Could Joseph Smith Write or Dictate a Well-Worded Letter?

Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin 0:00 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, LDS Discussions Edition. I'm your host, John Dehlin. Today we're going to be answering the question, could Joseph Smith have written or dictated a well worded letter? And just as a preview for a long, long time, there's always this choice that many believers and or apologists and or critics have to navigate. Was Joseph just this dumb, uneducated farm boy that basically couldn't even read or write or spell or speak? And so he was so dumb that he could never have produced something as amazing as the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham? Of course, we've covered that a lot in the LDS discussion series.

John Dehlin 0:47 But then the flip side of that is, was Joseph actually quite intelligent, quite articulate? Maybe he wasn't the best writer, but did he have an amazing memory? Was he actually verbally very eloquent? And then with the right scribe, could he actually generate really thoughtful, articulate, even elegant and sophisticated prose? And where you are on that spectrum is going probably going to influence where you come down on whether or not Joseph Smith could have been the author of things like the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham? Now that's my summary of what we're going to be talking about today. I'm going to rely on our co host today to maybe frame it a little bit better.

John Dehlin 1:33 But what I will say is, for those who don't know, today's episode is part of a multi episode series called LDS Discussions where we do our best to objectively look at LDS Church truth claims as panelists using evidence and data, trying to take too much emotion or passion or even bias out of this. So if this series is best consumed in sequence, I'm thinking we're somewhere in the 60s. And so if you want the best experience with the LDS discussion series, and I should say this may be the most important thing in the 2100 episodes Mormon stories Podcast has done this LDS discussion series, I'm told by many is probably the most important thing we've ever done.

John Dehlin 2:23 So if you want to enjoy it fully, what you want to do is pause this episode, go back to the very beginning. You can go to the LDS discussions playlist on YouTube and just start from the beginning on the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel. Or you can enjoy this on Spotify in the Mormon Stories podcast YouTube Spotify feed. Or we've actually created Spotify playlists and or Apple Podcast playlists that are fully dedicated to LDS discussions under the LDS Discussions brand.

John Dehlin 3:01 But this series is best consumed in sequence and I think there's probably nothing better on the Internet if you want to do deep dives into figuring out for yourself whether or not LDS church truth claims hold up. And the truth is, we as panelists, don't care where you end up.

John Dehlin 3:24 If you want to be an active, faithful believer in the church, we're super fans of that. If you decide that you want to be a nuanced, liberal, non literal believer in the church, we're great with that. If you feel like you need to leave the church because that's healthiest for you or your family, we're cool with that, too. We just want to give you the information, the tools, and the analysis to decide. So without any further ado, I'm bringing back two amazing co hosts for today. We have attorney Colby Redish back with us. Hey, Colby.

Guest 3:58 Hey, John. Thanks for having me again.

John Dehlin 4:00 And I'll just say people loved our analysis of Nahome, your analysis of Nahome, so great job with that.

Guest 4:07 Thank you.

John Dehlin 4:09 And then we also have Julia. Hey, Julia. Welcome back.

Julia 4:13 Hi, Julia.

John Dehlin 4:15 You were an important part of today's research and the slide deck, et cetera. So we love having you on.

Julia 4:21 Thanks.

John Dehlin 4:23 I will say one thing. We planned a lot of you. The only criticism you had of my work with Colby was, where's Nemo? Because traditionally we've done every LDS discussions episode with Nemo. We listen to your feedback. Last time we didn't intentionally exclude Nemo, but it just didn't work out schedule wise. Unfortunately, we. We had Nemo scheduled for today, but some sort of thing happened that was outside of all of our controls. So just know we love Nemo. He is always welcome on LDS discussions, but because of some scheduling thing, it ended up not working out last minute. But Nemo, we love you and we want to have you back anytime, but don't criticize us for not having Nemo on.

John Dehlin 5:13 We did our best and it just, for some reason, didn't work out today, but it's not because we didn't try. So, Colby and Julia, how do y' all want to either introduce yourselves and or correct or add to the framing that I started with today? Colby, let's have you go first.

The Core Claim About Joseph Smith's Writing Ability

Guest 5:31 Yeah. So I think one of the things I've really appreciated about the LDS discussion series as a listener and then joining just for the last episode on Nahome, is you really do try and take a look at these data points and help people see maybe things that they hadn't heard before. And this episode is very much in that same vein. As you talked about the. The Question we're looking at today is could Joseph Smith write or dictate a well worded letter? And the reason we're focused on that quote in particular is because it's one that's been used by the Church for a very long time in manuals, in presentations, in general conference, by leaders to in my view basically create this gap between Joseph Smith's capabilities as a writer, dictator, orator and the Book of Mormon's final text.

Guest 6:18 And the reason that they are often doing that, I'm not suggesting there's anything untoward about them doing that, but the reason they're often doing that is to create this gap between Joseph Smith's capabilities and the Book of Mormon. And then the argument basically then goes implicitly because Joseph Smith wasn't capable of writing the Book of Mormon, God must have had a hand in it or there must be something divine in it. And like you said, if people still believe that, whether on the basis of evidence or they accept that simply as a faith based claim, I have really no qualms about that.

Guest 6:49 Really. This is looking at evidence that may, may cause people to have additional information and consider like, oh, maybe Joseph Smith was capable of writing at a greater level than we had previously thought. And the one kudos I'd also give to the Church that kind of made this research us available to do this research is in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. The Church for a long time has had a very bad track record with transparency. But I will say with the Joseph Smith Papers, I've been super impressed at their transparency. And we're looking at some of Joseph Smith's earliest letters today that have been accessible through the Joseph Smith Papers Project. So without that resource we really wouldn't have the ability to look closely at this in depth.

John Dehlin 7:33 Love it. Perfect. Julia, what else do you want to add either to introduction to who you are or kind of a framing for today?

Julia 7:41 No, I really like everything that Colby said, I really like because like I loved your last episode on Nahum and and so people to me have come up to me and said I believe the Book of Mormon is true because of Nahum or things of that nature. And so people have said I believe the Book of Mormon is true because Joseph Smith couldn't write or dictate a well worded letter. And so like you can believe the church is true. Like you were saying, John, we don't really care where people fall. Just maybe don't use Nahum or the fact that he could or couldn't write a well worded letter as as the reason why you believe. So, like, believe it, believe it if you want. Just don't use. This isn't a good use of evidence

John Dehlin 8:14 for that in your review of the evidence. Yeah, but today we'll lay out how we've processed it and we'll let viewers and listeners. That's the whole purpose of LDS discussions, really, to let people decide for themselves. And I'll just tell the audience, I have not reviewed these slides yet, so I'm going to be reacting. My role today is kind of to react with as fresh eyes as possible, and I'll try and be an advocate for a skeptic or for a believer and ask questions as someone kind of reviewing this for the first time.

Guest 8:51 Yeah. And to folks who don't believe that, like the John doesn't serve that function, I would just point. There are a few arguments I made during the Nahome episode, John, where you pushed back on some of the points that I made and said, I think that one's strong, but I think this one's maybe not as strong. And so, yeah, absolutely welcome that. And yeah, this is just an additional data point to look at. And then people can use that to inform whatever conclusion they want to reach. I think the quote that we've talked about a few times, if we can just go to it directly, the quote that we've talked about that people are probably familiar with, they grew up in the church.

Guest 9:22 But we'll give some additional detail on, for those who are part of the nevermorton audience, comes directly from Emma Smith's final testimony. Julia, do you want to kind of introduce this and maybe read that quote?

Emma Smith's Testimony and Credibility

Julia 9:35 Yeah. So I just want to point out this is October 1st of 1879. So this is Joseph passed away in 1844. I'm bad at the math. But this is decades later after Joseph Smith has passed away. So it's also been decades later.

John Dehlin 9:47 35 years. 35 years after 30.

Julia 9:49 Thank you. So it has been 35 years since she has received a letter from Joseph Smith et al. But this is her son and her final testimony, as far as I understand, Joseph Smith iii, Joseph Smith ii, third. I guess, because you have senior. So Joseph III is interviewing his mother and he's asking her a bunch of questions. And we'll talk about some of the questions outside of this one. Do you want me to just go ahead and read?

John Dehlin 10:10 Yeah.

Julia 10:10 Okay. So Joseph Smith is asking his mom could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him after having first written it or having first read it out of some book. And then Emma says, Joseph Smith, and then he inserts. And for the first time she used his name directly, having usually used the words your father or my husband. And then she continues, could neither write nor dictate a coherent and a well worded letter, let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon. And though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired and was present during the translation of the plates and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, a marvel and a wonderful. As much so as to anyone else.

Guest 10:58 Yeah. And so that phrase that she uses that Joseph Smith could neither dictate or write a well worded letter has been used by the church for a long time. And I know we're going to explain that, but before we do, the one piece of framing I wanted to talk about here is I wanted to talk about now that we have access to some of Joseph Smith's earlier letters. And again, we'll get there here in just a moment. There is no reason to take Emma Smith's word for Joseph Smith's writing capabilities, because we can look at Joseph Smith's writing capabilities because of these additional resources today. And so that is framing I wanted to get out the gate. Is there really is no reason for apologists to continue to point to Emma's word for Joseph Smith's writing capabilities when you yourself can go to the Joseph Smith Papers Project and determine Joseph Smith's writing capabilities today.

Julia 11:47 Yes.

John Dehlin 11:47 Can I also just. I don't want to besmirch Emma's character in any way, but there are two other things that also put a bit of a question in my mind as to how reliable Emma is in terms of truth claims. One is that we all know now that she denied Joseph ever practicing polygamy. And there's overwhelming evidence that she knew that Joseph Smith was practicing polygamy and at some points even condoned it or was okay with it. Correct. So the fact that years later she would say it never happened is deeply problematic. But then the other thing that's deeply problematic for me is that we know that at some point she allowed it.

John Dehlin 12:30 And, you know, because that's. Oh, like why would she be allowing it anyway? So Julia Colby, is that unfair of me? Again, I think in many ways she was likely a victim. I think in many ways she showed character and integrity and, you know, all sorts of cool values when it comes to truth claims. I do have some questions about Emma's

Guest 12:52 credibility that's completely fair. And in fact, we're going to go in a little bit more detail on that specific example in the slides a little bit later. The other thing that I'd point out is that though the church has used this one line from Emma Smith's final testimony for generations to basically build people's faith in the Book of Mormon, it's worth noting that also in Emma Smith's final testimony, she talks about the now today kind of common knowledge rock in the hat narrative. That was like, she talks about how that was part of the translation process in her final testimony. So this idea that some apologists have offered the, like, just nobody knew about this.

Guest 13:29 The brethren didn't know about the Rock in the hat narrative, that's demonstrably untrue because the Church has selectively quoted from Emma's final testimony for generations. And Julia did a great job of pulling manuals and stuff that. We'll show that here in just a minute. I think the next slide we had basically shows how this.

Guest 1 13:46 Or.

Guest 13:46 I'm sorry, Julia, did you have anything you wanted to say there before I move on to this next one? Okay.

Julia 13:50 No, you're good.

John Dehlin 13:51 Well, Julia, you've done a lot of analysis of polygamy. Did I get that right? About Emma and polygamy?

Julia 13:55 Yes. So she was present, I want to say the Lawrence sisters. It could have been the other sisters, Partridges. Okay. I know she was present during those two scenes. Feelings. So, yes, you. You are correct in that.

John Dehlin 14:06 Okay.

Guest 1 14:07 Okay.

Guest 14:08 Yeah. And I, I just included this because as we're prepping these episodes, you know, every once in a while, I'm always surprised by how just time lines up and moments of synchronicity. One of my favorite things to do is look at people's, like, text thread conversations with their TBM family members or their believing family members on the ex Mormon Reddit. And this one just lined up perfectly with the point we're trying to illustrate of how this quote from Emma Smith's final testimony has been used.

Apologetic Arguments and the Book of Mormon Authorship

Guest 14:35 Basically how the. The typical believing Mormon member is going to understand that in its context. And you can see it right here in this text conversation that I pulled from the ex Mormon Reddit. So they're texting with a believing family member of theirs. I think it was a cousin. And the cousin says, so does this make the Book of Mormon false for you? And the responder says, yes. And then the believing family member asks, okay, what is the Book of Mormon then? And the person says, back a book.

Guest 15:01 Their responses, I don't super care about. But here's the believing family member, I think, demonstrating exactly what most people understand about this quote from Emma. They say it's hard for it to just be a book if they say, but if it was written by someone who was illiterate. And this I think really cleanly shows this example of this Joseph Smith of the gaps or Book of Mormon of the gaps that I've seen apologists use this quote to do for a very long time to basically say Joseph Smith was basically so illiterate there's no possibility he could have written a book like the Book of Mormon based largely on this quote from Emma.

John Dehlin 15:36 And I was thinking, where in the world would they get the idea that he was illiterate? And I think you've got some clips, right?

Guest 15:43 Exactly.

John Dehlin 15:44 Yeah. Okay.

Julia 16:19 So I have four clips here and three of them are from Tadr Collister. And from my understanding, I think he did pass away at the beginning of October. So last month. Yeah, last month. So I really admired him. I read his book Case for the Book of Mormon. I really liked his research. Stepping back away from the church, I look at things a little differently, but this seems to have been Callister's almost pet. Like he's the one that's perpetuating this or he's one of the main ones who is perpetuating this. This Emma's testimony that Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a well worded letter.

Julia 16:51 So a lot of these clips are him and then one of them is Neal A. Maxwell and two of them were given in general conference, but this one is given. This is a BYU speech given in 2016.

John Dehlin 17:02 And Julia, I just wanted to say, first of all, it very well could have been Tad Calister's assignment by the Brethren to be a Book of Mormon Joseph Smith apologist in his waning years. I believe he's an attorney by trade. Is that right?

Julia 17:21 I thought he was.

John Dehlin 17:23 And then the only other thing I want to say is put Tad callister aside. I'm 56. This stuff, I've been hearing this stuff since I was a child. So Tad Callister would just represent the latest iterations of the church trying to always devalue Joseph Smith's intelligence or education as a defense of the Book of Mormon. In my experience, it's in no way recent. That's all. Okay. All right. And Maxwell, of course, died a long time ago, so he'll be a good example of that. All right, go ahead, Julia. So this is about nine years ago.

Guest 2 18:06 The argument that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon is simply counter to the realities of life. It is one thing to have creative ideas, it is quite another to put them into a complex but coherent and harmonious whole inundated with majestic doctrinal truths, all done in a single draft in less than 90 days. Joseph Smith's wife, Emma, the person who knew him better than any other, confirms this. Joseph Smith as a young man can neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin 18:47 There it is.

Julia 18:48 Yeah.

John Dehlin 18:50 Yeah. Okay.

Julia 18:52 Okay. That's one of them.

John Dehlin 18:53 That's pretty bold. Okay, you want to play a second?

Julia 18:56 Yeah, let me go. Let me just.

Guest 18:57 Can I say one thing about that before we move on to the second one, which is when we were talking about this argument of like, Joseph Smith of the gaps or the Book of Mormon of the gaps. Right. You can see it in the way Tad started that, that clip by saying, like, that's contrary to the realities of life. Because one of the things you and I talked about in our Nahum episode, John, is basically like, entertain two hypotheses and think about them critically for just a moment. Right. He's saying that it's more likely that an angel came to Joseph Smith with gold plates, helped him translate ancient records.

Julia 19:33 That.

Guest 19:33 That's not contrary to the realities of life. But a guy writing a letter and maybe his wife, you know, misrepresenting his writing capabilities or misremembering his writing capabilities is less likely. That's quite frankly, patently absurd to me to engage in that level of ignoring the obvious Occam's Razor conclusion.

John Dehlin 19:57 And I just also have to add the 90 days argument is that we've already addressed that here on LDS discussions, and that's why it would be really helpful for y' all to go back and start watching from the beginning. But Joseph had seven years to write the Book of Mormon.

Julia 20:14 He could have had as many as 10. Like he. Yeah, he was. He was studying the Bible from 12 to 15. He started telling stories in 1823. Like there's so much, so many problems with that limited timeline that the church.

John Dehlin 20:26 And as soon as he loses the hundred and whatever pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript, all of a sudden, miraculously, he has to like, stop for a whole winter and spring. What's he doing during that time? Right. Like, you know, he's likely coming up with new, new text that he then needs to dictate.

Guest 20:48 So yeah, and just in line with, you know what we're the, the whole mission of LDS discussions is just thinking about these things that you kind of accepted as a believing member of the church without ever stopping to pause and think about them. That's reason I note kind of his use of the rhetoric here is that is implicitly what he's saying. And as like to our fully believing Mormon ears, that wouldn't have triggered any response in any of the three of us. Right. We would have heard that and said like, yeah, that seems really reasonable. And I'm just kind of framing it that way to show people like these are the two alternatives. And he's saying that guy wrote a letter is less likely or I'm sorry, guy wrote a book is less likely than resurrected angel brings gold plates, stone and a hat.

John Dehlin 21:32 White Native American prophet Christian before Jesus was born. Like, anyway, I think we made our point. Okay. Neal A. Maxwell.

Julia 21:44 Okay, this is from 1983. This is in General Conference.

John Dehlin 21:50 We have no hesitancy, however, in stipulating

Guest 21:52 that Joseph was, by the standards of

John Dehlin 21:55 the world, not learned. Isaiah foresaw it. Joseph did not have the skilled formal tutoring young Saul had at the feet of Gamaliel. Emma Smith reportedly said that Joseph, at the time of the translation of the Book of Mormon, could not compose a well worded letter, let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon, which was marvelous to me, a marvel and a wonder, as much so as to anyone else. All right. He was one of my favorites when I, you know, when I was really orthodox, active, believing for sure. Neal A. Maxwell. All right, do we want to do a third?

Julia 22:41 Yeah, there's a couple more. Yeah, if that's okay.

Could Joseph Dictate a Complex Text in One Draft?

John Dehlin 22:45 The next one.

Julia 22:46 2,017. This is in General Conference.

Guest 2 22:50 To suggest that Joseph smith at age 23, possessed the skills necessary to write this monumental work in a single draft in approximately 65 working days is simply counter to the realities of life. President Russell M. Nelson, an experienced and skilled writer, shared that he had over 40 rewrites of a recent General Conference talk. Are we now to believe that Joseph Smith on his own dictated the entire Book of Mormon in a single draft with mainly minor grammatical changes made thereafter. Joseph Smith's wife Emma confirmed the impossibility of such an undertaking. Joseph Smith as a young man could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin 23:37 Oh my goodness, Colby, help us here.

Guest 23:42 Well, man, one of the things that really stands out to me is as much as we do know about the Book of Mormon translation process from the people who were involved, the scribes like Emma, I think it's worth noting that Joseph Smith, in 1831, he's asked at a conference by Hyrum to talk to people about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and he will only ever give one answer, which is that it came forth by the gift and power of God or was translated by the gift and power of God, something to that effect.

Guest 24:09 And I think, I think he is playing very fast and loose. He being Tad, I mean, is playing very fast and loose with what we actually know and what we do not know, we don't know. As Julia talked about how Joseph Smith's history of storytelling may have played into any outlines he had in his head, any, any notes or anything he may have used to draft the Book of Mormon or work on the Book of Mormon. And I say that purely because I think one of the biggest revelations that came out of work on the Adam Clark Bible, Adam Clark Bible commentary, being used both in the Joseph Smith translation and in the translation of the Book of Mormon, potentially that was research that you and I talked about with Gerardo a few months ago.

Guest 24:55 John from Colby Townsend. One of the things that's very significant about, about both of those pieces of evidence to me is that none of the people involved in either of those translation projects talked about using any other resource. And all I'm saying is I'm not saying that Joseph Smith definitely had notes or anything that he was working from. I think it's, it's entirely possible he just had a very good memory, was a very good storyteller, had a lot of time to work on these narratives and then offered it as an oral dictation. Because that's the other thing he's ignoring is it wasn't written, the Book of Mormon wasn't written, it was an oral dictation.

Guest 25:29 But the, the thing I want to say is when you understand the, that there were all these people, many of them the same scribes involved in these projects, that felt no need to note Joseph Smith's use of additional sources, including the Adam Clark Bible commentary that we know he used just as a matter of textual dependency.

Guest 25:48 It starts to open your mind to say, like, how much do we really know about the details of the translation process? And the reality is not very much. And so I think he's playing very fast and loose with the way he's representing what we actually do with and do not know about Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin 26:06 Yeah, go ahead, Julia.

Julia 26:08 Oh, I just also want to point out before I forget, and he callster makes this point in the next clip too, where the Book of Mormon has gone through multiple editions. What we have now, what the church members have now is like a cleaned up version with like, with the correct spelling. We have footnotes, we have like verses.

Julia 26:27 What you see, the original manuscript is very choppy. It's very, the wording is kind of. He stumbles upon that or it's hard to read. But then also, Joseph Smith himself made a bunch of changes throughout his life and the church, I think, has sometimes continued to make some changes. Sandra Tanner and her husband did a bunch of research on this and I think they came to like between 3 and 5000 changes and not just grammar. So like, for Tad to just come off as, oh, Joseph immediately produced this amazing work is incorrect. So I just wanted to point that out too.

John Dehlin 26:58 And Julia and Colby, we should refer viewers and listeners that want a plausible theory for how Joseph might have dictated the Book of Mormon to the work of William Davis. We've covered him on Mormon stories and elsewhere, but basically just think of it as the idea of a technique that Protestant preachers would use to have kind of an outline fresh in their mind and then to be able to speak for hours at a time based on a framework or an outline of bullet points that they're able to either keep in their mind or reference on a sheet of paper. So, Julia, you're a little bit more in touch with how to describe William Davis's research than me. Right.

Julia 27:51 So I think that's called laying down heads. And he does a really good job in his Visions in a Seer Stone book. And of course his episode with you, he talks about that. And I think even in the Book of Mormon text itself, I think Joseph references. Yeah, right. Where like the laying down of heads.

Guest 28:05 I think it's in King Benjamin, it talks about how he laid down heads or something. Just to add an additional data point, John, you know, you mentioned that I'm an attorney, so I used to practice more in court and I would do a full day trial off of one page of notes. Because when you understand, when you've been living a case or you've been living this narrative we're looking at for like

John Dehlin 28:32 seven or ten years, for example.

Guest 1 28:34 Yeah.

Guest 28:35 Then you're able to talk extemporaneously about stuff for a really long time. It's just the way you're able to do that when you just mull stuff over for a long time.

John Dehlin 28:48 It's just. I'm reading Tad Callister's words. He says, simply countered to the realities of life. Like, again, Colby, I'm being repetitive, but like, the realities of life are that, again, angels deliver plates with gold and translate Joseph with stone and hat. He's talking about realities of life. It's just, it's almost insulting that he's using this language. So I just, I just had to repeat that. Okay, Julia.

Guest 29:23 That's where if people want to believe these things based on faith, I think like Julia said, like we said at the opening of this episode, people should just be honest about what they're accepting based on faith and what the evidence shows. And like you're saying, it's ridiculous. It, frankly, it is ridiculous to say that it's more in line with the realities of life that an ancient resurrected angel brought golden plates to Joseph Smith. That's not to say people can't believe it, but to act like that's more likely to have happened is patently ridiculous. Really, it is.

John Dehlin 30:25 Tennessee 2012. And I have to remind people that if you, if you study who the church uses to be public historians historically over the past 10 or 20 or 30 years, the answer is attorneys. There's a reason why the church doesn't choose actual historians to be their spokespeople. Whether it's Marlon Jensen, whether it's Richard Turley, whether it's Steven Snow or Tad Callister, what do they all have in common? What they don't have in common is a history degree, a graduate degree, what they do all have in common is their attorneys. Colby, I don't mean to be insulting, but do you have any theories on why the church would choose attorneys as public spokespeople for history rather than trained historians with graduate degrees?

Guest 31:17 Well, number one, what you're telling me is I should have stayed in the church. I could have been a contender. Number two, I mean, lawyers do. Lawyers do deal with history because you do have to understand how to do in depth research and look at legislative history. Go back to constitutional days if you're going to do that, that level of research or do that type of work. So I can understand why lawyers often find themselves in those positions. But the other obvious answer is lawyers are really good at taking facts and making. Spinning them into a credible narrative. And I don't necessarily mean that. That's always untoward. I'm an attorney and I've done that myself with cases. I obviously think it's justified. But you'd never find me making an argument that it's more likely that an angel with gold plates came to somebody.

John Dehlin 32:03 A white, Christian, Native American angel. Right?

Guest 32:08 Yeah, I've never made that one yet. So.

John Dehlin 32:10 Okay, all right, we're belaboring the point. But I think these points are important because I am kind of grossed out already by Tad Callister's rhetoric, you know. Okay, go ahead, Julia.

Julia 32:23 This is a fair Mormon conference in 2020.

Evidence of Joseph Smith's Early Writing Skills

▶ Video Clip 1

Video Clip 1 32:27 Is there any evidence Joseph was a good writer at age 23 and thus could be the author of the Book of Mormon? No. To the contrary, Emma noted, Joseph Smith as a young man can neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon.

Video Clip 1 32:48 That is staggering when you think about it. To claim that Joseph Smith, who could not write a coherent letter, wrote the Book of Mormon in a single dictation draft in approximately 65 working days with only minor changes, most grammatical.

Video Clip 1 33:07 When I finished a book I recently wrote entitled A Case for the Book of Mormon, my secretary unexpectedly asked me, do you know how many drafts you had? I replied, no, to which she responded, 72. I thought, wow.

Video Clip 1 33:26 It took me two concentrated years of writing and many previous years of thinking and collecting ideas to write a book less than half the length of the Book of Mormon and far less meaningful, and 72 drafts to do so.

John Dehlin 33:44 Like, does he know how disingenuous he's being? Does he really believe these arguments?

Guest 33:50 He does, and let me tell you why. Because he's an attorney. We've talked about this, Right? If he's telling you there's no evidence. And his pure thing he points to is Emma saying what Joseph Smith's capabilities are. So in court, in the rules of evidence, there's this. And people are generally familiar with this if they've seen episodes of Law and Order, right? There's this idea in the rules of evidence known as hearsay, which is I can't go into court and testify about something I didn't personally witness. And the way he's using Emma's testimony, rather than actually going to the actual evidence that we're going to talk about today, these actual letters, that is in effect, hearsay.

Guest 34:26 He's telling you that it's more reasonable for you to rely on Emma's statement about Joseph Smith's capabilities, then go and finding those letters and determining that capability for yourself, which is the entire reason in court we don't allow hearsay, is we want the best evidence to be presented. And he knows, I don't know exactly when these letters were published at the Joe Smith papers. Maybe we can look that up while we're going through the slides, but I would imagine they would have been published in 2020 when he was giving that presentation. If not, he would have had access to them as a general authority well before they were available to the public.

Guest 35:02 So, yeah, I do think, and I'm not saying anything more than this, I do think he's being disingenuous here because his training as an attorney is going to tell him that that's not evidence that would be admissible in court. And yet he's telling you that the all powerful creator of the universe expects you to rely on evidence we wouldn't even allow in our secular courts. Again, that's kind of patently ridiculous. I don't mean to be insulting, but it kind of is, that God's evidence wouldn't pass admissibility in court, for which we determine much less serious matters. That's, that's a problem.

Julia 35:35 So one thing I also want to point out is in each four of those clips, they, the speaker added words to Emma's testimony that she did not say. And so I wonder if that's where you're coming from, Colby, is that he's saying Joseph Smith as a young man, or Neal Maxwell said at the time of the Book of Mormon, like, Joseph Smith couldn't write or dictate. I think they're adding that in there because they know later he could. There's papers that have been published by the church about how beautiful his letters are like. And even I think the church Sometimes quotes his letters. So, like, I think they have to add that little part in because they know that's if you look at an exam and afterwards it's false. So I think that's. I think he knows.

John Dehlin 36:11 Remind me, Julia, what part are they adding? What's the text you're saying as a young man?

Julia 36:16 So Emma just says Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate. She doesn't give a timeline.

Guest 36:20 And in that last clip, he. He kept reiterating, like in 1823. Like, no, Emma didn't say anything about 1823.

Julia 36:27 Right.

John Dehlin 36:29 Okay. Okay. So I think the next. I think so clearly Ted Callister and you know, over. Over the General Conference pulpit and in oration, we've got general authorities making these claims. I think the next segment is where the Church publishes the stuff in manuals. Is that right?

Julia 36:49 Yes. And so I don't. I don't think it's necessary to read all this because I just don't want to be repetitive and just continue quoting Emma.

John Dehlin 36:56 Just tell us what the manuals are.

Julia 36:58 Perfect. So this is the Book of Mormon seminary student manual. And this. These are all published by the Church itself. So this is published in 2024. And then they quote this idea again, Joseph Smith can neither write nor dictate. And then this is another manual, Foundations of the Restoration class participation manual. This was published by the church in 2019. Again, reiterating the same quote.

Guest 37:18 I'm sure they mentioned the Rock in the hat, right?

Julia 37:21 Oh, sure, for sure. Although I think the new ones that come. Follow me. They do mention that. So Latter day Saint History, 1815-1846, the Teacher's Manual. This is published in 2018. They ask certain questions like, what does Emma's testimony like, make you think about? With the. As far as the Book of Mormon being translated by the power of God. So they're like, they're kind of leading the witness, I guess, is a way to say that, like, oh, of course. This is a translation from God.

Guest 37:45 And then the Doctrine Covenants, they're basically begging the question. The way they ask the question leads you to the conclusion that they want.

Julia 37:53 Right, Right. I think the Church always does that in their manuals. And then another manual is the Doctrine Covenants student manual. And they teach us at BYU the Religion Study. 324, 325. This is published by the church in 2017. Again, the same quote. And then Revelations in context. I think this is a companion one for the Doctrine Covenants. And the Church published this in 2016. And then again, he could either write or dictate. And she said, you know, they're adding this part too, where they said, she recalled that at the time of their marriage, Joseph can either write nor dictate. She doesn't really give a timeline. Their church is just adding that in there.

Guest 1 38:27 Right.

Julia 38:28 And then the Book of Mormon student manual, Religion 212, 222, published by the church in 2009, they reiterate the same thing. Like they say he polished his skills over time or over the years. So like they're acknowledging that, yes, his later letters are good, the ones before were not good. And so the next part is just going to. Into historical.

John Dehlin 38:50 Okay, wait, so can I, can I just summarize one quick thing? So for those who aren't aware, the church has this committee called the Correlation Committee. And the Correlation Committee's job is to make sure that, like, what is desired to be communicated accurately and effectively gets communicated effectively and accurately in general conference talks. They literally review general authority and even apostle talks, but also across manuals and also in all public communications. So there's an entire department that, you know, enforces and encourages and reviews and edits all of these types of communications intentionally. And so what this is a really good example of is how effectively the Correlation Committee is taking an idea and perpetuating it everywhere. Am I wrong? Colby and Julia?

Guest 39:59 That's exactly right. Yep.

John Dehlin 40:01 Yeah. So there's no way to claim that the church, you know, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. It's in public talks ad nauseam and it's in curriculum manuals ad nauseam. There is an intentional concerted effort to take this quote, take this idea and disseminate it very, very broadly in the church.

Guest 40:28 And once, and I love that Julia pulled all these manual quotes together once when I was really bothered about the fact that Emma talks about the Rock in the Hat narrative in this same testimony. And that quote is never used, although it is used now today, that the church has changed its position on that. But that quote was not used for well over 100 years. While this other portion that they like from Emma Smith's final testimony, they do the same thing with David Whitmer as an address to all believers in Christ. I once searched just that phrase, like could neither write nor dictate a well worded letter on lds.org or whatever it is now churchofchrist.org and it pulls up like literally thousands of conference talks, manual quotes.

Guest 41:08 So not just in recent years, John, has the Correlation Committee done this? This is like A long standing foundational quote to increasing the impressiveness of the Book of Mormon that the Church has relied on literally for generations. And the irony there, and I know Julie is about to go there with the historical context, is if when we were showing the quote originally, this was published because Emma and Joseph Smith III were part of the Reorganized Church of Christ. And so they were. They were always kind of in this weird position.

Guest 2 41:37 Right.

Guest 41:38 Where they need to build up Joseph Smith's legitimacy, but also in some ways denigrate Joseph Smith's legitimacy, at least the Joseph Smith that the Church teaches about today because of the narrative involving polygamy. So it is kind of this interesting context that this quote comes to us through.

Julia 41:56 Yeah. And I will say that there were plenty of other menu, plenty of other manuals and talks that I didn't pull. These are just like this church is still perpetuating this idea today. So, yeah, if I had put everything on there, this would have been a lot longer of a presentation.

Guest 42:09 I remember hearing this quote in seminary and Sunday school.

Julia 42:12 Yes.

John Dehlin 42:12 I'm 56 and I grew up on all this garbage.

Julia 42:15 Yeah, right, right. So with the historical context, Colby, you're reminding me. I was mostly focused on, on what was happening at the beginning. I wasn't really thinking about why Joseph Smith III was asking her these questions. So I'm glad you said that.

Joseph Smith's Letters in Historical Context

Julia 42:28 So with the next part putting into historical context, if we can throw up that next slide. So Joseph Smith and Emma hale eloped on January 18th of 1827. Joseph obtained the golden plates on September 22nd of 1827. This is just eight months after they got married.

Julia 42:46 Joseph Smith finished translating the golden plates in June of 1829, with Emma acting as scribe for some of it. And then I'll also point out, in that same month In June of 1828, Emma lost a child and Joseph was constantly by her side.

Julia 42:59 So my question is, did Joseph Smith write Emma any letters before the Book of Mormon was published? If she had kept all of his later letters, why would she not have kept any of his earlier letters? And so like to me, the Church has published the Joseph Smith paper's website. They have all of his letters published. To my knowledge, I don't know. I don't know why they would have held some back.

Julia 43:19 If anything, they could have redacted them. But we don't have, we just don't have any from, from this point forward. So we don't. So everyone adding those parts in. Oh, like before the publication of the Book of Mormon, to my knowledge, he didn't write any. Or to what we have evidence for, he didn't write any letters before the Book of Mormon was published.

Julia 43:37 Yeah. So with the next slide. So like I said, the Joseph Smith Papers website has public. Has made public most, if not all of Joseph smith's letters. In 1829, he wrote one, we have one of them. 1830, we have two of them. 1831, there's again two of them. 1832, there's four. And then also I didn't even count the other ones because there's just so much letters. There's so many in that database, like I couldn't even keep track. But there is a chunk. They section it off. They say, oh, these are the ones between him and Emma. And some of them are beautiful letters. So that's why everybody had to add in that part of him in his early, before the Book of Mormon, like, as a young man.

Guest 44:11 Can I just also give another shout out to the Church for transparency on the Joseph Smith Papers, because I do spend a lot of time just perusing documents on there. And it is really impressive the work that has gone in to creating this database, allowing it to be searchable, how you can reference the text when the handwriting is hard to read. The historical notes and source notes that they have are fantastic. I really, just because the Church has had such a problematic approach to telling its history in the past, I really do like to give them the praise for creating this resource and making all these documents available.

John Dehlin 44:47 And if it's okay, I'll add that they could have made These documents available 50, 100 years ago and they didn't. And so I also want to credit Fawn Brody, the author who published Joseph's biography in the mid-1940s, and then Sandra Tanner and Gerald Tanner, and then of course, Dialogue, a journal of Mormon thought, and Sunstone and the Mormon History association, and all the courageous historians that the Church either excommunicated or, or marginalized or punished or, you know, whatever, who eventually, because of the gift of the Internet, seemed to probably force the Church's hand to start coming clean with its documents. I think there's a graveyard of metaphorical historians and literal graveyard of historians who paid prices to force the Church's hand to start to want to create the Joseph Smith Papers Project almost by force. Is that unfair? Is that unfair?

Guest 45:59 That's absolutely accurate. And one additional shout out I would give is I kind of jokingly think that the Church did so much work on the Joseph Smith Papers project because they were tired of all believing historians having to cite to Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents series. To cite to most of these documents. That's the reality. They were citing this all the time. And so I think they were tired of people citing to Dan's work kind of jokingly in my mind, I think that.

John Dehlin 46:24 But so that's signature books. We also need to give a huge shout out to because without signature books, Dan Vogel, even D. Michael Quinn, the church may not have felt motivated to come clean as late as they did with the Joseph Smith Papers project.

Guest 46:41 Yeah, so shout out to Dan there. In fact, it was in Dan's Early Mormon document series that I first started reading these letters that kind of got me percolating on kind of the theme for today's episode.

Julia 46:51 And I think he has five volumes of the early Mormon documents, if I'm not mistaken.

Guest 46:55 Yeah, five or six sometimes.

John Dehlin 46:57 Sometimes Dan listens to all this discussion. So we love you, Dan. Great work. You're a legend.

Julia 47:03 Okay, so my summary of this slide is just that no one today can back up the claim that Joseph Smith could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded letter before the Book of Mormon was published. The only person that we can rely on here is Emma Smith or I guess whoever else is. I guess she's the one making this claim. As we are about to see, she was not fully honest in her final testimony, which you have discussed as well, John. So we just don't have, we just don't have any of his letters before the Book of Mormon was found.

Guest 47:31 But what we do have, as people can see and as we're going to go through the Book of Mormon's dictation translation is finished in 1829. We have one letter from that year and two letters from within a year of the Book of Mormon being the translation being finished and the Book of Mormon being published. So to say those aren't more or less contemporaneous to me is again, maybe I'm overusing this phrase, but patently ridiculous the idea that Joseph Smith would go from being essentially illiterate in 1827 to writing the letters that people are going to see a little bit later in today's episode. Less than a year.

John Dehlin 48:05 No, that's silly.

Julia 48:07 Yeah, I actually, I have people saying that all the time to me though, because I'll make this argument on my channel, on my handle and people will say, oh well, once you write, once you dictate a book like the Book of Mormon, of course your writing is going to improve. Of course you're going to have Spiritual references. So like, yeah, like you're going from illiterate to being able to wait,

John Dehlin 48:29 if he read on a stone the entire text of the Book of Mormon as it appeared, and he was able to dictate it with enough eloquence or, you know, vocabulary or pronunciation such that Martin Harris and Emma and Oliver could write down what he was saying. It's a fact that he could dictate a well worded book. Unless believers don't think the Book of Mormon is well worded because literally the Book of Mormon is a dictationary from Joseph Smith. Right. Verbally, what he could read, he could read well enough and dictate well enough to produce the Book of Mormon.

Guest 49:15 Well, and what that, what that, Yes, I agree with that, John. And what this helps show is the problem that often apologists run into of not making their arguments consistent. Because a big theory today about Book of Mormon translation is that it was like there was something of Joseph in the translation. Right? That's how they explain away problems like the long ending of Mark and other problematic King James Version passages being in the Book of Mormon is that Joseph was more a collaborator in the process and bringing his own assumptions and things to the process. And that's why it reflects so many of Joseph Smith's, so many of the texts of Joseph Smith's time.

Guest 49:51 The problem is that that doesn't line up with what any of the witnesses involved in the dictation process, the translation process, say they do, like you're talking about, operate more from this model of the stone was dictate or the stone was allowing Joseph Smith to dictate. And so that's kind of the other irony of this use of Emma Smith's final testimony is it's really only consistent with the older strain of apologetics about the Book of Mormon, not this newer strain of apologetics about the Book of Mormon where Joseph Smith engaged in bricolage and doing all of these things. Because if he's doing that, then why would you ever cite to Emma Smith's testimony here? Right. That would contradict the point they're trying to make.

John Dehlin 50:34 And y' all will have to forgive me because I'm just processing this real time, but I just want to summarize. We know that it's Emma's testimony that Joseph read from the stone in the hat to dictate the Book of Mormon. That's Emma's testimony and that's what the Church now accepts as the accepted narrative for how Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon. So according to Emma and Martin Harris and the church itself. Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon by reading it word for word from the stone in the hat. So that automatically discredits half of Emma's claim that he could neither dictate, he could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded letter. Unless you assume that the Book of Mormon is neither coherent nor well worded. But I think that most.

Guest 51:35 Or that the stone is the magic involved, basically, that the stone is telling Joseph exactly what to say.

John Dehlin 51:41 But nobody in 2025 can deny.

Guest 51:44 Exactly. Yes.

John Dehlin 51:45 A believer cannot deny in 2025 that a stone in the hat was used and that the stone in the hat was used by Joseph to dictate.

Guest 51:53 Can I read, Can I read John, just for framing, Can I read exactly what Emma said about the stone in the hat? Because I think you paraphrased it completely accurately. But I want people to have access to it. So she's asked by her son, what of the truth of Mormonism? And she says, I know Mormonism to be the truth and believe the church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father, I frequently wrote day by day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in the hat with the seer stone in it and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us. So that's exactly what Emma said about.

John Dehlin 52:29 I mean, that is enough to discredit Emma's quote right there because she's admitting that he dictated the entire Book of Mormon, that he had the skills to read the stone, read the words and verbalize them in a way that they could be written down. And there. Are lots of big words Joseph could clearly dictate. So Emma's contradicting Emma undermines Emma, I think, pretty clearly before we even continue this presentation. Am I wrong?

Guest 53:06 I. I don't think you're wrong. I mean, I, I think, I mean, the way I look at it is this. Like that testimony from Emma is, is. It's offered with a purpose. Like it contradicts the polygamy narrative, it vindicates Joseph Smith. Because they need to do that because at the time they were reorganites and that's what they were trying to do. So I don't think you're wrong to say we should look at it very skeptically, the entire whole of it.

John Dehlin 53:32 Yeah, I think it just, I think it's undermined just at face value based on what we know. All right, I've made the point. Keep going.

Julia 53:42 So you made this point earlier, John, but so Emma and one of the questions that she's asked by Joseph Smith III was about the revelation on polygamy. And he says, did Joseph Smith have anything like it? What of spiritual wifery? And Emma says there was no revelation on either polygamy or spiritual wives. There were some rumors of something of that sort of which I asked my husband. He assured me that all there was of it, that in a chat about plural wives he had said, well, such a system might possibly be if everybody agreed to it and would behave as they should, but they would not. And besides, it was contrary to the will of heaven. And then she continues, no such thing as polygamy or spiritual wifery was taught publicly or privately before my husband's death that I have now or have ever had knowledge of.

Guest 54:30 Isn't that first line so interesting? She says there was no revelation on either polygamy or spiritual wise. So if you're a believing member Today, you have DNC132 in your scriptures. That is a revelation written specifically to Emma. And I agree with you, John. Earlier you said we're not trying to cast aspersions on Emma. I agree.

Guest 54:50 I don't. Because when we use the word like lie, to me, lie connotes intention that someone is intentionally deceiving and they're trying to be misleading. I think really all I'm willing to say here about Emma is that we don't know what her intention was, what she's trying to protect, what she's trying to do. But what we do know is that what she says here is demonstrably untrue because that revelation is in believing Mormon scriptures today. And there's been good research to show that the important components of DNC 132 were included in the Nauvoo expositor that directly led to Joseph's death in 1844. So that's a huge problem for what she says here.

Guest 55:28 So whether you think she had the intention to lie or mislead to me is not important. I'm just looking at this more like I would as an attorney. Like you said, our objective is in LDS discussions. Look at it and just determine, does the evidence show that this is true or not true? And the evidence here shows, regardless of what Emma's intention was, that what she says here is not true. Demonstrably, she's not.

John Dehlin 55:48 She's not a reliable narrative when it comes to truth claims or things that could be could cast doubt on the validity of the church's founding narrative.

Guest 55:57 Exactly.

John Dehlin 56:00 Yeah. What's the next slide, Julia.

Julia 56:02 So this is the church, one of the church's gospel topics essays. And the essay is called Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo. And does somebody want to read this?

John Dehlin 56:10 I'll do it, Emma. And this is the LDS Church in 2025 approved text. It's been through correlation. The history department has approved this. General authorities have approved this. You really can't be a believer in the modern LDS church and disbelieve the words I'm about to read. Emma approved, at least for a time, of four of Joseph Smith's plural marriages in Nauvoo, and she accepted all four of those wives into her household. She may have approved of other marriages as well, but Emma likely did not know about all of Joseph's ceilings. She vacillated in her view of plural marriage, at some point supporting it and at other times denouncing it. And clearly at the end of her life, denouncing it and denying that it ever happened. Yeah, that's me. That last part was me.

Julia 57:05 Yeah.

John Dehlin 57:07 Yeah.

Julia 57:07 So, yeah, this is just saying that, you know, just showing that what Emma had said here about not having lived polygamy, we know that for whatever reason why she's saying it, this isn't. She's not a reliable narrative.

John Dehlin 57:18 Yeah.

Julia 57:20 Okay, so these are added in by Nemo. So he. So he's writing. Emma is claiming that Joseph could not have written the Book of Mormon because he could neither write or dictate a well worded letter.

Guest 57:30 I think you deserve a Jammie Dodger for that, Julia.

John Dehlin 57:34 Absolutely.

Julia 57:35 Maybe I can channel my British. So the question is not are Joseph Smith's letters actually more coherent or well worded than Emma is giving him credit for, but actually, were Joseph Smith's letters written or dictated so poorly written and incoherent so as to present a barrier to the possibility that he could have written or dictated the Book of Mormon himself? And so one thing that we are going to do is just look at the earliest, the first, earliest three letters. The one written in 1829 and the two in 1830. And then, Colby, you had this one.

Examining the Actual Letters Joseph Smith Wrote

John Dehlin 58:09 Can I just make a point? Can I just make a point? Of course we are going to make the case we're about to make, but we really don't have to because the claim isn't that Joseph's. The position of the believer has nothing to do with whether Joseph Smith was a good writer.

John Dehlin 58:31 The claim of the believer is only, could Joseph Smith have dictated the text of the Book of Mormon and the believer already believes that Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon by reading it from the Stone in the Hat. So even though we're going to prove that that he also was a good enough writer to have written the Book of Mormon, we've already proved the case that he could have dictated the Book of Mormon because that's what the church believes in 2025, and that's what informed believers believe in 2025. So the rest of the case we've already kind of demonstrated. But we'll go ahead and also show that in addition to dictating, he also could have written the Book of Mormon. Sorry, I just had to make that point.

Guest 59:21 Oh, I love it. Because you're pointing out something about the way I like to do attorney work, John, which is I don't like to hang my hat on one argument when I can hang it on multiple different ways that say I win.

Guest 59:35 The reason I included this slide is we're going to look at one letter that I think was written by Joseph. The one, tolerant, was written by Joseph completely alone. The two letters that we're going to look at in 1830 were written with or dictated in conjunction with John Whitmer. And I'm only noting that to say, basically to stave off someone who says, oh, these later letters that you're going to look at, well, what if John Whitmer was involved? Well, here's the problem for that as far as comparison to the Book of Mormon is one of the things that came out of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon when they understand more about these individual's handwriting, is there are more people that were added to the list of scribes based on handwriting analysis than than the Church had ever taught previously.

Guest 1:00:15 Growing up, we would have heard of Oliver Cowdery, Emma Smith and Martin Harris. Right. Those would have been the three, really, that we were all familiar with. But you can see right here that not only is there the handwriting of Joseph Smith at several points in this original manuscript. So I pulled this right from the Joseph Smith Papers Project. You can also see the same person that's involved in the writing and dictation of these two letters in 1830, John Whitmer, as well as some other unidentified scribe that they still don't know who it is. This goes back to my earlier point of view. There really was a lot more going on with the Book of Mormon's dictation process than we were ever taught.

Guest 1:00:49 And the manuscript itself shows this. And the manuscript evidence can't be overlooked because this is literally the original Manuscript, like, we don't have the entirety of it, but what we do have shows that it's more complicated already than we were taught growing up.

Julia 1:01:04 Also, I think only 20% was saved. So there. So that's a. That's a very small amount that we don't even. There could be others. I. This is speculated, but there could be other scribes that we don't know about.

John Dehlin 1:01:15 So just to be clear, are we saying that the Book of Mormon manuscript represents a team effort of at least six or seven different people?

Guest 1:01:27 Well, yeah, you can see there, it's Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, another unidentified scribe, Joseph Smith, Emma Smith, Martin Harris, Samuel Smith, Christian Whitmer, and Reuben Hale.

John Dehlin 1:01:36 That's like, to make it sound like it's just all going through Joseph is like, ridiculously not true.

Guest 1:01:46 Yeah. And people can reach whatever conclusion about that they want. I'm really just showing this to show if any believer is going to look at those later letters and say, oh, the reason those sound so much more impressive isn't Joseph's writing capability is John Whitmer. Well, the problem they're going to have is John Witwer was also involved in the Book of Mormon's dictation. So, yeah, we know that Joseph Smith constantly used scribes his entire life. He was more comfortable as an orator than he was as a writer. And so in my view, we're operating. We're comparing like with, like, if John Whitmer was involved with these letters, or, I'm sorry, if John Whitworth was involved with the dictation of the Book of Mormon, it's fair game for us to look at these letters and say, oh, that's just a non factor. If he was involved with these letters because he was also involved with the Book of Mormon, which is what we're comparing to.

Julia 1:02:32 Well, my question is people keep pushing back on me saying like, oh, it just got better because of the people he was dictating to. Like, they're. I guess they're implying that those people are adding in their own words. So, like. But no, no scribe has ever claimed to my knowledge that they inserted words themselves into any of these texts.

Guest 1:02:50 In fact, they've said the opposite. They've said the opposite.

Guest 1 1:02:53 Right.

Guest 1:02:53 Dave? David Whitmer's An Address to All Believers in Christ makes really clear that the. All of the witnesses that I'm aware of only talk about the Book of Mormon translation in the context of tight translation. This idea that it was a loose translation or conceptual translation and the scribes were More involved other than just taking down Joseph Smith's words is not evidenced by any of the scribes I'm aware of.

Julia 1:03:14 Right, right. Okay, so the next slides are going into the letters themselves. And so I think there's value in reading them in full. They're a little. Sometimes some of them are a little bit long, but I can start with the first one and then maybe we can each just read a letter.

Guest 1:03:29 Great.

Julia 1:03:31 Okay, so this is. And this is. So you did point out on the letter that we have. This could be a transcript or something. But this one is the handwriting of Frederick G. Williams. So I don't know. Some of them have his writing, Joseph Smith's handwriting in them also, which I think is the next letter. But this was written in October 22nd of 1829.

Julia 1:03:51 And so I put the text in here exactly as it shows on the Joseph Smith papers because I think it also reflects the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon a little bit. So I just left it in there in its pure form. I guess so. Respected sir, I would inform you that I arrived at home on Sunday morning, the 4th, after having a prosperous journey and found all. Well, the people are all friendly to us except a few who are in opposition to everything unless it is something that is exactly like themselves. And two of our most formidable persecutors are now under censure and are cited to a trial in the church for crimes which, if true, are worse than all the gold book business.

Julia 1:04:30 We do not rejoice in the affliction of our enemies, but we should be glad to have truth prevail. There begins to be a great call for our books in this country. The minds of the people are very much excited when they found that there is a copyright obtained and that there is really books about to be printed. I have bought a horse of Mr. Josiah Stoll and want someone to come after it as soon as convenient. Mr. Stoll has a prospect of getting five or six hundred dollars. He does not know certain that he can get it, but he is going to try. And if he can get the money, he wants to pay it in immediately for books.

Julia 1:05:04 We want to hear from you and know how you prosper in the good work. Give our best respects to Father and Mother and all of our brothers and sisters, to Mr. Martin Harris and all the company concerned. Tell them that our prayers are put up daily for them, that they may be prospered in every good word and work and that they may be preserved from sin here and from the consequences of sin hereafter. And now, dear brother, be faithful in the discharge of every duty, looking for the reward of the righteous. And now may God of his infinite mercy keep and preserve us spotless until his coming and receive us all to rest with him in eternal repose through the atonement of Christ our Lord. Amen.

Guest 1:05:43 Oh,

John Dehlin 1:05:46 I'm. I mean, yeah, just. It's the first time I'm reacting to that. I'm like, yeah, that dude could write the text of the Book of Mormon for sure.

Guest 1:05:57 It's got the same tendency towards huge run on sentences. I will point out that's something that everybody remarks about when they start reading the Book of Mormon, including words like

John Dehlin 1:06:07 censure and formidable and prosecutors, affliction. I mean, copyright convenience. Those, you know. You know, part of an IQ test. I have a psychology degree, and part of getting a psychology PhD is doing IQ tests. And part of one of the ten subtests of an IQ test is vocabulary. And did y' all know that if you had to pick one IQ subtest as the best proxy for iq, it's vocabulary.

Guest 1:06:53 I did not.

Julia 1:06:53 I didn't know it either.

John Dehlin 1:06:55 Yeah, yeah.

Guest 1:06:57 Now I'm gonna have to increase my vocabulary. Thanks, John.

John Dehlin 1:07:01 No, I mean, it's just discharge, consequence, atonement. He's a smart dude. He's not a dummy.

Guest 1:07:09 If you'll go to the last slide, I mean, this last. The last little phrase here and now. May God of his infinite mercy keep and preserve a spotless until his and receive us all to rest with him in eternal repose through the eternity of Christ our Lord. Amen.

John Dehlin 1:07:20 Repose? Are you kidding me?

Guest 1:07:23 Repose. If you represented that as a Book of Mormon quote, I think most even believing members would think that probably does come from the Book of Mormon because it sounds identical to the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin 1:07:33 And it's also very similar to the Doctrine and Covenants, which I don't think anybody disputes. Comes through Joseph Smith. Right. Anyway, I'm struck by that, having listened to it for the first time, so that was effective for me.

Julia 1:07:47 Yeah. Okay, so the next one. The next one is.

Guest 1:07:50 I actually, if we can go to the ones with the scriptures highlighted, I think this will. They'll be better that way.

Julia 1:07:56 Okay, so just kind of skip down.

Guest 1:07:58 Yeah, just. Yep. So now we're going to go through the letters from 1830. So there's one in August and there's one in December. And Julia originally had the text of all of them, and we were going to read them. We still have the text of all of them, and we're going to read them. But let me explain for people who are reading along with us or watching on their screen. What I've done is I've looked at the August 1830 letter and the December 1830 letter and I've tried to extract direct quotes or paraphrase from the King James version of the Bible, the version that we know was available to Joseph Smith and was used by Joseph Smith throughout his lifetime.

Biblical Allusions and Rhetoric in Joseph's Writing

Guest 1:08:35 It really can't be understated that Joseph Smith was coming up in an area and at a time of the second Great Awakening in American history, the Bible was everywhere. It was used in public schools. Is what he would have been taught to read on? Very likely. And the reason I'm doing this is not just to show could Joseph Smith reader dictate a well worded letter or writer dictate a well worded letter, but also to show his. His fluency in the Bible at the time basically contemporaneous with the Book of Mormon's publication.

Julia 1:09:06 So just before you get started, this is just you, you are not basing this research off of anyone else, correct? Right here?

Guest 1:09:14 No, I did. As I had done one of the analyses and posted it on Reddit, I did have someone tell me that in the Journal of Mormon History that Nicholas J. Frederick had done similar work looking at biblical intertextuality and Joseph Smith's two letters to the Colesville Saints. So both of these are written almost like Pauline epistles to the church organized in Colesville. And so that's who they're addressed to. That's why they're going to sound very similar to some of Paul's letters and in fact borrow many phrases from Paul's letters. But no, I'm not basing this on that research. I haven't actually read the paper.

Guest 1:09:48 It was after I had basically looked at the same type of thing that someone pointed out to me, oh, someone else has looked at this. So I'll read that paper here soon. But no, this is all my original information. So I will. What I'll do is I'll go ahead and read the text of these two letters as we move through them. But John, if John or Julia, if you want to pause, you can see that what I've got is basically the original letter in the right hand side and then on the left hand side highlighting the words in the King James and the King James verse that are basically either strong parallels or direct quotes.

Guest 1:10:21 So as those stand out to you, as you want to pause me as I read through, please just go ahead and do that. Does that Sound like a plan?

Julia 1:10:26 Yes. I will just encourage anyone who's just listening to, please, like, look at this. Visually, I was surprised looking at these because I hadn't seen these yet, but except this morning. So these really excited me. Like, I got my undergraduate in English and just, I don't know, just like, I would encourage you guys to look at this just because he highlights it so well and so you can see directly how much it plays into these letters.

John Dehlin 1:10:50 And what this is showing is just how much of a command Joseph Smith had of biblical verse and how fluid he was at incorporating biblical verse into his common speech.

Guest 1:11:03 Yes. And not just incorporating the biblical verse into his common speech, but working biblical quotes together to make them into a new narrative. That's the other thing that I really want people to see. I'll highlight this again when I get to the second sentence here or actually the third sentence on this letter. So I'll go ahead and start reading.

John Dehlin 1:11:23 Oh, and I'll just say, I'm reiterate one thing. This is the same year the Book of Mormon is published. So we're not talking about five years later, 10 years later, 20 years later, the very same year the Book of Mormon is published. This is the caliber at which Joseph Smith was not only able to dictate, but author text, right?

Julia 1:11:44 Yep.

Guest 1:11:45 And he's writing this letter or dictating it with John Whitmer. So with that one caveat that we already talked about. So here's how it starts. Dearly beloved, in the Lord, we are under necessity to disappoint you this time for reasons which I shall mention hereafter. But trusting that your meeting may not be an unprofitable one, may you all realize the necessity of getting together often to pray and supplicate at the throne of grace that the spirit of the Lord may always rest upon you. So I'll just pause automatically at the end of each sentence and I'll just note. So the quotes here were, Dearly beloved in the Lord is the way Paul starts many of his epistles.

Guest 1:12:19 It's a phrase that's all over his epistles. I've got the quote here from Philippians 4:1, where he uses that same phrase twice. And then supplicated at the throne of grace comes from the letter of Hebrews, which, you know, biblical scholars can talk about whether that's actually written by Paul, but regardless, it was in the King James Version, and Joseph Smith would have definitely thought it was written by Paul. So we see he's borrowed already two phrases just in this first introductory sentence, any thoughts from you on that before I move on to the second sentence.

John Dehlin 1:12:47 I love it.

Julia 1:12:48 I read the Book of Mormon so much as a member, I think I have a count of 50 times. And even, just even not having the Book of Mormon next to it, this is still so much of the same language, like, but trusting that your meeting may not be unprofitable, like to supplicate, I don't know, just like it just sounds so similar to it as well.

Guest 1:13:07 And that the spirit of the Lord may always rest upon you. I only looked at King James parallels, but that's literally from a sacrament prayer that hadn't, as far as I remember, either hadn't yet been dictated or had just been dictated. So continuing, he says, remember that without asking, we can receive nothing. Therefore ask in faith and you shall receive such blessings as God sees fit to bestow upon you. So the two phrases there, he borrows a phrase from James where he talks about, you have not, because ye ask not. And he backs that up like these two quotes are incorporated together into kind of a new idea, saying that whenever you ask in faith, ye shall receive from Matthew 21.

Guest 1:13:48 And so again, to John's point, this just helps show not only was Joseph Smith highly conversant in the Bible, but he had this knack for mixing quotes together to make a new. A new genesis of his own that combines these ideas together in a way that the Bible itself doesn't.

Julia 1:14:07 That's amazing.

Guest 1:14:09 Okay, our third sentence on this first part of the letter then continues and says, pray not with covetous hearts that you may consume it upon your lusts, but pray earnestly for the best gifts. Fight the good fight of faith, that you may gain the crown which is laid up for those that endure faithful to the end of their probation. So this sentence alone has a quote from Psalms, from James, from Timothy, from second Timothy, and then from Matthew. So in this one single sentence, that one I just read to you, and people can look at exactly where the quotes are broken down. We've got five different from, all from different books, all from different chapters, five different quotes from the New Testament or from the New and Old Testament that Joseph Smith incorporates directly into this letter.

John Dehlin 1:14:55 Yeah, but let's also lose sight of just how sophisticated and scripture sounding these words are. Pray not with the covetous hearts that you may consume it upon your lusts, but pray earnestly for the best gifts. Fight the good fight. I mean, and for those that endure faithful unto the end of their probation, like this is book of Mormon language. This is Doctrine of Covenants language. And this is a well worded letter by any standard. And he's not just dictating from something he's reading that someone else wrote, he's generating or authoring this text. And if we combine it with the fact that we know he didn't get a lengthy personal education, if we were to say, well, where did he learn vocabulary?

John Dehlin 1:15:42 Where did he gain his fluidity with text? Well, we know he had access to a King James Bible, and so he's fluid in the exact source text that we would expect him to be fluid in. That also then explains why so much of the Book of Mormon ends up apparently taken from or inspired from, or even plagiarized from the book from the Holy Bible. Like it all comes together here, but most importantly, it destroys Emma's claim or Tad Callister's claim that he couldn't dictate or author a well worded letter. It's just, it's already obvious to me. Go ahead.

Julia 1:16:26 I just want to remind the audience too, that the research of William Davis, he proposes that Joseph Smith could have gone to as many as 10 years of formal schooling. In fact, in his 1826 trial as a 20 year old, he. He also claims that he's in school. And also in his first account of the first vision, he says, From 12 to 15, I was like constantly studying the Scriptures. And so like, this is just. This just kind of backs those both up that he was an educated man.

Guest 1:16:52 Yeah, that's a great note. And I think the thing that's really interesting about looking at these letters, it's kind of the meta point that I want to return to, which is not to say that I don't appreciate those comments about his education, but in my view, that's kind of a red herring because we have the letters right here. So regardless of how educated formally Joseph Smith may have been, we have the letters. So I only say that because so many apologists use those red herrings to distract people from like, what we do have access to and what we can analyze. And that's why I really think these important, these letters are such an important brick in the wall of understanding.

Guest 1:17:30 Again, regardless of whatever conclusion someone reaches about Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet or the Book of Mormon, how valuable or meaningful it's been to their life. The bottom line is, I think, like John said, this letter demonstrates over, above and beyond that Emma Smith's testimony that we opened with is absolutely false. Demonstrably.

Guest 1 1:17:49 So.

John Dehlin 1:17:50 I have a PhD and I could not write as good of a letter as eloquent as of a letter is this. Especially without multiple drafts. Right. So whatever.

Guest 1:18:04 Okay, shall we continue with this one? Okay, I'll go ahead and read it, and then I'll just kind of share where the quotes came from going forward. So, therefore, hold fast that which ye have received so liberally from the hand of God, so that when the time of refreshing shall come, you may not have labored in vain, but that you may rest from all your labors and have fullness of joy in the kingdom of God. The quotes in that paragraph or in that sentence. I'm sorry, come from the book of Revelation, the book of Acts, the book of Philippians, Revelation again, and the book of Psalms.

Guest 1:18:34 Any thoughts on that sentence before we move on to the second one? Okay. He then says, dearly beloved brethren, we are not ignorant of your tribulation, knowing that you're placed among ravening wolves. Therefore, we have the more earnest desire to come to see you. But our friends from the west have not yet come, and we can get no horse and wagon, and we are not able to come a foot so far. Therefore, we cannot come this Saturday. But we look for our friends from the west every day, and with safety, we can promise to come next Saturday if the Lord will. Therefore, our desire is that you should assemble yourselves together next Saturday.

Guest 1:19:05 The quotes in that passage come from Philippians, second Corinthians, and Matthew. And the thing that's very interesting to me is if you just change the nouns, this sounds very similar to passages in the Book of Mormon where there are letters going back and forth, coordinating travel plans. It sounds very, very similar to some of the passages of the Book of Mormon to me.

Julia 1:19:29 Keep going.

John Dehlin 1:19:29 Yeah. In fact, not only is this. Not only does this meet the bar. I'm kind of repeating myself. But not only does this meet the bar of, like, good enough. He's extremely eloquent as a writer, so for them to claim that he could barely string some sentences together, he was a gifted orator, full stop.

Guest 1:19:58 It's a far cry from the text message we read right the way most believers understand this, but he was illiterate. That's literally what that text message said.

Julia 1:20:07 This.

Guest 1:20:08 This person was, I would say, like, I don't know the average literacy rate in the. That 1830 time frame, but I would say this shows a higher level of education or at least intelligence than most people would have had in the United States at that time.

John Dehlin 1:20:24 This is eloquent prose by any standard. This is eloquent prose.

Julia 1:20:29 I Also think, I know we kind of talked about this already, but I have a. So a lot of times the church will say that Joseph didn't have more than a third grade education. And people, people keep saying on my channel that, oh, this is just improvement. This is after the book Mormon's published. He's just got better. So. But the thing is, if he's just reading from a rock and a hat, just the exact words that were written, like, if you were to give my daughter who's in third grade, like some Shakespeare book or even just the Book of Mormon, that doesn't mean that her, her ability to write is going to increase just because she read off this book.

Julia 1:21:00 Which is. I think what they're trying to say is that he just got better after it was published, but I don't see how that can happen. And I just wondered if, like, you guys had, like, a different response to that, like, oh, he just got better.

John Dehlin 1:21:13 Well, if you've ever taught a kid to read or write, they don't make monumental progress in a year. It takes years and years to develop these skills. That's my response. I've taught four kids to read along with Margi and to write. And there's a reason why It's K through 12, right? Because it takes. We all know what a fifth. A fifth grader with five years of writing experience or reading experience or six or seventh grader, we would know what a seventh grade reading level is and an eighth grade reading and writing level is. This is not an elementary or a middle school level writing. It just isn't.

Guest 1:21:56 Well, and to your point, so let's compare Joseph Smith's August 1830 letters from a revelation that he dictates in 1844. Fourteen years later, they're going to sound more or less identical. That to me, blows a hole in that argument, Julia, because if we see very little progression from 1830 to 1844, why in the world would we see like a completely sloped, basically exponential increase in his writing capability between 1827 and 1830? That makes no sense.

Julia 1:22:26 Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, we don't. Because they're the same. They don't change.

Guest 1:22:30 Exactly. He continues and says, so that all things will be in order when we come. Be careful that the enemy of all righteousness will not get the advantage over you in getting the news abroad. Were it not for the prayers of you few, the Almighty would have thundered down his wrath upon the inhabitants of that place. But be not faint. The day of your deliverance is not far distant. For the judgments of the Lord are already abroad in the earth. And the cold hand of death will soon pass through your neighborhood and sweep away some of your most bitter enemies. For you need not suppose that God will be mocked at, and his commandments be trampled under the feet in such a manner as your enemies do, without visiting, visiting them in his wrath when they are fully ripe.

Guest 1:23:11 And behold the angel cries, thrust in your sickle, for the harvest is fully ripe and the earth will soon be reaped. The quotes from that passage come from Acts, Psalms, Luke, Isaiah, Exodus, Galatians and Revelation.

John Dehlin 1:23:25 Man what what's coming to my mind is reading Joseph smith's letters from 1829 and 1830 almost almost start to prove that he was the author of the Book of Mormon, not disprove that he was the author of the Book of Mormon. Like they they, they they stand as evidence that he was the author, not that he couldn't have been the author. That that the argument is actually the opposite of what Tad Callister and Emma Smith are are proposing.

Guest 1:24:01 I would completely agree. And the the the data point I point people to beyond just the quotes that we're talking about here is look at the books that become Joseph Smith's fascination. The ones that we've quoted from a lot are Last times type rhetoric from Isaiah and Revelation. What is the Book of Mormon quote from more than anything else? Last time's rhetoric from Isaiah and Revelation. That's not an accident.

Julia 1:24:26 Yeah, yeah.

Guest 1:24:30 This is the last passage he says that is the wicked must soon be destroyed from off the face of the earth, for the Lord hath spoken it. And who can stay the hand of the Lord? Or who is there that can measure arms with the Almighty? For at his commands the heavens and the earth must pass away. For the day is fast hastening on when the restoration of all things shall be fulfilled, which all the holy prophets have prophesied of even unto the gathering in of the house of Israel. Then shall come to pass that the lion shall down shall lie down with the Lamb. Etc. Quotes from this page come from Genesis, Isaiah, Job, Matthew, Acts, Isaiah and Isaiah.

John Dehlin 1:25:08 Yeah.

Guest 1:25:10 He then says, and this is the end of this first August letter. But brethren, be not discouraged when we tell you of perilous times. For they must shortly come for the sword, famine and pestilence are approaching. For there shall be great destructions upon the face of this land. For you need not suppose that one jot or tittle of the prophecies of all the holy prophets shall fail. And there are Many that remain to be fulfilled yet. And the Lord hath said that a short work will he make of it, and the righteous shall be saved if it be as by fire. May the grace of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost be and abide with you from henceforth and forever.

Guest 1:25:44 Amen. I just want to note that last quote comes directly from Second Corinthians, and it's interesting that it's a trinitarian, not the typical Mormon conception of the Godhead. It says maybe may the grace of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. That to me looks very trinitarian. Anyways, the passages quoted here are second Timothy, Jeremiah, Matthew, Romans, Corinthians, First Corinthians and second Corinthians. I think if you'll move to the next slide, Julie, I've got my overall summary and then we can talk about this. So these are the conclusions from pulling this data together. This letter, this August 1830 letter, is a total of 16 sentences over just two substantive paragraphs.

Guest 1:26:25 In those 16 sentences, there are 37 scriptural phrases or allusions from 19 different books of the Bible. Philippians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Hebrews, James, Psalms, Matthew, Revelation, Acts, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Luke, Isaiah, Exodus, Galatians, Genesis, Job, Jeremiah, and Romans. I know I'm kind of beating a dead horse, but I'm we're really showing here 19 books of the 66 books of the Bible are quoted in this one letter. That's 16, six sentences. I'm sorry, 16 sentences. There are three of the sentences that have five references or quotes worked in together. And there's one sentence that has seven references in that one sentence together altogether. What this means all together is that there are direct quotations from the King James Bible.

Guest 1:27:18 They comprise about 3.35percent of the letters text. If we're looking at word count and then paraphrases and allusions are another 40% of the letters text. That means 75%, approximately by word count of this letter is either direct quotations from the King James Bible or paraphrases or illusions. The things basically that I had highlighted.

Julia 1:27:40 And then the rest of those I would say, because like looking back on this, the letter where he's like, oh, things about selling a horse or like, they're traveling and things like that where you didn't have any highlights, that's probably what makes it. The other is just like circumstances of what they're going through. And he's writing to the Saints in Colesville. Okay, we'll be there tomorrow. Or we'll expect you this day. Like, he's not preaching so right. This is. So you're saying you're being. You're beating a dead horse. But, like, I haven't heard this before. I haven't seen his letters compared to the New Testament. This is all fascinating to me. So, like, I love these slides, these conclusion slides that you have. Thanks.

John Dehlin 1:28:14 It's a one, two punch because it's not only what an obvious command he has of the Bible and of the ability to integrate various biblical texts and concepts fluidly into whatever he wants to communicate now, but it also, it just proves the opposite of what the Ted Callister and Neal A. Maxwell and Mormon apologists want us to believe. Joseph Smith's early letters buttress the assertion that he was the author of the Book of Mormon. They don't defy it. They strengthen it significantly. Based on what I've seen today, I agree.

Guest 1:29:01 And it gets better because we've got one more letter to go through.

John Dehlin 1:29:04 Let's do it.

Guest 1:29:05 So I'll do the same thing. I'll read and then share where the quotes come from on each page. And Dearly beloved, in the Lord, according to your prayers, the Lord hath called, chosen, ordained and sanctified, and sent unto you another servant and apostle separated unto his gospel through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, to whom be all honor and praise henceforth and forever, even our beloved brother, Orson Pratt, the bearer of these lines, whom I recommend unto you as a faithful servant in the Lord through Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Amen.

Guest 1:29:35 So that was kind of like the introduction of who's bringing the letter. And then the letter itself begins. To the church in Colesville, having many things to write to you, but being assured that you are not ignorant of all that I can write to you. Finally, I would inform you that Zion is prospering here. There are many, there are many serious inquirers in this place who are seeking the Lord. So the quotes in this, on this slide come from Romans 1st Corinthians, Romans again, Timothy, Peter, and Amos.

Guest 1:30:05 It continues. And he says, it gave us much joy to hear from you, to hear that God is softening the hearts of the children of men in that place, it being the seat of Satan. But blessed be the name of God, it also hath become the abode of our Savior. And may you all be faithful and wait for the time of the Lord, for his appearing is nigh at hand, but the time and the season. Brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For ye yourselves perfectly know the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as a travail upon a woman, but they shall not escape.

Guest 1:30:43 The quotes on this page come from Psalms, Revelation, Job and Revelation, and James and that, and First Thessalonians, and then the. The very interesting thing to me about this letter is Joseph quotes basically wholesale from 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse after verse after verse. So the beginning at the phrase, but the time and the season. Brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. That begins basically this huge quote block he's going to have from 1st Thessalonians, chapter 1.

Julia 1:31:15 Dang. It's just. It goes from verse 1, 2, and 3, right in those same order.

Guest 1:31:20 And it in fact continues, if you'll go to the next slide. But ye brethren, are not in darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us be of that day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and law for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed unto wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, wherefore comfort one another, even as ye also do. For perilous times are at hand. For behold the dethronement and deposition of the kings in the eastern continent.

Guest 1:31:56 The whirlwinds in the West India Islands has destroyed a number of vessels, uprooted buildings and strewn them in the air. The field of spices have been destroyed, and the inhabitants have barely escaped with their lives. And many have been buried under the ruins. So the whole first half of this passage quotes directly from 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5, verses 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11. It's just one after the other, direct word for word quotes with no citation in the original letter and no break, basically in this quoting from First Thessalonians, chapter 5. And then it continues with quotes in Timothy, Daniel, and Jeremiah.

Julia 1:32:35 Dang. That.

John Dehlin 1:32:36 So that. That shows an incredible memory, right?

Julia 1:32:40 Yeah.

Guest 1:32:41 Memory or he was working from a King James Version.

Julia 1:32:44 Right.

John Dehlin 1:32:45 Either. Either. Either situation or both could have been possible because we. Did he have a Bible? Do we have reports that when he was producing the Book of Mormon text, there was a Bible accessible to him?

Guest 1:32:59 Oliver Cowdery bought him one, I think in 1829. We. We know for sure.

Julia 1:33:04 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:33:06 Okay. Wow.

Julia 1:33:07 Yeah.

Guest 1:33:08 So it continues, and he says, in Colombia, South America, they are at war, and peace is taken from the earth. In part, and it will soon be in whole. Yea, destructions are of our doors, and they soon will be in the houses of the wicked, and they that know not God. Yea, lift up your hearts and rejoice, for your redemption draweth nigh. We are the most favored people that ever have been from the foundation of the world, if we remain faithful in keeping the commandments of our God. Yea, even Enoch the seventh from Adam beheld our day and rejoiced. And the prophets from that day forth have prophesied of the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and rejoiced at the day of the rest of the saints.

Guest 1:33:47 Yea, and the apostle of our Savior did also rejoice in his appeared in a cloud with the host of heaven to dwell with man on the earth a thousand years. So we've got several quotes from Revelation, 2nd Thessalonians, Luke, Jude and Daniel. And again, I just want to draw people's attention to look at how much last times rhetoric we have here. It's something that's repeat through all Joseph Smith's theological work, in my view.

Julia 1:34:15 Yeah, man.

John Dehlin 1:34:18 The headline of this episode could also be Joseph Smith's early writings prove he wrote the Book of Mormon.

Julia 1:34:23 True, Very true. Should we keep going?

Guest 1:34:28 Yeah. Therefore we have reason to rejoice. Behold, the prophecies of the Book of Mormon are fulfilling as fast as time can bring about. I underlined this instead of highlighting it because this isn't a parallel. But what I want to note is there are some softer apologists that are moving away from the idea that the Book of Mormon was any form of literal translation. And I think the new apologetic is basically like, well, the Book of Mormon can still be scripture, even if it didn't really occur. And I want to point out that at least to Joseph Smith, he believed that the Book of Mormon was a literal thing that contained literal prophecies that were occurring.

Guest 1:35:06 And this isn't the only time in his life that he pointed to current events or contemporary events and said, this is fulfillment of Book of Mormon prophecy. So I just wanted to highlight that as we're going through this letter. Do you guys have any thoughts on that? And then I can continue.

Julia 1:35:21 My one thought was, might not mean anything, but people have pointed out, scholars have pointed out that Joseph didn't quote from the Book of Mormon. He paraphrased them. I think he only if he did quote, it was very minimal. Mostly he just based his quotes and talks off of the Bible. Right. So I just think that's Interesting also that he's. He sees it as real. He sees it as historical. And he's saying that these prophecies, without quoting it at all, he's saying the prophecies will be fulfilled, right?

Guest 1:35:44 So he continues and says, the Spirit of the living God is upon me. Therefore who will say that I shall not prophesy? The time is soon at hand that we shall have to flee whithersoever the Lord will for safety. Fear not those who are making you an offender for a word, but be faithful in witnessing unto a crooked and a perverse generation that thy that the day of the coming of our Lord and Savior is at hand. Yea, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his path. Who will shrink because of offenses, for offenses must come. But woe to them by whom they come.

Guest 1:36:18 For the rock must fall on them and grind them to powder. For the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. We have quotes here from Isaiah 29, Philippians 2, Philippians 4, Isaiah again Matthew and Romans. And then it continues and this is the end. And woe will be unto them if they do not repent and be baptized in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the remission of their sins. And come in at the straight gate and be numbered with the house of Israel. For God's will. For God will not always be mocked and not pour out his wrath upon those that blaspheme his holy name.

Guest 1:36:56 For the sword, famines and destruction will soon overtake them in their wild career. For God will avenge and pour out his files of wrath and save his elect. And all those who obey his commandments are his elect. And he will soon gather them from the four winds of heaven, from one quarter of the earth to the other, to a place whithersoever he will therefore in your patience possess ye your souls. Amen. The quotes there come from Acts, Matthew, Galatians, Jeremiah, Revelation, again Matthew and Luke. You want to go to that?

Later Letters and the Try the Spirits Article

John Dehlin 1:37:27 Does this end up in the Doctrine and Covenants as Revelation?

Guest 1:37:31 That's such a. Oh no, this letter does not. But that's a great question because one of the things that actually on the Joseph Smith Papers website, when you look at these letters, they actually have footnotes where they point to language from the letters that then make it into later Revelations and Doctrine and Covenants. So I only provided the quotes that are through the King James Version, so if anything, I'm understating the number of direct parallels.

Julia 1:37:54 Well, then you're not even bringing in the book Mormon Yet. So, like you have the Doctrine Covenants, the Book of Mormon that are not being talked about, that. That would all have these little highlights too.

Guest 1:38:02 Exactly.

Guest 1 1:38:03 Yeah.

Guest 1:38:04 And I think if you'll go forward, I'll do the summary slide here. So looking at the second letter from December, the letter is a total of 30 sentences over six paragraphs. In those 30 sentences, there are 43 scriptural phrases and allusions from 21 different books. Romans, Corinthians, Timothy, Peter, Amos, Psalms, Revelation, Job, Thessalonians, James, Daniel, Jeremiah, Luke, Jude, Isaiah, Philippians, Matthew, Acts, and Galatians. There is one sentence in this letter that has 10 scriptural references worked into it in the single sentence. And Joseph quotes almost verbatim from eight back to back verses like we talked about from 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5. This letter has a higher percentage of direct quotations because of that. That block that he quotes from first Thessalonians. But it comprises, when you're looking at word count, approximately 40 to 50% of the letter's total text. While the paraphrases then form another 30% of the letter's text.

Julia 1:39:02 That's 80%.

Guest 1:39:04 80%. So the first one was 75% and the second one is 80%. So the bottom line is here, you really can't have these letters without having the King James version of the Bible. You'd be left with basically nothing.

Julia 1:39:18 Dang, it's wild.

John Dehlin 1:39:21 Nice work. Nice work.

Julia 1:39:23 That was great. Oh, sure.

John Dehlin 1:39:28 Oh, go ahead, Julia.

Julia 1:39:29 Oh, no, no, I was just gonna move forward. Keep going.

John Dehlin 1:39:31 Go ahead.

Julia 1:39:32 Oh, I was just gonna move forward with the slide.

Guest 1:39:35 Let me say why I'm including this. So this is from years later. This is from April 3first, 1842. This is a very interesting editorial called Try the Spirits that was published in the Times and Seasons, which was the Church's newspaper or one of the Church's newspapers during the Nauvoo time period. This editorial note, I'm not going to read this editorial, although it is very interesting fodder for a future LDS discussions episode, because this is where Joseph Smith talks about denigrating other people's supposed revelations on the basis that they came from angels with the wrong color hair. And no, I'm not making that up. That is literally in the Times and Seasons.

Guest 1:40:14 It's interesting too. This editorial, at least a phrase from this editorial was cited in General Conference not that long ago. It was maybe like two years ago. I'd have to look up exactly who quoted it. But this editorial note that talks about this editorial in this 4-1-1842 times and seasons edition comes directly from the scholars at the Joseph Smith Papers Project. This first paragraph on this page gives an introduction so that people know a little bit about this editorial and its context. The next paragraph is what's very interesting in looking at what we've been looking at today. If you'll go back, I do want to read that first paragraph just to introduce it.

Guest 1:40:50 So this editorial note again comes directly from the folks at the Joseph Smith Papers Project. John, do you want to read this first paragraph and then I'll Read the second one?

John Dehlin 1:40:58 The 1 April 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons included a lengthy article called or titled Try the Spirits. The title was derived from First John 4:1, which reads, quote, beloved believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Close quote. The article was prompted by recent occurrences of apostasy among Latter Day Saints. It's specifically referenced as cautionary examples, but the experiences of an unnamed boy in Kirtland, Ohio, Isaac Russell Gladden Bishop and Oliver Olney. The latter two were excommunicated for apostasy only the previous month.

John Dehlin 1:41:50 The editorial emphasized the importance of discerning between true and false spirits and warned readers not to be misled by false prophets. In addition to giving Latter Day Saint examples, the article referenced several biblical figures and episodes, as well as more recent historical figures known throughout the Western world, such as Joanna Southcott, Jemima Wilkinson, and Edward Irving.

Guest 1:42:16 Okay, so that kind of sets the stage and people are going to recognize, as I read this next paragraph, exactly why this ties into our last episode. So I want to acknowledge this is from 1842. But this comes directly from the folks at the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

Guest 1:42:32 They're trying to support the idea that Joseph Smith likely authored this article. But listen to the way they describe Joseph Smith's capabilities here. They say Joseph Smith likely authored the article, which was signed Editor. Despite the numerous scriptural references and quotations, it does not appear that the author consulted the Bible when drafting the editorial. Many of the quotations conflate multiple verses or provide slightly inaccurate chapter or verse citations. In this aspect, the editorial mirrors Joseph Smith's usage of scriptural references in his public sermons, with frequent impromptu allusions that were not checked or written beforehand.

Guest 1:43:12 My point is, what do we see in those letters? Exactly what they describe here. So to your comment, Julia, how do I respond to that argument? Why do the folks at Joseph Smith Papers describe this writing from Joseph Smith in 1842 exactly to mirror what we just went through with these 1830 letters.

Julia 1:43:32 Wow.

John Dehlin 1:43:33 It's also curious that they're specifying public sermons but neglecting that it also reflects his usage of scripture references in his own writings in 1833 that they themselves published and made available to us. Like, why? It's almost like they're saying public sermons to say he spoke like this, but he would never write like this. Am I wrong?

Guest 1:44:02 Nope, you're not wrong. And I really think that one phrase right there. It does not appear that the author consulted the Bible when drafting the editorial. Many of the quotations conflate multiple verses. What did we just talk about? 10 citations to different verses in one sentence in that December letter? Or provide slightly inaccurate chapter or verse citations? The letters don't have that, but they do slightly change the wording or the order of some wording. They're obviously drawn from those biblical passages because there's too many words in common with them to not be significant.

Guest 1:44:35 But I just think this, this is such an interesting commentary by the folks at the Joseph Smith Papers Project. It's almost like kudos to them for honesty. But like you said, John, also, like, finish the thought. Like, finish the thought of what you're saying, which is Joseph Smith was very capable of writing and dictating the text of the Book of Mormon.

Julia 1:44:55 I think, if I can add, I think even Emma in another place said Joseph Smith had neither book nor script and he could not have concealed it from me. And I think she's referring to, like, the view of the Hebrews or the manuscript found. Yes, but like, the church is saying, oh, well, he didn't really need a Bible in the room with him. Like, he didn't need a Bible to write these because he just uses the language anyway. Like, to me, they're saying he knows the Bible well enough that he doesn't really need a Bible. So, like, I think we know that he did have one because of the errors and things like that that enter into the Book of Mormon. But, like, he didn't need one because he knows it that well.

Guest 1:45:28 Yep. And that he knows it well enough, but will sometimes slightly get things wrong. And what do we see in the Book of Mormon? Exactly that.

Julia 1:45:35 Right, Right. Yeah. So what I really like that Colby compared the text from the to the New Testament. I didn't think about doing that. I thought about comparing it to the Book of Mormon itself. And so these next slides are just me, like, grabbing a few words from the letters, comparing it to the Book of Mormon. This is not as thorough as what Colby did. But here you have the. Where he says there begins to be a great call for our books. And then the Book of Mormon in Alma, it says that we. Thus we see a great call of diligence. It's just similar phrasing.

Julia 1:46:04 Then in the letter, in the 1829 letter, he talks about the consequences of sin. And this is the same line from the Book of Mormon is used. The consequence of sin. This very, very New Testament language. And then in the Colesville letter, I'm sure you pointed this one out too, but it's the consuming upon your lusts. You see it in James, but also in the Book of Mormon they talk about consuming it upon your lusts. So you see that in Joseph Smith's letters, the Book of Mormon and the New Testament.

Julia 1:46:31 And then again there's another one with the labored in vain. I'm sure, I'm sure you highlighted that one as well. I just can't remember the reference. So it appears in the, in the letter as well as the Book of Mormon. And then this idea of ravening wolves. And this one in the heading of the Book of Mormon, it says, you know, compared to Matthew 7. So you have again a letter, the Book of Mormon and the New. The Bible.

Julia 1:46:53 And then enemy of all righteousness. This is another one that you highlighted. I can't remember the reference. It shows up exactly the same way in the Book of Mormon. And then this one here, an offender for the word. It also shows up in the Book of Mormon as well as Isaiah 29. So. So to me, like, one of the things this is showing is that the New Testament is the base text for his. For his letters, but it's also a base text for the Book of Mormon. And then if we keep going, oh, I guess there's. This is the exact same phrase, and I'm sure you pointed this out too, of Matthew 18 with a Colesville letter.

Julia 1:47:25 And then other passages, more particular account. So. But there's a. Grant Palmer wrote a book called An Insider's View of Mormon Origins. And if you guys haven't read it, please read it. It's. It's fascinating. He talks about how, how you have to, you can't, you can't divorce or separate the Bible from the Book of Mormon. And he says these and other phrases indicate that an ancient source was not used for this sermon. Speaking of third Nephi 12, nor for any, nor for the many other biblical quotations throughout the Book of Mormon. So he's saying this is dependent upon, upon the Bible.

Guest 1:47:58 Can I build on that quote for a second from Grant. So this notion, these and other phrases. And I know he's speaking specifically of Third Nephi, but he says these and other phrases indicate that an ancient source was not used for this sermon. If I can just point people to additional work I've done to make this same point, I did an episode on Mormonism Live where we compared the Book of Mormon's Isaiah chapters to the great Isaiah scroll, which is the basically backdates our knowledge of what Isaiah looked like a thousand years when we discovered the great Isaiah scroll in 1947. And as a spoiler of the conclusion of that episode, there isn't a single instance where the Book of Mormon's changes to the King James version of Isaiah.

Guest 1:48:44 Chapters that are captured in the Book of Mormon are vindicated by the earliest manuscript we have of Isaiah. In fact, you see exactly the opposite. You see verses that are missing in the great Isaiah scroll version from a thousand years before the Masoretic text version, that basically the Book of Mormon should not have them, if you understand the way that time works. And yet they're included in the Book of Mormon. All to say, if people want more information on how the Book of Mormon cannot have come from an ancient source, that's an additional. Some additional research I had done in the last couple of weeks that helps make that point.

Julia 1:49:20 That's great. And we'll put that in the show notes, too. So there's another quote from Grandpa. We're in the same book. He said the textual evidence shows that the Bible was a primary source for the miracles, quotations, stories, names, and prophecies in the Book of Mormon, all of which provided a basis for Joseph Smith's interpreting. And I can't say this word tragmatizing, which is translation. So also he points out stories. He points out Moses and how they follow parallel exactly point for point with Nephi. And he talks about the story of Lazarus, how there are specific phrases that only appear in the story of Lazarus and they only appear in the story of King Lamoni. And so he's like, again, you have to have the Bible. If you don't have the Bible, you don't have the Book of Mormon.

Complexity of the Book of Mormon and Joseph's Capabilities

Guest 1:50:00 Well, even when you look at someone like Paul, right, Paul was this persecutor of the righteous that then gets converted through his Damascus Road experience. Probably the best character character in the entire Book of Mormon is Alma the Younger, the one with any actual complexity to him. And there's clear parallel there. Like he was persecuting. He had almost exactly the same Experience was confronted while traveling or whatever it was, had a visionary experience is knocked out and then becomes like the prophet of the day. You know, same thing with. Supposedly in the, in the New Testament narrative we've got John the Beloved continuing on to live. And in the Book of Mormon that's increased not from one disciple to asking to live and tarry forever, but to three.

Guest 1 1:50:43 Right?

Julia 1:50:44 Yeah, yeah, that's. Those are really good additions. So in his book Roughing It, I think Mark Twain, he's. He is kind of mean or he's very direct or whatever, but he doesn't really. Yes, yeah, he, he does a very good job of summarizing what he's seeing in the Book of Mormon. He's contemporaneous to Joseph Smith. So in his book Reffing it, which is published in 1872, he gave this his views of the Book of Mormon.

Julia 1:51:08 He says the book seems to be merely a. Is this prosy detail of imaginary history with the Old Testament for a model followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint old fashioned sound and structure of our King James translation of the scriptures. And the result is a mongrel. Half modern glibness and half ancient simplicity and gravity.

Julia 1:51:30 The latter is awkward and constrained, the former natural berkot, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern, which was about every sentence or two, he ladled it. He ladled in a few such scriptural phrases as exceedingly sore and it came to pass, etc. And made things satisfactory again. And it came to pass was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet. And then he also says, oh, sorry, I'll just add the Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable, it is smooched from the New Testament and no credit given.

John Dehlin 1:52:09 Wow. You know, I did hear. Go to the previous slide.

Guest 1 1:52:14 Sure.

John Dehlin 1:52:15 I did hear growing up that Mark Twain quote. Well, not only that the Book of Mormon is chloroform in print, meaning that it puts you to sleep, but also that if you took out all the end, it came to pass as that it would be just a pamphlet. That stuff I heard growing up, what I didn't hear.

John Dehlin 1:52:33 You know, I've been reading a biography on Mark Twain recently. It's an amazing biography. And whatever you want to say about Mark Twain, he was one of the most literate well respected writers and thinkers of the 19th century. And, you know, not only, not only did he grow up in the time of, you know, Joseph Smith's Mormonism, but he lived in Missouri. Right. And so his observations around the Book of Mormon likely being, in effect, what I'm going to summarize here. He's basically saying the Book of Mormon is Bible fan fiction. And we've joked about that many, many times over the past several years. We've even quoted Alexander Campbell as sort of suggesting that.

John Dehlin 1:53:31 But this contemporary analysis of the phraseology in the Book of Mormon by a contemporary, well respected, you know, author and literary critic is profound and something that I think we should all take a deeper look at because who, who would be a more respectable analyst of the. The Book of Mormon and its prose as compared to the Bible and, and how would all be viewed in the 19th century, the mark Twain. This is important analysis is what I'm saying.

Julia 1:54:15 Yeah, yeah, we've just spent two hours talking about this and breaking down the New Testament language in Joseph Smith's writing, whereas he forever ago just said, oh yeah, this is just King James. He's obvious.

John Dehlin 1:54:26 It's obvious what this is. It's almost ridiculous in his mind. And yet it very clearly seems to match with your analysis today. And Colby, I'm guessing you didn't have this quote from Mark Twain in mind when you were pulling together your analysis, right?

Guest 1:54:45 No, I wasn't. I didn't have this in mind when I was pulling this together. I will say, though, I love that quote from Twain calling the Book of Mormon chloroform in print. And anytime it comes up, I always have to mention Christopher Hitchens kind of barbed at Twain and said he accused him of hitting too soft a target. Considering that the Book of Mormon includes the Book of Ether. And I always think that,

John Dehlin 1:55:10 Wow, Julia, that's great stuff. Oh, I guess you have more quotes too.

Richard Bushman's Perspective on Book of Mormon Authorship

Julia 1:55:14 Yeah. Can I just end on this? Richard Bushman. There's just two quotes from Bushman that I really want to share. This one is from Mormonism Live. It'll go pretty fast. So I'm just going to share this one that I pulled from their channel.

Guest 1 1:55:24 I think right now the Book of Mormon is a puzzle for us, even people who believe it. Hardly in every detail. It's a puzzle. And to begin with, we've got the puzzle of translation, translating the book without the plates even in sight. They're wrapped up in a cloth on the table.

Guest 1 1:55:43 So it's not something that comes right off the pages. The characters on the plates. So we don't know how that works. And then there is the fact that, you know, there's phrasing everywhere, long phrases, that if you google them, you'll find them in 19th century writings. That the theology of the Book of Mormon is very much 19th century theology. And, you know, it reads like a 19th century understanding of the Hebrew Bible as an Old Testament. That is, it has Christ in it the way Protestants saw Christ everywhere in the Old Testament. That's why we now call it Hebrew Bible because the Jews never saw it quite that way. So these are all problems we have to deal with.

Julia 1:56:33 Did you guys have any thoughts on that?

John Dehlin 1:56:36 Keep going, keep going. Let's do all these slides.

Julia 1:56:39 Yeah. So this slide is just written. I just typed out what he had said. So there's paraphrasing everywhere, long phrases. But if you Google them, you'll find them.

Guest 1:56:47 But I want to draw attention to this because, I mean, I have a lot of respect for Richard Bushman, but I kind of have to call him on this. He says to begin with, we have the puzzle of translation, translating the book without the plates even in sight and wrapped up in a cloth on the table. So I agree with him that that makes absolutely no sense. So it's not something that comes right off the pages. The characters on the plates, that's not what the witnesses and the people who served as scribes say. They say exactly the opposite. The only information I'm aware of from any Book of Mormonscribe when they talk about the experiences like the quote we shared from Emma where the stone communicates to Joseph and Joseph is giving them literally word for word what needs to be recorded. So it's just not.

John Dehlin 1:57:30 He's defying the witnesses. He's defying the witnesses.

Guest 1:57:33 What he really means behind the scenes, I would suggest, is what the witnesses say doesn't match up with what the text shows. And so because of that, we don't really know how this works. But that's not really true. We know what the witnesses said and we know that that's demonstrably not true according to the text. But if you're determined to reach the same conclusion, yeah, you might say that we don't know how that works. But that's because you're assuming that it does work and not just trying to go to the more simple explanation of could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon, which I think this episode shows pretty thoroughly. Yes, he absolutely had the capacity to dictate a text like the Book of

John Dehlin 1:58:08 Mormon and Bushman's admitting if you Google phrases, you will find Book of Mormon phrases. You'll find them in 19th century writings. The theology of the Book of Mormon is very much 19th century theology. And he says it, it reads like a 19th century understanding of the Hebrew Bible as an Old Testament. He's saying Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith and his colleagues wrote the Book of Mormon. That is literally what he's saying.

Julia 1:58:41 Yeah.

John Dehlin 1:58:41 And for those who don't know who Richard Bushman is, he is the LDS Church's best faithful Joseph Smith scholar, former patriarch, former stake president. You don't get any more faithful or well respected of a historian or a scholar than Richard Bushman. And he's giving it away right here. The Book of Mormon is a 19th century document, not an ancient document.

Guest 1:59:11 And if I can give a specific example to just bolster exactly what you said, John, One example that we went through in those Isaiah chapters episode I mentioned just a minute ago is that there's one, one quote that the Book of Mormon has from Isaiah where Joseph Smith changes the words of the King James Version and he adds this phrase.

Guest 1:59:31 The. The Isaiah says that these folks come out of the waters of Judah and Joseph Smith changes that to read in the Book of Mormon version, to read out of the waters of Judah or out of the waters of baptism. Baptism was not a concept that the Jews would have recognized at 600 BC when supposedly these brass plates are containing these writings of Isaiah. So that's a specific example of what Richard Bushman is talking about. There are specific examples behind all of these things. And the original, by the way, in that specific example, the original meaning, like the great Isaiah scroll version from 125 BC actually says out of the loins of Judah.

Guest 2:00:10 So the hilarious thing about that specific example is that this mistranslation then gets built into the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith, taking it literally, then says out of the waters of Judah, out of the waters of baptism. Which again, was not a conception that would have meant anything to these pre Christian ancient Jews.

Julia 2:00:30 That's a good example.

John Dehlin 2:00:32 Yeah, I love this last slide too.

Julia 2:00:36 So this is a.

John Dehlin 2:00:37 From Reddit.

Julia 2:00:37 From Reddit, yeah, this is a Reddit conversation and it's titled Richard Bushman AMA 3pm to 6pm Eastern Time. So it's like they're asking him questions and he's on here and he's responding to.

John Dehlin 2:00:47 These are his words on Reddit.

Julia 2:00:49 His words. So just the part in blue is the main part where he says the Book of Mormon has a lot of 19th century Protestant material in it, both in terms of theology and of wording. I am looking for an explanation of how and why it is there.

John Dehlin 2:01:05 And that's 10 years ago. So that's 2015, but you know, that's 10 years after he published Rough Stone Rolling. That's at the end of a lifetime, like an 80 year lifetime of studying Joseph Smith or 60 years or 50 years, however you want to start that clock.

Guest 2:01:24 Can we pull that back up? Because the same way we started this episode, which is, this is the way this quote has been used for generations for Richard Bushman says the exact same thing in different words. I don't think it is enough to say Joseph Smith absorbed it from his environment. It is too complex and too far beyond his cultural range. I don't see evidence of that when we look at these letters. These letters had quotes from passages that are quoted in the, in the Book of Mormon themselves. So I just, I don't understand why anyone would have a basis to say that, that it was too complex to Joseph Smith to absorb into his environment in these 1830, or I'm sorry, in the Book of Mormon when we see it very clearly in his letters the same year the Book of Mormon was published.

Julia 2:02:09 So when people say, oh, the Book of Mormon is too complex, he couldn't have written it. Is the New Testament complex? Is the Bible complex? That's, that's your answer, is that he's just basing off of those, that complexity or you're like the stories that you just pointed out with Lazarus or, or Alma getting knocked out, like just things like that where it's like he's just taking these stories from the New Testament

John Dehlin 2:02:30 and the last two sentences right now, this is Richard Bushman right now it seems possible that, that the Joseph, that Joseph Smith gave us exactly what he got by his inspiration, but somehow those are my words, that what was given him went beyond what the Nephi prophets were on the plate. So we're supposed to believe that Joseph didn't add anything at all. He just gave us what was dictated, but that somehow God or angels interjected 19th century Protestant Christianity and 19th century anachronisms into the text.

John Dehlin 2:03:14 So that then in Bushman's final sentence, the text was augmented in some way, but not by Joseph. So why would God. Can somebody please explain to me why God would bother having ancient prophets create gold plates, inscribe their history in the gold plates, protect and preserve the gold plates, bury them, have Joseph then uncover them, protect them, fight off fighters and hide them from evil treasure, diggers to then sit in the translation room but not use the plates at all. But then when Joseph is somehow using his artifacts of treasure digging, a stone and a hat, he's going to somehow be reading from the plates when they're not in the room.

John Dehlin 2:04:08 But that's not enough. God's going to augment whatever Joseph telepathically transports with the stone and the hat from the plates that aren't in the room but were preserved to be used. God's going to also add 19th century Protestant ideas and 19th century anachronisms into his translation to then come up with what we have.

John Dehlin 2:04:35 And Tad Callister is going to say that this is the most plausible explanation that we have for how the world works. This is just ridiculous upon ridiculous. Am I wrong?

Guest 2:04:51 No, you're completely right. I also love that I always seem to dry out caffeinated John a little bit. No, you're exactly right. Is if you'll pull back up that quote from Bushman, like let me explain why he has to make the argument he's making that you just pointed out is so absurd. It's because he can't say that Joseph Smith was knowingly modifying what was on the plates because the witnesses and the scribes say the exact opposite, that he was just receiving these things like a direct line to heaven through the stone. So he knows about that data point. So he can't say that Joseph Smith was knowingly monkeying with was supposedly was an ancient record.

Guest 2:05:29 Right. So it has to be this weird theory. And they do this with the book of Abraham too, where for some reason it's convincing to people that Joseph Smith can be absolutely mistaken about what he was actually doing. But yet you should take the revelation that comes out the end of the process. Joseph Smith was absolutely mistaken about what he was doing according to their own argument at face value. Like it came from God, like the tablets written on Mount Sinai. That is.

Guest 2:05:58 Let me put it this way. When I first started going through my faith crisis, I had a dream where I died and I had an interview with Jesus in a police interrogation room. So that tells you what kind of person I am.

Guest 2:06:12 He was also dressed in a very corporate way, so I know it was Mormon Jesus. Today I look at this experience as just purely a dream, my subconscious working through issues. But my first question, because I'm right in the middle of my faith crisis or like on the tail end of it, my very first question in the dream was okay, so was Mormonism true? And in the dream Jesus says to me it was true. I Said really like Helen Mark Kimball, the King James Version, stuff in the Book of Mormon. Like, I started to raise all these reasons that I just could no longer find the church's truth claims held water anymore.

Guest 2:06:48 And he said to me in the dream, it's not true in the way you were taught it was true. And then it became this kind of like general thing about, you know, reaching for higher things and aspirations. And I understand there are still a lot of people who find arguments like that convincing. The thing that I took out of that experience is I will refuse to feel bad before God, Jesus or anyone for using the best tools I have available to me to determine what facts are. And the best tools I have available to me tell me that it is ridiculous to believe these claims when I have such clear, contrary evidence of where the Book of Mormon may have come from.

Guest 2:07:26 And so the feeling that I have taken from that experience today is just, I'm going to refuse to feel bad for failing a trick question exam if continuing to believe in the Book of Mormon requires me to accept patently ridiculous arguments like the one we're just going through.

Guest 2:07:42 I just refuse to believe, I guess, that God would want me to use an epistemology that if I applied it in any other arena of my life, would leave me vulnerable to frauds and charlatans, to the most important questions that determine my eternal salvation. I just, I guess I believe more about God's inherent good nature than believing that that's what I would be asked to do.

John Dehlin 2:08:07 Do you have a summation, Julia?

Julia 2:08:10 No, I think that was really good. Like, I just. This people can continue to believe the Book of Mormon. I have no problems with that. It's just that they can't use this argument as a reason that they believe that the Book of Mormon is true.

John Dehlin 2:08:21 Yeah, Colby, that was beautiful, Julia. I agree. And if it's okay, I'll just give my summation too. Can we go back to the telegraph slide that we skipped? Because I think it's a great way to end. Not only do I think that we've proved conclusively that Joseph's early letters.

Conclusions and Closing Remarks

John Dehlin 2:08:43 Not only don't line up with the claim that he couldn't dictate or write a well worded letter, not only have we demonstrated that he absolutely could dictate and or write a well worded letter, I think what we've demonstrated today is that Joseph Smith's early writings prove that he is likely the most likely author of the Book of Mormon. But I also don't want to lose sight of what else we've demonstrated today? We've demonstrated today that Mormon church leaders have had the evidence that Joseph was a very skilled dictator and or writer of prose as early as 1830 and 1831. And in spite of having that evidence and either holding the evidence or publishing it with the Joseph Smith Papers project, they have still continued to intentionally advance the narrative that Joseph was an ignorant, uninformed, rube, schoolboy, pea brained country bumpkin who never could have written anything even close to the eloquence of the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin 2:10:03 Also not admitting that there are like eight or nine other collaborators or co conspirators that clearly worked with Joseph Smith to produce the text. And I want to finish with this slide that you guys also included in this deck because historians will say the closer the sources are to the actual happening, the more we should pay attention to them and the more we should believe them. So let's not even go to Mark Twain who would have written his analysis of the Book of Mormon even though he was a contemporary of Joseph Smith, even though he lived in Missouri and was very familiar with the writings and the literature and the prose of the 19th century Midwest.

John Dehlin 2:10:57 Let's go to an analysis of the Book of Mormon that was done within a year of it being published. This is the Telegraph, the Painesville Telegraph published in March 12, 1831. And it reads, quote, the book, meaning the Book of Mormon is chiefly garbled from the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha having contributed its share.

John Dehlin 2:11:25 Names and phrases have been altered and, and in many instances copied upwards. A Quarto Bible now in this village was. What does that mean? Quarto Bible. Do either of you know what that would mean?

Guest 2:11:41 I don't.

John Dehlin 2:11:41 All right, you guys look that up while I finish the sentence. A Quarto Bible now in this village was borrowed. Oh, okay, okay. So they're basically saying that there's a Bible that was available in Palmyra, so it's a Quarto Bible now in this village was borrowed and nearly worn out and defaced by their dirtily handling. In other words, clearly they had a copy of the Bible as a source and they were consulting it in the authoring of the Book of Mormon. Some seven or eight of them spent many months in copying Cowdery being principal

Julia 2:12:22 scribe, which some eight. Seven or eight of them. Colby, you listed nine of them, right? Including Joseph that were involved. That's wild to me.

Guest 2:12:31 Yeah. And I'll say to the Bible point. So Quarto Bible was just like an edition of the Bible, like a publisher. And at least that's what I'm seeing as I look it up. The funny thing about the King James Version errors being in the Book of Mormon is apologists now have to make basically the same argument that, well, when it came to the. The Book of Mormon recapitulating the King James Version, Joseph Smith just. Either the reason those errors are in there is because Joseph Smith saw that it was, whatever, Isaiah 27, and decided to go pull his Isaiah 27 off the shelf. And instead of reading the stone because the stone hurt his eyes, he copied the version.

Guest 2:13:10 That's why the errors are in there. It's just hilarious how time has vindicated this quote. You wanted to end with John to me, because apologists are making these same arguments. They're then just on the back end telling you, and here's why that doesn't matter. And people can decide whatever they want to believe, like we've said a number of different times. But it's very important to me that people are honest about the things they believe based on faith and the things they believe based on evidence. And to me, it's very clear. You cannot continue to believe in a literal historical Book of Mormon translation according to the evidence. If one accepts that proposition, they're going to do it based on faith.

Julia 2:13:45 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:13:46 And again, just to reiterate, it's also clear that the Mormon Church is intentionally knowingly misleading and deceiving its believing members with obviously false, deceptive, and erroneous arguments to buttress, you know, the Book of Mormon's validity by trying to demean Joseph Smith's talents.

Julia 2:14:13 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:14:14 Yeah. Wow. What an amazing episode, y'.

Julia 2:14:18 All.

John Dehlin 2:14:18 Thank you.

Julia 2:14:19 This was fun. I really like your analysis, Colby.

Guest 2:14:22 Thanks. Thank you for all the stuff you added as well.

Julia 2:14:25 Yeah.

John Dehlin 2:14:25 Colby, it's almost LDS discussions blasphemy to say that anybody could add anything of even comparable worth to what Mike added to the LDS discussions canon, but I think you're bringing it.

Guest 2:14:40 Ah, thank you.

Julia 2:14:41 For sure.

Guest 2:14:41 I do tend to look at some of these claims and just go, does the evidence really support that? Because there's an interesting meta analysis here of why in the world there's so many adults that can go read Joseph Smith's letters for their for themselves today, relying on someone's secondhand account of Joseph Smith's writing capabilities. Go read it yourself. Maybe you disagree with our analysis, that's fine. But at least you read it for yourself, and then you're making up your own mind instead of accepting Emma's obviously Motivated testimony that we've already talked about. The problems with taking that at face value.

John Dehlin 2:15:15 Julie, we couldn't have done this without you, so thank you so much.

Julia 2:15:17 Yeah, of course. This is great.

John Dehlin 2:15:20 All right, do we have other LDS discussions, episodes to come that are in the works?

Julia 2:15:25 Yes, there's plenty.

John Dehlin 2:15:27 What are a couple of the ones coming up?

Julia 2:15:29 Well, John, one that you commissioned me to do is the history of the ceilings or the way that I'm viewing it as how the students came about and the changes that were made throughout the church's history. Like, I had no idea about some of the things that they've started and stopped.

John Dehlin 2:15:42 So that's all.

Guest 2:15:43 And Colby, I've tentatively got the next episode idea I have is called Gospel Topics, Essays Lie about the Book of Mormon, and we'll look at some very specific apologetics that the Church has made and several of those essays that actually lie, I would say, demonstrably lie about what the Book of Mormon actually says.

John Dehlin 2:16:03 All right. Well, Colby, and also, we just want to end as we began. We love Nemo. We want to have Nemo back. We, we, we were scheduled to have Nemo with us, and then for some reason he wasn't able to join. But love and great gratitude goes to Nemo. Please don't complain that Nemo wasn't on the episode, but we'll have Nemo back to LDS discussions whenever he's available.

John Dehlin 2:16:27 But, Colby, you're awesome. Julia, you're awesome. Thanks for your great work today. And thanks everyone, for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Again, the LDS discussion series is best consumed in sequence from the beginning. There's over 60 episodes. You can find it in its own feed and Spotify under LDS Discussions, its own feed and Apple Podcast under LDS Discussions, or you can find it integrated into the Mormon Stories podcast feed on Spotify or on YouTube. And maybe the best way to consume it is through the playlist on the Mormon Stories Podcast YouTube channel, where you can watch these episodes in succession. It's best to view these instead of just listen.

John Dehlin 2:17:11 We try to make them listener friendly, but it's best to view them because there's so many cool graphics that we show that help support what we're doing. We want to thank our donors that make Mormon Stories and LDS Discussions possible. If you donate, we couldn't do without you. And then finally, if you value the LDS discussion series or Mormon Stories and you want to see it continue, we're losing donors all the time. And so if you want to do your part to keep this stuff going, to see More Colby, more Julia, more Nemo.

John Dehlin 2:17:44 Go to MormonStories.org, click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor. Or you can go to mormonstories.org donate Become a monthly donor. And for as long as we're getting the financial support, we'll keep producing these episodes because they cost money. We pay Julie, we pay Colby, we pay Nemo, and then me and all the other expenses. So we need your donations. Please continue to support us. For those of you who do. Thanks so much for your support.

John Dehlin 2:18:11 All right. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, be a bridge builder, be a peacemaker, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of LDS Discussions and on Mormon Stories Podcast. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.