Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am your host for today, John Dehlin. It's August 25, 2022, and we are super excited to be continuing our series on examining Mormon Church truth claims with LDS discussions. Today the topic is going to be changes to the Doctrine and Covenants with LDS discussions. For those of you who don't have a Mormon background, the church, Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints considers four main scriptures to be kind of part of their canon. The Holy Bible, which is the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and then there's something called the Doctrine and Covenants and then something called the Pearly. Great price. So the Doctrine and Covenants is basically Joseph Smith's revelations while he was a prophet with a couple other things added on at the end. And obviously since Joseph Smith was our founding prophet, coming to understand the revelations that he gave, the way that they were shared with members, and then if and when they were changed or altered over time is an important way to understand his role or power or authority as a prophet or not. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today. I just want to remind everyone that all of these episodes that we're doing as part of the LDS discussion series can be found at LDSDiscussions.com it's an amazing resource with a wealth of information. We also want you to know that for this series of audio and video episodes, we have released all of these episodes in audio and video format on anchor, but they're also available on Spotify and you can even watch them video wise on Spotify and they're also available on YouTube. There's a playlist under the Mormon Stories podcast channel where you can watch all these episodes in sequence and, and of course you can watch them, listen to them on Spotify and on Apple podcasts and hopefully wherever you, however you consume your podcasts. So now it's time to bring on our amazing guest for this series. Hey, Mike, how's it going? Welcome back.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:02:05] Thanks. I think we're gonna, I'm, I'm gonna, at some point, if I haven't already set the record for a person that's been on your show the most. Right?

John Dehlin [00:02:11] Yeah. You're gonna set it for sure. All right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:02:13] No one. I'm gonna be like the, like the Cal Ripken Iron man streak. No one's breaking this record ever.

John Dehlin [00:02:19] Well, that won't disappoint me. Unless there's someone better who can, you know, But I don't know. Better. Better is the right word, but unless there's somebody else. Compelling content.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:02:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:02:29] And as prolific as you, they've got to be. Have as compelling of content and be as prolific when that will be hard to beat, but we'll see.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:02:37] I'll put that on my gravestone.

Background on the Doctrine and Covenants

John Dehlin [00:02:39] All right, so we've done a bunch of episodes so far. For those of you who haven't checked out the previous episodes with LDS discussions. We've covered Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, treasure digging, history, Bible stuff, and all of it kind of builds. So we really do recommend that you not just start with this episode. You're welcome to, but we really do feel like these episodes intentionally build on each other. So having said that, let's jump into today's episode. Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:03:06] All right, let's do it.

John Dehlin [00:03:08] The episode for today is@ LDSDiscussions.com and. And the. The URL is in the show notes. It's basically changes dash to dash revelations, but the focus is on the Doctrine and Covenants.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:03:20] Yeah. And this is going to work really well, as John said. If you haven't listened to last week's episode on the priesthood restoration, I would recommend that, because this is going to almost continue straight from the end of that. With regards to talking about how Joseph had to go back and change revelations to kind of adjust to the needs that he had at different times where. When he was running the church.

John Dehlin [00:03:41] Yeah, yep, absolutely. And that was. I try to stay as neutral as I can, but that one got me emotionally riled up. That was upsetting to me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:03:49] So, yeah, that one's. I mean, I think, you know, when you look at all the episodes and the essays on the website, you know, there's certain ones, I think, that are obviously more impactful and more important than others with regards to, like, truth claims versus is the church, you know, doing good things or bad things or true or not true or whatever. I think the priesthood one is really important because it's so central to everything that happens in the church. And so that episode, to me, when I was listening to all the podcasts before I started doing the essays, the priesthood restoration to me was one that was just shocking because it's like, holy cow, as a convert, I was taught all these things, and then you find out it's not at all how it happened. And then you find out a lot of people know that and still teach it anyways. And so that's a really important episode. It's a really difficult episode, but it also is a great segue into this episode, which is kind of talking about How Joseph Smith changed the revelations from God as needed in many instances that are very important.

John Dehlin [00:04:45] Yeah. All right. Well, I gave a brief introduction what the Doctrine of Covenants is, but let's have you do the real job.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:04:52] Yeah. And so we talked about this in previous weeks. And basically, in 1833, the church collected all of the revelations that Joseph Smith had claimed to have up until that point. They put it together in a book that is known as the Book of Commandments. And what happened was they're doing the printing of this, and there were mobs that were going into Missouri at this point, and they destroyed the printing press as they were printing these books up. And there's the story about, is it Mary Elizabeth Lightner Rollins Smith, I think, I believe, who was in the field, and she was protecting the manuscript pages. And because she did that, they were able to keep some of the revelations and make some of the books. And long story short, there's only a few hundred copies of these that are bound together. Most of the church membership would not have it. I believe at this point, they were well into the thousands. And so in 1835, Joseph Smith undertakes this again and creates a book that includes all the revelations from Joseph Smith as well as the Lectures on Faith, which I think were mostly written by Sidney Rigdon. Some were just by Joseph Smith. And so the doctrine is the Lectures on Faith, the covenants are the Revelations. And effectively, when they're doing this in 1835, Joseph and Oliver are going through all of the revelations and editing them before they put them into what is now known as the Doctrine and Covenants. And because of that, there are a lot of changes we can track between the Book of Commandments and the Doctrine and Covenants. And it's really important to look at what has changed against how the Church frames those changes.

John Dehlin [00:06:25] Got it. Okay. And if people want to read the Book of commandments, the 1833 book of commandments, they're digital copies, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:06:34] There are. And the Joseph Smith Papers project has most of the original revelations on their website. And you can see kind of the handwriting, handwritten, original revelations, which is really helpful, too, because they also do give historical source notes and stuff. And so I know a lot of people would, you know, if you're not a believer, you might kind of cringe at that. But they do a really good job of, you know, giving accurate dates. There are instances where they'll kind of, in their introductory notes, give some comments that'll kind of give you pause as a believer, because it's. It's conceding a lot of things that would have been called anti Mormon lies. And I highly recommend that if you want, recommend looking at their website, you could search like, go on to Google, you know, say, for example, we're going to go over DNC7 later. If you search like DNC7 original revelation, it'll be one of the first ones and you can see the handwriting. They'll give you a bunch of source notes. It's actually pretty cool. And that is a good way to track that against. You could just obviously then look Up D&C7 in your scriptures or online and compare the two.

John Dehlin [00:07:33] Yeah, okay. And, and I guess, I guess it's worth just noting that I guess this discussion implies a certain expectation for how, you know, the Mormon Church teaches its members that God communicates with prophets. And I'll just say it really briefly that, you know, from, from kindergarten, you know, from primary, you know, nursery to Sunday school to seminary, even in the missionary discussions, it's usually pretty straightforward. It's basically, you know, one of the, probably the very first missionary discussion is just like in ancient days when God spoke to Noah or God spoke to Abraham, or God spoke to Moses, you know, God communicated with them and then they wrote down what they heard from God. And a lot of people believe that that ended with, you know, with the Holy Bible. But the real value proposition of the Mormon Church and the restoration is that God, once again, starting in 1820, God is speaking with man again. And even though there was an apostasy where the church fell out of, you know, God's blessing from, like, you know, Jesus's death until 1830, Joseph brings back God's one true church and he brings back prophets to the earth. And so basically God speaks to Joseph, Joseph writes it down, and we know God's will. And so there is a level of sort of accuracy or consistency that I think Mormons gain, you know, credibly or with good, you know, with good reason. Right. It's, you know, because we're going to be talking about changes that were made to revelations and maybe if there's a period out of place or a comma or like a spelling. But, but what we wouldn't expect would be fundamental changes to a revelation once it's received.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:09:30] Correct. Yeah. And, and, and you are a convert.

John Dehlin [00:09:32] So you, Mike, you can, maybe you can share from your perspective.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:09:35] Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, going through the missionary discussions, it was told that basically what you said is the commandments from God ended when the church fell into apostasy. And, and it was restored through Joseph Smith. And I think one of the things that's interesting about it is when I think about the missionary discussions then, it was described not just as Joseph Smith getting revelations, but that all of the prophets through them. So Gordon B. Hinckley at the time would be getting revelations from God about the latter days. And the whole selling point of the church, with regard to revelations, at least to me as a convert, was that not only did Joseph Smith restore the church, but that we were getting constant revelation to guide us through these last days, or the latter days, whatever you want to call it. And I think one of the things that for me was an early thing that I noticed but didn't really put too much weight into was why does the DNC end with, like, what, a hundred years ago or whatever? I think there hasn't been a canonized revelation, like 100 years. So you would expect, to your point to have more consistency within revelation. But more importantly, these are being described as revelations from God directly to the prophets, which would then beg the question of why are they being changed beyond grammatical to your point, you're going to have changes in style of language between 1830s and 1840s, and today you can understand that. It's when you're changing the fundamental content and the purposes and all that of the revelations, it really does make you go, why in the world are these being changed? And as we talked about last week, if Joseph Smith feels that he's okay changing them in substantial ways, and all of a sudden, how do you trust the rest of it? Because all of a sudden you can see he's more than willing to take the words that are supposed to be directly from God and alter them in ways that tend to benefit his current theology and current needs.

John Dehlin [00:11:21] Yeah. Okay, so anything else on this. On this first slide?

Two Versions: Book of Commandments vs. Doctrine and Covenants

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:11:26] No, this one's just pretty much just setting up the fact that there's. There's two versions and it leads to this next quote. And we talked about David Whitmer a lot last week.

John Dehlin [00:11:33] Can I clarify? There's more than two versions. Right. Because even after the 1835 version, there's been many instances after that, but there are some changes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:11:42] And. Yeah, we'll get to that a little bit because there's obviously some that get pulled out.

John Dehlin [00:11:46] Yeah. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:11:47] Yeah. And so we talked last week about David Whitmer. He was one of the three witnesses, obviously very involved in the production of the Book of Mormon, very involved in the production of the early church and all of the early ideas that Joseph Smith was Bringing forth. And so this is from an address to all believers in Christ which he printed up near the end of his life, kind of talking about what his thoughts were on Joseph Smith and the Church. And so he says, some of the revelations, as they are now in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants have been changed and added to. Some of the changes being of the greatest importance, as the meaning is entirely changed on some very important matters, as if the Lord had changed his mind a few years after he gave the Revelations and after having commanded his servants, as they claim, to print them in the Book of Commandments, and after giving his servants a revelation, being a preface until his Book of Commandments, which says, behold, this is mine authority and the authority of my servants, and my preface unto the Book of Commandments, which I have given them to publish unto you, O inhabitants of the earth. Also in this he says, behold, I am God and have spoken it. These commandments are of me. Search these commandments, for they are true and faithful. The revelations were printed in the Book of Commandments correctly. This I know and will prove to you. These revelations were arranged for publication by brothers Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Orson Hyde, and others in Hiram, Ohio, while I was there, were sent to independence to be published and were printed just exactly as they were arranged by Brother Joseph and the others. And when the Book of Commandments was printed, Joseph and the Church received it as being printed correctly. This I know. In the winter of 1834, they saw that some of the revelations in the Book of Commandments had to be changed because the heads of the Church had gone too far and had done things in which they had already gone ahead of some of the former revelations. So the Book of Doctrine and Covenants was printed in 1835, and some of the revelations changed and added to. Okay, so he's just saying what we're going to show in this episode, which is that they print these revelations in 1833, and then all of a sudden, Joseph Smith realizes that he's contradicting them in what he's teaching after 1833. And so in order to fix that, you have to retrofit that back into your history. And in this case, not only are you changing your history, as we talked about with, like, say, the first vision, you're actually altering what are claimed to be the words of God. And in many of these revelations would have been taken directly off the rock in a hat. He received his early Revelations in the exact same manner he translated the Book of Mormon, which is he would put his peep seer stone in a hat, put his head in the hat, read the words to a scribe. So these revelations would be very much under that tight translation. And so to go back and change the words of God either gives you that either or choice. And I'm sure a lot of people say it's not black and white, but either God changed his mind, as David Whitmer said, or the people who are making the changes are making it up. And I guess you could have a third option, which is that the words were correct the first time and then Joseph changed them. So I guess you have three options. But it really does give you pause when you see one of the three witnesses who caught it at the time, wondering why they're making these changes. And he flat out says it's because they got out ahead of him and had to backfit the story in order to be consistent.

John Dehlin [00:14:58] So I. There's a couple things that really stood out to me in this quote. One is that again, one of the three witnesses is saying, man, what's going on? These things really have been changed between 1833 and 1835, and. And they've been changed to totally alter their meaning. And, you know, there's a problem there. So that's a really important admission. And then the thing is, he seems. I'm trying to understand his explanation of why they had to been changed. Whether he's saying, I'm upset at these changes, or whether he's just saying, well, maybe some of the heads of the church went too far and now we've gotta correct it. But it's almost like a bit of an apologetic answer. Instead of saying, hey, something's wrong here. He's basically saying, yeah, we went too far and now we're correcting them. But he's not really seeming to imply something nefarious or deceptive.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:15:55] I don't know. I feel like it's pretty sharp in the way he's saying it. I think he's saying, basically. I mean, to me it reads almost like he's saying the start of the church was true. Then Joseph Smith was almost like a fallen prophet and fell into bad ideas and therefore got out ahead of the original. I think he believes in the original revelations. I. He believes in the Book of Mormon, but I think he, in his mind, Joseph Smith then becomes a fallen prophet, starts doing things. We talked last week about how he mentioned how the priesthood is. Was completely retrofitted and was not necessary in the early days, which makes you wonder why it would have been necessary later. Do you know what I mean, and so to me, I think it's a sharp way of him saying that he fell away without maybe being a little bit more.

John Dehlin [00:16:43] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:16:44] Antagonistic. I don't know. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:16:45] No, that's good.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:16:46] I feel like it's pretty sharp.

John Dehlin [00:16:47] Okay. Yeah. And I'll just say this. This is something I like to do. I did this last time when we talked about. When we talked about the priesthood, like, given the narrative that we've already basically established, which is that there seems to be this pattern of there being no evidence of certain important things happening, and then all of a sudden, some really bold claims, but then those claims changing over time as Joseph's beliefs and associations evolve. If we were to sort of say, what would we expect to have happened with the Doctrine of Covenants in the Book of Commandments, given that pattern? I can just say right now, I just want to say this up front, what we would expect to happen. The earlier versions of the Doctrine and Covenants would reflect Joseph's earlier beliefs or his earlier positions or his earlier associations, and then over time, they would change and then have to be kind of either edited or deleted or replaced to sort of stay up with his evolving beliefs and his evolving associations with other people. I think that's what we would expect, knowing nothing about the actual data. Right. Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:18:07] I mean, it's just it.

John Dehlin [00:18:10] This is basically David Whitmer saying, hey, that's what happened right off the gate.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:18:14] Yeah. It's funny too, because when I first started doing the deep dive, I would often get a response from people that would say something along the lines of, you're looking for all these problems. None of the early church members had a problem with it, and he would have been doing it right in front of him. And at the time, like, oh, yeah, but you do see that there are people mentioning it. I mean, you have David Whitmer here. I think William Law brings up, that McClellan brings it up. I mean, so there are people in the early church who are leaving and saying he is just making stuff up now. And the truth is, a lot of people at the time did see it, and a lot of the people that didn't see it, you know, we just don't know. But the fact is, it was being noted then, and now we have a lot more hindsight, a lot more data, a lot more documentary evidence to go against. And it's pretty clear he's changing the words of God. Now, if you will, get to the apologetics at the end. But the fact is, this is, this is not a matter of opinion. This is a matter of. Yeah, very tangible facts and very tangible documents that we can show he's changing. And there's just no way around that.

John Dehlin [00:19:13] All right, well, let's jump in. Let's jump into the data.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:19:17] Yeah. And so one of the things I want to go through first, because we're going to go into the actual revelations in a second, but this is what some of the church leaders have said about some of the changes he made. So Apostle Legrand Richard said in a 1978 interview that as far as I know, there have been no changes at all in any of the revelations. If there ever. If there have been any changes, it would. Excuse me, have all been fixing grammar or something like that. So he's saying no major. No major changes.

John Dehlin [00:19:46] Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:19:47] Joseph Fielding Smith, who we know hit the 1832 first vision when he saw it, said, inspiration is discovered in the fact that each part, as it was revealed dovetailed perfectly with what had come before. There was no need for eliminating, changing, or adjusting any part to make it fit. But each new revelation on doctrine and priesthood fitted in its place perfectly to complete the whole structure as it had been prepared by the master builder we covered last week. That is just not the case, because he was making changes constantly that absolutely contradicted all of the earlier revelations. And then Apostle John Widtso said, within a few years after its organization, the church had received practically all necessary supplementary laws and regulations. These also have remained unchanged. There has been no tampering with God's word. The whole body of church laws forms a harmonious unit which does not anywhere contradict itself, nor has it been found necessary to alter any part of it. And so.

John Dehlin [00:20:47] And that's three. That's three apostles, really, laying down the gauntlet.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:20:51] Yeah, and it's. I mean, it's clear. And this is. This is the company line. And I don't want to sound like I'm being disrespectful, but this is the same thing here with the Book of Mormon. There's lots of changes. It's all grammatical. Don't worry about it, don't think about it. And it's just not true. And in the Book of Mormon, we talked earlier about some of the more substantial changes with the First Vision and Joseph's view on the Godhead. I would argue with the Revelation, it's a lot more obvious, it's a lot more clear, and it's a lot more detailed because we have the source material to compare. Whereas with the Book of Mormon, we could show where he changed from 1830 to 1837. But we obviously don't have the source material of the gold plate, so it makes it a little trickier. This one we can show a really good way of looking at his linear changes in theology and how he retrofits them back in. So these, these quotes are just.

John Dehlin [00:21:38] And we.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:21:39] I don't know if they knew better. I know Joseph Fielding Smith probably did. But yeah, I mean, we, we'll see

John Dehlin [00:21:45] whether those words are true or not based on the evidence you lay out. But yeah, I mean, basically last episode already establishes that. But I just want to note to non Mormons or Mormons that these are, these are apostles, are ordained as prophets, seers and revelators.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:22:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:02] So when they deceive or lie or are ignorant, like best case, if, if they, if these statements turn out to be false, best case, they were ignorant, which is a problem if you're a prophet, Syrian revelator and special witness of Christ. But worst case, they're being outright deceptive. But let's just see if they're right or wrong because we haven't even established that totally yet. There's the second set of quotes, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:22:24] Yeah. So just two more quotes on this because I want to try to really make clear this is how the Church has taught it. So this is Mormon writer John Stewart from Joseph Smith the Mormon prophet, published in 1966. He says several of his associates sitting in his presence when some of the revelations were received reported that Joseph would dictate them to a clerk at as fast and steady a pace as the clerk was able to write, maintaining an even flow of delivery and never altering the word spoken, which again, that is a tight translation. It also matches what we know about the Revelation. So that is a true quote outside of the fact that we're going to show they were changed. And then Apostle Hugh Brown said, none of the early revelations of the Church have been revised and the Doctrine and Covenants stands as printed, including sections five and seven. Those, these two sections and some others are addressed directly to certain individuals. But there are lessons in them for all of us and therefore they have not been deleted. And I just want you to remember that quote because we're going to go back to that one at the end because DNC7 in particular is a really. He's being dishonest 100 in that, in that quote, he is lying. So, yeah, I will just. I know lying is a strong word. He's lying. It's just very dishonest.

Key Changes in Early Revelations: D&C 5 and 18

John Dehlin [00:23:35] So let's get to the evidence. So let's start with DNC5.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:23:39] Here's DNC5, which is what Hugh Brown said was not changed. And so in the Book of Commandments, Joseph Smith has the original revelation. And this is a revelation from March of 1829, which is as he's getting ready to translate the Book of Mormon. And Joseph is told by God, and he has a gift to translate the Book, the Book of Mormon. And I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift. So what he's saying is Joseph Smith's gonna have the power to translate the Book of Mormon and nothing else. That's from God. And David Whitmer confirms this in his address to all believers in Christ. And he says, after the translation of the Book of Mormon was finished early in the spring of 1830, before April 6, Joseph gave the stone to Oliver Cowdery and told me as well as the rest that he was through with it and he did not use the stone anymore. He said he was through the work that God had given him the gift to perform, except to preach the gospel. He told us that we would all have to depend on the Holy Ghost hereafter to be guided into truth and obtain the will of the Lord. So David Whitmer is confirming what this revelation was stating, which is that once Joseph Smith translate the Book of Mormon, he will have no more power from God, and he should not pretend to have that.

John Dehlin [00:24:53] Interesting. Interesting. I mean, a couple things come into my mind. One. One, I know that. That he ends up trying to translate the Book of Abraham, among other things, the Egyptian papyrus and the scroll in the cave that we'll talk about. So that's a little weird. The other thing I'm just thinking of is it must have been a huge pain in the rear for him to be doing the stone in the hat thing and hiding it and sticking his head in the hat, especially if it was all made up anyway. And so I could see him wanting to shed the stone in the hat and just say that I'm getting this just directly from God. I don't know that we. I guess when we covered the episode on Joseph's folk magic, when he was doing some of that Book of Mormon translation, people didn't, you know, people around him didn't believe you could just like, get revelation directly from God. You had to have a magic object.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:25:48] Right?

John Dehlin [00:25:48] Like, like. Like a stone. You know, we talked about, like, magic mirrors or Jupiter talisman.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:25:54] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:25:55] So I. I can see why he needed to claim that he had a Magic object because of the superstitions around him. But I could also see why he would want to get rid of it. The one thing that, as I'm looking at this, I'm trying to think about this idea that no other gift like that, that seems really global and extreme. He goes on to become prophet, seer, revelator, mayor, chief cook, bottle washer, like head of the legion. Like, it seems like he ends up saying his, his leadership and, and powers and abilities have no bound. Eventually he's like crowned as king of the world. Right, but, but I'm also hearing apologists say, now come on, you're taking a word out of context. You know, you're being, you're being too extreme and literal with what he's saying, you know.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:26:41] Well, I would go to the next slide then, because I think, to be fair, there's, there's no real, I don't think there's a good apologetic way to get around this. Okay, let's see. Yeah, so he's going to change this now and the Doctrine and Covenant. So remember it said you will pretend to have no other gift. Now he changes it to say, and you have a gift to translate the plates. And this is the first gift that I have bestowed upon you. First gift. And I have commanded that you shall pretend to no other gift until my purpose is fulfilled in this. For I will grant you no other gift until it is finished. So here Joseph Smith is changing the revelation to say that in the original revelation, God was saying, I'm going to give you more stuff to do, but not until the book is finished. If you Read D&C5, the original, in no possible way is there room for that.

John Dehlin [00:27:24] Okay, is it Book of Commandments five versus D and C five?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:27:28] It is Book of Commandments is chapter four. It's DNC five currently.

John Dehlin [00:27:33] So when, okay, so did this change between Book of Commandments and the first dnc?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:27:38] They, when they did the dnc, they have. I think they might order it a little differently and I think they might have added some stuff in. And so the order just changes. So there's. I tried to put, try to put the side by side or, you know, so most people obviously go look at the dnc, but so in that visual

John Dehlin [00:27:53] right now, the yellow sentence is the sentence that was added in the 1835 D and C added to what was previously in the Book of Commandments.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:28:04] Okay, so on the slide you're on right now, you're on the Book of Commandments. I'm just putting it in yellow because that's where I want people to. I think that's the point of emphasis is what's changing. And so if you go to the next slide, that's the Book of Commandments. Now if you go to the next slide and that's gonna be the one we just talked about, where he's. Now go back one more. So this is where he is going to change it. And this is because he needs to address when he's doing the 1835 one, why he is doing all of these other things. Why is he still getting revelations? Why is he doing the Book of Abraham? Why did he do the Joseph Smith translation in the Bible? All of those things are happening before 18th or around this time. I think the Book of Abraham is right around this time. I'm not positive if it's right before, right after. But he is obviously still translating, he's still giving revelations, he's still doing everything. He's leading the church, he's altering the priesthood, altering the first vision, all of these things. And that's why, you know, again from David Whitmer, he says, as if God had commanded Joseph to pretend to no other gift but to translate the Book of Mormon, that he would grant him no other gift. And then afterwards God had changed his mind and concluded to grant him another gift. God does not change and work in this manner which you'll hear the church say all the time. God never does not change the way the revelation has been changed. 22 words being added to it. It would appear that God has broken his word after giving his word in plainness, commanding brother Joseph to pretend to no other gift but to translate the Book of Mormon. And then the Lord had changed and concluded to grant Joseph the gift of a seer to the church.

John Dehlin [00:29:27] So that's really, that's really super damning.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:29:30] Yeah, he's stating the obvious because he's saying Joseph Smith made clear that he can pretend to no other gift. So either Joseph Smith is breaking the commandment by pretending to get revelations, pretending to these other translations, or God's like, you know what, you did such a great job. I'm going to change my mind. And just saying if this was another church and you had this, you'd look at this and you go, oh yeah, this person's making it up. Because this idea that God is just that, you know, flip floppy with something as important as the restoration of his church is nonsensical. And you got to remember these revelations. This revelation here would have been off of the rock in a hat. This is not something that Joseph's just winging this is something that he is at least pretending or claiming to read off of a rock, word for word from God, not translated from reformed Egyptian, directly from God. So how is it changing in such a monumental way? And, you know, like I said, we'll get back to at the end, but, you know, we have an apostle of the church telling us this revelation wasn't changed. I want to ask you, if you're watching this, was this or was this not changed? Because if it was changed, that apostle is outright lying. And that apostle would know that this has changed because they would have had access to all of this. So, yeah, this is. This is a big change. Does it. Is it a smoking gun? Well, kind of, because it shows Joseph Smith is willing to deceive. I don't think it's as bad as the book Abraham, but it does show you Joseph is willing to lie about the words of God in order to give himself an elevated status in the church. And he does that.

John Dehlin [00:30:52] And what's damning about this to me is that, number one, David Whitmer is one of the three witnesses and one of the early founders of the church to the Book of Mormon. So you can't discredit him. He writes it in a book called An Address to All Believers in Christ. We should probably do an episode just on that pamphlet at some point.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:31:13] It'd be a fun one. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:31:14] Because it's really important. But here we've got the words and the exact change, and we've even got David Whitmer complaining about the change, specifically saying that as an eyewitness, Joseph gave up the rock, said he wouldn't do it anymore, then he changes the revelation and keeps doing it. That is a slam dunk, period.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:31:36] I mean, it's just. This is a change that you can. You. Like I said earlier, this is not a matter of opinion. This is. You can see it for yourself. And I've said so many times in these episodes, I've said a lot, like on Twitter and stuff. A lot of people will come back and say, you just have to have faith. You have to have faith. It'll all work out. And I just want to point out again, faith is the belief in what you can see. Faith is. Or I'm sorry, let me start that over. Faith is the belief in things you can't see and you can't know. It is not belief in spite of what you can look at with your own eyes and read and understand. And this is to have faith that God meant this. When he, when it was written down differently, I think goes from faith to something altogether different because we can see that. We can track the differences and see where Joseph Smith is making these changes that just happened to benefit Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [00:32:19] Yeah, it's toxic faith if it denies reality. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:32:22] Yeah. I mean, if you're willing to throw out evidence, you're no longer doing faith. That's. That's something altogether different because you can see it. You're just choosing to ignore it. So I don't, you know, I, I'm not trying to bash people who make that argument. I'm just saying the argument itself is bad. So.

John Dehlin [00:32:35] All right, let's look at.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:32:37] Yeah, visually. Yeah, just go to the next. We could just spend a second on this. So if you go to the next slide, this is just. The Tanners put these together and big shout out to them for doing this, because it's just a good way, if you're watching this, to look at this. And if you go to LDS discussion, if you're not watching, I have it on there as well. And you can see all of the areas where Joseph is changing it. And you can get an idea of how expansive these revelations can be when he gets to 1835. And while they do show there are some grammatical changes, some wording changes, they also are showing you there's some huge ones as well.

John Dehlin [00:33:09] Yeah, that. That visual is stunning and it's super damning. And I don't. I, I just would love to hear Patrick Mason or Richard Bushmer, Terrell Givens defend this.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:33:20] Yeah, I mean, I think, like I said, I think Richard Bushman we talked about last week, and I think he's in the apologetic section as well. It just basically says Joseph didn't want to be constrained by the revelations and felt he was authorized to change him as he saw fit. And I just, I think that's a terrible apologetic because again, that, that to me makes it indistinguishable from fraud. When you're claiming to have the words of God and then also claiming that you can change them whenever you need to to suit later needs just does not make sense. Because why can't we do that today? You know, I mean, like, why can't we say that? You know, the word of wisdom, I feel, is not what God wants for me. So I'm going to go out and get smashed tonight. And I'm being facetious a little bit, but I'm just saying, once you start changing them, once you allow that and you say there's that authority, where do you Stop. Because that, the whole point is that the word of God is supposed to be unchanging and, you know, non negotiable. And here we are. So.

John Dehlin [00:34:10] And what's, you know, honestly, you know, we showed those five quotes, I think four of them for Mormon apostles. We've already, we've already disproved, we've already shown them to be wrong or deceitful in their statements, certainly misleading. Whether it's intentional or not, we can't know their hearts. But we've got like 20 more slides.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:34:32] Yeah, I mean, we're just getting started here. I mean, that's the first.

John Dehlin [00:34:36] We've already, we've already proven them to be either ignorant or dishonest.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:34:41] I think in those particular quotes they're being intentionally dishonest because you got to remember too, and I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but at this point when they're making these quotes, in the 60s and the 70s, people can't hop on Google and search original DNC5. And so I think you're not going to hear, although you do hear some apostles make those claims a little bit now, for the most part, it's a lot more carefully worded because this is something you cannot say didn't happen because we have, we have the documentation. There's no way around it. And so, yeah, I think at the time they thought, as my, as the person close to me said about changing stories, back in the old days, you used to be able to get away with that before Google, now you can't. And so, yeah, obviously they're showing themselves to be lying for the Lord in this case.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] All right, let's go to the next one.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:35:26] Yep. So this is what is now DNC 18. And in June of 1829, Joseph claimed a revelation through the stone regarding the formation of the church. And the part of the original revelation is from chapter 15 of the book of Commandments. And it says, behold, I give you a commandment that you rely upon the things which are written, for in them are all things written concerning my church, my gospel and my rock. Wherefore if you shall build up my church and my gospel, my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. And the words here that are important is the phrase in them. So he says, for in them all things are written because the in them is supposed to be the gold plates. Because remember, he's translating the Book of Mormon, he's allowed to have no other gift to pretend to. So when God says, for in them all things are written concerning my church, my gospel, my rock, he's saying in the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. That is something we've talked about in previous episodes, which is that the Book of Mormon obviously contains almost none of the unique Mormon doctrines. And so, obviously, after the Book of Mormon, everything that is kind of uniquely Mormon is really still going to be evolved. And so Joseph Smith, after he starts doing all these new things, when you talk about the priesthood, restoration, baptisms for the dead, this idea of the endowment, which I know the temple is a while away, but they're building the Kirtland Temple and all that, they're getting ready to build it. So Joseph Smith realizes that a lot of what he's going to be doing and what he is doing is not in the Book of Mormon. And so he needs to change that in order to adjust for the fact that it's not all in the gold plates.

John Dehlin [00:36:57] Okay, so let's see how it gets changed.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:37:03] Yep. So the next slide, he's going to need to reconcile it. So he says, behold, I give you a commandment that you rely upon the things which are written, for in them all things are all things written concerning the foundation of my church, my gospel, my rock. Wherefore, if you shall build up my church upon the foundation of my gospel, my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you. And so David Whitmer says these changes were made by the leaders of the church who had drifted into error and spiritual blindness through the influence of Sidney Rigdon. We talked last week. He really does not like Sidney Rigdon. Brother Joseph was led on and on into receiving revelations every year to establish offices and doctrines which are not even mentioned in the teachings of Christ in the written word. In a few years, they had gone way ahead of the written word, so that they had to change these revelations. And you will understand when I have finished. He's talking about all of the writing. And so.

John Dehlin [00:37:53] So will you kind of rephrase first of all, what the change?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:37:58] So in the first one, it's, behold, I give you a commandment that you reply upon all things which are written, for in them are all things written concerning the foundation of my church. So what he's doing is he's trying to say later. So, okay, so if you look at the previous one, it'll say, here's the previous one. The yellow should be a little bit longer. So it says, for in them are all things written concerning my church, my gospel, my rock. And so if you go to the next one, okay, he's going to add in the phrase concerning the foundation of my church, which is to say that now what he's saying is the gold plates have what's needed to found the church, to create the foundation, and then

John Dehlin [00:38:36] I can build upon it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:38:38] Yeah. And then that point, he can build upon it. So it says, if you shall build up my church upon the foundation of my gospel, my rock. So it's a small change. And again, this one, I don't think is as. Is as impactful as the last one. But he's making that little phrase to avoid the problem that the gold plates do not have any of the uniquely Mormon stuff you'll have after 1830. And by changing that to saying, it gives you what you need to get started, and that gives Joseph freedom to add to it later.

John Dehlin [00:39:05] Okay, and. And so a couple things here. I think now you read what. What Signe Rigdon wrote about why or sorry you wrote. You. You read what David Whitmer wrote about his concern, and I'll just kind of read it again. He's basically saying the church had it right when they started, but then they drifted into error and spiritual blindness. Through the influence of Sidney Rigdon, Brother Joseph was led on into receiving revelations and to establish offices and doctrines that are not even mentioned originally. And so I'm going to just say two things that I see going on here, and you tell me if you see it as right. Number one is, you know, Joseph Smith puts his stake in the ground with the Book of Mormon and with the Book of Commandments and even his 1832 account of the first Vision. He's putting these stakes in the ground doctrinally, theologically, and with his own history. But then, like as he meets Sidney Rigdon and Sidney Rigdon starts to influence him. Sidney Rigdon starts taking Joseph's doctrine and theology in ways that David Whitmer maybe doesn't like or doesn't agree with. And so the 1835 version is reflecting Sidney Rigdon and other people's influence, but it's changing. And David Whitmer's saying, I don't like these changes. And by the way, it's unethical to be changing God's word. That's not how God works. And so the church wants it both ways. They want us to believe David Whitmer is one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon because he's a essential. But then when David Whitmer's saying the church is basically going into apostasy and overriding the doctrines, the. The church doesn't want us to even know that he did that, let alone believe that his objections have credibility. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:40:53] Yeah. And you know, I think you can see we talked last week about his dislike towards Sidney Rigdon. And I think there was a lot of infighting because you think about David Whitmer and Martin Harris, Oliver Cowder and Joseph Smith are the original four, you know, the three witnesses and Joseph Smith. And all of a sudden Sidney Rigdon came in and was elevated in that church so quickly and became the number two. So I think there is a lot of people who were foundational to the church who kind of got pushed aside a bit by Sidney Rigdon. And then all of a sudden you see Joseph Smith incorporating Sidney Rigdon's ideas. And I think that would make you pretty upset. And I think you see that in this response where he constantly refers to the fact that when Sidney Rigdon came, Joseph Smith started putting in these bad ideas. So I think you have, you're right in the fact that he's noticing that he's changing a lot of things that he said to these original witnesses, original members of the church were foundational and non changing. And then you also see what you believe to be a really bad influence who may have brought him down. I honestly think that Joseph Smith, while he did take some of Sidney Rigdon's ideas on the priesthood, you know, I think he also truly believed what he was doing was from him. I don't think he was implementing polygamy because of Sidney Rigdon. I don't think he was implementing, you know, the temple ceremony, the Book of Abraham, I don't think was a big Sidney Rigden thing. So you have all these things he's doing on his own. I think Joseph Smith, whether he believed that he was doing something from God or whether he just, you know, sometimes people start to believe in themselves when you, when you fake it enough. And so I, you know, I don't know, but I do feel like David Whitmer here does have a real big axogram with Sidney Rigdon, which of course we need to be aware of. But at the same time, in the last week's preset restoration, we showed you why he has an ax to grind and why that does track historically. Even if David Whitmer seems overly angry at Sidney Rigdon, like in an overall sense.

John Dehlin [00:42:41] Yeah. And certainly Sidney Rigdon was only one of the influences of Joseph Smith. And it's normal in any corporation, let's just say, for leaders to emerge, founders to emerge, and then some to fall out of graces and then new new influencers to come in. So it's not particularly pernicious that Joseph had people come and go in his life. The other thing is, Joseph Smith was certainly a sponge. Whether it was learning from the three degrees of Glory from Emanuel Swedenborg, or getting the Temple ceremony from the Masonic Lodge, or as we'll talk about in the Word of Wisdom from the temperance societies or whatever, he was kind of a sponge. And I think everybody admits that. What's inconvenient about that is as your theology evolves, you're kind of stuck with the writings that you published. And so he needs to get people used to, in those early years, just allowing him to like, literally delete or edit or change or move on and not be held accountable. Like you said, Richard Bushman felt. I just want to say one other quick thing that I'm observing. Tell me if you agree with this. When Joseph first starts the church, even in 1829 and 1830, you get the sense that he's kind of said to his colleagues, hey, listen, I know this is a lot of power, but I'm not going to get, you know, I'm not going to let the power go to my head. I'm going to, you know, God's going to constrict what I can do. And we're all going to be kind of team, team, you know, team members here, and we're going to be leading this together, and it's not going to be all about me. You almost get the sense that that's kind of the vibe God or Joseph is trying to give off in those early years. But then kind of like the Lord of the Rings or the Ring, the power seems to get to him and he seems to be uncomfortable ever being put in a box. And so even though he promises that his power is going to be constrained, you just see him growing and growing and growing his power over time, even at the expense of assurances or prophecies or revelations. Earlier stated that he was gonna. That his power and authority was gonna be constricted. Is that fair or not fair?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:44:45] Well, I mean, I think it's fair. I think one of the things I always think about is that Joseph Smith realizes at some point wants to be at the top of the church. But I think at the beginning, he's trying to find a way to organize it in a way where, you know, it's. Everyone is kind of involved. And that's why we talked about last week. At the priesthood, you have Joseph Smith constantly elevating himself when he's challenged. So I. Yeah, I don't think he likes being in a box. I think he also, as you see so often with people that become in power, whether it's in business, whether it's in politics, whether it's in religion, when they get power and they get followers and they get people who are just fawning over them and treat them as a divine figure. Yeah, it goes to your head and it does alter the way you're going to interact. And it also, in a lot of ways, will let you maybe go on a road that you probably shouldn't go down because you now have people who are allowing you to do it. And so, yeah, it's hard to look at, like, the motivations of what Joseph was doing. I just think the fact that you could show that he's making those changes so that he is the only one who can do it, to me, is telling. And I also think one of the things about David Whitmer's response that keeps pointing it at Sidney Rigdon, one of the things that's interesting to me on that is I think as people, we constantly have this need, if we believe in something, to always blame something else for it. And I think David Whitmer just doesn't want to say that Joseph Smith made it up. I think he wants to put the blame on someone else so that he doesn't have to accept the fact that he was part of something that was not what it was claimed to be. So I think there's a little bit of that, too, where I think he's trying to find somewhere to shift that blame so that he can leave at least his experiences with Joseph Smith clean. Even though the evidence and the history would tell us today that those have just as many problems as the later ones do.

John Dehlin [00:46:29] Yeah. Okay, well, let's go on to the next. Let's go on to the next slide.

Priesthood Restoration and Added Textual Content

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:46:37] So this is going to be something we covered over the last two weeks, which is the priesthood restoration. And so this is what is now known today as DNC20, DNC27. So we covered this a lot last week. If you haven't listened to the priesthood restoration episode, I would highly recommend that. I think that's a very important one. But to cover it in a more shorter way here, when Joseph Smith originally published the restoration of the priesthood, there is absolutely no mention of John the Baptist, nor is there a mention of the Aaronic or Melchizedek priesthood. There's no mention of Peter, James and John. And just as we've been talking about Sidney Rigdon, a lot. These ideas did not come over until Sidney Rigdon joined the church, as his branch was the Campbellite branch, and they were talking about multiple priesthoods with a Aaronic and a Melchizedek priesthood. And so Rigdon comes over, he brings these ideas over. And as we talked about last week, the next year, Joseph Smith introduces the higher priesthood in 1831, which is the first time Joseph was ever ordained to it. And then as the years go on, the story evolves into what we have as DNC 20 and 27, but really not until about 1835, because they did not mention the visitations by Peter, James and John or John the Baptist until after, I believe February of 1835 is the first time. So this is a story that takes six years to develop. And as we talked about last week, this, this is all about authority. This is all about retrofitting a story that was effectively started by Oliver and then finished by Joseph to put themselves above everybody else in the church. And obviously went through all of this last week in greater detail. But this is a huge element to looking at the changes to the dnc.

John Dehlin [00:48:15] Yeah. And I think it's super significant. Just really, as I'm kind of observing this, not only do we know that the whole. And we talked about this, the Peter, James and John, John the Baptist priesthood, restoration, higher, lower priesthood that doesn't really fully evolve until 1835. I think it's so significant that we know the source of the introduction of those ideas, which is Sidney Rigdon. It's one thing for the church to claim, oh, we didn't, you know, it was known in the minds of everyone. It was just never written down. But we actually know where the idea came from in this case. And I think that's really, that's. To me, that's significant. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:48:51] Yeah, it's huge. And so we talked about this last week. So this is a change. As we talked about a little bit last week, Joseph Smith makes a significant change which elevates his authority in the church to be unmatched. Until 1835, both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were referred to as elders in the church. The Book of Commandments states the following. Which commandments were given to Joseph, who was called of God and ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of this church, and also to Oliver Cowdery, who was called of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ and an elder of this church and ordained under his hand. And now if you look at the DNC20 entry, it says which commandments were given to Joseph Smith Jr, who was called of God and ordained an apostle of Jesus Christ to be the first elder of the church. And to Oliver Cowdery, who was also called of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be the second elder of this church and ordained under his hand. And so here Joseph is basically stating, I'm the top gun. Oliver's, you know, my second in command. And this all happens after Oliver Cowdery creates the angelic visitation in 1834. And because of that, Joseph makes him the number two later in the year, which then leads to all these changes in 1835. So as we detailed last week, this is something that is years in the making and is absolutely a significant change to make sure that their authority can no longer be questioned by the Missouri branch or anyone else who has a problem with the way Joseph Smith is running things.

John Dehlin [00:50:17] So in this one, it's. It's Joseph becoming first elder and Oliver becoming second elder. Yes, that, that's a, that's a significant change.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:50:26] Yeah, it seems small, but it's huge.

John Dehlin [00:50:27] Yeah, because it's basically Joseph pulling rank. And what we, what we see over time with, you know, humans, not just, you know, leaders of culture, high demand religions, it's that power gains over time. Whether, you know, Warren, Jess is the perfect example of how he started out as just like the school teacher, you know, in, in some bountiful school or, you know, sandy school. But over time he, he gains all power possible, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:50:53] Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, in like, you could look at like David Crush, obviously, you know, watching the Waco series, you could see how all of a sudden people are starting to believe in him. And when they believe in him, he believes in himself more. But you can even look at things like business people. You have those stories of the last few years where a business person or like a TV personality, you know, they kind of start small and all of a sudden they get this big job and you've got these women in their department that maybe he, that this man feels is making an interest in him and all of a sudden he abuses his power. You have this everywhere where people are constantly, the more power they get, the more they want and the more they're willing to abuse it. Not everyone, but it happens a lot.

John Dehlin [00:51:29] No, I mean, I think, I don't know who it was, Lord Acton or whoever who said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:51:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:51:36] And, you know, George Orwell and Animal Farm and all that show, and even Lord of the Rings and the Ring is just all about power corrupting, which is it's true for all of us, not just Joseph, but it's certainly Joseph.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:51:48] Well, I mean, you know, and the question I've always had with this stuff, especially after doing the deep dive, is it's like, why did God have to give Joseph Smith this revelation? If it's just through a rock and a hat, why couldn't anybody grab a rock and have the words appear to say, yes, you know, I, God, have made Joseph Smith Jr. My servant? Like, why is it always put down, like, basically a pyramid? You know, you start at the top and then it goes. It funnels down. It's like, why, if God really is all powerful.

John Dehlin [00:52:15] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:52:15] Why do we have to jump through hoops? And that's something that.

John Dehlin [00:52:17] Why can't it be that every. Why can't it be that? This is a great point, Mike. Why can't it be that every member who has faith and is obedient gets their own rock and everyone can simultaneously see what God wants? Why does it have to always filter through, usually a white male who just happens to want your. Your wives sometimes?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:52:36] You know, it's just like, well, it's like kind of. I mentioned last week about, you know, how the priesthood restoration is almost as if, you know, Joseph Smith is the, the. The dad and he's telling his kids to do something. The kids are like, no, you know, you're not my dad or whatever. And he's like, yes, I am, you know, and then creates revelation to be like, yeah, I'm the dude. And it's the same thing here. It's like the church will. Will tell you God told me this specific thing. Right. Whether it's like the November 15th policy, Russell Nelson said this was revelation from God. And then they'll tell you, we'll go pray and have a good feeling about it. They're not going to tell you. Go pray and God's going to give you those same words because it just doesn't happen. And it's the same thing here. It's like, why are we supposed to believe that God is so powerful? And yet also. I mean, I'm not saying it. I'm saying it in the sense of the way the Mormon Church works. He's so powerful that he can foresee everything that's going to happen from the beginning to the end. He can do everything, and yet also so weak that he can't give the same message to other people. And we're going to get to that more with polygamy, where it's like Joseph Smith's like, hey, I got this revelation from God, I need to take another wife. And he told me you're the one. He literally tells women, God told me you're the one. You think God would just come to them and be like, hey, just so you know, I need this new principle to be established, and you're going to be the person because you've been faithful. It doesn't work that way. And that's.

John Dehlin [00:53:53] It always filters through Joseph.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:53:54] It always filters through Joseph. And so these, these revelations are to make sure that nobody questions the fact that it always has to come through one person.

John Dehlin [00:54:01] And. And we know in Mormonism that if the prophet says something and then you get an individual revelation, that that's wrong. If you take that back to your leaders and say, hey, the Lord told me the prophet's wrong, that's never gonna fly. That's literally never gonna fly. The other thing I'll just say is that I really like the quote we came up with last episode. You have to have a rank to pull rank. And this scripture, particularly this scripture change, is an example of Joseph Smith needing to establish rank so that he can pull rank on Oliver later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:54:35] Okay, it is.

John Dehlin [00:54:36] So tell us about this next visual slide. I'm assuming this comes from the Tanners.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:54:40] Again, this comes from the Tanners. And So this is DNC20 on the left and DNC27 on the right. And this is just a visual of all of the text that was added to the revelation that was claimed to have come directly from God. And so you could see. I mean, these are blocks of text. And you can obviously on our website, we have these images. You can go to the Tanners and they have it as well, since obviously I grabbed it from them. And it just shows how these are not. The leaders will tell you all, just small changes. These are massive additions to revelations that were claimed to have happened. In this case, you're talking six years from 1829 to 1835. Joseph Smith is going to make. I mean, really, these changes are from 1833. But the point is, over six years from when the revelation was originally supposed to have happened, this is how much information Joseph Smith has to add to make the stories line up. And that's a huge red flag that these are not historical events.

John Dehlin [00:55:34] So we haven't gone into detail on all these changes that we see right now on the screen. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:55:40] We did last week with the priesthood, because a lot of this is him saying, you know, now I bring to you my servants.

John Dehlin [00:55:45] Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:55:46] You know, Peter, James and John, stuff like that. So it's stuff we covered last week. But yeah, so, okay. DNC 20 is establishing more. The first and second elder 27, I believe, is where you've got the visitations. And there were ordinations and all that. So.

John Dehlin [00:55:57] Yeah, previous episode.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:56:00] Yep. So this will link into our previous one a lot. And.

John Dehlin [00:56:03] Yeah, we show that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:56:04] Yeah, we show those images there, too.

John Dehlin [00:56:05] Okay, perfect. Perfect. That makes sense. Yeah, that's an important visual. Okay, so we're going to polygamy and plural marriage. This is a big one.

D&C 101, Polygamy, and the Marriage Revelation

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:56:12] Yes. This is a huge one because this is DNC101 from the original Doctrine and Covenants, and this is not in the church today. And so this is a dramatic change because it's removed. And Joseph Smith entered a revelation into DNC 101 that included the following statement. Inasmuch as this church has been reproached with the crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one man should have one wife and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again. And I will note right off the bat, because apologists throw this out there. Joseph did not write this. This was written while Joseph was gone. But it was written because the church was basically under fire because people had rumors about Joseph Smith having affairs with his followers. And in this case, this is right after he had had a sexual relationship with Fanny Alger. Apologists want to claim that was his first polygamous wife. There is absolutely no way that happened as we'll get into in the polygamy episodes, because he did not even claim sealing keys at this point. And so I just want to say, while Joseph Smith did not write this, he absolutely included it intentionally with Oliver Cowdery. Because we talked about when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery went to go do the dnc, they worked on it. They edited this together. So this would have been in there with his approval. And the church had to remove it in 1876 because obviously this is not what the Church was following. And had to remove it because it completely contradicted DNC132.

John Dehlin [00:57:38] Yeah. And I don't know. Okay. Yeah, I don't see any more on this slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:57:43] No, it's just one.

John Dehlin [00:57:45] As I understand it, when was DNC101 removed from the Doctrine and Covenants? Do you know which version of the Doctrine and Covenants?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:57:54] So it was removed in 1876.

John Dehlin [00:57:56] Right. And so for the majority of the time, I think this is super important for the majority of the time that polygamy was practiced 80%. I don't know. It was being practiced in. Counter to the written scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants, also secretly. Also something that people lied about. And we've already talked about the fact that we would send missionaries to the uk, to England and into Western Europe. They would ask, hey, we hear you. Mormons are practicing polygamy. And missionaries who were polygamists themselves would show the Doctrine and Covenants. They would show them that polygamy is forbidden. And they would tell them that no polygamy was being practiced while they were practicing polygamy. Is that. Am I right or am I wrong about that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:58:48] Yeah, I mean, there are accounts of that where they would. They would use the DNC as a way to say, see, we don't do that. And then they come over, and most of the time they had no money, no food, and then they're left with the option of being married to an old dude or, you know, being on their own. And it's a horrific, horrific, horrific thing that happened. And when we get into the polygamy episodes, I. Yeah, I mean, that's. Those are gonna be tough for me because those are the ones that still really anger me because they're. You know, we talk about abuses of power, or at least Joseph Smith altering revelations to grow his power. I think when you get into polygamy, that also shows how Joseph Smith uses the voice of God to establish his authority in some really, really, really bad ways. And again, we have documentation on that as well, that shows how he was doing it. And it is. It's all about authority. It's all about, you know, authority gives you power. Power gives you authority, all that stuff. And it's rough.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] And we'll dig into this more, but because it's relevant to this exact section. Apologists. Apologists want, you know, the fact that Joseph Smith started his Polygamy Years before DNC 132 was ever introduced without telling Emma, lying to Emma. Apologists want to say, well, back in 1831, he did get this revelation about, you know, Native Americans and missionaries and Native Americans and how, you know, if you're a missionary to the Native Americans, maybe you're allowed to take on a concubine or an extra wife or two. And like, while that's revolting and racist in and of itself, they want their cake and eat it too, because they want to be able to say Joseph Smith was receiving revelations about polygamy as early as 1831 to help justify the Fanny Alger affair. But at the same time, that doesn't make any sense when we know it was codified in both the Book of Commandments, I believe, but certainly the 1835 version of the Doctrine and Covenants that man should have one wife and one woman, but one husband. So it makes no sense that Joseph was receiving revelation from God in 1831, allowing for his polygamy and allowing for Phane Alger in explicit contradiction with his written scripture. Am I wrong?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:01:04] No. I mean, when we get into DNC 132, we're going to do basically an entire episode on the creation of DNC132 and the history behind it because of what you're saying in the timelines. You know, we talk about timelines a lot with the first vision, the priesthood. You can do the same thing with polygamy. And yeah, it's, I mean, the fact that they put this in an 1835, you know, I think in a lot of ways to me, indicates that Joseph wasn't planning on doing any system of polygamy at this point. But I also think he got to a point where for whatever motivation, I know from an apologetic standpoint, you would say God commanded it, but from, from a historical standpoint, something. You know, we talked earlier in this episode about how sometimes you start to believe your own, your own talking, and it could just be that he believed he could get away with it or he believed he could use the voice of God to get what he needed. Or maybe he even believed that that's what God wanted because that's what he wanted. You know, we can highlight some of those motivations when we get into those episodes because there is some, some little hints of that in some of the writings he did to some of the women and some of the things he told them. But yeah, it's bad. All the polygamy stuff to me is just horrific. And it gets worse the deeper you get into it, which is why we typically don't hear much about it in church.

John Dehlin [01:02:18] Yeah. And then just to check back in with those four statements made by prophet seers and revelators, their statements that no significant changes were made deeply fail when it comes to the dnc. You know, the polygamy, the polygamy changes, you know, with DNC 101. I mean, that, that's another explicit example of their deception or lying or ignorance. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:02:43] Yeah. I mean, the like.

John Dehlin [01:02:45] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:02:45] When you read the way that they taught about all of this stuff, it's, it's just, it's. They, they know better and they, they made a choice you know, and we talk. I've talked about this a lot lately on. Not really so much these episodes, but when they posted on Twitter about certain things that have happened in the church recently. And, you know, one of the things I keep saying is they made a choice. You. Sometimes you make a choice, and for better or for worse, you. You made a calculated decision. And in this case, the leaders of the church were making a choice to tell people, there's nothing to see here. And the simple fact is the evidence tells us we can see it clearly with our eyes. I mean, unless we can't.

John Dehlin [01:03:22] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:03:23] Read. Unless we're supposed to read these differently than they're written, which is another apologetic tactic. It's just beyond obvious that these are significant changes.

John Dehlin [01:03:33] Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's go on to, I think, Law of Consecration, Right?

Additional Changes Across Multiple Sections

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:03:39] Yep. So this is DNC42, and this is one that's not like a massive change. I would say it's not as important as DNC 5, but in the book of commandments, in chapter 44, the saints are commanded to consecrate all of their properties to the church. And going back to Sidney Rigdon, this was likely a revelation that was at least influenced by him as his Campbellite branch lived in a more, you know, communistic communal order. And Joseph probably sought to adapt that concept as well, because again, Joseph was. When Sidney Riggin came in, he. He rose into the church extremely quickly, and a lot of his ideas, like the priesthood were eventually integrated. And so this isn't a very small but significant change, because when he edits DNC42, which is this the same revelation, he changes consecrate all to consecrate of which changes the meaning because all of a sudden it goes from, you know, giving everything you have to the church to consecrating of your property, so giving at least a portion of your property. And like I said, this was a change that was made after the church was trying to run in that more communistic, socialistic manner, and it failed. And Fawn Brody wrote that Joseph's enthusiasm for the United Order was always tempered by the fact that it was Rigdon's conception. So it's documented that Sidney Rigdon was influencing this. And the fact is, it just didn't work very good.

John Dehlin [01:05:02] Yeah, I think it was his. His. His enthusiasm for United Order is probably also tempered by the fact that it failed miserably.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:05:08] Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think it failed. I think, yeah, the enthusiasm probably gets tempered by the fact that it failed. And then you probably are looking at her, at Sydney rigging and going, you got to be kidding me. Why'd you bring. You know, why did you think this was going to work? You know, and.

John Dehlin [01:05:20] But yeah, but you're right. It's a small change, but it's a. It's a significant and meaningful change. And it isn't just a change of like a. A spelling error or a correction or something that was in a previous manuscript. And then like, oh, whoops, in the printer's manuscript, it was right. But then in the typesetting, they got it wrong. No, the church walked away from united order, from law of consecration. And so they needed to make the change to change the change in direction that the church was making. And that's why it's significant, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:05:52] Yeah. Because united order was saying, God wants you to give everything you have to the church. And then that failed. And so all of a sudden you have to change God's words because no longer is that part of what the church is doing. So otherwise you would go, why is God commanding us to give everything we have in here, but we're not actually practicing it? So this is another area where something changes and Joseph has to go back and change God's words to make it work.

John Dehlin [01:06:13] Yep. And in this case, to Joseph's credit, I guess he's decreasing his power and money instead of influence. So good for Joseph.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:06:21] I guess sometimes when you have a big failure, you do have to, you know, take a step back and go, you know, how do I, you know, kind of regroup and reform and go forward? Yeah, it's.

John Dehlin [01:06:31] So I'm assuming this is the Sandra Tanner visualization of those changes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:06:35] Yeah, so it's another Sandra Tanner and Gerald Tanner production of the changes. It just shows again that these are not small changes. You know, you're going to have some in there. If you look at. And you go, yeah, that's no big deal. You know, it's just changing a little word or it's adding one word to make it a little bit more readable. But there are also within that, very significant changes that are again, altering the word that is claimed to be given from God, either through the seer stone or later on directly through Joseph through prayer. So either way, Joseph is claiming to be relaying or dictating the exact words of God to ascribe. And yet look at how much has to be changed just a few years later.

John Dehlin [01:07:12] Yeah, those are big changes. And we know why they made the changes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:07:15] That's just it. So we know why. And that's. That's A big, big deal.

John Dehlin [01:07:18] So, okay, the next one is a sprout, a rod, or the gift of aaron. D&C. 8.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:07:24] Yeah. And so this one is an interesting one because one of the things we always talk about Joseph in his magical worldview and using the rock and a hat. Oliver Cowdery was also a very magical worldview minded person. And he used what was called a dowsing rod. And so that was his background was also in magic. And so they call it divining rod, a dowsing rod, water witching. And so this is a revelation that actually changes three times. So in the original commandment, it says this is a revelation from God to Oliver Cowdery. It says, remember, this is thy gift. Now this is not all, for thou hast another gift, which is the gift of working with the sprout. That's the rod. Behold, it hath told you things. Behold, there is no other power save God that can cause the thing of nature to work in your hands. And just as a real quick thing, so when you believe in this, you're holding like this little rod. And so actually, can you show me real quick? So you're holding like a little rod?

John Dehlin [01:08:21] Go ahead.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:08:21] And we're going to pretend this popsicle stick is like a dousing rod. And so you're praying or you're asking or a lot of times when they're looking for water, they're walking over land and all of a sudden it'll start going like this when you're over water or you'll pray and you say, dear Heavenly Father, is it true that I should marry so and so. And then you hold it real steady. That's yes. And it sounds, it looks stupid, but that's what they did. So that's a magical worldview. So that is what the water. I'm sure people would say I'm kind of characterizing it, but yeah, the whole idea is you're holding it and God will answer by moving that for you. And that's how Oliver believed he had a connection with the supernatural or the divine. And so this revelation is saying, this thing of nature, God is the only thing that can cause this thing of nature to work in your hands. He's saying God's the only thing that is making this rod work. So this is another revelation from God saying that yes, I absolutely am conducting folk magic on the earth, even though, as we've shown in previous episodes, it doesn't actually work. So if we go back to the slide, that first revelation is the original revelation.

John Dehlin [01:09:30] And can I just say Never in the history of any of my time in the church did, you know, in all the movies and all the film strips that the church created. Filmstrips, Doot, doot, you know, or the movies that came later, all those cinematic productions that the church shows at Temple Square in the visitor center. Never did I see Oliver Cowdery walking around with the sprout, like looking for water. Right. Or anything. And there's a reason for that. It's because it's superstitious and kooky and weird. And even though. Even though a lot of people did it back then, it takes away from the credibility of the narrative in modern times. And that explains the changes you are about to tell us.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:10:20] Yeah, and that's why, because they want to get this stripped out. And so when they do the Book of commandments in 1833. Now, remember, in 1833, all of this treasure digging stuff is still following Joseph around. So of course you don't want to be as folk magic. So in the Book of Commandments, they change the word sprout to the word rod. So instead of saying working with the sprout, it's working with the rod. And then it says,

John Dehlin [01:10:45] I guess. Is that because rod sounds a little bit better than sprout?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:10:48] I think so, because sprout's kind of like, you know, it just sounds like you're holding a stick. You know, I think rod at least gives it maybe more of a credible, more formal kind of thing.

John Dehlin [01:10:57] You know, I'm thinking, hold to the rod. The iron.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:11:00] Yeah, like it sounds. I don't think that's it, but maybe. I mean, I. Yeah, I think it sounds better.

John Dehlin [01:11:05] I'm just saying it's scriptural there. I don't know anything in the Bible that's says, behold, grab your sprout. You know what I mean?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:11:10] No, I think, Yeah, I think they just want to get that word out of there because it sounds so folksy. And so they change that. And then it says, no other power save God that can cause this rod of nature to work in your hands. So they're putting the word rod in there to try to make it a little bit more, I think, credible or at least a little less folk magicy. But then when they change it in 1835, so they've gone from sprout to rod, and then they go from that to the gift of Aaron. And then later they say, no other power but the. No, save the power of God that can cause this gift of Aaron to be with you. And so they are absolutely now Stripping all of the folk magic out. And now they're calling a. Basically a stick. That's a water divining, water witching stick. The gift of Aaron, which is.

John Dehlin [01:11:55] Which makes it more. It gives a more general applicability. It can mean anything.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:12:00] Right?

John Dehlin [01:12:00] And it takes it out of the weird folksy sprout thing into Rod, which is a little more biblical, a little more solid sounding, into the gift of Aaron, which really can mean have nothing to do with folk magic at all.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:12:13] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:12:13] Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:12:13] Yep, Exactly. That's. And that's just it. They're trying to say Oliver was given a gift by God, and they're gonna call it the gift of Aaron, so that when people read it, especially if you're a potential convert or even an outsider who has questions, you're gonna read it and you're not gonna think, oh, this guy was walking around with a stick, you know, or, you know, trying, because there's. We don't have in here because it's not really a change. But, you know, at one point, Oliver's like, hey, can I try translating the Book of Mormon? And Joseph's like, yeah, sure, go ahead and give it. See if you could do it. And then he tries to do it, and then he gets the revelation from God saying, you didn't see, you didn't seek it out in your mind or study out in your mind, therefore, you don't get to do it. And it's because, again, like, Joseph Smith is claiming to read words off of a rock. Oliver Cowdery would probably be like thinking up a sentence and then holding a stick going, okay, is that the right line? You know, it looks silly because it is silly. And, you know, I think that's one of those things where when you look at the folk magic origins of the church, it's embarrassing. And that's why they're stripping it out of their scriptures, and that's why they have stripped it out of their history so well. Because if, you know, like I said as a convert, if they'd come to me and said, had a picture of Joseph with his head and a hat and Oliver with a stick on the side, I would just be like, this is nonsensical. And that's why they don't show it to you. And until recently, I would argue they don't even, like, even in saints, they'll kind of. They kind of hit you with it a little bit, but they don't really. They still try to make it more of using the Nephite interpreters and the breastplate. And urim and thummim and all of that, as we showed in the earlier episodes, it's all retrofitted language. Urim and thumb is anyways. And. Yeah, so it's just. It's just an attempt to downplay the magical origins of the church.

John Dehlin [01:13:45] Yeah. Yep. That's embarrassing. And it makes it seem more folk magic than actually scriptural. So there's a. There's another slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:13:54] Yeah. So slightness. And we already kind of covered the fact that the urim and thummim is a term that was retrofitted later. It was not something they talked about early. And then there's just this quote. It's from Marvin Hill. He was an assistant professor of history at byu, and he admitted that when Oliver Cowdery took up his duties as a scribe for Joseph Smith in 1829, he had a rod in his possession, which Joseph Smith sanctioned. He says some of the rodsmen, or money diggers, who moved into Mormonism were Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, Orrin Rockwell, Joseph and Newell Knight, and Josiah Stowell. And it's just worth noting that two of the three witnesses were known to be treasure diggers or money diggers or water witchers, which means that they are absolutely believing in things that are just, as we know today, nonsensical. And it's really important to note that in the early church, a large element of the early founding members were from a worldview that I think today, if you told a member of the church, you explained it to him without saying who they were or that they were Mormons or the early Mormon witnesses, they would say, oh, my goodness, those people are making it up. It's just, you know, it's. It's important to note that because the church has worked so hard to strip out all of the magical folk magic references to all of these early members of the church.

John Dehlin [01:15:07] Yeah. And like in the case of Michael Quinn, he comes out with the book, you know, Mormonism in the early Early Mormonism, the Magic Worldview, and he gets excommunicated for it. So it's not. Yeah, it's not just that they tried to strip out all the folk magic and downplay it. They actually communicated people who talked about it. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:15:26] Yeah, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:15:27] Yeah. So that shows, you know, that's when the church starts to become cult, like when it's suppressing information and punishing its truth tellers. So what's this? This is a. This is a lovely graphic that actually shows what Oliver with.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:15:42] Yeah. So this is a painting, and I don't Know who did Excite? I found it online at some point, and I don't know exactly where it originated, but this is effectively kind of an artist rendition of what using a divining rod might be. So you find kind of like a stick that you feel is special and you hold it and then that stick will move if it's confirming what you're asking or if you're on top. If you're looking for water, it would move when you're looking for water and stuff like that. And I know Dan Vogel talked about it once and he said a lot of them believed it because, you know, your body can. Can when you're walking along looking for water, can make things move, you know, because subconsciously you're. You're in such a mode of looking for. All of a sudden you notice a little movement in your hand that you don't even realize you did. And. And so that's kind of what Oliver Cowdery did. And then on the right is just the little bit of changes from the, you know, to. To use the gift of Aaron instead of the. The rod. And just shows from the tanners again that these are changes being made to direct revelations from God.

John Dehlin [01:16:37] I think this practice, maybe you've already said this is also called water witching. And I think that there are people today in 2022 who still believe in this and do it. I think you can still hire water witchers to help you find wells on your land in Utah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:16:52] Yep. Yeah, I think there are. I mean, I don't. I don't think it's very successful, but I think there are people that do it.

John Dehlin [01:16:56] Yeah. Okay, next slide. Adding in new church positions. DNC 20.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:17:02] Yeah, so we kind of highlighted this a little bit earlier with the priesthood restoration, but in DNC20, not only are they starting to add in these visions to the priesthood restoration, but they're also changing the structure of the church. And so in the Book of Commandments, the heading of it is as follows. The articles and covenants of the Church of Christ given in Fayette, New York, June 1830. Two paragraphs have been added to it, having been thrust into the middle of it. Paragraphs 16 and 17 is the part added which speaks of high priests and other high offices that the Church never knew of until almost two years after its beginning. As if God had made a mistake in the first organization of the church and left out these high important offices, which are all above an elder. And as if God had made a mistake and left these high offices out of that revelation when it was first given. Oh, the weakness and blindness of man. That again, is from David Whitmer in his address to all believers, which he's stating that, you know, they're throwing two paragraphs in there to effectively elevate Joseph to make sure he can't be challenged.

John Dehlin [01:18:04] So I'm looking on the next slide. Do you have the actual words that got added or changed visually?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:18:11] You know what? I don't actually. I think that was an area, but I can read them.

John Dehlin [01:18:16] Oh, yeah, read them to us, because I heard you read the text, but I don't think I have a clear sense. So it's. It's important that we know. David Whitmer's complaining about what was added, but I don't think I totally know what. What was added.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:18:32] So let's see. It says, like, no person is to be ordained to any office in this church where there is a regularly organized branch of the same without the vote of that church. But the presiding elders, traveling bishops, high counselors, high priests and elders may have the privilege of ordaining where there is no branch. You know, I don't think that's actually. I'm have to find it because I'm looking at the Tanner's thing. I need to look up the.

John Dehlin [01:18:56] Well, it would make sense based on what we've talked about.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:18:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:19:00] It wouldn't say high priests. There's no way it would say high priests in the Book of Commandments, because that evolves later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:19:09] That wouldn't be in there.

John Dehlin [01:19:10] And so. And so if just high priest was not in the previous version and then it was in the later version, that would be enough for me to go, oh, that makes total sense given our discussion of the evolving priesthood. And that's the type of thing that David Whitmer would complain about. The one thing I want to address is the church likes to do this game where a heading is not. It's not bad if like an introduction page or a heading has changed because that's not the actual scripture versus if it's like chapter verse changes. Do you want to address that? Because I think that's a typical apologetic

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:19:48] as far as like changing the headers. Well, I mean, the headers aren't.

John Dehlin [01:19:50] Well, it's an introduction. Right. Or the heading over the Book of Command.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:19:54] I believe the heading over the DNC was written long after Joseph Smith and was written by the church to explain kind of what it is.

John Dehlin [01:19:59] No, the heading over the Book of Commandments.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:02] Oh, this is from. From what David Whitmer said, right?

John Dehlin [01:20:06] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:06] Yeah. So I think what they're saying is.

John Dehlin [01:20:09] What I'm saying is an apologist would go, oh, Joseph changed the heading over the Book of Commandments. Well, that's not scripture.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:17] I think what David Whitmer is saying that the Book of Commandments is saying that it's the Articles and Covenants of the Church given in June of 1830. And then I think he's saying into the DNC now they're going to add two paragraphs speaking of high priests. And so he's saying. I think what he's trying to say is, look, the heading of the Book of Commandments is making very clear these are the articles and covenants of the Church. And yet Joseph Smith is still going to go in and change them years after the fact. I think that's what he's trying to. To get at.

John Dehlin [01:20:44] Okay, okay, so this next slide, a Visual of the DNC 20 changes. Anything, anything you want to say about that?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:20:52] Hang on one second. I was looking back at DNC20. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I was just looking. And you've got some notes. Like in DNC20, it says every president of the high priesthood or presiding elder, bishop, high councilor and high priest is to be ordained by the direction of a high council or general conference. You know, I think they're adding in these positions that were not there obviously in 1830, because we discussed there were no high. There was no high priesthood then. So I think what David Whitmer is saying is they're adding all of these things in and they're, you know, these are now higher than an elder. So it is an area where you can see Joseph Smith is changing his theology on the priesthood. He's also being challenged by early members. And he needs to restructure the church in a way that keeps him on top, delineates the priesthood so you can have people below him. And as we've been kind of going through this, we've been saying one of the apologies here in the church is that God reveals line by line, precept upon precept. And they would say that God just wanted to give this to him as he was ready for it. He couldn't give it to them all at once because it'd be too much. And I would just respond and say again that going through last week's precept restoration episode, the most obvious, rational, logical conclusion is that Joseph Smith was the author of these revelations, had been changing what he was doing, being challenged by everybody around him, and he changed them. Also.

John Dehlin [01:22:08] The church was growing and when you have a growing organization, you need a more sophisticated leadership.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:22:15] Right.

John Dehlin [01:22:15] And what you would expect is that God would give the revelation ahead. I mean, prophet, seer, revelator, seeing ahead of time, God could use the stone to give Joseph the correct organization that it would grow to in three or four or five years. But instead, they just change the revelation as if God said it originally. And then they tell everyone no changes were ever made, when really what's clearly happening is the organization's growing, the offices and structures need to change, and so they're retrofitting original Scripture. Yeah. You know, or they're changing original scripture to modify it and then telling everyone it was always that way. It's deceptive.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:22:58] Well, it is. And we talked last week in this church. You're to believe that God knew Joseph was going to lose 116 pages and had a second set of plates created thousands of years earlier, preserved, protected, just so Joseph would have the exact information he would need to replace that text with. And yet God did not realize Joseph was going to be challenged and would need to have positions in the church that would make sure that people knew he was the highest authority. It is the inconsistency of the God in Mormonism that always seems to come out on the side of benefiting Joseph Smith or even in today, the leaders. And it is a red flag when the people who claim to be propheciers and revelators claim all these revelations when you can't really show the wrong, like, say, the lost 116 pages. And yet when you can show they're making changes, when they're being challenged, all of a sudden they're going to throw down, you know, the. The revelation card in order to protect themselves while keeping everybody else, you know, at arm's length so that they can't challenge them.

John Dehlin [01:23:56] Yeah, it's the. It's the changes. It's the lack of foresight. It's the changes and then the denial that any changes were ever made.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:24:05] Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:24:05] And the punishing of people who mentioned the changes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:24:08] Right.

John Dehlin [01:24:09] Okay. Well, that's that. Let's go on to the parchment of John. This is one of my favorites.

The Parchment of John and Prophetic Authority

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:24:16] Yeah. So this is DNC7, and this is our, kind of. Our last example before we get into the apologetics. But this is a revelation where Joseph Smith is claiming to translate a lost parchment from John the Beloved through his stone. So to. This is happening during the Book of Mormon translation, Oliver and Joseph are having a discussion, maybe some disagreements about whether John the Beloved terror and the flesher died As a quick note, that is something that even the Joseph Smith Paper project notes in their historical introduction, that that was something being discussed heavily during their lifetime. This was a big question within the Bible, you know, with the religious community. So they're trying to figure it out. And so Joseph claims to see the parchment he's reading off of the literal parchment with the Seer Slash Peep stone, which of course they're going to retrofit into the Urim and Thummim. And he translates the writing directly off the parchment. And the crazy thing is this tells you it is an extremely tight translation because he is reading a parchment and then giving the translation through the stone of what it says. And yet when he revises it in 1835, the number of words in the Revelation go from 143 to 252 words, which almost doubles the text. And this is obviously a huge problem because we're being told he's reading it directly off of parchment. So how in the world is he almost doubling the length of the Revelation if he had already translated it through the stone years earlier?

John Dehlin [01:25:44] Yeah, yep. And that's such a weird idea at all, that Joseph's like, oh, Oliver, I can see this parchment that's in this cave back in the Middle east somewhere. Now let me use my stone to tell me what it says. Like, that introduces a couple really significant problems that immediately destroy a couple critical apologetics. Number one is why were the plates ever needed at all if Joseph just could have looked into his stone and produced the Book of Mormon? So the fact that plates, you know, John Larsen even said this, that probably tens of thousands of people died to create and preserve the Book of Mormon, the golden plates for the Book of Mormon. And then we find out that Joseph didn't even need the plates to be able to produce the Book of Mormon. Why? Why all that effort? Why all that. All this etching and scratching into the gold, which we know never happened now, but why put people through all that when Joseph didn't even need it? And then you go to the Book of Abraham, like, Joseph didn't need the papyrus to create the Book of Abraham if he had the power to do that with his peep stone. And so this idea of a catalyst theory where he needed the scrolls to inspire him to be able to produce the text of the Book of Abraham. No, he didn't. The parchment of John shows that he could have just read the gosh darn stone. So there was no need for any papyrus for him to be able to give a perfect translation of what would have been on the papyrus, but we know what was on the papyrus and the word Abraham. Abraham wasn't even there. And so this is a really, in my view, probably an under discussed but devastating response to two critical apologetics made around the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham and probably other things I haven't even thought about.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:27:45] Yeah, well, I mean, to me, and before we even get to the changes here, this one to me sticks out the most when I think of current day leadership. Because Joseph Smith as a prophet, seer and revelator had a question about the Bible, went to God, asked the question, not only was he given the answer, but he was given a vision of a parchment where he could read the writings of John, who I think a lot of Bible scholars think was illiterate in the first place. That's not really irrelevant. And yet we have leaders today who get up at general conference and tell members not to even discuss Heavenly Mother because they know as much about it as we do. And I'm thinking to myself, so Joseph Smith could ask a fairly mundane question about the Bible and be shown a vision of a parchment sitting in a cave that's been undisturbed and apparently unfound since. And yet current day prophets in the Mormon Church tell us basically you're expecting too much if you think we can get just good answers. This shows that Joseph Smith was able to get answers to any small thing he wanted to in the quickest amount of time. And it just shows you not just the consistency of God of Mormonism, but the consistency of the leaders of Mormonism. And that again is a red flag because we're told that God is leading this church and is unchanging. And yet God seems to be giving answers to everything Joseph wants, including given visions of parchments that are written by somebody who a lot of Bible scholars believe could not have written. And then all of a sudden you have this and it just, it shows all of the problems, not just with the past foundational events, but I would argue with some of the current events as well with regards to the power or lack of power that some of the leaders have.

John Dehlin [01:29:13] Yeah. And it's so weird that in modern times all of the first presidency of the Quorum of the Twelve are ordained and sustained as prophets, seers and revelators. So they've kept the term seed seer, and we all knew what seer meant. It meant you could look into a stone and see things. So they've kept the title. But as far as we know, from Joseph to Now there's no other prophet, seer or revelator that's actually done any seeing. So why did they preserve the title if they're not even going to use it? And we haven't even gotten to the change in DNC 7 got in the change. So let's.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:29:47] This is, this is a really important one because I don't know if we really could covered this last week in the priesthood episode. I'm not positive I may have forgotten to put this one in there. So this alteration among almost doubling the text, Joseph Smith actually is going to retrofit the priesthood restoration into this parchment. And so he adds the following text. And I will make thee to minister for him and for thy brother James. And unto you three Peter, James and John, I will give this power and the keys of this ministry until I come. And this is fitting in to try to make the priesthood restoration visitation by Peter, James and John and John the Baptist make sense because again, the story is not created until 1835 and Joseph Smith is going to retrofit it into DNC 27 as well. And like these changes are not isolated changes. They're all being done here because Joseph Smith is trying to find a way to make this consistent for his new ideas of the priesthood restoration.

John Dehlin [01:30:45] I get a little lost in all the words. Can you tell me what the exact change is between the old and the new version?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:30:50] This quote right here is completely added. This is not. This is just completely added to the initial.

John Dehlin [01:30:55] And I'm going to read. Can I read it again?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:30:57] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:57] And I will make thee to minister for him and for thy brother James. And unto you three, Peter, James and John, I will give this power and the keys of this ministry until I come. So number one, we know that there was no Peter, James and John in 1833. So we can understand why that was added later. But just that whole sentence wasn't there before.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:31:22] Yeah, not at all. That's a complete addition. It's not even a change. So that's just because, you know, he almost doubles the text. And so he needs to add that in there because he needs to establish the fact that they have the keys of the priesthood to give to bestow to Joseph and Oliver. And so this is his way of trying to backfit that idea that they hold the keys and that they will give it to Joseph, which again is something he has not thought of in any way when this revelation was written down and now has to make it. Now wants to add it in there to give himself a little bit of Extra oomph into his story of the priesthood restoration.

John Dehlin [01:31:52] Yeah. Cause it's one thing if he just claims that, oh, I didn't mention Peter, James, and John, but I was thinking it the whole time. But when he's adding it to multiple places in a new version, where in multiple places it wasn't in the previous version.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:32:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:12] Well, then, you know, he's. He's making stuff up and adding it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:32:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:32:16] That's why you say it's a massive fingerprint.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:32:18] This is a massive fingerprint because he's reading off a parchment in the cave, and now all of a sudden, five years later, six years later, he's saying, oh, crap, I forgot. On that parchment was also the sentence, which totally backs up my new story about the priest restoration. And you go, yeah, no, there wasn't. That's obscene.

John Dehlin [01:32:34] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:32:34] I mean, just imagine, you know, that's like saying that this piece of paper I wrote and have preserved somewhere that nobody can get to magically includes more text six years later, that just happens to back up my new story. It's absurd. And, yeah, you know, we'll get to it at the. At the end of this episode. But this is the second revelation that Apostle Hugh Brown said was never changed. And again, he's lying. This is absolutely changed in very significant ways.

John Dehlin [01:33:00] Yeah, that. That really is a smoking gun. That's a. That's a big deal. I can't believe I didn't. I don't know most of this stuff,

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:33:07] so, Yeah, I didn't know about that one until later, because you think of DNC 20 and 27 as the big changes, but this is also being changed in order to make that story work. So they're going through these in 1835, and I think Joseph's like, you know what? We need to establish that line of the chain of custody of the priesthood to make sure that we can claim for sure that they have the keys to give to us in the 1835, you know, claim story that is also retrofitted into that same dnc.

John Dehlin [01:33:32] Yeah, I. Maybe you just said this, but it almost seems like that that little verse belonged in the previous episode on the priesthood restoration.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:33:40] Yeah, I don't. I. You know what? I think I actually forgot to put that in there, which probably means I forgot to put that in the page.

John Dehlin [01:33:46] That's why we tell people to watch these in order.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:33:48] Yeah, I mean, it's true. Because this is just like Joseph Smith.

John Dehlin [01:33:51] We reserve the right to change things in future episodes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:33:53] Right, Exactly. Yeah. I'm gonna go back in and we'll go back in and dub this in somewhere just so so, you know, love the different clothes on and stuff. Will just say, no, no, it was

John Dehlin [01:34:01] always there, and claim we never changed it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:34:02] Yeah, exactly.

Responding to Apologetic Arguments

John Dehlin [01:34:04] Okay, so now we move to responding to apologetics. And I'm predicting I'm not going to love this part. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:34:11] Yeah. So this is one of the kind of ways that this is thought of. And so this is from Joseph Smith, History of the church, edited by B.H. roberts. And they say some of the early revelations were first published in the Book of Commandments in 1833, were revised by the prophet himself in the way of correcting errors made by the scribes and publishers. And some additional clauses were inserted to throw increased light upon the subjects treated in the revelation. And paragraphs added to make the principles for instructions apply to officers not in the church at the time. Some of the earlier revelations were given the additions of verses 65, 66 and 67. And I'm not sure what section that is, but I'm assuming it's one of the ones that talks about the different offices is an example. And so what he's saying here is that a lot of the changes were made to correct errors by scribes and publishers. And again, this is kind of something we talked about with the Book of Mormon where it's like Joseph Smith is claiming that the Book of Mormon translation and would be the same for the revelations are coming off the rock in a hat and unless they're written down correctly, are not going to change. So you can't really have errors by the scribes because of the fact that it would have meant that the rock would not have kept giving him the text that he needed. So I think that's a really bad apologetic.

John Dehlin [01:35:26] Yeah, If I could just re. If I can react to that, like, number one, I'm a little sad to see this comes from BH Roberts because I think of him as one of the good guys, as being, you know, more of a truth teller than a deceiver. But he did have the role as apologist. So, you know, I guess it is a little bit on brand for him, but for him to lead with the primary reason for the changes being correcting errors made by the scribes and publishers. Of all the changes we've just shown, what percentage have any evidence that the errors were the scribes or the publishers?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:36:08] Yeah, none.

John Dehlin [01:36:09] None. So that's an outrageous. I mean, and to put that first, like, let's just say there would have been a couple examples, I'm sure I believe that scribes and publishers make errors. But. But you wouldn't lead with the one with. With the one that has the least examples. And if it's somewhere between none and very few, then it's deceptive to lead with the least feasible apologetic answer. I think.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:36:37] Well, I think, too, when you talk about, you know, he'll say, well, a lot of them were done because, like, the officers are referring to weren't known at the time because they weren't created. Then you go, well, one, why weren't they created early on? But even more importantly than that, one of the things we've talked about in these episodes, it's not just that they were created, it's why they were created. They were created for a reason. And it wasn't just because the church was growing. It was because Joseph was being challenged. And we have documentation of, literally in the last episode where Bishop Partridge gives him a hard time, he goes back and immediately creates the high office of the president of the high priesthood and writes into the Revelation, literally writes in there, this. A bishop is not equal to this position. To basically tell Bishop Partridge, you are now under me. Stop questioning me. So to say they weren't, like, officers weren't really known at the time. Well, yeah, there's some truth that. But you also then have to address why weren't they known and why were the changes made? Because we can show that those changes are being made through revelation in a way to squash the little bit of, you know, kind of blowback he's getting from Missouri.

John Dehlin [01:37:41] Yeah. But then when you add to it the fact that they don't. They don't tell you in subsequent DNCs what. What changes were made in footnotes, or there's no effort to inform the reader that massive, significant changes have been made. But then they go on to deny, say publicly deny that any changes were made, to not inform people, and then to punish people who actually talk about the changes being made, none of that lines up.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:38:10] It doesn't.

John Dehlin [01:38:11] And that lines up.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:38:12] It's just one of those things where. It's like one of the blog posts I have on the website, it's from Elder Corbridge, and it's this talk he gave to byu. And it's basically like to say, focus on the four primary questions. And of course, the primary questions all basically circle back to the church is true. And he says, don't focus on the secondary questions. And the blog post was from a few years ago. I think it's called, like, please don't look under the hood and it's another one. This feels like that, where it's like, here's some, here's why they did it. Please don't look any deeper because if you open up the hood, you're going to see that the engine is not what we claim it to be. There's all sorts of parts that are not where they should be. And I just feel like a lot of times with apologetics, it's doing everything they can to keep you from opening the box. It's like, you know, you're walking up to the box and you're putting your hand on the lid and they're like, please don't open that. And they're just throwing everything they can to keep you from doing it. And I feel like this is another one of those areas where it's like they'll give you the most basic watered down explanations without giving you the background as to why, to how. And the second you start to see that, then you see the patterns, then you see why these change were made. And once you see why the changes were made, it gives you a better understanding of what happened. But it obviously is not going to be faith promoting.

John Dehlin [01:39:23] Yeah, it's not faith promoting. And I think the church kind of over the years has had this position where you can pretty much do anything if, if, if it's under the guise of wanting to promote faith, even if it's totally dishonest.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:39:36] You know, I mean, it's like the whole lying for the Lord thing, I know it's a cliche, but there's a reason for it because there are people in the church throughout the history who have, you know, outright lied and sometimes because they feel like it's the right thing to do, sometimes because they feel like they need to keep people faithful to the church. But regardless of the reason, they are lying. And in this case, P.H. roberts is avoiding telling people that the significant changes are very important by kind of trying to throw a few examples where it might not seem so bad. And it's just very misleading.

John Dehlin [01:40:03] Yeah, it is. Okay. What does Parley P. Pratt have to say about Joseph's revelatory process?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:40:08] So Parley P. Pratt said, after we had joined in prayer in the translating room, he dictated in our presence the following revelation. Each. Excuse me, each sentence was uttered slowly and very distinctly and with a pause between each sufficiently long for it to be recorded by an ordinary writer in longhand. This was the manner in which all of his written revelations were dictated and written. There was never an hesitation, reviewing or reading back in order to keep the run of the subject. Neither did any of these communications undergo revisions, interlinings or corrections as he dictated them. So they stood so far, as I have witnessed, and I was present to witness the dictation of several communications of several pages each. And so this is basically describing the Book of Mormon translation, which is Joseph Smith is going to read like a phrase or a sentence. Pause to give time to read it or to write it down and then continue. The only little change you'd see here is that according to Parley ppret, he's not asking the scribe to read it back to him as he continues. But this is still a very tight translation and would give you very little room, I would argue, to blame the scribes, even though Parley prepreth saying the scribes didn't write it down or didn't read it back. You also have to remember that Joseph Smith also was editing the 1833 Book of Commandments. So the changes between 1833 and 1835 are distinctly Joseph, even if it was a scribal error that would have been corrected in 1833 in the first place. So this gives you a good indication it's a tight translation. And I think it also gives you a good indication that these are early members telling us that the words of God were not revised.

John Dehlin [01:41:42] Yeah, yeah. Parley P. Pratt. That's a name we should all recognize. Absolutely. Okay. Richard Bushman.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:41:49] Yep. And so this we referred to last week. But in Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman said he revised his own revelations, adding new material and splicing one to another, altering the word wording as he saw fit. He felt authorized to expand the revelations as his understanding expanded. Joseph once said that Methodists have creeds which a man must believe or be kicked out of the church. I want the liberty to believe as I please. It feels so good not to be trammeled. Revelation meant freedom to Joseph, freedom to expand his mind through time and space, seeking truth wherever it might be. The balance between freedom and control makes it difficult to keep Mormonism in focus. Was it authoritarian or an anarchic? Disciplined or unbound? The printed word of God constituted a doctrinal authority that at the same time was open ended, allowing visionary freedom to Joseph's successors after his death.

John Dehlin [01:42:38] Yeah, and that's fine. Richard Bushman. The problem I have with that is, is that when we're growing up, when we're raised in Mormonism, when we convert to Mormonism, we're not taught, oh, D and C is scripture. But you know, Joseph Smith changed it and Altered it and added things and took things away and completely removed things. And so, you know, this reflected Joseph Smith's best understanding at the time. But who knows? Maybe he even got things wrong. You are just simply taught that it has always been this way. It is this way. It always will be this way. And Joseph communicated to us God's will. So the church wants it both ways. They want you to follow and obey the prophet unquestioningly and believe that Joseph got all his words from God without any problems. And Richard Bushman wants to tell us that Joseph wanted to be expansive. But if we're all taught when we're converting to the church or in the church, that Joseph was basically constantly changing and editing and adding based on what he's seeing around him and literally reversing the meaning of prior versions, we're going to think about the Scriptures very differently, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:43:50] Yeah, but we don't. I think Richard Bushman's quote, I think, to me is making some sort of inference that the revelations are Joseph's mind and that he's allowed to expand that with his, you know, change in ideas and, you know, being able to ponder it. But when you're taught, not just by the church, but by early leaders, by Joseph Smith, that these are revelations directly from God, and then you're also saying, well, Joseph felt like he was able to change him as his ideas change. I just. I feel like there's a disconnect there when you're saying these are the words of God. Yet Joseph also felt like he was free to change him as he saw fit. Are we really to believe that God is, you know, unchanging and at the same time cool with somebody changing, you know, his very specific revelations as this particular person felt, you know, that, you know, was necessary at any given time? And I think that's. I said it last week a lot, but it feels like you're now indistinguishable from fraud when you're saying these are both God's words. And, you know, God's also cool if you change them. It just feels like such a big disconnect there.

John Dehlin [01:44:55] Yeah. Yeah, it does. It does. So that's when Richard Bushman pulls this stuff. I'm. I'm honestly, I know people love him. He's brilliant. We have a lot to be grateful to him for. And this is. This garbage is super disappointing. And it's why. It's why Fon Brody, to me, or Dan Vogel are the legends and not Richard Bushman.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:45:15] Yeah, it's just. It's frustrating because I feel like he is doing this balance of trying to put a lot of information that a lot of members haven't read, but also giving you ways to maintain faith. And in that regard, I don't blame him. The problem is I'm pretty sure that he'd be like an amazing person to just sit down and have dinner with and just go through some of these things and just get his thoughts on it. And I just, I cannot believe that you could kind of. And maybe I'm, maybe he would have a better way to explain it, but I just feel like there's that disconnect there by basically saying that these are revelations. But Joseph also felt like God's words were, you know, perfectly okay to change as he saw fit. And I just, I feel like that is something that would never fly in general conference if you said, oh, yeah, you know, God told me this, but I don't really like this part, so I'm going to change this. But it's okay. I. There's no way that would ever happen. And so I feel like that's where there's this gap that you're just jumping from point A to point B without filling it in. And I think that's where I just can't get past it.

John Dehlin [01:46:14] Yeah. And what, what these apologists never do is just say, hey, the church is misled us or deceived us or harmed us or withheld information. They will never actually take that extra step and hold the church leaders accountable for the things they've done. And that's why I consider them enablers, you know, because they enable the bad behavior without calling it to account. And I know why they do it, but I just think it's ethically problematic.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:46:43] Okay, well, yeah, it's unethical.

John Dehlin [01:46:45] Someone that I. Blake Ostler, not a fan, but let's, let's talk about Blake Osler.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:46:51] Well, so now this in particular is referring more specifically to the Book of Mormon, but I, you know, I just want to read it because I think it's kind of coral, you know, carries over pretty well. So he says. The model of revelation I propose here is that of creative co participation. It seems to me that the Book of Mormon makes most sense if seen as both a revelation to Joseph Smith and as Joseph's expansions of the text. This view requires a theology of revelation focusing on interpretation inherent in human experience. This view is grounded in two fundamental premises. One, or premises one, there can be no revelation without human experience, and two, there can be no human experience without interpretation. According to this view, Revelation is continuing, dynamic and incomplete. It results from free human response to God. And so, honestly, I think this is the way that apologists should go with revelation, which is just to say that Joseph was a co author of the Revelations with God. I think it waters down the authority of those revelations. But this is effectively bringing with it all of the problems that a loose translation process has. And in a lot of ways, that's what Richard Bushman was just saying, is that the revelations become a loose translation when Joseph Smith decides he wants to change them. And so I think this is probably the way they should go. I just think it also is extremely problematic and it's really pulls a lot of the authority out of the revelations, which is why they will never do it.

John Dehlin [01:48:14] Yeah, yeah. I just. I just think I. Sometimes people have talked about Blake Osler's expansion model of Revelation as being, like, profound. I think it's trying to have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, I think it's. It's trying to say that when you need an explanation, that's a tight translation of him reading, you know, really translating, using, you know, as the word means, with the stone in the hat, looking at the characters, you know, as if the plates were in the room and he was really doing the work of a translator, because that gives him power and that. That makes him actually special. And that's actually what the revelations about him said. Then we're going to have the tight translation theory plates in the room, you know, and Joseph having special powers. But then when he gets it wrong, which he does almost in every case, almost with every single set of scripture that he ever engages with, including the Kinderhook plates, which were a fraud. Whenever he gets it wrong, then you need it to be loose, you know, so that. So that you can explain away all the problems. Is that fair or am I being unfair to Blake Ostler?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:49:25] Well, I just. I think, yeah, I think the loose translation theory is one that comes out of necessity because there are problems that you cannot ignore and you can't just say it didn't happen. I mean, we did that in the Book of Mormon a lot where we talked about the issues in the text. And it's like you cannot maintain the tight translation because the moment you do that, you're like, this is easily. You know, we could prove this false easily. But then you fill it in by, you know, it's kind of the God in the gaps, where it's saying, well, God gave him this revelation and Joseph was able to change it. So the errors come from Joseph Smith's worldview. And God was okay with that because Joseph was putting it into a environment, to an environment that was familiar to him and to the people who joined the church. But again, at that point, you're now indistinguishable from fraud because you're now saying that Joseph Smith was a co author of the Book of Mormon. Michael Ash has a book that is making that same case. And I think the moment you do that, you're making it out of a position of weakness because now you're saying the book cannot stand on its own as an ancient historical translation directly from God. So we need to put Joseph Smith in as a co author because the heirs are now his and not God. It's kind of what I said earlier about how David Whitmer seems to blame Sidney Rigdon for the problems of the church because he doesn't want to blame Joseph Smith directly because that would implicate his own beliefs in the church being true. And I think that we see this here where it's like, we don't want to put God under the bus. So we put Joseph Smith kind of under the bus by saying he was a loose. It was a loose translation. So Joseph Smith's bringing his own worldview that brings in anachronism and stuff, because that's how he understood it. So you're taking the problems away from God and saying, well, there's still an ancient core from God and the errors are from men, but that's what you're supposed to be avoiding by doing the translation. And so that's the whole value proposition

John Dehlin [01:51:02] of having God and the prophet is that you get the pure word, not adulterated. Now, progressive Mormons are going to say we're holding Scripture and prophets to too high a standard. But I think that's how I was taught it all worked. So I think that's on the church. So you actually have a slide where you respond to Osler's theory.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:51:23] And again, in this particular one, Blake Ostler was talking more about the Book of Mormon. I just wanted to include it because he was speaking about revelation and speaking about how revelation is processed and all that. So I felt like it was a good fit. And, you know, one of the things that I mention when I hear that Richard Bushman again was making a similar argument is just that a lot of these revelations tend to benefit Joseph Smith. So he has a revelation from God condemning Martin because Martin doesn't want to give up more money for the Book of Mormon. And so then we have revelations from Joseph Smith when he's proposing to women in polygamy that just happened to benefit him in the things he's looking for. We have the revelations about the 116 pages which effectively give Joseph Smith out of a jam. We have the revelation where the waters are choppy and Joseph doesn't want to go on the waters because he's scared. And he and the other leaders that are with him get to take a train or something really fancy or carriage or whatever, and all of the people that are under him have to ride the waters that are horrible waters. And you just have a lot of revelations where you look at and you go, man, these are awful convenient. And so to me, it feels like once you start granting him that ability to be a co author, it feels like you could take a lot of privileges with that to then take it to the next level and go, you know what? If I'm a co author, I'm going to get a little bit more from me. And I feel like that alone is the reason why you cannot go that way with revelation. Because if it's the word of God, then you cannot allow it to be corrupted by a guy who has a history of, as we've shown in the treasure digging, we have evidence he was deceiving somebody who believed in him with treasure digging. Once you show he's willing to use intentional deception for that, and then you're also going to say he was a co author of the Revelations or of the Book of Mormon, and you've already shown he's willing to use deception to better himself. It's really hard then to say that all of these errors are just something we can just kind of live with because it completely destroys the claims are making. And it also almost always ends up being on the side of benefiting Joseph Smith. And I think those are things that are red flags, not things that are, you know, features of a. Of a grand revelation ability.

John Dehlin [01:53:27] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. Apologetics is pretty much always special. Pleading to explain, you know, errors or problems or things that were hid from us or taught to us or, you know, failed expectations. And who's Blake Osler? Who's Blake Osler to tell us how to look at Scripture? He's just some lawyer who's a philosopher. Like, why should he have any authority over how we look at Scripture?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:53:56] Well, you know, I know people would say about me, it's like, who are you to tell us what this means? And I guess my only point is, you know, Blake Osler has his opinions, I have my opinions, and I would Just say that. For me, the approach I take is to look at this stuff at face value and to say, what does the evidence, what does the surrounding evidence say? I'm not trying to make something like, I'm not taking a, you know, trying to make a circle hole fit in a square peg or whatever the phrase is. I'm just trying to say, what is it at face value. I'm not trying to redefine it. And so.

John Dehlin [01:54:22] But my. I don't want to be mean or interrupt, but I don't want to. There's a difference because. Because you're just observing the data and trying to come up with conclusions. And it's fine for Blake to do that, too. My point is it's a prophetseer and revelator's job to tell us what Scripture should and shouldn't mean and what's going on. And what you showed at the very beginning of this episode is that the prophets, see, revelators aren't trying to explain away what revelation means or what translation means. They're simply telling us these are not the droids you're looking for. And there were never any changes to begin with. So it's just the point that neither you nor Blake Ostler have authority to tell us what Scripture should or shouldn't mean. That's the prophet seers and revelators job. And they're either completely missing in action or they're literally explicitly and intentionally deceiving us.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:55:15] Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think the fact that they should be able to get answers on this stuff and don't even try to give it to us. You know, you're not going to have Russell Nelson get up at general conference and even try to answer this stuff, because you can't. I mean, the problem is to answer this stuff in a way that is logically consistent would completely undermine all of the authority of the church. And so you have to just sit there and just basically ignore the people like me who are pointing this out, because you can't let members know that it's there. And to try to explain it would just make it worse, I think. I think trying to explain it, as we've seen from apologetics, doesn't work, because as soon as you have that second layer they give the apologetics, you go, that doesn't work, because this, this and this, and then. And then it's. It's just like it's screwed. And that's why when we look at the initial quotes and you go, that's just not true. And here's why that's a problem that just doesn't go away.

John Dehlin [01:56:05] And here we've got Boyd K. Packer addressing these issues. So maybe he'll save us. Boyd K. Packer, please save us.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:56:11] So here's Boyd K. Packer. This is from the Ensign in 1974. So it's not recent, but it's also in a published magazine from the Church. And he says some have alleged that these books of Revelation are false and they place in evidence changes that have occurred in the text of these scriptures since their original publication. They cite these changes, of which there are many examples, as though they themselves were announcing Revelation, as though they were the only ones that knew of them. Of course there have been changes in corrections. Anyone who has done even limited research knows that when properly reviewed, such corrections become a testimony for, not against, the truth of the books. The prophet Joseph Smith was an unschooled farm boy. To read some of his early letters in the original shows him to be somewhat unpolished in spelling and grammar and in expression. That the revelations came through him in any form of literary refinement is nothing short of a miracle. That some perfecting should continue strengthens my respect for them. Now, I add with emphasis that such changes have been basically minor refinements in grammar, expression, punctuation, clarification. Nothing fundamental has been altered. That is.

John Dehlin [01:57:16] That's another whopper. That's a huge whopper. Yeah, yeah, it's a whopper. It's deceptive. Like, they're going back to the Joseph Smith was a yokel, except when people joined the church in 1830, it's because he was a prophet, seer, revelator and translator who had special powers to read into a seer stone to discern God's word for word, literal will, because he had translated from gold plates. So they want us to simultaneously hail him as the greatest human who's ever lived since Jesus, and they want to dismiss him as a yokel. Uneducated farm boy. But that wasn't how he was sold to the world. And that's not what made you convert. Did you convert to the Church because Joseph Smith was a dumb, uneducated yokel?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:58:00] Well, I mean, I won't lie to you. There is something to be said about. I was told that story as a convert where they said this guy had no education and he had produced the Book of Mormon. And then you read the Book of Mormon not knowing that there were, what, tens or hundreds of thousands of grammatical changes to make it look as polished as it is. But when you read it you're like, holy crap, this is actually a pretty good book for a, you know, at the time they made him sound younger than he was, what was he, like 23 when he did it or whatever. But to write a book that actually reads as the Book of Mormon does today, if you're uneducated, is really impressive, except for the fact is the Book of Mormon doesn't read anything like the original Book of Mormon doesn't read anything like it does today. So, yeah, it does kind of read like someone wrote it in a, in a, you know, a woodsy area that doesn't have a lot of formal education. That being said, they, like you said, it's like you have tight versus loose translation, the Book of Mormon. Then you have like brilliant versus dumb Joseph Smith and you talk about how brilliant and gifted he was in some areas. And then when you have these other problems, you say, oh, he was just an educated, you know, hick farm boy that could barely speak a coherent sentence, which we also know is not true. He wrote letters during this time that are using pretty flowery language. They're well written. I mean, I'm not saying he's writing like novels, but he could dictate a letter that read very well, and we have proof of that outside of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. So it's a false equation. And this quote from Boyd K. Packer is in a nationally published magazine by

Church Leadership Statements on Revelation and Revision

John Dehlin [01:59:22] the church and he's saying it as an ordained prophet. Syrian revelation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:59:26] Yes. So here we have an apostle of the Mormon Church writing in a national publication that these changes to the revelations which people might hear about is much to do about nothing. Then he's going to use what I would argue is kind of emotional manipulation to tell the members that not only are these changes not a problem, but they're actually going to strengthen your testimony. And then he's going to then use kind of that thought stopping technique of trying to get people not to look further by saying, I add with emphasis that such changes have been basically minor refinements in grammar, expression, punctuation, clarification. Nothing fundamental has been altered. This is a very manipulative, dishonest statement. He knows better and he's using his position of authority to make sure that members reading this nationwide, worldwide don't look further. Because an apostle is telling you he's done the work and it's not there. And he's lying, outright lying about what the changes are.

John Dehlin [02:00:21] Yeah, I would, yeah. And I would say we've proven that, number one, they were not basically minor refinements in grammar, expression, punctuation and clarification. And number two, they're not faith affirming.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:00:33] They're not.

John Dehlin [02:00:33] Like, reading these changes does not bolster my faith. It adds to the mounting evidence that Joseph was making this up as he went along and that God was not revealing this stuff to him. He was just picking up influences from around him, making changes, and then backdating and changing things as he went along.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:00:54] So, anyway, yeah, no, I mean, Boyd

John Dehlin [02:00:56] K. Packer, shame on you, Boyd K. Packer. Yeah, you passed away, but shame on you for deceiving the members. Okay, so what's the. The next slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:01:04] Yeah, so the next slide is just kind of, I guess, what we've already said. But it's like Boyd K. Packer is correct that the research shows there were changes and it doesn't take a lot of research to find them. But is making a calculated lie that the changes are not fundamental. He's using weasel words to assure members there's nothing to worry about. And as I added, he's. I think he's being kind of emotionally manipulative to say it strengthens his testimony as a way to keep members from thinking it's a problem. Because it's like, well, if an apostle is strengthened by it, then surely I should be. And then I want to revisit a quote from Hubie Brown, Apostle Hubie Brown, that I cite at the beginning when he said, none of the earliest revelations of the church have been revised and the Doctrine and Covenants stands as printed, including sections 5 and 7. These two sections and some others are addressed directly to certain individuals. But there are lessons in them for all of us, and therefore they have not been deleted. And as we have shown, we went through both DNC5 and DNC7. This is an outright lie. Joseph Smith changed both of them in very, very big ways. And this is a claim you could make before Google made the information more available. Because you could see this in a quick Google search. You can even see it just through the Joseph Smith's paper project. This is just, it's an outright lie. And this is how early church members taught it and how it would have been taught to me even in the 90s, when I joined the late 90s, because at that point it was very hard to find this information. And so the point is, a lot of these early leaders, and I think the leaders today, they've all known better and they want to make sure the members don't because they know it's not faith promoting and I don't know what more to say because I just. I feel like if we were on the other side, if I was. Was lying about stuff like this in these episodes with you, people would rightfully call me out for lying. And these are people that claim to speak for God. They're ordained as apostles, and yet they are lying about very basic stuff because they don't want you to know.

John Dehlin [02:02:47] Yeah. Let's go to the Hubie Brown quote.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:02:50] Yep. So just to put a little bit of a cap on this. So not only have earlier revelations been revised, but DNC 5 and 7 are both outlined above, meaning earlier in the episode detailing just how much they were changed, not just in grammar, but changing meanings of the parts of Revelation. DNC 7 was, as we talked about, said it had been read off of a parchment in a cave and then was expanded to back up the priesthood restoration. And so DNC7 is a great example of how Joseph Smith claimed revelation from God to literally be able to answer any question, such as them having a question about a Bible verse in John and being given a question almost an answer almost instantly. You know, Joseph Smith could get a revelation on which young women in the church he was commanded to marry. And yet today we can't get anything to clarify some of the problematic parts of the doctrine, such as why the book of Abraham doesn't match some of the anachronisms. You know, you think leaders could get answers to that. And it's just to note, wouldn't it be great if modern leaders could get revelations on why the Book of Abraham translation is wrong, why the church's scriptures say dark skin is a curse from God or who our heavenly mother is? And then to, you know, to look back at all these changes. Even if they did claim these revelations, how long would it be until someone else down the road had to revise them? And I think that's a problem when you allow revisions to what you claim are God's word to stand and to defend that. It's like, then at that point, what change could be made down the road where you'd say, okay, that's too far.

John Dehlin [02:04:16] Yeah, yeah. And this really does bring it home because it ties back to kind of how we began, which is how we're sold either as children in the church or as converse to the church that the whole value proposition of the restoration is that God speaks to men through prophets and they can, you know, prophet means, you know, prophesy about the future, seer means you can see through a peep stone and translate documents when you don't have an understanding of the language. Revelator means receive revelations, again, about the future or about God's doctrine. And so this is the value proposition. But from Joseph Smith to now, during Joseph Smith's time, you get a bunch of revelations and prophecies and seerships that are problematic, that are racist, sexist, or, you know, in some other way disproven. And so, you know, there's some stuff that people like, but there's also a lot of problematic stuff that had to be changed. And then since Joseph Smith to now, we're sustaining all these men as prophetseers and revelators, and all they're doing is basically undoing messes. They're undoing polygamy. They're undoing the priesthood ban on. On black. Black people, the temple ban on black people. And. And they're not, more importantly, like you said, they're not ahead of the times telling us that slavery is bad, that slavery needs to be abolished. They're not telling us that women should vote. You know, women should be voting before the women's suffrage movement. They're not talking about the civil rights movement and how racism is evil and pernicious. It's promoting racism instead of denouncing it. Nothing about LGBT people and transgender people. Nothing about anything that could prevent calamities or wars or problems that are causing starvation and suffering and everything. Where are the prophets, seers, and revelators when we need them? Where are they?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:06:20] Yeah, well, and I think to what you were saying, you know, one of the. Our next episode is going to be on the word of Wisdom. And actually that's going to encompass a little bit what you're saying, which is all of these revelations are absolutely confined to what Joseph Smith knew up until the moment he recorded them. And so that's why he had to go back and change, because he's learning these new ideas that he likes. He has to go back and retrofit it so that it doesn't seem like he's changing God's decisions. You know, as David Whitmer said, apparently God changes his mind a lot because he's changing all these revelations. But the word of wisdom is great because Joseph Smith doesn't change in 1835, because everything he knows up until then is basically the temperance movement, and it is very inconsistent and illogical from a nutritional standpoint. So the later leaders can't go back. They don't want to go back and alter the DNC because they are, I think, honestly, probably too afraid to alter God's words, or at least what they believe to be. So they reinterpret it and completely reuse it differently than it's written. And I think it's kind of a good segue into that, because you're going to see how when you have these revelations, the leaders are now stuck with them, and now they're trying to reinterpret them for a modern time. When we're taught in the church that these revelations are given so that we have direction for modern time in our time. And you just twist yourself into a pretzel trying to make it work, which is what they're doing when they're telling us on Sunday that we can't drink coffee, even though the word of wisdom says hot drinks, but we can't drink iced coffee. It's a mess. And it's because all these revelations are written only with the knowledge of what any person would have in the 1830s and 40s.

John Dehlin [02:07:49] Yeah. And I'll just say to close before we hit the last slide, and I just mean this very sincerely. It's a hard world. There's a lot of pain and suffering and death and famine and disease and starvation and poverty and injustice. And I would love there to be prophetsters and revelators that talk to God that could help straighten things out. I really wish there was that. But what it seems to be that we have is we have. We're sustaining people as prophet seers and revelators when they're doing none of those things. And we're giving them our time and our money and our loyalty and our devotion in our lives and our children, as if they really are speaking for God and telling us God's will, when really they're not. And they don't deserve that level of, you know, when we all stand up when one of the apostles walks into the room and we all stand up to show them our respect, that they're not doing the things that prophets, seers, and revelators should be doing to deserve that level of respect and money and devotion and time. But I wish they really were. I wish they really were speaking for God. So let's go ahead and conclude with this final slide.

Conclusions, Resources, and Closing Thoughts

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:09:07] Yeah, so this is just kind of to put a little bit of an end to this, which is to say the recent episodes we've done are on church history, and they're in the same patterns we saw early on. So we have the issues with the Book of Mormon, with treasure digging, with the revelations on the lost 116 pages. And the simple fact is that Joseph Smith is changing his theology, he's constantly changing his views, he's constantly changing what he believes is kind of the way the church should be led. And these patterns go throughout all of these issues. And that's why we've said since the beginning to try to watch these in order if you can, just because they do. We do refer back to a lot of them. Just because these problems are not isolated, they compound on each other. There are common threads. And you know, Joseph Smith started the concept of changing revelations, but the current church today continues this tradition. And it tells us that either God is really confused and indecisive on what leaders are supposed to, what we're supposed to do, or the people who claim to speak for God are making it up. And you know, we saw that just recently with the November 15th policy of exclusion. And then three and a half years, God reversed it with another revelation. And the only real difference is that today officially they'll call a policy as opposed to revelation, but in that instance they did call it revelation. And we will get to that in a future episode. But it's just to say that, you know, the leaders today are still inconsistent. And as you said, they don't, they can't answer the questions that people have. They have these face to face meetings with the youth and they ask questions. And you would think these people, as apostles would say, I prayed about it and God gave me the following statement. You don't see that today. And I don't know if it's because the leaders know they don't have that ability and they just don't feel confident making that kind of a statement or if it's because, you know, they just don't want to make a decision that can be upended by, you know, future knowledge in science or whatever. But they don't. And so for me, it's a big tell that Joseph Smith was able to pull revelations whenever he needed to and made changes as he needed to and leader sense that are just basically silent when it comes to direct revelation from God. It's been 200 years almost since Joseph Smith and we've had very few revelations. Basically we're just in, I think, the prophet or two after him and it's just basically been silent since.

John Dehlin [02:11:20] Yeah, and I think that's also a huge smoking gun. Why in the world did Joseph Smith receive 130 plus revelations during his lifetime and yet pretty much none of the prophets since have released any revelations other than ones like the declarations to either undo polygamy or to undo the, the priesthood ban, not to mention the second declaration to undo polygamy, because the first one was never even offered sincerely. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:11:49] Like, yeah, yeah. And the declaration to remove the priesthood ban was not even a revelation. So. And we'll get to that in our episode in a few weeks on race in the priesthood. So, I mean, even those are more statements that are basically being signed off on by everybody. And so, you know, there's just, they don't canonize revelation. And I honestly think to a large degree, if you're a, you know, a leader in, in the, you know, basically in the last 20 years and, you know, the Internet's out there, you know, there are always people watching what you're saying. You are a lot more careful on promises you make or on predictions you make because you know that when the time comes and you're proven wrong, you're going to look foolish. And. And we did not get into. We're going to have episodes on revelations down the road, but, you know, we didn't. We're focused today just on the dnc, but there are revelations that Joseph Smith made that failed. There are revelations that Joseph Smith made that are just factually not correct. When we get into polygamy, we'll get into that word of wisdom, we'll get into that. And so there, the problems go beyond just the changes. And so the changes, to me, are important because it shows Joseph Smith was willing to effectively alter God's words to better, to at least put his personal or, you know, desires or needs at the forefront, whether it's establishing his authority, changing his theology with polygamy to get women to basically throw away the moral compass, you know, by being told, this isn't just me asking, this is God asking you. And I think it really shows how powerful revelations can be. But I think this episode also shows that these revelations are not what we're taught they are. And they're certainly not the direct word of God that we've always been taught they were. And once you start to realize that, once you realize how watered down the revelatory process was for Mormonism and then last week, once you realize how watered down the priesthood authority is, because that story was created long after the fact, all of these things start to water down. And it's like a house of cards where everything's going to fall, because once you realize the pattern, all of these things are not what they are claimed to be. It sucks, and it's really difficult. And if you're a member watching this or if you're someone who's Just recently starting to question. I feel for you because I was there. It sucks. And it sucks because you're going to feel alone because a lot of people that are believing are not going to want to hear it or they're not going to accept where you're at or read what you want them to read. I get all that. I was there. I still am there sometimes. And I just, all I can say is, as my family motto became over the last five or six years, not because of church. It's just it is what it is. So it sucks. But the evidence is there. You can't make that go away and claim it's faith because as I said earlier, faith is the belief in what we can't see. These are things we can see. These are things we can show. Very well documented. And as painful as they are, and as much as it just sucks, this is what it is. And so these episodes are not going to be fun if you're a believer. And I don't ever want people to think they will be, but I do hope that they are at least straightforward. And hopefully it helps you make more sense of it. Because for me, it took me a long time to get to a point where I could kind of make sense of it in a way that was more like chronological and orderly. So I hope it's helpful to people.

John Dehlin [02:14:59] It is. And so just to close out, I want to remind everyone that these essays can all be found@ LDS discussions.com in the show notes, we'll have a link to both the changes to the DNC essay that that was the the foundation for today's episode. We'll also have links to various episodes and resources that we discussed today, including David Whitmer's, you know, the text to David Whitmer's pamphlet, which is really important. Also, just quickly remind everyone these episodes can be found on Anchor, they can be found on Spotify, and you can even watch the video on Spotify now, which is a nice addition. And you can also watch these on the YouTube LDS discussions playlist. And of course they're also available on Apple Apple Podcast app and hopefully wherever you consume your podcasts, just in audio form. So, Mike, you're the best. You're a legend. Thank you so much for today. I learned a lot and I'm learning so much through the series.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:16:02] Thanks, everybody. Like I said, I just, I hope they're helpful. I know sometimes I know I've gotten some emails where people are upset because it is really jarring. And like I said, it is what it is. But at the same time, I really do believe that it will be one that will be helpful to people that really are at a point where they want to know or people who are trying to find a way to make sense of it that kind of, you know, like where I was. Where you get to a point where, like, this doesn't add up, but I can't quite piece it together. I just hope they're helpful. I hope they're not coming off as, you know, super antagonistic. It's not what we're trying to do. We're just trying to put it in a way that's not sugar coated. But also we're not, you know, trying to withhold anything. We're just putting out the info and. And let you do with it what you want.

John Dehlin [02:16:44] And I could just try and like, never talk and like never give my reactions, but I'm literally reacting as someone who's raised Mormon, who's learning a lot of the stuff for the first time. And I'm both like, saying, well, that's not what I was taught, or I'm emotionally reacting. And I hope people aren't too off put by my emotional reactions because I am human and this is a human process.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:17:05] Well, and you need someone to be able to respond to what I'm saying, because there are times when I'm going through it and I'm not thinking it from a certain perspective. And so if you ask a question or you're trying to clarify, it's helpful, I think, not just to me, but to others. And there are times too. I mean, I remember listening to podcasts from Mormon stories or Mormon expressions or Infants on Thrones, Mormon discussions, all of those, especially when I was first going through it. I work my small business. A lot of times I'm working on my own with some of the products we deal with. And I would have my headphones on and I'd be like, audibly gasping because I was like, what? You know, and. And that still happens sometimes. Not as much anymore. But yeah, I mean, it's. People have reactions. When you're hearing this stuff for the first time, it's just like, you're like, are you kidding me? Like, I had no idea. And so I think it's a very natural reaction. It's just sometimes like you said it, when you're a believer, you hear that and you're like, oh, my goodness, they're piling on or they're being mean. It's like, no, it's just, it's a reaction because you're told, as we talked about in these last few episodes, especially because they're so foundational. When I was a convert, I am putting my life experience against the way I've learned it actually happened. And so my experience in the church against what it really was. And yeah, that is going to elicit responses that are very shocked because you trust and you believe, especially if you're raised in the church and you're told from the time you're born these primary stories and these. You sing the songs and you watch the videos. I mean, this is a very ingrained foundational account you have. And then to find out that it's not at all what that's claimed to be is. It's painful. It really. It sucks. And like I said earlier, and I know a lot of people go through it, when you are going through it and you're in a family where the other people are still believers or your parents are believers or all of your community, that if you live in Utah or maybe in Arizona or Idaho, and you've got a lot of people in your community that are built through the church, you can't talk to anyone. And sometimes when you do, you're ostracized or they look at you like you're. You know, I was told by missionaries that came by after I started doing the deep dive, I think, because I became a bit of a ward project. And they told me that they could see the light going from my eyes. They said that Satan had got ahold of me. And I remember just being like, guys, I was going through it. I was showing them, sorry, the essays on the website. I'm like, guys, if Satan has a hold of me, then he also has a hold of the church. Because I'm reading it right off of the church's website. And. And I just remember that they had like, a very, like, surprised look in their eyes because they hadn't seen it either. And so it's painful. It sucks. And I feel for anyone that's going through this and is in a situation where they can't talk to people. And I hope that these episodes give you a chance to process the information in a way that's not hopefully going to make you angrier or at least gives you more perspective so that when you are ready to talk to people, you're able to do so in a calmer way. And I will say, and I know I'm rambling here, really this is a bit beyond the one piece of advice I would give to anybody who is first uncovering this stuff. And you want to talk to people, your loved ones, your community. The one piece of advice I would give is to take a lot of time before you talk to anyone. And the reason is you need time to process this in a way that you can talk to other people without getting emotional. And I made this mistake. A lot of people make this mistake. Take this information, let it sit with you. Do some more research. Talk to people online who are going through it, too. Not in a way that's gonna make you angry, but in a way that you can have actual conversations to process this. And then when you can have a conversation with someone without getting upset, without getting real emotional, then talk to people because they're gonna be much more open to talking to you if you can maintain a calm presence than they are if you do, like the thing where you just machine gun all of the issues out at them at once and you get emotional. And I did it. So I'm telling you right now, it's the way that you don't want to go, and it's the way most people go. And I'm sorry to tag this on to the end of the show, but I hope for people that are watching this, that are in that position, just give yourself patience, give yourself the permission to wait. It's not going to matter if you talk to your loved ones today or a week or a month from today to make sure you can process in a way that you can talk to them in a calm way, to show them that you're willing to do it in a way that's data driven, that's not based on emotions, and to show them that you've done your research and you're not coming to them after just reading one thing. And so it's a long winded thing to say at the end of the episode, but that's one thing I wish someone would have told me when I first started finding it. So hopefully it helps somebody out there who is just now going through all of this.

John Dehlin [02:21:29] Yep, it certainly will. All right, Mike, you're the best.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [02:21:33] Thanks, everybody.

John Dehlin [02:21:33] And thanks everyone for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Thanks for your support. Your donations make all this possible. If you want to see this type of content continue, please go to MormonStories.org, click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor. We'll keep this content up for as long as there's support for it. Be kind to each other. Be good to each other. Please share this with everyone so that they can learn and have informed consent as they engage Mormonism. We love your feedback. Feel free to email us. Make comments on YouTube. Make comments on Facebook. Email us@mormonstoriesmail.com if you have ideas for other topics that you want Mike to cover or write essays about. We would love to hear that too and just be good to each other. Love you guys and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care of.