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- [00:00]
A
When you want to look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool, when you want to seem wise and not a fool, it's Christie's Corner. We figured, you know, what's, what's a bigger hot button issue.
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B
Oh, my gosh. All kids, all of the, every kid is talking about.
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A
We receive. I mean, it's, it's greater than 80% around the Apocrypha, I would guess.
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B
It is. It really, really is.
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A
Yeah. And, you know, even, even emails that don't directly mention the Apocrypha, I think that that's what they're implying.
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B
We're picking up what you're putting down. And that's why we're going to do a 13 parter on the apocrypha.
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A
We're going to do 17 parts on the Apocrypha of Christian Scripture. So this is a revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants. So I'm not just making this up, even though it sounds like I am. Unlike all of the other material we present on this podcast, this is not made up. This is a section that's, that's received in 1833, and it's actually related to Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible. So one of the cool aspects of Section 91 is that it's clearly a response to another commandment that Joseph has received from the Lord. You don't get to see this today terribly often in Joseph Smith's work, but you do get to see it occasionally where it's not just the church that's receiving direction from these revelations and acting on it, that it's Joseph himself. So the day before section 91 is received, it's received. March 9th of 1833, another section of the Doctrine and Covenants, another revelation was received, section 90. Very convenient for us that they're back to back that way. But thank you, Orson Pratt, for reorganizing the Doctrine and covenants in 1876. But, but the previous Revelation, I think most people know doctrine, covenant, section 90 more because there's a lot more in it about the duties and roles of leadership. I think a lot of people know the phrase from verse 15 of section 90 that to study and learn and become acquainted with all good books and with languages, tongues and peoples. There's an educational aspect to it. Well, why do I say that D&C 90 kind of causes this revelation of Doctrine and Covenant, Section 91 the next day? Because part of what Joseph is told in this revelation, doctrine, covenant, section 90 is that once he finishes the translation of the Bible, that he is going to have these other authorities and also Revelation. So if you go to verse 12 of section 90. And now verily I send to you, I give unto you a commandment that you continue in the ministry and presidency. And when you finish the translation of the prophets, you shall from thenceforth preside over the affairs of the church and the school. Now, the school being mentioned here is the very recently established school of the prophets that has just been established there in Kirtland. Verse 14. And from time to time, as shall be manifested by the comforter, receive revelations to unfold the mysteries of the kingdom. Now that is a pretty big promise. Once you finish the translation, I'm going to unfold to you the mysteries of the kingdom. So Joseph's been working on the bible translation since 1830. And he, he started with the Old Testament and then like most of us, switch to the New Testament because it's, it's, it's, it's just better, you know, it's easier to read. I mean, probably. I mean, I don't know this, but, you know, he got to like Deuteronomy. I was like, let's see what Matthew has to say. And then, you know, just moves over. But so he's already completed the, the New Testament translation, but he's got to go back to completing the, especially the minor prophets of the Old Testament, the translation of the Bible. So why does this have to do with Section 91? So he's told March 8, when you're done with the translation, then you get to have all these promises. Well, what is one of the natural questions Joseph's going to have if the statement is when you're done with the translation, one of the natural questions is, how do I know when I'm done with the translation? Why, why would you even ask that question? You just look at the Bible. Well, this is where understanding the history of Joseph Smith's time helps us understand what's going on in the Revelation. So the, the revelation doctrine, Section 91 is on the Apocrypha. Now I would say for most Latter Day Saints, they might have heard of the Apocrypha. I'm sure it's a heavy metal band too. I would guess. I don't. You want to check on that? You want to do some research, see if there's a band called the Apocrypha.
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B
Looking at it right now? No, we'll have our research team on it.
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A
I feel like maybe we should start one.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Would be the triangle and tambourine.
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A
What are we Going to play? Yeah, no, I just. I'd play. I'd be the dj. But the, The Apocrypha has. Are these old books that used to be contained in most Bibles in Christendom. What are they? Well, they're books that were not part of the original Hebrew Bible but were often included and circulated in books of scripture at the time of. At the time of Christ and afterwards. The books of the Apocrypha that people are most familiar with are probably first and Second Maccabees, because it's in, it's in that portion that you get the explanation of. Of Hanukkah and things like that. Did you look it up?
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B
Is there a. I did. There sure is. It's a power thrash metal band, Apocrypha.
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A
I literally had no idea. Could just call the fact that. I bet it's a heavy metal band.
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B
The Eyes of time and Area 54 are two of their most popular.
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A
Oh yeah. Oh, so. Well, obviously I remember my high school dance days.
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B
19 well, 1987 is really. So we'll obviously be posting a link in the, in the description.
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A
We'll probably look at the lyrics first. But that is pretty funny that you can basically take any Judeo Christian religious concept and it's a heavy metal band also. Yeah, as one. Thrash metal. Yeah, thrash metal. Well, I mean that's, that's a, that's a truism of life.
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B
I'm sure they have a power ballot in there. Here or there.
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A
Oh yeah, I'm sure they do. It's, you know, we're knocking on heaven's door. Anyway, the, these books were a kind of a problem when it came to a determination of what would be included in the Bible. When the Bible was, was, was piecing together, was being pieced together by leaders of the early Christian church. Really in the three and four hundreds A.D. we could do a history of the books in the Bible. But just as a refresher, the books that are in the Bible were not bound together in a single book like they are now. They were different circulating letters of Paul, different gospels that were circulating. And over time there came to be a canonized group of these books that were accepted by all the Christian church. Well, all the ones who weren't then excommunicated for not accepting those as Christian books. But the Apocrypha was, was, was different because early Christians made the determination not to toss out the Old Testament books. Christians of course, were arguing that they were actually the fulfillment of these prophecies in the Old Testament. Now that's not true of every Christian that there are entire Christian. You know, we would call them heresies. Certainly the Catholics called them heresies that argued actually that the Old Testament wasn't even inspired scripture. The Marcionite controversy, you know, several hundred years after Jesus Marcion is claiming that none of the, the books of the Old Testament are inspired and that the only, only the, the New Testament and only some portions of what's today in the New Testament come from God. Well, that, that is trying to deal with the fact that there's this transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. So similar to that, there are books that are in circulation among the Jews that are included in the Septuagint, the Greek speaking scripture collection. The, the Greek scriptures that would have been in circulation in Jesus's time that aren't part of the original Hebrew Bible, but they've been in circulation for hundreds of years. People read from them, they quote from them. So if they're not part of the Hebrew Bible, are they scripture? An example of some of these books you have first and second Esdras Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther. So this is, it's an expansion of the Book of Esther in the Bible. The Wisdom of Solomon, not to be confused with the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Azariah, Susanna. I so badly want to say don't.
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B
You cry for me in my head. That's what I was saying.
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A
Okay. That's what I was saying. My favorite named one is Belle and the Dragon.
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B
I love that Disney movie, Belle and the Dragon. Oh, it's so good.
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A
It's a different Belle. This is Pixar. This is B E L, the Babylonian God. So I don't know that that's the same thing as Beauty and the Beast. You're right.
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B
That's probably DreamWorks.
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A
Yeah, DreamWorks. Yeah. Obviously the prayer of Manasseh and first and second Maccabees. Now like I said, most people are most familiar with Maccabees because they're at least somewhat familiar with the Hanukkah story. And I'm going to turn to our resident bar Mitzvah co host to tell us a little bit about Maccabees and Hanukkah.
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B
Well, so first of all, so my family, we celebrate Hanukkah every year and we read from part of this as we talk about the Hanukkah story. So you have the Greeks, they're coming in and they've defiled the temple and they've, you know, put up a, as Greeks are wanted, as Greeks are. Want to do. There's like, where's the temple? Let's put a statue of Zeus up.
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A
Is there any way we could get an Athena in here?
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B
So you have, you have this Maccabean revolt in the, you know, right after 200 B.C. what is it? Yeah, right after that. I think that they, they, they win and they drive the Greeks out around 167 BC, something like that. And you can tell already in the way I'm describing it when I say something like that, that I'm not the history professor. I don't know what happened between, you.
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A
Know, 500, sometime in our, in our Jewish past.
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B
Anyway, so they drive him out. And so Judah the Hammer Maccabee, which is my favorite name in all Judaism.
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A
If Richard were to have a professional wrestling name, Richard the Hammer.
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B
So we actually, so we purchased a dog that I am allergic to, and I wanted to name the dog Judah the Hammer Maccabee. But it was a girl.
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A
Why don't you name it Judith the Hammer?
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B
That's what I wanted to go with. Judith the Hammer Maccabee. And we went with Scout. Anyway, so the, the Greeks are driven out by, by the Maccabean revolt, and they, they go to dedicate the temple. And they only had enough oil for one night. And it takes a period of time to dedicate oil in order to be able to use it in the temple, but the oil lasted for eight crazy nights. And, and so it's a celebration festival of lights. And it's a, it's a fun, it's a fun holiday, obviously, to celebrate. But. Yeah, so we actually are pretty familiar with the Maccabees. And because of that, and I would.
- [12:43]
A
Guess that most Latter Day Saints in America that, you know, they, they probably haven't sat down to scripture study of Bell and the Dragon, but they're at least familiar with the Hanukkah story. And they may not know where it comes from, but that it comes from Maccabees.
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B
And they also, I mean, you probably have a lot of Latter Day Saints as well that know. Well, so Malachi ends up. Then Jesus doesn't come for a while.
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A
Yeah, 400 years of silence.
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B
Yeah, but in some of those, the.
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A
Books of the Maccabees, for instance, take place during that supposed 400 years of silence.
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B
That's right. Not all of those books do, but some of them.
- [13:21]
A
And so that's the. So you see, these books are in circulation. Clearly Maccabees is considered sacred to many Jews in the fact that it's relating these miracles of God delivering them out of the hands of the Greeks. But I think for most people, they're very unfamiliar with them and even what's going on. And in the early Christian church, that decision has to be made. Do we include these in the Bible? They're in circulation in Jesus time. They're being quoted as if they are Scripture. But we also know that they are not actually part of the Malachi ends, the Hebrew Bible, not these other books. The decision is made to include them in the Bible. And they are part of the, the, the Latin Vulgate, which is the, the Bible, which is the standard Bible that will come down through Catholicism all throughout the first, you know, century, I mean, millennia and a half of, of Christendom. So that's how they make their way into the Bible. Now you're thinking, well, wait a minute, I have a Bible and I don'. You can still buy Bibles that have the apocryphal books in them, but most don't have them in them. And that's where, again, our history question comes in. You know, you didn't think I was going to let us just talk about, you know, religion. We have to talk about the history of it. When Martin Luther, you know, as, as the Catholics might say, had his little temper tantrum, as Lutherans might say, had his eyes opened. When Martin Luther rejects the teachings of the Catholic Church and eventually creates his own movement, one of the things that he's most interested in doing is translating the Bible into German so that it can be read. So one of the things that was rare was for Christians in Europe at the time to be able to read the Bible. The, the church held that the Bible, the Catholic Church held that the Bible had to be maintained in Latin. And they actually decreed that attempts to translate it into other languages was, was heresy. You, you know that this is what happened to some early Reformers like, like Wycliffe and, and Tyndale. Right. They, they, they were trying to translate the Bible or providing copies of translations of the Bible and other languages. Luther wants the Bible to be in, not just in every household because a lot of people own Bibles that they can't actually read because they don't speak Latin, but read. And you can see this is the foundation of Protestant theology. Luther's primary arguments are going to be that salvation comes from faith alone, through the grace of Christ. There are no works that are that, that, that cause you to be saved. You are saved purely on the basis of the grace of Jesus. Now, of course, you're going to do good things because you have that grace. But you're only saved on the basis of the grace that is afforded you, not because of, you know, following the seven sacraments or whatever. Secondly, Luther's powerful claim so that, that, that affects all Protestantism. The, the idea that you're only saved by faith alone. And to, to a greater or lesser extent, every Protestant denomination has that as a central part of what they believe, that salvation is faith based. You are saved through your faith, through the grace of Jesus Christ, the second part of Luther's Reformation. That is also, I mean, ring, you know, it, it is a huge part of Protestantism today, regardless of the sect that you belong to. And that is, Luther is going to argue the Bible is the only source of revealed knowledge from God. In other words, as I've said before, if it ain't in the Bible, it ain't right. That's the kind of way of looking at it. You're thinking, well, of course it has to be in the Bible for it to be true if you're a Christian. But that's because you're a, you know, if you're not a Latter Day Saint listening to this and you've stumbled onto this podcast by mistake, you've learned the name Richard wanted to name his dog, but also some odd things about Latter Day Saint theology. But the idea that of course truth has to be in the Bible is a Protestant understanding that we actually culturally have in the United States today. But it's not the way most Christians thought over the course of 1500 years. Because the Catholic Church claims two ways of knowing the truth. The Scriptures is one of the ways. And what's the other one? Well, it wouldn't surprise you that since the Catholic Church is claiming that they are the literal continuation of the, the, the truth from the time of, of Peter all the way down to now, that tradition is also instructive of how God wants you to do things. Now again, even Latter Day Saints hearing me say they're saying, well, what do you mean tradition? Because we've got a pretty bad idea of traditions because of the Book of Mormon, right? The traditions of their fathers kind of thing. But from the Catholic perspective, if we are literally the spiritual descendants of the first churches that Peter and Paul are setting up, then that means the way things have been done is actually a demonstration of the way God wanted them done, because we trace it all the way back. And so God wanted it to be done this way. So tradition is also a way of knowing what you should do. Should we do X? Well, back in the original church they, they did that. So we should.
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B
A great, great quote actually. So. Well, this is a, this is a heavy Jewish content. When my, when my grand or my uncle passed away, we went back east to visit and the rabbi came and spoke to my aunt and he said something about tradition I thought was really which, you know, when you think of a Jewish person saying tradition, next thing.
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A
You know they're on a roof. That's right.
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B
With a fiddle.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But so what he said, which was, I thought fairly profound was tradition tells us what to do when we don't know what to do. And given that, you know, there are a tremendous number of traditions that Jews do, especially when somebody passes away, it's a difficult time. And that was kind of his point is like, boy, this is a difficult time. We don't know what to do. Let's follow tradition. It's comfortable, we know what that looks like and we can do that.
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A
Right. And for Catholicism, as their claim to have been the church that was founded by Jesus and by Peter and by Paul, they can point to tradition saying, well, as long as we've known, we've always done X. So X must actually date all the way back to Peter and Paul. Now there's a much greater difficulty of proving that some aspects of, of this tradition date all the way back. But there's some power in the fact that it's been done that long. I mean it's pretty historically demonstrable that the teaching that nuns, priests and bishops could not be married, that they had to be celibate is, doesn't date all the way back to the beginning of, you know, doesn't date all the way back to Peter. In fact, it's, it's an odd thing that the Bible itself says that bishops should be husbands of one wife. And then in the modern Catholic Church, they, they can't have any right. The zero wise. So the, but that change to a clergy, a celibate clergy, is, you know, by Martin Luther's time, a 5, 600 year old change. And you see the weight of tradition over the course of time. This is the way it's been for 600 years. And who are you to say that it shouldn't be that way? So God in his church has allowed it to be that way. So it doesn't even have to date all the way back because the very fact that God has had it that way in his church for a long time is evidence that that's the way God wants it to be. Right? Now someone who's a critic of Catholicism might say, well, that's kind of a tautology, right? That, well, the way we had. It just so happens to be the way God always wanted it to be. And for those of you, you know, Protestants who are listening to this podcast seeking for another way to attack a Catholic person, maybe that's the argument you're going to take. But the, the important aspect of, of, of why I bring that up is Luther absolutely rejects the idea of tradition being a way to, to know the truth. Now don't misunderstand. Luther certainly does not throw away every aspect of Christian tradition that he has himself lived his whole life. And in fact, some of the critics of Luther's Reformation are going to say, looking pretty Catholic there, Martin. You know, I mean, they're going to say that he didn't eliminate enough. But for Luther's argument, he's going to say anything that we maintain is going to be because the Scriptures say it. If you can't find it in the Scriptures, then we aren't going to, we aren't going to follow it. So let me give you an example of a doctrine that is not expressly found in the Bible, but was maintained as a true doctrine. The doctrine of purgatory. You can't find the word, you know, purgatory used in, in that sense in, in the Bible. But it had come to be this important Catholic doctrine of this place between heaven and hell where those who, otherwise, you know, they've, they've done what they, they've performed the, the ordinances. They need to, to be able to go to heaven, but they have to have their, their sins purged out of them. So there needs to be this space in between heaven and hell where the eventual people going to heaven can be perfect when they go to heaven. Well, Luther rejects the doctrine of purgatory. The doctrine of purgatory is what had actually spurred his reformation in the first place because various sales of indulgences. One of the claim for the indulgence sellers was by prepaying through a donation to the church, you could lessen or eliminate your time in purgatory. So your average, your average Christian, you know, living a good life, still going to have some sins when he dies, so he can't go directly to heaven, so he's gonna have to go to purgatory until those sins are purged out.
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B
We'll say the religious side of me is, is offended by what happens with Johann Tensile and the, the paying to get your way out. Yeah, but the, but the business side of me really respects.
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A
Right. The business PhD in Richard is like, wow, that's. I appreciate, I appreciate the hustle. Yeah. Tetzel's. His growth plan was. It was, it was outstanding.
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B
Every time a coin in the coffer clings, clings, a soul from purgatory springs. Now that. That's the kind of marketing that boy. The best ad firms on Madison Avenue.
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A
Yeah. I mean, you can only wonder, what if Johann Tetzel had the ability to employ like, Google Ad Matrix, I mean, he could have reached so many. In Martin Luther's opinion, he and other indulgent sellers of the church had already reached too many. And so the doctrine of purgatory itself becomes a very stark problem for Protestants because the argument is that when you have faith and you have the grace of Christ, you are saved regardless of your sins. You're not saved because you don't have sins anymore. You're saved because the grace of Christ saves you, even though you are a sinner. And that's such a very stark departure. Why am I spending so much time on this? Well, because everyone likes to talk a little bit about indulgences and purgatory. But the point being, if you're going to make a claim that the only truth comes from the Bible, that it has nothing to do with tradition, that even things that you traditionally do, if you can't prove them in the Bible, then they're not true. I mean, for instance, one thing that Martin Luther decides very quickly isn't in the Bible is that it. It is not in the Bible that priests shouldn't be married. In fact, it says the opposite in the Bible. So Martin Luther very promptly and, you know, surprisingly gets married. Right. He goes from being a celibate, you know, monk to. To getting married as after. In the. In the early stages of his Reformation. So if the Bible is the only way that you can know the truth, you can now see how essential it is to Protestants that the Bible is in every home and in a language that everyone can read, because it's the only way you can determine what is true. Related to that, then is this question that's going to be a recurring one in Protestantism. If the Bible is the only way that you can know the truth, well, then it's pretty important. I know what books should be in the Bible and what books shouldn't be in the Bible. This is actually made all the more stark because some of the doctrines that Martin Luther is railing against have their primary, quote, unquote, scriptural support for a Catholic they're going to claim that they have scriptural support in, in the Apocrypha. Protestants are going to say, no, that, that's not even that good of an argument. But regardless, the Apocrypha is. Books in the Apocrypha are actually used to support doctrines like Purgatory. So that's going to lead to the question of should these books even be in the Bible? Because as Martin Luther does his translation of the Bible, one of the things that he realizes very quickly, he might have already known since he was a scholar, that the, the books of the Apocrypha, those books I listed off, they are not part of the original Hebrew Bible. The original Hebrew Bible ends in Malachi and doesn't include things like Bell and the Dragon. So they've been in circulation in the Catholic Bible for 1500. Well, for 1100 years at this point. Does, do you keep them in the Bible even though you know that they weren't original to the Hebrew Bible, to the, to the Old Testament, but they've been quoted from pulpits all over Christendom for 1100 years? That, that is, is, is, is part of the question. And so what does Martin Luther do? He translates the books of the Apocrypha, but then he places them all at the end of the Old Testament. So he puts them all in one place and they're designated the Apocrypha. And in his translation he says that they were not held equal to the Holy Scriptures and yet are profitable and good to read. I think Luther probably realized he's already starting kind of a problem with his Reformation that, you know, rejecting so many aspects of Christian life that had been part of Christian life for 1500 years. The last thing you want to be accused of is altering the Bible, right? You're already altering it by translating into.
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B
German as a Latter Day Saint. Yes, we're especially sensitive.
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A
We're very sensitive. If any man adds to or takes away from the words of this book, let him be a curse, that kind of thing, right? So they, they are included at the end of Luther's translation. They're, they're separated, but they are in the Scriptures. And this begins this kind of long running odyssey in Protestantism to try to figure out what to do with these books. It means that when the King James translators, you know, later, 100 plus years later, after Martin Luther, when they translated the King James Bible, which becomes the standard among most American Protestants over the course of the next several hundred years, they too translated the books of the Apocrypha, just like Luther had done. And they included them at the back of the Old Testament. So they were in the Bible. You are looking at your King James Bible right now saying, no, they're not. And this is the. The reason why this historical, you know, inquiry matters so much. Let me give you a little bit of a flavor of some of the things that you would find in the Apocrypha that you wouldn't know otherwise. I mean, we already talked about, obviously, the. The story of the Maccabees. But for instance, let's go to Belle and the Dragon, because I just can't.
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B
Yeah, it's good stuff.
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A
I just can't get away from it. I mean, it's the greatest. It could be a sitcom like.
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B
Like Belle Comes Home and the dragons had a bad day.
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A
The dragons had a bad day. Like, you know, I'm just steaming mad. You know, I don't.
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B
Somehow that's.
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A
And then there's laugh track with people clapping in the background. We all know the story of Daniel in the lion's den, right? How long was Daniel in the lion's den?
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B
A night.
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A
Au contraire, my French friend. In fact, what we get is an expansion of the story of Daniel and the lion's den in Bell and the Dragon. For instance, let's see here. If you go to Bell and the Dragon, chapter one, you get the story of Daniel and the lion's den, but you get it told a different way. I'll just read some of this from the Apocryphal book of Bell and the Dragon. This is chapter one. This. This dragon is one of the things that they worship. So starting in verse 23, and in that same place, there was a great dragon which they of Babylon worshiped. And the king said unto Daniel, wilt thou also say that this is of brass, which, lo, he liveth, he eateth and drinketh. Thou canst not say that he is no living God, therefore worship him. So apparently they're trying to. The king's trying to convince Daniel that this apparent idol, which kind of makes it sound like it might be an actual dragon, that it. But I don't know if they're delivering food offerings to him, and they disappear because the. The priests are taking them. But at any rate, then Daniel said to the king, I will worship the Lord my God, for he is the living God. But give me leave, O king, and I shall slay this dragon without sword or staff. And the king said, I give thee leave. Then Daniel took pitch and fat and hair, and did see them together and made lumps thereof this he put in the dragon's mouth. And so the dragon burst in sunder. And Daniel said, lo, these are the gods he worshiped. So one of the cool parts about this is that Daniel isn't just like, I'm going to pray regardless. Daniel's straight idol destroying. He is the dragon slayer of Bel and the dragon. When they of Babylon heard that, they took great indignation and conspired against the king, saying, the king is become a Jew. And he hath destroyed Bel, he hath slain the dragon and put the priest to death. So they came to the king and said, deliver us Daniel, or else we will destroy thee and thine house. So this is a little bit, I said, very different of what all Daniel's being accused of than what you get from the Bible. Now when the king saw that, they pressed him sore. Being constrained, he delivered Daniel unto them who cast him into the lion's den where he was six days. So verse 31 of Bell and the dragon says that Daniel was in the lion's end for six days. Which usually, again, you would usually think of as just, you know, we look in there and he's playing with the line. That's right. I've always thought, when I was a kid, that was, you know, interesting that they named the. The lion on. On Mr. Rogers named him Daniel. Right. It makes sense. Right? Any rate. And in the den there were seven lions. Did you know there were seven lines? I did. You do now. And they had given them every day two carcasses and two sheep, which were not. Which when they were not given them to the intent that they might devour. Okay. So they're usually feeding them a bunch these seven lions, and then they just don't give them because with the intent that they might devour Daniel. Now there was in Jewry a prophet called Habakkuk, who had made pottage and had broken bread in a bowl and was going into the field with. For to bring it to the reapers. But the angel of the Lord said to Habakkuk, go carry thy dinner that thou hast into Babylon unto Daniel, who is in the lion's den. And Habakkuk said, lord, I never saw Babylon, neither do I know where the den is. Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head.
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B
Just drag it along.
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A
I feel like Habakkuk is being drugged by an angel by.
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B
I just. All I wanted was the address.
- [35:44]
A
Yeah, yeah. Seriously, I. I don't. Babylon. I mean, well, I mean, who's Habakkuk. Trying to. Trying to kid. Yeah, right. Oh, I've never heard of Babylon. Babylon? What's that? You know, the empire that controls the entirety of the Mideast. I mean, I feel like you got to do better when it's an angel asking you what to do. Right?
- [36:02]
B
Oh, so you're going the other way. You're saying that Habakkuk's like, oh, yeah, no, I've never heard of this place. Never heard of these guys.
- [36:08]
A
Yeah, I feel like. I feel like his excuse is pretty bad.
- [36:13]
B
Never heard of Babylon. Don't know where that is. Lions then. Don't know.
- [36:16]
A
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I've got some pottage here, but I was planning to have a nice lentil soup myself. Anyway, the angel drags him by his hair and through the vehemency of his spirit set him in Babylon over the den. And Habakkuk cried saying, O Daniel, Daniel, take the dinner which God hath sent thee. And Daniel said, thou hast remembered me, O God. Neither hast thou forsaken them that seek thee, thee and love thee. So Daniel arose and did eat. And the angel of the Lord set Habakkuk in his own place again immediately. So I don't, I don't know if he drug him back to where he was with his hair, but he did take him back. Upon the seventh day, the king went to bewail Daniel. So king, of course thought Daniel was dead after seven days of being with hungry lions. And when he came to, then he looked in and behold, Daniel was sitting. Then cried the king with a loud voice saying, great art, Lord God of Daniel, and there is none else besides thee. And he drew him out and cast those who were the cause of his destruction into the den. And they were devoured in a moment before his face.
- [37:21]
B
Yeah, the lions are starving. They haven't had a carcass and sheep for some time.
- [37:24]
A
Looking for carcass sheep. They didn't get any of the pottage, apparently that the, the hair dragging angel brought Habakkuk in by. This is a huge expansion of the story.
- [37:34]
B
Yeah, it's fascinating.
- [37:35]
A
It is fascinating. I mean, maybe we should just do an entire. Let's study the Apocrypha. It's what the people cry out for.
- [37:41]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Before we get to what the Lord tells Joseph, let's just do just all apocryphal.
- [37:47]
A
What I want most is Eric to comment on this one. Yeah, I know that he's excited. He's listening right now and he's apocrypha. That's great. Yeah. Can we. Is there any way we could also do Compromise of 1850? At any rate, it kind of gives you an idea that the apocryphal books often relate to the already existing stories in the Bible and then expand upon them. Important to understand that by Martin Luther's time, these books are in the Bible and they've been being quoted for, for centuries. These are parts of homilies and sermons that are made. There is all kinds of doctrine that's coming out of these and Martin Luther is going to maintain them in the Bible, but provide that caveat that, well, you know, these are not the same as scripture. You're thinking, we are so far into this and you haven't even begun to explain why Joseph Smith received this revelation. Yeah, that's again the fatal flaw of, of asking a historian any question. You have to wade through all kinds of townships and treaties of Guadalupe Hidalgo before you actually get to where they're at. But what's going on in Joseph Smith's time? I mean, if, if revelations often come as the, the response to questions that are asked. For instance, Joseph and Oliver reading in the Book of Mormon translation that it's a requirement to have proper authority to be baptized. And by the way, baptism is essential. Well, the question then gets asked, how can I then have authority to be baptized? Where does authority come from? And you get the revelation of John the Baptist coming and giving them authority. Joseph is told that you need to finish the translation of the Scriptures and then you're going to have all these marvelous miracles that are going to happen. But, but that is going to beg a question. Well, why would the question of should the Apocrypha be part of the King James Bible that Joseph Smith is using? He's using a finny Bible that's spelled with a P, H, P H I and N E Y that he's using for the translation of both the Old and the New Testament includes the apocrypha in it like almost every single Christian Bible did up to that point in Christianity. But it just so happens that Joseph was living in this time period. One of the things that comes out of the second Great Awakening is a renewed hostility to Catholicism. Now any Catholics listening will be like, oh, surprising. So Protestants began attacking us for our beliefs. It's a I. Who would have thunk it? You know, but in America especially this happened in the early Reformation where people began castigating Luther that he was far too Catholic. And you had the entire Anabaptist movement in Europe was Essentially an argument that the Reformation had not gone far enough in its radicalism to completely get rid of any vestiges of Catholic thought. Thought. So, for instance, there's a whole iconoclastic movement in Europe during the Reformation era where, I mean, mobs of people literally go to churches and destroy every piece of stained glass they can find. Every statue, every. It doesn't matter if it's a statue of Peter, you know, holding his sword. The mobs are going to come and completely break it into pieces. Because that's a graven image, right? That. Now Luther is not advocating that, but people who are taking Protestant ideology to its furthest end are saying, if it is not expressly stated in the Bible, it's therefore false. Well, show me some stained glass in the Bible. Of course it's not stained glass. So, so this is just iconography that's being used to, to pollute people's minds. Well, in the Second Great Awakening, you have a similar movement of people trying to get back to the original church. Again. If you take the Protestant view that the church was once clearly founded by the Lord Jesus and that it became corrupted over time, hence the need for a reformation of people like Martin Luther and John Calvin, well, then what does that mean? It means that you're trying to separate out the good Christian history from the bad Christian tradition. So good Christian history is the, the, the, the, the Council of Nicaea that establishes the idea of trinitarian thought. All Protestants embrace that as being an absolutely true doctrine. That's coming from, from true Christians who lived in an earlier age. The doctrine of purgatory is being rejected as a false traditional teaching that was added outside of the Bible. Now, of course, Protestants are going to point to multiple scriptures in the New Testament that, that, that they say demonstrate a trinitarian theology. One of those scriptures being being added to the New Testament, but much later, but that there's this, this belief that again, I'm proving everything I believe by the Bible itself. So you have movements like Alexander Campbell's. Alexander Campbell's is what we would call. And this is, you know, I'm not trying to use a fancy word, but Christian primitivism. I hate the word primitivism in the sense that I know that most people who hear it are like. So, you know, you mean that they, you know, these are people who are drawing on cave walls. And I mean, the term primitive is, just has such a negative connotation in today's world, especially if someone, you know, has an iPhone and they, you know, they talk to Becky Richard's wife. And they say you have such a primitive Samsung. Right. Why can't we text you when we are traveling? Because you won't. You have a primitive phone. It's a negative connotation usually. But in, in 19th century, this, this renewed Protestant exuberance in the United States is, is saying we have got to cut all of the vestiges of tradition out of our church. Even, even the fact that there's X in the church that's actually just a holdover from Catholicism that should have been burned. It's, it's honestly what the Puritans in the original founding colonies of America, it was their argument that the Church of England become Calvinist. Yes, had, had, had moved away and separated itself, but still looked an awful lot like Catholic Mass. Right. The Anglican Mass looked very similar. And the argument of Puritans was this. The Reformation of the English church had not gone deep enough to cut out these false traditions and these false beliefs, hence the need to purify the Church of England and hence the term puritan. 200 years later, you have a similar thing going on in America where you have these radical Protestant groups arguing that the now mainline Protestant churches of Presbyterianism and the Baptists and the Episcopalians, that they had not gone far enough in getting back to what Jesus had initially set up. And Alexander Campbell's movement is this Christian primitivist movement, meaning primitive, meaning getting back to the first. It's not about Alexander Campbell saying we want to draw on cave walls. It's or have a Samsung. It is Alexander Campbell saying we want to get back to literally only things that can be proved by the Holy Scriptures. It is absolutely just the Bible. So for instance, the word transubstantiation isn't in the Bible. So we're not going to accept that as a doctrine because it's not in the Bible. Luther had maintained the doctrine of transubstantiation. And I guess I should say transubstantiation is this the belief that when the priest blesses the bread and, and the wine for the Holy Communion, for the Lord's Supper, that a transformation is actually made in the bread, that it literally becomes the body and then the wine, the blood of Christ. That that process, that miracle, is called transubstantiation. It had been Catholic, Catholic doctrine forever. Luther maintains transubstantiation as a doctrine in his early church. Now, of course, there are others like Ulrich Zwingli who are like, what, are you kidding me? No, this is not, this is not literal. This is just, it's. It's symbolic, but Luther believes he's backed up by Scripture. Jesus doesn't actually say, take, eat. This is a symbolic gesture reminding you that my body was broken for you. That's not what the scriptures say. The scriptures say, take, eat. This is my body. And so Luther is going to take it very literally in that regard and say transubstantiation, while obviously perverted and not done the right way or taught the right way by the Catholic Church, is a true doctrine. Other reformers are going to disagree. And so Joseph is living in the midst of this renewed Protestant zeal where existing Protestant churches actually are dealing with, you know, old light, you know, Presbyterians who are kind of maintaining this older traditional view and new light. Presbyterians who are arguing for a more radical view of their already existing doctrines. One of the things that, that is easy for Protestants to take aim at is the books of the Apocrypha. You're wondering, when is he ever going to get back to it? Well, this is where I'm getting back to it. After the townships, after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, we are now back to it. There are multiple Protestant theologians in Joseph Smith's time that are arguing strenuously that the Apocrypha is not scripture. They are angry that it has been included in the King James Bible. And in fact, in England in the 1820s, this is such a big argument that multiple Presbyterian churches refuse to take part in the British and Foreign Bible Society, which was this, this group that was trying to print Bibles, to print them and distribute them all over the world. Multiple Presbyterian churches withhold their funds, refuse to be a part of it anymore because the apocrypha is in the King James Bible that they're publishing. Now. The Apocrypha has been in the King James Bible since it was published. So for, for 200 years, every single King James Bible has the Apocrypha in it. These Protestants were holding these books, never should have been in the Bible. And so they actually demand that it be taken out. Seeing that this rift was going the wrong way, the British and Foreign Bible Society makes that decision. We're going to take the Apocrypha out. So the American and Foreign Bible Society, which, you know, basically just a branch of their, their, their British cousins, essentially.
- [49:45]
B
Yeah, I've always thought that they were a weak organization. Yeah, well, just bowed to the.
- [49:50]
A
Yeah, they were the bell and the dragon of their day. Right. But no, the American Foreign Bible Society, they kind of see the writing on the wall, this movement to, to, of, of, you know, frankly, Anti Catholicism is, is gaining even much more steam in the highly, much more evangelical place of the United States, especially in the burned over district and in the upper, the upper Midwest which is, is the most religious part of the country in Joseph Smith's time. And so the American Bible Society makes the determination that they are no longer going to print and distribute Bibles in 1828. They are no longer going after that date. They're no longer going to print and distribute Bibles that have the Apocrypha in them. Joseph Smith's Finney Bible that he has just so happens to be published when in 1828 he actually the Bible he's using is one of the last years that Bible producers of the King James Bible in America are going to include the apocrypha because after 1828 it is seen as this Catholic interlocation. They've gone far beyond where Martin Luther was. Martin Luther was that these are not to be held equal to the Holy Scripture. Yet they're profitable and good to read. Let me give you an idea of where Protestant theologians are at the time of Joseph Smith. There's one Calvinist theologian by the name of William Craig Brownlee. He, you know, he is a someone who is very willing to condemn others for not believing the right things and he makes a concerted attack on Catholicism. And part of what he attacks Catholicism for is for having chosen change the Holy Scriptures because you included in the Bible these books of the Apocrypha which were clearly never in the Hebrew Bible. Apparently William Craig Brownlee doesn't actually want to know how many days Daniel was in the lion's den or how he caused the dragon to explode. Here's Brownlee talking about the Apocrypha and its Catholic believers. These books bound up in some of our Bibles, your priests with an affection of gravity impose on their simple flocks as the word of God. This I call unceremoniously uttering a falsehood in the name and under the very eye of the Almighty. The Apocrypha's writers were not sent of God. They nowhere affirm this. Their writings have none of the evidence of their divine mission as prophets. They abound with puerility, filthiness, errors and glaring contradictions. Ludicrous error is the only cause and reason of this book being admitted into the canon. Well, how does William Brownlee actually feel about the Apocrypha? If only he would be upfront in what he. So you can see you've moved. The radicalism of Protestantism have shifted to the point where Luther was radical just in putting those books of the Apocrypha together and making the statement these are not equal to the Holy Scriptures. Brownlee is arguing these are lies. These are lies that should never have been included in the Scripture that were foisted upon people by the horrifically corrupt Catholic Church. And so what does that, what does that mean? Protestants who are still using the Apocrypha are a continuation of these falsehoods being perpetuated. So in Joseph's time, the, the more you rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture, the more Protestant and non Catholic you were. It was like this kind of litmus test. I'm a, I'm a Protestant, I'm not a Catholic. Oh yeah. Do you believe in the Apocrypha? Well, I'm. Oh, not very Protestant. Are you? If you don't believe in, if you don't believe that, that is false.
- [54:08]
B
So this is interesting to me though, the, this because these are all Old Testament times or the majority of them. Right, so what's happening then when these books are being put in or not put in to where they're kind of putting this on the Catholic Church, I guess. In terms of the way that the Septuagint or the Old Testament is put together, how were these books even left out in the first place?
- [54:35]
A
Well, so that's the thing is that the Hebrew Bible is in existence obviously before the Septuagint. The Septuagint is this Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible 70 years before Jesus that in, that is in wide circulation in the Mediterranean world because Greek is the language spoken in the Mediterranean world. So the, the Septuagint is, is the common scripture that's in circulation in Jesus's time. The Septuagint includes those books. So the scripture scrolls that someone might have in Jesus's time is going to include these books, but they are clearly outside of the Hebrew Bible itself, which in its Hebrew form doesn't include those books and ends in Malachi. So you can see the kind of, the kind of, there's a disconnect there. These books have always been circulating in our scriptures that we have. But if we go back to the original Hebrew Bible, they aren't in there. They are only added later when there's a Greek translation of these other books that are in circulation. So I would guess that it is similar to the kind of discussions that arise in Latter day Saint circles with the removal of the Lectures on Faith from the Doctrine and Covenants. The Lectures on Faith were in the Doctrine and covenants from 1835 until 1921. Your actual scriptures that you had, the ones you carried to church with, you had the lectures on faith as the whole first part of the Doctrine and Covenants. Well, they're not in there anymore, right? Because in 1921, they're taken out. So. So why are they taken out? Well, I think the argument is made that while these lectures, you know, have some cool principles in them, the rest of the Doctrine and Covenants are literally revelations from God to Joseph Smith, which the lectures on faith don't even claim to be. Right?
- [56:48]
B
Just teachings.
- [56:49]
A
They're just teachings that were part of essentially, you know, the school. The prophets are the Sunday school there in Kirtland. So, you know, even when they're introduced in the original Doctrine and Covenants, there is a div. That's where the term doctrine comes from. In Doctrine and Covenants, the. The doctrine part was. Here are the teachings that are helpful to us to study. The covenants part is the revelations. Well, you know, you. You could see how there might be a problem, even though they're removed from the Doctrine and Covenants. Now, what do you have for Latter Day Saints? This ongoing question, which is very much lessened over the course of the past several years, unless you're someone with a YouTube channel trying to predict the end of the world. But, but in the early days following the end of, of the lectures on faith being in the Doctrine Covenants, there, there was a great question of. So does this mean that these lectures are somehow less accurate because they were in the Scriptures and now they're not. So we have our own little discussions about what is and isn't included in the Scriptures. But now if you were to magnify that by 1500 years, think about that. I mean, if the Articles of Faith, which are canonized, which are part of the Pearl of great price, they are in our scriptures. Let's say 200 years from now, the leaders of the church were like, you know, the articles of faith are. They're, you know, they're fine, but we believe so much more beyond that. Let's, let's take that out because I feel like we're focusing way too much on those. When we believe in things like work for the dead and temple work. And that's not in there, right? And maybe they come up with a new statement. This is all hypothetical. I'm not advocating this, nor am I saying this is going to happen. That's the caveat that I was like, no, I heard it on the podcast. He said that he's against the Articles. I am not. Oh, my goodness, I can't even give hypotheticals because we're like, oh, yeah, the reason why he's giving that hypothetical is because he is. No, that's not the case. But the point being, how difficult would that reaction be to people at the time? And even if the Church said, we still believe in the Articles of Faith, the Articles of Faith are still true. They are still part of the Wentworth Letter. The very act of removing them from the Scriptures would be. Would then engender all kinds of dispute. Do I still quote from. Are they still really the first principles of the Gospel? I mean, this kind of, this kind of discussion, this is all hypothetical. But for the Christians in Joseph Smith's time, it's not hypothetical. Every major Protestant theologian essentially is advocating that the Apocrypha at best should not be considered the same as the rest of the Scriptures, but there it is in the Scriptures. And at worst, that it's a Catholic lie developed to try to perpetrate false and heretical doctrines.
- [59:41]
B
I still understand the Catholic lie part. If it's 70 years before Jesus is when these things are making their way into the Septuagint.
- [59:48]
A
Well, yeah, so the Catholics saw that certain aspects of these books that they knew weren't in the Hebrew Bible could be used to perpetrate some of their false doctrines, such as purgatory. Right. And then included them in the Scriptures. Okay, so it is part of. I mean, you're always fighting the last war. Right. And for Protestants, one of their primary points of target against the Catholic Church is purgatory, because purgatory itself is. Is the greatest anathema there is to the idea of salvation by grace. If there's a place you have to go to have your sins burned out of you while you await going to heaven, then what is that saying? That your sins, your actions, your works is a determining factor and you're going to heaven.
- [60:41]
B
And I understand what you said earlier in the podcast as it relates to this idea of. That this was one of the linchpins. Purgatory is one of the linchpins that really causes the Reformation even happen in the first place. But I, Yeah, I guess I suppose that that makes sense, but it seems like they're throwing the baby out with the Purgatory water.
- [60:58]
A
Well, if. If you are trying to prove that you are less Catholic than the other Protestants you're arguing against, it's a very. Protestants attack each other for this in newspapers. They'll say things like, oh, oh, brother, so and so wants us to believe that he's a biblical Christian, but in fact, he was preaching from the Apocrypha two weeks ago. How could he. So, again, it's this weird thing, because almost every Bible in America that every American actually owns, like Joseph Smith, has the Apocrypha in it, but the rhetoric of all of the preachers is that it shouldn't be in there. We're taking it out of there. We're not going to print it in there. And as you might know, unless you happen to have a family Bible from 1827, every latter day Saint listening to me can go grab their King James Bible. And there isn't an Apocrypha in it because after 1828, the King James Bible was published in America. Now, are there exceptions? Of course there are exceptions. Someone's going to write to me. Actually, in 1856, I know there were still ones. But in general, the distribution of the King James Bible throughout the United States after 1828 is not going to include the Apocrypha. So there's a literal de canonization of it started with the process of Martin Luther saying, hey, this isn't equal to scripture. To wolf any. Equal to scripture. Get it out of the scripture. So where does that leave Latter Day Saints? And I'm gonna. I'm gonna leave you on a cliffhanger because we're gonna talk about where it leaves Latter Day Saints next week in the podcast. So please join us then and we'll continue this discussion of the Apocrypha, riveting as it is in our next podcast. Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmont and Dr. Richard Leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.