Priesthood Restoration w/ LDS Discussions – 18

Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin 0:00 Foreign. And welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John de Lin. It's August 24, 2022 and we are super excited to be continuing our series, the LDS Discussions) Series. And today the episode the focus is going to be the LDS priesthood restoration. As far as I'm concerned, this is the. One of the most important topics that we can cover when someone is trying to objectively look at Mormon Church truth claims. Before we jump in for today, I will just kind of let you know that all of this series is based on an amazing website called LDSDiscussions.com and this is where my good friend Mike has painstakingly written, you know, over, I would say over a hundred essays and much, much more.

John Dehlin 0:56 Just doing a real critical, thoughtful, neutral, objective, but evidence based look at Mormon Church truth claims. Check out LDS discussions.com this series has become so popular we're, you know, almost two, we're getting close to two dozen episodes in. People love it so much that they've asked us to make it its own standalone podcaster series. We want to just remind everyone that this is available on anchor. This is also available on Spotify at LDS discussions and it's. There's a YouTube playlist where you can play this as well. And even Spotify these days is allowing video.

John Dehlin 1:38 So, so that is cool for those of you who like to do video through Spotify instead of video through YouTube, but this series is really having a huge impact. And Mike, it's so great to have you back for this series. Thanks for what you do.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:54 Hey everybody, it's good to be back.

How the Priesthood Works for Latter-day Saints

John Dehlin 1:57 All right, so Mike, I wanted, you know, there's going to be a few people, a bunch of people, half our audience that have never been Mormon before and they're not going to even understand what we mean when we talk about priesthood or why it's important. So is it okay if I just kind of set that up in one slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:11 Yeah, of course.

John Dehlin 2:12 So in the Mormon Church, we are taught that our church is true and all other churches are false. And when, when we say false, one of the things, you know, the two things that we basically claim, that was kind of the narrative we were sold from the beginning that, that we actually, when missionaries meet with investigators, you know what's sold is that when Joseph Smith was called to start the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that God said all other creeds are abomination, all of the religious creeds are abomination, and all the other churches lack God's stamp of approval or authority. Which means that all non Mormon baptisms do not count in heaven as getting you to heaven.

John Dehlin 3:00 All non Mormon marriages and weddings don't count in heaven. Your marriage and your family dissolves when you go to heaven if you don't get a Mormon marriage. And so that's kind of the authority part. And all other churches are. It's like a McDonald's that doesn't have franchise rights. You might claim to be McDonald's, but you're not really the McDonald's unless you have the piece of paper saying you are a certified franchise. And in a very real and literal sense, I was taught growing up that the Mormon Church views all other churches as illegitimate in the eyes of God and that God only approves one church and it is the priesthood authority that is God's stamp or seal of approval.

John Dehlin 3:51 And as the pictures show, the story is that before the church was ever founded in 1830, that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were visited by John the Baptist, who gave the Aaronic priesthood, which is the lower priesthood. And then later Peter, James and John showed up and gave Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery the higher priesthood or the Melchizedek priesthood. And that sort of set Joseph and Oliver and the church up to kind of then function with God's franchise approval or authority. And then the only other thing I'll add is that the other, the other thing is power. And Mormons literally believe that, like we can heal the sick through like, you know, anointings where you put oil, sacred oil that you've blessed with priesthood authority on a sick person's head and then you lay your hands on their head, say a prayer, and God's going to give you special power to heal the sick.

John Dehlin 4:51 That someone without the priesthood, even a mother who doesn't have the priest, a Mormon mother who doesn't have the priesthood, it's not going to be as powerful as if it's a male priesthood holder within the Mormon Church giving that blessing with the oil. There are other sorts of power. You actually have the power within Mormonism to raise your right arm to the square if you have the priesthood. And you can cast out devils or evil spirits in God's name. And again, it's the priesthood power that you get through the laying on of hands that gives you that power. And so when you're 12 years old as a Mormon boy, you receive the Aaronic priesthood laying out of hands that makes you a deacon.

John Dehlin 5:33 When you're 14, you become a teacher. When you're 16, you become a priest. And then when you serve a mission, you get ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood with the laying on of hands, which is the higher priesthood. That's when you become an elder. And then there's high priest, which is the highest office in the normal, higher belchesic priesthood within the church. What am I leaving out, Mike, in terms of priesthood and authority within Mormonism?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 5:59 No, I mean, I think at the, like, speaking of someone who was a convert, I mean, it was taught to me that there was a priesthood in ancient days, which, you know, you see in the Bible. There's, there's, you know, the, obviously there's concerns about the priesthood. And I know David Bachavoy in his episodes with, with you had talked about, you know, how that drove the, the priestly source of the Bible and all that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 6:20 And so for me, I was taught like, okay, there was this priesthood that was in ancient times and they apostasized. So it was just gone from the earth. And Joseph Smith, by being visited by John the Baptist and Peter, James of John, restored what was lost so that all, no other church had the authority to speak for God on earth because they had all been corrupted. They were all, as, you know, the first vision states, you know, abominations. And that because the priesthood was restored within the Mormon Church through Joseph Smith, we are the only ones on earth that can perform true miracles because we have that power bestowed upon us.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 6:57 And you know, it. To me, it plays a lot into the folk magic which we talked about in our early episodes was just this belief that you can channel this power, like you said, to heal people, to, you know, really create miracles, and more importantly, to speak on behalf of God with proper authority. So it is power to do things, but that power also gives you authority. It's kind of, I mean, I guess in a lot of ways it's almost circular. Like, you know, having authority gives you power and having power gives you authority. And the priesthood, I think in a lot of ways closes that gap within Mormonism to say, this is how, you know, we are the one true church because we're the only church that has that authority that's been restored and gives us the credibility and the power to speak for God.

John Dehlin 7:39 Yeah. And I, I don't think the importance of this topic can be overstated because this is, this is the whole enchilada in Mormonism. What drives it, its power, its money, its influence, it's its whole value proposition, is that it's God's sanctioned, one true church. Its ordinances count, its priesthood authority counts, its power counts. So this, I mean, this really might be the whole enchilada in some ways. I mean, some would say it's the first vision. Some would say it's the Book of Mormon. I would almost say it's, it's priesthood and authority that really is the whole enchilada, you know what I mean? Because the Book of Mormon be true, but the church be false. Right. The current modern Latter Day Saint church, I think this is the whole enchilada.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 8:24 Yeah. I mean, the first vision last week is going to play into this one because there's so many similar issues that happened in the first vision when you talk about late creations of stories and retrofitting. But the first vision, in a lot of ways, if Joseph Smith had never told that story, it wouldn't really alter the church today outside of the fact that it takes away a foundational story that they use to convert people to the church. But the priesthood restoration, if it's not true, it's like if you have no true authority, if that authority is a story that is created late and is not true, then yeah, it's like, so what do we have left in the church?

The First Vision as a Late Creation

Mike (LDS Discussions) 9:03 If the first vision didn't happen, which I think last week we showed, it's the story is a late creation. If Joseph Smith had some born again experience, it was not the first vision as told in the church, and it certainly has so many errors and changes. And then if the priesthood restoration is also a story that didn't happen as stated, you now have two foundational stories in the church that we can show Joseph Smith created to bolster himself and to establish his changing theology. And at that point to what you're saying, it's like, what are you left with? If you now see that the priesthood authority is kind of fictional and that Joseph Smith was willing to create this long after the fact in order to really put himself above others, but also to put the church above others.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 9:52 And, and once you take that away, it's like, what are you left with? Especially when you look at what the church demands from you to either get that or to be married to someone who has it. And I think, you know, that's what these, these episodes are trying to show is all of these things build upon each other. So today we're going to see how the first vision builds into this. We're going to see how treasure digging builds into this in a way, how folk magic, all of the things we've talked about are going to play into this. And that's why it's so Important, because this has implications in our daily lives as members.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 10:22 This is something that you are going to see people talk about time and time again in church, like you said, they do. Blessings. This ties into the temple. This ties into everything. So if this is a very central topic, and that's why we're going to go through this in a lot of detail to illustrate how it evolved and why we can show kind of we said with the first vision that we have the receipts to show. This is just not the way the church talks about it today or even talked about it 10 years later. This is a slow evolution and it comes out of necessity for Joseph Smith and it impacts everything we do today.

John Dehlin 10:56 Yeah. And not to poison the well, but this was a huge shocker for me, even after I'd become a progressive liberal Mormon. I didn't know about this. And it was really shocking. Like treasure digging was shocking. The Book of Mormon was shocking. And this priesthood restoration, almost invention after the fact, just blew me away. And again, like you said, all three of these things happened before the Church is ever even founded. So let's jump in. So now that we've covered what it is, let's talk about the timeline as the church argues it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 11:30 Yeah. And this is just the most simple way to put it. And I remember when I was doing this overview, I looked at the church's website and they give you this timeline of the priesthood restoration. And it is super simple. On May 15, 1829, John the Baptist conferred the Aaronic priesthood on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in Harmony, Pennsylvania. Then they'll say in May of 1829, basically sometime shortly after Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the Melchizedek priesthood from Peter, James and John near the Susquehanna river behind harmony between Harmony, Pennsylvania and Colesville, New York. And in April 6, 1830, the church is going to be organized.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 12:06 And that's important because you need to have the priesthood restored before the church is restored, so that you have the church has the correct authority. And so this is the church's timeline. Super simple, super clean. Much like you see with the first vision. You know, this is just how I was taught as a convert, as a member, you know, just very clean.

John Dehlin 12:26 And I'll just validate that every year you celebrate the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood, because we always had a date for it. I never thought to ask about the date for the Melchizedek priesthood, but we'll get there. But like, these are stories you hear every year as a Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 12:41 Yep.

John Dehlin 12:41 There's nothing ambiguous. It's very simple and elegant, and there's. There's nothing even question about this if you don't scratch the surface. Okay. All right.

Timeline of Priesthood Restoration Claims

Mike (LDS Discussions) 12:51 So last week we talked about the first vision, and I kept hammering how important timelines are. And this is going to be the same thing, which is to say all of this is about looking at the timeline to see if it adds up, if it's kind of linear, if it builds in the way it should build, or if it's created in the way that the church says it happened. And so we're going to cover the timeline using historical documents, statements, revelations.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 13:17 And it's just so important because if you look at the timeline and you ignore the way the church portrays it, and I mentioned this in the first episode, but, you know, picture this like a puzzle, and the. The picture on the box is the correlated version of Joseph and Oliver being ordained by John the Baptist and then Peter, James, and John. And that's what the church tells you the box is. And then you open it up, and all of the pieces are what we're going to talk about today. It's about not using the church's correlated pictures to put that puzzle together, but to use the historical documents to see where the pieces fit together.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 13:54 And once you do that, then you look at the puzzle and say, what does the puzzle actually show compared to what the church tells us it will show? And so I think that is something to keep in mind as we go. And, you know, just one of the things I want to point out, you know, as we get going, is, you know, the church cites DNC 13 as the revelation that led to the restoration of the aaronic priesthood in 1829. But that that revelation or that excerpt that's used for the DNC was not written until 1838. And so one of the things we're going to kind of point out is that the church uses a lot of entries in the DNC that were written long after, as if they happened almost at the time.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 14:33 And sometimes they'll say, this is an excerpt from Joseph Smith's history that doesn't really tell you the fact that this is being written nine years later in a completely different area of need for Joseph Smith. And so keep those things in mind, because we're going to go through the timeline in a linear way. We're going to start from the beginning and work our way up, as opposed to starting with the conclusion that this happened, working our way back. As you'll see the. The church often do in their materials.

John Dehlin 14:57 That's that's already a tiny bit shocking to me. And here's why. Joseph Smith received revelations prior to the April 6, 1830 founding of Mormonism. So it's not like the DNC. The. The revelations that make up the Doctrine and Covenants come after the church's founding. Right. So if Joseph is going to receive revelations by God prior to 1830, why the fetch. Aren't some of those revelations, behold, Joseph Smith, I shall give unto you the priesthood of Aaron, which is the lower priesthood. And then behold, I will send Peter, James and John and they will give you the Melchizedek priesthood. That those revelations never came. And you have to wonder, that's already a problem.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 15:42 It is. Yeah, it is. I mean, and just as a real brief spoiler alert, he does get revelation, or at least he claims revelation about getting baptized and has no mention of the priesthood. And those. We'll get into it later, of course, but those revelations, those early revelations are coming through the rock and the hat, so they're tight translation. So again, why are we using an 1838 source for these revelations when these things would have been documented? Because Joseph Smith has a scribe who's writing down these early revelations coming through the rock and a hat. And yet, as we'll see, there's no mention of it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 16:16 And so they're going to use an 1838 source, which should be a red flag, except for the fact that I think for them, for most members, and this was true for me, you just don't really understand when you see it's from Joseph Smith's history that it's a late edition, that the story has changed, because why would you look unless you kind of get that jolt internally that says I need to figure this out, which for most people just. It takes a long time to get to that point.

John Dehlin 16:38 Right. Really quickly. You're making me now think of the first vision discussion that we just had last week, where we realized that his first entry of the first vision reflected his view on the theology in 1832. And then obviously his 1838 version reflected his evolving theology later. The Book of Mormon, since it came before 1830, would show us his view on priesthood and authority prior. You're right. At the founding of the church. I don't. I didn't see in the slides you talking about this. What, what does the Book of Mormon have to say about ironic versus Melchizedek and the need for a higher and a lower priesthood and authority to do ordinances and baptize the church? Because that would show what Joseph's actual view was of priesthood at the time of the founding of the church. Am I stealing your thunder? Do you talk about that later?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 17:31 We do talk about it later, more when we get to the apologetics. But, yeah, I think one of the

John Dehlin 17:35 things, because I think it's important in the.

Early Church and the Melchizedek Priesthood

Mike (LDS Discussions) 17:38 You want to get to it now. I think, you know, one of the ways I look at it, and I've heard other people say it, is that Joseph Smith in the early days talked about more authority than priesthood. So it was about having the authority to baptize. It's about having the authority to perform miracles, healings, all that stuff. It wasn't really referred to as priesthood. And one of the things about the Book of Mormon, and we'll get to it with the apologetics, is that it does not mention or discuss really these separate priesthoods. And I think there's two references to a high priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 18:10 The references to the Melchizedek priesthood come. Joseph Smith is not really aware of a Melchizedek priesthood at this point. And it's just. It shows as we get into. Because that comes from Sidney Rigdon, we'll get into all that with the timeline. But I think the Book of Mormon is more concerned about authority than the actual, like, idea of priesthood. And I'm probably oversimplifying that a bit, but that. But that's why you start to see priesthood used years later, whereas early on it was more about authority.

John Dehlin 18:37 Well, I just want to make one point, and that's that part of the selling proposition of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is that it's a restoration of all things, right? We're all taught that Jesus set up his true church and he did everything right. But then the Catholics and the Protestants came along and ruined Christ's true church because he set up apostles and he set up the church and then it all got ruined. So Joseph was called to restore everything. And so if that's true, and the Book of Mormon represents Christ setting up his true church in America, and if the

John Dehlin 19:15 way that the church now is the true order of things, then I think for me, logically, the Book of Mormon in its purity would have said and behold, there's a lower priesthood called the Aaronic priesthood, and then there's a higher priesthood called the Melchizedek priesthood, and deacons, teachers and priests do this with the lower, and elders and high priests do this with the higher. And none of that's in the Book of Mormon. And I think that's important.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 19:39 Yeah, well, we talked about it in one of our earlier episodes about the Book of Mormon, which is the Book of Mormon is framed as the fullness of the gospel. And yet the Book of Mormon doesn't include the Melchizedek priesthood, doesn't include the endowment ceremony, doesn't include baptisms for the dead. It doesn't include. I'm trying to think of the other ones. There's all of these, you know, wearing, you know, garments with Masonic symbols on it, you know, trying to think of all the later innovations, but none of that. And so none of that's in the Book of Mormon. And so you do have to go, why are we restoring this Book of Mormon that's supposed to restore the fullness of the gospel when it's basically giving us nothing that is really uniquely Mormon?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 20:16 The only thing it really mentions is polygamy. And even then it condemns it. So, I mean, it really is one of those things that you don't think about as a member, like the Book of Mormon. And again, I'll speak as a convert, when I read it, it didn't stick out as being anything weird. It just felt like you're reading Bible because you basically were reading somebody who was trying to write in the language of the Bible, use the ideas of the Bible and make them more of a 19th century context, which to a modern reader, doesn't feel that weird. And at some point my, my head should have been saying, why are none of the things that you hear about with Mormonism in here, but you just don't, because you're, you're told it's a pr.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 20:50 You're privileging the book. And so, yeah, to your, to your question, there's no real mention of a Melchizedek priesthood or the need for two priesthoods. They do reference a high priesthood, but as we'll see in the apologetics, even then, like fair, Mormon really stretches to redefine what the Book of Mormon's saying. And that's a problem because these things should be in there if Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery are truly dealing with them at that time before the church is founded. And it's just not.

John Dehlin 21:18 Okay, what was the episode we did that would have mentioned all the things not in the Book of Mormon?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 21:23 I can't remember because we did, we did the surrounding influences, one which kind of covered some of that, you know, and anachronisms. We kind of covered like what's not in there. So it's one of those. I'd have to look it up. I'm not sure which one that Was they had that one.

John Dehlin 21:36 Try and include it in the show notes, if we remember.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 21:38 Yeah.

John Dehlin 21:38 All right, let's jump. Let's jump to the Melchizedek priesthood thought up in 1827. So that's your question is, was the Melchizedek priesthood thought up in 1827?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 21:50 Yeah. And this. This is kind of like foreshadowing. Like if you're watching a movie and you see some little scene with it with a character that you don't understand who it is, and you're like, why are they doing that? We're doing this because this is really important. In 1827, the Disciples of Christ. This has nothing to do with Mormonism. The Disciples of Christ, from which many early members of the church converted, had developed its own priesthood doctrines, which were influenced by Alexander Crawford, who was a Scottish minister living in Canada. In 1827, Crawford had delineated the existence of three distinct priesthoods. A patriarchal priesthood, which he also called a priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek, an ironical priesthood originally held by Aaron, and a priesthood held by Jesus Christ.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 22:30 Crawford regarded Melchizedek as a greater priest than Abraham, citing the fact that Abraham paid tithes to him. Indeed, according to Crawford, Melchizedek was one of the key players in the Order of the patriarchal priesthood. Crawford also considered the patriarchal priesthood and the Aaronical priesthoods as branches of the Levitical priesthood. Regardless, as one historian claimed, Alexander Campbell, who was influenced by Alexander Crawford, taught his understanding of the priesthood to many of his followers who became part of the Mormonite community and continued to believe the same doctrine. This is from BYU studies, and it's basically saying that in 1827, the idea of the Melchizedek priesthood was being taught by Alexander Crawford, who taught Alexander Campbell, who led the Campbellites, who just happened to be where Sidney Rigdon was a part of.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 23:20 And that is really important to keep in mind that Sidney Rigdon would have heard about the Melchizedek priesthood from Alexander Campbell before the Mormon Church or the Book of Mormon was created in any way.

John Dehlin 23:31 Okay, so are you saying that there's a high probability that three years before the Book of Mormon was created, some dude in another church named Alexander Crawford comes up with the idea. This is the thesis comes up with the idea of a Melchizedek priesthood. Maybe Sidney Rigdon was exposed to it, and then in the mid-1830s, Joseph Smith learns about it and then incorporates it after. The fact is that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 23:55 Yeah, yeah, it's in the. Yeah. And you can see we'll as we go through the timeline, you'll see it. I mean, it's all there and it's. Yeah, and. But it's like that. If you're going through a linear timeline, that's the first thing, because this is happening before Joseph Smith. And as we've talked about in previous episodes, this is another area where you have these surrounding ideas that are more unique to Joseph Smith's time and place that just happened to make their way into the theology. And if you ask Bible scholars, and I'm sure there's not 100% consensus on this, but the idea that there would be a Melchizedek priesthood that, like, people like you and me could hold, it's kind of a misreading of Hebrews.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 24:33 Hebrews is more or less saying Melchizedek is not like a person. It's not like John. You know, it's a title. It's the king of righteousness. Right. So it's not about, you know, giving it to John or to Mike or to, you know, anyone. It's. It's about, this is a priesthood that is the king of righteousness that would be equated with Jesus, not one that is going to be given to a ton of people in a church, you know, because they turned a certain age. And so those ideas were coming in, you know, this kind of, what, second Great Awakening. But a lot of scholars would argue that's a misreading of the Bible in the first place, even before we get to all this other stuff.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 25:11 And so this is another area where you can make a strong case that Joseph Smith is misreading or misinterpreting the Bible, putting it concretely into the theology of the Mormon Church in a way that, again, tells us it's not really being restored from God, it's being restored by a guy using 19th century ideas.

John Dehlin 25:29 Wow. And that's. I'm reading this slide now, and I'm just kind of blown away that the Book of Commandments comes out a couple. What. What year did the Book of commandments come out?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 25:41 1833.

John Dehlin 25:43 So three years after the church is founded, the Book of Commandments comes out and there's no mention of either the Aaronic or the Melchizedek priesthood, and it doesn't mention the visitation from Peter, James and John. That's kind of mind blowing.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 26:01 Yeah. I mean, it should be a red flag. And I think it's one of those things where you can look at it and go, you can find all this stuff online, but nobody's going to tell it to you and I think in a lot of ways, you know, you hear the story about how the. They were printing the Book of Commandments and they were attacked by the mob and only a few survived. In a lot of ways that's probably a good thing for Joseph Smith because it allowed him to change it with very few people having access to what he originally wrote. And we'll get to that as we go. But yeah, I mean, this is a big deal in the sense of when you look at the timeline, it does not line up with the correlated material in any way.

John Dehlin 26:35 Also, we've already talked about the first vision problem of no mention of the first vision until 12 years after it happens. Like there's this pattern of like, why are these stories appearing 5 to 10 laters after they happen at a convenient moment? And I'm just noticing that pattern here because I. Five years after the event was supposed to happen is the first time there's a mention of John the Baptist or Peter, James and John delivering these priesthoods. That's mind blowing. That should have been there before the church was started in the, in the Revelations. And it's not even in the Book of Commandments three years after the church was founded. That's a problem.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 27:21 It's a huge. Yeah, and it's a huge problem just because of the fact that, you know, people will say, oh, it's too sacred to speak about. But if you're claiming to have a

John Dehlin 27:28 priesthood now, it's a brag, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 27:30 Well, yeah, that's the thing. And, and at some point I think it was a brag because you. Well, we'll get to. As we go through the timeline. But it became a brag because Joseph Smith needed to be able to say, listen guys, I got this directly from them. And Oliver also would say that too. And because of that it elevated their status in the church. And so. But more importantly, not only would it be a brag, which, which it was, you know, to that degree, but if you get your priesthood restored through a specific person, you would want to tell the church that. So they understood that there was authority behind it, as opposed to the.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 28:01 Joseph Smith's earlier belief was that he could get authority by divine, divine command through the rock and a hat. The problem is when you do that, Dan Vogel talks about this a lot and giving a huge shout out now to Dan Vogel because a lot of what we're going to talk about with the timeline comes from him because he puts so much work into looking up all these documents and all of these changes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 28:24 So Dan Vogel is just so good at this. And we'll put in the show notes some of the stuff he's done. But he talked about early on, when you're our charismatic leader as Joseph Smith was divine command as a charismatic leader is kind of one of those things that people can replicate a little easier because you could just say, well, I was told by God that I was supposed to do this. Well, when you make it concrete with the story about Peter, James and John, it takes it a little bit further away from just being a divine commandment to it's being restored by specific figures from biblical times, which gives Joseph Smith a more concrete authority to kind of rest on with it being harder for somebody to challenge his authority.

John Dehlin 29:03 Got it. Okay, so the next slide is the second half of 1829 Articles of the Church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 29:10 Yeah. And so actually go back one slide real quick.

John Dehlin 29:13 Okay. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 29:14 Because I don't think. Oh, yeah. So basically, you know, as per the official timeline, Joseph Smith claims he was called by the Spirit to restore the priesthood.

John Dehlin 29:21 Wait, did we not do this slide yet?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 29:23 We did that one. We didn't do this next one. Yeah, you'd mentioned. But we didn't. I don't think we actually went through it real quick. And we don't have to go through it too much. Oh, no, this. No, you're fine. So. All right, so go to the. Yeah, that one right there. So the church basically says very cleanly, on May 15, 1829, Joseph and Oliver were called to restore the priesthood. And it's cited in the church's narrative. It's in all the videos. I mean, it's what you're going to hear everywhere you go within the church. I mean, as a convert, this was just drilled into me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 29:50 And it was given restored through John the Baptist because he had the authority to baptize. And as we'll show, this story is so anachronistic to 1829 because Joseph Smith does not mention the Aaronic or Melchizedek priesthoods for years to come. And there's going to be no mention of Peter, James and John or John the Baptist until about 1835.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 30:13 And you know, the original revelation. I talked about this earlier in this episode, the original revelation that discusses the baptism for Joseph and Oliver in the Book of Commandments, which is now DNC 18. There's no mention of either priesthood, nor does it mention any visitation from Peter, James or John. And so it's completely absent from the. The revelation entry in the Book of Commandments that should cover this event. And yet it's Just completely missing.

John Dehlin 30:41 And are you going to show us later that they changed the Revelation?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 30:44 Oh, yeah, yeah, we'll go. Yeah, we'll go through all that.

John Dehlin 30:46 Holy freak. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 30:47 Yeah, those are those. That, that was a big one for me when I saw the, the visual of that which we'll show.

John Dehlin 30:53 Oh, that's. That's awful. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 30:56 And so to continue the timeline. So now we're going into the second half of 1829, and the articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ is released in the second half and it's written down by Oliver Cowdery and it's chapter 24 of the book of Commandments. And again, there's no mention of priesthood divisions.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 31:14 In fact, in this Revelation, apostles were elders, which waters down the authority in the church. There's no quorum of the 12 here. And this is not going to be changed until the Revelation is altered in 1835 and it's now known as DNC20. So in these articles, Joseph Smith dictates the following. God visited him by a holy angel whose countenance was as lightning and whose garments were pure and white, above all whiteness, and gave unto him commandments which inspired him from on high, and gave unto him power by the means of which was before prepared that he should translate a book.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 31:47 So again, there's no mention of angelic ordinations, priesthood restoration, or Peter, James and John anywhere in the initial articles of the Church that's put in the Book of Commandments to try to, you know, illustrate how the Church came to be and how it has authority.

John Dehlin 32:04 If I'm just being honest and honestly objective, that fits the pattern that all the most important things happen, are never recorded at the time, and they show up years later contradicting what was actually said and believed at the time the miraculous events supposedly happened. That totally fits the pattern.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 32:25 Yeah, and that's, and that's why, you know, we keep hammering, I keep hammering on this idea of these episodes are not in isolation. These, these problems continue and they compile and they compound. And that's why we're trying. That's why when I did this overview project, I wanted to do it in this kind of order of the subjects, was just to say that as you look at this, this ties into the first vision. It ties into how he spoke about the, you know, restoration of like, you know, the gold plate stories, how all of these things have these details that just keep getting bigger and bigger as we go in order to backfill the story, to give himself authority. And when you look at the Actual timeline, it's telling us this just did not happen, at least as stated, if it happened in any way at all.

John Dehlin 33:03 Yeah. And we just did the first vision episode. But again, call your attention to that. I don't even know that we included this in the first vision episode. But they're like writing down the articles and covenants of the Church, and they're not saying, pay attention. They're not saying God and Jesus visited Joseph Smith. They're saying an angel. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 33:25 Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin 33:26 Like, that's, that's. That's your God. That almost should go in the first vision episode, Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 33:30 Yeah. I mean, and like I said these things when you, when you see the way these stories develop and then you kind of. Especially for like, the first vision, the priesthood restoration are really like sibling episodes because they're going to kind of COVID a lot of the same ground because they're. They're basically having the same issues of, you know, late creations of stories that need to be backfitted into the history.

John Dehlin 33:50 Yeah. And again, they had the chance to mention both priesthoods and they didn't. Yep. Yeah. Okay, that's important.

Articles and Covenants and Church Structure in 1830

Mike (LDS Discussions) 33:59 Okay. So in June 1830, the articles and Covenants of the Church are released. And so the Articles and Covenants of the Church outline the duties of the various church offices and ordinances. It was drafted by Joseph Smith. And that's from the, you know, the Doctrine and Covenants header. And the document begins by stating the authority upon the church was organized, including a summary of the miraculous events preceding that organization. Yet it is completely silent about the angelic ordinations that Smith and Cowdery later claimed. Instead, it mentions only divine and angelic commandments as a source of authority. For example, this document reads, God ministered unto him by an holy angel and gave unto him commandments which inspired him from on high and gave him the power by the means which were before prepared, that he should write translated books.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 34:49 As we talked about the last slide, which book was given by inspiration and is called the Book of Mormon and is confirmed to the others by the ministering of angels and declared unto the world by them. And so this is from Dan Vogel's presentation about the evolution of these claims. And what he says is if you look at the phrase ministering of angels, it's a very generic phrasing, and that is referring to the vision that the three and eight Witnesses would have had to the Book of Mormon. That is not talking about a priesthood restoration. That's talking about. Because if you read it in context here, it's saying the book is called the Book of Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 35:26 And the Book of Mormon is confirmed to others by the ministering of angels declared unto the world by them. So again, there's no mention of the priesthood. There's no mention of, you know, the Melchizedek or the Aaronic or anything in here. This is just straight up what you would expect to be said in 1830, given how Joseph Smith's timeline on the first vision and priesthood restoration goes. But this matches completely nothing from 1835, as the church would state today.

John Dehlin 35:54 I'm also going to note that in terms of like a bait and switch, when, when I. It's my feeling that when the church was first founded, Joseph's authority primarily came from a perception that he had the power as a seer and as a translator.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 36:12 Yep.

John Dehlin 36:12 In the Doctrine and Covenants, it literally calls him a seer and a translator. And that was like, whoa, this guy, this guy has power from God to translate ancient records that none of us can read. We should pay attention to him. And that's, that's a problem on for, for two main reasons for me. One, one is that we now know that the Book of Mormon is not a translation because of all the episodes we've already talked about with the anachronisms and the plagiarisms. And then if you add to that the Book of Abraham, which is a false translation we now know, and the, the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, those are like three fails at Kinderhook plates.

John Dehlin 36:51 Like, he's debunked as a translator, which is his primary source of authority when he starts. And then you have that being replaced by these later claims of priesthood authority. And then in the modern times, you have the Church backing away even from the term translator. And they're even trying to redefine the word translation to mean other things or, or change the description of both the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon away from a translation to inspiration or revelation. And that's like again, building a house, claiming you're building a house on cement and then trying to remove the foundation and wanting the house to still stand. That's a bait and switch and it's a problem for me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 37:37 Well, I mean, yeah, and you're not going to hear this taught like, you know, we'll get into it later. It's just you're not going to hear the stuff taught on Sundays because again, once you start going through this, as we said at the beginning, all of everything that comes from these stories falls apart when you're finding out it's a late creation and so you can't teach it. And so this is why you keep getting these kind of like coral, you know, like the saints book where they kind of try to correlate some of this material to give you just a little bit of info, but not actually tell you the full story. And so.

John Dehlin 38:06 Yeah, with the timeline.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 38:07 Yeah. And then.

John Dehlin 38:08 So important.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 38:09 Yeah, they really are, especially with Joseph Smith and the way he kind of creates stuff. So. All right, so if we go to the next slide, this is what I kind of talked about earlier. So November 1830, Sidney Rigdon is going to be baptized into the church. And he is baptized. He's ordained as an elder in the church. And this is important because Rigdon, as I mentioned earlier, has been teaching the ideas of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood as a Campbellite. And this is really important because remember, 1830, November, this is after the Book of Mormon. This is after they have been operating the church for a while. He's going to come in and this is going to begin to show us how Joseph Smith is going to use these ideas to change his own theology.

John Dehlin 38:48 And I'm just going to take a minute to say there are a lot of people, when they're trying to figure out how the Book of Mormon got written, they want to include Sidney Rigdon as a co conspirator, as a co author secretly of the Book of Mormon. And of course, John Hamer and others say that's not necessary for the book to have been created. But if Sidney Rigdon is teaching Aaronic Melchizedek priesthood as a Campbellite before he joins the church, and he was a co conspirator in writing the Book of Mormon, then he probably would have written that into the Book of Mormon. But he, but, but that didn't happen. So maybe this is an evidence that Sidney Rigdon wasn't a co. Conspiracy co conspirator in writing the Book of Mormon, is that a valid conclusion?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 39:29 Yeah, I mean, I have no, no belief whatsoever that he was a co conspirator to the Book of Mormon. So I, and I agree that if he had been, you would see these ideas in the Book of Mormon as opposed to waiting until, you know, a year after, which makes no sense. If he were to have been involved.

John Dehlin 39:42 And I think your point is, I think your point is so good that no one else could have written the Book of Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 39:47 Yeah, I mean, if Sidney Rigdon had written the Book of Mormon, it wouldn't have had Joseph Smith's own life experiences, his Father's dream. I mean, you just wouldn't have that stuff in there. You'd have stuff that was more familiar to Sidney and not Joseph. It's, it's pretty clear when you read it. Nobody else could have written it.

John Dehlin 40:01 There would have been prophecies about Sidney Rigdon being an amazing human when he came.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 40:04 Yeah, exactly. And you know, there's just. When you talk about the way the power struggles go in the church, you would have. That stuff would have been more evident, I think early on.

John Dehlin 40:12 Yeah. Okay. All right. So Sidney comes on the scene.

Introduction of the High Priesthood in 1831

Mike (LDS Discussions) 40:16 Yep. And then so June of 1831, the high priesthood is introduced for the first time in the church. And so according to BYU studies, the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood was manifested and confirmed for the first time upon several of the elders. And at this conference. This further clarifies that until 1831, the title of elder in the church did not equate to priesthood, as we kind of mentioned earlier in the articles and covenants of the Church of Christ. And the really interesting thing about this is that the journals for this conference refer only to the high priest. So there's no mention of the word Melchizedek is not.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 40:51 This is just not created yet. So this further adds to the idea we're talking about that the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods were retrofitted into history and are not thought of yet. And so Ezra Booth, this is from the Journal of Discourses. So it says Ezra Booth was present when the elders first received the ordination of the high priesthood. They met together in June of 1831. While they were there, the manifestation of the power of God being on Joseph, he set apart some of the elders to the high priesthood. The priesthood was confirmed on a number of elders. And so this is just telling us that until 1831, there was no upper priesthood in the Mormon Church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 41:29 It was non existent. And even now it's still going to be called the high priesthood. I think some people refer to it as the high and holy priesthood, but is not the Melchizedek priesthood even now?

John Dehlin 41:38 So, okay, so there's two questions I'm asking. So first and foremost, I think it's important. So in the first five years of the church, there's no, there's no sense of like, oh, you're 12, let me ironic priesthood ordination. Now you're a deacon, now you're a teacher, now a priest, oh you're 18 or 19. Now we're going to make you an elder and give you the Melchizedek Priesthood, you're saying that did not happen for the first several years of the church?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 42:02 I don't think that they looked. I mean, I'm not positive on that. I don't think that they had, like, the organization to kind of have it by age. I think it was more like when you joined, I'm sure it was by, like, you're an adult, you know, and then this high priesthood was given in 1831. I don't think it was given to all of the men. So I think that was a way of saying, you've been in the church long enough now you've earned this, as opposed to just giving it to anybody. But I'm not 100% sure on that.

John Dehlin 42:26 Okay, well, that's what that was going to be my second question. So, like, a bunch of people join the church, like right now, if you join the church in 2022 and you're an adult male, you're kind of almost immediately ordained into the priesthood, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 42:41 Yeah. I can't remember how long I had to wait before I got the Melchizedek, because I think you're immediately into the Aaronic. I feel like there's. There is a period where you wait.

John Dehlin 42:48 I've just heard of people like an adult man being back. Yeah, it might have been being ordained as a priest in the Aaronic priesthood, and then he's able to actually perform the baptism of a loved one same day. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 43:01 Yeah, I think that makes sense because I think you get. Once you're baptized, you can get the Aaronic priesthood then. I. I can't remember, though, if I had to wait, if I had to wait at all for the Melchizedek. I don't remember, but I think you do.

John Dehlin 43:12 But this is my question. My question is, so in 1830, 31, someone joins the church, a male joins the church. What I'm hearing you say is there's no immediate giving of any priesthood in 1830.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 43:26 I don't think so, because I think in 1830, they still just refer to when you got baptized as having the authority. There's no real mention of priesthood in that first year. This is really when the idea of priesthood starts getting going, as far as I know. I mean, they're certainly not in the way we talk about it today.

John Dehlin 43:40 So when Ezra Booth receives a high priesthood, is it without ever having received a lower priesthood?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 43:47 Well, there's no Aaronic priesthood then. So if there was a priesthood, I think they were ordained as elders, and then I think they went from elders to the high priest. But I'M not. I'm not 100% sure on if there was any kind of consistency or confusion on that either. So that. Because I think they're still figuring it out at this point.

John Dehlin 44:03 So when someone. When in 1831, someone receives the high priesthood. So that sounds like there's an idea of a higher priesthood, but you're just saying it wasn't named Melchizedek yet.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 44:15 Yeah. So in 1831, that's like actually go to the next slide. So the next slide is like the best slide, I think, because it just illustrates how this is completely.

John Dehlin 44:24 Okay, sorry, I'm just trying to make. I'm trying to make sense of this.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 44:26 No, no. This is why this is so important, though. So this meeting in 1831, Joseph Smith himself is first ordained to the higher priesthood. So there is no high priesthood until 1831. And so this is from rough stone rolling. During the turbulent meeting, Joseph ordained five men to the high priesthood and Lyman White ordained 18 others, including Joseph. The ordinations of the high priesthood marked a milestone in Mormon ecclesiology. Until that time, the word priesthood, although it appeared in the Book of Mormon, had not been used in Mormon sermonizing or modern revelations. Later accounts applied the term retroactively. But the June 1831 conference marked its first appearance in contemporary records.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 45:03 The Melchizedek priesthood, Mormons now believe, had been bestowed a year or two earlier with the visitation of Peter, James and John. If so, why did contemporaries say the high priesthood was given for the first time in June 1831, Joseph Smith himself was ordained to this high priesthood by Lyman White. If Joseph was already an elder and apostle, what was the necessity of being ordained again?

John Dehlin 45:25 Okay, that makes no sense because I'll just repeat it as I understand it. If Joseph Smith is given the melchizedek Priesthood in 1829 by Peter, James and John, why the fetch is he being ordained to a high priesthood, not named Melchizedek in June of 1831? Yeah, that makes zero sense. Yep.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 45:45 And so that's the thing. Like, you cannot have Peter, James and John restoring this in 1829 if Joseph Smith is going to get it for the first time in 1831. And that tells you the contemporary records tell us that Joseph Smith first got in 1831. Those are going to be the most reliable because that was happening at the time it happened. They have journals from this meeting explaining that Joseph Smith was ordained at this meeting. So this is the introduction of the high priesthood in the Mormon Church. It wasn't called Melchizedek. It functioned similarly. It just didn't have that title. And Joseph Smith was ordained.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 46:16 And even Richard Bushman is admitting, if he already had it two years earlier, what in the world is he doing getting it now? This is, this one event to me is the biggest smoking gun that the priesthood restoration is a late addition. Because here you can see Joseph Smith evolving it and he himself is taking part in the ordination, which tells you without any, any doubt that this did not happen in 1829 as the church would tell you today.

John Dehlin 46:42 So that question, if Joseph was already an elder and apostle, what was the necessity of being ordained? Again, that's Richard Bushman asking the question.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 46:50 Yeah, he asked it in the book.

John Dehlin 46:51 I wonder what his answer is.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 46:53 I think, I think we'll get to it a little more at the end. But yeah, I think his argument is effectively that, you know, this gives off the, I mean, he uses the phrase we'll get to it later where he says, you know, this, this basically feels like a late addition. But he also says that Joseph Smith, as he changed the revelations, changed them as he got a better understanding. And so I think what he's trying to say is Joseph didn't really understand in 1829 what was really happening, which is horribly problematic when you again, are bringing in very well known figures into your stories. As we talked about with the first vision, this idea that you remember it better later is just completely contradicted by like literally everything we know about memory.

John Dehlin 47:32 So if we're, if we're trying to follow what we think is the real timeline. No Peter, James and John visit in 1829. No idea about a Melchizedek or Aaronic priesthood. But then by 1831, there's this idea of a higher priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 47:46 Yep.

John Dehlin 47:47 And so a bunch of people, including Joseph, start getting ordained to a higher priesthood in 1831. Yep. Even then, the, the actual name Melchizedek priesthood isn't coming for many years later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 47:57 Correct.

John Dehlin 47:58 The thesis of the timeline as we're.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 48:00 Yeah. So basically 1831 is the first time that they give us a high priesthood in the church. There's no use of Melchizedek. Still no mention of the, of the visitations.

John Dehlin 48:09 Okay, this is really, really important. I can see why that's such a critical.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 48:13 Yeah, that one, that one I think is the most important one. But so in 1831, Joseph Smith is going to Missouri and he's engaging with this ongoing dispute with Bishop Edward Partridge over which land to purchase in order to establish the new city of Zion in Missouri. And I mentioned this Last week, this is where you've got this Ohio branch and the Missouri branch. And the Missouri branch is starting to question Joseph Smith's leadership. And so, according to Ezra Booth, who did leave the church later, Partridge claim that the land which Smith and Oliver had selected was inferior in point of quality to other lands that were adjoining.

Power Struggles and Leadership Conflicts in Missouri

Mike (LDS Discussions) 48:47 And so what was happening was Joseph Smith was coming to Missouri and telling Partridge that he had revelation from God, telling him, this is the land you need to buy. And Edward Partridge is saying, this land is not nearly as good as this other land. Why are we not buying that? And Joseph is saying, basically, because I have the authority. This is what it's going to be. And so Partridge, being ordained as a bishop, believed that he had the authority to run the Church of Missouri, because at that time, churches were run by the bishop. So he thought that was his decision and not Joseph's. And this led to a bit of a conflict.

John Dehlin 49:22 Okay, so. So we're starting to develop a theory on what forced the need for a priesthood hierarchy to be developed. And it starts with contention, like power struggles between Joseph and some of the leaders, including Ezra Booth and Bishop Partridge.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 49:44 Yes. Yeah. I mean. Yep.

John Dehlin 49:46 All right. All right. So there's a power struggle going on.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 49:49 Yep. And so this is where we're going to start to see. And this one's a really cool one. And this is a letter that Ezra Booth wrote to Edward Partridge in November of 1831. And in the letter, he says, when you intimated to Joseph that the land which he and Oliver had selected was inferior in point of quality to other lands adjoining, had you seen the same spirit manifested in me which you saw in him, would you not have concluded me to be under the influence of violent passion bordering on madness, rather than the meek and gentle spirit which the Gospel inculcate. Inculcates. When you complained that he had abused you and you observed to him, I wish you not to tell us anymore that you know, that you know these by the Spirit when you do not.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 50:30 You told us that Oliver had raised up a large church here, and there is no such thing. He replied, I see it, and it will be so. This appeared to me to be a shift better suited to an imposter than a true prophet of the Lord.

John Dehlin 50:42 Okay, so what. What do you. What do you interpret that is going on here?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 50:45 Well, I think what's happening here is. Is the. The people that are in the Missouri Church are seeing Joseph Smith come in, and he does not seem to take criticism well. And so I think he here, Ezra Booth is telling Edward Parcher, basically, if you saw me act the same way that Joseph did, would you say that was the spirit of God coming down on me? No, because Joseph Smith was acting, I think he says, bordering on madness. And also the fact that, you know, Joseph Smith promised that the church was just going to flourish and it doesn't. All of these things are getting the people in Missouri to start to question him because you have these.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 51:19 All of these prophecies he's making, all these promises he's making, they're not coming true. And then he's telling him by revelation to build in this one area that apparently is inferior to this other one that they had picked. And when he's challenged, apparently just throws down, you know, at least some, a little bit of anger towards Bishop Partridge. And. And it just kind of, I think, shows that this is leading the Missouri church to really start to question Joseph Smith, which is creating a lot of problems for him. And this is what's going to lead to the first vision and priesthood restoration stories start to get recorded down and

John Dehlin 51:57 tell me if I'm understanding this right. So basically Joseph is saying, hey, buy this parcel of land because the gift and power of God has told me that it's the one God wants. Yeah, the dudes actually go there and they're like, this land is a piece of garbage. There's this other land that's way better. Joseph, you're not really a prophet. God clearly can't be leading you, or he wouldn't tell you to buy a piece of garbage land. And that's where Joseph has to move to authority as what's behind him instead of his ability to make really great decisions because God's clearly telling him what to do.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 52:32 That's pretty much what it is. And so Joseph goes down there basically to try to straighten them out. And it doesn't really work because, you know, when he leaves, people are still mad that basically he's going down there yelling at them and then leaving. And, you know, I remember doing the Saints book when I was doing that chapter by chapter stuff when I first started the website. And I remember I didn't know as a member, I didn't really realize how many of these revelations that Joseph Smith has that are basically admonishing the church and blaming them when things don't go right. And this is another area where Joseph Smith is going to kind of use the voice of God to tell them this is how it has to be.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 53:05 And then he's also going to use these revelations from God to You know, admonish these. These people, you know, and we'll get to it in a second. He has a revelation which basically goes after Partridge. And it's just. It's quite convenient. And I think that's part of what Dan Vogel was saying that I mentioned earlier, which is when you're just giving revelations, it's more of charismatic, that people have to believe the revelations. And. But when you go into that more concrete visitation from. From biblical figures, it gives a lot more credibility. It's kind of like we talked about with Pseudepigrapha. Like, people believe it a lot more if it's written in the name of someone else, like, say, the book of Abraham.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 53:36 Whereas if it was just Joseph Smith's thoughts about the priesthood, which. The book Abraham is very focused on the priesthood, then it would not be nearly as well received because it's just like. Well, it's just Joseph Smith, you know, writing down his thoughts. And so in this case, Joseph Smith often uses these revelations from God to get people to do what he needs them to do because they believe they're from God.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 53:59 But that only works so long. And so that's, I think, what's going to lead to Joseph Smith needing to kind of make his story more grand and concrete so that it's not just, hey, this is what God's telling me. It's. By the way, Peter, James and John came to me. Did they come to you? Didn't think so. And I think. I think there's a lot of that going on.

John Dehlin 54:17 If you can't rely on superior decision making, then you got to just pull. Pull authority as your trump card.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 54:23 Yeah, well, I mean, you know, sometimes it happens when you're a parent, right. It's like it ends up being. Because I said so. And if your kid doesn't view you as the authority, they're not going to listen to you. But as long as they. As long as they view you as the authority, they're going to. And in this case, it's a similar thing where I think that the Missouri Church is starting to go, you know, you're not my dad. Joseph's like, okay, I got. I gotta up the game here. Because it's, you know, I mean, I know we're oversimplifying it, but it's. It is similar to that where now all of a sudden you need to play a trump card that gives you more authority than you had.

John Dehlin 54:53 Like in the military, you need to have rank so you can pull.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 54:56 Right, Exactly. That's. And that's what this is going to do. And.

John Dehlin 54:59 Yeah, that's awesome.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 55:02 Yeah. So. And so we're going to go.

John Dehlin 55:04 You got to have rank to pull rank. I'm going to write that down. All right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 55:07 No, it's true. And so this is where we're going to go, actually. Go back one more slide. Yeah, go back one slide. So following his.

John Dehlin 55:20 So we finished.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 55:21 We did this one. Yeah. So go to the next one.

John Dehlin 55:23 Okay. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 55:23 Yeah. So following the visit to Edward Partridge, Joseph dictates a revelation that states that Partridge hath sinned and Satan seeketh to destroy his soul, says DNC64. So as soon as he gets back, he got. He dictates a revelation, basically going after Partridge and trying to use that to get him to basically fall in line. And then in November, escalating the altercation with Edward Partridge in the months prior, Joseph dictates a revelation that calls for Joseph to be the president of the high priesthood, which makes clear in the revelation that the office of a bishop is not equal. So he's basically now writing into a concrete revelation that Edward Partridge is now below him, which is, again, making sure, you know what I said earlier.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:03 It's like all of a sudden he's like, you know, you're not my dad. He's like, yes, I am. And here's a revelation proving it. And so that. That's just a few months after. So we're already starting to see Joseph Smith using revelation to establish his authority above people that might question him. And this one's kind of a side Note, but in 1831, Lucy Mack Smith writes a letter to her brother to discuss all of the beginnings of the new church. No mentions of angelic visits for the priesthood restoration, no mentions of the first vision. I'm just putting that in there in the timeline just to show that there's still no real discussion or knowledge of these issues, even within his own family.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 56:39 And then in 1832. So now we're a couple months later in January, Sidney Rigdon ordains Joseph as the president of the high priesthood in Ohio. And Joseph was sustained in April in Missouri. So within just a few months of being challenged in Missouri, Joseph Smith has now created this new presidency, which, as a small side note, we're told this is the restoration of the way things were in ancient times. There's no presidency in ancient times. That is a completely modern term that Joseph Smith is now using in the voice of God. So that's just a small tangent, but you can't.

John Dehlin 57:10 So also, like, right now, is there in. In 2022. Is there a president of the high priesthood?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 57:16 I mean, I don't think so.

John Dehlin 57:18 You would never hear that phrase ever being used in Mormonism.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 57:22 Yeah.

John Dehlin 57:23 Why was it important back then for Joseph to be ordained as the president of the high priesthood, when today you would never hear that mentioned. You would never hear like, Russell M. Nelson is the president of the high priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 57:38 I think he basically is, though. I think, because if I, I might be off a bit on this because I haven't read this stuff in a while, but I think the president, the high priesthood, Joseph had two counselors. So it basically is the first presidency. And then later they're going to do the, the, the, you know, the quorum of the 12 and the 70s and all that.

John Dehlin 57:52 Maybe in some charter documents somewhere, but like never in Mormon. Oh yeah, Arlan, he's referred to as the prophet and president of the church, not of the high priesthood. So all I'm saying is it makes total sense that this idea of a higher priesthood that evolves into Melchizedek is literally just a power grab of Joseph trying to solidify his authority so that people will obey him and do what he says.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 58:18 Yeah, this is basically just him creating a position above everybody else. And remember, he ordained, I think like they said, like he ordained five people and Lyman White ordained 18. So now all of a sudden you got 23 people, at least in the high priesthood. And then you've got people that are bishops, like Edward Partridge questioning. Well, this now puts him above everybody. So now there's nobody that can touch his, his authority.

John Dehlin 58:37 The other thing, it challenges the idea that this is a restoration, because if it's restorations, God's going to just set all this up with the commandments at the beginning. But if it's, if it's emerging practically out of conflicts on the ground that Joseph needs to resolve, then that defies the idea that it's like a restoration of the old and everlasting church, but instead the slowly creeping evolving power grab that evolves out of practical issues on the ground.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 59:07 Yeah, well, I mean, look at it this way. So think about this. This is how I always look at it. We are told in the Church that God knew thousands of years ago that Joseph Smith was going to lose the 116 pages. So he created the second set of plates so Joseph Smith would have perfect replacement text for this. Lost this, these lost pages of the Book of Mormon. Yet God didn't know that Joseph Smith was going to have his authority challenge in Missouri to tell him which offices to create Right off the bat. So you'd avoid all these issues. I mean, it's just that's.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 59:32 Those are the inconsistencies that come from, you know, a guy who is basically trying to. I'm not. I'm not saying wing it, but he's. He's kind of making it up as he goes. And so on one hand, you've got this representation of God that knows every single thing that's going to happen to the point where he's making the secondary record. Then you also have this God who has no idea that there's going to be all these challenges to authority that could be easily avoided with the revelation in 1829.

John Dehlin 59:58 Yeah. God could have just set all this up with the revelation before the church ever started, especially if it was identical to the way Jesus started his church two millennia ago. Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:00:07 Yeah. Well, I mean, if you get into a lot of the scholarship there, I don't think.

John Dehlin 1:00:11 Yeah, the Book of. He had the Book of Mormon. These are the chances God had to set this up. Right. He had the Book of Mormon, he had revelations Joseph received before he started the church, and then he had the Book of Commandments. And in none of those opportunities did God set it up. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:00:26 Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's like we're told this is the fullness of the Gospel and the complete restoration, and yet if you actually look at it, it's always changing until it gets solidified down the road with stories that just don't add up to being there in the beginning.

John Dehlin 1:00:41 Yeah. Okay. All right, so next slide.

Joseph Smith's 1832 Account and Priesthood Authority

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:00:46 Yep. So now this is the summer of 1832. This is about, what, nine months after the Missouri conflict begins, or at least where he visits. And this is where Joseph Smith is first going to mention angels being a part of a priesthood restoration in his 1832 history, which also includes his first account of the first vision that only has one personage appearing with regards to the priesthood. Joseph writes among his miraculous experiences, thirdly, the reception of the holy priesthood by the ministering of angels with two A's. I'm not sure why this is important, because this does not mention John the Baptist, but it is consistent with his early generic accounts of angels, as that John the Baptist story had not evolved yet.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:01:26 And so Joseph is using the plural of angels instead of a singular angel, meaning this cannot be referencing John the Baptist for the Aaronic priesthood as the story would later evolve into. And when he continues, he says, fourthly, a confirmation of reception of the high priesthood after the Holy Order of the Son of the living God, power and ordinance from on high to preach the gospel in the administration and demonstration of the Spirit. And so this is referring to the 1831 conference where they. Where he was ordained to the high priesthood. But again, there's no mention of the terms Aaronic or Melchizedek, nor does it mention Peter, James and John.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:02:01 And so it's really clear this 1832 history was almost certainly written to address the growing infighting from the Missouri branch and to kind of re. To get the church on better footing and to get Joseph Smith's authority on more solid ground.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:02:15 And it also explains the first vision account appearing at the same time, because Joseph Smith here is trying to get these miraculous experiences that are singular to him in order to tell the rest of the church, again, this did not happen to you, this happened to me. And that's why I am the one authority to speak for the church. Wow.

John Dehlin 1:02:34 So this is really starting to come together for me, and I just want to make sure I understand this. So first of all, there's conflict arising in the church. People are starting to question his authority. That's why the 1832 version emerges first and foremost. But in addition, he's now for the first time claiming Angela Angelic, because he can't, again, he can't just say, I have the authority, right? It's gotta be from God. And so he's earning an angelic visitor without a name.

John Dehlin 1:03:07 Right. As a way to say this is the source of my authority. But he has the chance there of saying it's John the Baptist and Peter, James and John. But he doesn't do either. He doesn't call the. He doesn't name the angel. And then he doesn't mention Peter, James and John, and he doesn't mention a division in priesthoods of a lower and higher priesthood. Again, this is a massively obvious failed opportunity to like, tell it all, like, okay, it's late. It's super late, but I, like, now get it right. You know what I mean?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:03:38 Well, yeah, that's just it.

John Dehlin 1:03:39 I mean, right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:03:40 And this is, this is Joseph Smith writing in his own hand. He has nobody next to him that's going to question him as he's writing it. And it just doesn't have anything with the, you know, with the, the way that we're told the first vision happened with two personages not there. And then the way that we're told the priesthood restoration happened is just not there. So, I mean, both of these are missing and we're, you know, it's just it's so generic. And as we'll see, it just gets more and more grand.

John Dehlin 1:04:04 Yeah. And I mean, the only thing that I'm hearing apologists say later and I haven't read your slides, is that they're going to say that, oh, he never mentioned Peter, James and John because it was so sacred and so special. Yeah, that's got to be what they end up arguing later because it's just so obvious.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:04:20 But yeah, I mean, it's just. Yeah, it doesn't work. But yeah, I mean, that's what you have to do.

John Dehlin 1:04:24 If we brag about it now, Joseph would have bragged about it then. He wouldn't have been scared to tell people.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:04:29 No, there's no reason. He would have been scared to tell people within the church of these. I mean, there's just. There's no reason to think that it makes no sense. And again, it's not just this vision that's telling us it didn't happen. It's all of those things we've already covered, all the things we're going to cover that don't mention it. So he's not. It's not just like we talked last week where the church will say, oh, the first vision in 1832 is an outlier. And I kept saying, no, it's the starting point of the first vision story. Well, this is another incident. This is not an outlier. This is consistent with everything else he's been saying up until this point and still for some time to come before that story begins to evolve.

John Dehlin 1:05:04 Yeah, well, that's, that's a huge deal. And it's just making it really obvious why this, why the omissions and why this is slowly creepy and evolving.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:05:16 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:05:16 You know, this is totally making sense. This is bringing a lot of things together for me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:05:23 Yeah, no, keep going. It's gonna, It'll just keep going that way. And so this is in September of 1832. Joseph Smith writes what is now DNC 84, which is going to structure the lower and the higher priesthoods for the first time. And so what's interesting is this one section where it says, and this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the keys, the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto man in the flesh.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:06:00 For without this, no man can see the face of God, even the Father and Live. And the reason this is so interesting is because Joseph Smith is going to claim later, 1820, he saw God and Jesus in the first vision, which is clearly before he had received either priesthood, as we've shown already in the timeline. And so by Joseph Smith's own revelation, DNC184, he couldn't have done that and lived to tell about it. And you know, the apologists argue very much like kind of that lawyerly thing where they'll say the word, this is the power of godliness. So they'll say, and without this not meaning the Melchizedek priesthood, but the power of godliness.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:06:36 But the power of godliness cannot be manifest until you receive the priesthood as stated above, they say, without the ordinances thereof, meaning the priesthood and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest. So one way or the other, you still need the priesthood in order to get the power of godliness to see God and live. And yet Joseph Smith will later claim to have seen God in Jesus and lived. So either way, Joseph could not have seen God and lived in the first vision if that happened by his own revelation, which is also from the words of God. And this is where you start to twist yourself into a pretzel if you want to try to make sense of this in a way that maintains faith.

John Dehlin 1:07:12 Yeah. So I mean, let's just assume that Joseph Smith isn't dumb for a second. What's he doing coming out with an 1832 account of the first vision, claiming that he was, that the Lord visited him, not God and Jesus, but the Lord visited him, and we talked about the Trinity. To him, the Lord would have meant God because there was no God and Jesus being separate.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:07:38 Right.

John Dehlin 1:07:38 He's not dumb. Why is he writing down and publishing a claim to have seen the Lord when he was, you know, when he was 14 in 1820, and at the same time saying, you have to have the higher priesthood to not die when you see the face of God, what in the world? He's not that dumb.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:08:00 No, but you know, again, remember The Summer of 1832 account that Joseph Smith wrote? He never did anything with it, so he may have written it down, scrapped it, which just appears to be what he did. He wrote it down and just never did anything with it. And so he may not be thinking about that in September. He might not be thinking about that because he's not telling anyone about that story. He's talking about the priesthood at this point, but he's not talking about the first vision. And so it could very well be that. It's not that he's dumb. He just, he scrapped that, that whole idea and just put it to the side and just forgot about it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:08:28 And then all of a sudden now he writes this revelation and basically puts himself in a corner with regard to the first vision. Because now all of a sudden the first vision would, would basically lead to his death because he was not ordained. And this is something, I think it's parley Pratt or Orson Pratt later said that the way to get around this is to say that Joseph Smith was actually ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood before he even came to the earth. So he was ordained to the highest priesthood before he was here from the pre existence, which if you really want to get into that, one, it's ridiculous because it doesn't match the, you know, the timeline we have here.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:09:05 But two, that also puts Joseph on more of a divine footing, which the church really tries to avoid, saying we worship Joseph. And if you start to go that route that he was given these ordinations before he got here, starts to put them on that kind of footing, which early leaders did do. But yeah, it's. It's just, it's a mess.

John Dehlin 1:09:23 Yeah. And it's talking about. And I'm just trying to process this. The greater priesthood holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom. So it's something about like learning deeper doctrine.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:09:37 Right, right.

John Dehlin 1:09:38 Somehow getting this Melchizedek priesthood, you learn things from angels and God about the mysteries of the kingdom and the key of the knowledge of God. That almost sounds like Denver snuffer stuff where it's preparatory to you actually seeing God. And I can already see where Denver snuffer stuff is going to start arising. Where in 2022, there's a bunch of orthodox Mormons who are trying to actually get a witness of Jesus or God directly. That's because they're reading that that's the whole purpose of the priesthood to begin with. Whereas in the modern orthodox LDS Church, that's never something you're taught you should try and seek. Right. These days.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:10:22 No, I mean, you know, it's kind of one of the things where it's like the, the longer the church exists, the less and less we're really. We know. You know what I mean? And I think it's one of those things where back then they did have this idea of being able to have all of these visionary experiences and being able to commune with. With angels. And today they don't talk about it because I think we all kind of Live in a worldview that says that just doesn't happen. Whereas back then, a lot of the early members absolutely believed in folk magic and visitations and all that. So I think it's just more of a, you know, a change in what the audience of the church will accept today versus what they would have accepted back then.

John Dehlin 1:11:00 One more question. It says that. That final little phrase for without this, no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live. Does this show the development of Joseph's theology around the Godhead? Because now he's saying God the Father, which suggests God the Son, the existence of a God the Son. Is this an emergence of his evolution about God and Jesus becoming separate?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:11:26 I don't think so, just because. I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but a lot of times in church they'll do that thing where they'll say something and they'll say, even. So they'll say, even the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints, when they just say the church. I don't know if it's a wording issue. And you could also make the argument that if you believe in that modalistic trinitarian view that God and Jesus are kind of part of one. You could say, well, you could see Jesus in the flesh, because obviously people saw Jesus when he was alive, but you can't see Gods. I. I mean.

John Dehlin 1:11:55 Oh, okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:11:55 Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's just the wording is still be trinitarian. Yeah, you could. You could kind of do with it. You could take it either way, I guess, depending on how you wanted to. But I. I wouldn't necessarily read too much into that.

John Dehlin 1:12:05 That's right. That's right. Okay. All right. I just wanted to.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:12:08 No, that's fine.

John Dehlin 1:12:09 Okay, next slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:12:11 Yeah, so we already talked about this. We don't need to go into this too much. But in 1833, they released the Book of Commandments. And this has all of the revelations that have been written up until this point because they basically wanted to have a book of all the revelations that members could understand all of the different commandments and organizations that God had restored through. Through Joseph Smith. There's no mention of the Aaronic priesthood or the Melchizedek priesthood at all in the Book of Commandments, whatever, whatsoever. And there's no mention of the. The visitations of John the Baptist or Peter, James or John in anywhere in the book.

John Dehlin 1:12:42 And that's super ridiculous for at least two reasons. One is because it's the whole foundation of our Claims of authority. Two, it's, it's, it's. It's allegedly angelic visitors, you know, bestowing that authority. And then number three, this is your chance to codify it all, and it's completely left out. And then four, what you're going to show later is that it's then written back in afterwards. Yep. It's just ridiculous, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:13:09 Yeah. I mean, it's just, it, it's a red flag that should be really, really obvious to anyone who is not a member that this is, this is a late creation that now has to be put back into the history so that it lines up.

John Dehlin 1:13:23 That's super duper sketchy. Yeah, super sketchy. Both that it's not there when it should be again and that it gets written in later as if it was always there.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:13:33 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:13:34 And it's members, when you read the Doctrine and Covenants, it's not like, oh, by the way, this verse you're reading, it was totally different when they first wrote it, and now they added a bunch of stuff. You're never ever told that as a Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:13:45 No. It would be nice if they had little. Like, if they put little footnotes, like when you read online, there's footnotes on, like, every other word. It would be nice if on the Doctrine Covenants, they had footnotes to tell you what it originally said, because I think that would be something members should, should have access to.

John Dehlin 1:13:57 That's a problem. Okay, that's a great slide. It's a great slide.

Retroactive Changes to Revelations and Records

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:14:01 And so now we're in 1834, in April. And this is more from Dan Vogel. And it says, at a meeting held in Norton, Ohio, Smith gave a relation of obtaining and translating the Book of Mormon, the revelation of the priesthood of Aaron, the organization of the church in 1830, the revelation of the high priesthood, and the gift of the Holy Ghost poured out upon the Church. And Dan Vogel makes a point of saying there's no indication in this brief entry that the revelation of the priesthood of Aaron was different than the revelation of the high priesthood or that it was anything more than a reference to the revealed command for Smith and Cowdery to baptize one another.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:14:34 So what he's saying is the notes here are just super limited. So it's hard to really pull too much out of this. But he also notes that these notes, while they're limited, have no mention of Peter, James, and John or John the Baptist at all. So even in 1834, there's no, there's no kind of conceptualizing this, this visitation yet. So it's still now just focusing on the priesthood restoration and not at all the visitations.

John Dehlin 1:15:02 So are you saying here that it's, it's not until 1834 with the idea of an Aaronic priesthood first emerges within the church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:15:11 It seems like it's the first time it's being labeled that way because ironic priesthood is something that comes from the Bible. So that would be more, it would make more sense to, to frame it that way. But like, I don't think there's any real mention of it being the Aaronic priesthood up until this point. Even here, you know, as Dan Vogel mentions, it's really limited. So it's hard to see if he's really expanding on that at all because it's just like meeting notes. But yeah, this seems to be the first time he's really equating the lower one with Aaron, even though the high priesthood is still not the Melchizedek priesthood.

John Dehlin 1:15:44 Yeah, that's super late as far as I'm concerned.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:15:47 That's, that's, yeah, we're, we're five years, basically five years now. So we're just now starting to evolve it into the name. So it's important.

John Dehlin 1:15:54 Yeah, that's a, that's a problem. Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:15:56 All right. So now, yes, now Zion's camp is going to happen. And this is another area where Joseph Smith is going to have his leadership questions. So for those who are unfamiliar, Joseph launches Zion's camp to regain the land that was lost in Zion, Missouri. And he's trying to assemble this basically this like, army or militia to go down there and get the land by force if necessary.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:16:18 When he gets there, he realizes they're outnumbered and he's not able to get the help he wants. And so it just turns out to be a failure. Joseph turns around and leaves Missouri basically on their own. And so Joseph records a revelation to not help the Church of Missouri once he realizes he can't secure enough help, which shakes confidence in his authority as a prophet and leader. And so I mentioned this earlier, but this leads to DNC105, which puts the blame on the Missouri Church for not being faithful enough. He says, but behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of all manner of evil and do not impart of their substance as become of saints and to the poor and afflicted among them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:16:58 And the revelation then calls for no further action to be taken to help them. And, you know, one final note, just say that the revelation DNC 105 gives Joseph and the top leaders an out, which is to say that same revelation says, I speak not concerning those who are appointed to lead my people, who are the first elders of my church, for they are not all under this condemnation. So basically, Joseph Smith says he's going to get the land back.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:17:23 He doesn't get the amount of people he claims he's going to get, doesn't get the help he thinks he's going to get, turns around, and then when the Missouri church gets mad that he left him behind, records a revelation being basically saying, they're full of evil and that, whatever, we're not going to do anything more. And by the way, all of the people who lead my church are not being condemned for this. It's just you guys in Missouri, which I think is one of those, you know, it's another one of those signs that tells you that Joseph Smith is writing these revelations because it. They're very concerned with the needs of Joseph Smith and not necessarily giving the people of Missouri the power you're supposed to get to defend, you know, to be protected by God or any real revelation on what you're supposed to do next.

John Dehlin 1:18:06 Yeah, Zion's camp is really important. And Mormons, you're never taught, really, about Zion's Camp in the core curriculum because, you know, this is something that's really lost in many ways to the modern church. Joseph not only says, you know, Missouri is where the Garden of Eden happens. He says, this is where Jesus is going to come in the second Coming any day now.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:18:30 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:18:30 And he sets up the church. He calls it Zion. Like, this is the place. Right. And yeah, you know, he's. He's doing the Kirtland, Ohio thing, but, like, Independence, Missouri is going to be that place. But then. And so that's like his alleged prophetic power, really being specific and saying, you guys go do this. Then he sends them there, they experience all these problems. Then he gets the revelation about Zion's camp. He sends them. It's a failure. I mean, that's a really obvious point where the members are like, I think you're just making this up.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:05 Yeah, you're.

John Dehlin 1:19:06 I don't think you're really a prophet because, like, none of this stuff that you're prophesying is going to come true is actually coming true. Instead, the opposite's happening. And so I can see why that would cause a huge problem for members down there, because they're the ones sacrificing and toiling and getting. Yeah, we beat up.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:26 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:19:26 And so I could see Joseph having to do two things. Number one, the blame reversal.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:32 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:19:32 Which is so common in high demand religions or cults where it's like, I know I made a prophecy. Warren Jeffs does this. Or. Or Rulon Jeffs. I know I prophesied the world would end when the 2002 Olympics come. Oh, but now the Olympics have come and gone and the world didn't end. Well, it's either because the members were so righteous that I gave them more time or the members were so wicked.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:19:54 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:19:54 That God, you know, that God's, you know, delaying it. Now Joseph's doing the same thing here. He's blaming the Missouri people, which I think is cruel because they're busting their tails.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:20:05 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:20:06 Joseph prophecies come true. It's just so cruel to then blame them for the prophecies not coming true. But then there's the second part, which is the power grab, which is, hey, now that there's trouble in the ranks, let me extend my authority and power through the scriptures even more because otherwise we're going to have, we're going to have a fracture. We're going to have a schism.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:20:27 Yeah. I mean, that's basically what I mean. And it's. We'll do, I think an episode down the road about we're going to do a few on revelations. But you know, one of the things, that's one of the things when I was reading the saints book and I mentioned already, but just how a lot of the revelations, when things go wrong, blame the members yet, you know, and then sometimes they'll do like this little like offhanded kind of swipe at Joseph and the revelation, but then get right back to blaming the church. And so it just feel like his revelations are awfully convenient when you read them all together, especially in the context of what they're written in.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:20:55 They do seem awfully concerned with, with elevating Joseph and not nearly as concerned with taking care of the problems for the people beneath him. And this is an area where that does lead to people questioning his authority.

John Dehlin 1:21:07 This reminds me of his revelation to Emma that she's under condemnation if she doesn't practice polygamy. It's so convenient for Joseph. And here again, God is saying, oh, you know, when we talk about, you know, people who are under condemnation, I don't mean the people leading my church, I mean all the rest of you. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:21:26 Yep. So it's just, it, it's just, you know, gross.

John Dehlin 1:21:29 It's kind of gross.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:21:29 It is, it's, it's. And it's frustrating just because I read this now and I'm like, man, you know, like, if I had read this before I joined the church, I'd be like this, this guy is making it up because you can kind of see all these little fingerprints where he's, you know, doing, making these errors and then, you know, blaming people. It doesn't go right because everything in when you're a convert is present presented as this of Joseph Smith knew all these things and, and we'll get into those as we do these episodes. But yeah, it's just, it's not how the history shows it.

John Dehlin 1:21:55 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:21:56 So this is where we're going to really start to see this story kind of move into the the way we're seeing it today. And this is more from Dan Vogel and he talks about how In September of 1834, Oliver Cowdery is writing this series of letters to W.W. phelps in Missouri. And in these letters he tells them for the first time about an angel ordaining him and Joseph Smith in May of 1829. The purpose of the letter, as Cowdery explained, was to strengthen the Missouri Church in their faith. According to Cowdery, the angel said, in the name of the name of Messiah, confirm, confer this priesthood and this authority which shall remain upon the earth, that the sons of Levi may yet offer an offering unto the Lord in righteousness.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:22:36 However, the word priesthood did not appear in any church writings until June of 1831, connecting the lesser priesthood to the Levites until 18September of 1832. This review this letter is going to, as we'll talk about, is going to almost raise Oliver Cowdery instantly to equal status with Joseph Smith. And so when we talk about how these different stories put Joseph Smith above everyone else, Oliver Cowdery here is writing these letters to WWE Phelps to try to calm tensions. Oliver Cowdery pulls a pretty slick move here because by tying this event not just to Joseph, but to him, it puts Oliver now as number two. And you got to remember at this point, Sidney Rigdon is right there as a number two.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:23:17 It's not Oliver Cowdery. And guess what? Oliver Cowdery's making a little bit of a power move here as well in these letters by saying, yeah, it wasn't just Joseph, it was me as well.

John Dehlin 1:23:27 I'm just gonna say, and maybe this doesn't make sense, but there's always this idea that Was Oliver a co conspirator in the fabrication of the Book of Mormon? Or was he sort of if the Book of Mormon was authored by Joseph Smith. Was Oliver just duped or was he a co conspirator? And if Oliver is writing into the history of visitation from John the Baptist and then Peter, James and John, if he's knowingly writing that into the history four or five years after it happened, it makes you wonder whether he was in on the Book of Mormon, potential fraud as well. Does that make sense or does that not make sense?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:24:07 I mean, it makes sense. It's just, it's hard because we don't have any real, like, good way to show that. But I, you know, we'll, we'll see it here as we go. This is an area where Oliver Cowdery is absolutely engaging in lying for the Lord, or however you want to phrase it, because he's creating a story that we know was not talked about at the time and did not happen in that way. But more importantly, we can look at Joseph Smith got arrested. And we'll talk about this a little bit later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:24:35 In 1830, he's arrested basically for treasure digging. And what they try to do on the trial is to say that Joseph Smith is using the same technique for translating the Book of Mormon as he does for treasure digging, which means he's still engaging in this practice that is illegal. And Oliver Cowdery testifies that, no, Joseph did not use the Seer Stone. He was using these Nephite interpreters, which we know from all of the accounts from all the people involved in the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith was using the Seer Stone. So Oliver Cowdery in 1830 shows that he's willing to lie for Joseph Smith. And now in this particular instance, he shows he's willing to lie not just for Joseph, but for his own sake as well.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:25:12 And so it does show that Oliver Cowdery is willing to lie. The question of whether or not he's a co conspirator in the Book of Mormon, that's a little bit dicier because that's, that's early on and we don't really have any like, with. We could show it with the trial, we could show it with this. With the Book of Mormon, it's just more like speculation, and we don't really need it to show how the Book of Mormon was done. So for me, it's not really a huge issue. But yeah, it does show Oliver Cowdery was willing to lie to protect Joseph himself and the church.

John Dehlin 1:25:40 Okay. And, and so coming back to the point of this slide, it's not until 1834 when the power is really the Missouri Problems and the power problems are really coming to a head that Oliver Cowdery starts mentioning an angel and what a lower priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:00 Yeah. Yes.

John Dehlin 1:26:01 Years after a lower priesthood gets claimed.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:04 Yeah. So basically we've got Oliver writing a series of letters to Missouri, basically trying to build backup faith in Joseph Smith and the church. And to do so again, he's trying to create this event that elevates Joseph Smith as. Yes, this is the guy.

John Dehlin 1:26:18 And is there a date yet for the Aaronic priesthood, you know, by 1834?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:23 Well, I think there is. Just because they're tying it to the, the May 15 day, which is the, I think the day they got baptized. So I think that. Okay, is, is has always been kind of like they've always been tied together. At least at this point. They certainly are. But I don't think, I don't know if they're really referring to the dates

John Dehlin 1:26:39 or not to this day. Doesn't have a date.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:41 Yeah. Because very suspicious it is because there's no documentation of it, which again you'd expect. And to be honest, there' documentation of this. They just tie it back to, to the baptism day. And that's. And that's how they get around that. But yeah, for the Melchizedek, there's just no way to make that work because there's.

John Dehlin 1:26:55 Yeah, that's fascinating.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:26:57 Yep. And, and before we go to the next slide, just one note that he's not mentioning John the Baptist. So he is introducing the idea of an angel. He is not introducing John the Baptist yet.

John Dehlin 1:27:06 Okay, so we still don't have John.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:27:08 So you still don't have John the Baptist. We just have the angel.

John Dehlin 1:27:11 34. We have an angel and a lower priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:27:14 And again, you gotta, you gotta.

John Dehlin 1:27:15 Why would he not mention John the Baptist?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:27:17 That's what I'm saying. Like if you know who you know, it's John the Baptist. Why are you not saying we were ordained by John the Baptist? Like it's, again, it's, it's another tell. This is a developing story.

John Dehlin 1:27:26 This city grows over time.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:27:27 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:27:28 Yeah, that's suspect. Okay.

Oliver Cowdery's Role and John the Baptist Narrative

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:27:29 All right, so now we go September to December and guess what? Oliver Cowdery gets a big promotion. And so this is more from Dan Vogel. Only a few Months later, on 5th December 1834, Oliver Cowdery was ordained an assistant president or co president to Joseph Smith by Joseph Smith. About this time, Cowdery made a suspicious entry in Joseph Smith's large journal which tried to explain his sudden rise to the top. The angel. In May 1829 commanded it to be done, according to Cowdery, but things got in the way and delayed it for five years. The idea that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery knew about the president and assistant president of the high priesthood in 1829 is not believable.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:28:05 The office of the president of the high priesthood came about because Partridge had challenged Joseph Smith and November of 1831, and assistants were not even added until 1832. And they were not Oliver Cowdery. Cowdery's excuse for the delay is also unbelievable since there were several opportunities before December of 1834 to ordain Cowdery. Cowdery even assisted Joseph Smith on 19 April 1834, before Joseph Smith left with Zion's camp and confirmed upon Sidney Rigdon the authority as the first counselor to preside over the church in the absence of Brother Joseph. So I'm gonna for just tangent here. What Dan Vogel is saying is that not only did Joseph Smith have tons of opportunities to put this, to confer Oliver into this position over the previous five years, but when Joseph is with Oliver and is getting ready to leave with Zion's camp, he does not put Oliver in charge of the church, put Sidney Rigdon in charge of the church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:28:56 Which makes no sense given that we're told now that the angel, you know, basically ordained Joseph as number one and Oliver is number two. So anyways, back to Dan Vogel. Then he says, when the quorum of the Twelve Apostles was organized in February of 1835, Oliver Cowdery did not mention Peter, James and John restoring the keys of the apostleship. Instead he said, you have been ordained to this holy priesthood. You have received it from those who have the power and authority from an angel. By this he was referring to Moroni. It was the duty of the three witnesses to ordain the twelve apostles. The three witnesses received their commission from the angel Moroni.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:29:31 So this is again showing that In December of 1834, the story is still talking about an angel. It's not mentioning John the Baptist. And in the context of what he's saying, it would actually be referring to the fact that the three witnesses were the ones that were told to basically choose the 12 apostles, which again kept Joseph Smith as number one. But it's not John the Baptist. And the story is still evolving. And because of Oliver Cowdery creating the story in the letter to W.W. phelps, Joseph Smith makes him the number two person in the church just a few months after.

John Dehlin 1:30:02 Okay, this is a lot for me to try and absorb and I'M right now focusing on the third paragraph. Okay, so he's ordaining apostles. He's ordaining 12 apostles, claiming that they were. That. That this authority came from. From a single angel, not from Peter, James, and John. So he. But at minimum, if apostles are functioning, number one, they have to have the Melchizedek priesthood. And number two, it has to be known that the Melchizedek priesthood came from Peter, James, and John, which at a minimum, would be angels if not named. But they're ordaining apostles based on the authority of a single angel.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:30:52 Right.

John Dehlin 1:30:53 That is unnamed, and that's really sketchy to me.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:30:57 Yeah, I mean, like, this is. You could tell this is a story that's developing, and it's developing kind of quick now, but at the same time, you can tell it's not fleshed out. And Oliver gets a promotion for basically creating this story in September, and now in December, he gets that promotion of being second in the church, but they still have not fleshed out the idea of it being Peter, James, and John or John the Baptist. It's still just an angel.

John Dehlin 1:31:24 Okay, summarize that middle paragraph really quickly for me because I. Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:31:31 So this is from Dan Vogel. And what he's just basically saying is, now, if you will, we need to include in the show notes, Dan Vogel has two YouTube videos on this. Oliver Cowdery is going to create the story in September, as we mentioned, and then Joseph Smith is going to make him the number two. But now there's this huge problem, which is that the whole story would make Oliver Cowdery the number two person in the church since the church was formed. Right. But Joseph Smith instead goes over Oliver and chooses other people to be his counselors. So now Oliver has to go back and say, well, if the angel commanded this in 1829, why did it not happen until 1834?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:32:06 And so Oliver is basically saying, oh, you know what? There's just so much stuff going on, we didn't have a chance to do it. And what Dan Vogel is saying is, no, there were tons of opportunities where they were together that Joseph could have done it, and he chose not to. And then right before the story's invented, Joseph leaves for Zion's camp and has to leave somebody in charge of the church, which should be Oliver Cowdery. Right. Because he's the number two. But instead he chooses Sidney Rigdon, even though Oliver was with Joseph. And so what he's saying is Oliver Cowdery's excuse for why this didn't happen for five years is just blatantly a lie.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:32:38 I mean, it's just, it's dishonest. And again, we have so much documentation to show that if they wanted to have done this over the previous five years, they had so many opportunities, and yet it never happened because the story was not created until September.

John Dehlin 1:32:51 Okay, so Cowdery's inserting a suspicious entry in Joseph's journal, trying to. Is he kind of post dating it?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:32:59 Yeah, I mean, they're kind of trying to. To basically backfill how this story happened. And yet Oliver was not made the number two person in the church until December of 1834. And so he's making this entry to try to explain why did this not happen. And that's when he's saying basically, it was just there was no chance to do it, which is just not true.

John Dehlin 1:33:18 So he's basically trying to. Jimmy. With the history to show evidence of. Of what they're inventing after the fact.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:33:28 Yeah, I mean, in a lot of ways, this is like inserting apologetics into it because he realized this is, this is an issue. And he's trying to put in the apologetics to say it's not really a big deal because we just couldn't get it done. But when you have all of the different documentations of the times they were together, it's just simply not true. I mean, this is just outright dishonest to claim that, you know, they couldn't get it done and things got in the way and delayed it. It's just not true.

John Dehlin 1:33:53 Yeah. And again, they could have mentioned all this in the, in the Book of commandments, right, in 1833.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:34:00 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:34:01 If this was so important, I. I would think that a president and assistant president leading the church, that's something worth mentioning before the church is formed. And if not within three years of it being.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:34:11 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:34:12 Not four or five years later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:34:14 Yep, absolutely.

John Dehlin 1:34:16 Okay. All right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:34:17 And so now we're getting to the stuff that we know in the church today, which is. So between March and August, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery changed the wording of earlier revelations when they compiled the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, adding verses about the appearances of John the Baptist along with Peter, James and John. The Book of Commandments, which later basically is turned into the Doctrine and Covenants, says nothing about these appearances, nor is there any explanation for the incredibly consequential additions into existing revelation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:34:45 They appear in the Doctrine of Covenants with no justification for the change, nor are they backed up by historical records, as we've shown through this timeline. And this is another. This is from a Sunstone history podcast which is awesome about the priesthood restoration and Dan Vogel notes. Between About March and August 1835, Joseph Smith added mention of the coming of John the Baptist and Peter, James and John to his early revelations. To Section 27, dated September 1830, he added John the Baptist, I have said unto you, my servants, Joseph Smith Jr. And Oliver Cowdery, to ordain you unto this first priesthood which you have received, that you might be called and ordained even as Aaron, and also Peter and James and John, whom I have set unto you, by whom I have ordained you and confirmed you to be apostles and special witnesses of my name.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:35:34 Note that the first public mention of the three ancient apostles ordaining Smith and Cowdery associated this visitation with the apostleship rather than the eldership as commonly assumed. One might therefore conclude that the story of Peter, James and John was invented after February of 1835, when the Quorum of the Twelve was organized and Cowdery did not mention it, but before it was published in the DNC in September of 1835.

John Dehlin 1:35:59 Huh. Are you kind of saying that the. That originally, maybe I'm misunderstanding this, that originally the higher priesthood was more associated with becoming a 12 apostle than it was some general priesthood office that all mid aged Mormon men are going to possess?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:36:17 Well, so, yeah, kind of, because. So the thing is, when you look at the original revelation, Joseph is ordained as the first elder of the Church, Oliver is ordained as the second elder of the Church.

John Dehlin 1:36:30 And so he's just saying if there's no Melchizedek priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:36:33 Yeah. And so now he's saying that the fact that they've kind of changed that focus to apostleship tells you that this has changed. And then obviously there's all the implications, like you said, as to what does that mean as far as why did it change? Did they have authority before the story was changed? If not, you know, I mean like all of those things come into play because we're now seeing how Joseph Smith is changing the revelation, why he's changing the Revelation, and then what those implications are, which are huge as we talked about the beginning of the episode. Because if this story is made up, then what power does the Church have?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:37:05 Like all of these things are so incredibly important and you hear about them. I mean, my goodness, I can't tell how many times I heard. And I feel horrible since I've lost faith in the Church even though I'm still a member. When you're in a mixed faith marriage, I have a wife who constantly hears about how important it is to have a priesthood holder in the home. And when you're a believer in the church, that is something that weighs on you. Because obviously I still have the priesthood because I'm a member, even though I'm not active. But to me, it's not real.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:37:35 And obviously this message is so critical and just fundamental to the church. And so if Joseph Smith is making it up as he goes, what does that tell you about what you hear on Sunday about the priesthood? Because it's just, it's simply not real. And, and this is really starting to show you how you can piece together what Joseph Smith was doing. But it doesn't lead to good conclusions.

John Dehlin 1:38:01 Yeah. And I. Okay, so one question that emerges for me from this, and I don't expect you to be able to answer this, but if he's telling the apostles a year earlier, this, this higher priesthood I'm giving you came from an angel. And then a year later he's writing in, in the Doctrine and Covenants that this Melchizedek priest of power came from Peter, James and John. Why aren't the 12 apostles saying, wait a minute, you didn't tell us about Peter, James and John last year. You just said it was an angel, maybe Moroni. Now you're saying Peter, James and John. Like, I'm curious why that didn't cause more of a stir or questions or did it, or do you even know

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:38:43 it did among some of them. And we'll, we'll get to those quotes as we go. I mean, there are people that will say, like, I never heard about this. So, you know, I don't know where it came from, but obviously to your point, and I think at the time, I, I don't know, I don't know if it's that they knew and they just didn't want to make a fuss or if they didn't weren't aware of what was in the DNC or, or what. Because, you know, obviously a lot of these early members of the church are not going to be involved in the church for much longer. So I, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know exactly what might have been said.

John Dehlin 1:39:13 Believe the church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:14 Yes. A lot of the early witnesses are gone, so. Or will be gone.

John Dehlin 1:39:18 Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, this is fascinating. So it's basically 1835. 1835 is where we finally get.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:27 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:39:27 Ironic. A lower priesthood, a higher priesthood. You know, John the Baptist, Peter, James and John. It's the first time six years after the fact.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:35 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:39:36 Where finally we, we get the details.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:38 Yeah. Six years after the fact. And a whole lot of changes.

John Dehlin 1:39:41 Yeah, yeah. And a bunch of changes in between. Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:43 Yes.

John Dehlin 1:39:44 All right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:39:45 And so this is more from Dan Vogel and kind of going over because we just talked about, I think, section 20. So this is to section 107, which was originally given in November 1831, about Joseph Smith being president of the high priesthood. Joseph Smith added a genealogy of high priests from Adam to Enoch and then stated that the details of this are given in the Book of Enoch, which was to be testified of in due time. This never happened. The book Abraham appeared in July 1835. Joseph Smith procured two Egyptian scrolls. One he identified as the Book of Abraham and the other as the Book of Joseph.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:40:20 The first thing Joseph Smith did was to translate an Alphabet of the Egyptian language which contained a mixture of the pure language and Egyptian. Part of its content dealt with the lineage of high priests. About this time, Joseph Smith dictated the first three verses of the book of Abraham to W.W. phelps. The remainder of the first two chapters of Abraham won't be dictated until November of 1835. These verses mention Abraham's seeking the right to be a high priest from his fathers. Here, as in DNC107, Joseph Smith is attempting to establish a lineage for the high priesthood. This was a problem, no doubt, for some members of the church as well as those outside the church who believe that the high priests were associated with the Aaronic priesthood and that Jesus was the only Melchizedek high priest.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:41:05 And so what Dan Vogel is saying here, and we'll get more into this when we do our Book of Abraham overviews, the Book of Abraham in a lot of ways is going to serve as a vehicle for Joseph Smith's of evolution on priesthood. It's very concerned about priesthood, whereas the Book of Mormon is not.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:41:19 And so what he's saying right here is he's trying to establish a lineage of the high priest because as I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of Bible scholars will tell you that the Mormon Church's whole idea of Melchizedek priesthood is a misreading of Hebrews and that Jesus is the, you know, in the Melchizedek priesthood, which means we are not, because Jesus obviously is above us. And so this is Joseph Smith now trying as he learns more about kind of the bit Bible writings. And he's, you know, I don't know if he's taking the Hebrew lessons yet, but he's obviously learning more about the Bible.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:41:49 I think he's now trying to see how to fix some of the problems he might have created with some of his earlier innovations. And this is a way where Joseph Smith now is trying to make sure he can give some sort of historical lineage for the Melchizedek priesthood to give it legitimacy within the church.

John Dehlin 1:42:08 And I apologize, because this should be obvious to me, but I'm not getting what the Book of Abraham has to do with this priesthood restoration thing. Can you just summarize that really quickly one more time?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:42:18 So, okay, so I haven't read the Book Abraham stuff in a while just because we haven't done those yet. But effectively the Joseph smith says in DNC107 that he's going to give the lineage of the, basically the, the high priesthood in the Book of Enoch. And that never happens. And so what happens instead is Joseph Smith is going to start writing the Book of Abraham shortly after when they get the scrolls, and he's going to use that opportunity to establish the lineage for the high priesthood in order to try to give legitimacy to the idea that there was a high priesthood that was passed down as opposed to it just being the Melchizedek priesthood, just being Jesus.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:42:56 Because as I mentioned, Melchizedek is a title for king of Righteousness, which is Jesus. So a lot of people think, thought that it meant that Jesus didn't really need a priesthood. That was just a way of saying that was like, you know, a title of a priesthood for Jesus because he was by himself, he wasn't equals with us.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:43:10 And here Joseph Smith is trying to, okay, yes, he's trying to find a way to, to make it ancient so that it lines up.

John Dehlin 1:43:17 And that's a huge red flag because, you know, like I heard one several years ago that, that, that Terrell Givens has recommended privately to top church leaders that they need to remove the Book of Abraham even from the canon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:43:31 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:43:32 Both because it's gibberish, but also because it's now been shown to be a fraudulent translation. So if Joseph Smith, if now we see a motive, a partial motive for him of creating the Book of Abraham, which is to then do this pseudepigrapha stuff where he can show ancient prophets who are using this priesthood and then using that to bolster his claims about this six year after the fact, invented lower and higher priesthood, that's problematic because now we know the Book of Abraham is a fraud from start to finish. And so that the Book of Abraham itself and its, its false translation completely undermines the priesthood as well as the Book of Abraham. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:20 Well, yeah, I Mean, obviously, the apologetic to that is going to be that it was the Book of Abraham is a revelation translation, which we will get into. Oh, I know, I know we'll get into that.

John Dehlin 1:44:28 But yeah, it's translation the word all over this history. Six years, translator. He's a prophet, seer, revelator and translator. None of this garbage about, you know, what is the. The inspiration thesis of the Book of Abraham?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:46 Oh, the. Oh, my goodness.

John Dehlin 1:44:47 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:48 Catalyst theory.

John Dehlin 1:44:48 About the catalyst theory. You can't put that back in. In 18. No, nine, 1835. He is a translator, not a revelator in that way.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:44:58 Yeah. But no, I mean, I would just say that would be the. The response would be to say, well, that was a revelation from God that was establishing it. But that gets into so many issues, too, because again, we talked about in our six or seven episodes on biblical scholarship. I mean, I would argue most biblical scholars that are not like fundamentalists would argue that Abraham probably was not a real person.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:45:18 So to establish a Melchizedek priesthood through a fictional or a mythical character doesn't work. And so that creates more problems where you can show that Joseph Smith is basically trying to backfit a story by using something that's not historical and trying to cement it down as historical. And then all of a sudden you're screwed, because if that's not true, everything above it is not true. And so, you know, this is where things get messy, because it's like everywhere you go, you're going to run into more problems with the way Joseph Smith is piecing together theology. And he's using these different scripture productions as vehicles for this theology, like the Book of Abraham, like the First Vision, like the Doctrine and Covenants.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:45:58 Book of Moses does the same thing. All of these are vehicles for his ideas. But the problem is when you show those ideas are not based in a historical setting, then everything that comes from them is not true. And this is a problem when you're trying to establish a higher priesthood in a set of scriptures that we know is just historically and historically wrong and the translation is completely wrong. Again, it's like, what are you left with because of the fact that he is tying the priesthood into the Book of Abraham.

John Dehlin 1:46:26 Yep.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:46:26 So, yeah, it's a problem. I mean, it's a huge one.

John Dehlin 1:46:28 If Joseph is creating a fake translation in the Book of Abraham as a way to justify his manufactured priesthood, that comes six years after it allegedly was given. Yep. That's like a. That's a house of cards falling right there. Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:46:45 And, you know, and and remember the, the first three verses that Joseph Smith is going to do in the Book of Abraham, which he does and then kind of pauses is those first three verses are trying to establish the priesthood that he is also establishing in 1835. So he's doing both of these at the same time, which is a huge tell that this is a late, a late innovation that he's now trying to figure out a way to give authenticity to by trying to put it in the name of an ancient, you know, prophet.

John Dehlin 1:47:11 He's making this stuff up as he goes along.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:47:13 Yeah. And he's making it up as he goes along and now he's trying to find a way to solidify it on solid ground so he can't be questioned. But again, as we've talked about with the Book of Abraham, there's just, there's so many issues and we will do that and I think we're going to be doing those like in a few episodes or something. But yeah, those will be okay. Going through that some more.

John Dehlin 1:47:30 So thanks for explaining that to me. I'm sure the listeners of viewers get it all, but I, I sometimes need a little expert.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:47:36 No, this stuff is so, this stuff is so in the weeds. And it is. And, and like I said, if you want to know more, watch the Dan Vogel videos because he goes into even more depth and you're, you go cross eyed at some point but man, is it, it's just so damning how many data points there are. And this is, we're not going to read it, but if you're watching this, this is a look at the Tanners put together a image of the changes made to the Book of Commandments. And these are the two main revelations on the priesthood. And if you, if you can look at it, it's just there, these are not small changes.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:48:09 These are massive block changes being made to these revelations from God that we can show that he's making it. It's just, just to be able to see it. I think kind of illustrates just how vast the changes that are being made with no, no, you know, header in, in the, the DNC saying he changed it. This is being done with no announcement.

John Dehlin 1:48:29 That is shocking because look, was the Book of Commandments revelation or not? If it was Revelation, it should stand. But if it requires almost half of it to be written as this visualization shows, then it wasn't Revelation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:48:45 Yep.

John Dehlin 1:48:46 You don't go back and rewrite Revelation years later and change it all. That is a, that is a huge smoking gun that. I mean I'm I'm sorry. People are going to go, john, you know, this is too anti. Or this is too negative. I'm just, I'm giving a genuine reaction because I've never seen this visual before that is shocking to see how much they're changing what was an alleged revelation, how much they're altering it to an updated revelation after the fact. That's not how revelation works. Revelation works. God tells Joseph what the revelation is, and it's revelation. It's not. God tells Joseph what the revelation is, and then three years later, God says, joseph, completely rewrite the revelation and change it based on stuff you've made up between then and now. That's not how revelation is supposed to work.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:49:38 Yeah, I mean, it's just like it's. Yeah, because our next episode is going to be on changes to the revelations and it's going to go into this in more depth. But yeah, I mean, the moment that you start to say Joseph had the ability to change him as he saw fit, you're just. You're indistinguishable from outright fraud. Because even if you believe they're originally correct, now Joseph Smith has corrupted him. It's like no matter how you go here, it's going to end in a bad way because we've already shown he's willing to deceive in order to better his own situation. And this is another instance where he's creating these changes in order to bolster his authority. And now he has to back fit it into the text.

John Dehlin 1:50:15 And again, I'm wondering, how did, how did he get away with this with all the members and all the leaders like him literally rewriting the revelations within two or three years of them being printed. But then I think about Warren Jeffs and Rulon Jeffs and how, you know, like freaking Warren Jeffs goes to prison and starts telling people they can't get married and have sex and everybody's okay with it. Like, once you, once people perceive that you're God's spokesperson, you can almost do whatever you want. And people are going to just let it slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:50:48 Well, I mean, yeah, or you get.

John Dehlin 1:50:50 The more people are willing to let stuff like this slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:50:53 Well, yeah, you know, we talked about in the treasure digging episodes too. It's like once you get someone to believe that you have that authority, they'll. They'll let you get away with a lot of stuff until they don't. And we, we do have a lot of the early members and a lot of the early witnesses who leave because. And they mentioned this as being a reason they leave. So it definitely does resonate. It's just like you said you would expect more widespread. But remember, very few members have a Book of Commandments to compare to. It was there are only a few. You know, there weren't a lot of copies that survived. So it's not like they all had that, like, as a quad back then. That was a very rare thing to have. So it could just be that most early members just didn't know any better.

John Dehlin 1:51:26 Yeah, and we're gonna get to David Whitmer.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:51:28 Yeah. So we'll get to all that as well. So. So yes, that's just a good visual look. And, you know, going back to Oliver Cowdery, this is more from Dan Vogel, which is really interesting. Late In September of 1835, Oliver Cowdery was copying the 1833 blessings of Joseph Smith Sr. Into the patriarchal Blessing book. Cowdery wrote an introduction that explained the authority by which Joseph Smith Sr. Gave blessings and uses the same language as Abraham, Chapter one, verse two, about the right of the priesthood, which means he has access to that at that point. He then tried to claim that the visitation of John the Baptist was predicated predicted by ancient Joseph, evidently alluding to one of the Egyptian papyri that Oliver Kadri identified in the December 1835 issue of the messenger and Advocate.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:52:13 This is what he wrote. We repaired to the woods even as our Father Joseph said we should. That is, to the bush the angel came down and bestowed upon us this priesthood. That is, he explains, they were ordained by the angel John unto the lesser or Aaronic priesthood. I'm gonna take a quick pause on that one just to say that again, when you realize the book of Abraham and what they claimed were the book of Joseph, those two scrolls were funerary scrolls. The fact that Oliver Cowdery is now saying that they include this prediction that they're going to get the priesthood restored tells you that the story is completely made up, because we know those scrolls don't say that in any way.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:52:48 So I just want to throw that out there real quick. We'll get back to it. But then Dan Vogel continues and says, still writing in the Patriarchal Blessing book, in early October 1835, Oliver Cowdery altered and expands it a blessing that Joseph Smith gave him in 1833. Deleting some negative comments and adding a reference to the priesthood restoration, he wrote, these blessings shall come upon him, Oliver, according to the blessings of the prophecy of Joseph in ancient days, which he said should come upon the seer of the last days and the scribe that should sit with him and that should be ordained with him. He then mentions the ordination by John the Baptist and then states, and after received the holy priesthood under the hands of those who had been held in reserve for a long season, even those who received it under the hand of the Messiah, while he should dwell in the flesh.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:53:37 The expansion of the 1833 blessings without notice. Cowdery even claimed that he was copying faithfully creates a highly suspicious situation which Oliver inserts ancient Joseph's prophecy about priesthood restoration. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were apparently planning to use the papyri to support priesthood restoration, to put authority claims and their leadership on a firmer foundation. And so this is saying that.

John Dehlin 1:54:01 I just want to say that like if, if I'm reading this correctly, there's a patriarchal blessing that's been given in 1833. It doesn't mention any of this priesthood stuff in detail. That's not the way patriarchal blessings are supposed to work. Number one, that they're changed two years later. But what's even worse, and this, this is like Joseph Fielding Smith level fraud. But worse, he's adding two years later details that weren't given in the original, in the, in the original revelation and then claiming, claiming that they're, that they're a prophecy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:54:41 Yeah, that's amazing, right?

John Dehlin 1:54:43 Outright fraud. That's ridiculous.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:54:45 Yeah. And that's why you can't Cowdery to

John Dehlin 1:54:48 be a bad dude.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:54:49 Well, and that's why you can't rely on him because now we've got all these instances where you can show he's willing to use fraud and in this case he deletes. I think in the original blessing it talks about how Oliver has to overcome his temptations of evil or something like that. There's like this little admin, you know, little jab at him in the original blessing and then two years later, not only does he remove that so that it's not in the record, but then he also adds these ideas that were not even invented until 1835 and puts them back into 1833, which shows he is willing to, to lie.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:55:21 I mean he, he lied here. He, he lied and he intentionally covered up information, deleted and added there. If you read this about any other religious leader to a Mormon, to a true believing member of the church and said, do you believe this person is acting in good faith, they'd say no. But then when you say it's Oliver Cowdery, you know, or Joseph Smith, you know, it's, it's all about consistency. But, yeah, this. This shows he was willing to lie for Joseph. He was willing to lie for himself, and he was also willing to alter, change, delete, edit as needed to make it happen.

Rewriting the Book of Commandments and Patriarchal Blessings

John Dehlin 1:55:51 Yeah, there's no Mormon that should feel good. Just imagine you have a patriarchal blessing that you've received, and then two years later, somebody else comes and adds a bunch of stuff to it. It's not even the original patriarchy. And then. And then claims it was a faithful, you know, rewriting of the original blessing. That's. That's just outrageous fraud. And I'm. I'm. I'm livid.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:56:16 Well, yeah, this one. This one's a bad one. And this one I obviously didn't know about. I didn't know this. And, you know, this would be the equivalent of like. And this one hits home for me a little bit. I hear a lot of people who say this is. They'll say, I received my patriarchal blessing, and it said I was going to have a bunch of kids. And then they have infertility issues, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:56:34 And then all of a sudden, someone takes that patriarchal blessing and they delete the part about having a bunch of kids. And they write, and you will have great challenges having children in this life, but be sure you'll have them in the next life. And then they sign that as if it happened years earlier. I mean, that's what this is. This is taking something that was created years later and putting it back into a previous text. And remember, patriarchal blessings are supposed to be revelations directly from God. These are not just people randomly spouting off their ideas. So this is, you know, this is a really damning piece of evidence that Oliver Cowdery was willing to lie and did lie to put the story back in.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:57:10 And this is the story that the church tells us every week on Sunday is what happened. And we know it's a late addition and that they're having to cover their tracks to make it fit the history. And I don't know what more to say outside the fact that every person who knows this, like apologists, and who don't teach it this way, are being intentionally deceptive. And that's why we've talked in previous weeks. I can't stand it when people who know better still tell the correlated material, when this is clearly not what happened.

John Dehlin 1:57:36 Yeah, that's outrageous. All right, next slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:57:39 Yep. So, next slide. And I think a lot of people who might be listening or watching will be aware of this, but in the 1836 vision at the Kirtland Temple. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery claim a vision where they receive additional priesthood keys from Moses, Elias and Elijah. This claim gives them the ultimate authority in the church, but does not come without problems. Elias and Elijah are actually the same person, even though Joseph treats them as separate visions. Elias is the Hebrew translation and Elijah is the Greek. Nonetheless, this effectively finishes the priesthood restoration by confirming an authority to Joseph Smith that can never be challenged by anyone else in the church. And so this is just.

John Dehlin 1:58:16 I'm just going to say three huge problems here. Number one, Joseph and Oliver have already been shown to be liars or to be willing to lie. Number two, they're not even getting. They're calling two historical figures that were actually one. And number three, this is just a huge transparent power grab. They realized a couple years prior that they need to keep hold of their power, and the only way that they can do it is to claim angelic visitations. And so this is like a triple. This is triply problematic. They're not credible to begin with. They're getting the actual historical figures wrong, as if it's two people existed when it was only one. And it's clearly a blatant power grab that they're making up to keep their power.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:59:03 Yeah, I mean, it's just. It's one of those things where once you realize that Oliver is willing to effectively lie for Joseph, and, you know, Joseph's been willing to make up stories to bolster his authority, this, then all of a sudden it's like, well, why should I believe it? Because we have, in the previous year, Oliver changing the Blessing book to reflect the story and Joseph changing the Revelation. And, you know, we don't need to get into this too deep, but a lot of the apologetics would say that Elias is the title of a forerunner, which most people would say would be John. But then remember a year earlier, they're saying how they were visited by John.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:59:34 So you would never call him Elias in this vision. So that's one area where I kind of laugh because they'll say, oh, Elias was just a forerunner title. It was actually John. It's like, well, then he would say after this, John appeared because he had already seen him. It would be silly for me to call someone by a title if I had already interacted with them in a vision. So I just want to note that, because that's probably what a lot of people will respond to that section or this section of the episode by saying is, well, Elias was a title. They really were two different people.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 1:59:58 It's like, no, this is. I remember when you had David Bachavoy and I think you had asked him and he just kind of said, yeah, that's, it's, it's really just that simple. You know, they're just different translations. And that's why one is in the Old Testament, one's in the New Testament because the New Testament's in Greek, Old Testament is in Hebrew. And so, yeah, it's just Joseph Smith didn't know that. And so here he's creating a vision to effectively solidify his authority in the church by citing two different people who are actually the same person with different translations. So it's, it's just, it's.

John Dehlin 2:00:26 You're saying, you're saying biblical scholars kind of universally acknowledge that now?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:00:30 I think so. I mean, it's funny if a lot of people will argue that Elias is the term of a forerunner or front runner or whatever, and if you Google it, almost every response you see is. Is affiliated with, like an LDS apologetic because it really is not a big deal for anyone else. But because Joseph Smith, you know, I've said this so many times in these episodes now, because Joseph Smith cemented this as a real historical thing.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:00:52 That's where the apologetics come from. And like I said, if you want to claim it's John, you got problems because they just claim to see John, so why wouldn't they just name. As it was. It'd be like if I said, you know, and then President appeared to me, and then Presidente appeared to me, and then you go, oh. They meant, they meant it was, you know, George Washington. And I said, a year later, I'd visited with George Washington. I would just be like, oh, and then George Washington came. I wouldn't be like, oh, and then President came. It's just I, I realize people might think I'm being facetious, and I'm not. I'm saying, like, that's what you have to deal with if you want to use that apologetic, because.

John Dehlin 2:01:23 Transparent argument out of necessity, not facts or anything.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:01:26 Yeah, and even, even that argument out of necessity runs into the problem that Joseph Smith already claimed to see John, so why would he then call Elias when the overwhelming consensus is that they're the same person anyways? It's just you can't use that argument given that they're making that story up a year earlier. So anyways, yeah, it's a big deal. So now, as we talked about with the first vision, Joseph Smith is going to write kind of a new version of the history in 1838. This is what's canonized, this is what's now in DNC 13.

Later Official Accounts of Priesthood Restoration

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:01:54 And this entry matches the official church narrative, includes the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods along with the visitations. This is where we mentioned this earlier, where it says, upon my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I, John the Baptist, confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels and of the gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. And this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness. And you know, like I said, on the surface this sounds like a miraculous visit by John the Baptist, but it's just this entire thing is, it's an, it's an anachronism to everything we have about what happened in these preceding years.

John Dehlin 2:02:32 And so I'm super livid about this because it's very personal for me. I remember memorizing the scripture when I was in the in Aaronic priesthood holder when I was a young teenage boy. And I'm being told this priesthood is so important and it's so important that I received it and it gives me all this power and authority. Never was I told that this was invented nine years after the alleged event ever happened and that it was retrofitted into the DNC and put as Section 13. Like as if it came early, when in reality it came so much after. Many of the sections of the DNC that are placed after in subsequent versions. Does that make sense?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:03:20 Yeah, No, I mean, like I said, this is, you know, as a convert, you know, when I, when I, when I first came across this information, it was just like, where's Oliver getting these words? Yeah, I mean, where did.

John Dehlin 2:03:32 Do these words ever appear before 1838? Anywhere?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:03:37 They might, they might appear after 1835, but they're anachronistic. Between 1829 and 1835 for sure. There's no.

John Dehlin 2:03:44 This is like literally what John the Baptist is saying when he gives Oliver and Joseph. These are the literal words he's saying when he gives Joseph and Oliver the priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:03:56 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:03:57 And yet they were never written down until six to eight years. Six to nine years later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:04:02 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:04:03 The first time they were actually written down with this amazing level of specificity that just appears literally out of nowhere six to eight years later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:04:16 And, and so I'm just looking at the section heading on DNC 13 online. It says an extra, an extract from Joseph Smith's history recounting The Ordination of the Prophet Prophet and Oliver Cowdery to the Aaronic Priesthood near Harmony, Pennsylvania. May 15, 1829. This ordination was done by the hands of an angel who announced himself as John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the New Testament. The angel explained that he was acting under the direction of Peter, James and John, the ancient apostles who held the keys of the higher priesthood, which was called the priesthood of Melchizedek. The promise was given to Joseph and Oliver that in due time the higher priesthood would be conferred upon them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:04:51 The keys and power of the Aaronic priesthood are set forth. And so this heading makes no mention of the fact that this is a recounting nine years later that it completely was changed from the original setting. And I realize the Church isn't going to announce the fact that Joseph and Oliver created the story long after the fact, but just reading this heading would not give the impression to a reader that this is a late edition or even nine years after the fact. It just makes it look like Joseph Smith's history was written contemporaneously and that they just pulled this little bit out because they don't have a direct revelation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:05:22 And yet none of this happened. This is just. We can show this did not happen because we could show the evolution of the story. And yet we're still getting this as the heading of DNC13, which is just, it's dishonest by the Church's own definition of honesty. This is dishonest. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:05:38 And people are going to criticize me for being a little bit too angry or harsh or emotional because we're trying to be objective here. But I'm just, this is my authentic reaction. I haven't studied this stuff before and as someone who's raised a lifelong Mormon, this is outraging me and my outrage is authentic and it's all new information to me, honestly.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:06:00 Yeah, I mean, like I said, I, I, when I started going through this, it's like holy crap. Like every time you see something like that makes so much sense, but it also is pretty angering to see. So.

John Dehlin 2:06:08 Yeah, yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:06:09 So anyways, this one I mentioned because Lucy Mack Smith, who's Joseph Smith's mom, writes about the formation of the church again in 1845, and she recounts the introduction of baptism, but she does not mention John the Baptist or any angelic visitations which were have to have taken place on that same day. So she writes, one morning Joseph and Oliver were translating in Third Nephi in the Book of Mormon. The first thing that presented itself to Joseph was A commandment from God through the stone in a hat that he and Oliver should repair to the water, in each of them be baptized. They immediately went down to the Susquehanna river and obeyed the mandate given them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:06:44 They had now received the authority to baptize. And so, much like the first vision, the story just isn't really well known because it wasn't talked about in the first six years. So I think a lot of people, you know, they have the dnc, but they don't probably know these stories as well because they weren't foundational then. And I know some people will say that by Lucy Mack saying they now had received authority to baptize, that that was a reference to the visitation, but it's not. It's a reference to the fact that at this point early in the history, Joseph Smith believed he received divine commandment through the rock and a hat, not through the visitation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:07:20 That would happen years later. So Lucy Mack Smith is not saying they received the authority to baptize by getting the priesthood. She's saying they received the authority to baptize by translating the Book of Mormon and then getting the commandment through the stone and the hat to go and baptize each other.

John Dehlin 2:07:35 But. But is. Wait, so is John the Baptist anywhere there?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:07:39 No, I'm just saying this is even in 1845, and Lucy Mack Smith still seems to be not mentioning it when she recounts history of the church. Church. So this is just one of those stories, I think, that wasn't foundational. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:07:50 So why is Joseph's own mom, when she writes about Joseph and Oliver kind of baptizing each other? Why is she not mentioning John the Baptist now? Did she not get the 1838 memo?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:08:06 Well, let's just say, like. Because she doesn't mention. I don't think she really mentions the first vision either. So I don't think she's aware of. I mean, to be honest, she's probably recalling what she experienced in these early days. And this matches. That matches the 1829 timeline that they were translating the book and believe they need to baptize each other as they're starting this church. That makes sense, but it's. This is completely out of line with the correlated version that, you know, we've gone over now from the official dnc.

John Dehlin 2:08:32 The other thing is. Tell me if I'm remembering this right, but. But the first instance of, like, bad Christian baptism in the Book of Mormon is when Alma goes to the waters of Mormon and starts baptizing people?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:08:47 I think so, yeah.

John Dehlin 2:08:48 And there's no mention of anyone ever ordaining him priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:08:53 Yep.

John Dehlin 2:08:53 It almost gives the impression that like the Holy Spirit, if I'm remembering right, it's almost like the Holy Spirit descends on him.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:09:01 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:09:02 Where he gets his authority from. Yeah. So the Book of Mormon had this amazing chance to say, and behold Alma. Some angel appears to Alma and ordains on him the Aaronic priesthood which gives him the authority to baptize in the waters of Mormon. The Book of Mormon had that chance and it never, it never does that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:09:21 Yeah. Because it wasn't thought up yet. Yeah. I mean, that's. And that's just it. That's what we, that's why it's always when we mentioned these things, it's like, yeah, it's not there because Joseph hadn't thought it up yet. And when you look at it today as a member, you think he had because it seems so clean and correlated. But no, he had. The story is not in his idea, in his mindset yet. And so of course it's not going to show up in the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin 2:09:41 Okay. All right. But the point is the fact that the prophet's own mother, who was a first hand witness all along, never mentions John the Baptist, even as late as 1845. That should be sketchy at minimum.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:09:56 Yeah, I mean, it's, it's noteworthy. You know, it's, it's one of those things where you look at that and it's another data point that shows people just were not aware of it because it didn't happen. And yeah, here's.

John Dehlin 2:10:05 And then here's Oliver Cowdery. Sorry, sorry, I had the wrong side there. And then here's Oliver Cowdery. Yeah. You say back to another recollection.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:10:14 And this is a good one. This is from the Sunstone history podcast on the priesthood restoration. This was a really cool one that Christopher C. Smith mentioned, which is Oliver Cowdery gets excommunicated from the church because he's upset about Joseph Smith having an affair with Fanny Alger. And he goes back to the church later and when he goes back, he's talking to the church and this is what he says. I was also present with Joseph when the higher or Melchizedek priesthood was conferred by the Holy angel on high. Yeah. And so he's going backwards to the story he told in 1834.

John Dehlin 2:10:47 So it says, just outrageous.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:10:49 No, so it's just, it's amazing. I was also present with Joseph when the higher or Melchizedek priesthood was conferred by the Holy angel on high. This priesthood we then conferred on each other by the will and commandment of God. And it's just like I said, this is interesting because here's Oliver Cowdery, who's the one that kind of introduced the angel story in 1834, which leads to Peter, James, and John. But here, even knowing that that story was. Was done rewriting stuff into the Blessing books, all that stuff. When he goes back to the church in 1848, he reverts back to his original 1834 story and also makes clear to say, I was present with Joseph, which in a lot of ways is kind of more of a passive language.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:11:27 So in 1834 and 35, Oliver Couch is like, I was there. I was a part of this. You know, this is when it all happened. And then all of a sudden, now he's kind of fallen back to that kind of more generic angelic visitation, which obviously makes no sense, given the fact that he's well aware of the story in 1835, because him and Joseph rewrote it into the DNC and he rewrote some of it into the Blessings book. So this is significant.

John Dehlin 2:11:52 It's almost like in mid to late 1830s, they're. They're. Their authority is being challenged. They're. They're needing to pull rank, so they're making up all these stories about specific angelic visits that granted them the authority. But maybe by 1848, well, not only is Joseph dead, so the. The authority is kind of a matter of the past, but also the authority is kind of well established by then. And at that point, it's less important for Oliver to be making such specific claims of authority.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:12:23 Well, that. And I think Oliver at this point is coming back to the church. This church is not going to let Oliver take control of it anyways. So I think at this point, he doesn't have any real need to lie because it's not like, you know, Brigham Young and them are going to, like, put him in charge. So I think at this point, they view him, I think, kind of suspiciously a bit. And because he'd been excommunicated, he'd be excommunicated.

John Dehlin 2:12:42 So he's coming back for accusing Joseph of adultery.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:12:46 Yeah. And so he comes back that, you know, I think there's a lot of bad feelings. And so it's just interesting that he's now reverting back to the story. It's almost like now that it doesn't suit him, he's not going to tell the full story, but he's still giving this other story to certainly to elevate himself. But, yeah, it's just amazing that he reverts backwards instead of just sticking with what the evolution of the story was.

John Dehlin 2:13:06 Yeah, that's crazy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:13:07 Okay, and then this is a real quick data point. It's a late reminiscence, but it's a journal of Oliver Huntington, and it's a reminiscence from. Oh, my gosh, Addison Everett, I believe. And he says that basically Joseph had told people in Nauvoo that in Colville, he and Oliver Cowdery were under arrest on charges of deceiving the people. And in court, he stated that the first miracle done was to create this earth. Brother Joseph said that at the very time Peter, James and John came to them and ordained them to the apostleship. And this incarceration is mid to late June of 1830. And Wesley Walters has located the court bill for this trial.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:13:48 It's dated July 1, 1830. That if this is true, and this actually lines up a little more with the history as far as Joseph and Oliver being together, that would put the priesthood restoration weeks after the church was founded, which is another problem. So this is a late reminiscence. It's just another data point, but it's just to say that even in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith is telling a story about the priesthood restoration that doesn't line up with what he wrote in the Doctrine and Covenants, which would have, I believe, been about seven years earlier. Because I think that this was supposed to be in, like, 1842 in Nauvoo. So even here, we're seeing just all sorts of inconsistencies with how Joseph is framing this experience.

John Dehlin 2:14:27 And I wonder if that's just a confused memory, because if Joseph wasn't even talking about Peter, James And John until 1834, 1835, why would he have mentioned that in 1831?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:14:38 He did. No, he didn't. This is. This is Joseph Smith telling the story in Nauvoo. So, like, say around 1842, he's telling people about the restoration.

John Dehlin 2:14:47 Oh, yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:14:49 So this is only important in trying to try to date when they're saying it was. So it just shows that it couldn't have happened in May of 1829, because this trial happened about a year later. And. And the church was. The church was founded in April 6th, I think, right? April 6th, I think so. So it just shows that even if you go with what Joseph Smith was teaching in Nauvoo, this would have happened, after which it just has all sorts of problems as well, so, okay. Yeah, it's a little.

John Dehlin 2:15:14 Maybe Joseph was talking about it in an inconsistent manner.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:15:18 Yes, yes. I mean, like I said, it's just one data point. It's a late reminiscence. It's just more or less to say, here's another data point which does line up with regard to the trial, but it would be bad for the timing because it would be after the. Well, after it was supposed to have happened.

John Dehlin 2:15:34 So super sketchy. So many instances of sketchiness.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:15:38 Yeah. So now we're going to get to some of the quotes that I found to be very impactful to me about the priesthood restoration. Some from faithful, some from non faithful. So Richard Bushman, a faithful source, would say, those who don't know.

John Dehlin 2:15:51 Yeah. Church's foremost scholar on Joseph Smith, former stake president, which is higher than a bishop, former state patriarch. Like, this is the guy.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:16:02 Yeah, this is the guy. He writes in his book Rough Stone Rolling. The late appearances of these priesthood restoration accounts raises the possibility of later fabrication. And then Bushman goes on to add, did Joseph Smith add the stories of angels to embellish his early history and make himself more of a visionary? If so, he made little of the occurrence. Cowdery was the first to recount the story of John's appearance, not Joseph himself. So this is, I think, Bushman trying to say the later appearance of these accounts certainly looks like a late addition to Joseph's history. He tries to give a little bit of an apologetic spin to say if he was doing it to bolster his authority, he made little of it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:16:38 But I think that neglects the fact that he does create the story of John's appearance because Oliver mentions an angel, Joseph links him to John, and that's in 1835, at a time after Zion's camp, when things are happening. So, yeah, I mean, I would say that Joseph did embellish his history to make himself more of a visionary, and he made little of the occurrence before 1835 because he hadn't developed the story yet. And I think the timeline kind of, I think, shows that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:17:04 And I also think, like I said, Cowdery did introduce the idea of an angel, and then they kind of solidified that to John, like right before they did the DNC entry. So between. Was it February and May of 1835? I think so.

John Dehlin 2:17:18 I think I'm still confused as to how Bushman can be an orthodox believer and know this stuff, but at least he's acknowledging that. That it's a real problem. Yeah, Roberts did about the view the Hebrews Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:17:32 Yeah. I think that, to me, that's the takeaway. It's just he even. Even he's saying, basically this looks like later fabrication. And even if he does give apologetic spin to it.

John Dehlin 2:17:39 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:17:40 BH Roberts, who was an Apollo, Was he a general authority for the Church? He wasn't an apostle. So he writes in his footnote. In the history of the Church, there is no definite account of the Melchizedek priesthood restoration event in the history of the prophet Joseph, or for that matter, in any of our annals, which is to say there's no contemporary record of this happening anywhere in the church's records.

John Dehlin 2:18:08 I've already made this point, but Mormons should realize we celebrate the date of the Aaronic priesthood every year. We never celebrate the date of the Melchizedek priesthood because there's no evidence that it ever happened.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:18:20 Yeah. So, I mean, it's another way of saying this story just does not exist.

John Dehlin 2:18:25 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:18:25 David Whitmer said, I never heard that an angel had ordained Joseph and Oliver to the Aaronic priesthood until the year 1835 or 1834, 35 or 36 in Ohio. I do not believe that John the Baptist ever ordained Joseph and Oliver. And William McClellan along those same lines, said, I joined the church in 1831. For years, I never heard of John the Baptist ordaining Joseph and Oliver. I had heard not of James, Peter and John doing so. As to the story of John the Baptist ordaining Joseph and Oliver on the day they were baptized, I never heard of it in the church for years, although I carefully noticed the things that were said.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:19:00 And so these are two people that are in the early church. David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses, both saying, this story just was never talked about. It's a late creation, and that they don't believe it because, again, they were there, they were around, they heard Joseph Smith talk about this stuff, and it's just a late addition that was simply not developed at this time. That's why they didn't hear about it.

John Dehlin 2:19:24 And. And, okay, so, yeah, that should be very significant because the. The Church wants us all to really, you know, the Book of Mormon stands on. On the witnesses of the three and the eight witnesses. And David Whitmer is one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon, like a super crucial, you know, witness. Right? Wait, he's one of the three witnesses, right? Yeah, yeah, he's one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon, early founders of the church. And here he's saying, I never heard anything about an Aaronic priesthood or an angel or John the Baptist. So that's a huge problem. And then will it. William McClellan. You'll hear the church reference him all the time about his important role in the early church. And here you've got early founders saying, we never heard anything about this. This. Yeah. Now didn't David Whitmer say also he knew nothing about a Melchizedek priesthood?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:20:22 Yeah, I think so. And the next, the next one actually is going to be pretty important for that. Actually it's from, from, from Whitmer. So yeah, this is really important because I mentioned at the beginning Sidney Rigdon. So David Whitmer says in August 1829 we began to preach the Gospel of Christ. The following six elders had then been ordained. Joseph, Oliver, Peter Whitmer, Samuel Smith, Hiram Smith and myself. We preached, baptized and confirmed members into the Church of Christ from August 1829 until April 6, 1830, being eight months in which time we had proceeded rightly, the offices in the church being elders, priests and teachers.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:20:56 In no place in the Word of God does it say that an elder is after the order of Melchizedek or after the order of the Melchizedek priesthood. An elder is after the order of Christ. This matter of priesthood since the days of Sidney Rigdon has been the great hobby and stumbling block of the Latter Day Saints. Priesthood means authority and authority is the word we should use. I do not think the word priesthood's mentioned in the New Covenant of the Book of Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:21:19 Authority is the word we used for the first two years in the church until Sidney Rigdon's days in Ohio. This matter of the two orders of the priesthood in the Church of Christ in lineal priesthood of the old law being in the church, all originated in the mind of Sidney Rigdon. He explained these things to Brother Joseph in his way out of the old scriptures and, and got Brother Joseph to inquire, etc. He would inquire and as mouthpiece speak out the revelations just as they had fixed up in their hearts. This is the way the high priest and the priesthood as you have it was introduced into the Church of Christ almost two years after its beginning and after we had baptized and confirmed about 2, 000 souls into the church. So yeah, I mean that speaks for itself. This is what I was saying at the beginning of this episode.

John Dehlin 2:22:01 Summarize this, summarize this for.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:22:03 Yeah, he's just basically, Sidney Rigdon came from the Campbellite movement, the Camplight movement, spoke about the Melchizedek priesthood. Sidney rigdon joined in 1830. And up until that time, Joseph had no idea of this idea of two priesthoods. Sidney Rigdon taught him about the, the multiple priesthoods. And after then Joseph Smith started layering in these details about the high priest in 1831. Then they bring up the, the name Melchizedek in 1835, the visitations. None of that happened in the early church. And so David Whitmer was there.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:22:32 And they baptize people, they ordained people. This stuff was never mentioned in any way until Sydney Rigden came. And everything lines up. The timeline lines up. Sidney Rigdon's background confirms what David Whitmer is saying about this belief about the Melchizedek priesthood. All of this stuff lines up. And that's why it's so cool, because as I mentioned at the start of the episode, you got this puzzle and now these pieces are fitting together really well. Now it's telling us the priesthood restoration didn't happen in the way that the church tells you, if it happened at all. But this is what the historical records are telling us and they're all confirming each other.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:23:05 So here David Whitmer is confirming what we talked about earlier about the Campbellites and the Melchizedek priesthood. And it's also confirming the timeline, which is to say this was never even developed until years after the church was formed, which is a huge problem because they're telling us it happened before.

John Dehlin 2:23:21 Now I'm, I'm, I'm pulling up Mormon think really quick. And I'm just going to read to you what I'm reading. And this might be repetitive, but this is David Whitmer in an address to all believers in Christ. This might be repetitive, but I'm going to read it anyway.

John Dehlin 2:23:37 This is one of the three witnesses, early founder of the Mormon Church, David Whitmer. He says this matter of the two orders of the priesthood in the Church of Christ. They didn't even get the church's name right at first. And lineal priesthood of the old law being in the church, all, all originated in the mind of Sidney Rigdon. He explained these things to Brother Joseph in his way out of the old scriptures and got Brother Joseph to inquire.

John Dehlin 2:24:07 So that is Sidney Rigdon saying this. This stuff about Peter, James and John Aaronic Melchizedek priesthood did not happen in 1829, something Sidney Rigdon introduced and that Joseph and Oliver adopted later. And if you're. How can the Church wants us to believe David Whitmer as a credible witness to the Book of Mormon, well then can he also be a credible witness to the invalidity of the priesthood restoration.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:24:38 Yeah, and that's the problem with the inconsistency kind of, of apologetics, because I'm willing to say David Whitmer may have believed or probably believed that the Book of Mormon was, was from God, and he may have believed he saw a vision.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:24:51 I mean, I have no problem with that. But I will also say that the other things he says also I think you have to take account of. And the fact is he's telling us the story is created long after the fact and then retrofitted back in the church, which is also confirmed by everything else we have. So to try to vilify him in that regard, I think is just dishonest because we can show it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:13 This is not a matter of opinion, this is a matter of fact. And it's all over the place. We, like I said, go watch Dan Vogel's videos because he has so many more data points than I that we brought up here. It, it gets worse. It does not get better when you go deeper into this stuff.

John Dehlin 2:25:26 It's so disingenuous to say, believe David Whitmer when he testified of the Book of Mormon, don't believe him when he testified as to the invalidity of the priesthood restoration. Believe Oliver Cowdery when he's a witness of the Book of Mormon, don't believe him when he calls Joseph an adulterer.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:41 Right.

John Dehlin 2:25:41 You can't rely on witnesses, but only the witness, only the testimonies that are convenient and then ignore the ones that are inconvenient. And apologists, bushmen, all of them should, should know that. They know this.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:55 Yeah, they do.

John Dehlin 2:25:56 Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:57 I mean, they do.

John Dehlin 2:25:58 Yeah.

Evaluating the FairMormon Apologetic Response

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:25:59 Okay, so now we're going to get to the apologetics, and for this one, I use the, the, the fair Mormon response to the CES letter because there's no official church essay to kind of use to, to pull the main apologetics. So FairMormon's response to the CS letters to say records indicate that visits of Peter, James and John for the purpose of ordination was being discussed in 1830.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:26:23 And when you read their reply, they're going to give no sources, and yet they make this statement as just a complete statement of fact. And then they follow it up by saying the author of the CES letter has no idea whatsoever Joseph may have told his family about the priesthood restoration because there are no historical documents to support his position one way or the other, which only further proves our point that the event was not spoken of to anyone on record. So they're saying basically no one was told about this. And then Fairmorman calls this idea a logical fallacy, an argument from silence. The author has formed a conclusion that is based on the absence of statements in historical documents rather than on their actual presence.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:27:02 And again, this is just simply not true because of the fact that we can actually show all of the different ways that they talk about this. It's. It's just not mentioned. And so fair Mormon here is being intentionally disingenuous because they are trying to use this idea of you can't prove a negative, so of course it's true or could be true, so keep believing. Except for the fact that we can show all of these different areas where Joseph and Oliver and other people are talking about the priesthood, and it's just not there because it's not created. And last, the fact that Joseph Smith was not even ordained into the high priesthood until 1831, which tells us that this visitation did not happen in 1829.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:27:41 And so this is just the first kind of area where apologetics are going to say, well, Joseph Smith didn't write a lot of stuff down, so we can't really say anything's wrong. Jim Bennett does that in his CS letter reply to. I think he has a page where it's just like an open page and says, this is what Joseph wrote up until 1832. So basically saying, you know, how dare you judge it? It's like, no, there's a lot of documentation as to what he was teaching.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:28:02 This isn't there because it's. It's just not created. And we could show when it's created because it starts showing up in greater numbers all of a sudden, out of nowhere. I don't know what more to say on that one.

John Dehlin 2:28:14 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting what the Church chose to do gospel topics essays on versus what they chose not to do gospel topics essays on. So as an example, there's no gospel topics essays on historicity in the Book of Mormon, anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. And. And I've always wondered why not. You know what I mean?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:28:36 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:28:36 I wondered if that's such a. It's such a problematic apologetic argument, and it's so central to the Church's truth claims. The Church just said it's too important and we don't have a good enough case. And I wonder if that's what they did with the priesthood restoration.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:28:52 I think with the priesthood one, it is, because it's just. It, like, there's no good way around this and you know, obviously we'll get to the next these, the rest of them. But it's just these, these apologetics are terrible and they're really misleading if you're willing to look at what they're saying.

John Dehlin 2:29:04 So you, you've got this phrase we just read, which is that the fair Mormon says that records indicate there was discussion of Peter, James and John in the 1830s.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:29:15 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:29:16 Are you going to tell us their evidence for that? Are you saying they're saying that out of whole cloth?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:29:20 Well, so if you go to this response to the CS letter and you do it, there are no sources to show it, so I don't really have anything to show. They just tell you that and then they go on to basically say, you know, I mean, it's, it's a really bad one.

John Dehlin 2:29:31 And okay, they just make, basically just make that up.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:29:34 Yeah, it's like no support not to date this episode too much. But it's a lot like the, the current church statements on the sexual abuse case in Arizona and they say the AP got all the stuff wrong. And then you're like, what'd they get wrong? And they don't actually put it in the statement. It's just similar where they're just stating this as fact and then just moving on and obviously baseless assertions.

John Dehlin 2:29:55 Basically.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:29:56 Yeah, they're just making the assertion and then just hoping you don't actually need to see the sources. So fair Mormon responds a CS letter about whether or not the priesthood restoration was backdated. And they say when all circumstantial evidence is studied, the approximate time of the Melchizedek priesthood restoration can be plausibly narrowed down. Although historical documents do not give an exact date for the restoration of the Melchizedek priesthood, we can pinpoint its occurrence to a seven day window between 15 and 31st of May 1829. The window that is known is small enough to preclude a later fabrication of events by the prophet to increase his authority.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:30:29 Fair continues. Some have claimed that Joseph only began to mention apostolic ordination to the priesthood several years after the church's organization. Contrary to this claim, there are clear references to Joseph Smith stating he had seen Jesus Christ. Joseph's conversations with the apostles could be a reference to having seen, spoken to and been ordained to the priesthood by the early apostles Peter, James and John. Having received that priesthood, Joseph Smith was now qualified to perform healings and other miracles. And so what's this saying? They're basically saying that Joseph Smith mentions that he saw apostles. So clearly during that Time he could have been ordained without actually mentioning it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:31:11 And so if we can go to the next slide, the two slides kind of work together. Fair Mormon here is basically going to make a claim that it's not a late addition by using a late addition to back up their answers. So what I said earlier, Fair gives no sources beyond this because Joseph Smith never made the conclusion that he was ordained to the priesthood. That Fair is doing here. But then Fair attempts to lump the first vision into the priesthood restoration as proof that Joseph Smith could have been talking to Peter, James and John. But then the question is why it was never mentioned in the early forms of the revelation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:31:42 So Fair Mormon then says Joseph learned from Moroni in 1823 that when the golden plates are interpreted, the Lord will give the holy priesthood to some and they shall begin to proclaim this gospel and baptized by water. And after that they shall have the power to give the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands. The problem is this footnote from Fairmormon leads to a letter written by Oliver Cowdery in 1835, which only further adds to the idea that we're talking about that this was a backdated story. So they're trying to show that the problem of backdating the revelation isn't really a problem by citing a letter that is a retrofitting of the story.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:32:18 And they have to know this because it's a footnote. But they're counting on people who are reading it not to look at the source and below the surface of what they're saying.

John Dehlin 2:32:27 By mentioning the date 1823, they're trying to establish some things happening seven years before that bolster the idea that the priesthood was given by Peter, James and John and yet it's actually an account written five, six years after the fact. Yep, that's, that's trying to fill in history, you know, in a post dated way. That's actually disingenuous. Yeah, so that's super disingenuous of them to quote 1835 writings to bolster an 1829 event.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:33:04 Yeah, I mean if anything else they're actually making, making the point I'm trying to make here which is to say that this story is evolving and by 1835 this is a story that they're now retrofitting back into their history. But they don't tell you that letters from 1835. I just think that's so misleading.

John Dehlin 2:33:18 That's super sketchy. But they have no credibility anyway. So I just. Fair Mormon is ridiculous.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:33:24 Yeah, it's not. It's not great. And you know that that's a simple way to look at it and just say that should not be there.

John Dehlin 2:33:30 It's almost not worth responding to.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:33:32 Well, I just, I think they're the best way to do it just for this, because there is no essay. I think they're a good place because this is going to be the most common responses you're going to hear. But yeah, it's, it's what Fair Mormon

John Dehlin 2:33:42 shows is how, how awful the church's case is for responding to any of these arguments.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:33:48 Yeah, and this particular one too, because they're going to use a lot of deflection and kind of misdirection, but it, if you look at the sources, it's not saying what they're telling you. So they're, they're now going to kind of describe how the Melchizedek priesthood was restored. And so they say between April and June of 1829, the book of Mormon records information about the high priesthood after the order of Melchizedek in verses such as Mosiah 18:17, Alma 425, 3, 3rd Nephi 11:25 and 3rd Nephi 12:1. And so I went through and I looked at these verses and this is really an incredible start here because they cite five verses as proof that the Book of Mormon is discussing the high priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:34:24 That's their words. Read the five verses and tell me what word is not in any of them. And just, I mean, I was being facetious here, but it rhymes.

John Dehlin 2:34:33 I know the word Melchizedek appears nowhere in the Book of Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:34:35 Yeah, it's nowhere in there. So they're now making this, they're trying to make this claim that the word high priesthood equals Melchizedek, which it does not. And furthermore, of those five verses, only one of them mentions a high priesthood. The other four are really talking about baptism. And so this is just incredibly misleading to say that those five verses talk about the order of Melchizedek. They do not mention Melchizedek at all. And only one mentions the high priesthood. It's just. That's silly. And then their second data point says, apparently in April 29, during the translation of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had a dispute as to what happened with the, with John the Apostle that they settled by revelation.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:35:13 See John 21:20. The revelation is canonized as DNC 7. And you know, my point is, I don't really know how to respond to this because it has nothing to do with the priesthood. So I'm not sure why they're including this here as proof that the priesthood restoration was not refitted. So I just, I'm mentioning it because they do, but I don't know why it's in there.

John Dehlin 2:35:31 Okay. Yeah. And, yeah, I did see that the other day when I mentioned somewhere on the Internet that there's no Melchizedek priesthood in the Book of Mormon. And then somebody responds, ah, but it mentions a high. It mentions high priesthood one time.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:35:44 Yeah. And that one. One of those verses has it. Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:35:46 I mean, someone would say, well, that's significant. There it is. Checkmate, Mike of LDS discussions that mentions high priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:35:52 I mean, I guess except for the fact that, you know, it's. It's not identified in a way. And I, you know, it. I don't know what to say because they're taking a term that is kind of not common in the Book of Mormon and then saying this backs us up. Except it doesn't because we have all the other stuff that goes with it there.

John Dehlin 2:36:09 I mean, I just mean priest. It could just mean good priesthood or priesthood or elevated or divine priesthood. High in that context.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:36:19 Right.

John Dehlin 2:36:20 Doesn't immediately mean, oh, there's structure and there's a lover and ironic and there's a higher and a Melchizedek. You're. You're in. You're. You're adding way too much in there.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:36:33 Exactly.

John Dehlin 2:36:33 Claim that the text is actually referring to that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:36:37 Yeah. You're writing stuff in there that's not there. I mean, that's just what it is.

John Dehlin 2:36:39 And if you look at when. When. 1830. 1831, when Joseph's working with the founders of the church, they do reference high priesthood.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:36:48 Yep.

John Dehlin 2:36:49 But it's in no way it's a reflection of how vague it is in the Book of Mormon versus any sort of validation of some sort of formal structure that evolves much later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:36:59 Right.

John Dehlin 2:36:59 To me, yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:37:00 I think that's fair. So here's more of how their steps go. So their third point is, in August 1830, the Lord spoke to the prophet Joseph Smith of Peter, James and John, whom I have sent unto you, by whom I have ordained you and confirmed you to be apostles and a special witness, or in special witnesses in my name and bear the keys of your ministry and of the same things which I revealed unto them.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:37:23 Again, this is from 1835. So they're now using an 1835 revelation to claim it wasn't retrofitted, which is a problem. Number four. It says April 1830. And to Oliver Cowdery, who is also called of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to be the second elder of this church and ordained under his hand. And, you know, as I. You know, these. This. This is from the DNC 20, which was heavily altered after the fact, which is the point we're making here. So Fair Mormon is saying it wasn't retrofitted by giving us a bunch of retrofitted source texts. I just. I don't. I don't know what they're trying to do here.

John Dehlin 2:37:57 For them to put the 1830 date on that, as if it was revealed in 1830 when we know it was written in 1835, once it was all manufactured, is high. It's as deceptive as Oliver Cowdery. Yeah, it's bad or deceptive and disingenuous.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:38:16 Yeah, I mean, it's just. It's like one of those things where I'm like, I don't know what to say. You're using late editions to prove that it wasn't a retrofitted story. You're making my point.

John Dehlin 2:38:25 And so super deceptive.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:38:27 It's very. And it's very effective on people who want to believe. And I guess that's what makes me mad, because I know people who have read this and go, they'll come to me and they'll say, you're lying. Look at Fair Mormon. I'm like, I'm looking at it. I've responded to it. And then they kind of don't want to go any further. But it's like, this is effective for people. And that's what makes me mad, because they're. They're being dishonest intentionally. And they know what they're doing. They know this material. And so I.

John Dehlin 2:38:49 Not. Not only because. Is there no 1830 document that has says any of these words? Yeah, we know that the actual 1833 Book of Commandments that had to say these words didn't say these words. Yeah, but that's just triply deceptive.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:39:05 Yeah, and they know that. I mean, these are things they know. So go to the next slide. So number five, they say Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery sought after this higher authority, and the Lord gave it to them before the rise of this church, sending that. Sending to them Peter, James, and John. What for? To bestow upon them the apostleship. That quotes from the 1870s. So now they're using a quote from. From Parley Pratt to say that the restoration was, like, legitimate and not a retrofit, except it's from the 1870s, long after the Story was kind of solidified. And this in no possible way is proof that it happened.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:39:39 It's just proof that they're now teaching a correlated story. Number six, Hiram Page, a son in law of Peter Whitman Whitmer Sr. And one who was present on the day of the church's 6th of April 1830. Organization later confirmed that Peter, James and John had come and bestowed the holy priesthood before 6 April 1830. This is from 1848, 13 years after Joseph Smith changed the priesthood restoration to add in Peter, James and John. Furthermore, Hyrum Page would not have been there in the first place, which means this recollection is entirely upon what hear from other people. And he never mentioned this before 1835, which tells you that this clearly was not something he found important if they actually mentioned it, which clearly they did not.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:40:21 And so they're using all these late additions to say, oh, see, these people that were around at the time said it happened. But it doesn't line up with the historical record. But it does line up with the later correlated record. And that. That's a pretty big tell that these are not people writing contemporary thoughts.

John Dehlin 2:40:37 Yeah, yeah, quoting, you know, citing 1848 and 1870 quotes to justify an 1829 event.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:40:49 It's bad.

John Dehlin 2:40:50 It's super bad.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:40:51 And I know sometimes you have to, because that's all you have, but in this case, we have a lot. And so that, that's. They're picking ones and they're. They're picking them in a way that doesn't let you know that these are late reminiscence. And so anyway, so the next one is kind of more of the same.

John Dehlin 2:41:05 Sorry, wait.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:41:05 No, you're good. There you go. And so number seven, it says from Brigham Young, I know that Joseph received his apostleship from Peter, James and John before Revelation on the subject was printed. And he never had a right to organize a church before he was an apostle. Same thing, late edition. And I just again point out, compare the Book of Commandments versus the Doctrine and Covenants to see just how vast the changes they are, how much the story changes. We put the images up again here. I mean, they're making this sound like this revelation was given before the Church was organized as it is today, and it's simply not. I mean, these revelations are vastly changed.

John Dehlin 2:41:40 So that's Brigham Young contributing his complicity. I mean, he may misremember it.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:41:46 He might. He wasn't there, I don't think at

John Dehlin 2:41:47 first, but he's misremembering it. But at Worst. He's just flat out, yeah, I forgot

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:41:51 when he came, but he wasn't there at the very beginning. But yeah, I mean, it's just this is the story being solidified in the church. And so now they're going to do what they can to kind of privilege it because they need to. I mean, Brigham Young has no power. If people don't believe there's a. He is the, you know, the leader of the priesthood. So.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:42:09 All right, so more from Fair. So Fair explains that the priesthood story was indeed talked about before 1834. And they say it should be noted that many critics ignore verses in the Book of Mormon that refer explicitly to the high priesthood of Melchizedek, such as Alma 13:18. Alma was confined to the high priesthood of the Holy order of God, Alma 4, 20. It is therefore unlikely that these accounts are a pure fabrication, since we know that these verses and verses in Mosiah would prompt Joseph and Oliver to inquire about the proper mode of baptism under his authority. Under this authority. And again, I'm just going to note this is a major assumption being there.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:42:46 We don't know when Oliver first mentioned the priesthood restoration to anyone. We only know when he first put it in print. But consider this. If Oliver was covering up a fraud on the part of Joseph Smith when he talked of receiving the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods, then why didn't he expose the fraud after he fell into disagreement with Joseph Smith, it was excommunicated from the Church. Why, in fact, did Oliver continue to insist that the events related to the restoration of the priesthood actually happened? And, you know, even if you have

John Dehlin 2:43:14 a falling out with Joseph, you're not going to discredit yourself.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:43:17 That's the problem. I think that, you know, I go on the next slide, but it's like we. This argument is one that's used often by the Church. Well, if the witnesses, you know, were lying, why didn't. Well, because if you admit that, you're admitting that you lied to the world, your family's name is mud, you know, your reputation is just destroyed. So they have very good reason to not want to basically implicate themselves in a con. And I'm not saying that the three witnesses believe they were lying. I don't know. But I do know that Oliver Cowdery was intentionally changing the history. So he knows he was lying.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:43:54 And, and so I can't speak to why he didn't do it. But we know he didn't. We know he changed it. And then we know when he went back to the church, he changed the story, kind of reverted back to an earlier version of it, too. So, I mean, the inconsistencies, if this was from. If Fair Mormon was. Was looking at Warren Jeffs, and Warren Jeffs had this thing, they wouldn't be like, well, Warren Jeff didn't really write it down wrong, so you can't. They'd be like, yeah, he lied. I mean, that's because he did. And Oliver Cowdery lied because we can show it. And, you know, I just. I get frustrated with that.

John Dehlin 2:44:24 You have a falling out with the other guy, you're gonna show where the other guy was a bad actor and a liar, but you're not going to show. Yeah, you were a bad actor and a liar.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:44:32 Yeah, you just won't. And that's how human nature is. So. So, yeah. So, you know, as we said, there are many reasons why the witnesses did not deny their testimony after leaving the church. And many who left the church did so for reasons other than the Book of Mormon or the priesthood restoration.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:44:47 As we mentioned, he left because of Joseph Smith having a nasty, dirty affair with Fanny Alger before Joseph Smith had even developed the idea of sealing keys. We'll get into that in the polygamy episodes. But if, you know, as we said, if he admitted the church was a lie, he'd be admitting that he willfully led people to a lie, that he changed blessing books, that he changed stories, which brought people into the church, which brought people into a situation where they were giving up their lives or property to a church. So, you know, I think there's a lot of reasons why you wouldn't want to tell that, because there's a lot of damage that came from people who joined the church.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:45:20 Not everybody, but some. And if you told people that you lied, that's pretty damning to yourself. And, you know, the last point, I'm kind of reiterating here, but the mention of Melchizedek is from Hebrews 7. It's not from the Book of Mormon. So the fair keeps saying that the Book of Mormon mentions the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. They don't. It's not in the Book of Mormon because it wasn't a term Joseph was using until after 1834.

John Dehlin 2:45:43 Because it came from Sidney Rigdon. Yeah, according to David Whitmer.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:45:47 Yeah, according to David Whitmer. According to the timeline, he was something Joseph Smith was not familiar with or teaching before Sidney Rigdon came. And even then, it wasn't something being taught for even what Three years after three, four years after Rigden joined. So it's just, it's not in the Book of Mormon because Joseph Smith wasn't thinking about it. So yeah, so yeah, so okay, so far again is going to use a late edition to say it's not a late edition. And he says many ignore that Joseph Smith mentioned that the Holy Priesthood in the first 1832 first vision account and that they soften their stance by ignoring that fact.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:46:18 And the thing I want to mention is this is after the 1831 Elder Meeting when the priesthood was first conferred. It again does not mention the Aaronica Melchizedek priesthood, doesn't mention John the Baptist, Peter, James and John. And so to use the 1832 first vision is a late addition to the priesthood story and it still is not getting it to what they would later teach it was. And so Fairmormon is using what is a late addition to mention the Holy Priesthood after the Holy Priesthood was developed in 1831. This is just not helpful to their case. And again we point out why is the story going to get more specific and grand as it goes on?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:46:56 And how could Joseph Smith forget that God visited him in the first vision with Jesus or that John the Baptist was there to confer the Aaronic priesthood to him? We have two now areas where Joseph Smith is forgetting very prominent people coming to visit him and Ferris citing this as actual proof that he wasn't making it up. I, I'm just, I don't know what more to say.

John Dehlin 2:47:13 Just hard to take them seriously.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:47:16 Yeah, this is just, it's a problem. And so there's. This is one I've gotten a lot of pushback on over the years where they say the priesthood was mentioned in newspapers. How dare you say this? And I just want to read these really quick. This is what Fair mentioned. There's a few of them we'll go over quickly. And it says the priesthood is mentioned before in 1834 in newspapers. Painesville Telegraph, December 1830. Mr. Oliver Cowdery has his commission directly from the God of Heaven and that he has credentials written and signed by the hand of Jesus Christ with whom he has personally conversed. And as such, said Cowdery claims that he and his associates are the only persons on earth who are qualified to administer in his name.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:47:52 By this authority they proclaim to the world that all who do not believe their testimony and be baptized by them for the remission of sins must be forever miserable. Again, no mention of the priesthood, no mention of the Aaronic or Melchizedek priesthoods. No mention of John the Baptist, Peter, James and John. This quote is about having the authority to baptize and to form a church, but Pharaoh is now trying to insert into it the priesthood restoration. Where. Where it's not and it's just not there.

John Dehlin 2:48:17 The red herring.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:48:18 Yeah. Cowdery never makes any references to the restoration, just authority. As we discussed earlier, authority was the word they used in the first few years, not priesthood. And this is a good evidence of that.

John Dehlin 2:48:30 Yeah, yeah, that is a red herring. That, that reference, that alleged evidence is a total red herring.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:48:36 Yep. So we'll go to a few more these newspaper quotes. This is From Painsville Telegraph, November 1830. About two weeks since some persons came along here with the book. One of whom pretends to have seen angels and assisted in translating the plates. He proclaims the destruction upon the world within a few years. Holds forth that the ordinance of the. Of the gospel have not been regularly administered since the days of the apostles till the said smith and himself commence the work. The name of this person here who pretends to have a divine mission and to have seen and conversed with angels is Cowdery.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:49:07 Same thing as before. No mention of the priesthood restoration. Peter, James and John. John the Baptist. They're just conflating the translation of the Book of Mormon and seeing the angels with the plates with the priesthood restoration. It's not there. It's just. I mean, you can read it. It's not there. And they're absolutely referencing other events which fair Mormon knows and they're trying to insert. Well, it could have been this too. It's not.

John Dehlin 2:49:29 What this reminds me of is, I think it's Elder Oaks who once said, it's not that we need good answers, we just need answers. Yeah, Almost like they're just providing answers. And as long as that's what it is. Oh, wait, Fair said, blah, blah, blah. Fair just wrote a bunch of words. Oh, well, that solves the problem. Even if the words actually don't address the problem.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:49:51 Well, yeah. And if you're motivated to believe. Like I've had. I've had multiple people come to me on these, this specific part with the newspaper. If you're motivated to believe, you'll read that and go, where are you lying? I'm like, they're included in the overview. I've had these on the website since the beginning. And I explain exactly why these are not good evidences, especially against the fact that we have very specific references to the priesthood that don't mention these stories. And you're right, this fair Mormon here is trying to throw anything out that they have in the hopes that if you want to believe, you can take this and be inoculated to the problem in the future.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:50:23 But it's not true. I mean, it's not an honest way to do it, but that's what they're doing. And you know, we got a few more to cover. But yeah, this is just, this is, this is a horrible apologetic response.

John Dehlin 2:50:33 So I almost am wondering why we're even keep mentioning them. So we've got another newspaper.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:50:39 Yeah, I'm just doing it because like I said, I've gotten this from multiple people before. So this one's from 1831 from the Palmyra reflector. They then proclaimed that there had been no religion in the world for 1500 years, that no one had been authorized to preach and converse. I don't know for that period that Joe Smith had now received a commission from God for that purpose. Smith, they affirmed, had seen God frequently and personally. Cowdery and his friends had frequent interviews with angels.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:51:04 Reverend Richard Taggart to Reverend Jonathan Goings in Cleveland, Ohio of 1833 said the following curious occurrence occurred last week in Newburgh, about six miles from this place. Joe Smith, the great Mormonosity was there and held forth and among other things, he told them he had seen Jesus Christ and the apostles and conversed with them that he could perform miracles. Again, there's no mention of Aaronic or Melchizedek, no mention of John the Baptist, no mention of a priesthood restoration.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:51:31 And this is again, this is years after the fact. This is Joseph Smith trying to grow the church by saying he had conversed with God. It is obviously early references to the fact that Joseph Smith was having visions, but we knew that from other writings. So this is just again, fair, giving us something that we kind of already know. Joseph Smith was, was boasting about and then just trying to impose the priesthood restoration in there, which is, which is just not in, in the text in either of these.

John Dehlin 2:51:58 Yeah. Yep. They're just like if they can find any, any newspaper article that talks about authority or visits from God or Jesus, somehow that proves the point.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:52:08 Yeah, it's just, it's, it's just, it's bad logic. They would never do it for someone like another religion.

John Dehlin 2:52:12 It wouldn't accept it if somebody else used this type of.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:52:15 No way. And we're going to do more about the changes of the Doctrine and Covenants in our episode, our next episode about that. But just to go over it quickly because it does impact us so much. Richard Bushman said he revised his own revelations, adding new material and splicing one to another, altering the words as he saw fit. He felt authorized to expand the revelations as his understanding expanded.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:52:37 And we'll go over that. But again, once you start to say Joseph Smith was able to change them as he saw fit, you're really becoming indistinguishable from outright fraud. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier, if Joseph Smith did not understand that he saw God and Jesus in the first vision, or that he did not understand that John the Baptist, Peter, James and John were there with the priesthood restoration, how reliable is anything else he recorded that he claimed to see or experience? Because if he didn't understand that, why should we think he understood what else he wrote down? I just, you know, it's. You get into this really bad area when you start making these arguments, and it leads to a lot more problems than it solves.

John Dehlin 2:53:14 Yeah. It reminds me of this apologetic argument that's necessary for the Catalyst theory to be true, that, that somehow Joseph thought, you know, somehow the Doctrine of Covenants proclaims Joseph a prophet, revelator and translator. He thinks he's translating the Egyptian papyrus. He's using a stone and a hat, reading the characters, doing the Alphabet and the Egyptian grammar. He thinks he's translating. There's all the evidence in the world, including his own testimony that he claims to be translating, but somehow he didn't realize he wasn't translating and he was doing something else totally, totally, entirely different. How can we rely, and we know that the text is gibberish. How can we rely on Joseph as a credible, you know, instrument of God when he doesn't even know what he's doing?

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:54:09 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:54:10 Fundamentally, he thinks he's walking, but he thinks he's swimming. And he's telling everybody he's swimming, but he's actually walking, but somehow his walking is still of God.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:54:21 Well, and within this argument, it's basically stating that Joseph Smith doesn't even understand what he's doing. It's not even that he doesn't, you know, I mean, in that point, it's just like, what are we doing?

John Dehlin 2:54:28 Yeah, what are we doing? Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:54:30 And then. Yeah. So that brings us to our conclusion of this little bit longer episode. But, yeah, I think this one was an important one for so many reasons. And, you know, absolutely. So got our final slide and.

John Dehlin 2:54:43 Oh, that's here.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:54:44 Yeah. Yeah, there you go. So just, you know, to wrap up, you know, the. Just like we said last week with the first vision, the priesthood restoration story can be shown to be a late addition just by looking at the timeline of Joseph Smith's teachings, accounts, revelations, the accounts of those around him. The simple fact that Joseph was ordained to the high priesthood in 1831 with the first ordinations makes very clear that the Melchizedek priesthood was a late creation that, just like the first vision, had to then be retrofitted back into the history.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:55:13 And just like we said last week, Joseph Smith was using elements of treasure digging to keep members eternally looking. I should say not last week. As we said in our first episode, this is an area where you could show Joseph Smith, in my opinion, using some of those elements of treasure digging to keep members kind of eternally digging for treasure. Because, as I said in that first episode, Joseph Smith needed to produce a physical reward for treasure digging, or else he had to stop the dig by creating a religion he can constantly keep, people allowing him to do the digging because the promises he's making do not have to be delivered until after we die.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:55:49 In this case, priesthood as a very powerful, magical vehicle to keep people believing that they're uncovering this treasure, even though it's something that is not tangible. And Joseph Smith as the seer and the prophet, could keep providing them these new priests, the new priesthood, the second priesthood, and all of these ordinations as rewards that aren't really being given, but the member believes they are. And as such, they stick with Joseph Smith. And I think in a lot of ways there is some outgrowth of treasure digging in the way he structures, the way he kind of gives out rewards and, you know, bonuses in the church. And I think the priesthood is a reward for being loyal to him and the church.

John Dehlin 2:56:30 Yeah. And if I had to summarize this, I would just say this. If we were to look at how Joseph worked before the priesthood narrative and after the priesthood narrative, it's basically, you know, whatever he ends up claiming happens. Number one, never happens. Number two, there's no contemporary evidence of it ever happening. Number three, you know, he starts. It's always a response to some sort of threat to his authority or power. And then he starts to trickle out what actually happened. And then you can just guarantee it's going to change substantively over several years until he finally settles in something official, which always is a power grab.

John Dehlin 2:57:12 And it's always a late addition, and it's always growing in magnificence and importance over time. That's the pattern that he shows before and after these priesthood claims that you would sort of Anticipate, you know, that he would have done with this if you were looking at this in isolation. And it's exactly what he did.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:57:33 Yeah. I mean, I think. I think it's just. It's a pattern that shows that when he was confronted with challenges, he was able to use his status to elevate himself and to, you know, push the other people back into their place. And the fact that we could show. It's a late addition from the timeline, really, at the end of the day, that's the end of the. That's the end of it. Because once you can show that they're willing to create a story long after the fact that completely comes out of thin air and contradicts a lot of your early stuff there, it's impossible then to try to say that you should still trust them anyways, because we can show it with multiple foundational events.

John Dehlin 2:58:10 Yeah. All right, well, Mike, this was a really. Of all the episodes we've done, to me, this is absolutely one of the most important one we've done. So thank you so much. And I'll just say, you know, listeners and viewers, make sure if you want to watch these in isolation, you can do it on anchor, you can do it on Spotify, and you can use the YouTube playlist. Please share this with other people, give us your feedback. It's always valuable. And then, you know, make sure and check out ldsdiscussions.com for the text version of these. And we've got more to come. So, you know, coming up, we've got word of wisdom, changes to the Doctrine and Covenants, race in the scriptures, temple endowment, polygamy, Book of Abraham, Kinderhook plates. So much more coolness to come.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:58:56 I got a lot to go.

John Dehlin 2:58:58 All right, Mike, well, thanks for doing this. You're the best.

Mike (LDS Discussions) 2:59:00 Thanks, everybody.

John Dehlin 2:59:01 Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We couldn't do this without your support. And be good to each other. Be kind to each other, share this with everyone, give us your feedback, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

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