councilman in the room. And I had no idea what to make of that at all at the time. And to be honest with you, I kind of blew it off until a subsequent event, and that was that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:25] And sorry to jump ahead on this one, but I think it ties in here, and I need to mention it, that a few months after I had been excommunicated, I requested a temple divorce from my first wife. And this, again, is such an intriguing process that I never even knew about, I guess, even though it was excommunicated. When a request for a temple divorce from an excommunicated male happens, it actually gets sent to the First Presidency. And the first presidency contacts the bishop, and the bishop calls that person in to talk with him.

Brent Metcalfe [01:14:19] Now, keep in mind, I'm excommunicated at this point. And so my bishop calls me and says, you know, I received this letter that you're requesting a temple divorce from your first wife. Can you come and meet with me?

Brent Metcalfe [01:14:36] And so much to my surprise when I get there, that the purpose of this conversation was actually to dissuade me from following through with the temple divorce. And that was just so puzzling to me. I'm excommunicated. I'm no longer a member. This is a first wife, Right. Not in a polygamous relationship, but sequentially, this is a first wife. And why I'm not understanding this.

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:13] And so, you know, I just said, no, I think that this is best, and continued on with it. And then at a point during the meeting, I asked the bishop. I say, so, Bishop, I'm just really curious because this came up, you know, both from the stake president as well as during the disciplinary council. I said, I'm really curious. What was it that the member of your ward had read that I had written that caused them such consternation that they contacted you and that led you to contact the stake president that led to this action?

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:03] And his response was just remarkable because he hemmed and hawed for a minute. He looked down at the floor, and then he looked up to me, and his. His face was red, as red as red it could be. And he was just such a nice guy. And he just looked right at me and he said, brent, I have no idea what you're talking about. He said, I have never talked to the stake president about you, ever.

John Dehlin [01:16:39] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:40] And he just. He just said, I have to be candid with you. And so I don't really know what to make of that. When all is said and done, does that mean general authorities were involved? I don't know that. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:55] But I mean, my guess is that when people have thought that general authorities were involved or what have you, that it's been much more subtle, you know, like in training sessions or what have you. If you have people in your ward who fit this description, right. Who are 6 foot 3 and weigh 230 pounds and work out a lot, call them in. And I guess I fit that description. And so I ended up getting called in.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:33] But I just thought, what an ironic end to all this. Almost a weirdly poetic end to have my bishop tell me that he had no idea what I was talking about and that he had never talked to the stake president about me.

John Dehlin [01:17:51] Yeah. That's interesting.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:53] So, anyway, curious events. So getting back to the excommunication proper, actually, what happened during the meeting is that, you know, there was an hour where I predominantly spoke There was an hour where they predominantly questioned, and then I opted to stay after the two hours. And it, you know, because otherwise you would have the state president, the whole state presidency, I guess, comes over to your home. And I just opted to wait for a verdict. And they were actually deliberating and the stake president in prayer. I'm not exactly sure how all that works, because I wasn't in there at the time.

Brent Metcalfe [01:18:52] But that lasted for about 55 minutes. And after that time, I was invited back into the room and again, everybody formally standing at attention and walked around to the end of the table. We all sat down, and that's when I was told that I was being excommunicated.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:18] And I. I remember one of the High Council members coming up to me, who I, you know, again, very well meaning. And I think he saw these as words of encouragement because, you know, he said to me, I can tell you're very intelligent, thoughtful, and considerate of others, and said, maybe he'll be like Alma the Younger or the sons of Mosiah who went against the church and then came back into the fold by the appearance of an angel. And I remember saying to him that, yes, but the sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger were never excommunicated.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:15] And that was actually kind of a poignant moment because other High Councilmen were standing around us when I said that, and everything just went quiet. And now I just shook their hands and then left. And that was it. And then when I should say, too, that when I received the letter of excommunication, I was not happy at all with how it was worded, and because it said that I was excommunicated for conduct unbecoming a member.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:56] And so I contacted the stake president and. And said that, you know, you had told me that I was being excommunicated for apostasy. And I would appreciate it if you would send me another letter reflecting the true reason for which I was being excommunicated and not this open ended reason that anyone could read anything into. And so he actually did. He sent another letter in which it specified that I was being excommunicated for apostasy.

John Dehlin [01:21:32] Wow.

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:21:34] And tell. How did it feel? Was it awful? Was it a sucker punch? Was it, you know, the. The worst moment of your second worst moment of your life? What? How did it feel?

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:47] No, I. I would say that when it finally occurred to me, everything that had happened, I feel like it was kind of a relief. In fact, I had taken with me when they announced that I was being excommunicated I actually had a letter from my wife also requesting excommunication. And so when they told me I was a communicator.

John Dehlin [01:22:21] Second wife.

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:21] Yes, yes. I passed them the letter and said, here, and you'll also want to look at this. And I felt a certain sense of relief, quite honestly, that I didn't have to go through this again, that it was done. They're not going to call me back to another disappointment council. This is not going to happen again. It's over. And leading up to this, I should mention that Gordon Hinckley actually came to my dad prior to this because, of course, the first presidency gets notified whenever councils are being convened. And he came to my dad and said, you know, you asked Brent that if Brent wants us stopped, I'll stop it. And he said, but it's up to Brent.

John Dehlin [01:23:32] And did your dad ever give you the option?

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:35] Yeah. And yeah. Yeah, he did give me the option.

John Dehlin [01:23:43] And what did you tell your dad?

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:46] I just said that there was so much water under the bridge that it was probably time to move on.

John Dehlin [01:24:04] Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:05] And so that's when he passed back.

John Dehlin [01:24:11] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower lights.

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:27] Cease to make me whole

John Dehlin [01:24:34] when with

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:35] a wounded heart, anger or malice I draw myself apart Searching my soul.

Part 4 of 6 · Ep. 498

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the donate button on the right side of the page under support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:36] The kindly light amid encircling gloom

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Lead

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:43] thou me on the night is dark and I am far from home.

John Dehlin [00:00:55] Hello, and welcome back to Morm Stories Podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. I believe we're in part four now of our interview with Brent Metcalfe. Again, it's September 11, 2014. It's late in the evening for Brent on the east coast, and he's also been suffering from a flu, so his voice is raspy, but he's hanging in there. So last hour we talked about Brent's the aftermath of the Hoffman affair. We talked about his work on a book called New Approaches to the Book of Mormon, I believe it's called. And. And then we talked about his disciplinary council and ultimate excommunication.

John Dehlin [00:01:41] This. This hour, we're going to talk about primarily two main topics. Basically, we're going to talk about Brent's perspective as a textual historian or critic, however you might want to refer to him. His perspective after literally decades of very intense scrutiny and analysis of the Book of Mormon text and the Book of Abraham text, his view on the primary challenges of what we might call traditional approaches to these texts. And when I say traditional, I mean viewing them as historical documents, viewing them as literal, you know, historical productions, translations, whatever you might want to call them. So, Brent, maybe before we completely dive into the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham, was there anything else about your story that you wanted to kind of briefly kind of COVID

Deep Dive into Book of Mormon Problems

Brent Metcalfe [00:02:48] Not really. I think we've covered most of. Okay, okay.

John Dehlin [00:02:53] So since we just got through talking about the Book of Mormon, let's, let's dive right in. If you know, we've had Dr. Michael Coe on Mormon stories to talk about archaeological problems with the Book of Mormon. My guess is most listeners, some of the listeners have heard that, but others haven't. But, but let's just go ahead and have you give us an overview. If somebody wants to view the Book of Mormon as a historical document, as a translation of ancient records from, from Native Americans who wrote it between 600 BC and 400 AD with Joseph Smith as translator through some type of Urim and Thummim or a stone in a hat based on gold plates. Talk us through what some of the challenges of that more literalistic interpretation might, might, might be.

Brent Metcalfe [00:03:51] Well, I think that the challenges come on several levels. Even, even putting aside whether or not we believe that folks can look into stones that they have placed in their hat and see English words that are translations of a foreign language from another document, there are very formidable problems that confront contemporary Mormons and their traditional understanding of the Book of Mormon. And I suspect that these understandings will be revised with time with the DNA evidences come out. I think that much of what is really significant about that evidence has been lost in the clamor over whether or not the Book of Mormon geography covers the entire Western Hemisphere or whether it's restricted to a smaller region in Mesoamerica.

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:09] That, to me, is entirely irrelevant to the DNA issue, because what the Book of Mormon portrays is that you have very select groups of people. You have the Jews who are located in Israel. You have the 10 tribes who are off in their own location.

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:39] In fact, they're secluded from the rest of the world, and they actually have their own scriptures and everything else. That they exist as a cohesive body, and you have the Gentiles, and then you have the Lamanites who were descendants, Israelite descendants, of the founding fathers of the Book of Mormon.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:04] So with the DNA evidence, if we approach it from the point of view that really what matters is that. Not that you can find any Middle Eastern signature, whatever that may be, in some genetic code in Native Americans, that they are still somehow united by the virtue of the fact that they may even have the slightest amount of genetic code in them, even if it's not detectable, and that that's what makes them descendants of Book of Mormon peoples.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:43] The problem is that the Book of Mormon and the early revelations of Joseph Smith clearly see each of these groups of people as very distinctive groups, groups for which their separate scriptures will be brought to them as a unifying factor in bringing the Israelite nation together as a whole.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:10] So in other words, the Lamanites who are descendants of Israel should be identifiable as descendants of Israel because they are to be unified by virtue of the Book of Mormon. In fact, if you look at the Moroni 10 promise, you know, you read these things and pray about them, you'll know that they're true.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:38] That's actually being directed not at contemporary Gentiles like you and I, but at Lamanite descendants who are to read what Moroni has written and to pray about them to know whether or not they are true. And those are the people whom God is going to manifest it to as being true, not true, whatever the case may be.

Brent Metcalfe [00:08:13] But the point is, without those distinctions, the whole concept of this actually fairly simplistic model of unifying these various nations that have been offset as very distinct bodies becomes absolutely nugatory. It has no effect. There's no reason to have any of the unifying anymore, because by virtue of contemporary DNA, I may as well be a Lamanite as you or any Native American, because there is no way to distinguish these bodies of people anymore. In Joseph Smith's day, there was a concept of you had Native Americans, you had the Europeans who were the Gentiles who came over, you had the Jews who are in Israel, and then you have the 10 tribes who are off in their own region. That concept today is antiquated beyond belief. I mean, how do you even talk about a model like that in any serious terms?

John Dehlin [00:09:30] Yeah, we've kind of. We've forgotten about the lost 10 tribes. They've never appeared. Right, Correct.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:35] And they're supposed to have their own scripture. Remember, John the Beloved is supposed to be off with them as well. And they've got their own scripture, they've got their. Their own unique body of religion that they have created all these years. You've got, you know, the Jews who have the Hebrew scriptures, and then you have the Gentiles who have picked up the Christian Scriptures. And then you have the Lamanite descendants for whom the Book of Mormon is written.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:09] And because of that, that's really what the crux of this DNA issue is. It's not about, were there any other groups or intermingled or whatever. The question is, how do you identify this body of people to whom the Book of Mormon is written?

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:32] And how do you identify who the 10 tribes are who were carried off to another region? How do you identify any of these groups? Because that becomes. The purpose for which the book is being written is to unify these groups and to teach them of Christ. That is a massive difficulty, in my opinion, to a traditional understanding of the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:10:59] Yeah. And for 150 or 180 years, from Joseph Smith to present day, pretty much all the prophets and apostles have just blanketly referred to Native Americans, Polynesians, Pacific Islanders, you know, all as Lamanites. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:22] And. And now. And so, you know, under that interpretation. Well, yeah, the book is. The Book of Mormon is Speaking to the lost sheep. The lost sheep are who are not of this fold. They've got to include everybody in the Americas. Right. I mean, it's certainly when Christ said other sheep I have that are not of this fold, he. He didn't mean a few thousand people in some remote, isolated part of Central America. Certainly he meant all the Native Americans. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:52] But even more importantly, even if he did mean a small isolated group in Mesoamerica or wherever they may have been, how do we identify them?

John Dehlin [00:12:06] Right, yeah. So, Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:08] And how do we bring them back? During Joseph Smith's day, the Native Americans were very distinct, Right. From other European settlers. There was no problem identifying who was whom. But now that we're talking about genetics and talking about, okay, what is the actual ancestry of these folks? And when we say, okay, we cannot identify any legitimate ancient Middle Eastern markers, and even if you could, that raises a whole other variety of questions. But that we can't identify them with any specificity, then how on earth do we begin the unifying of these different groups?

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:00] This whole concept of unification and gathering that existed in early Mormonism has basically been depleted with modern day science. And this has become a huge problem and at least a theological one. Though I don't see many theologians, and I use that term loosely within Mormonism, treating this with any degree of seriousness.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:33] Because the notion that, well, we can't identify who is of Israelite descent, it's sort of like, well, like I said, you or I may as well be Lamanites. It doesn't matter anymore. Everything has become so deluded, and I mean genetically in that sense, that there really is no distinction among peoples anymore.

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:03] And the Book of Mormon has a very, I would say an unsophisticated and simplistic notion of biological groups and who is descended from whom. When you read through the Book of Mormon, anytime a Nephite or a Lamanite recounts their heritage, it is always to one of the founding fathers of the original Israelite settlers. There's no exception to that throughout the entire Book of Mormon. And yet if we assume.

John Dehlin [00:14:42] What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that?

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:44] For example, when you have certain kings, Amulek claims he is a Lamanite. Well, he is literally a Lamanite. He descended from Laman. And so when you go through each one of them, when they claim ancestry, they'll claim it to very specific figures that are in the Book of Mormon. They'll say, I came through Nephi, who was the son of Lehi, I came through Zoram. Who was the servant that they brought into their fold. They will claim direct descendancy from these original founders. And not once do we have an example of a Book of Mormon character claiming descendancy from anyone whom we don't know as one of the original Israelite founders. Not once.

John Dehlin [00:15:43] Now if this was a group except the Jaredites, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:47] Oh, I'm sorry, yes. The Jaredites are a whole other story. Right. Because the Jaredites are the precursors to the Israelite founders and the Jaredites effectively are annihilated before they even come. And only one remains Coriantumr and is sole purpose is to bear witness at the truthfulness of Ether's prophecy that another group would come to this land. And so he is the sole survivor. He is all that is left. And he actually lives with the Mulekites until they're discovered. And so, you know, again, this notion of that we can have this genetic diversity where we don't know what descendancy anyone is coming from, what genealogical tree anyone belongs to, nor do we care, is an affront to the entire Book of Mormon message, in my opinion.

John Dehlin [00:16:58] Yeah, and just to tie a couple things together, for 150 plus years every prophet and apostle endorsed that pretty much all dark skinned Native Americans were Lamanites, called them Lamanites. We talked about this in one of our episodes about the Indian placement program.

John Dehlin [00:17:16] And I've always considered it a really insidious thing to give someone an identity that isn't authentic. Especially when it's an identity that's tied to sort of a racist narrative saying that they're dark skinned because their ancestors were wicked. But never mind any of that, just to tie it together a bit, what we have now and even today on the Radio west program where Terrell Givens and Fiona Givens appeared, we have them basically saying, well, all you members who built your testimony of the Book of Mormon on the foundation that the Book of Mormon occurred geographically across North, Central and South America, well guess what? You built it on a, on an improper foundation because there's nothing in the text that would indicate that it was, you know, that it took place over, over the entire Americas.

John Dehlin [00:18:07] But instead the text clearly leaves room for it being an isolated small area, probably in Mesoamerica. And that that becomes the what? The small geography theory versus the large geography theory.

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:21] And see, quite, quite honestly, I would, as much as I appreciate Fiona and Terrell's perspectives, I would push back on them and say you have not resolved the ultimate problem and that is that this book is being written to the descendants of that small group of people that you believe existed somewhere in Mesoamerica. Where are they? Who are they? Right. And how do we unite them with our fold? Because according to the Book of Mormon, they're supposed to at some point, you know, come together with everyone else. The revelations of Joseph Smith, he's going to unite them. Where does he go? He goes to the borders of the Lamanites.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:10] Where are the borders of the Lamanites? The borders on Missouri. Right, right. To the doors of the Native Americans who are just over the line. And if you've ever been to Independence, Missouri, and toured around and seen where all the. The Mormon settlements were and saw exactly where those borders were, they were within a few miles of where the Mormons had settled. You can see them in present day Kansas.

John Dehlin [00:19:47] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:48] Kansas City. You can see where they had settled and where the borders were located. And those were the borders of the Lamanites. And that's where they were going to go, preach to them, to bring these people to a knowledge of their forefathers. So again, with all due respect to Fiona and Terrell, who I think are very articulate and thoughtful interpreters of Mormonism, they haven't even begun to address this issue. And this issue is extraordinarily complex, much more complex than anything that I've seen given attention in any of the apologetic or even more sophisticated writings of Mormons at this point.

John Dehlin [00:20:34] Okay, well, that's a really important meta perspective. Tarot likes to give out a few examples of textual descriptions. I think he talks something about a man coming into a different group of people and referring to speaking to them, you know, in their tongue versus what he implies to be his own native tongue, as if there were different languages. Do you know about that example that I'm. Yeah, of course.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:04] Yeah. He's talking about when we have the preacher coming into Jacob and his community. And the problem is that if you look at this person and say, well, this is an outsider who's coming in and speaking in some other tongue, which I don't believe the text supports. The problem is that this person seems to know who Jacob is, but more importantly has a knowledge of Hebrew law and Christian teachings.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:40] And it's like, so where on earth has this person in Mesoamerica is part of this broader culture, come to understand their scriptures and understand their theology and so on? I mean, anomalies like that are problems. They're not solutions to problems.

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:06] Right. To look at it and say, well, where did this guy come from? Well, the bottom line is that this is someone who clearly has an understanding of their theology, their culture, and everything else about them. So to say that somehow this is an outsider, this shows an example of an outsider coming in is nonsensical to me because you've got to explain how this lone, I don't know, proto Mayan in the wilderness came walking into their camp, speaking their language and talking their Christian theology. It makes no sense.

John Dehlin [00:22:53] Yeah. How he learned their language, etc.

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:55] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:58] So. So as you've really scoured the text, do you think the text allows for. Are there other things you could talk about? About whether or not the text allows for a limited versus a large geography and whether or not it allows for, you know, the. The Lamanites and Nephites to be super small groups within this much, much larger population? Can you talk to those. Those claims at all?

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:25] Yeah, of course. I mean, every group that is encountered in the Book of Mormon during the Lehigh time period, during the Jaredite time period, they're all Jaredites. They're all part of the group that came over from, you know, the brother of Jared and so on. They're all Jaredites. And.

John Dehlin [00:23:51] And there's two big problems with that. One is you have to believe the Tower of Babel literally happened. Right, right. And then also you have to believe these barges can be submersed in water like submarines with. With corks and bees and fire and tossed to and fro, and somehow everybody lands on America happy and healthy.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:11] Right, right, right. Well, basically, the Book of Ether is like this consolidated, you know, truncated form of the Book of Mormon as a whole. As you read through it, you know, there. There are portions where their characters have parallels and the larger Book of Mormon narrative and.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:34] And so on. The parallels between King Riplakish, that is only spoken of in a few verses in the Book of Ether, he's paralleled in almost every way in King Noah. That's in the larger Lehigh narrative. And so, yeah, when we get into the Lehigh narrative, this is the key thing. Again, there is not a single example that we have anywhere in the narrative where anyone decisively says that they are from. That they descend from someone other than a founding Israelite.

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:24] That is a problem and it cannot be ignored or gotten away from. Now, people have tried to come up with examples of, you know, well, what about the Nephi sisters that are mentioned in the Book of Mormon? And, you know, folks have said, well, if Nephi had sisters, then that they were mentioned in the early portion of the Book of Mormon, therefore there could have been others that were mentioned in the context of this.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:01] But as you go through and analyze the textual content of Nephi's sisters, there are several folks that could become candidates for that. For example, Lehi refers to Laman and Lemuel's sons and daughters, both of which are plural, as his sons and daughters, which ostensibly would be Nephi's brothers and sisters in that context.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:35] And so there are ways of understanding the Book of Mormon where we see anomalies that will make sense now in later Mormonism, there were traditions of Nephi sisters being married to Laman or to, I'm sorry, to Ishmael's sons. But again, there is zero textual evidence for any of that. And there are actually earlier accounts of that tradition that would challenge it and suggest that that was in fact not the case.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:14] And, you know, Ishmael's son's wives are never spoken of in relationship to Lehi's family and in the sense of them being the literal biological offspring of Lehi. And so those are examples of where we see textual, what could be considered to be textual anomalies or literary anomalies that are used to support this notion that there was this broader audience to the Book of Mormon, when in fact, on closer inspection, they don't solve anything.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:58] And again, when you look at characters who are creeping into Jacob's story, you know, coming in, prophesying, or trying to teach Hebrew theology and so on, those are anomalies. Those are problems that may occur in the text from time to time, but they are not solutions to problems. I mean, you would expect that in a text of this nature, a text of this extent, that there would be anomalies that would occur. But the fact is, in every single explicit example that we have in the Lehigh narrative of who somebody descended from, they are uniformly descending from the founding Israelites, whether it's Mulek's party or whether it's Lehi's party.

John Dehlin [00:29:01] Right. What about geography? From what I've heard, people have kind of tried to trace the journeys and the days that it described. And what I've heard is that the Book of Mormon actually doesn't allow for a super large geography based on the time and distance of travel. Is that your understanding?

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:25] No, and the reason why I say that is because when there are certain things, I mean, keep in mind, if somebody were to create a narrative like this who wasn't actually familiar with the land masses and how far it would take to get from point A to point B, I wouldn't expect them to be necessarily accurate. But at the same time, There are certain things that occur in the Book of Mormon that make no sense.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:00] Like, for example, when the Lamanites. The Lamanite warriors are pursuing a group of Nephites who consist of women, children, animals, and so forth. And the Nephites lose them when they're traveling. And that's incomprehensible to me that you would have a group of warriors in pursuit of a group of fleeing Nephites that, again, consist of women, children, animals, and so forth, and they lose them.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:32] So there are certain anomalies that occur within the text that I understand. And so the way that I've put it is, is that I believe that. That the Book of Mormon and its geography in fact, refers to the totality of the Western Hemisphere, but only superficially so, because the author doesn't really understand the extent of the geography. And so

John Dehlin [00:31:04] that's what I. So Panama is the narrow neck of land, because for you, Joseph would have seen a map of north and South America and saw that there was a narrow neck of land. But then when he actually talks about distances, he didn't. He didn't understand distance enough to realize that when he said spread through the whole north or whatever, that that would have been just way too big and way too much time to travel. He just put two. Is that what you're saying?

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:32] Yeah, and I think that the neck of land in general probably encompass more of Central America, but the narrow path.

John Dehlin [00:31:39] Okay, Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:40] Narrow pass is probably the Panama region and then South America. Well, look at Alma, where, you know, one of the things that the Nephites do is that they move in the land southward. They move to the most northern part. And it says right there that by doing that, they had hemmed in the.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:06] The Lamanites on the south. And it's like, wait a second. If they're in Central America, and that happens with, for example, John Sorensen's Geography, they haven't hemmed them in anywhere. They had an entire other continent that they could flee to.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:27] And yet in the Book of Mormon, it's suggesting that they're enclosed at that point. Right. Once the northern route is cut off, they have nowhere to move. Well, that makes sense with a model that encompasses north and South America because it means that they couldn't get past Panama. Basically, they're stuck, and so they're confined to South America.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:52] And so, again, those are all features that are interesting that need to be considered. But again, two different models of interpretation. If you take the model that we're going to interpret this literally, how big would this region, be that the text is talking about. It may or may not be a large region, in my opinion, but if you take it in terms of what Joseph Smith's other revelatory texts, which extend and expand the Book of Mormon text as to what this region would encompass, it would include north and South America. And then when you look back at the Book of Mormon, you can see at least how at a semi superficial level, that you could interpret it in that way and that it makes sense in that context.

Brent Metcalfe [00:33:47] But if you're going to take it literally, then you're going to end up with something that in my opinion is very nonsensical. And again, were stuck back with the theological problems, the lineage problems and so on. And who are these people and who exactly did they descend from?

John Dehlin [00:34:09] Yeah, yeah. And so there's no indication that Joseph thought of two cumorahs, right? A Cumorah in New York and a Camorra somewhere in Central America.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:25] Absolutely not.

John Dehlin [00:34:26] Yeah. And the Doctrine and Covenants is infected with the perspective that the Lamanites are in North America, spreading all the way up northward, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:38] Yeah. Because you have the border of the Lamanites, they're going to go preach to the Lamanites. You even have letters, like, for example, letter from Oliver Cadrey while he's on his Lamanite mission saying that the chief of the tribe he had come to was named Nephi and that they had named all of their chiefs Nephi before him. And I mean, this is just. It's intrinsically tied to early Mormon theology. You cannot, you know, you cannot separate them in any way, shape or form.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] But what I think Terrell's saying is that Terrell and Fiona is that, well, prophets get it wrong. And this is a case where, yeah, all the prophets got it wrong. And maybe it's embarrassing. And maybe Joseph Smith himself, just like with the Book of Abraham, he thought he was translating an ancient record, but it turns out he was channeling it and wasn't translating. And even though he thought he was translating it, that's what some of the Book of Abraham apologists are saying. Now, what a Terrell would say is that, yeah, well, they all thought that those were Lamanites, but they weren't. But that's not what the text says. But the point I'm making is that the doctrine covenants itself, which is supposed to have been Revelation, Right. It is identifying North American Native Americans as descendants of laymen. Right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:07] Yes. Here's the. The critical problem with that thinking, and I don't claim to be a Theologian, But I'm interested in theology. And I'll tell you right now, when you have a model that assumes that one text was received by revelation, and it gives this interpretation that you claim is a limited geography, and then that same text person who received that text by revelation received other revelations in which it assumes a hemispheric geography, you've got a fundamental problem, because the very channel with which both texts were received are assuming in that instance, you would have to say two very different things. I don't think they do. I think that they're assuming the very same thing. And the fact is that Joseph Smith's extra Book of Mormon revelations are, in fact extending and elaborating that text. And in that context, he is clearly placing Israelites. Israelite descendants in North America. I don't see any way around that.

John Dehlin [00:37:34] And then Tara would just say, well, scriptures are imperfect too, you know.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:38] Well, then why not the Book of Mormon being imperfect?

John Dehlin [00:37:40] No, he'd probably say that too.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:42] Right. So in other words, in fact, another

John Dehlin [00:37:45] modern interpretation is that the prophets who claimed that the Lamanites were cursed with dark skin were actually just bringing their own racism to their prophecy. And in reality, God never sanctioned the idea that the Lamanites were cursed with dark skin because of their wickedness. That was Nephi or Lehi's racism coming through in their revelation. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:14] So I understand what you're saying, but what textual authority. Does anything warrant the belief in a limited geography? Because keep in mind, if we're saying that, well, these texts are all imperfect, then then how on earth are we reconstructing unlimited geography from an imperfect text? I mean, that makes no sense to me. In other words, it seems that one text is being privileged over the other. When we like what the Book of Mormon is saying that adheres to our beliefs about limited geography, we embrace it. But when it doesn't, or when the revelations don't, then they're the things with the problem.

John Dehlin [00:39:03] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:05] So on what basis do we make that judgment and privilege one revelation over another?

John Dehlin [00:39:13] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:14] That makes no sense to me.

John Dehlin [00:39:16] Sure. Okay, so these are important problems or challenges for a traditional view of the Book of Mormon. Can you just quickly cover some of the other major challenges with this traditional approach to the Book of Mormon that you just list off for someone who's not as familiar with the biggest challenges?

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:37] Well, I think that one challenge that has been just incredibly underestimated is, is Joseph Smith's use of the King James version of the Bible in the Book of Mormon. And the reason why I say this Is because, you know, people have scoffed on both sides of the fence for decades about, okay, Joseph Smith, you know, lifted a passage here, he quotes the Isaiah passages here, and so on, and to the conclusion that that doesn't really say a lot about what the original text may have contained.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:24] But again, going to one of the core purposes of the book, when you read its title page, to convince the Jew and the Gentile, Jesus is the Christ and also to the Lamanites, the descendants. Well, where do we find what we would consider the apex of the Christian message in the Book of Mormon? Well, it's found in Third Nephi.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:00] And there we find the most critical sermon that I would say is delivered at the entire book is what has been referred to now as the Sermon at the Temple, which in reality is a recasting of the Sermon at the Mount.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:22] And from Matthew, specifically from the Matthean tradition, not from the Lucan tradition of the Sermon on the Plain, but from the Matthean tradition of the Sermon on the Mount. And Joseph Smith has replicated the sermon on the map of the kjv, errors and all, and he makes changes where in the most superficial ways, for example, the reference to a farthing, which is a British coin, and the Sermon on the Mount is changed to a reference of one of the Nephite coins.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:05] And it's like, why was that changed at all? Well, because that stuck out to him. That was something that would be apparent that you couldn't have whatever coinage they used, which, again, was British coin, and we've got to change it to a Nephite coin.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:28] But in other instances, for example, when it comes to the Roman law of going the other mile, which was where you could actually enslave someone effectively to go a mile, to travel a mile with you, to do something that that is now left intact, but that was based on Roman law. And so you sit there scratching your head, going, so, what is going on with this sermon?

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:04] But now here we are at the apex of the narrative. Everything that all of these prophets have died and bled for all of these years to preserve these records. And we get to the crowning jewel, and it's Jesus appearance in the new world. And what do we get? A rehash of the King James version of the Bible.

John Dehlin [00:43:34] Nothing customized for the locals. Right, right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:38] And I'm just going, so, okay, there's other stuff that comes after it, which is a whole other story, because that's the rambling Jesus, where he goes on for hundreds and hundreds of words in a sentence. But here we have all These terse, little pithy statements that are coming right out of the Matthean narrative.

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:03] And, you know, I'm sitting there reading these going, why on earth would we end up with this text that almost certainly, given everything that we know about the historical Jesus, theories about it, everything else? This text almost certainly was never a whole discourse.

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:32] It's a discourse that's been pieced together from various sayings that were attributed to Jesus. And I think the vast majority of scholars, including evangelical scholars, would agree with that. And yet here we have it, this very, very imperfect reproduction that, again, all of these people have given their lives to preserve, and we end up with an imperfect copy of the King James version of the Bible.

John Dehlin [00:45:11] Okay, okay, keep going. What are some of the other big problems? There's the Isaiah problem. Do you want to talk about that really quickly?

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:21] Yeah, I would. I would probably refer. To be honest with you, I'd refer readers to the piece written by David Wright that was in a book that Dan Vogel and I edited, American Apocrypha. His is probably one of the best on that discussion. And there are numerous problems with the Isaiah issue because it's not just a matter of first and second Isaiah. And then you have Trito Isaiah also, and which of the Isaiahs would have been written by the time Lehi left Jerusalem and everything else.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:07] But it is interesting that we. Because some Book of Mormon apologists have claimed that there's no examples from Trito Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, but there actually is. And what's curious is that it's actually a passage from the writings of Paul, and Paul is actually quoting it or paraphrasing it as it comes to him from the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:41] So here we have this really strange path, right, that this is a passage from Isaiah that almost every scholar would agree would have been written after Lehi left Jerusalem, but it ends up in the Book of Mormon, but it ends up in the form in which Paul was using it from the Septuagint version, which is the later translation in and of itself into the New Testament. So the problems are long and deep with the use of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:47:23] Okay. Other major problems, just to highlight the big ones.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:31] Well, there are things, I would say, that elements of Joseph Smith's own autobiographical narrative crop up from time to time. The character Mormon, as it appears in the Book of Mormon. In the Book of Mormon, he displays a lot of characteristics of Joseph Smith.

Brent Metcalfe [00:48:01] He has a vision of the Lord when he's a very young man. He's relocated to a new location. Just as Joseph Smith Smith was moved from Vermont to New York. Amaron comes to him as a young man and reveals to him that there are plates that are buried. Just like Moroni comes to Joseph Smith.

Brent Metcalfe [00:48:26] In the interim between Amaron's visit and Mormon acquiring the plates from the hill. It is said that the treasures of become slippery in the land and that there were magics and witchcrafts in the land. Well, of course, between Joseph Smith's, you know, supposed first encounter with Moroni and the actual acquisition of the gold plates, that's when all the money act money digging activity is going on and where there are slippery treasures which are slipping back into the earth and. And so on. And so there are autobiographical elements that do crop up in the Book of Mormon that again, kind of reveal the hand of the author.

John Dehlin [00:49:18] Of course, Lehi's dream.

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:20] Oh, yeah, and the dream of the Tree of Life and the dream that Joseph Smith Smith Sr. Has. And what's interesting is in Lucy Mack Smith's telling because a lot of people have said that, well, Lucy Mack Smith clearly, in recounting Joseph Smith Sr's dream, is borrowing from the Book of Mormon narrative.

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:47] I would say that actually, I would think the opposite is the case because there are elements in her direction and her recounting of the truth that seemed to fit that early 19th century culture much better. For example, if memory serves, I believe that instead of an iron rod, there is a rope that they grasp onto.

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:13] And so there are certain elements that seem to be culturally better fitting to an early 19th century narrative and Lucy Mack Smith's telling of her husband's dream than what we see in the Book of Mormon. And the Book of Mormon seems to be almost interpreting Joseph Smith's senior's dream in terms of more biblical allusions. And so, yeah, yeah, there are elements like that throughout the book.

John Dehlin [00:50:45] Okay, yeah. And of course we've got. I think we sometimes minimize the problem with the fact that the 116 pages couldn't be reproduced. Why couldn't they be reproduced?

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:00] Right, right. That's not a small problem at all. What makes it not a small problem is DC10 because the implication is that if God decided to have Joseph Smith reproduce them, that they would be reproduced word for word as they were originally. But the evil and wicked men have changed the words so they would no longer match.

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:39] And that to me, it's like, really? I mean, come on, you know, I would think that if I were an evil and wicked man and I saw this prophet Figure reproduce exactly the document that I had stolen for 116 pages, no matter how I had changed the words, I would be absolutely transfixed by the thought that this person has just reproduced this word for word. And I think that that's actually an authoritative issue in Joseph Smith's early revelations is that I think it may reveal, I don't know, a slight insecurity on his part, because his revelations early on really do convey the notion that he is getting all of this stuff.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:44] You know, the revelations, the Book of Mormon, the dnc, everything is coming word for word from God. And there are several revelations that to reinforce that. Now, some people may point to, you know, other revelations, for example, Oliver Cowdery's attempt to translate part of the Book of Mormon. And he's told, you know, you didn't understand.

Brent Metcalfe [00:53:16] You need to study it out in your mind, and then I'll reveal to you whether it's true. Well, I think that that's really fundamental misunderstanding of how Cowdery received his revelations. Because assuming, and I think there's good reason for this, that he's gained his revelations through his divining rod, his process would have been quite different, and that is, he would have simply formulated what the translation would be and then ask God, is, is this right or not? And when you read the initial revelation to him, that's what he's told to do. He's told that you're to ask, and if it's true or not, I will tell you.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:03] And then when he does that, he's actually asking, is this true or not? Then another revelation is given, and it's told that you have thought only to ask. You have to study this in your mind. And I'm thinking, well, that's not what he said in the first revelation.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:23] In the first revelation, he's told simply ask whether or not it's true. And so he does, and it doesn't work out so well. And so Tabari ends up becoming a failed translator at that point. And whatever work he may have done, I don't know know if he accomplished anything with that process. It just didn't happen.

John Dehlin [00:54:47] Plus, from what you've quoted of D&C10, God's apparently saying that if he wanted to, he could reproduce it word for word. But a Givensian interpretation of Scripture says that they're making mistakes all over the place. So how can it be that God has a word for word level of accuracy when there's no even modern Mormon backing to support the idea that Scripture is word for word accurate? Does that make sense?

Brent Metcalfe [00:55:20] Yeah, absolutely. And because although there are those who still view things that way, I mean, I've got this sense from Royal Skousm, for example, in his textual studies he's done on the Book of Mormon, when Joseph revises the text for the second edition, I'm not sure that Royal Skouson believes that those are actually legitimate revisions. I mean, I haven't heard him say one way or the other, but in reading his arguments for the translation process and what ends up in the second edition, I'm not sure that he believes any of those were given by Revelation, and I'm not sure that he could think that they were given by Revelation because of how literalistic his model is for the translation of the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:56:28] Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, you know, in other podcasts we've talked about the. All the anachronisms, the horses, the steel, etc. And of course, there's the linguistic problems that we just don't have any languages that, you know, languages that have. Exist that have sort of persisted over time, Native American languages that have any Hebrew or Egyptian kind of, you know, traces in them. So there's linguistic problems, there's archaeological problems, there's geographical problems, there's anachronistic problems. Right. I mean, have we. Have we hit the major kind of issues?

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:15] Yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [00:57:16] Okay, so real quick, we talked about this in the last episode, but I'm going to ask again. So there's different theories about how the book was produced if it wasn't through the translation of ancient records. There's the loan theory that Joseph just sort of produced this himself as a hodgepodge.

John Dehlin [00:57:40] And then there's sort of other theories about either the Spalding manuscript, maybe a manuscript that we don't have. And there's even some. Some pretty credible people, whether it's Craig Krittle or others, who are trying to say that this was a collaborative endeavor between Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and maybe Oliver Cowdery, and that you can do word, wordprint, textual analysis to, to see which are the authors in which parts.

John Dehlin [00:58:13] And, you know, both theories have some pretty. Pretty intelligent backers. You know what I mean? So what is your. What is your theory for how the book was created? And then, you know, what makes you think the other theories are or are not credible?

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:31] Well, I. I mean, on this issue, I probably want to be as clear as I can because I've, you know, researched these issues for years. And I will say right now that I see no reason to posit anyone other than Joseph Smith as the author of the Book of Mormon. No reason whatsoever. And I can't make that point clear enough because when you read through the original manuscript, the surviving portion of the Book of Mormon, the only place where you can see what appears to be a different hand at play is when Smith is quoting from the King James version of the Bible. That's it. I mean, I've read these manuscripts over and over again.

John Dehlin [00:59:41] I don't think people understand that the portions of the original Book of Mormon manuscript exist and the Joseph Smith Papers Project is released, some of them. And what I, I just totally didn't know this. You read them, you read through them, and it's, it's a completely different experience than reading the Book of Mormon we have today or Even reading the 1830 version of the Book of Mormon. Correct?

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:10] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:00:10] So tell us a little bit about the manuscript, differences between the manuscript and the actual 1830 version. Well, people understand this, they think, oh well, someone just had to, you know, add the verses and put in some punctuation, but the text all remains intact. Right, right, right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:28] Well, well, one thing that people should realize is that, yeah, there, there was no punctuation for the most part. If there's any punctuation, it's extremely minimal, which does not suggest to me that Joseph Smith is reading from an actual manuscript, because I would expect that more clearly identified punctuation marks would appear.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:59] And when you look at some of the, you know, enjambments that appear where run on sentences appear non stop, where he loses his train of thought while he's dictating, those are things that again, tell me that this is someone who is doing this not completely on the fly.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:28] Lucy Mack Smith said that in the intervening years from when Moroni first appears, or the angel when he first appears to Joseph, until he recovers the plates that he would give numerous fireside stories with the family telling them about the ancient inhabitants of this continent as if he had lived his whole life among them.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:59] And this is someone. Joseph Smith was a remarkable storyteller, and I don't think that people have really appreciated this, but he was a remarkable storyteller, right from telling his variant stories of his first vision, which in and of themselves, each telling has a meaning and a theological significance. These historical events that he was repeating, such as the first vision, became vehicles for communicating as theology.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:36] And the Book of Mormon to a certain degree was no different. Dictating the Book of Mormon, you can see this coming through in the narrative where you can see these run on sentences, you see Just horrific grammar.

John Dehlin [01:02:57] It's frontier language, Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:58] Very much so.

John Dehlin [01:02:59] And I was a go in the coming.

Brent Metcalfe [01:03:02] Right, yeah. And we was. And stuff like that. Right.

John Dehlin [01:03:06] And this idea that we've been told that he would look at the stone and the word would appear and then he would say it, and then the word would disappear and new words would come, which is how we've been told the translation happened. That does not match at all with that manuscript, that original manuscript that we have. Right, right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:03:28] I mean, I think that that's something that's extremely problematic. It's a position that Royal Skasm maintains. I look forward to seeing him actually giving a rigorous presentation of that which we have yet to see. And he's maintained that position for well over a decade now, and we still have yet to see, see anything that even remotely can account for the text as we see it. And when you're looking at the text again, the changes are numerous because the grammatical errors are numerous. And the idea that he's simply reading God's words out of a stone that he has placed in a his head is just something that I can barely fathom.

John Dehlin [01:04:28] Right. So for you, the original manuscript is a strong testament to the fact that there's a sole author and the author is Joseph Smith.

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:41] Yeah. And other details, too. I mean, you know, for example, in my book, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon, it discuss a stylistic feature that occurs throughout the entire Book of Mormon, where after the loss of 116 pages, instead of going back to the beginning of the book, Joseph Smith continued on through Mosiah, went through the end of the book, and came back to first Nephi and then through Words of Mormon. And that during that period, he had shifted in his preference from the word therefore to the word wherefore.

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:22] And the Book of Ether is actually the culmination of that, because you can actually see in the first half of the chapters versus the latter half of the chapters, you can see that transition happen. And then when we go into First Nephi, he's now favoring wherefore much stronger than therefore. And that transitions right through to the end of the dictation which ends with words of Mormon. That is a phenomenon that also occurs in the revelations that are being dictated concurrently with that dictation and that order of dictation.

John Dehlin [01:06:03] You mean like in the Doctrine and Covenants?

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:05] Correct. And so when we look at those revelations, we see the same phenomena occur. And that's strong evidence that that is directly attached to Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:06:22] Okay. And what. And what some theorists like to posit regarding multiple authorship is that Sidney Rigdon, you know, was fighting with Alexander Campbell, trying to better him about interpretations of the Bible. And so he wanted to, you know, he wanted to be able to produce some scriptural text that supported his version of the interpretation of the Bible. But he needed sort of a con man to help him, you know, convince the people that this book was authentically from God. And so what they want to do is have Oliver Cowdery being with Sidney Rigdon somewhere in Ohio. They want to have them actually writing the book. Of course, Oliver Cowdery being influenced by view of the Hebrews and what he, what he had learned from his, you know, from Ethan Smith, was it up where he used to live. And so they write it, but then

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:18] they get, yeah, he was, he was in Polteny, Vermont.

John Dehlin [01:07:22] Right. And what they want is to say that they created it maybe with influence from the Spalding manuscript, and that then Joseph was just the front man who was supposed to let go. And you even have early Revelations that Sandra Tanner talked about where the Book of Mormon was supposed to be the only thing that Joseph produced. And that in theory, Sidney Rigdon was supposed to take over. But they like to sort of posit that Joseph Smith wouldn't, wouldn't let go and, and was. Was outsmarted Sidney and, and just held on to the power. And Sidney never got to ascend to the, you know, to the top, to the top chair.

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:04] Okay, let, let me first correct the last comment. No, Sidney Rigdon was never intended to, to ascend to anything during that time period. Oliver Cowdery was the person who was designated via Revelation, even in our current dnc, to organize the church. It's right in there.

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:32] And Joseph Smith, in the early Revelations, before they've been revised and in the Book of Mormon, by the way, that he was to have the gift of translation and he was to pretend to no other gift. But then Oliver is charged to organize the church or to build the church on the words in the book, meaning the Book of Mormon.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:02] So in around June of 1829, Oliver Cowdery actually gets a revelation. And some have considered this a precursor to D&C.20. I don't all. I think what it is is actually Oliver following the revelation he had received, and that is he's to establish a church based on the words in the book.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:29] So Oliver gets a revelation and a portion of this revelation. Well, the full revelation in I believe Oliver Cowdery's handwriting, or at least a copy of it, is on the Joseph Smith papers. Website. But a portion of the revelation got copied Into Revelation Book 1, which the Joseph Smith Papers Project is published. And in that revelation you can go through, and he does set out the entire organization of the church.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:08] And what's the text he's using? He's quoting from the Book of Mormon. He's taking entire chunks from the Book of Mormon and he's saying that this is a revelation that he received. And he says even it was as a fire Shut up of my bones, which I believe is coming from the Book of Jeremiah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:33] And, you know, this is a revelation he received and he wrote it down, he recorded it. And that revelation, I believe, was what Oliver Calgary's role was. So anyone who suggests that Sidney Rigdon was supposed to be in that role has a lot to deal with because historically we've got documents that are basically setting in clear terms Joseph is the translator of the book.

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:08] Oliver is going to basically create the organization of the church based on the book. And then what happens is we move into 1830 and Oliver's revelation is effectively discarded or put to the side and DNC20 is created and Joseph begins to take on a new role. And now we have a first and second elder. The first elder being Joseph, the second being Oliver Signe Rigdon, nowhere to be seen.

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:48] That is absolute nonsense, in my opinion, that Sidney Riggin was supposed to play any role during that early period because he had no involvement with that.

John Dehlin [01:11:59] Okay. Okay. And I'm assuming that you don't put much stock in Krittle's wordprint analysis so we don't have to. Is that true?

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:08] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:12:08] Okay. And then finally, Crittle likes to claim that. That as the Book of Mormon was shown around Ohio, that there were people who heard some of the names used in the Book of Mormon and said, well, those are names that were used in this Spalding manuscript that's never been found. You've heard that, right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:28] Right.

John Dehlin [01:12:29] What do you think about that?

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:30] Well, we don't have any examples of names that go much into the Book of Mormon at all. Most of the names that they're remembering are names that we see from the first opening chapters. Like where are names like Coriantemer, for example? Right. Where were these other names that appear later in the book? We don't see them. Where's Amaleki? And various names. What we see are names that they're focusing on that appear in the initial chapters. And I don't believe for a second that those were anything but planted memories, for lack of a better term.

John Dehlin [01:13:16] Yeah. And certainly Psychology provides us with ample examples of. Well, we can pull from the Church's own history of the people who sincerely believe that they were at the event where Brigham Young transformed into Joseph when we know they were in Europe at the time.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:32] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:13:33] And yet they honestly believed that they saw the event.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:38] Right.

John Dehlin [01:13:39] And if that, if that can happen, then of course people can believe that they remembered names that. That maybe they didn't actually remember.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:48] Right, Exactly. Right.

John Dehlin [01:13:49] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:13:51] Okay. So. So for you, for you. All right, well. Well, is there any. You know, we've covered probably a huge chunk of some of the major problems of the Book of Mormon. I'm ready to ask a final question about the Book of Mormon, unless there's anything else you want to throw in at the end.

Brent Metcalfe [01:14:09] No, that's all good.

John Dehlin [01:14:10] Okay. All right, so read, read Brent's book. You know, read other things if you want to get more. So. So you were very careful and I appreciated this, to say that you wanted to frame this discussion not as the Book of Mormon's crap, but instead, these are challenges to a traditional approach to the Book of Mormon. So let's end in a positive note. So what is left for somebody who says, yeah, I can't accept the traditional approach to the Book of Mormon? What's left? What's a valuable non traditional approach to the Book of Mormon that you would want to leave as. As a morsel of hope to those who still think the book is beautiful or meaningful?

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:02] Well, I think that for both non believer and believer, there are interesting aspects of the book that I think deserve additional attention. For one thing, as a non believer, I think approaching the book is understanding somebody in the early 19th century who likely had experience as a Methodist exhorter and what the concerns and issues were of their time and trying to figure out how they relate to ongoing theological development within the various Christian traditions within America. But you also have, within the realm of believers, context. If you believe that Joseph Smith's. That the Book of Mormon is a product of Joseph Smith experience with God, that then you search out what that means.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:18] What does it mean if Joseph Smith were the craftsman of all the words and the narratives that appear in the book, but that ultimately behind that the mentor of Joseph Smith was a divine being or a divine experience, what would that mean to you and would that matter?

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:44] I think that the idea of bringing divine experiences within the realm of humanity is not a bad thing. In fact, I think it's a good thing when people consider divinity apart from that. That's when I think extremism Flourishes.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:11] And so that would be my encouragement to my believing friends and family, quite honestly, is to consider, what does this mean in the context of somebody who you believe has had a divine experience? What is the end product for you?

John Dehlin [01:17:35] So, in a sense, you're kind of saying what I think the general authorities are kind of trying to say now, and maybe even Terrell and Fiona and Richard Bushman and others. Forget about the historicity. If that's a problem for you. What does the book do for you in your personal life? And that's really all that matters. Would you disagree with that? No.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:59] Where I would issue a caution with that, and that is that, you know, take the book as it empowers you, as it motivates you for good. But when I see people take sacred texts and turn them into just the most horrific things, as we're witnessing with Islam, in certain cases where just a remarkable religious tradition is being turned into something that is so ugly and awful by a minority, I would encourage folks to always, you know, use the common sense in the brain that you believe that God has given you to make sense of this and to deeply consider the consequences of how we behave based on our sacred texts.

John Dehlin [01:19:15] Right. And an example might be the Lebarons. Right. And.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:19] And exactly right.

John Dehlin [01:19:20] How they might have drawn inspiration from. From Nephi chopping off Laban's head to justify the murder.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:30] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:19:30] Of. Of the people that they murdered. Right. Or the woman. Was it a woman or multiple people?

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:36] I. I mean, could you imagine if. If. Because, you know, I look at Islam right now and how it's being, you know, tossed into the basket with, you know, ISIS and isil, you know, whatever they want to be called.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:57] And I wonder, you know, how would Mormons like it if you were just being tossed into the same basket with the Lebarons and these other fanatical elements who have gone off hinge. It's not that Islam as a whole is somehow problematic. It's these, you know, kind of literalistic, not even literalistic. It goes beyond that. It's where the interpretations of the text, which maybe we can get into a bit more later about the ethics of scriptural interpretation, but where someone's interpretation of a scriptural text becomes the same as the text itself.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:48] And if you believe that the text is God's word, then clearly your interpretation is God's word. That's where the danger comes in, in my opinion.

John Dehlin [01:21:03] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber. @mormonstories.org Music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights. When with the wounded heart, anger or

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:33] malice, I draw myself apart, searching my soul.

Part 5 of 6 · Ep. 499

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories foundation and relies solely upon the support of people like you, its listeners to help keep the podcast alive or to become a member of the community. Please become a monthly subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on the right side of the page under support. All contributions to Mormon Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for your support.

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:36] The kindly light amid encircling gloom

John Dehlin [00:00:43] Lead

Brent Metcalfe [00:00:43] thou me on the night is dark and I am far from home.

John Dehlin [00:00:54] Hello and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlink, and I am here on September 17, 2014, in my fifth segment of an interview with one of the, in my view, one of the most important scholars in the 20th, 21st century of Mormonism. His name is Brent Metcalfe.

John Dehlin [00:01:23] We've talked about his early years in the church, his, you know, collaborations with Steve Christensen and Mark Hoffman, the famous bomber that ended up killing two people and harming himself before he ended up in jail. We've talked about his subsequent sort of aftermath of the Mark Hoffman bombings. We've talked about a book that he put together called New Approaches to the Book of Mormon and his subsequent disciplinary council that came about as a result of that book. And then we did a deep dive into the Book of Mormon and Brent's sort of views on some of the challenges that modern Mormons face when taking a traditional approach to the Book of Mormon, meaning viewing it as a literal translation of an ancient record or as a history.

John Dehlin [00:02:22] And so and so now we have just a few more segments to go with with Brent. We're going to talk about sort of what came later in his life after his excommunication, now that we talked about the Book of Mormon. And this is going to lead to a discussion about another in depth, you know, some more in depth research that he's done on the Book of Abraham, which has received a lot of attention lately as the LDS Church published an essay sort of, in my view, retreating a bit in terms of how it deals with the Book of Abraham.

John Dehlin [00:03:06] We're going to talk about sort of modern LDS apologetics and Brent's view on apologetics, you know, good and bad, good, bad and ugly and awesome. We're going to talk a little bit about his views on the church today and maybe its future, and then we're going to end talking about a couple things. One is sort of Brent's life as a post Mormon, what has brought him joy and happiness and meaning and other such things.

John Dehlin [00:03:39] And finally, we going to have a big, big announcement at the end. Well, I won't say it's a big, big announcement, but I think it has the potential to be a big, big project that Brent is looking to begin embarking upon. We don't want to build it up too big until, until we're able to start seeing it through. But with all that ado. Brent Metcalfe, welcome back to Mormon Stories.

Family Relationships After Excommunication

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:03] Thank you, John. I appreciate that.

John Dehlin [00:04:05] And I hope you're feeling better.

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:08] I am, actually. And yeah, it was a lingering flu or whatever it was that I had, and I'm feeling much, much better now.

John Dehlin [00:04:21] Good. Well, good. Well, let's go ahead and just dive right in. So we ended last segment talking about the Book of Mormon and we talked about the Book of Mormon because that was the subject matter of the book that led to your excommunication. And so before we dig into the Book of Abraham, why don't you talk to us just a bit more about your life and what happened after the excommunication. Any interesting stories that, that you want to tell that kind of lead up to your. Your decision to study the Book of Abraham in depth?

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:57] Yeah. So subsequent to my excommunication, I think I had mentioned in one of the previous episodes that my mother had been interested in testifying on my behalf. And it was interesting because my mom and I had a somewhat strained relationship over issues relating to the LDS Church, which I think is natural for a lot of parents who feel very fervent about an ideology, whether it's a religion or even a political party that they belong to.

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:45] To have a child who is no longer a part of what they've given a significant portion of their life to is not an easy thing. But it was interesting because in the year following my excommunication, my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer and only given a matter of months to live.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:18] And that was a remarkably healing time for us. And, you know, my son was. And the youngest of my children was actually born just three weeks after she passed away. And I remember going in and spending time with her frequently during that time.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:47] And this was one thing that was interesting because she would say to me as I'd be leaving, be strong as a phrase, or she would use the Maori term kia kaha, which is the phrase to be strong. And my son now, who, as I said, was born just a few weeks after that, has a fairly large tattoo on his left side going down the left side of his torso.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:27] That is a kind of a Pan Polynesian design that has the words Kia Kaha written on it. And, you know, that's his way of remembering his grandmother that he never had the fortune to meet and that still knows all the stories that I've told about her.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:52] And it's interesting because at her funeral, my mom actually had planned out what the funeral would entail and who all the speakers would be. And she insisted that all of her children be allowed to speak. And the topic that I spoke on was the stories that we tell about each other and how we tell them, not always with words, but sometimes with just the way we present ourselves to others, and that we are constantly, as a species, telling stories about both ourselves and others that we know.

Brent Metcalfe [00:08:37] And there were a number of general authorities who were in attendance at our funeral. And I remember that Neal A. Maxwell was evidently fairly touched by what I had to say, because the last thing I remember, as I was getting ready to leave the stand, as I turned over and looked at him, and just not even intentionally, I just glanced over in his direction, and I remember seeing him wiping a tear away from his eyes as I went back to sit down in the audience. And there was a mention of the fact in my talk, I mentioned that I was no longer lds, but that our love had transcended that and that we cared deeply about each other and loved each other.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:44] And Gordon Hinckley was also in attendance, and he was called upon to speak. And it's kind of one of those, I guess, times where you have that, because, you know, he came up in the context of my excommunication and so on, and his conversation with my dad, his conversation with my stake president so many years before that, when I was forced to resign from my job. And then, you know, here we are, my mom's funeral, and he's there as well. And he spoke.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:30] They asked him if he would share some words. And the funeral was very well attended. And it was just interesting because to a certain degree, I almost felt like this was my mom's way of saying, you know, I'm going to have the last laugh when it comes to my son, because I'm going to have him on the same podium, same stand with the rest of you, speaking as one of the principal players at my funeral.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:06] And it was just kind of an interesting twist because this was, you know, well within the time period of where discussions had gone on about whether or not someone who's not LDS could speak at all at an LDS member's funeral.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:24] And I ended up, along with my siblings, being one of the principal speakers. And it was a very, very difficult talk to give. Very emotional, very raw and from the heart. And I had only written it down. It wasn't a very long talk.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:46] You know, it was on a single piece of paper, and I had written it down just the night before and. Very moving event. In any event, do you have any

John Dehlin [00:12:02] reason to believe your mom reached the level of sympathy for your positions before she passed away, or do you think she died sort of either not understanding or not having sympathy for your position?

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:15] No, I would say that none of the above, almost. It was that the realization that our love for each other went beyond any position on anything, and that, you know, we deeply loved each other, and that. That, I think, was what really came through.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:45] And she even, I know, brought it up to at least my brother, if I remember correctly, her feelings about the whole situation, and just said, you know, blood is thicker than ideology, and that she cared for me deeply. And, you know, I had every bit as much access to her as anyone during that time. And I was there when, you know, all the blessings were given and everything else. And I. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, and I don't think that she would have.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:42] And so, no, I don't think it was a matter of being sympathetic with an idea or even understanding a person's position on something. It was a realization that love transcends that and that you can love someone who believes fundamentally different than you on certain things and that that doesn't matter, and that there's not this driving necessity, that there always has to be a meeting of the minds, that sometimes love is what matters, and the rest will kind of fall into place.

John Dehlin [00:14:36] Nice. Yes. Okay, so. So what came next was that in 2000, was that in 1995 then or 1995?

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:47] Correct, it was 95. It was September of 1995.

John Dehlin [00:14:52] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:52] And then my son was born in October, and. My mom, if I remember correctly, actually passed away on my youngest sister's birthday. And I remember that being such a bittersweet moment, you know, that because all the family was together, we were all there. And in fact, two of my mom's sisters were there from New Zealand, at least two. One of my uncles from New Zealand who then was living in the United States. And, yeah, we were all there when she passed away. We were all there in the bedroom with her. And I just remember this, you know, such an outpouring of emotion because you had, in the room, you know, such an interesting mix of people. Although I was the only ex Mormon, my uncle hadn't been active in the LDS Church since he was a young boy. And none of that mattered, you know, it didn't matter.

John Dehlin [00:16:14] That's great.

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:16] We're a family. That's all that mattered. And. Yeah. And then subsequent to that, you know, as time has gone on, I've had the wonderful fortune of being married to a wonderful woman. Her name is Erin, and Erin is actually an award winning independent historian.

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:41] And we've had the great opportunity to do our own research projects, both independently and jointly. And we actually gave a presentation at the last John Whitmer Historical association meeting where, and I should mention that she's the president elect right now, that association, so next year she'll be the president of the association that we did a study jointly analyzing what's been commonly known as the Anton transcript, which. Oh, and by the way, it is pronounced with a hard T, Anton, not thun, but the Anton transcript.

Brent Metcalfe [00:17:27] That has been thought to be the document that Martin Harris took to Charles Antin. And, and as it turns out that that is almost certainly not the case. What that document is that there was a photograph of the document that was taken in the later 1800s that showed that the document was actually originally part of a longer piece, a half sheet, essentially a full scalp paper, and it had additional handwriting on it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:04] And so through very laborious, extensive analysis on our part, we came to a conclusion that actually happens to disagree with what the folks at the Joseph Smith Papers Project came up with. They suggested that the document had been written by John Whitmer, whereas we are actually very confident that the document was written by in the handwriting of John's older brother, Christian Whitmer.

Brent Metcalfe [00:18:34] And it would be again, along with a few other manuscript revelations that have been unknown as to who the handwriting was for years, that he is in fact the scribe of those individual documents, and that also makes him unknown scribe number three on the original Book of Mormon manuscript.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:01] And so we would have identified now all of those whose handwriting appears on the original Book of Mormon manuscript. As you know, Oliver Cowdery Primary Joseph Smith wrote about approximately a verse and then the other two handwritings as John Whitmer and Christian Whitmer.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:27] So that was just a remarkable find and it was a fun project for us both to work on and just a wonderful discovery to find out more about this Whitmer brother. And Aaron had done just incredible research into the Whitmer family.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:45] And so it was wonderfully dovetailed with all the genealogical research and everything else that she had done. So that's been exciting for both of us to be able to work on projects together.

John Dehlin [00:20:00] So you guys geek out on Mormon history together.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:03] Oh, in fact, this coming week, we'll be going to the John Whitmer Historical association meeting that will be in Lamoni, Missouri, which is basically the chief headquarters of Graceland University for the Community of Christ. And she's running the program essentially this year. And I'll be giving a presentation this time. It'll be a little bit different topic.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:36] I'm actually one of the things that came out in the Joseph Smith Papers project was that they had discovered in one of the first Revelations books that there is a revelation in there that has been really. We haven't had a copy of it before. It's a sample of the pure language, or the Adamic language, if you will, where it goes through and explains, you know, what the name of God, the Son of God, the children of men and so on are in the Adamic language, and then gives a bit of an interpretation on them. And up until now that has been thought to have been the only example that we have of that revelation.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:23] And in the course of some of the research that I had been doing on the presentation that Aaron and I gave, I came across another copy. And the other copy is also very early in the 1830s and may very well represent an even earlier version of the Revelation itself than what appears In Revelation Book 1, which is also called the BCR, the book of Commandments and Revelations that you can see on the Joseph Smith Papers website. So this is going to be an additional source to then what we've had before that discusses Joseph Smith's views on the Adamic language, which interestingly enough is a perfect segue into talking about the book of Abraham.

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:21] Because one of the things that I discovered in the course of this research was that the Adamic language, Joseph Smith's explorations and experimentations with it leading into his translation of the. The Egyptian papyri, are actually very connected. And as an example, in May, May 26th of 1835, William W. Phelps wrote to his wife Sally and gave a specimen, what he calls a specimen of the pure language.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:01] And in there it's very interesting because he, he has this little graph drawn out where he has these interesting looking characters going down the left side. And then he has what is the equivalent of sounds of these characters in another column, and then he has what effectively looks like the translation of these characters in a column after that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:27] And I mentioned the Eroadon on May 26, 1835, but he actually breaks open the letter and adds more to it on May 27 and adds an addendum to it. But what's interesting is that in July, he's now purchased the papyri from Michael Chandler.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:51] And one of the early portions of the project that he begins working on is what's called an Egyptian Alphabet. And there are three manuscripts that are effectively what I call the triplet manuscripts of the Egyptian Alphabet because they're so similar to each other. And portions of them, I suspect, were being dictated simultaneously.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:15] And what's important about these three documents is that the bulk, well, in two of them, one is in William W. Phelps's handwriting, one is in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting, and the other one, the vast majority of it, is actually in Joseph Smith's handwriting. And in that document, this is what's intriguing, is on the front, the first page of that document, toward the bottom of the page, there are a group of characters that appear sequentially with various interpretations being given.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:48] And this grouping of characters is identical to the grouping of characters with just a subtle difference to the characters that William W. Phelps records in this letter from May of 1835. But that's before the papyri have even been purchased. Joseph Smith hasn't even seen them yet. And yet these characters that, you know, ostensibly represent themselves as the Adamic language are now being replicated in this Egyptian Alphabet. And what's interesting about it is that one set of the characters has a slightly right leaning characteristic to them, almost like you could consider one to be an italicized version of the other. And William W. Phelps, when he records the characters in his manuscript, he records both versions right next to each other.

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:47] And so effectively, you have, in the Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts, after Joseph Smith has purchased the papyri, these characters that ostensibly come from the Adamic language showing up in the exact same sequence as they do in Phelps's letter. And as I said, one of these manuscripts for that portion certainly is in Joseph Smith's handwriting.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:16] And so you have this very early effort at not just simply translating Egyptian, but you have these other characters which seem to come from another language and even more primitive language, a prelapsarian language of Adam when he was speaking with God in the garden. And here you have these characters and you have in Phelps's letter as well, an idea of what they ended up doing in the entire Book of Abraham project. When you look at the manuscripts where you see these different characters showing up in the Left margin. And then you see their ostensible translations appearing in the right area of the documents. And so that occurs throughout many of these documents.

John Dehlin [00:27:13] So, Brent, back up a bit and just, you know, it's easy to kind of get lost in a lot of these details, but at the same time, it's such a treat to have an expert to be able to tell us what's going on. But.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:29] And to be honest with you, John, it's so easy for me to go off on tangents because I find this stuff fascinating.

John Dehlin [00:27:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:40] You're watching the evolution of these documents coming out, and it's just so intriguing to me to see it unfold.

The Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith's Egyptian Papyri

John Dehlin [00:27:48] So what do you guess is going on? Why is Joseph spending his time trying to produce an Adamic language and a translation of the language, you know, all of this before he ever purchases the papyru? What would be his motive and what's inspiring this, and what does he hope to get out of it?

Brent Metcalfe [00:28:09] Right. Well, I think to a certain degree, the initial impetus is coming from the work that he's doing on the new translation of the Bible, or at least that's something that brings it to the forefront, because in there you have this notion of this language that God is speaking with Adam and that it's a pure language.

Brent Metcalfe [00:28:33] And so I think that that has really captured his imagination. And I think that if we were to map out. And again, because like you said, it's really easy to get lost in all of. I suspect that in his thinking, what he was envisioning is that you have a pure language, which, again, is the prelapsarian language that Adam and God are using before the fall.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:11] And then he teaches it to his children. And then you have kind of these branches and trajectories that happen subsequently to create different languages. So, for example, Hebrew, I suspect, is the language that Joseph Smith probably thought was the closest to the original pure language.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:38] Other languages that may be subordinate to that would be perhaps reformed Egyptian, which the Book of Mormon is. Because it gets modified, Right. Over time. It's been modified, and so that's been changed. Egyptian would fall somewhere in there as well.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:59] And hence the reason why these Adamic characters are showing up in the Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts. But now they have different meanings. Well, of course, because that language is corrupt. Right. It's not the pure language. And so that is what I suspect is going on during that early time period. So in 1832, I believe it's around March of 1832 is likely when Joseph Smith gave this Revelation on what these different terms mean in the pure language.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:42] You know, ammon is the name of God, son. Ammon the name of the son of God, or Jesus Christ, son Zaman, the name of the children of men, and so on. That, I suspect, is when he's actually starting to. Trying to figure out the language. So now when Michael Chandler.

John Dehlin [00:31:05] Wait, wait, wait. Sorry, quick question. So, but, but does. I mean, is he just trying to. I mean, so the view that Joseph Smith wasn't what he claimed to be would be that he's just making up silliness to fool people.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:21] Right, right.

John Dehlin [00:31:23] Or he, like, really thought he was channeling God's original language. And this is an act of sincerity where he's like, oh, no, God has told me that he's got an original language, and I'm going to start channeling it. I mean, how do we explain what he. What. What benefit he gets from doing anything with what he claimed to be Adamic language?

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:50] Well, I think in this case, you know, for. For all I know. And again, I can't say this is exactly what he was thinking at really any given point in time, of course, but I would say that this may have been a whole other project that he was contemplating at some point to do something that would be centered on the Adamic language.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:20] And we know of instances, for example, where prior to the School of the Prophets, which really doesn't kick into gear with the Hebrew until January of 1836, that he's clearly toying with the Hebrew language in the months preceding that in a more academic way in the sense that he's reading about Hebrew language and meaning and so on. But prior to that, there's some good evidence that he was toying with Hebrew language that really isn't Hebrew at all and sounds much closer to the types of things that we find in this pure language or in the Egyptian terminology that he comes up with when he gets to the papyri.

Brent Metcalfe [00:33:13] So I suspect that he saw the pure language perhaps as being part of the gathering process. Right. Of gathering all of the saints back to Zion. Because one of the first inklings that we have of a word that's actually in the Adamic language is from 1831. So on November 17, 1831, the Ohio Star publishes a letter that had been written from Ezra Booth to his minister friend Ira eddy, where on the 14th of November of 1831, where he says that there was a sapling that was located on the Temple Square block in Independence, Missouri. And then on one side of the sapling, there was a T that had been carved into it that stood for temple.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:16] And on the other side, there were the letters Z O, M, zom, Right. Which he said, Joseph said stood for the word Zomar, which he said was the word for Zion in the original language. So already, even at that early point, Joseph Smith is already talking about this again, this prelapsarian language of Adam.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:45] And I suspect that this is starting to build up. And keep in mind, this is at the same time where he's talking about Adam on Diamond over by far west, and that this is the place where after Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, there was. This is the place where Adam resided.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:10] And so this is all actually fitting really neatly into this little package of the gathering that they're all going to come back to. Essentially what was the area that the Garden of Eden was in. And that's what's happening, and I think that that's what's giving him attention to the pure language and to the Adamic language is that their plan is that's where they're all going to come to. All the saints are going to gather there, and they will be in the region in the valley where Adam dwelt. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:35:47] It's actually a beautiful area. I've been to Adam on Diamond, and a very beautiful area. And that's what I suspect was driving it, was that the pure language would eventually be the language they would all speak once they had gathered and once Adam had returned to unite his children.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] So you don't have a theory as to whether or not he really believed he was channeling God's pure language? You don't have a theory on that?

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:18] Well, let me put it this way. For a scholarly enterprise of investigating this type of thing, I don't think a theory is needed. But I would say this. And this is where, you know, my dear friend of many, many years, Dan Vogel, and I don't necessarily see eye to eye, is that, for example, with the Egyptian materials, Dan is fairly convinced that all of these documents that Joseph Smith produced, you know, the bound grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian language, the Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts, as well as the Book of Abraham manuscripts themselves, all belie this idea that in actual fact he was deceiving people.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:12] In Dan's model, it would be more of a pious fraud type of model. Whereas I look at the number of documents he produced, and that's where I have the most difficult time in assuming that he was being intentionally fraudulent, because why produce these documents at all?

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:35] Nobody was going to see them. Right. I Mean, there was no reason to show these to anyone or to try and use them in any meaningful way. And if you say, well, the reason why he did it was so that he could garner the support of his scribes, Warren Parrish, Oliver Cowdery, William W. Phelps, Frederick G. Williams, he wanted to reinforce with them his ability to translate these different things, I would say, but why at all? They already all believed that there was no reason to make this an object lesson. And so it seems to me, as I look at these documents, that there is really is some type of concerted effort to make sense of all of this.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:24] Now, did Joseph Smith know Egyptian when he was working on Egyptian papyri and know how to translate it? No, I see absolutely zero evidence for that and all kinds of evidence to say, no, he didn't. But at the same time, in looking at these various documents, I see an actual effort underway that seems to be over and above trying to pull one over on someone. I don't really see that going on in these documents. And if I did, I would be, you know, happy to acknowledge that. I just don't see that. And instead.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:07] And again, this is outside of all the scholarly analysis of going through and analyzing in the most minute details all of these texts, I don't see this intentional fraud being perpetrated on his colleagues. I have a hard time with that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:33] And again, here's an example of Dan, who I think is a very gifted interpreter of Mormon things, and me, who. Who spent, you know, years looking at these things, coming to two very different conclusions. But I suspect that if Dan and I were to sit down and analyze the texts themselves, we would come to extremely similar conclusions.

John Dehlin [00:39:55] Right. Okay. All right. So we know that Joseph is thinking about, you know, the Garden of Eden and Adam and all that stuff, you know, in the early 1830s. We know that he's trying to do a retranslation of the Bible and that he's got an interest in Adamic language and other languages. Just tell us briefly, just give us a little bit of background on Chandler and the papyra before we dive into the translation.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:29] Well, Chandler had been traveling around certain segments of the country exhibiting this papyri, and he came. He had heard, I think, of Joseph Smith came to the Kirtland area and exhibited the papyri there in late June or early July, 1835. And. And Joseph Smith effectively almost immediately looked at these documents and said, these are the writings of Father Abraham and Joseph of Egypt.

John Dehlin [00:41:12] Now, where would he connect Egyptian mummies and scrolls with Joseph?

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:20] Well, that's actually again, going off of the fact that, that he had been working on as new translation of the Bible for years prior to that. I think that that's actually a very small leap to make because in the Bible, in the Hebrew scriptures that we have now, we have the narrative in the book of Genesis of Abraham going into Egypt and his encounter with Pharaoh. We have Joseph, who is sold into Egypt by his brothers.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:56] This is not a huge leap. And so the idea, if he were to see any significance in terms of his Judeo Christian heritage within these Egyptian papyri, Abraham and Joseph of Egypt are the first two patriarchs that would come to mind. Right. Those are the two natural ones that you would assume he would make a connection with. And so the idea that he looked at these Egyptian documents and said, oh, these are related to patriarch Abraham and patriarch Joseph, that actually makes a great deal of sense given the biblical narratives that we have.

John Dehlin [00:42:45] Okay, so in other words, Joseph, you know, has Egypt on his brain because he's translating the Old Testament. I say translating in quotes. And so because he has Egypt on the brain, somebody rolls in with an Egyptian, you know, Egyptian scrolls and a mummy and he's like, oh, it's got to be related to Joseph of the, of the Old Testament.

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:08] Right? And Abraham. And those are very natural figures. There are people who've, who back in the early 19th century said that he also related to Moses. That's much less clear to me that that's the case. But again, think of those characters. All of them are related to Egypt. And so those are natural characters that you would gravitate to in Judeo Christian tradition as being, you know, prophets who were closely associated with Egypt.

John Dehlin [00:43:46] Okay, and I'm probably being thick here, but I'll just have you and my listeners bear with me. Tell me again, I know what Joseph has to do with Egypt. What does Abraham have to do with Egypt?

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:58] Well, you recall that after he leaves Chaldea and goes to Iran, he then journeys into Egypt. And you recall the story of the concern over how the Egyptian king would find his wife fair and beautiful. And then the story of how he lies to the king and saying that this is my sister and so on, rather than his wife.

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:30] That's Abraham's sojourn in Egypt. And so, you know, and to say nothing of the fact that there were numerous stories and traditions, legends and so on from the Jewish midrash that were also circulating in the early 19th century about Abraham and his time in Egypt. And so, yeah, the connection is actually very close of Abraham.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:02] And Abraham would have been a key figure for Joseph anyway. There were other things going on as well that come out a bit in the Book of Abraham because. The ecclesiology of early Mormonism was evolving during that time period, and you had the notion of patriarchal priesthood coming to the forefront.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:32] And in fact, it's interesting how these kind of fit into each other, because Oliver Cowdery and Joseph are both working on the patriarchal blessing book. And. Excuse me, that's my sickness coming through, I guess. And that would have been September of 1835.

John Dehlin [00:45:58] Okay.

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:59] And that figures into the Book of Abraham tale. If you look at the narrative, you have this notion that Abraham is seeking after the right of the priesthood and that that's one of his. That's what he's. He wants to become a righteous minister. And so he's seeking after the right that is his to the priesthood. Well, that's the patriarchal authority or the patriarchal priesthood. And so that was a development.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:37] And my apologies to all of our listeners for my raspy voice, but that. That was the development of in early Mormon priesthood and ecclesiology where you had this notion of patriarch and patriarchal priesthood where the fathers would pass down this order to the sons, and that's what's also in the Book of Abraham. And so, again, what you see with this is where I think a lot of people miss on what on earth. You know, going back to your question, why Abraham?

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:17] Why would he figure in this? And I would say, because this is a remarkable confluence of ideas that are all coming together here. You have this notion of Adamic language he's been working on. You have this development in priesthood authority with this notion of patriarchal priesthood.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:40] And then you have these Egyptian fragments, papyri showing up, and all of these things are coming together in almost a perfect storm. And the result is the Book of Abraham. That's what's going to come from this.

John Dehlin [00:47:56] And so in his mind, I mean, for this story to be in any way legitimate, Abraham would have had to first, exist. Second, he would have had to have traveled to Egypt. Third, he would have had to had some sort of revelation while he was in Egypt. And then, four, he would have had to write it down on a scroll. And then five, that scroll would have had to have been buried with some mummy somewhere.

Brent Metcalfe [00:48:24] Correct? All of which would be questioned by even some of the more conservative biblical scholars as to whether or not Abraham even existed. I mean, once you get past that and say, well, there may have been a person who Abraham is modeled after, As a historical figure, you still don't have this notion that that person would have done the things that you read in the patriarchal narratives. I think that many biblical scholars would reject that idea of the. The historicity, if not of Abraham, at least of the patriarchal narratives as they are currently represented.

John Dehlin [00:49:11] Okay, okay. And so, and so do we know about. Do we know. Do we happen to know the date that the mummy that the scrolls were buried with, that. That mummy died?

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:24] Yeah, yeah, it's. It's around the second century bc, I believe.

John Dehlin [00:49:33] And do we know who the mummy was?

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:36] Yeah, yeah. Well, it's. We assume his name was Horace and he's identified right on the scroll itself. And I would refer readers rather than me trying to reconstruct all the details of that. Mark Conan has done a remarkable presentation on this that's in Robert Rittner's book from Signature Books, where Robert Rittner translates the various papyri fragments. And Mark's essay is important because he traces the genealogy of this priest that the document is buried with. And we actually have a pretty remarkable amount of information on who this person was when they lived and the line of priests that he came from. And so Horus was a priest.

John Dehlin [00:50:46] Yes, an Egyptian priest who died about 200 B.C.

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:50] yeah. And essentially, you know, you're off by a couple of thousand years when it comes to Abraham. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:59] So Abraham would have been approximately what?

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:02] Well, you know, there are varying theories ranging from, I don't know, 2500 BC or earlier up till 1900 BC BC. 1800 BC but, you know, that's assuming that you're even dealing with scholars who think that this character ever even existed.

John Dehlin [00:51:25] So, so if. So if Joseph's narrative were true, Abraham that may not have existed would have. Would have written these scrolls. They would have been preserved for 2000 years and then put in a random Egyptian priest's burial.

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:42] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [00:51:43] Which. Which would be, in and of itself, you know, miraculous. But. But then when we actually have Egyptologists read the scrolls. The scrolls are what?

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:58] Well, they're. They're funerary texts for. For the most part.

John Dehlin [00:52:02] Which means what?

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:03] Just like they're documents relating to the deceased. Right. So they're.

John Dehlin [00:52:08] And they're sort of talking about Horus.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:11] Yeah. And they're going to be talking about things like what this person is going to be doing in the afterlife, their journey into the nether regions and so on. Yeah. And we know it because his name appears in several portions. In fact, even though we don't have the original of Facsimile number three. That portion of the papyrus is missing in the woodcut that we have. I think that Horace's name is still legible.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:52] And so, you know, we know that that's from the same document. In other words, it's facsimile number one. We have the original facsimile number one and some of the contiguous portions of the fragments that were connected to that, but we don't have the original facsimile number three. But we can tell that that's all part of the same role because Horace's name again is identifiable. And so, yeah, you're dealing with funerary documents that have no bearing whatsoever on Abraham or his life.

John Dehlin [00:53:27] As I think I read in the Church's essay, Abraham's name doesn't even appear anywhere on the scrolls that we still have, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:53:35] No, nowhere. And nor should we expect it to, despite the fact that some anthropologists have suggested that the name Abraham appears on other documents, other Egyptian documents. In those cases, it's almost always appearing in a thaumaturgical context where it's an incantation spell and so on, and the name is being invoked, assuming that that's actually the name that's being used as part of a long list of heroes and characters and you know, and so on as part of some type of grandiose smell. But there's no clear instance.

Brent Metcalfe [00:54:22] And this type of, and these types of documents, like the ones that were associated with the, the book of Abraham, of Abraham's name appearing at all, and nor should we think it would, quite frankly, in the context of these documents. These are documents that I suspect the Egyptians considered sacred and they were instructions for what the deceased is to do once they've died, or what the gods will do to the deceased once they've died. And so there would be no reason to even think that, that they would be associated in any way with Abraham.

John Dehlin [00:55:04] Okay, so I have a, I have kind of a. I don't know if this is a spoiler question, but so if this story just at the outset, without ever learning a one character or one figure of Egypt. Egypt, Egyptian. Like this story seems like a non starter and kind of a hilarity from the outset, like so preposterous and improbable and obviously, you know, not credible, that to me it's mind boggling that he would even deserve a day's worth of extended study. Yet we have decades and decades and decades of people still trying to prove that it's what Joseph claimed it was.

Brent Metcalfe [00:55:59] Right? But look at how They've done it, John. I mean, everybody focuses on the images, right? So when we go to facsimiles 1, 2 and 3, Joseph Smith gives a number of interpretations of what the pictures are. For example, you know, he'll refer to, for example, on facsimile number two, you have the four sons of Horus who have essentially human bodies with the heads of various animals. One has a human head, and Joseph Smith says that they represent the four corners of the earth. Well, think about that for a second here. You have these four figures standing here and he says they represent the four corners of the earth.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:56] That's not such an improbable notion because it's something that we read through the Bible. It's a term that the English speaking world has grown up with. But people have said, well, we know that in some instances, in some cases, the four sons of Horus were used to represent the four cardinal points.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:22] And I think to myself, you know, have you ever read the book of Revelation? In the book of Revelation, we have these wondrous figures who appear who seem to have the bodies of humans and the heads of various animals.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:39] And what are they told to do? God sends them out to the four corners of the earth. It's kind of like. So essentially in looking at these figures that seem to look very much like the types of figures that you hear described in the book of Revelation, where they are clearly associated with the four corners of the earth, that somehow we think, how could Joseph Smith ever have gotten that right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:10] And that is just a remarkable assumption. It's like, do you know your Bible or not know your Bible? Because by this point, Joseph has already done his own revision of the Bible, the entire Bible. And do you think he doesn't know what's in that text after going through it and not merely reading the text, but revising the text as he goes.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:35] And the notion that somehow that is beyond belief to think that Joseph Smith could have ever conceived these four figures as the four corners of the earth without divine inspiration. That's what I find remarkable. That's what I find improbable.

John Dehlin [00:58:55] Right, of course. So yeah, he knew the Bible and of course he would make that association. But is it the bigger point that the four figures aren't what Joseph claimed they were? But there's something else very specific.

Brent Metcalfe [00:59:09] Well, actually, the bigger point is that this is where we're talking about trying to interpret images where we can play with multiple meanings all day long. Right? Because like I said, in some instances, the sons of Horus can represent the Four cardinal points in this case, almost certainly not. But all the other images, he's getting way off the mark. But more importantly is when he gets to the hieratic characters or the specific hieroglyphic characters, and he tries to interpret those, and he consistently gets those wrong. Not just wrong, but very wrong.

John Dehlin [00:59:54] So give us some examples.

Brent Metcalfe [00:59:55] Well, for example, from facsimile 3, where he says that the king is identified by his name as written in the characters above his hand. We also have the situation with Shulem, whose name is supposedly written in the characters above his head. And in fact, that's not what any of the characters say.

John Dehlin [01:00:22] What do they say?

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:23] Well, they're identifying other Egyptian material. Right. It has nothing to do with anything to do with Abraham, anything to do with this scene, and certainly nothing to do with being, you know, a servant of Pharaoh's or pharaoh's name or anything else like that. That's not what is in any of these characters. And so when you get to some of the characters on facsimile number two, for example, where he's had to reconstruct a fair amount of it, where he's pulled in erratic characters from other papyri fragments, he'll just make sweeping comments like, this is to be had in the house of the Lord or in the temple.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:11] Right. The world cannot reveal these numbers. Well, no doubt because there are no numbers here and things like that. So when you get to him interpreting the actual hieratic characters, the hieroglyphics, those are not corresponding at all to what he is trying to translate these to mean. And even with the figures there, they're just so far from the mark. Like I said, I specifically pulled out the example of the four sons of Horus, because that's about as close, close as you're going to get to something being accurate out of any of it.

John Dehlin [01:01:51] So what are some of the obvious misses and mistakes, some of the gods that are depicted there, that he names one thing, but they're really something else. Give us some examples of those.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:02] Well, the God men sitting on his throne, which is supposed to be God revealing the grand keys of the priesthood from heaven as the Holy Ghost descends in the form of a dove. You know, this is an Egyptian God.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:21] I've almost wondered if he's, you know, caught the part where it looks like his arm is raised to a right angle square and then there's a flail that sits above it, which is essentially an inverted V. And I've wondered if, if Joseph Smith may have thought that that was a Square and a compass of Masonic fame. Because at this point, he is now associating those types of rituals with what's going on in the temple and so on, because now we're into 1842 by the time he's doing the translation on Vaccinely number two.

Brent Metcalfe [01:03:03] And so there are things like that where you. You're dealing. It's an Ithophallic God. It has, you know, it was originally drawn with an erect penis, which has since been removed. And it may have been restored in more recent editions of the Book of Abraham. I'm not sure offhand, but that had been removed for years. And that's just so far from the mark, even, you know, facsimile number one. How do we even begin to try and understand this? As a sacrificial scene involving Abraham, the knife in the hand of Anubis is artificially constructed with the papyri fragments that we have. If you actually impose the knife into his hand, we should still be able to see remnants of its handle, and none of that are there, you know.

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:04] So again, it's just one problem after another. But more importantly than that is that when you go to the Book of Abraham itself In Abraham, chapter one, verses 12 and 14, it refers you to facsimile number one as being an illustration of the text of the Book of Abraham. When you go to the Book of Abraham manuscripts themselves, those characters that you see, at least the ones that are really Egyptian, because there are some invented characters there, which I'll explain in a minute. When you go to the characters that are really Egyptian, they are taken sequentially off of the contiguous fragment that's directly attached to facsimile number one.

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:52] We don't have a single example of authentic Egyptian characters appearing in those documents. Any of the Book of Abraham translation manuscripts that come from anywhere other than the papyri fragments that we have now. So the notion that, oh, it was part of a different portion of this long scroll that is no longer extant, that is just simply a ludicrous explanation because the fact is that we have numerous English documents which have preserved the various characters, erratic characters and so on, that they were associating with the text of the Book of Abraham and that Joseph Smith associated with the text of the Book of Abraham, and all of them come from the papyri fragments that we have, not from some mysterious, no longer extant portion of the scroll.

John Dehlin [01:06:01] Okay, so, so, you know, you're not big on the large scroll theory that the parts that it was translated, the Book of Abraham were translated from, were from other parts of a scroll that didn't survive the. Was it a Chicago fire? Was that right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:17] Right. Well, absolutely not. Because even, I mean, that's not to say that we don't have portions of the papyri that are missing. Of course there are portions that are missing. We no longer have the original of the Hypocephalus, which is facsimile number two. We no longer have the original for facsimile number three. And so, yeah, of course we have things that are missing. But the point is, is that in every single document that we have that's associated with the translation of the Book of Abraham, we know where those characters are coming from.

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:58] They're coming from the papyrus, the papyri fragments that we have. We don't need to look anywhere else. Now, if those documents were showing other heratic characters that were coming from another portion of the manuscript, then there may be an argument to talk about, but there isn't at this point.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:22] The text of the Book of Abraham in chapter one refers directly to facsimile number one as being an illustration to what is being described in that chapter. So what are the characters that are associated with that? They're the erratic characters that are directly attached to that image, that vignette on the Egyptian papyri.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:49] You can't. There's no escaping that. And the easiest way to deal with that is just to simply acknowledge Joseph Smith did not know how to translate Egyptian.

John Dehlin [01:08:04] Right. So before we kind of, you know, move away from the Book of Abraham, are there any other sort of glaringly obvious, really big, you know, big issues with the Book of Abraham, with sort of a traditional approach to the Book

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:22] of Abraham, I think that as time goes on, because I've been deeply involved, as of other friends and colleagues of mine who I think are very adept at interpreting, who themselves may come from a much more traditional background or point of view than I do, such as Brian Hoglit, for example, who I think is making great inroads on understanding the texts.

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:56] We have our own disagreements on things, but those are things that can be hashed out in the scholarly literature. It's certainly not something that needs to be hashed out on a one sided podcast. But I would say that understanding the relationship among the manuscripts and the realization that the Egyptian Alphabet documents are in fact the precursor to what comes in the Book of Abraham, I think is something that will also have resounding repercussions for understanding the Book of Abraham in a traditional sense.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:43] And I should add, too, John, that one of the things that I have been pleased about so far with the Church's statement on the historicity of the Book of Abraham is that I did point out online, right after it came out, there were two things that jumped out and hit me, and I posted a number of comments on it online.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:13] There was the claim that the Book of Abraham gave a certain age for Abraham when he left Haran, and that there were numerous ancient texts that supported that, when in actual fact there. There isn't one that supports the actual age given in the Book of Abraham. And the editors changed that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:41] They went back and modified the statement to reflect that. The documents. Dude, don't actually say that. And so there have been a couple of things like that that I've raised online that evidently they've become aware of, and they've changed it accordingly.

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:03] There is much more, in my opinion, that needs to be corrected and adjusted, but maybe that will come at a future point. I just haven't had time to sit down and write a detailed response.

The Church's Book of Abraham Essay and Apologetics

John Dehlin [01:11:16] What important concessions does the Church make, or what acknowledgments or concessions does the Church make in its Book of Abraham essay? Anything that kind of indicates you and your scholarship?

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:28] Well, I would say that the most important overriding concept is simply the allowance, not even necessarily the endorsement of this position, but the allowance for scholars who are faithful LDs to look at the Book of Abraham as something other than a translation of Egyptian, and that it could be in fact that the Egyptian papyri functioned as a catalyst that led to an inspired revelation that is the Book of Abraham, that at least allows scholars to talk about this in an intelligent sense without feeling some type of threat of church discipline for having said this. Because this is a huge problem in my mind for the Church in dealing with their scholars.

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:30] Because I think, well, I know with scholars that I've talked to from a variety of locations who are would be considered to be more traditional, mainstream within the church, that they are grappling with this issue in a significant way. And if you want your scholars to be honest and truthful about something, you can't hold them under some type of microscope that always has them wondering, am I going to be disciplined somehow over this? Because I'm just trying to tell what I found.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:16] And if that's where they're at, then the Church needs to just pull scholars out of the business of scriptural research altogether. Because you're not going to be happy with the end result on almost any of this. Because essentially traditional assumptions, whether it be about the revelations in the doctrine and covenants, whether it be about the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, even what I call the Supra Scripture of Mormonism, the Temple ceremony itself. If that's the approach you're going to take, you need to get scholars out of the business of looking at your past at all, because you're not going to be happy with the results.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:58] Because I suspect that many scholars are going to come to very non traditional views of these documents and these texts and these rituals and the Church. If they want to move forward well into the 21st century, they're going to have to pull way back.

Brent Metcalfe [01:14:23] Vatican II for the Catholic Church opened up the door for a lot of Catholic scholars to look more critically at the biblical texts. Something akin to that almost needs to happen within Mormonism if you want to allow your scholars to be able to move forward with a clear conscience in dealing with these documents. And that's not to say that I am suggesting that every scholar who has dealt with these things in a more traditional way are somehow dishonest or trying to deceive people. I'm just saying that there are more than a handful of scholars who are seriously grappling with these issues, who are beginning to understand what the ramifications of these things are.

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:10] And I think you need to have a door open for them or you're going to be backing them into a corner where they're either going to just completely go away or you're going to be stuck with, you know, some really shoddy apologetics as your quote, unquote scholarship.

John Dehlin [01:15:31] Okay, and so, and so what I heard you say, and what I've read in the, in the Church's essay, is that they're basically saying, you know, there are probably many who don't feel like there's any evidence to support the notion that the Book of Abraham is actually a translation of the Papyru. And so that they're now saying we're going to allow for a perspective, which basically is that Joseph Smith used the Papyra as a way to inspire him and he channeled the text of the Book of Abraham through some other means. But certainly, but certainly it wasn't a translation. Even though, and this seems to be the most improbable and crazy part about this theory, even though Joseph Smith claimed that he was translating. Right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:35] Yeah. I mean, essentially what you would have to conclude is that, that as part of the catalyst theory, I think you would have to say that in having this revelation that he receives of what becomes the Book of Abraham, that Joseph Smith believed that the conduit to this revelation was his translation of the Egyptian.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:07] So that's, you know, and again, I think that there are scholars who are LDs who would really have no problem with that. Quite honestly, they would say, well, yeah, you know, I mean, God is working with fallible humans. And sure, Joseph Smith could very well have thought that he was translating this, but in reality he was not.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:35] And so if then the next step would be, so that is the Scripture. Yes. If so, what does that mean in our understanding of what Scripture is? And does it necessarily receive its authority as scripture by virtue of the accuracy of the description by which the Scripture was. Was received? Does that make sense?

John Dehlin [01:18:02] Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Metcalfe [01:18:03] So that's what I think is kind of the next round of interpretations is going to entail is trying to understand what qualifies the Scripture. Because the problem that I think, and this isn't unique to Mormonism, but I think the problem that many faiths have is that frequently the way they define Scripture is as it defines itself within its text.

Brent Metcalfe [01:18:37] Well, if the assumption is that no Scripture is perfect by virtue of the fact that it came through human hands and was not, in fact, just written by God, then you've got an issue here because you never know whether or not the definition for what Scripture is, is ultimately authoritative or credible.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:06] And so that, I think, is going to be the difficult part, looking ahead, is what do we do when we acknowledge that Joseph Smith could not translate Egyptian, thought he was translating Egyptian, and the Book of Abraham was the end product. What does that mean?

John Dehlin [01:19:27] Yeah, I mean, it's hard. It would be hard to come up with a more clear smoking gun or at least indictment of Joseph not being able to translate as he claimed he could. You know, with, with the evidence we have about the Book of Abraham. If you add to that the fact that now we know that with the Book of Mormon, he didn't even use the plates, as far as we know, in his quote, translation of the Book of Mormon, but instead he had a peep stone and a hat. And the plates were often not even in the building.

John Dehlin [01:20:04] You know, that's not a translation. And it's hard to argue with all the changes that that took place between, as you discussed, the original, you know, transcription or manuscript that was produced, all the changes between that and then the printer's manuscript. It's hard to argue that there was any credible translation going on there.

John Dehlin [01:20:28] Again, especially because it was done with a rock in a hat and not with the plates even around. And then you add the, the Kinderhook Plates. It just feels like that's kind of three strikes against Joseph's ability to translate, in spite of the fact that he claimed to be translating in all three cases. True.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:49] Yeah. I mean, I think that there are actually a number of LDS scholars who are recognizing now that this notion of Joseph Smith being able to translate ancient languages is very weak. And there are numerous other examples we could bring up, too. I mean, even the parchment of John, which appears in the Doctrine and Covenants, which is supposed to be a translation of a document that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:30] That the Apostle John wrote, and when you look at the original version of it, compared to, for example, what you would find in the 1833 Book of Commandments and the earliest manuscripts that we have of this revelation, then you compare it to what it looks like in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:59] This text is almost doubled in size. And it's sort of like, well, if this is a translation of a parchment that John wrote, what on earth has just happened? Because some of these additions to the narrative are being inserted mid sentence.

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:21] And what kind of translation is that? What kind of translation goes from the short terse piece to this expanded document that, by the way, when it gets expanded, it's being expanded in such a way to account for new developments of Mormon theology during that time.

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:45] And so it may well be that a better way to look at the translational artifacts that Joseph Smith produced would be to see them as vehicles of his theology and vehicles for communicating his theology or communicating what he believed God was telling him at a given point in time, because they are all morphing and changing to match his current theological positions at any given point in time. And so I think that that's going to be the interesting challenge for interpreters of Mormonism in the future, is to try and situate Joseph Smith's translational artifacts on a continuum of his evolutionary theology.

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:44] And I think what they're going to find is that these were vehicles, just like history is. For Joseph Smith, translational artifacts aren't just the only things, but also his history. Look at his telling of the first vision that is a vehicle for communicating his theology of God at any given point in time.

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:08] So the earliest version, we have a quasi popular trinitarian notion of God, only one person's appearing. But as his understanding of God shifts to benetarianism or by theism, and eventually to tritheism, it expands until finally you have very explicitly two beings appearing one after the other, and the other addressing the one as this is my son. Hear him very clear enunciations of the separation of the persons of deity.

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:51] That's not what you have in the early edition. And so again, the first vision narrative itself became one of these vehicles for communicating Joseph Smith's theology at any point along the continuum of his evolution of theology. And I think that the translational productions should be placed and situated on that continuum. That's where they belong. Not in antiquity. Right. They're not ancient documents. They are vehicles for communicating theology.

John Dehlin [01:25:29] Yeah, yeah. And again, even if we abandon the idea that he was translating and say that he's a prophet, he can channel things from God, that's fine, except for the fact that he claimed to be translating.

Brent Metcalfe [01:25:50] Right, right. That's always going to be. There will always be a tension there in trying to interpret any of his translations in any other way. I mean, look at how he described his Bible revision. He called it the new translation of the Bible. He uses the word translation in so many contexts. You know, the parchment of John that we were mentioning just a few minutes ago, that's now published in D&C7. Again, that was a translation of the parchment of John.

John Dehlin [01:26:28] Except in that case, he claims that it was a scroll in some cave that he was able to translate sort of mystically. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:26:37] Well, we really don't know. I mean, in fact, the idea of it being a translation of a parchment that John had created is something that actually enters into it in the later manuscripts. And so in the early manuscripts, there's no real mention that I recall anyway. And I think I'm remembering this accurately. I don't think that there's any mention of it being a translation. It's just that when you read it, it's. What else is it? Because it's being spoken of as a first person narrative, as if somebody who is directly familiar with these conversations with John and so is recording this.

Brent Metcalfe [01:27:22] And, you know, you don't really have this clear notion of Peter, James and John, for example, holding the keys of the kingdom. Well, of course not. Because the notion of Peter, James and John as part of the priesthood restoration is a later development. That's not something from 1829. There's no Melchizedek priesthood in 1829 within the church.

Brent Metcalfe [01:27:46] Right. And so this idea that we have, again, these narratives are vehicles for communicating theology. So now we get this grand explanation of a restoration of Melchizedek priesthood where Peter, James and John now hold the keys of the kingdom and they're revealing the Melchizedek priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Calvary.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:10] We can find nothing that you could begin to reconstruct that developed of a model in 1829. There is nothing. You're not even going to find it in 1830. There is nothing that would lead you to believe that that narrative of the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood as it receives its final form could possibly be what happened in 1829.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:38] Because you have Indians. C7. The notion that Peter, James and John now hold the keys of the kingdom. Well, if that was the case, why wasn't that the natural outgrowth of the earliest ecclesiology, where instead of having a first presidency made up of three men who hold the keys of the priesthood and the church, as we have with Peter, James and John, instead we have a first Elder and a second Elder. There are only two, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. Why? Because the notion of this triad as being the keepers of the keys had not fully evolved yet.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:20] That would come later. And that's when we eventually end up with the presidency of the high priesthood, not even the Melchizedek priesthood at this point. That eventually becomes the first presidency. And then we start hearing discussion about Melchizedek priesthood within the church.

John Dehlin [01:29:38] So what if somebody just says, well, big deal, Brent, like he was learning by bit by bit, he was getting truth by truth, grace by grace, and he hadn't received the fullness of the gospel. And so, yeah, it's going to evolve over time as his understanding deepens and clarifies.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:59] And I would say, perfect, wonderful. That is a grand theological position to begin with, and that should be your starting point. But don't try and impose those ideas into antiquity or believe that when you're looking at his translations that you're recovering the details of actual past historical events.

John Dehlin [01:30:24] Yeah, so that's the problem. It's not that he develops it over time, it's that he's trying to claim that all of his new developments are somehow rooted in ancient documents through translation, when in every case, you know, we know that there was no translation going on, that the source documents that he claims to be translating from bear no resemblance, if they exist at all, to what he produced. And it just so happens, conveniently, that all of his new developments match his evolving theology. And there's almost a pretty clear timeline from start to finish. As his theology and doctrine develops, then he's trying to find these source documents that he can claim are the origins of the changes. Is that right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:25] Correct. Yeah, in a nutshell. That pretty much captures it. I remember reading, oh, gosh, way back when on my mission, some of the writings of Hyrum Andrus. And I remember how he tried to explain the notion of the oneness of God in early Mormon scripture. And he talked about this idea of divine investiture of authority.

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:54] And that's the notion of where God the Father gives to Jesus Christ the authority to speak in the first Person as if he were God the Father himself. And even though Hieromandras is arguing that they're separate beings, that that's why we have these, you know, these instances of where the Son is speaking in the revelations, and then all of a sudden, it's the Father speaking. But no, no change of characters. There's no change. No cast of characters has changed here. It's the same person speaking. But this is where the difficulty comes in, is why don't we have example of example, clear examples of that, like we have in the pre1835 revelations.

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:47] After 1835, all of a sudden, divine investiture of authority disappears. Jesus is no longer speaking in the first Person as the Father. Well, the reason why is because Jesus and the Father are no longer the same divine being.

Brent Metcalfe [01:33:04] They have separated. You know, ontologically, they are separate beings now, whereas prior to that, they were a unified being where that unified being could speak as Father and Son. And so it's that type of thing that I think interpreters of Mormonism are going to have to grapple with and come to terms with. And the thing is, is that the ancient texts, which are not revealed in sequential order, right? They're all over the map. There are portions that are from antediluvian times. There are portions from events happening in the Americas. There's the Abrahamic tale. There's a portion of it that was translated in Kirtland, another portion that gets translated in Nauvoo.

Brent Metcalfe [01:33:57] When you set these things out in terms of which the ancient chronology should be, the theology jumps all over the map on the view of God. It's one God. It's multiple gods. It's all over the map, right? There's no clear development to it, no line upon line, if you will, and the evolution and unfolding of God. But the minute you take all of these ancient texts and lay them out in the order Joseph Smith receives them, then the natural progression and evolution appears. And we can see it going from one God to many, right, through all of these ancient texts. And that tells me again that what we are looking at are vehicles for disclosing Joseph Smith's theology.

John Dehlin [01:34:51] Right? All right, Brent. So we've talked, you know, we've talked about the Book of Abraham, we've talked about the Book of Mormon, you know, we've talked about your early years in the church. Now I'm going to pepper you with all sorts of questions. Some of it's going to have to do with the Book of Abraham, some of it's going to have to do with other stuff. Real quick, back to the Book of Abraham. Are there any credible non LDS Egyptian scholars that have in any way validated any of the scholarship coming out of farms and you know, the Maxwell Institute, etc. Or is there evidence to the contrary where Egyptian scholars have said this is total bunk?

Brent Metcalfe [01:35:41] I'm not aware of any Egyptologists, non LDs at all who would concur with the bulk of Book of Abraham apologetics. That's not to say that especially with the text critical studies that Brian Hoglit is doing that I'm involved in myself, that the Joseph Smith Papers Project will be involved in and are. That's not to say that there aren't non LDS scholars who would look at that work and say that this is very well done, this is a credible reconstruction of these manuscripts and their stemmas or family trees and so on. But I'm unaware of any Egyptologist who would be supportive of, of some of the work that we've seen by some of the better known Book of Abraham apologists, whether it's Hugh Nibley or any of his students who have followed in his wake? I don't know of any.

John Dehlin [01:37:05] And have modern Egyptologists tried to translate the papyra or made comments about the papyrus and just, you know, at a high level, what have they said when they have.

Brent Metcalfe [01:37:19] Well, you know, essentially that they translate and yes, the answer is yes to that. And it's happened over decades now. You know, we're moving up on was it 1916, I think, when Reverend Spalding had a group of imminent Egyptologists did their initial translations on the facsimiles and so on and they all came to the conclusion that Joseph Smith did not know how to translate Egyptian. We moved down through the decades, Klaus Bearer, others who just absolutely were convinced that Joseph Smith did not know how to translate Egyptian. We move up to contemporary day where Robert Rittner and others have been involved in translating portions who again are very well credentialed and knowledgeable Egyptologists who have just said this bears no resemblance to anything Joseph Smith said about these documents.

John Dehlin [01:38:29] Okay, okay. So, you know, there are a lot of Mormons I think for many years that basically said, well Hugh Nibley is brilliant. Hugh Nibley's a scholar. He's so smart, I can't understand anything he's writing. And he figured out everything there was to figure out about the Book of Abraham. And he said it's all a.

Brent Metcalfe [01:38:53] Okay, yeah, that's the apologetic on the shelf phenomenon, where you don't even have to read the book, right. All you have to do is own it, have it sitting on your shelf that you can point to and say, and reassure yourself that that book answers all my questions. And the fact of the matter is that you know many of the things that Hugh Nibley said. And I can speak to this specifically because although I am not an Egyptologist, I am very, very familiar with the Book of Abraham manuscripts to as most an intricate level as anyone I know, quite frankly.

Brent Metcalfe [01:39:43] And I can say that in numerous instances where Nibley was talking about the things that I do know about, and. And that is these documents and manuscripts, that he not only got them wrong, but grossly wrong in certain instances where I had very difficult times trying to reconcile what on earth he was doing or saying about them. And I can only think that he. Because I do think that Hugh Nibley was an intelligent, bright man.

Brent Metcalfe [01:40:21] I can only think that he just simply did not have enough time and spent enough time with these manuscripts to make sense of them. Because some of the things he says, quite frankly, frankly, I find bewildering. I read them, I have the manuscripts right in front of me, high resolution images of them, and I can't make sense what he's trying to say at times.

Brent Metcalfe [01:40:49] And that's. And quite honestly, that was kind of my. I suppose I did have a crisis of faith, other than a failure of faith that I described previously, and that would be with Hugh Nibley, because I thought that he had so many answers to so many important issues.

Brent Metcalfe [01:41:17] And what I came to appreciate about Hugh is that I felt that he was quite a brilliant and witty social commentator and at so many levels gave some really remarkable insights about society and culture. But when it came to Mormon history in particular, it seemed like a lot of that broke down because he had a very specific task at hand, and that was in certain instances to defend the indefensible.

Brent Metcalfe [01:41:57] And that's what I think he was charged with, and that's what I think he attempted to do. And some of his work, like I said, particularly on the Book of Abraham manuscripts, has just left me shaking my head wondering, what on earth are you looking at that's led you to this conclusion about this document?

Brent Metcalfe [01:42:26] So, yeah, I think a lot of folks have rested on their laurels and not tried to actually investigate these issues themselves and assumed that if an apologist has produced a book that everything is okay. And quite honestly, for many faithful, they don't need to take the effort to explore all this if they find happiness with what they have and enough reassurance with what they have sitting on their bookshelves. But there are others of us, I guess, who are out there who really do wonder about things. We're curious about life, the world, want to know how things work.

Brent Metcalfe [01:43:15] And for those who are more exploratory in that sense when it comes to belief and scripture and so on, I don't think that the apologetics that have been delivered regarding the Book of Abraham will suffice over time in any way, shape or form.

Brent Metcalfe [01:43:38] I think that in fact, to be honest with you, I see in the LDS Church's statement on the Book of Abraham and historicity already is shifting away from the older apologetics to trying to find new ways of understanding, which I see as, you know, what is the inevitable result of any progressive movement who wants to have longevity and retain membership and retain an intelligent membership as well. So.

John Dehlin [01:44:18] Right, okay, so not, not a big respecter of Hugh Nibley's work with relation to trying to explain the Book of Abraham.

Brent Metcalfe [01:44:28] That that was not his forte.

John Dehlin [01:44:30] Okay, so what about, what about, you know, you hear the name John Gee, that, that this guy is a credible Egyptologist, that he studied under the greats. I don't know if it's at UCLA or where, but this guy knows his stuff. What are your high level reactions to his work on the Book of Abraham?

Brent Metcalfe [01:44:53] Well, you know, the same thing that I may say about Hugh and others. I mean, in my mind, John Gee may well be the most brilliant Egyptologist who's ever lived, but his work that he's done on the Book of Abraham manuscripts is just horrible.

Brent Metcalfe [01:45:18] And you know, this presentation that he had somebody else deliver for him at a fair conference a few years ago where he's trying to argue that the characters on the Book of Abraham manuscripts were taken from all over the, the papyri fragment and not sequentially copied, that was probably one of the most ludicrous presentations I've ever seen.

Brent Metcalfe [01:45:47] You know, I didn't hear it personally, but I saw a write up of it and it was ridiculous and completely unfounded. And again, to me that goes to the heart of a person's credibility. You can publish in every Egyptological peer reviewed journal in the world, but if you can't produce, you know, analyses of These documents that can withstand critique, then you probably have no business even discussing them.

Brent Metcalfe [01:46:23] And I've seen this repeatedly with John Gee. And again, to me, when it comes to him explaining these documents, in my opinion, I have yet to see something that I would consider credible coming from him.

John Dehlin [01:46:44] Okay. And the church is even walking away, it seems, from his approach, right?

Brent Metcalfe [01:46:52] Yeah. Well, let's put it this way. I would say that they're opening doors to other approaches. So it may not be that they are completely walking away from the apologetic stance that he's taken in the past, but they're gravitating more toward what I would consider to be actually far more credible approaches to the Book of Abraham and approaches that could ultimately retain faith, as well as being honest with the evidence and being rigorous with the evidence. I'm reluctant to use that word, honesty in this case because I think there are scholars who have made a genuine effort to try and defend the Book of Abraham in terms of scholarship. But irrespective of whatever personal motivations folks may have, at minimum they lack credibility when it comes to actually dealing with the documents.

John Dehlin [01:48:00] Right. Any thoughts about is it Kerry Mullestein?

Brent Metcalfe [01:48:07] Right. Right. And again, Kerry seems like a very nice person. And again, along with John Gee, he may be an absolutely brilliant Egyptologist when it comes to dealing with the documents, the manuscripts. I just, at this stage, I don't even see him as being on the playing field.

Brent Metcalfe [01:48:30] He evidently sees himself otherwise and is publishing things fairly far and wide. I guess he's working on a book now, which I love, look forward to reading when it comes out, and I'll certainly consider whatever information he has there. But in much of what I've seen from him thus far, again, when it comes to the manuscripts and understanding their relationship to each other, he just makes statements that are just so puzzling and mind boggling.

Brent Metcalfe [01:49:12] Most recently, he made a comment about how we don't really know who translated the facsimile interpretations, even though he acknowledges that they were printed under Joseph Smith's oversight and so on in the times and seasons. We still don't know for sure because they're not in Joseph Smith's handwriting, even though it was his scribe who writes down the interpretations of the facsimiles. We still don't know for sure whether or not Joseph Smith actually produced the interpretations. And I look at that and I think, you know, if that's something we can't know from history and the documents and know the roles that each individual played, you know, who the scribes were versus who the translator was and so on, then we can't know anything about Joseph Smith.

Brent Metcalfe [01:50:16] And maybe that would be ideal for some apologists, quite frankly. But in this case, I think to make an assertion like that that Joseph Smith allowed into his publication, that he oversaw, that he allowed somebody else's interpretation of these documents to be published as a translation.

Brent Metcalfe [01:50:43] Right. Nobody ever said that Willard Richards was a translator, seer and revelator. They did say that Joseph Smith was. Nobody ever said that about Willard Richards. To suggest that somehow other people are coming up with this and Joseph Smith is just simply sliding it into the text is simply nonsensical and it's a useless apologetic, it's a non starter because when people think about it rationally, they're going to reject it out of hand. I mean, it's nonsense

John Dehlin [01:51:22] talk super briefly, just about who Robert Rittner is and what he's done with the Book of Abraham briefly and what he would say to the arguments of Kerry Mostn and John Gee and others.

Brent Metcalfe [01:51:38] Well, you know, Robert Rittner is a world renowned Egyptologist. He works out at the Oriental Institute, the University of Chicago. He has done a full translation of all of the Book of Abraham Papyrian fragments and has actually done a remarkable job of reconstructing some of the smallest fragments that we have that were glued to different pieces of paper that were completely unrelated. And he's reconstructed which pieces they belong to, given full translations of all of them. And I think his message would be decisive to John G. Or Kerry Molestein and that is that Joseph Smith did not know how to translate Egyptian and that the papyri that were in his possession had nothing to do with Abraham.

John Dehlin [01:52:42] Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, that's, that's significant, I think. So I guess some people want to know if you've got a book coming out like, you know, some have even asked for some reason if you're kind of moving away from Mormon studies, just talk super briefly about any research or future plans you have with the Book of Abraham.

Brent Metcalfe [01:53:13] You know, I've had intentions to write book length treatise on a variety of aspects of the Book of Abraham for some time. And in fact the book that became the translation effort of Robert Rutner, it was published by Signature Books, was actually begun under my editorship. And so I've had an intention of doing this for some time. And over the last few years and spending more and more time with the manuscripts, I decided that the best approach would be to begin by putting out different articles relating to certain facets that are illustrative of various aspects of analyzing the Book of Abraham manuscripts and to put those out and then eventually compile a book length work on top of it. So, for example, in the next John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, which will be out next week, it's got one of my articles, one of my Book of Abraham related articles in it.

John Dehlin [01:54:28] Got it?

Brent Metcalfe [01:54:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:54:30] What would you say to somebody, a critic, who says Brett Metcalfe has no graduate degree at all, let alone a graduate degree in Egyptology? He doesn't deserve to be even referred to as a scholar. He's not even on the playing field. What would you say to that?

Brent Metcalfe [01:54:49] I would say that the proof is in the pudding. And so I don't know of any university that's giving out PhDs in book of Abraham studies. And yet that's what we're really talking about here. And we're talking about getting down to the nitty gritty. You can be an Egyptologist at any level, and yes, that's going to certainly give you an advantage in trying to understand the history of the papyri and so on, but it's not going to give you any advantage to interpreting the manuscripts. And the fact is that that requires a very detailed eye, very analytical eye, an understanding of manuscript creation and so on.

Brent Metcalfe [01:55:39] And you know, I'm willing to put up my work against anyone's. And that's not to say that there aren't some very talented people or somehow I am the be all end all, because I hope that there are numerous scholars who will step up to the plate and surpass me in every way.

Brent Metcalfe [01:56:02] That's kind of the whole idea of this enterprise is that you want to see people come up with new and exhilarating thoughts and ideas. And, but you know, again, the proof is in the pudding. And if you can come up with a proper scholarly analysis, that's what will stand up to critique and time will tell. And I'm more than happy to subject anything that I write on the Book of Abraham or anything related to Mormonism to the most rigorous, rigorous critique.

John Dehlin [01:56:41] And if we're keeping score, the extent to which your scholarship has been validated by objective sort of third party Egyptologists, you know, my guess is that you would have a lot of support. And conversely, my guess is that any of the work of John Gee and Kerry Millestein and others, Hugh Nibley, would all be sort of summarily scoffed at by, by, you know, credible Egyptologists. Is that, is that pretty true?

Brent Metcalfe [01:57:20] Well, you know, I would say that personally I'm almost uncomfortable with those types of comparisons because I feel like that everybody's work should be judged on its own merits. And, you know, it may well be that tomorrow John Gee or Kerry will come up with just a brilliant argument that I hadn't thought of before, and I would think that is just an excellent contribution to our understanding of this.

Brent Metcalfe [01:58:01] I don't feel like that when, you know, it's easy to use throw around the terms apologist and critic without taking into consideration that those labels do not necessarily capture the totality of a person's work. And so what I would say is that on the things that I have done research on, extensive research relating to the manuscripts in the Book of Abraham, I have serious concerns about the quality and credibility of the work that some apologists have put out.

Brent Metcalfe [01:58:47] And that's what I feel probably most comfortable with saying. As to whether or not how they would stack rank in a university situation other than byu, I'll leave that to Egyptologists to voice their opinions on that.

John Dehlin [01:59:12] Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights and

Brent Metcalfe [01:59:24] other sources Cease to make me whole when with a wounded heart, anger or malice I draw my myself apart, Searching my soul.

Part 6 of 6 · Ep. 499b

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Brent Metcalfe [00:00:36] The kindly light a myth encircling gloom Lead thou me on the night is dark and I am far from home.

John Dehlin [00:00:54] Okay, so let's just step back and, you know, there's a discussion board called called Mormon Discussions. There's also one called Mormon Apologetic Dialogue or something like that. I think it's been called the MAD Board, but there's this whole underground of sort of Mormon scholars, Mormon critics, Mormon apologists. And if you go to any of these boards at any given time, there's just volumes of.

John Dehlin [00:01:25] Of text being written about all sorts of history and controversy and scholarship around Mormon studies. It's a real fascinating and vibrant subculture. And I know that you've had your own interactions with the likes of Daniel Peterson and Lou Midgley and others over the years. And so I'm just curious if you're, you know, if you're willing to talk about kind of when that first started and what your experience has been. Just personally trying to interact with Mormon apologists. And I want the conversation to kind of lead to where we are today, with what. What's happened with Mormon apologetics over time, how have they evolved and where are we today? And then we can talk about the future. But what are you able to talk about in terms of that history?

Brent Metcalfe [00:02:25] Well, you know, for me, the history is fairly long. You know, I remember having conversations with Dan Peterson and Steven Ricks and Bill Hamlin for years, decades back now. I remember going to lunch with Bill Hamlin. I want to say that David Seeley came along with us, that I may be misremembering. I'm pretty sure it was him. And he also works in the BYU Religion Department, I believe. And, you know, we had a fairly lively discussion over the Book of Mormon, and that turned into me, you know, corresponding with him on occasion.

John Dehlin [00:03:24] And when would this have been about again?

Brent Metcalfe [00:03:28] This would have been the 80s. And then Bill Hamlin started a listserv, which back in the day, for those who unfamiliar with that, that is the old version of a message board, for all intents and purposes. Or a Facebook group, but it was all done with ASCII characters only.

Brent Metcalfe [00:03:57] And so you would send off these messages to the listserv, and then they would be distributed. Folks would respond and. And the listserv was called Mormant. So M O R M ant, which stood for Mormonism and Antiquity. And when I got on there, I was definitely considered to be the black sheep of the group. And so there was a lot of dogpiling that went on during that time period.

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:36] But I. I was up for it and I enjoyed it and enjoyed the banter. I actually printed off, I think, the entire archive of Mormont. I've got it in a storage unit here, and it's reams and reams of paper.

Brent Metcalfe [00:04:54] And eventually that went to complete meltdown when Lou Midgley came on and just went off on a tirade involving me. And I just. I actually got banned. I think Bill Hamlin banned me from the forum, and it just went into complete meltdown at that point.

Brent Metcalfe [00:05:17] But that ended up being shut down. And so that was in the early days, and that was also during a time right before my book, New Approaches to the Book of Mormon came out, because there were some things on there. And this is where I had one of my first encounters with John Gee, where he gave a critique of a book that I had cited in a dialogue article that I was. That I had written. And he was going to publish a critique of this. And I responded to him with what I thought was a pretty deftly constructive response and explained to him what the situation was, why the person was being cited, and so on.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:01] And he never replied to me and then just went ahead and had his critique published, even though his critique completely misrepresented my position. And I had explained it in detail, and I just. Things like that were disheartening to say the least.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:24] And so as time has gone on, I've participated in a variety of forums and even had a really interesting exchange with Brian Hoglit at one point on the old FAIR message board about the Book of Abraham, where we discuss things in considerable detail.

Brent Metcalfe [00:06:47] And I enjoyed those exchanges, but as time has gone on, I've just got increasingly weary of all the white noise that's out there and you, you know, the lack of constructive, civil dialogue. And I've pretty much retreated from that now. I don't have a whole lot of interest in it. I don't really follow it even that much, only to the degree that if there's something that piques my interest and it may involve some future research project, I'LL certainly take a look. I want to be able to consider all types of different views on what my research involves. But as far as active participation, it's gone from being very active to being extremely inactive.

Brent Metcalfe [00:07:43] And in fact, even back in the days when the Zions Lighthouse message board was running, I was the first ex Mormon moderator of that forum. I don't know if people even knew I was a moderator because the majority of the moderators that we had were active LDs, but we had a wonderful relationship among the moderators, I think who we were. In fact, that was really, to me, the epitome of how a discussion should happen between believers, non believers, and anyone in between.

Brent Metcalfe [00:08:25] Because I thought that we treated each other with incredible respect and civility. And even when we disagreed and disagreed passionately with each other, it never became mean spirited or personal. And I wish I could see more of that there. But I tend to be a magnet for people who want to kind of come and be the person who responds to the new critic on the board or what have you. So I don't really participate much anymore. It doesn't really hold my interest, quite honestly.

LDS Apologetics, FAIR, and the Maxwell Institute

John Dehlin [00:09:12] Okay, what's the. There's something about Metcalfe is Butthead or something to that effect? Just tell that, tell that story really quick because it's mentioned like every month on one of these forums.

Brent Metcalfe [00:09:27] Right. That's the, I guess the apologetic gaffe that will never go away. I think we're stuck with that for all eternity. Yeah. Basically what happened was, is that Bill Hamlin wrote a reply to again to this dialogue piece, the same one that John Gee was going to be commenting on. And if I remember correctly, Hamlin's reply actually exceeded the length of my article.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:01] And in the reply, what he had done is he had formed an acrostic where the first letter of successive paragraphs each formed basically made out the word. And this is not including indented quotations. Right. They were left out of the acrostic, but all of the regular styled paragraphs formed the word Metcalfe is butthead.

Brent Metcalfe [00:10:31] And this was just something that I think that Bill thought was just incredibly funny, which I still am missing the humorous part because Bill also created this document that somebody gave me a copy of that had something to the effect of Dan Vogel and Brent Metcalfe are the Beavis and Butthead of Mormon Studies. And that sentence was. Was repeated over and over again, I think over the course of about six to 10 pages.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:14] And then footnotes are being given referencing something like the Journal of Beavis and Butthead studies. And that's all this document was, which I found, quite frankly, to be a little bizarre. And evidently he distributed it to a few of his students at byu, and eventually it ended up getting back me.

Brent Metcalfe [00:11:40] Then, you know, he gave an apology on an email and at one point about it, only for me to find out that within a day or two after that, he showed up at his farm's board meeting, where wearing a Beavis and Butthead T shirt, much to the delight of evidently, many of the board members.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:09] And the way that the acrostic was actually discovered is that I had found out through some people at BYU that he had done this. And I was on the phone one night with Scott Fahlbring, who was doing work with FARMS at the time, and I told him about it. I said, do you know that the next journal, the next review of books on the Book of Mormon that comes out is going to have this acrostic in it? And he was mortified.

Brent Metcalfe [00:12:45] He could not believe it. And so he got on the phone after I talked to him and started making phone calls. And they were recalling issues. They stripped covers off printed volumes, reprinted some of the pages, rebound them. But they did this, evidently. And this is something that I found out years later, before they could get to all of them, because as it turns out, some of the they had already given out earlier versions. For example, Bill Hamlin has said that he has a version with the acrostic still in it. And so other members of the board and so on had already received theirs, but the mailings had also already begun.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:33] And so evidently there was a woman in California who received a copy. And years later, Kurt Bench, who's a friend of mine and a collector of Mormon documents and seller of books and rare books and so on, purchased the copy and let me make copies of all the pages.

Brent Metcalfe [00:13:54] So I actually have photographic images of the entire crosstick that spells out Metcalfe, his butthead. So this notion that it was caught and never published, which Dan Peterson has repeated more times than I can count, is utter nonsense and in fact was published. And some of the books were actually distributed and sent out.

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:17] So if anyone ever sees Dan Peterson, say again, as he has many times on different forums, until I've confronted him on it, that they were never distributed and it was not formally published that way and it was removed, he's simply wrong. And he knows it. I mean, quite honestly, he knows it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:14:39] And I've got the proof of it right on my hard drive with images of all the pages. But I think it was a really puerile act that, you know, they effectively turned what should have been a scholarly journal into a bathroom wall. And it was just a really juvenile behavior on their part.

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:02] And hopefully somebody in there has learned their experience. But now, having said that, everything has come full circle, right? Because now Hamlin and Peterson are increasingly marginalized by Mormon scholars and even other Mormon apologists who take a very scholarly bent approach to Mormonism.

Brent Metcalfe [00:15:29] They are finding now, Hamlin, Peterson, and those of their ilk are finding themselves increasingly on the outskirts of Mormon state studies rather than in the midst of them.

John Dehlin [00:15:42] And what do you make of that? Like, what do you make of, do you have any particular feelings about or opinions about the former Maxwell Institute? What happened with Daniel Peterson and Lou Midgley and Greg Smith and others? You know, how do you, how do you make sense of that? And do you have any particular, you know, thoughts or reactions to that? What, what happened there, you know, a year or two ago?

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:16] Well, I, I, I have no, you know, firsthand knowledge of any of it, and I'm not going to pretend to have any sources that have really filled me in, because to be honest with you, at a certain level, I really don't care. And, but I will say that I think the redecoration of the house, so to speak, at the Maxwell Institute has probably been.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] Wait, the what? The what?

Brent Metcalfe [00:16:48] The redecoration of the house, so to speak, where they've remodeled. And I don't want to say that they've torn down the house and built, built a new one, but they've certainly done some fairly serious remodeling. And I would say that the changes that they have made, in all honesty, for the spiritual health and intellectual health of the church moving forward, they've made, in my opinion, some very positive moves.

Brent Metcalfe [00:17:22] And that's not to say that that's because they're coming closer to the way I think about things. That's not it at all. I think that they're just trying to get into a direction where they're getting specialists in their individual fields to address very specific issues as openly and as honestly as they can.

Brent Metcalfe [00:17:44] And I think that for the longevity of the Maxwell Institute, and especially in the Internet era, apologists could get away with a whole lot in the past, when Hugh Nibley was writing, he could get away with so much. In the age of the Internet, you cannot pull the wool over people's eyes, and you have to be very careful how you tread. And I think that the changes that the Maxwell Institute have made will go a long way to try and rectify that situation and try and come up with a more transparent approach to history and belief. That's my take anyway. And again, I'm just giving you an opinion here. I don't have any firsthand insider knowledge of any of those.

John Dehlin [00:18:39] Sure, sure. Okay. What do you, you know, what do you think? And, and I've asked you this several times, both with historical figures and modern, modern ones. But like, have you ever tried to, have you ever had a talk with any of these guys and ever tried to figure out how they, how they work, how they do what they do? You know what I'm saying? Because they can't find any credible, you know, scientists outside of sort of the LDS Church payroll, you know, to validate any of their work, and yet they keep, they keep plugging.

Brent Metcalfe [00:19:27] Well, let me give you two examples that I, that I know. One is a person who, very prominent Mormon apologists for farms. I'm not going to get their name and out of respect for them, but I know that this person, While in his PhD program, it came to, to say it was a crisis of faith is an understatement.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:07] In his mind, he was left with one of two choices that he either become an atheist or he just take a massive leap of faith and embrace Mormonism as true, irrespective of evidence. And he chose the latter. He was absolutely entertaining the notion. You know, he was at a point where he could not justify the existence of God.

Brent Metcalfe [00:20:48] And rather than go down the atheist's path and the atheist's journey, he chose to make a leap of faith that he knew would force him to suspend his own judgments on scholarship and how it pertained to the truthfulness of Mormonism.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:12] You know, Kerry Molestein has just recently published a piece on the Book of Abraham where he talks about assumptions that scholars bring to the study of the Book of Abraham. And he says right up front that my assumption is that the Book of Abraham is true. And by true, he's saying it's a translation of Egyptian and this is how we got the text and so on.

Brent Metcalfe [00:21:44] The problems with that are just innumerable in my mind, because one, what he's really saying is that he's not beginning with the assumption that the Book of Abraham is true in some cosmic sense, but rather that his interpretation of how the Book of Abraham is true is what is true.

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:08] In other words, he's not distinguishing a truth claim from his own interpretation that leads to that truth claim. And really what he's saying is I begin with my assumption. Well, the fact is that there are many of us who have begun with the assumption that the Book of Abraham may be this or that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:22:30] But we've also been open to the idea that that learning more can in fact help refine and craft our assumptions into things that may be different than what we had previously thought. That, to me, is what scholarship does. What Kerry Mullestine describes in this essay of his that was just recently published in the Meridian magazine. I guess he gave a. A version of it at the Fair Conference, the Fair Mormon Conference.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:05] What Carey Mullistein describes is the antithesis of scholarship. It's everything we should not want to be doing. In other words, we don't concoct our own illusions of what we consider to be a truth claim, what we consider to be the criteria on which we are going to judge whether or not something is true or false.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:27] But we allow our assumptions to be molded and to be refined and in some cases even undermined by new discovery and new evidence. That's what scholarship is about to me. And that is the distinction, I suppose, between a path where here he has clearly delineated the apologist path.

Brent Metcalfe [00:23:52] And I'm trying to say that the critical scholar's path is something very different than that because it allows for the realization that those assumptions that we start with to begin with are in fact interpretations. They're our interpretations and they are subject to revision just like any other interpretation we may have.

Brent Metcalfe [00:24:17] I would expect that folks would hold my research and my analyses to a rigorous standard and not give me a pass because I'm a believer or a non believer. Just because there may be those who have doubts about the truthfulness of Mormonism that doesn't justify them in of terms just taking me at my word, you should be every bit as rigorous in critiquing my arguments and beliefs as you would the apologists, arguments and beliefs.

John Dehlin [00:24:59] Sure. Okay. So overall, you see the changes, you know, changes with the Maxwell Institute as positive ones, right?

Brent Metcalfe [00:25:11] Yes, I do, I do. And again, it's not because I see them as kind of slowly moving in my direction at all. I just think that they are bringing a wide variety of talent and refreshing ideas to the discussion of Mormon studies. And we're kind of, you know, changing of the guard, if you will. It's time to move on to bigger and better things. And there is a whole dynamic, refreshing way of viewing religion as a whole as well as society that the scholars that they are employing will be bring that, I think, to the discussion.

John Dehlin [00:26:04] Sure. Okay. All right. So do you feel like over time Apologists are just sort of destined to lose.

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:23] Well, you know, do you see them

John Dehlin [00:26:25] retreating, you know, over time?

Brent Metcalfe [00:26:29] I see the apologetics changing, and that is that, you know, David Wright, the friend of mine who was excommunicated along with me as a result of our contributions to new approaches to the Book of Mormon, David had, you know, written a piece on what he, he described as a post critical apologetic and of course that incurred the wrath of folks like Bill Hamlin and others.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:04] But what David foresaw in that article is something that I think we'll see as an adjustment going forward. It's not so much that apologists are destined to, to lose as that certain types of apologetics are going to become antiquated.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:26] And that's what I see happening now is that there are already certain types of apologetic arguments that simply are not going to, are not going to survive a rigorous analysis. They just simply aren't. And that's already a way. And the Book of Abraham is a good example.

Brent Metcalfe [00:27:50] You know, if somebody is going to argue that the Book of Abraham contains traditions about Abraham that were not known in the early 19th century, and then they bring together these different works that have been put out by farms in support of this, they failed already because I can show that in fact, that is not the case then. In fact, some of these traditions were not simply known in Joseph Smith's era, but arguably widely known in Joseph Smith's era.

Brent Metcalfe [00:28:24] And so again, those are types of arguments that I think are just simply going to be obsolete in a matter of a decade or so, if even that.

John Dehlin [00:28:37] Sure. Okay. Well, I guess. Do you, do you follow people like Richard Bushman and Taro Givens and you know, David Bulkovoy, Adam Miller? Do you follow kind of this new, kind of this new generation, old, new generation of Mormon apologists?

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:05] Well, you know, it's interesting that you would say that because there's actually a comparison to be made there. And that is when I look at say a Richard Bushman or a Leonard Arrington who's now deceased. You know, these were folks who understood some of the, and understand some of the complexities of history and so on for decades.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:34] And I think that they have taken a different approach, a more nuanced approach to a defense of the faith. And so that's kind of what I'm talking about that we're seeing that come more to the forefront. I mean, I've read some of the, the works of all the authors that you've mentioned.

Brent Metcalfe [00:29:59] I think that there's still considerable refinement to happen, you know, as time goes on. I think that they're bright, talented people and have obviously enormous amounts to contribute and have already contributed, you know, significant amounts to our understanding.

Brent Metcalfe [00:30:24] But the path is still ahead and there's. A lot of underbrush that needs to be cut off in front of us as we move forward. So, yeah, I don't think we're there yet, but eventually, I suppose. But again, that's just my opinion.

John Dehlin [00:30:49] So where can you see apologetics going in the future? That's sort of salvageable and what, you know, can the church, you know, the church is clearly trying to make some headway with these essays overall. Just what's your take of the essays overall? Not just the Book of Abraham, but the essays, you know, First Vision, you know, the kind of the polygamy that doesn't involve Nauvoo, you know, all the essays, DNA in the Book of Mormon. What do you make of the essays overall?

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:24] Well, I think that I think for many people, at least, you know, friends that I've talked to, or both LDs, non LDs, some have described them as, you know, tremendous leaps forward where as I kind of view them, and I don't want to sound too uncharitable with this because this is purely coming from my personal perspective, and that is that I see them as taking baby steps to try and catch up.

Brent Metcalfe [00:31:58] In other words, they're not really caught up yet. They're still trying to get there. But are those baby steps important for a community of faith? I think absolutely they are in letting a membership know that you're not unfaithful if you believe this idea, because we recognize that this happened in our past.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:25] And I think that that reassurance alone will go a long way to help certain members who are struggling. But there is a long ways to go, and I think that that's recognized. I don't think that everyone is oblivious to that, but I think that some of the acknowledgments that they've made are very important.

Brent Metcalfe [00:32:55] I think it's very troublesome to members to find out certain things about. Their religious heritage and then to suddenly feel this guilt that somehow they are unfaithful because they're believing in things that they read most predominantly in what antagonists write about the church and when they recognize it. No, actually, you know, scholars have been talking about, you know, faithful scholars have been talking about this for generations.

Brent Metcalfe [00:33:33] I think that there's a reassurance that can come to certain members and feeling that they're not alone and that they're not on the verge of apostasy simply because they're recognizing an actual fact of the historical past. And I think that that alone will have a positive impact on the membership.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:01] I know it has with members of my family, quite honestly, which we rarely discuss religion, but when we do, we have talked about a few times in the context of those statements that are being put out. And I'm pleased to see that the family members are reading them and reading them in detail and understanding the details of the nuances of what these things are saying, that this is giving more information about these rather controversial topics and what they've had in the past, and certainly far more than anything they've ever heard in Sunday school.

Brent Metcalfe [00:34:46] So I think that that is a very positive step for the church to take. And, you know, something that I'm sure is comforting to LDS scholars, that they can talk maybe a little bit more openly about some of these topics without feeling like they're going to. Going to come under some type of disciplinary scrutiny.

John Dehlin [00:35:12] Right, right. But do you see the church, you know, it's. It's slowly retreating. It's. It's back, you know, we've talked about the fact that it's backed away from who the Lamanites are. It's backed off of, you know, the law of consecration. It's backed off of polygamy. It's backed off of, you know, gathering in Zion in Missouri.

John Dehlin [00:35:45] It's now backing off the translation. Joseph wasn't a translator anymore. And it, you know, you could, you could say that the church just continues to retreat and retreat and retreat. And do you think this is something it can pull off? Do you think, do you think this has some big day of reckoning where. Where the church experiences, you know, not just bleeding of a. A few percentage points, but like a significant deterioration in membership. Or do you think that it can sort of do what it seems to be doing now, which is this inoculation to slowly, you know, create these essays, to slowly introduce them into the ces, you know, seminary institute curriculum, BYU university curriculum.

John Dehlin [00:36:33] And over time, members are like, yeah, I was taught about the stone in the hat when I was in high school, and I was taught about the first vision things in high school and all that DNA stuff. It's not conclusive. And, you know, can you see the church being able to pull this off, or do you see it having a more severe day of reckoning at some point?

Brent Metcalfe [00:36:56] Well, ultimately, what I see them retreating from are bad arguments, and that cannot be anything but positive. So, in other words, the History has been the history all along. The scriptural texts have been the scriptural texts that they are all along.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:21] None of that has changed. It's just that the arguments that have been put forward to present the Church in a certain way or a certain light were just simply bad arguments, and that's what they're retreating from. And so if they're retreating from that and actually turning around to embrace their history, then I can't see that as being anything but positive.

Brent Metcalfe [00:37:49] And, you know, again, Mormonism is fundamentally a historical religion. The Doctrine and Covenants is full of these revelations issued by Joseph Smith at a historical time and place. They're historical artifacts, all of these documents. So Mormonism can't escape history.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:14] So why not embrace it? Embrace it fully and say, this is the way we're going to cultivate a vibrant faith is by embracing our past, learning from those experiences and then trying to understand them, how they relate to us and our relationship with the divine.

Brent Metcalfe [00:38:41] That, to me, is nothing but positive. And, you know, some members may feel otherwise, certainly members that are on the verge of fundamentalism would certainly feel otherwise. But I see the retreat from bad arguments as a positive, positive thing, not a negative. And so can the Church withstand this over time? I mean, who am I to even begin to say on something on that level? But I do believe that Mormonism is, if there's one thing it's shown throughout its history, is that it is remarkably resilient.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:26] It has come back from the. The brink of death many, many times, and I can't imagine what it would take to bring a movement like that down. It's too youthful, it's too young, it's too vibrant, and it's too resilient.

Brent Metcalfe [00:39:46] Again, I see it as learning from these experiences and a new generation of, of LDS appreciating the lessons that are learned and not rejecting them. But that's my take. Maybe I'm being too overly optimistic. I don't know.

John Dehlin [00:40:04] Well, I mean, we certainly have the Catholic Church and, you know, dozens and dozens of other religions that are now centuries, if not millennia old that persist in spite of all this difficulty. So, yeah, so I think there's lots of evidence that Mormonism is here to stay for the long run, you know.

Brent Metcalfe [00:40:23] Right, right. And in fact, your reference to Catholicism is a great analogy. I mean, you look at the new Pope who, while he's not, you know, some raving liberal or something, some of the issues, from doctrinal issues to social issues, you name it that he's talked about, it's revolution. Vitalize Catholicism. It hasn't suppressed it or turned it into something where people are leaving in droves because the Pope no longer is adhering to every jot and tittle of the faith.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:01] On the contrary, people are seeing their faith as new and living and a growing faith and not a dead faith where you're talking about papal encyclicals that are inerrant and can never be changed. Instead, you're hearing a Pope who's talking about revitalization and rethinking and readjusting a mindset of how people approach, whether it be the poor or the gay and lesbian communities.

Brent Metcalfe [00:41:40] You know, this is something, I think that that should actually be a lesson to folks that when it comes to seeing a church being revitalized, change is not the death knell for a movement. It can often be the very thing that breathes new life into it.

John Dehlin [00:42:02] Right. So you're. You're almost bullish on Mormonism, it sounds like.

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:07] I. I guess so. And I never really thought of myself that way, so.

John Dehlin [00:42:15] You know, one of. One of my listeners commented that it seems like the church is shifting away from evidence towards feelings as the foundation for. For, you know, allegiance. And I'm guessing that you would say that's a smart move.

What Church Leaders Know and the Future of Apologetics

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:32] Yeah, to some degree. And I think the best move is when it comes to religion, feelings are at the core of a movement, in my opinion. In other words, what does the movement do for you? Does it make your life better? Do you feel a better person because of it?

Brent Metcalfe [00:42:58] I think going back to what Fiona Givens referred to, I believe, as her creed, the notion that I would rather live my life this way because of how my life has been enhanced by this community than to live it outside of the this community and not have a richness of life, only to find out that there's nothing afterlife anyway. Right. So in other words, whether there's an afterlife or not, if it's something that enriches your life, if you find a community experience where you belong, then that is at the core of what it means to you. The historical parts of it is that transparency matters.

Brent Metcalfe [00:43:49] Because there's one thing that I've said on multiple occasions that there is something that will devastate a member more than finding out that Brigham Young ever taught the Adam God theory, and that's to find out that a subsequent apostle or prophet lied about it.

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:09] That will be far more damaging to them than to find out that Brigham Young taught this idiosyncratic doctrine. And transparency does matter. If there's transparency, then there's nothing to be demythologized, so to speak, in an abruptive way. There's nothing that's so disruptive in your life that your commitment to the community and how it's transformed your life can't overcome.

Brent Metcalfe [00:44:40] And so that's sort of my, my take on it. And I would say that with, with any community, whether you're, you know, Mormon, Baptist, Catholic, or part of some grand humanist movement, I think that it's how a community can transform your life that ultimately matters.

John Dehlin [00:45:06] Right, but yet you're not religious. Is that true?

Brent Metcalfe [00:45:10] No, no. And that's fine because I find meaning in my life and with my family. My family is my community and my friends around me, they form that communal structure. And there is a richness and vibrance that I find in that, that more so than I found anywhere else. And so that's what I gravitate to. And yeah, that's where I find my fulfillment.

John Dehlin [00:45:52] Okay. Have you ever been asked before to speculate on, you know, what the, what the modern apostles and prophets know or don't know, believe or don't believe? And if you have, how do you traditionally answer that question? Well, I think especially that you've interacted with them so directly, you know, that they know quite a bit. Right.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:17] Well, well, let's put it this way. And in the case of Markey Peterson, whatever else he may have believed, I know that he knew that Brigham Young taught the Adam God theory because he admitted it to me and it wasn't like something I had to drag out of him. He just kind of blurted it out. We were in the car driving to his home that evening.

Brent Metcalfe [00:46:45] Yeah, I'm sure that some of the apostles and so on are aware of some of the thornier issues. Do I believe for a second, like I saw somebody say on one of the comments, I can't even remember where it was. Now that they know that Joseph Smith's a fraud and they're just perpetuating this for the sake of the corporation, so to speak. And you know, I just don't see that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:22] You know, my dad's been in an upper level church position, albeit on the corporate side, you know, as managing director of temples. I have other family members who have held a variety of church leadership positions and I just don't see that.

Brent Metcalfe [00:47:46] Are they aware that there are problems and thorny issues? Yes. Do they believe that Joseph secretly believe that Joseph Smith was a fraud? I sincerely doubt that. Could they? Well, of course, I mean, we're speculating living after all, but Do I think that. No, I've not seen anything in my experience. And again, it's not that fast, but in my experience I've seen nothing that would lead me to believe that somehow they know that Joseph was a charlatan and they're just continuing the charade. I just, I, I don't see that in church leadership. Instead, I see men and women who are very fallible humans trying to do the best they can to handle what otherwise could be a very unwieldy sized organization.

Brent Metcalfe [00:48:49] And they're doing it with members living close in a global community where cultures are different and expectations are different. And I think they're trying to do the best they can to manage that and to shepherd the flock of a global diverse community.

Brent Metcalfe [00:49:13] And I don't envy their challenges. So it's easy to, to sit here as an armchair interpreter of what they should or shouldn't do. But I don't envy their challenges. And they're going to be seeing many more challenges, I think, in the future, not less. And so transparency again matters because I think that that will be something that will help ameliorate the pain and difficulty I had.

John Dehlin [00:49:50] Yeah. One, one aspiring Mormon historian asked you, you know, what advice do you have for aspiring Mormon historians? And as a second part to that, what issues do you feel like are most interesting and worthy of exploration? Or has all the good stuff already been, you know, already been explored and uncovered?

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:13] Well, well, okay, first answer to the first part. Don't follow my example. Do what you can to get an education in a specific area of specialty that you can bring to bear on the topic. Unfortunately, that wasn't my path and now I here I am in my 50s and I'm certainly not going to think about what other ways I can go back to school and become a freshman to learn something. I've just become an avid reader and that's where I am in life. So education is important.

Brent Metcalfe [00:50:58] It can open your mind to a variety of new ideas and thoughts. I've been extraordinarily fortunate to have numerous friends who are very, very well educated and thoughtful people. Some well educated in a traditional sense, some in a less traditional sense, but that's certainly been something that's helped me.

Brent Metcalfe [00:51:26] As for has everything been uncovered? Heavens no. I mean, I'm giving a presentation next week that involves a document that to my knowledge no one has ever referenced before to a document that we didn't even know exist until the Revelation book was found. And that was thought to be the only copy that survived of this Revelation. That we didn't even know existed until then, and now there's another one. So, no, there is much more to be done in the field of Mormon studies and in a variety of areas leading into the 21st century, doing historical research and analyses on sociology of religion and so on.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:19] There are just numerous areas. But more importantly, I would tell a young budding scholar, never underestimate the power of your creativity to bring a new interpretation to the table that somebody else has not thought about before, because that simple interpretation could revolutionize an entire thought processes that we've had surrounding a given topic. And no, never be discouraged. It just takes a lot of work and a lot of tenacity.

Brent Metcalfe [00:52:58] But it's worth it if that's what your interest is. I mean, it's worth pursuing. And there's much, much more to the story. Much, much more.

John Dehlin [00:53:12] Right. Would you. Do you think you could say that it was worth it for you? I mean, we've talked about some pretty difficult times for you, some pretty big sacrifices made in the name of Mormon history. If you could go back, would you. Would you just totally take a different path, or are you still glad you followed it, your passion?

Brent Metcalfe [00:53:44] I'm absolutely glad that I followed it. It's how I met my wife, Erin, and I love her dearly and tremendously, and that's how we met. And I think about, you know, missing out on that segment of my life is now a horrible thought. But, no, I wouldn't want to change it. And what's more, not everything was a choice along the way. Some of the things were choices that in some cases led to unseen or unintended consequences. But would I change the direction I've gone? No, because I found it remarkably fulfilling and interesting. Although if anyone is still listening at this point in these podcasts, they will recognize just how boring this can be. And, John, you should have an awareness reward that you're giving out to anyone who can say that they listen through all the podcasts at this point in our conversation because they deserve some type of award of some sort.

John Dehlin [00:55:07] No, I think people are really enjoying the series. Okay, well, let's turn to the final sort of part. And I want this to be the most. The hopeful and most constructive part. Like, there are a lot of people out there who are just petrified.

John Dehlin [00:55:25] They may not believe in the Church's traditional narrative, and they may even have a familial circumstance where they could leave the Church if they wanted to and not face kind of catastrophic consequences. But there's a lot of people that Just have bought into the perception that you can't be happy leaving the church. You can't raise healthy, good kids outside of the church.

John Dehlin [00:55:56] It's scary, you know, it's too dangerous, it's risky. How do I assemble a set of morals? What do I do with my existential worldview if I don't believe in a God? Does life even have any meaning or purpose?

John Dehlin [00:56:19] Aren't I giving up too much, not just physically, materially, socially, but existentially to leave? And if I let all that go, what do I replace it all with? And so just why don't you just, if you can, let's kind of close things out today by talking about how you have navigated post Mormonism in a way that you feel might give hope to people if they feel like that's the path they want to go. Maybe some hope and some tips on how to do that skillfully.

Brent Metcalfe [00:56:57] Well, you know, first off, it's funny that I've heard LDS folks actually say to me that, you know, if, if this isn't true, then, you know, why don't I go out and commit adultery or rob banks and so on and actually hear people say that? And I've thought to myself, you know, are you in touch with yourself at all? Because the fact is, is that we're not robots, right? We're not artificial intelligence.

Brent Metcalfe [00:57:33] We're deeply feeling human beings. And whatever meaning we get in life is going to be self constructed anyway based on our empathetic responses to life and others. I think this idea that there is no life outside of Mormonism or no happiness outside of any particular faith is of course nonsense. I think you can find happiness in a variety of areas, but going back to Fiona Givens Creed, you can almost reverse that model too. And that is that, you know, I'm going to live my life to the best of my ability. Even not believing that an afterlife, because whether I believe in an afterlife or not is not going to make it so or not.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:28] So it either is or it isn't. And it's not contingent on my beliefs. So I know that in this world that I'm a feeling human being who cares about other people, who finds joy in seeing the joy in other people and in your children or your family or your friends. It doesn't matter who it is.

Brent Metcalfe [00:58:50] You know, you don't have to be in a traditional family structure. You can find that joy and love within your own world. And it should never be contingent on what someone else is dictating to you as a belief system.

Brent Metcalfe [00:59:08] It should be something that each traveler on life's journey should find for themselves and for those who want to stay within the church. My recommendation is turn it into a symbiotic relationship. You know, I've always had this view that when it comes to a career, that there's really no loyalty to an employer in my mind. And let me explain what I mean by that, just so that that's not misconstrued.

Brent Metcalfe [00:59:46] Whatever loyalty or semblance of loyalty there may be in terms of a relationship with an employer is one that is purely built on being loyal to my career. And being loyal to my career. I know that that means being honest with my colleagues, being honest with my employer, to be ethical in my work behavior at all times, and to show integrity in the workplace, that's being loyal to my career.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:19] And so in that sense, that's where my loyalty lies. Because you know as well as anyone else that if you work for a mega corporation like we both have, their loyalty to you is about as short as your department just got done away with.

Brent Metcalfe [01:00:43] So there's no reason to be showing that kind of unrealistic loyalty, this unfettered, almost familial affection towards an employer, but rather, you treat it as a symbiotic relationship because ultimately what matters is your career. And so effectively, you know that they're going to give you what you need for sustenance and maintaining life and so on. And in return, because of your loyalty not to the employer, but to your career, you're going to give them what they expect.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:17] And that is integrity, you know, a work ethic and so on. I think that the same would be a healthy relationship with a church, quite frankly. And that is that really what you're loyal to is your spiritual quest, your life's journey. That's where your loyalty is.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:38] And so what you're going to do is you're going to, as a result of that, you're going to give your community the most that you can. And in return, you're going to expect the sustenance for your spiritual and life's journey.

Brent Metcalfe [01:01:55] And if at some point those two don't match up, just like a department being done away with in a corporation, it doesn't mean that life is over or that your career is over, but instead, you simply remain loyal to your spirituality and life's journey, whatever that may be, and you continue on. And that, to me, is where the disconnect often happens. When I see people who have been excommunicated from the church where it has been so disruptive in their lives, they've been on the brink of suicide and so on. And this isn't to diminish anything that they feel, because I get that, I get the absolute trauma of feeling betrayed by leadership, feeling that the very institution who you thought would be there to support you has effectively rejected you.

Brent Metcalfe [01:02:51] I get that. But ultimately it's about you being loyal to your life's journey. And that's really where your focus should be. And your religious or faith tradition should almost be an ancillary product or a vehicle for achieving that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:03:14] And if it ever becomes, you know, so that it's not a functional vehicle for that life's journey, then make other decisions, but have a path in place, have a plan in place. That's one of the things that I think that religion doesn't really help prepare people for. And that is effectively creating that own unique spiritual space and that own life journey that people can move on and that they can fall into doubt on but not feel like they've become an apostate, right where they can rise up in the ranks but not feel like they are better than everyone else in the their community.

Brent Metcalfe [01:03:59] That's something that I think religion as a whole has a difficult time doing. And in my experience in Mormonism, that religion in particular, I think to elevate themselves above that and for the longevity of the community, teaching people to create their life's journey and their spiritual paths would do wonder for the health of the overall church.

Brent Metcalfe [01:04:27] And you know, people are probably going to be listening to this, going, wait a second, he doesn't even believe. But I'll tell you, these are things that in my life's journey in trying to understand where I've come from in my religious heritage, those have been the things that have got me through the difficult times, times. And those are the things that propel me ahead. And that to me breeds a healthy interaction with any community within which he may reside.

John Dehlin [01:05:08] How do you plug the godhole? Just this security of an afterlife, of a resurrection of Satan, seeing our family again, of an all knowing, all loving being that's there taking care of us. I mean, those are some pretty reassuring things when life gets dark.

Brent Metcalfe [01:05:26] Oh, absolutely. But on the converse, just because I believe a certain way doesn't make it so. That's for believers and non believers alike, right? Because I may not believe in an afterlife doesn't mean that there isn't one. If there is, there's nothing I can do to change that. Just like if I do believe in an afterlife or a divine being or whatever the case may be doesn't make that so either. And so those are things that on my journey certainly now, I bracket because they aren't going to matter to the here and now. For some people they may, but for me, they have in actual fact not been a source of comfort. They've been a disquieting element in my life. And so for me to not hold on to those ideas now has been, in certain respects, emancipating.

John Dehlin [01:06:31] How? A loving, a living God that's there to help you and nurture you and take care of you. How could it be emancipating and heartwarming to lose that?

Brent Metcalfe [01:06:44] Because life's experiences have suggested that either there isn't a loving God who's there to hold me and nurture me, or he hasn't always been there to hold me and nurture me. And I don't know which is the better option. Not believing or believing that you're rejected by God.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:06] And that's. The complexities of life don't always lend themselves to interpreting life as these wondrous, miraculous, blessed experiences. Sometimes life can be utterly brutal and horrific. And to think that a loving God who has the capacity to reach out and hold me, yet didn't in those incredible times of need is just almost an affront to faith for me.

Brent Metcalfe [01:07:43] And so for me, to believe in a being like that is not a being I would want to worship. In fact, it's a being who sounds closer to my earlier concepts of the devil than to God. Someone who would sit idly by, who has complete capacity to intervene and does nothing under the most horrific circumstances, the most traumatic, traumatizing circumstances that life has to. To deal is an affront to faith, in my opinion. Not something that I find comfort from.

John Dehlin [01:08:25] What about an afterlife where you get to live forever with your family again?

Life After Mormonism, Parenting, and Relationships

Brent Metcalfe [01:08:30] That's not something that whether I believe that or not isn't going to matter. So the bottom line is you may as well live every day with those that you care about and with your family as if it is the last day. Let me tell you, our lives would be so much better and a far more wonderful world if we actually took that approach and treated each other with the kindness and love that we would expect to be giving someone. If we knew that we were at death's door and that the was our last opportunity to show them how much we love them, how much we cared about them, I think we would be living in a much better world.

John Dehlin [01:09:23] Sure. How did you fill the spiritual hole

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:30] for Me, I guess if. If there's a spirituality that I have, for lack of a better term, it's in a connection that I feel with life, with people that I have a very difficult time, quite frankly, putting words to.

Brent Metcalfe [01:09:58] It's something that. That I feel very real. But some could just say it's, you know, snapsies in your brain firing or something, and that's it. But the fact is that they are things that matter to me as a human because I am a human feeling, human being. And those things. Things matter to me, and they resonate inside of me every day.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:35] And that's what I feel. I do have to say, John, in seeing all of this, I would never want anyone to feel that I have gained some greater insight or I found the truth or something like that, that I don't feel that at all.

Brent Metcalfe [01:10:54] But what I do feel is that I found peace in my corner of the world. And all I can wish for others is to find that same peace wherever it may reside, whether it's within religion, outside side of it, you know, or somewhere in the murky area in between. I would just hope that everyone could find their way and attain that peace.

John Dehlin [01:11:33] Okay, what about the community whole?

Brent Metcalfe [01:11:42] Well, you know, again, for me, it's going back to that model I was talking about of, you know, when the community, like your employer, is supportive in giving you sustenance, then you'll find value there. When that sustenance dissipates, that value is diminished.

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:07] And so, I mean, to be honest with you, the initial reason why I became inactive from the LDS Church, which was years before I was excommunicated, was because it seemed like every ward I moved into, within a week or two of moving there, I would be called to be the Gospel doctrine teacher because people would recognize I had an interest in Mormon history and biblical studies and so on. I'd be called to that position. And within a few weeks after that, I would be having my classes monitored by someone because a member was concerned over something I had said in a class. And quite honestly, I felt like because of the.

Brent Metcalfe [01:12:58] The position I was being put in, I felt like I was more disruptive than constructive. And I felt like their lives would be much better if I just was not participating at that level. And so I remember one of the last sacrament meetings I attended, a member of the Stake Presidency had given this miracle story that just left me utterly bewildered as to how he could ever understand the story he was telling as being a miracle.

Brent Metcalfe [01:13:37] And I just thought then and there that, you know, for my own spiritual health and for my life's journey that there would probably be a better arrangement. If at that point in my life I wasn't participating at the level I was, could that have meant that I may not have participated at some later point? Who knows? We're always morphing, changing creatures.

Brent Metcalfe [01:14:11] At least I would hope we are. But, but at that point that's, you know, just made me decide. I don't think the arrangement I have with the community right now is working well. So in that sense I have not really missed that part of it.

Brent Metcalfe [01:14:35] And I found other ways to build other kinds of communities in my life and, and I'm fine with what I have. I would say personally, I am more fulfilled by what I have now than I ever was being part of that larger community. But that's just me. Others I don't doubt would have very different experiences.

John Dehlin [01:15:03] What about raising kids? There are many just petrified saying, how do you raise a good, righteous, moral, healthy kid without the church?

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:13] Well, you know, I've done that and I think my children are remarkably empathetic human beings. And a lot of it doesn't come from the words that we say, but in the deeds that we do. And in saying that that is not only the good things that we do, but also the not so good things that we do. And that is to.

Brent Metcalfe [01:15:47] I have been very open with my children when I feel like I have misspoken or said something that was hurtful at a time that was completely inappropriate. Not that there really is ever an appropriate time for that, but I tell them and I've been so open with them and said, you know, I am so sorry, that is not what I intended. You know, this is what I was trying to get across and it came out completely wrong.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:22] And letting your kids see that you are fallible and on a journey and that you have things to teach them, but sometimes the things that you have to teach them are from your own errors, not from all the things you do right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:16:42] Sometimes it's from the things you do wrong. And in my experience with, with my children, I think I've been incredibly fortunate that they're just amazing kids. And the fact of the matter is that raising kids, it's not easy. And it doesn't matter whether you're Mormon or not. There are kids who are raised in the Mormon Church by good devout family and they're completely screwed up.

Brent Metcalfe [01:17:20] There are others who are raised who are completely well adjusted. And the same goes for believing and non believing families. There's no magical formula in my Mind that says that somehow by being a Mormon, your kids are going to be raised correctly, or by being a Baptist or going to be raised correctly. I think it's what goes on in the home ultimately that matters.

John Dehlin [01:17:46] How about this, though? How about the logic that you'll have the best chance at raising a happy, healthy kid if you have the support of the church, you know, there for you, that it's just. It's maximizing your probability of success by preserving the benefits of community and institution and morality that the church affords,

Brent Metcalfe [01:18:16] you know, and again, I think it's so individual and there are so many factors that go into raising children. The interaction with the community is just part of it. I know. I remember growing up, there was one young man in a ward I was in who was just constantly bullied by all the other males in his age group.

Brent Metcalfe [01:18:45] And now I think back on that and think what a horrible childhood you must have had in your experience within the church. And so I'm just in saying that I'm not trying to point that out as that that's somehow typical of anything. I'm just saying that each situation is very unique. And quite honestly, I mean, you know, my son is currently living with me. He's going to college, and he, you know, I'm a proud dad, I'll admit it. But he's remarkable in so many ways and so thoughtful about the world around him that I can't imagine what benefit the church would have had to offer over and above where he's at, especially because of how open and tolerant he is of all his friends.

Brent Metcalfe [01:19:45] He has friends across the spectrum of belief. One of his best friends, he's not a believer. And one of his best friends is an evangelical Christian, and they go out to dinner all the time. They're just close friends.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:04] And I look at that and go, I'm not sure how the church could have necessarily added to his experience. He's incredibly empathetic towards others. He is completely open to what science has to offer him. He's not going to look at the world through the lens of a doctrinal set of sunglasses, right? Instead, he's going to see the world as it is, the best that he can, and learn as much as he can from the various specialties that he goes into.

Brent Metcalfe [01:20:46] And so I'm not sure how that would have even necessarily have given him any kind of upper hand more than where he is now.

John Dehlin [01:21:00] Does he have any idea what you've been through, you know, what you've sacrificed, what you've experienced does he understand the issues sort of underlying all the scholarship that you've pursued, or is he just like Mormonism is in the rearview mirror for him, and he, you know, hasn't even given it much thought or consideration?

Brent Metcalfe [01:21:27] Well, I didn't have a full appreciation of this until when I was working for Microsoft up in the Seattle area. We made a trip back to Utah, and he was very unfamiliar with the church, but I remember hearing him ask someone who Joseph Smith was, and that's one when all of a sudden, the realization set in of how insulated he has been from my experience. I mean, we've talked about God and religion and so on, but we really haven't talked about it that much within a Mormon context. And that kind of clued me in to just how little we had talked about those things in a.

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:23] In a Mormon context. And. Yeah, and no, I haven't spent a lot of time talking with my kids about past events in my life. They're aware of some things, but not everything. They know that I was a Mormon once and was excommunicated, but, you know, not a whole lot beyond that.

Brent Metcalfe [01:22:57] And they know that I love Mormon history. But it's not a common theme that we talk about at home, though. If they wanted to talk about it, I'm completely open to it.

John Dehlin [01:23:11] So, I mean, you know, I think of, like, how. How I'm feeling about having been able to interview you. I mean, I've. I've wanted to interview you for probably a decade. Yeah, we've been talking about it for at least that long, probably at least in some manner.

Brent Metcalfe [01:23:28] And for. And for people who have been listening to this podcast, they probably think it's been lasting.

John Dehlin [01:23:33] They feel like it's, well, we're almost done, but. But I. But I, you know, I know how I feel interviewing. I'm like, this guy's important. He's, like, historical. Like, the things he's been involved in, with, exposed to, the courage, the. The work, the scholarship, the commitment, the integrity. For me, it's just. It's like this huge honor, and it's huge, you know, set of accomplishments. I'm just like, wow, Brent Metcalfe, you know what I mean?

John Dehlin [01:24:03] Do you ever. Like, that's how I feel, and that's how I know many of our listeners feel. Do you ever kind of wish that your kids. Have you ever caught yourself saying, man, I hope someday my kids can go back and read the stories or listen to this podcast and sort of understand what I've been through and the sacrifices I've made and sort of get the road I've traveled to the point where they can go, wow, that's, that's amazing. I'm proud of my dad. I can't believe what he's been through. You know what I mean?

Brent Metcalfe [01:24:37] Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess the way that I would put it is that you, I think there is, you know, no greater compliment than the admiration of your children. But in all honesty, I, I think I have that at many levels. I mean, I've heard my son describe me to his friends before as his best friend. And. How can you want anything more than that? There's nothing in my life as interesting as some people may or may not find it that can replace that. And so that's what matters to me. I want them to know that I love them and that that will never change. So it's not as important that there's somehow some type of recognition beyond that. You know, I love them for who they are and I hope they feel the same toward me, so.

John Dehlin [01:26:10] Right. And can you have a happy post Mormon marriage? I mean, you've talked about Aaron being the love of your life, but you know, can you really have a happy, healthy marriage after Mormonism? I mean, just for those who are scared about it. I know it, it may sound like a preposterous question for you, but there are some who are seriously worried that their marriage will dissolve or they won't be able to find joy on the other end if they don't cling to the church.

Brent Metcalfe [01:26:44] Well, the bottom line is that marriage almost by, you know, by nature of the institution, it comes with its own unique set of challenges. And when you throw in unique individuals into that situation, there's always going to be unique and nuanced issues to be dealt with. But I can honestly say that we have found tremendous happiness. But more than that is that any unhappiness which we may experience at periods in our relationship have nothing to, would not have changed if we were Mormon or not Mormon.

Brent Metcalfe [01:27:41] It has nothing to do with that. It's all about learning to do the interrelationship dance and knowing how to become a smooth flowing partner in that intricate dance rather than an awkward one who steps on their partners toes on a regular basis.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:04] And that type of thing has very little to do with my faith experience or her faith experience for that matter. And so I think your relationship in a marriage can be as vibrant as you want to make it. And I also believe that, I would say for someone who's a believer married to a non believer I think the non believer can have just as healthy a relationship with that spouse as the other can have with them.

Brent Metcalfe [01:28:40] So I don't think that those things are contingent on each other. And in some cases where I've seen it contingent on each other, it's often been symptomatic of deeper underlying issues in the relationship that go far beyond just whether or not somebody's a member or non member.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:01] And, you know, and the thing is, if someone is, I think respect plays a huge role and that is being sensitive to each other. Because if somebody is a non believer, if you're constantly belittling the beliefs of your spouse, I don't care whether they're a Mormon or a Democrat, and that's what you're belittling on a regular basis. At some point, that's going to take a strain on a relationship, you know, and vice versa. If the believer is constantly belittling the lack of belief, that's going to be a problem, too.

John Dehlin [01:29:42] So respect.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:44] Absolutely.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [01:29:46] All right, well, let's, you know, you've been so patient and wonderful. Our listeners have been so patient. Let's end as I always.

Brent Metcalfe [01:29:53] I think, I think our listeners are asleep.

John Dehlin [01:29:55] No, no, I think there's, they're, I think they're ready for you to bring us home. Just if you don't mind, end with your version of a, of a Brent Metcalfe testimony in 2015, 2014. What do you still believe? You know, what for you, what is good or what is true and, you know, how, what parting thoughts or, you know, feelings or whatever would you, would you want to share with your listening audience who's made it this far other than to congratulate them?

Brent Metcalfe [01:30:28] Right, right. Hearty congratulations, and as you're drifting off to sleep right now, some final words. I would just say that, you know, love and charity matter and we need to look at each other much more closely and give each other the benefit of the doubt more often. I think that humans are frequently very judgmental in the way they approach others. And one of the wonderful things that I've learned from living in the south is the hospitality of the South. While my politics may not agree with all my neighbors on certain issues, the fact is that their hospitality is remarkable because it shows an incredible willingness to give someone the benefit of the doubt where, you know, trust is not something, something that's earned per se, it's something that can only be diminished.

Brent Metcalfe [01:31:29] And that you begin from the point of view of giving people the benefit of the doubt, showing them love and being kinder to Others that, to me, those are huge things. And while they may sound like simplistic platitudes, the fact is that they work and they matter. And I don't think we should forget those at any level. I mean, I've already covered so much terrain in these podcasts anyway. I mean, that would be really my closing thought is that we need to show more love and charity to each other and give each other the benefit of the doubt more often.

John Dehlin [01:32:09] And that's actually consistent with both Christ's teachings and the Book of Mormon.

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:14] Yes. See, I paid attention in Sunday school.

John Dehlin [01:32:20] So here you are bearing testimony of some of the core tenets of the gospel and of the scriptures that we just got through discussing.

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:29] Yeah. And I would hope that they would be core tenants of humans in general.

John Dehlin [01:32:34] Right.

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:36] Well, Metcalfe. Oh, we have an announcement to make, don't we?

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:40] Oh, yes, we do. You see, now everyone is definitely asleep, and so go ahead and make it, but we may need to reiterate it on your website here.

John Dehlin [01:32:52] No, why don't you announce it?

Brent Metcalfe [01:32:54] Well, I'm very thrilled and happy to say that John and I are going to be entering into a partnership of sorts where I'm going to be starting podcast that will be under the auspices of Mormon Stories Podcast, but that will be called Mormon Studies Podcast. And the hope and anticipation is that we will be getting a variety of scholars in Mormon studies, whether they be LDs, non LDs, doesn't matter, as long as they are specialists and have provided contributions to scholarship or up and coming scholars, we want to get them on. And this is a way of kind of bringing Mormon Studies to the masses, if you will, to let people know on a broader level the types of things that are being analyzed, the types of issues that are being debated.

Brent Metcalfe [01:33:54] And, you know, again, the format will be very, I'm anticipating, fairly casual, not unlike what we're already doing here. And that is that I'm not there to debate with any guests that come on or anything remotely like that. I basically want to be a conduit for allowing various scholars to come on, express their ideas, and get them out to a broader audience than what a publication may reach. And so we'll be looking forward to everyone's support on that. And we will be taking donations for the program to help support it, to help support the research that will go into producing the program.

Brent Metcalfe [01:34:40] And that will also be done through the Mormon Studies Foundation, I guess. But there will be more details on that forthcoming if. Is that a good intro to his job?

John Dehlin [01:34:52] Brilliant. Yeah. And I'M just, you know, podcasts are hard to do and lots of people want to do it but don't. And then lots of people start and they don't. But I certainly believe in you and I'm certainly here to support you in it, and I'll do everything I can. And, you know, let's just give it a try and see what happens.

Brent Metcalfe [01:35:12] Exactly what I think, too.

John Dehlin [01:35:14] Perfect. Yeah. All right, Brett Metcalfe, bless you for sticking with us. Bless you all the listeners for sticking with us. This may be the longest Mormon Stories podcast ever if you string them all together, but for me, it was worth every minute. So please join us@mormonstories.org for the commentary. You can ask Brent questions. Please support us at Mormon Stories if you can financially. Please check out MormonStudies podcast.com as soon as we get it up and support Brent. And just thanks to everyone for all that they've done. And thanks to you, Brent. It's been wonderful.

Brent Metcalfe [01:35:55] Same to you, John. Thank you very much.

John Dehlin [01:35:57] All right, bye. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. If you enjoyed this episode, please help us make more like it by becoming a monthly subscriber@mormonstories.org music for this episode was provided by the Lower Lights. When with a wounded heart, anger. I draw myself apart, searching my soul.

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.