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- [00:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith, expertise and humor.
- [00:29]
Foreign. Hi, welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I'm joined by my friend, Dr. Richard Leduc.
- [00:47]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Hello, Garrett. You know, here, the Standard of Truth podcast, we like to lead with our mistakes and.
- [00:54]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, look, if we always led with our mistakes, the podcast would just be us saying what we've done wrong.
- [01:00]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Mistakes. Oklahoma State has already reached out to me and has tried to claw back my. Recently, I don't know that it was earned so much as I wore down my committee.
- [01:15]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, very good.
- [01:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But they're trying to claw it back. We had a discussion about a fairly serious topic I felt about the situation with Rolf at the end of the Sound of Music.
- [01:33]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yes.
- [01:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And super friend of the show, the entire Cutler family, when they're not giving birth to children and writing to us.
- [01:46]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
While they're giving birth. Look, lots of people give birth.
- [01:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Anyone.
- [01:51]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, not anyone. I mean, not anyone can give birth, but lots of people give birth. But only the Cutler family has the distinction of writing to us while they're in labor.
- [02:08]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Sure. And we received a fairly aggressive response. I felt it was aggressive from the Cutlers about Rolf and about kind of his situation. And I based. I think, again, it's important to say for the record that here at the Standard Truth podcast we take a fairly hard stance against Nazis. I feel like it's important to get that on the record.
- [02:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So, I mean, we come from backgrounds where you're Jewish.
- [02:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Right.
- [02:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And I'm part Jewish and my dad was born in Nazi occupied Holland and his. His dad fought in the resistance. So, yeah, Nazis are not. I mean, this is. We're gonna lose some listeners. But. But we are. The show is not a fan of Nazis.
- [02:57]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We've generally lost. We've lost an entire. What I assume is a compound in northern Idaho.
- [03:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [03:04]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But so anyway, the issue is, is that Garrett and I. I'll speak to myself. I didn't know that the play was different than the movie or that the play came out before the movie.
- [03:17]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I mean, I've watched the movie dozens of times and I always assumed that the movie came from the play.
- [03:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes.
- [03:24]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So it wasn't like, oh, I didn't know there was a play. Of course I knew there was a play, but I had no idea that there were some creative and artistic liberties taken with the film.
- [03:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So I didn't know there was a play, actually. I didn't know that any plays actually existed ever. My wife. My wife, by the way, we went to the, the Centerville Theater production of the Sound of Music, which was spectacular, by the way. They did. They did a tremendous job.
- [03:55]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
They're, you know, Mother Superior.
- [03:58]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Oh, she could belt it out.
- [03:59]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, she is. You should go. Just to hear her sing.
- [04:06]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah. Very talented. Very well done. Anyway, so apparently the Broadway musical premiered in 1959, and then the movie came out in 1960. 1965. And so in the movie, Rolf, you know, he's. He isn't going to blow the whistle. You know, Captain von Trapp, for people.
- [04:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Who haven't ever seen or heard of this at all, first of all, what have you been doing culturally?
- [04:38]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So there's a.
- [04:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You haven't ever watched the Sound of Music. I mean, so. So contextually, if you haven't, or just as a refresher, there's a family in Austria that's anti Nazi, but they're trying to be pressured. The dad's trying to be pressured into serving for, for the Third Reich. And the whole family is, you know, stuck in this where everyone around them is now a Nazi. And the oldest girl of the family, Liesliesel, has a pre existing loving relationship with. With Rolf, who is a good year older than her, as he reminds her.
- [05:19]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And 17, going on 18, and she's 16.
- [05:24]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He's. He's much wiser. I felt like he was like me saying that I know more about marriage because I've been married one day more than I will say there is.
- [05:33]
Dr. Richard Leduc
There's one thing. So I'm sitting next to Garrett in this play, and we're at this. We're at the part where they're talking a little bit about the military, military history of Captain von Trapped. And Garrett is then reverse engineering what he must have served in and when he must have served in World War I and what part of the world he likely would have served in. And now they no longer had a coastline. And it was very funny.
- [06:00]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, I mean, he said that he was appointed by Maria Theresa, so that had to be the Austria Hungarian Empire.
- [06:05]
Dr. Richard Leduc
They're singing and he's whispering in my ear all of this stuff.
- [06:09]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It's true. It was a little less romantic. I mean, I look over at Angie, she's crying because it's so beautiful. And I'm talking to Rich about. So in 1919, they disband the Austro Hungarian Empire. And we're not kidding.
- [06:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That's exactly what he did.
- [06:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I'm not a good person to watch shows with or to listen to podcasts of.
- [06:31]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Of. Anyway, so sorry I cut you off.
- [06:37]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That they're getting. They're trying to hide. They're trying to sneak out of the country, get to Switzerland. And Rolf, who's part of the now Hitler Youth, is one of the people searching for them because he's been ordered to. And in the movie, Ral finds them, and Captain von Trapp tries to, like, say, hey, you know, you're not one of them.
- [06:58]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Not one of them.
- [06:59]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. Essentially borrowing a line from, you know, judgment at Nuremberg. And Rolf blows his whistle, alerting the other Nazis where this. And it's a devastating thing, right? Because, you know, Rolf loves Liesl, and he's chosen Nazi ideology over the woman he loves and this family that's been nice to him because that's how powerful that y'all. That's how it's portrayed in the movie, right?
- [07:28]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He got the whistle at a Nazi sleepaway camp at a Hitler Youth. You know, you're gonna. You're gonna cherish that whistle. So. So then in the. In the play, that's not what happens. And so. So, Garrett, I. I pulled up the original play script, what people listen to.
- [07:45]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
This podcast for, right?
- [07:47]
Dr. Richard Leduc
For scripts from night from November 16, 1959, for a movie that many of the young people haven't even. Haven't even heard of.
- [07:56]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So all of the missionaries listening are like, what are you talking about?
- [08:01]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Now? I'm going to. I'm going to read this with all of the dramatic effect that I read the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag.
- [08:08]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I really should. I. I really should take another part of the script and read the other part as you do it. We'll have a table read right here.
- [08:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay. Do you want to be Rolf or the Lieutenant?
- [08:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
No, just go ahead.
- [08:19]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay. Rolf enters, dressed in SS uniform. He. He plays a flashlight across the stage. The light first reveals Maria. The captain starts toward Rolfe. Rolf flashes the light on the captain's face, at the same time drawing his pistol. The captain stops short. Rolfe calling over his shoulder, lieutenant. As Rolf's head turns back, his flashlight beams directly on the face of Liesel. Here is a hushed moment as she looks pleadingly at Rolf. For a moment, we hear the Lieutenant's footsteps as he approaches. The sound draws nearer and nearer. Suddenly, Rolf turns and calls for the door. No One out here, sir. LIEUTENANT VOICE OFFSTAGE all right, come along. The sound of footsteps now indicates the Lieutenant has turned and is walking away. Rolf takes one last look at Liesel, then exits quickly, slamming the door behind him. Liesl runs into her father's arms with a sob.
- [09:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And it, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty emotional. It's pretty breathtaking. Yeah, but we've been badmouthing Rolf for, for. For four decades.
- [09:32]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Since I was a wee lad on my mother's knee, I was like, you.
- [09:37]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Know, that Nazi, Rolf, how dare he? And, and I didn't know because I'd never seen the play. I knew the play existed, but I'd never gone to it. I'd never, I'd never seen.
- [09:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I've never heard of the play, didn't know it existed.
- [09:52]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I mean, I'd seen it, like advertised places and stuff, but never attended it. And so I didn't know that in the original, Rolf chooses love over Nazi ideology. And in the play he is actually good because in the movie he's the person you hate most. I mean, obviously you hate the Nazis, like the full Nazis most.
- [10:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, Hitler's not in the movie, so I just channel it all to Rolf.
- [10:24]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah, Rolf is the one. But, you know, it was powerful in the movie, if you haven't seen the movie, because it demonstrated how powerful this evil ideology was when Rolf chooses the ideology over love over the people he loves. And that was powerful and it made you bitter towards Ralph. In the actual play, it works the other way. It's much more optimistic. Rolf chooses love over the ideology. And so anyway, we, we have to, we have to say we're sorry that we thought Ralph was a Nazi, incidentally.
- [11:05]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, he is a Nazi.
- [11:06]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, that he was. Well, that he, that he, that he threw them to the wolves. Yeah, clearly everyone is going to end up being a Nazi. But in Austria after the Onschluss, it also brought to mind the fact that there's a real cool thing that's going on with the journal that I edit and publish. It's called Latter Day Saint Historical Studies. It's published by the Ensign Peak Foundation. So the Enzyme Peak foundation used to be called the Mormon Historic Sites foundation and then know, kind of made a name change as if a prophet indicated that we should. And it helps the church acquire places with private donors and private funding to preserve Latter Day Saint history. But it also publishes this academic journal. Well, one, someone has submitted an article to be published in our journal that is. It's pretty awesome. So look, I don't know if you read any academic journals, but if you've ever subscribed one, now's the time. I'm gonna have Richard actually put into the description the link to subscribe to this.
- [12:11]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I've copied it and I've put it in the write up already. And so here it is. It's ready to go.
- [12:16]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, we met, I talked to Joe the other day, big friend of the show. He said, you know that almost every time Richard says he's going to put it in there, it's not really there. And he said, you know, I laughed really, really hard listening the other day because this time you told Richard to put it in and he said we all know that I'm not going to. And so I laughed so hard because he was just admitting that it's not going to happen. But anyway, so anyway, in this journal what we're publishing is for the first time ever a researcher got hold of the Nazi secret police file on Mormons in pre war Germany. Now this kind of matters because in the larger historical field there have been some people that have tried to be very critical to say, well Mormons were collaborators with Nazis. And what you find in these secret police files is that they are sending informants and actual police officers to Latter Day Saint church meetings. They are not happy. They are referring them to the various ministries to have them banned like other religions are. Now of course Latter Day Saints talk an awful lot about the House of Israel and restoring Israel. Not a huge, not a way to win friends and influence people in Hitler's Germany. But it's very fascinating. We have both the original German and then a translation of everything. But you know, at one point one of the, one of the, the people who's deriding the Mormons claims that you know, their leader Heber J. Grant is the biggest Jew anyone ever knew. Isn't. But I mean, hey, there you go. They're throwing it around anyway, so if you have, if, if you get a chance, if you have a little, you could subscribe to the journal following that link and I think you will be well rewarded that that article is gonna, that issue is going to come out here in a, in a month, month or so and it will, it will be the first time that these secret Nazi files have been published. So speaking of Rolf and you know, I just went right into Nazism. So now that we spent some time on that, let's talk about something else.
- [14:33]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes, yes, yes, let's get in.
- [14:36]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Not everything we talk about on the show is Nazis, if people are wondering.
- [14:41]
Dr. Richard Leduc
True. So now let's see. The Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag leads us into a couple of things. There's. There is kind of a, a potpourri of items that we need to discuss here. So I too am a doctor, not a medical physician. So to Dr. Dirkmod and Dr. Leduc, I would love an in depth, cordial introduction. And then it's doctor, doctor, doctor 62 times. It's a good introduction. Now that we've introduced ourselves so well, I must say that I love the podcast. I came late to the game and binge listened to all the podcasts over the last month, including the premium ones.
- [15:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Whoa. Well, over the last month. Yeah.
- [15:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That's incredible.
- [15:21]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
There's like 370 episodes, aren't there?
- [15:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, there is. I assume he listened to them from a padded cell or some sort.
- [15:31]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Are you in the back of Rocky's car? Like, I can only assume. I can only assume that you're listening to it on eight times speed.
- [15:44]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We're best on eight times speed, by the way.
- [15:46]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, yeah. As you're. As you've all found out with this.
- [15:48]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Episode, I had a particularly weak moment late one night and in and out of sleep with visions of gangrenous antelope in my head. When I came to, I had paid for the premium content. We're very sorry for that. I have loved learning and strengthening my testimony through your incredible efforts to produce these podcasts and want to thank you so much. I lived in the Kirtland stake during the mid to late 90s and learned to to absolutely love the area and the history there. I was good friends with Carl Anderson's son and was grateful for the opportunity to learn a bit from Carl, but still lack so much. I was blessed with a believing heart and have never questioned the restored gospel, even when I would hear all the anti Mormon rhetoric. I bet there's a pretty, pretty sizable.
- [16:35]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Amount in that in the Kirtland area. There's no history of anti Mormonism in the Kirtland area. That's surprising. Surprising to me.
- [16:43]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It is funny. I remember I came across a pamphlet on my mission where some pastor was saying, just because we argue with what Mormons believe don't make us anti Mormon. And it's like, well, anti Mormon was the name of the organization, for heaven's sakes.
- [17:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You called yourself that? Yeah. I mean, your regular Baptist isn't an anti Mormon, but if you hand me out a pamphlet called Published by the Anti Mormon Committee of Kirtland, I mean I guess that's what we'll call you. I mean, you've made a decision.
- [17:21]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I always felt there had to be better explanations and feelings of the anti material always came across so over emotional and in your face that it seemed, well, kind of stupid to me. To put it bluntly. Even though I didn't have any better reasoning, my testimony was sufficient for me. Now you've helped me back up my testimony with some knowledge and skills. And by the way, we recommend that you do binge all 370something episodes in a month. That is the best way.
- [17:50]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. For those of you who are like, I don't know if I like this podcast. Well, are you 300 episodes in yet?
- [17:57]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Thank you. Thank you. That's hilarious. If you're only 200 episodes in, I.
- [18:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Mean, I mean it's. You've got to want it. You've got to want it. It is. If you're a new listener, it is good to go back to the beginning and start from the beginning just because then you'll get a lot more of the inside jokes. But also a lot of times we'll have people email like hey, have you ever covered this? Like yeah, we covered it like three times already but it's just not this year.
- [18:18]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I hope to go on a tour with you, but it sounds like you're probably taking reservations for your 2038 tours since it's so popular. We do hope to get the 2026 dates up there in the next week or two so that people can start signing up for that.
- [18:33]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We've had a lot of people request so know if you are planning to do it. We'll get it up there in a couple weeks and they'll both be in June. So yes, think of, think of, think of June 2026.
- [18:46]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes, think of me, think of me fondly as, as we try to manage our kids going and coming back from missions.
- [18:52]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [18:52]
Dr. Richard Leduc
As we try to thread that needle, if that's what it takes. I'll pack my walker and denture cream when the time comes and be on my way. My son is presently serving a mission in Anaheim, California. Mission, which is a great mission. People would live in my mission and then go visit that mission because it was a fun mission as I just received a very loud ding. I apologize for that. For my phone. Thousand apologies, Garrett.
- [19:17]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I didn't even hear it.
- [19:19]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Oh, very good. What excellent microphones that we must have. So he gives the missionaries email and we're going to, we're going to send that over. That actually leads us perfectly Garrett, into the missionary challenge that we had for the month of March. Now, this is coming out near the end of April as we are announcing these. So that's. It's on brand perfect. Yes, it is. So there are a couple of fun things. We received over 188 missionary requests in the last month for access to the premium. I think we're. We're pretty close to, I don't know, crud, 1500 or so missionaries. It's. It's a lot of fun. We get a lot of emails from missionaries every day. It's a. It's a blast.
- [20:09]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I like the emails we get from missionaries where they say there's like.
- [20:12]
Dr. Richard Leduc
They're hilarious.
- [20:12]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Hey, my mom said I should email this and get the podcast. I don't really want to listen, but I told her that I would send an email. So much like other teenagers you've met.
- [20:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes, quite. It's funny. My son is, you know, he's turning of age to where he's going to be a senior next year and trying to get him to listen to the podcasts. Missionary prep. It's a funny thing. Like, you know, some people, Very kind people to support the podcast, pay for the premium. I think I'm going to have to turn out paying for my son to get him to listen. I think it's a reverse kind of a situation, but whatever it takes. He did actually listen to an episode. He listened to the. The Chat GPT versus Standard of Truth podcast the other day. He actually loved that one. Garrett, so kudos to you.
- [21:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I finally broken the wall.
- [21:04]
Dr. Richard Leduc
You have. It's incredible. It's hip to the kids now. So I have the top 10 missionaries. I should go backward from. From 10 to 1, right?
- [21:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. So just to recap, we. We did Missionary madness, where we said we were going to do a contest of missions to see who in the month of March could send us the most requests to be added to the. To the podcast. And so this is the results, and I'm going to apologize right now to Riker. You already knew this was rigged before we started.
- [21:33]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, we. We had 120 missionaries from that mission. And then we started the contest.
- [21:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, we started the contest after his entire mission added.
- [21:43]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, it's Great. So number 10, Panama. Panama. Mission. Number nine, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Number eight, Gilbert, Arizona. Number seven, Florida. Tallahassee. Number six, Fiji.
- [22:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And we have. We have a great elder in my ward there in. Well, actually, he's in TDs, but. Yeah.
- [22:10]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Number five, Lisbon, Portugal. Number four, Texas. Houston East.
- [22:16]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay.
- [22:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Number three, Albania.
- [22:21]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Wow.
- [22:22]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah.
- [22:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
This is how we found out that we had missionaries in Albania.
- [22:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We are blowing up. Blown up in Albania. Number two, Arizona, Tucson. And number one. Number one, by a lot, actually. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Mission.
- [22:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Mission shows up. Now, I realize, Riker, there's an asterisk. I get it. That you're. You don't even have anyone left to add. So there's an asterisk that, yes, you would have won the February contest, but you came in second on this one, so try harder.
- [22:58]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It's very good. Anyway, so it's very fun. I don't know that we ever promised any prizes ever for that, so. But. But if missionaries from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, mission would like to kind of craft some sort of prize, please do let us know and we can. We can come up with something like that. And. And speaking of prizes, Garrett, we also had the. The. The.
- [23:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
The March Madness brackets. Yeah, we did.
- [23:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We had.
- [23:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
How many people participate? We had well over 100 people participate.
- [23:29]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, just. Just under 200 people that participated, which is kind of fun because we kind of threw it together in like a week and a half. And so that was. That was really good. I came in 27th. Pretty proud of that.
- [23:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, Richard and I were actually tied for eighth and ninth going into the final game. Yeah, we did good. But we didn't know that Houston would collapse the way that they did in the last five minutes.
- [23:53]
Dr. Richard Leduc
If Houston won, I think I would have been. I think it would have been second if Houston would have won. But if, you know, if wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry. And if biscuits we eat till we die.
- [24:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, so instead of Richard wearing laurels, instead it was.
- [24:09]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, so first email. This comes to us from Jeff. Subject Faithless loser is the name of leduc's bracket next March. Love the podcast. Now, that's how you get your email read on the podcast. Make it essentially a sentence so that I can read it. Thank you, Jeff. Now, so the winner. The winner was Richard. Not me.
- [24:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
A better Richard.
- [24:35]
Dr. Richard Leduc
A much better Richard. Dear Dr. Dirk Mott and Dr. Leduc, do not be confused by the honorifics I have deigned to concede to you, for it is I the one true winner of the standard of truth bracket challenge is proof. I have attached the screenshots from the app. You may be asking how I managed to win such a competitive. Your brackets notwithstanding, group, I cannot give away all my secrets, except to say that I certainly didn't heed your advice.
- [25:09]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Wow, it's coming in hot.
- [25:10]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Very well done. The Request is to give his mother access to the premium, which I will do post haste. And so there you go.
- [25:25]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
There's your victory.
- [25:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
There's your victory. And congratulations to Richard. It sounds like I'm making it up and just giving my mom access to the premium, which I am.
- [25:37]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, she wouldn't listen.
- [25:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No, she does, actually.
- [25:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
She listens.
- [25:40]
Dr. Richard Leduc
She listens every week. Yeah. Oh, but she's got to pay, so. I'm just kidding. So anyway, congratulations, Richard. That's very, very well done. So now on to the Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag. Right.
- [25:55]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay.
- [25:56]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay. Hello, Dr. Dirkmaat and Dr. Leduc. I just finished listening to the latest episode of the free podcast and I would like to elaborate to something for me, one of the emails you read involved. Oh, wait, this is actually the question getting into actually the content of what we wanted to talk about. And so this email comes to us from Dave, I believe. Right. But I just want to make sure we had everything. There was one other thing I wanted to mention about the Sweetwater rescue thing. We were going to loop that into the Nazis because we were trying to.
- [26:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Escape from Austria to Switzerland. You were going to escape from Lithuania to Finland.
- [26:45]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes.
- [26:46]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Which is similar, only over water.
- [26:49]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So we have, we had talked about. And by the way, the donations have been just ridiculous and the listeners to the podcast are just the kindest and sweetest people in the world. And so a couple of. Well, almost a year ago now we took a trip to Peru and we talked a little bit about that. Taken118 people from Puno, Peru to the Arequipa Temple to do some temple work there. And then we, we talked kind of at length about taking a few people from Rio Gallegos to Buenos Aires Temple and, and what an incredible experience that was. We, we set up a nonprofit organization called Sweetwater Rescue where essentially the, the purpose is to help in logistics and fundraising for folks that live a fair distance away from a temple to lead a big group to the temple. The church has the temple patron fund and that is for first time people to go for ceilings or to go for their own endowments. Each of those funds are managed by area presidencies and every different area manages those things differently. So we work with local leadership, district presidents, stake presidents, bishops, mission presidents to be able. And Area 70 to be able to kind of put these things together to help folks get to the temple. Anyway, that's the long explanation to that. We are looking at a couple of different places where we're going to go. We talked about Cambodia, but we're waiting on that temple being completed before we kind of move forward. And we. We had some folks reach out to us from Lithuania and helping the saints get from Lithuania up to the Finland Helsinki temple, which is. Which is their temple. And it's been awesome. We've been working with them now for several months to kind of organize this, and now we're kind of in a spot where we can kind of start fundraising efforts and so wanted to make people aware of that. It's. Lithuania is a. It's a. It's a tough. It's a tough place. And if you served your mission there or you're from there, you, you, you know, it is. It can be a difficult, hard place. And President Risi is the district president there, and he's a great, great guy. And they had a goal to get 10% of Lithuania to the temple. That. That was their goal. And a person with much more faith than me. I like a good plan. Garrett. Faith isn't really my forte. My wife has faith, and I have faith generally, you know, yeah. You know, not also give me the schedule kind of right. Like, I like a good strategy, good plan, good spreadsheet. But one of the people that's on our. On our board, we're in the meeting with. With President Risi, and, And she said, because they. They were concerned, one of their problems was, is that they wanted to do this big temple trip and they started promoting it, and they only had 15 people that wanted to go to the temple. And there's about a thousand saints in Lithuania. And there was a. There's a lot of inactive saints in Lithuania. And again, it's a hard. It's a hard life for many folks. And so President Risi and others were frustrated at, you know, hey, we're trying to put this big thing together. Argentina, it was. How can we possibly take everybody. Everyone wanted to go. And Lithuania was the opposite issue. Where it was, people didn't want to or couldn't or whatever. And so the initial interest for the first couple of months was 15 people. And my friend, she said, you know, we've. We've now done this several times, and we have seen miracles, and we're going to see miracles, and it's going to be. It's going to be incredible. And so anyway, we had a. We had a meeting on Sunday, this just a couple days ago, and in that meeting, we're now up to 85 people that can and want to come to the temple. Our goal is 10%, which is 100 Lithuanian saints. One of the things that's been really cool, Garrett. So this one's a little bit different. Jeff, who served his mission in Lithuania, who's been helping us with a lot of this, he started putting together a list of people that have served there as missionaries. And because that's a great group to hit up is, you know, to, to donate. And so the cost, by the way, is about 250 bucks to take one person because it's a, it's a 14 hour bus, ferry bus from Lithuania on all the different branches up to the Helsinki temple. Anyway, he starts collecting all these missionaries, going into chat rooms and Facebook and whatever, different groups. And one of the coolest things starts happening. So people that served there 20 years ago, they hear about this and they start reaching out to the people that they taught or that they baptized or that they had these relationships with. And what started is really only is an attempt to try to collect people to, you know, hit up for money, as I am want to do. These people started reaching out to their friends that they have this close relationship with. And it has been awesome to see the excitement then that has built with the saints as they're remembering these experiences and these relationships. And when we talked with President Risi, he said, he said just on Sunday, so this general excitement of people going to the temple, people are now coming back to church and wouldn't you know it, that they're engaging with their friends in a way that they hadn't before. He said in our ward, we had six friends, or as Garrett and I would have called them, investigators in our branch. That's more people than we've had in a branch meeting in forever. It's just been, it's been awesome. So anyway, so we're going in August and our goal is to take everybody that wants to go. And so anyway, everyone was so kind in their donations before. We received $5, $10. I will say one of the things, and I'd mentioned this before, is that the coolest part about when we were in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was we're there with these wonderful saints and we were able to say that we received some very nice and very generous donations. And we also received many, many widow's mites. And we were able to say that we received hundreds of donations from all over the world of saints that don't know you but that love you and want for you to be able to, to be able to, to go to the temple. And so anyway, I get overly emotional at these things. It's just an incredible.
- [34:38]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It is beautiful. And you know, the Sweetwater Rescue itself was mentioned in conference last week. And. And that's exactly the same thing that happened. Brigham Young says, go out and help those people on the plains and. And those people who go out to help them and risk their own lives, that it's for people they don't know, it's for people they haven't met. It's for people for all they know, you know, this person's gonna be, you know, my arch nemesis in. In the. In the farming of beets eventually. But no, they. They sacrifice to go. And so we'll put the link there in the description. If anyone is willing and able to help get some other saints to the temple. We are very, very grateful for our listeners and their devotion to the gospel. And if you don't have the ability to contribute or don't want to, that's fine, too. But if you can, it's a miraculous work.
- [35:36]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It is now, Garrett. So we don't want to cut Dave out. We want to get to his email. Did you want to do any of the conference stuff or did you want to do the conference review sometime in June, maybe?
- [35:48]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Let's do Dave's email.
- [35:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay.
- [35:50]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Where we're at, if there's.
- [35:53]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That'd be a shame to not get to Dave's email.
- [35:55]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I would love the fact that we introduced Dave's email and then don't respond to it.
- [36:01]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That would be. Okay. That would be funny. Okay.
- [36:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We're not going to, though.
- [36:04]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We're going to try, Dave. We're going to get to it right now. I just finished listening to the latest episode of the free podcast and would like to think. Would like you to elaborate on something for me. One of the emails you read involved a question surrounding when Joseph Smith knew the Book of Mormon would be called the Book of Mormon. I'm sure the ensuing dialog was fascinating, but I must say I got caught up in what Dr. Dirkmaat said just before launching into his answer. Said. Said. He. This is actually a really good question. I love the.
- [36:35]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Actually, yeah.
- [36:36]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So many of the questions are garbage.
- [36:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
All the other questions are horrible.
- [36:40]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No, this is actually a good one. When people put actually as the. Is like, all right, okay. My wife does that when I have a good idea, actually.
- [36:49]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, that's not bad. I think. I think Richard's making me look worse than I already am.
- [36:55]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I didn't say it. He said it.
- [36:56]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, okay.
- [36:56]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He's saying, so, Dave. Dave's making you look worse. This is actually a really good question, which is why we decided to take some time on it. So my question to you is this. What constitutes a really good question? And then he has a question that you will.
- [37:14]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, he has several questions that he's, you know, kind of listed off of, you know, and then what does he say after that?
- [37:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, yes, so, so, but I mean, I'd love for you to address after I read this.
- [37:25]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
What.
- [37:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
What is a good question? Where did Martin Harris get all the money he eventually used to pay for the printing of the Book of Mormon? As a bonus, I stayed away from polygamy mostly because I don't care about it. I know that I'm already starting off at a disadvantage because I neither served a mission in Pittsburgh, normal women in labor, but if you could please see fit to let me know what you deem a good question, I will create my queries thusly.
- [37:51]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That's funny. Well, I mean, we'll answer your one question, but first, I mean, this is actually, you know, what constitutes. I mean, there's lots of really good questions. What, what separates a question that we read on the air and what doesn't? I mean, look, there, there are. Timing has a lot to do with it as well as other questions. And sometimes we've already prepped, like, we've gotten a question and we've prepped for it, and then, you know, someone sends in another question. We get a lot of really good questions. Some of them, their nature makes it harder to do in a. In a podcast. I mean, part of the reason why we don't do. While we only do focus topics on polygamy is if we were to do polygamy, it would be a 97 part series and that would only be like the first two years of it, you know, so, like, some things are so broad that I don't actually feel comfortable trying to do them in a podcast setting without it the entire episode becoming, you know, the entire podcast becoming that. I mean, we sometimes have people ask, well, do you ever address the arguments in the CES Letter? Well, yeah. Are you planning to do a podcast on that? No, we're not. I'm not planning on doing a podcast, just going point by point through the CS Letter because it would then become the standard of debunking the CES letter podcast because it would take 17, 18 episodes to go through every single one of them. Now, we cover lots of them individually, but we don't, we don't go through everyone like that in, in part. So Scope has a lot to do with it. What I'm an expert in has a lot to do with It, I mean, if you email me and say, hey, I want to know what you know about, you know, President Benson's dealings with the Carter administration. Well, I mean, that. I'm not your guy. I'm not. I'm not. That's not what I'm trained in. And so while there are current events that I will, I will reference and talk about that, the ones that reference the research that I've actually done are, obviously, they have a better chance of getting done. I mean, I don't know everything. In fact, I don't even know some things. And so questions that deal with a topic that's interesting to people, that I have some research in that I think I could probably give an answer to, and that won't take forever to answer. I know that's tough, because how do you know whether the question will take forever to answer? No one has any idea. But if you've said it a really good question, and you're like, well, why didn't he answer that one? There's a chance that it just got backlogged with a whole bunch of other questions because we get hundreds of emails a week. And also there's a chance that it's a topic that is so broad that, that I'm not ready to bite off that, you know, to that big of a chunk to try to. To try to cover it. But so, you know, that's a general thing. I mean, we get great questions that we could, we could eventually answer, but as I've said before, we get so many, I legitimately can't answer them all. Like, we had multiple questions I wanted to do today, and you can already see how far we are in, and we haven't covered very many of them. And so I'm sorry about that. Everybody who emails and says, well, he just doesn't like me. I mean, I'm sure if you met me, you wouldn't like me. But also, there's just so many, and it's hard to get through. But as to answering at least one of your questions, where does Martin Harris get the money? I mean, this is one of the great early sacrifices in the church. Martin Harris owns a farm in Palmyra, and It's well over 200 acres, but 80 acres of that property he has signed over to his wife. There's good indication that Martin Harris and his wife were not on the best of terms, that they didn't always see eye to eye, given the fact that her response to him having a copy of the characters from the Book of Mormon was to promise her Daughter to a suitor that she hated if he could steal it and make a copy of it. I'm no marriage therapist or counselor, but I'm going to go out on a whim and say there, this is not a healthy marriage. If, if you're, if you're bartering your daughter to someone you hate in order to win an argument in your marriage that I, I think that's a first principle of a good marriage.
- [42:27]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It's not. All right, I'm taking notes.
- [42:29]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay. Yeah. Lily will no longer be marrying. Yeah. So his, his daughter will no longer be married. So what? Our indication is that as early as 1825, they have concluded something called a jointure agreement. Now, this is not my research. This is research of my good friend and 19th century legal expert Jeff Walker, who spent decades of his life understanding the early legal issues of Joseph Smith and this time period. But they sign a jointure agreement, which is you. I mean, remember, people can't get a divorce back then. Divorce is almost impossible to get outside of proving adultery. And it was state by state. And so to us, it's a very simple thing like, oh, we don't like each other, we get separated, then we get divorced. But for them, divorce was very unlikely. And so sometimes in a pre separation agreement, what would happen is the woman's dowry interest, like the land she brought into the, to the marriage with her or land that she would be due if she would be able to get a divorce, it was legally separated out from her so that she would have that land in a separation. Well, here's the tricky part in gender bigoted 19th century America. In America, in, in the 19th century, a married woman could not own property outside of her husband. Now I'm waiting for all the gasps and anger to die down in the background. Probably there are people just wait. What? You know that. How dare. I mean, look, you don't have to look very far to find bigotry aimed at women in the early 19th century. They're not allowed to vote. They are not allowed to work in most professions. They are barred from most educational opportunities. They are not considered as reliable as far as, or as important as a witness on legal documents or in trials. And they are not allowed to own property separate from their husband. When a woman gets married, all of her property legally becomes the property of her husband. Even if she's bringing in 200 acres and he has 10 acres, it's all now his property. So if he were to deed property to her directly, it would be the same thing as deeding Property to himself. Which seems like someone's probably pulled that trick. Like, oh no, I'll help you out, dear. Here's 200 acres, right to you. And legally it would still all be his because she can't own property. Independent. It actually causes many women after their husband dies to not want to remarry. Because when you see powerful independent women in the 19th century, it's because they have wealth that they control. Often obviously there's exceptions, but it's because they have wealth that they control because they're not married. So a woman can absolutely own property in her name if she's not married. So if she's a widow, she owns the 300 acres. If she gets married, she no Longer owns the 300 acres. And so in 1825, which is long before Martin Harris knows that Joseph Smith has seen an angel, at least we assume, they file an agreement that is going to separate out 80 acres of property from the farm that he has. That would be in her name. Well, how is he going to do that? Well, he's going to sign it over to her brother. So her brother essentially holds the property in his name, even though it's for her. Now they fill out that agreement in 1825, but they don't actually file the agreement. The years go by. Guess when they actually file it. Well, they file it in 1828 after Martin Harris has gotten all up and involved in believing that Joseph Smith has gold plates. After Martin Harris has already started promising that he's going to pay for the printing of the Book of Mormon. Suddenly this dormant document that had been signed as this kind of pre separation agreement gets filed. And 80 of those acres are now no longer Martin Harris's to do with as he will because they are residing. I mean it's not a trust, but essentially in trust through her brother who can then give grant it to her because, you know, he can give something to his sister. So he has some more acreage, but that, but that's a healthy portion of his farm. The remainder of his main farm is 151 acres. He does own some other smaller parts in town. So it's not like he doesn't own any other acreage. But the majority of his farm is 151 acres. You could actually go see where Martin Harris's farm was if you go to Palmyra. Where Martin Harris's home was is something that's accessible, although the home that's there now is a home that was later built. It's actually a beautiful home that has all this river Rock siding, but it was built years after Martin Harris left. He's going to sign over to Egbert Grandin, 151 acres. Now, we've been talking on the premium side of the content about Doctrine and Covenant Section 19. And that's in direct response apparently to the revelation. The revelation tells him to give up your lands, even everything for the printing of the Book of Mormon. Pay the debt thou hast contracted with the printer. And Martin Harris, who is a well off man, he is, he's not rich, he's not, he's not Rockefeller. I mean, he's not, he's not walking around, you know, you know, able to buy every single thing he sees. He's a well off farmer, he owns a considerable amount of property, he's done well with his investments, he is well off. But the cost of printing the Book of Mormon is 15 times the average American salary. $3,000 is a huge sum. And in fact it's the value of his main farm. The 151 acres that he has left is valued at $3,000. And so Martin Harris having received a commandment from God to give up all of his land if need be, except for that land that he doesn't control, which his wife controls, he does it. And so in August, August 25, we have the mortgage that Martin Harris signs. He signs a mortgage over to egbert Grannon for $3,000. All of that main farm that he has. Now, he has the ability to pay off the debt prior to it coming to fruition if he chooses, but he doesn't actually do that. And so Martin Harris is going to go from being a well off man. I don't want to say rich, but well off. I mean, he's approaching rich for the 19th century. And he's going to end up not being penniless, but he's going to end up no longer in the financial circumstances he had worked very hard in his life to achieve. The sacrifice of Martin Harris to get the Book of Mormon published is one of the things that we should venerate. I get it. Martin Harris has got 116 page problem. I get that he has, that he apostatizes. I get it. That he becomes a strang eye for a while. I get it. Martin Harris, like most of us, is a very flawed individual. But he's also, like most of us, a very flawed individual who means well. And it takes him a long time to get everything right. But he eventually does get everything right, both in the paying for the printing of the Book of Mormon and in returning to the church and coming to Utah. So I think we owe Martin Harris a great debt, but that's how he pays for it. Now, how is he going to make that money back? The idea behind it is, well, they're going to sell copies of the Book of Mormon. Martin Harris, I think. I don't want to say naively, but yes, really seemed to believe that if you. That the book would be so popular because. Because he believed in it so much, that. That it would sell really, really well and that he would make all of his money back. And we have an account from Joseph Knight where right after the books are published, Martin Harris meets Joseph in the streets of Palmyra, despondent because nobody will buy the books. If his plan was, you know, I'll get my money back eventually because people are going to buy the books. Well, no one's buying them. And there's hardly any believers. There's hardly any members of the church. Once the church is founded, a few weeks later. And so, you know, for a time, that money is just. It's just gone. Now, later in life, Martin Harris is going to be asked in an interview whether or not he ever made his money back paying for the printing of the Book of Mormon because he signs an agreement with Joseph Smith giving him the right to sell copies of the book until he earns his money back. And it's really hard for me to believe this. I said this on the premium episode. I almost don't believe it. But he at least says it. He says that he made all of his money back, that he didn't lose a penny on the paying for the printing. Given what I have seen, given what financial records we do have, it's really hard for me to believe that. But you know what? If it's not true, I'm going to be even more grateful for Martin Harris for telling that lie. If it's a lie. I mean, he at least is publicly representing that he made his money back, and I'm certain he made some of it back. Eventually the book becomes much more popular as you get thousands of more converts. And so maybe he did. He at least says that he did. I don't know whether or not he did. But his farm, his livelihood, and frankly, his marriage were all things that he put on the altar for the publication of the Book of Mormon. And I think that we certainly need to venerate him for that and maybe overlook the many, many sins and many, many mistakes, because what really matters is at the end of his life, Martin Harris was a Faithful member and bearing testimony of the Book of Mormon on his deathbed.
- [54:55]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It's great. Great question, Dave, and good answer, Garrett.
- [55:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That was greater than the needle on it there. We have a little bit of time. I wanted to cover one more topic. This I didn't prep Richard for, because I like to surprise Richard now. He does the same thing for me. He just occasionally surprises me. I mean, we could talk about conference if you want.
- [55:18]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No, no, no, we'll do conference. We'll do conference in May. I think that's what the people.
- [55:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
What if we did it in October?
- [55:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Give an April conference report. So I will say one of the things that I, I like to do. I've done some qualitative research, and there's some. There's some things that you do in qualitative research where you. You're interviewing and you're asking just more general questions and you go through and you do some of the coding on that to find kind of general themes. And so I applied that to General Conference, and just that explanation is insanely boring.
- [55:49]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, everyone just stopped listening. I. I can see our ticker. It's just dropping.
- [55:54]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But I do feel. I do feel like I think it'll be. It'll be fun. And I've got some questions for you that I will surprise you with on the next episode or whenever it is that we do it, if we ever do it at all.
- [56:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I'm sure we will at some point, but I had to surprise you first, I guess.
- [56:07]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes, please. Quite well.
- [56:08]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So this comes out of a conversation that I had with my son, and he had someone that they were trying to teach in Tucson, Arizona, which came in second in the missionary challenge only because all the missionaries were already signed.
- [56:27]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Up, by the way, only slightly ahead of Albania. Albania almost caught him. They beat Albania by one.
- [56:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Right. Because there's no missionaries left to sign up.
- [56:38]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Fair enough. But Albania, I think the main takeaway is Albania came strong.
- [56:42]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I feel like Albania did come strong. But anyway, he had someone say to him, well, you know, Joseph Smith was a false prophet. So already, in fact, when my son brought it up to me, he said, dad, I want to ask you a question, but I'm pretty sure it's going to get your dander up is what he said. I don't use that terminology in everyday life. So he's only quoting the podcast. And he said, well, we. We talked to somebody and he said, well, you know, Joseph Smith's a false prophet because he prophesied that. That Jesus would come when he was 85 years old, and he didn't come. And so I thought, okay, let. Let's go back. I mean, many of you are familiar with this because it's in the Doctrine Covenants. If you go to section 130.
- [57:30]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I got. I got hit with this several times on my mission, by the way. Oh, yeah, it seems like a very United States mission kind of anti. Thing. It seems. I don't know, I got it quite a few times.
- [57:43]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, so in the United States, it's a way to come after missionaries. You know, Joseph Smith said that. So look, if you go to doctrine covenant, section 130, which is a collection of teachings that Joseph Smith gives, this is what it says. I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following. Now, we actually had a conference talk on this, on the Second Coming that you could tell that kind of the gist of it was, yes, five wise virgins, five foolish versions. Yes, it's coming. Yes, it's close. Please stop believing that some guy in his basement is the person who knows when it's coming. Did you get that impression as well?
- [58:32]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, it's like, hey, when President Eyring reads a scripture and you're going seven verses down, he isn't trying to, like, you know, only for those that have ears to hear, you know, it's like, not a trick.
- [58:44]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
The best part about having a prophet is it doesn't have to be a trick. Like, for other people. They have to be like. So I counted out how many horns Daniel saw, and then I looked at how many wings the beast had in Revelation. And when you add those together, what you come up with is a date that is completely irrational. But I found a way to make it seem like tomorrow's the Second Coming. I mean, we don't have to do that. Like, I get it why your average evangelical Christian does that. Because they know Jesus is coming, and the only thing they have to rely on is the Bible. And they can't believe something as important as Jesus's coming isn't in the Bible, Although they seem to be totally fine with. There's all kinds of other things that aren't in the Bible. Like, I don't know, that polygamy is a sin, that there will never be any more revelation, that there'll be no ministering of angels. I mean, none of that's in the Bible. But seems like we take that pretty. People take that pretty solid. No, no, I know that that is. Anyway, so I was once praying Very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man. I heard a voice repeat the following. Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art 85 years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man. Therefore, let this suffice and trouble me no more on this matter. Oh, okay. So you can see why someone would say, okay, they're saying that when Joseph Smith is 85, that he's saying, that's when the second comes.
- [60:22]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I mean, I remember when Joseph smith celebrated his 86th birthday. I was disappointed that Jesus hadn't come yet.
- [60:30]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You were there for that.
- [60:31]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I remember reading about it and being disappointed. I see I am also very old.
- [60:35]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But yeah, yeah, maybe Richard's one of the three Nephites. And you ever try to guess what their names are? Because they give the names of all the 12.
- [60:44]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah.
- [60:45]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And so, like, you know that three of those names, three Nephites.
- [60:49]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So we just.
- [60:50]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We should start just guessing which one we think it is.
- [60:53]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Oh, no, I've got. I've got my guesses.
- [60:55]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, you've got your guesses down. Hopefully it's better than our bracket challenge. So a lot of times people will stop there. Because, see, Joseph Smith said. I mean. I mean, what would that be? 1890, when he. When he would have been 85 years old? That proves that he's a false prophet. He said that you'll see the face of man when you're 85. That's what it says. First of all, it's not what it says, actually. It says, if thou livest. Because actually, part of this antagonistic argument is, and Joseph didn't even live to be 85. Okay, well, the words matter, so let's read them. If thou livest. Kind of a. Kind of a. Probably not sort of a thing there by saying, if until thou art 85, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man. Therefore, let this suffice and trouble me no more.
- [61:45]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Let this suffice. That's also, you know.
- [61:48]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, hey, stop asking me. In fact, we know that Joseph was desperate to know. He asked and asked and asked and asked. And eventually God tells him to stop asking. I mean, clearly the Lord's telling him, look, however long you're going to live, whenever this is, I'm not going to tell you you're going to see Jesus, which he already has, but you're going to see Jesus in. In his glory afterwards. And. And then you have verse 16 where Joseph elaborates on it. I was left thus without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing or whether I should die and thus see his face. So Joseph Smith, who's the only person who heard this voice, by the way, you know, your Baptist friend didn't hear it. So they actually don't know. They don't know how to interpret this. Joseph Smith, who did hear the voice, didn't actually know what it meant. So far from prophesying and saying, oh, yeah, it's happening in 1890. Like, it's like, I'm sure of it. It's like 1890 for sure. He's saying, I actually don't even know what that means. He goes on to opine, I believe the coming of the Son of Man will not be any sooner than that time. Okay? So even then he's hesitant. I don't think it'll be before then. But I don't know what the Lord meant. I don't know if he meant that I'm going to die and see Him. I don't know if he meant that that would be the beginning of the millennium. I don't know what it meant. But leave it to an antagonist to say, well, I know exactly what he meant, and he meant whatever I think is the most negative thing. And that's what he said. What's interesting is, why is Joseph even having this conversation? This is something that I think maybe people don't know as well. And that is in the spring of 1843, this was when the first day that had been set aside by the Millerite millennialists when they thought that Jesus was coming. There's actually three different dates for the Millerites. There's an 1843 belief. There's an 1844 belief, which is the great day of disappointment. And then there's an 1845. I mean, if you are going to be a false prophet, it's very important that you. You got to lengthen out the times.
- [64:32]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah.
- [64:33]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You got to be like, oh, I recalculated. And it's a hundred years from now. Don't recalculate to, like, next week. That. That is. That's right out. If, if you're trying to get people to follow you, you don't want to say, oh, no, next week. That's when it's going to happen. Well, William Miller was a. He was a Baptist minister, and he believed that he had calculated when the second coming was going to happen by going through the, the Old and the New Testament using Revelation, Amos, Daniel, Malachi, that he was able to. That he was able to come up with when the second coming was going to happen. And this idea was, was, was very popular. Thousands of people started to really believe that William Miller was right and that this is when the second coming was, was, was, was going to happen. But what happens is there's at least I said there's a group that believes it's going to happen in 1843. It's actually the same day that this is recorded. That doctrine covenant section 130is, it's recorded on April 2, 1843, when Joseph was at Ramos. Why are they talking about when Jesus is coming? Well, because the very next day, April 3, is what a bunch of these Millerites have calculated out is the day that Jesus is going to come. And so, you know, context matters a lot. But this is what it says in Joseph's journal. The next day, April 3, 1843, William Miller's day of judgment has arrived. But is a day too pleasant for false prophets, meaning there wasn't fire and destruction like William Miller said there was going to be. It was an average spring day. And anyway, so that's what's triggering this. And in fact, over the course of the next week, there's quite a conversation about the second coming because of Miller's prophecy. And then of course you're going to have this come up again in the next year when people really believe it's going to be in 1844. Now the one thing that William Miller does is he brings to light this idea of a pre millennialism that Jesus is going to come soon, that he's going to come prior to the world becoming perfected and everyone becoming Christian, that he's going to cleanse the world and that's going to usher in the millennium, which is something that Latter Day Saints have been teaching for years, but that most other Christians in Joseph Smith's time didn't believe. Most other Christians were post millennialist, so they didn't believe that. But if you read the various accounts of this, you know Joseph talks about it on more than one occasion as he has in again in his journal. I was once praying earnestly upon the subject and a voice said to me, my son, if thou livest till thou art 85 years of age, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man. I was left to draw my own conclusions concerning this. I took the liberty to conclude that if I did live until that time, he would make his appearance. But I do not say whether he will make his appearance or whether I shall go where he is. I prophesy in the name of the Lord and let it be written that the Son of Man will not come until I am 85 years old. Right, so that's where he's saying he's not going to come before that time. So Joseph is taking from this. I don't know what that means, but I know it at least means this, that Jesus isn't coming before that time. Now of course there were a lot of people who wanted to say, oh no, he said it was coming at that time. No, he's not coming before that time. Not, not, not during that time. It's in the course of these conversations that they also have the conversation about, you know, over the course of the next week about the fact that the rainbow is this sign that the second coming isn't going to be that year. Joseph Wissoff in his journal. Jerusalem must be rebuilt. Judah must return. That of course happens later. Joseph, you know, notice the antagonist, the, the anti Mormon talking to my son didn't bring that up. Well, I mean Joseph Smith prophesied that Judah would return and create the state of Israel. Well, he did not. I mean, I mean that didn't come out for some reason. It's weird that they didn't bring that one up. But that the Son of Man will make his appearance. Wars and rumors of war, signs in the heaven above and on the earth beneath the sun shall be turned. So he's quoting all of these from revelation to darkness, moon into blood, earthquakes in diverse places, oceans heaving beyond their bounds. Then one grand sign of the Son of Man will be in heaven. But what will the world do? They will say it is a planet. They will say it's a common, a comet. And consequently the Son of Man will come as a sign of coming of the Son of Man, as is the light of the morning cometh out of the east. So for Joseph, the fact of the coming, you know, using this as proof that Joseph Smith is a false prophet, that he doesn't know what he's talking about. It seems very odd as to making this argument and really it relies on something that's false. I mean Joseph's going to say that in the year that the rainbow appears that you can know that it won't be that year again. In reference to the new Millerite excitement in 1844, Joseph in his journal has this. The Savior will not come this year, nor in 40 years to come. The bow, the rainbow has been seen in the cloud. And in that year that the bow is seen, seed, time and harvest will be. But when the bow Ceases to be seen. Look out for a famine. So once again you have Joseph, who, given how much violence has been perpetrated against the saints, given how much they've been driven in early 1844, the rising tide, I mean, this is going to carry Joseph. It's in 1844 that Joseph made the decision, we have to leave the country. We've got to get out of here. We can't live here anymore. And yet Joseph isn't saying, oh, and yeah, and the second coming is going to happen tomorrow. Instead he's saying, we know it's not going to happen tomorrow because all of the prophecies haven't been fulfilled yet. Back to General Conference and our own application to this. Just remember to follow what it is that the brethren are saying. If someone is quoting to you from talk that was given 70 years ago as proof that they know exactly when the day is or how close we are, or that there's some kind of secret meeting that's going on behind closed doors and you just don't know about it, it that is not what our prophet has said. Our prophet has been very clear about how to prepare for the Second Coming. And as we've said multiple times on this podcast, when you die, whether whether you are alive when Jesus comes, or whether you die years before Jesus comes, that is your Second Coming. That is when you are going to meet the Savior. It's an odd thing to know that you could be hit by a bus at any time. There's random rogue buses crashing into people everywhere, that you could die at any time of any cause. But to be hyper focused on knowing what day or hour the second Coming happens, if you're hyper, if you actually are prepared for the Second Coming, then you shouldn't fear. If you actually are doing the things the Prophet asked you to do, then it shouldn't be something where you are desperately afraid of what the world will become beforehand. Because if you are killed and the tumults and the difficulties and the violence that takes place leading up to the Second Coming, well, if you're living your life the way the Prophet and the way the Lord has asked you to, then it'll be a glorious reunion with your Savior. If you happen to be living when Jesus does come and sets foot again on this earth, it will be a glorious reunion with your Savior. If you are living the Gospel. I know it is one of those things we want to focus on, but as we were counseled in conference, be careful because we want it so badly from the beginning of time, false Prophets and people looking to build themselves up have claimed that they have inside information about when it is and how to prepare and what to do. And you don't need that. You have a living prophet of God. President Nelson is going to let you know what you need to do. But I often think back, you know, as we referenced a few podcasts ago, we're desperate to know when the second coming is. But we're not desperate to go to the temple. We're desperate to know the day or hour we're subscribing to someone's newsletter because they've got an inside information about what the third horn of Daniel is. But we're not willing to study the Scriptures. The Lord has told us what we need to do to get ready. The prophet has reiterated what we need to do to get ready. And still, for many of us, we would much rather try to find the secular means of preparing by counting days than the spiritual means by counting our temple attendance. Tomorrow is promised to no man. Nobody knows whether we will see another tomorrow or the tomorrow after that. That's why it's so important that we follow the living prophet and we live so that if we meet the Lord in an instant, if that flash of lightning isn't the Lord coming, but is the lightning that kills us that we are ready in that moment, of course we'll still be sinners. Of course we won't be perfect. But have we dedicated our life to becoming more like our Father in Heaven? Have we followed those principles and ordinances of the gospel? Have we made efforts at daily repentance? Have we tried to become something else? Brigham Young tried to teach the people. Instead of desperately asking me to go back and build the City of Zion, why don't you try living a Christlike life? I know we all want the big splash. I mean, all of us are essentially Naaman being told to go wash themselves in the river and saying, what are you talking about? If there's going to be calamities and wars, then that means it's going to be like Mad Max beyond Thunderdome. And we need to have a bunker, and I've got to have guns, and we got to figure out. I mean, we want to figure it out for God. When what God's asked you to do is to live the Gospel and follow the Prophet. He hasn't asked you to build a bunker in. In your basement. Now. Now, maybe at some point the Prophet will ask you to do that, but that's not what he's asking you to do right now. Just like the saints who were so desperate to go back to Missouri, Brigham Young taught them, the prophet hasn't asked you to do that yet. He has asked you to study your scriptures, to stop cheating your neighbor, to be kind to one another, to obey the word of wisdom, to obey the law of chastity. And if you aren't doing those things, do you really think having the bunker is going to be the deciding factor in whether or not you make it through the second coming? I mean, let's think about this. What God wants us to do is to be a good Christian. And if you're a good Christian and you die tomorrow, and if you're a good Christian and you are here when Jesus comes back, your reward's going to be the same. Have faith in the next life. Have faith in the prophets, have faith that this is God's kingdom, and follow as you're taught. But don't seek out of those private, closed areas special information that can put you on a path towards apostasy. Thank you so much for joining us. I know we went a little bit long, but you know, that's what we do, right, Richard?
- [79:14]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Absolutely.
- [79:16]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
They call us the standard of a little bit long podcast Truth, then the truth just comes at the end. I think we bury. We bury the truth. We bury the truth in a little bit long. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us.
- [79:32]
Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat 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.