The Sketchy History of Joseph Smith

Speaker 1    00:00:03    Hey everybody. Welcome to the Unveiling Mormonism podcast. I’m Brian. That’s Ross over there. Ross. Today we are going to talk a little bit about the sketchy history of Joseph Smith and just by the title right there, it sounds like we’re picking on Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. But, but why ro before we even jump into all of this? And it, it is a, it is a little sketchy. Okay. That’s why we’re calling it the sketchy history out. We’re not trying to pick on Joseph Smith. We’re just trying to unveil the, the truth about the founder of Mormonism. And we’re even gonna get some help from official documents from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So we’re not just using documents or books like, um, uh, what, what was her name? Uh, no Man Knows My History by,  

Speaker 2    00:00:49    By Fawn  

Speaker 1    00:00:50    Brody. Fawn Brody. Which is a, which is a really interesting read, not a Christian author. Right. Just a biographer. It’s a interesting read. But, but probably not something that, that Mormon bishops would encourage their, their people to have on their bookshelf. Right, right.  

Speaker 2    00:01:03    No, not at all. But even, even, so, more and more information has come to light historically. And so there are reputable sources and scholars working on this, historical scholars that this information is out there. Right. Um, you know, when I was growing up, um, a lot of this information, it was, it was a little bit out there, but it was easy for the church to deny that it was, that it was real or that it existed. But now there’s so much information available today that it’s really hard to, um, totally whitewash Joseph Smith the way that he has been in the past.  

Speaker 1    00:01:36    Yeah. And in fact, the church, I think it was in 2013, published some essays called Gospel Topics and they published these on their website, um, lds.org, I believe it  

Speaker 2    00:01:48    Is. Yeah. It used to be lds.org,  

Speaker 1    00:01:50    Whatever it is now.  

Speaker 2    00:01:51    Whatever, it’s now Church of jesus christ.org or something like  

Speaker 1    00:01:54    That. Yeah. If you want, if peop if listeners want to find these, cuz they are a little bit hard to find. I I’ve found them by, by just Googling, uh, gospel topics lds and it came right up. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s good. There’re about 13 or 14 topics, and we’re gonna refer to some of these. But the gospel topics were published by experts in the church to try to be an apologetic Yeah. To answer some of these questions. And what they would say is maybe the misinformation about Joseph Smith and about some of the stuff we’re gonna cover today and in the future. In fact, we might even spend some time later on this podcast just going through those gospel topics. Cuz it’s really interesting. And actually Rossett kind of backfired a little bit on the church, right. Because it was meant to be an apologetic, but I know personally a lot of former Mormons who when they read these documents that were officially published by the church, they realized, okay, this is true then. Yeah.  

Speaker 2    00:02:47    Yeah. It was a little bit of a double bind for the LDS church because this information is out there and people are asking questions. So they figured, well, we better address these questions and put our spin on them or our interpretation on, on that. The data is irrefutable, but it can be interpreted sometimes in different ways. And so, so they’ve tried to interpret it in a way that’s faith promoting for the LDS church, or at least heads off some of the worst critics and questions. Well, the problem is, there’s a lot of other people who were not aware of those things, those question marks and those difficult issues. And suddenly now the church has, has kind of, uh, put ’em out there and people are going, oh, I, I, I didn’t know and here’s my own church telling me. And so it, it’s a tough place for them to be. So they have published them, but they haven’t run ’em up the flagpole. Hmm. They’re kind of a little bit hard to find a little bit hidden sometimes so that their leaders then can use them as they need to use them. But not everybody kind of like is in on the loop. It’s not like they made a big public announcement about it.  

Speaker 1    00:03:45    Yeah. And a couple of, we’re gonna cover five, um, sort of sketchy practices or sketchy facts about Joseph Smith in today’s episode. And a couple of these actually have gospel topics articles on them, and we’ll refer to those a little bit, encourage people to go just check it out for yourself. Cuz you know, our goal here is to unveil Mormonism. We’re not trying to pick on Mormonism, we’re just trying to be faithful to God’s word and point out what doesn’t really line up with scripture right. By the Bible. When we say scripture, we mean the Bible. And so for seeking Mormons, people who are maybe questioning their history, we don’t mean to offend. Um, we, we just want you to hear the rest of  

Speaker 2    00:04:25    The story. Right. And I, I would say that to our listeners, you know, honestly, it’s a, it’s easy to take pot shots at Joseph Smith and, um, cuz you can take these real issues and you can a, you can spin ’em in the worst possible way as well, um, and, and really make, uh, you, you know, kind of make Joseph Smith a cartoon character, a cartoon villain or something. But, um, but our intent is we, we wanna give respect where it’s due. We want to, we, we understand that Latter Day Saints really do honor and revered Joseph Smith. And, um, and so we wanna, we don’t want just, you know, lampoon him or, or just, you know, totally denigrate him. But these are out there, these are real issues. And the church, in fact, the LDS church leaders of the church in the past have actually in a way challenged us to have this conversation.  

Speaker 2    00:05:16    So, for example, uh, Joseph Fielding Smith, who was a president of the church, um, in the middle of the 20th century, he says, um, here’s his quote, Mormonism, as it is called, must stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. Now I totally agree with him on that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, now he goes on, he says he was either a prophet of God divinely called properly appointed and commissioned, or he was one of the biggest frauds this world has ever seen. There’s no middle ground period. Now I know he’s talking to his insider audience, and so they’re all gonna, um, immediately adopt the first alternative. Yeah. He’s a prophet. Um, so he might be using a little, little rhetoric there, but, but the, the fact is he invites us to examine Joseph Smith and to see whether Mormonism falls or whether it stands. And so that’s, you know, what a lot of people have done. And, and that, that’s why the, all this data is out there about Joseph Smith. And as you pull away kind of the faith promoting story, then you see sort of the real man a little  

Speaker 1    00:06:23    Bit. All right. So let’s do that. Let’s start, Ross with something from his very early days, Joseph’s very early days, and we’re gonna call this his occult treasure hunting. Explain that. What, what is that, what is the occult, what was treasure hunting? Hunting back in the 18 hundreds and how did that all connect to Joseph Smith’s story?  

Speaker 2    00:06:44    Right. When we talk about the occult, we’re talking about, um, another way to talk about it is folk magic, magic practices, practices related to, uh, divination or trying to manipulate spirits in some way to, um, you know, it’s related to ancient pagan practices or practices that some would call witchcraft or, but, but it’s basically the, the folk practices that were really pretty prevalent in the early 18 hundreds in the Northeast and really all across America, um, that involved trying to use magical magic type practices to gain wealth or power or to find out secret knowledge or, or something like that. And Joseph Smith’s family was involved in, in these folk magic type practices. Um, and one of them was, um, trying to find buried treasure by divination, by using spiritual means to discover where this treasure was buried.  

Speaker 1    00:07:44    Hmm. Okay. So, and this connects into something that Mormons would probably understand, but probably a lot of our non-Mormon listeners would not be aware of this thing called a Sears stone. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, what was a Sears stone, and how did that, how did that work? Its way into Mormon folklore,  

Speaker 2    00:08:02    A Sears stone? Like today, you think of a crystal ball. Okay. Uh, uh, a fortune teller looks in the crystal ball and sees an apparition or a vision or, or something like that. A Sears stone is li kinda like that. It’s a, it’s a special stone that has these magic properties or so thought so-called, uh, that if you look into it, it will, it will be, uh, be a vehicle of some kind of spiritual revelation to you. So Joseph would take the steers, the stone, and he’d put it in the bottom of his hat. He’d hold, hold the hat up to his face to block out all the light, and then supposedly the stone would glow, or it would, it would become like a TV screen or something like that to be able to, uh, bring knowledge or information. In the case of money digging, it would tell him like, oh, here’s where the money is buried, or here’s the nature of the evil spirits who were guarding it. Or it would give him that kind of information to be able to, um, find and dig up the money for profit.  

Speaker 1    00:09:04    Okay. So young Joseph Smith did this in Western New York, in Palm Myra, New York. And the problem is it was illegal. So what happened next?  

Speaker 2    00:09:15    Yeah, it, well, it was illegal. Um, and, and there, there was a movement in a lot of the culture in that society today at that time to say, Hey, we need to move past these kind of, uh, primitive superstitions and so forth. But it became illegal because it was sort of a form of fraud. Okay. So you would tell somebody, oh, I think there’s Barry Tri, like, like, like the pirate captain kid, everyone’s looking for his treasure or ancient, um, you know, native Americans buried their, their stash in their, their horde is under your ground. And, you know, so you’d get the guy to, to pay you a fee and you’d dig it up and, and then, and then you’d supposedly, you were just about there and, and it would move because you didn’t do the incantation writer the evil spirits regarding it or something like that. And so it was illegal because, because you were defrauding people, um, you know, for, for, for private gain. And so, you know, um,  

Speaker 1    00:10:10    So Joseph was actually Joseph convicted of, I think the law back then was called the Vagrant Act in, in the state of New York.  

Speaker 2    00:10:17    Yeah. There was a, there was the idea of vagrancy that you’re trying to make money off of, you know, without working. Um, and so fortune telling stuff like that was included in that. And in 1826, he was arrested, brought before a judge, he was charged with being a disorderly person, a glass looker. And, um, the judge determined that Joseph was guilty. Now, there’s some dis debate about whether that’s the court or whether that’s the preliminary hearing, but either way, the court records have been found that show that, you know, Joseph Smith, that this actual legal, pro pro, uh, process actually did happen. And, um, he was known, there’s plenty of affidavits from people who knew him in that area. He was known, uh, for being, uh, for practicing that it was, he was known as, as the practitioner of this, uh, glass looking or treasure  

Speaker 1    00:11:08    Seeking. And then, so shortly after this, after this kind of getting in trouble with the law, young Joseph, he’s, he probably, what is 12, 13 at this  

Speaker 2    00:11:16    Point? Well, in 1826, he is, no, he’s, oh gosh, do the math. 1805, he’s 21.  

Speaker 1    00:11:23    Okay. So he’s 21, so, so  

Speaker 2    00:11:25    In his 18 and early young adult years.  

Speaker 1    00:11:27    Yeah. And really the, in yet, the initial vision, what was he,  

Speaker 2    00:11:31    He was 14. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:11:32    Or  

Speaker 2    00:11:33    15. Or 17. So was, that’s another topic we’ll talk about the first vision, but standard story is 14.  

Speaker 1    00:11:41    So basically all of this glass looking and, and kind of treasure hunting was happening in the time, during the time of the first vision,  

Speaker 2    00:11:49    Right? Uh, yeah. Post first vision. And so in the Mormon story, in the official story, the angel Morone appears to Joseph Smith on an annual basis, uh, for several times, maybe four years, leading up to his actually taking possession of the plates, the gold plates in order. So this is happening during the time when supposedly every year, the Angel Morai is prepping him for the time when he’s gonna take possession of this ancient scriptural  

Speaker 1    00:12:14    Record. Okay. So we have to cover that now, because some people are listening to this saying, what are, what, what plates, right? So a Mormon listening knows exactly what we’re talking about when we talk about the plates and the first vision, but that’s really the next part of the sketchy history of Joseph Smith. So let’s explain that. What is the first vision? What was that all  

Speaker 2    00:12:32    About? Yeah, so, um, the LDS official story, um, talks about how really Joseph’s career as a prophet was kicked off by quote, the first vision. It, it, it has this, this primary place where the story goes that he was seeking to figure out which of all the religions in the area were correct. And so, in that, in that, in New York, in that time, there was, um, a lot of revivalism going on in different, different years. There was, uh, a lot of vigorous activity among Protestant churches. Some controversies between them and his family, uh, kind of dabbled in different ones. They would check out the Methodist church, they would check out the Presbyterian church. And so the story goes that Joseph is a, he, he wants to know which one of ’em is the true church, the correct church. Um, and so he goes out into this grove, the sacred grove it’s called today In Retrospect.  

Speaker 2    00:13:28    He goes out into this grove near the family farm, and he begins to pray to God, ask him, which church is the right church? And in response, um, he describes how two personages appear to him, and they, they, they prove to be the F God, the Father and the son, Jesus Christ. And the Father tells him, uh, not to join any of these churches because they’re all apostate and they’re all far from him, and they’re all their p their, uh, leaders are corrupt and so forth. And so that sets Joseph Smith upon the, the course of the restoration. He’s gonna restore the true church, the original Christianity, um, whi which he proceeded to do over the years to come now supposedly 14 years old at the first vision. And, and the whole thing is, uh, preparation for the Book of Mormon comes forth that he trans, it was supposedly an ancient record, uh, inscribed on plates of gold. He translates the plates of gold using the same Sears stone by the way that he used to find money. And then he founds the, the Mormon Church in 1830 at, that would be about age 25. So there, there’s the course of his, uh, his young adult and teenage years kicked off by this first vision.  

Speaker 1    00:14:45    And the first vision is the, is controversial enough. There’s enough out there about the first vision that actually there’s a gospel topic on it. We’ll include a link to that in our show notes today. But Ross, why, what was, okay, we’re not gonna get today into the problems we have with the first vision, as you stated it. There’s obviously problems we have with it, just theological  

Speaker 2    00:15:06    Problems, et cetera, right?  

Speaker 1    00:15:07    Yeah. But let’s just, just on, just, just purely by, in terms of facts, what’s the problem with the first vision accounts?  

Speaker 2    00:15:16    Well, the, the big problem from the point of view of Joseph Smith’s story is that we don’t really even know, well, we don’t even know whether it happened or if it did happen. What happened because the official account was only recorded almost 20 years after the, after the fact. And, and over, over time, historians have discovered other accounts of the first vision, either from Joseph Smith himself, or what people say that Joseph told them. They’ve written it in their diary and so forth. And, and there’s at least nine, um, different, different accounts, one form or another, um, that all differ on, on a number of significant, um, respects. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so the official story is called into question because of the, um, because of the existence of these vari varying accounts of the same event mm-hmm.  

Speaker 1    00:16:08    <affirmative>. Yeah. So it really does call into question. I mean, if, if this is so, so important in the, in the Mormon story, why, why is there not just just one consistent account? Right.  

Speaker 2    00:16:21    Exactly. And so what, so that raises the question of, alright, even if something did happen, which again, we have a number of reasons to doubt, but even if it did happen, um, why did the story change over time? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and the fact that the story, it was shared in so many different and, and really, really different forms makes you wonder whether or not it’s just a product of Joseph Smith’s imagination. Mm-hmm.  

Speaker 1    00:16:44    <affirmative>. Okay. So that leads then to the third sketchy episode in Joseph’s life. Because after the first vision in the early years, the church was founded there in Palmyra, New York. And the, the church, Joseph and his followers eventually moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and that’s where there was a banking scandal.  

Speaker 2    00:17:06    Yeah. Kirtland Ohio is, um, in the north east corner of Ohio, not far from Lake Erie. So not a long, long ways from Palm Meyer, pretty much straight west. And what happened in Kirtland, Ohio is that the Mormon missionary that started, Joseph started sending out some missionaries as they were selling the Book of Mormon, proclaiming this new thing. And they ran into a community of Christians, um, who like accepted their message lock, stock and barrel. So they had this instant community of converts. And, and so things were really taking off there. Now, Joseph had burned some bridges in New York and things were not going so well there. So he moved, he moved to Kirtland, Ohio, and everyone, all of his followers moved with him. And they had this instant community in Kirtland. They had a lot of trouble in Kirtland, a lot of, uh, they built a temple there, their first temple.  

Speaker 2    00:17:56    Um, you know, they saw a lot of con converts coming in. It created tension with the locals as it always did whenever they went, because the, um, suddenly a bunch of poor people who, who couldn’t be sustained by the economy were added anyway. But the point is, so, uh, the point with this particular issue, there’s a number of issues in Kirtland, but the one that I wanted to talk about today, cuz it’s part of Joseph Smith’s history, and the sketchy part of that is that he formed, um, what, what today, I mean, it would be like a, a Ponzi scheme. He formed an illegal bank. They sold shares in the bank. Hmm. When people began to ask for their money, the bank collapsed. Joseph Smith had to hide out and flee. He had dozens of lawsuits against him. Um, and so he, he just had, he had to basically disappear. And ultimately he left Kirtland a couple years later, um, basically to avoid the accountability for his banking scandal.  

Speaker 1    00:19:02    Okay. So the bank was called the Kirtland Safety Society. It was formed in 1836, and it failed in 1837. And Joseph leaves Kirtland undercover of darkness in 1838.  

Speaker 2    00:19:19    Yeah. January 18, 38. So, yeah. So it’s all happening. So, um, they had the, the law was you had to apply to the state for a charter. And so the, the state refused to give them a charter. That’s why it was illegal. Uh, the state said, no, we don’t think you have enough. I mean, so the state, they’re looking for like, do you have enough assets? Um, do you, you know, what’s your, what’s your reserve? And, you know, is it safe for people to invest their money and so forth? They didn’t have enough assets. And so what they, so, but, uh, one of them had gone, I think Oliver Cowdry had gone to New York to get these expensive printing plates made that said, you know, Kirtland’s Safety Society Bank on it. And they had the plate, they paid for the plates, and now they suddenly, they don’t get the charter.  

Speaker 2    00:20:03    They just thought they were gonna get the charter. So what they did was they printed the money anyway. Well, okay. It’s, it acted like money wasn’t legal money, but it was like, um, they printed shares and the shares were negotiable. So they had the, the function of money. And so what they did was they altered the money to say it’s because they, they were not given the charter for the, for the Kirtland Safety Society Bank. They, they, they scratched it out and they added in, um, couple words. So it became the Kirtland Safety Society. They added an anti, and they added an I N G at the end, Kirtland Safety Society anti-Bank Association. Hmm. Um, so they could still use their place. They still sold and distributed the, the certificates. Um, and, and ultimately creditors wanted their money. They could kind of see this going. They wanted to get their money out, and there wasn’t any money to support the claims of the creditors. The bank failed. A lot of people were left, uh, holding the bag, so to speak. Hmm. But the thing is, I think the thing that is sketchy about this,  

Speaker 1    00:21:07    Well, that all sounds sketchy now,  

Speaker 2    00:21:09    Not pretty sketchy. Yeah. It’s al already pretty sketchy <laugh>. Yeah. But the thing that that makes it even more so is that, um, Joseph claimed that this bank was formed on the basis of divine revelation. Hmm. A number of people in their diaries, they said, uh, that he, that he heard an audible voice from God telling him to form this bank, and that when other banks would fail, their bank would thrive and succeed and, and flourish and overcome all the other banks. And so, not only is it a question about Joseph’s, well, at the very minimum, it’s a question about his competency and what is he doing in a, in a banking industry. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> didn’t know anything about that. At another level, it’s maybe a question about his integrity. We don’t know. It’s, we don’t know whether or not it was a conscious scam or just a, a fool’s scheme. Um, and, and, but on the, on another level, yet, it’s a question about Joseph’s prophetic calling. He said, this is from God and it’s gonna succeed, and it didn’t succeed. And so that’s why it’s kind of a sketchy, uh, episode. Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:22:14    The Bible says, in the Old Testament says, if a prophet, if a prophet prophesized something, it doesn’t come true. Stoneham <laugh>. Yeah. That’s, you’re not following the right prophet. Yeah. And, and in fact, a lot of people did leave the Mormon church at that time. Yeah. And he lost, he lost some followers, but he also moved on to the next place. Right. And, and again, that was, anytime you, anytime <laugh> again, when I read the story of Joseph Smith, and I recognize that I have a lens, I’m reading it through Sure. But I, I, I just recognize these would all be bricks. I used to, um, good Mormon friend of mine, I would just say, let’s just stack up bricks. Doesn’t this, does this make you question? And then here’s how about this one in another brick. In another brick. And pretty soon you have a pretty big wall.  

Speaker 2    00:22:59    Yeah.  

Speaker 1    00:23:00    And it’s, and it points to the fact that, that maybe Joseph Smith was a swindler. Maybe Joseph Smith was like, maybe he never outgrew that, that, uh, treasure hunting from his Yeah, that’s a good point. From his early years mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And he was always looking for another, either a way to get rich or a way to influence people. Maybe, you know, when I read about Joseph Smith, it reminds me some contemporary people that are narcissists mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and we’ll get into that some more. Again, I, I know for a, for a faithful Mormon hearing that, that’s hard for them to hear, I guess I would just say to a faithful Mormon, well, how would you explain this? Like, what would, could you be honest about this? And I guess my question to you, Ross, is what, what does the Mormon Church say about this banking scandal? Because it’s not one of, it’s not covered in a gospel topic, I  

Speaker 2    00:23:49    Don’t believe. Right. It’s not, it’s probably lesser known. Um, what they do is what the LDS church, um, references do. They talk about a lot about the, um, all the persecution that the, the Mormons were, um, subjected to in Kirtland, and particularly D Joseph Smith and so forth. Uh, and they just, and so they just pretty much put it under the category of anti-Mormon opposition. Hmm. Um, but they don’t really peel back the, the layer and, and say, oh, there’s probably a reason for why people were upset with Joseph Smith. And maybe it wasn’t religious persecution. Maybe it was more because he had, you know, he had bankrupted them and, you know, stole their money and so forth. You know, so, so they don’t, they don’t, they, they look at the surface level, um, activity, and then they just reinterpreted in terms of their lens mm-hmm. <affirmative> instead of looking, okay, what are the connect the dots for me here? What are the, what are the reasons mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and, and some, you know, they’ve dealt with it in other places. Um, more so, but still putting, um, very positive lens on, oh, it was the economic conditions, or it was ba Joseph got bad advice or Yeah. Um, you know, something like that.  

Speaker 1    00:25:05    Okay. So then that leads us to the fourth sketchy episode in, I guess this isn’t just an episode, this was something true of Joseph really, even from the early days. And it is his connection, and therefore the Mormon church’s connection with free masonry. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> Ross, what was Free Masonry, and why is this a problem?  

Speaker 2    00:25:25    Yeah. Free Masonry is a secret society that, um, started, oh, I don’t know, in the Middle Ages or the early part of the Renaissance modern world, um, in Europe. And it, uh, was imported to United States. So it, it’s a secret society where, uh, that claims to have all of the, the final say about the mysteries of reality and, and who God really is, and how to really, um, become initiated into these mysterious spiritual truths that are supposed to make you a better person and, and so forth. And so, um, and, and its ideas are related to, you know, some of the folk magic or some of the a cultic, um, ideas that were prevalent in, in Joseph Smith’s milieu. So a lot of people were attracted to free Masonry for various reasons. Um, Joseph Smith’s father joined the Freemasons, um, in Paul Myer when Smith was a, was a boy. And his brother Hira was initiated into it in Paul Meyer as well. For some reason, Joseph never joined the Freemasons at that p at that at that time. So this is, but, um, oh, 20 15, 20 years later in Navu, there were a lot of the Mormon church leaders who were members of Freemasonry, and Joseph Smith joined at that time.  

Speaker 1    00:26:54    Okay. So, Navu, let’s just catch everyone up on this. Some people don’t know what that word is. That was a small town in Illinois. Um, and so that was the next stop for the Mormons after Kirtland?  

Speaker 2    00:27:05    Well, no, they went to Missouri first. Okay. So after they, um, burned their bridges in Kirtland, they, they moved to Missouri. And in fact, even early, from early time in Kirtland, Joseph had sent, um, scouts and settlement parties out to, to Western Missouri, even while they were in still Kirtland as well. So we had a, like a safety net. And so eventually the whole church relocated to Kirtland, so, uh, to, uh, Missouri, north of Kansas City area. Okay. And then when they,  

Speaker 1    00:27:35    How long were they in  

Speaker 2    00:27:36    Missouri? They were in Missouri for maybe five or six years  

Speaker 1    00:27:40    Now. Was this Independence Missouri, or was that something  

Speaker 2    00:27:42    Else? It was, it was near Independence. I, it was north of Independence. Okay. Yeah. Now they still have a, yeah, there’s an, there’s independence was part of it, but, um, they were spread out over two or three counties. Okay. And then, uh, they had trouble in Missouri trouble with the people who already lived there. Um, and eventually the governor of Missouri kicked them out. And so they fled, uh, back east again across the Mississippi River, right. To the town of Navu, which really wasn’t anything there much. Um, it’s on the Mississippi River. Um, so it’s in Western Illinois. And they really built it up into a thriving community. It became, it became quite a prosperous community. Um, and eventually they were, they were, um, sort of harried out of Navu and came to Utah in 1847. So they’re in nav in the early part, early half of the 1840s.  

Speaker 1    00:28:32    And that was really their last stop then before Utah. And that famous is also where Joseph Smith was as the, as the Mormon Church would say, where he was martyred.  

Speaker 2    00:28:42    Yeah. Joseph Smith was at, at, you know, he, he was at his most prominent in nav. He was not only the prophet, the president of the church, he was the mayor of Nav. He was the, um, the, the general in the militia Hmm. And all the rest. So he, he held all the cards in Nav and, but Navu was a time when, uh, in nav vu, there was a, there were a lot of, um, rapid developments in the, in Mormon theology and practices, a lot of tremendous innovation, um, during that timeframe. And that’s where Free Masonry comes into play.  

Speaker 1    00:29:18    Yeah. So it was in Navu, Illinois that Joseph Smith then in, in March, I think of 1842, becomes a Freemason mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then you see a lot of those secret rituals showing up in the temple. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about that, because again, our, our Mormon listeners maybe understand what we’re talking about, although some of ’em might not, because if they haven’t really gone through the Temple yet, then, as I’ve learned from some of my friends, that it really is even a shocking eye-opening event, even for Mor Good Mormons. Yeah. Right. Who grew up in the church and eventually get to go through the temple. I have a friend that just shared with me about how shocking it was when he, he was a Return missionary, uh, just a very faithful Mormon, and he got married in the temple, and that was just so strange for, for him and his wife. So even for a Mormon, I think the Temple stuff is a little strange. Yeah.  

Speaker 2    00:30:15    It’s, um, it’s quite obscure or cane. Um, but it, but so Joseph at the point, at that time in Navu, um, he’s exploring these higher mysteries. He’s becomes initiated into free masonry in March. And, uh, I don’t know, free Masonry has 33 levels, and it takes a lot of time to get through each level. You prove whatever. And he, he, he, he was initiated into the all 33, the highest level the next day. So it’s very odd. Um, and typically I think for a Freemason. But then two months later in May, they introduced the, um, is the core ritual of the temple, which is called The Endowment. And so the Endowment is really from a Mormon. So the thing about, uh, free masonry is it doesn’t really, it, it’s not really like, um, how to get to heaven so much as how to be initiated into these secret mysteries in Mormonism.  

Speaker 2    00:31:12    They, they took it and, and, and made it into how to get to heaven, how to get exalted. Um, and so the Temple Endowment ritual is really all about, um, understanding the, the things that you have to be able to do or know at the veil of heaven in order to be admitted into heaven. Now, I know Latter Day Saints, um, believe that temple ritual is sacred. And so, you know, I wanna be, I wanna be sensitive in talking about, I’m not gonna go into all the details of it and so forth, but it, it, it’s very apparent that, um, most of the key parts of the endowment, um, ceremony are kind of cut and pasted from, directly from free masonry, from the ritual of free masonry. There’s so many parallels to the endowment ceremony that, that, um, many, many observers have said, oh, well, that pretty much we can connect the dots between Joseph Smith becoming a Freemason and the pro prevalence of free masonry in nav ou to boom here now is the temple ceremony that he’s in, taking all the same elements and invested a slightly different meaning in them.  

Speaker 1    00:32:26    Okay. So, but I could hear a, a faithful Mormon saying, so what, why, why is that sketchy? What’s the, what’s the big deal about  

Speaker 2    00:32:33    That? Well, one thing is, is that, um, that the Mormon Church will tell you that the Temple Endowment ceremony was received by God from Revel, by, from God, by revelation, that it was revealed what, what this is all about. And so that would, that would, you know, cause you to question that claim, is it really, does it really by revelation? Or was it just by Joseph’s experience and his creativity and his, his sort of, um, entrepreneurial mind and so forth, putting two and two together in a new way.  

Speaker 1    00:33:04    All right. So Ross, we’ve, we’ve talked about Joseph’s, um, you know, his early days as a young man, treasure hunting. We’ve talked about bank scandals and we’ve talked about Freemasonry. And there’s so much more we could talk about wh when we’re examining the life of Joseph Smith. And again, I would encourage readers, if you’re interested and courageous enough to read this again for a Mormon, it would maybe take some courage to step out and read something like Fawn Brody’s book. No, man Knows My History. I read that years ago in college. I’m sure there’s some other stuff. I just encourage you to seek out truth about stuff.  

Speaker 2    00:33:42    Well, the gospel topics, essays, as you’ve mentioned, I would also mention another, uh, biography of Joseph Smith that was written by a Faithful Mormon. Hmm. But it’s honest about this stuff. Okay. It’s called Rough Stone Rolling. Okay. By Richard Bushman. Yeah. Now he’s a loyal Mormon, and yet he’s also a, a accurate and faithful historian. And so you’re gonna find a lot of this stuff is exposed and, and discussed, um, from, uh, the perspective of somebody who’s a member of the church and who and who loves the church, but they’re an honest historian.  

Speaker 1    00:34:14    Yeah. And I, and we wanted to save this last one, and we’re gonna talk more about this last topic quite a bit on this podcast. But I, I think it’s also really important to talk about plural marriage, or that’s what the Mormons would call it. Um, maybe more the, the rest of the world might know it as polygamy. Yeah. And again, I, I know that whenever, whenever I talk to a Mormon and I start talking about polygamy, they just think I’m a Mormon hater, and I’m, I’m just picking on them and I don’t understand. And so I want, again, I, I think it’s important for us to be sensitive on this topic for a Mormon who’s listening who might want to just turn this off. But I know that there are some Mormons listening who are open to really hearing about this. And maybe they’ve even done some of their own research.  

Speaker 1    00:35:03    In fact, I would encourage you, we’ll put a link in the show notes. I would encourage you to check out the gospel topic on plural marriage in Kirtland, in Navu. There, there are three or four topics on plural marriage in the gospel topics. So they cover this quite a bit because they know this is a big deal. And this is really kind of a hurdle for a lot of people entering Mormonism, or even people who want to get out of Mormonism. And so, Ross, let’s just finish this by talking a little bit about polygamy and Joseph, Joseph Smith’s connection Right to it.  

Speaker 2    00:35:39    Yeah. Because, you know, you can talk about polygamy and Joseph Smith’s life, and then it polygamy becomes kind of a different thing when it, when you talk about it in the history of the Utah Church. And, and, and then, um, you know, even into contemporary age, uh, time today. But as far as Joseph Smith’s history and Joseph Smith’s story, um, the polygamy, um, he began practicing polygamy secretly in the nav period, starting about, well, we don’t know exactly when it started. We know it started to become documented. There was a revelation in about 18 43, 42, 43, I can’t remember his exact date.  

Speaker 1    00:36:19    But the gospel topic says that it was in 1843. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it says, and I’ll quote this from the gospel topics. It says, but it’s early, uh, the revelation about floral marriage was written, wasn’t written down till 1843, but it’s early verses suggests that part of it emerged from Joseph Smith’s study, the Old Testament in 1831.  

Speaker 2    00:36:37    Yeah. All the way back when he was, he was fascinated with the, in the Kirtland era, that’s when he bought the, um, the mummies that had the Book of Abraham. That’s a whole nother story. But yeah. Um, yeah. So he’d been stewing on this idea, um, looking for parallels to the Old Testament and the New Testament, cuz this is supposed to be a restoration of original Christianity. And so he was, I’m sure he was intrigued by this polygamy idea, this issue. But it began to be practiced, um, at, with some, you know, at some volume in nav where Joseph Smith, you know, nobody knows exactly how many women he married. Um, the estimates from different scholars put it in the upper twenties, you know, 26, 28 women that he was, that he was married to. Um, some of them were celestial marriages. In other words, they were, he was sealed to that woman for, um, there and for eternity.  

Speaker 2    00:37:37    Um, some of them were carnal marriages, you might say, where there was actually physical consummation. Um, and so, and then he began to initiate his closest followers into the practice of polygamy as well. In fact, he would use polygamy as a loyalty test to his followers. So he said he basically asked, um, Hebrew Kimball to give him permission to be sealed to Hebrew’s wife. And so that was like, so what he Kimball is gonna go like, oh, I guess I have to prove my loyalty here. Hmm. Um, the biggest loyalty test was his wife. Cuz as you can imagine, um, she starts to notice that there’s something going on. At one point in time, two of, um, Joseph’s plural wives were, were living in their house with him and Emma, and they were like helping around the house, kind of made type whatever. But Joseph has this other thing going on, on the side. So she be, starts to become aware of this and starts to call him out on it. And, um, and, uh, Joseph’s response to Emma is part of, I think, a, a pretty sketchy deal too.  

Speaker 1    00:38:46    Okay. So let me, I I wanna read from gospel topics on this in, on Emma and her approach to this, or her understanding, or her reaction to this. Again, I’m quoting from gospel topics as you can find this at Church of Jesus christ.org. It says there that Emma approved, at least for a time of four, of Joseph Smith’s plural marriages in Avu, she accepted all four of those wives into her household. She may have approved of other marriages as well, they say, but Emma likely did not know about all of Joseph’s ceilings. Ceilings, meaning being sealed to someone for time and eternity, or just for e  

Speaker 2    00:39:21    Attorney, sealing another word for a, a, a marriage.  

Speaker 1    00:39:24    A marriage. Okay. She va So again, they say, there’re that she likely did not know about all of Joseph’s ceilings. Again, just that is so sketchy to me. That is so sketchy to me that you’re, you’re married to the prophet of a church, the leader of a church. And, and you, again, we’re leaders in church Ross, we’re pastors in churches. I don’t know how our governing board would look at this <laugh> if we said, Hey, look, God revealed this to me, but I’m not gonna tell my wife about it. Right. I’m not gonna tell my wife about all of it. That’s just so sketchy to me. Anyway.  

Speaker 2    00:39:58    Well, by the way, let me just insert this. The, the book, the Revelation in Doctrine and Covenants that talks about plural marriage requires that for a man to take a plural wi uh, wife, he has to have the approval of his first wife. Wow. So that relates to that. Okay.  

Speaker 1    00:40:14    And we’re gonna get into some of the scripture here in a second. Again, this is all right here, annotated on mm-hmm. Gospel topics. I’m reading again, my reaction isn’t official, but these words are official from, uh, church of Jesus christ.org. It says there that Emma vacillated in her view of plural marriage <laugh>, that’s, that’s stating  

Speaker 2    00:40:32    It. Getting it kindly here.  

Speaker 1    00:40:33    Yeah. At some point, supporting it and at other times denouncing it. Here’s what’s crazy to me. This is of everything we’ve talked about, there’s so much sketchiness and bricks after brick, after brick after brick, when you’re talking about Joseph Smith. And we’re just talking right now about Joseph Smith. We’re not talking about anyone else yet doctrinal stuff. We’ll cover that in other episodes. But it says here that in the summer of 1843, so this would’ve been in Nav  

Speaker 2    00:40:57    Vu mm-hmm.  

Speaker 1    00:40:57    <affirmative>. Yep. Okay. So Joseph Smith dictated the revelation on marriage, a lengthy and complex text containing both glorious promises and stern warnings. Some directed at Emma. Now there’s a footnote there. It’s Footnote 41. If you wanna look this up again, we’ll put a link to this. It’s footnote 41. And I wanna re, I’ve just gotta read this footnote, because this to me is unbelievable. And I’ve got some questions for you about this, Ross, but let me just read this first. This is from Doctrine and Covenants 1 32 verses 54 and 64. And again, it’s annotated right here. So they’re not, I don’t think they’re really trying to hide it. I think they’re trying to be honest about it and say, look to a point. Yeah. To a point. Okay. Here’s what it says. So this is part of their scripture. Joseph Smith, this is in their scripture. I, I can’t emphasize that on this is in their scripture. You’re not, when you hear what I’m about to read, you’ll see why I’m so blown over by this. Okay. But here’s what it says, verse 54, and I command mine handmade Emma Smith to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment, she shall be destroyed, sayeth the Lord, for I am the Lord thy God, and will destroy her if she abide not in my law, the law of plural marriage.  

Speaker 2    00:42:19    Right.  

Speaker 1    00:42:20    Right. And again, veely, rarely I say to you, verse 64, if any man have a wife who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood as pertaining to these things, plural, marriage, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, say at the Lord your God, for I will destroy her, for I will magnify my name upon, uh, uh, upon all those who receive and abide in my law. Ross, I don’t understand, I honestly don’t understand how a, how a husband or a, certainly not a wife, but how a husband could read this in their scriptures and not throw a flag at this. Help me understand this.  

Speaker 2    00:43:02    Yeah. Well, you know, to me, I read that and it, and it’s today, if, if somebody showed up today with that same kind of claim, we would say spiritual abuse. You know, it’s, it’s, um, but you know, if you’re a, if you’re a faithful letter, they saint, you’re looking at it through a certain lens and you’re looking at say, well, you know, if, if, if this is truly an eternal principle and truly a principle that upon which hinges your eternal exaltation in some way or another, then a person who opposes it, you know, would be, um, in the way of, of God. And now, now, and they might, they might say, well, what does he mean by destroy? I, I don’t know. You know, that maybe there’s some fudge factor there. But, and then, and, and also to add to the manipulation and the abuse, in my view, Joseph came to Emma and said that an angel of the Lord, uh, delivered this to him. The angel with a flaming sword threatened to destroy Joseph if he didn’t do this right. So Joseph’s saying, look, I really didn’t want to, but I had to. God made me, you know? Yeah. Right. Which sounds like an excuse that I might make <laugh>, you know? Yeah, exactly. My wife sometimes, you know, I don’t know. But, you know, so the whole thing, it, it just, it just smacks of something else going on besides something that God would actually reveal.  

Speaker 1    00:44:23    Okay. So how did em, do we know how Emma responded to this scriptural revelation?  

Speaker 2    00:44:28    Well, um,  

Speaker 1    00:44:29    She didn’t leave him. Right.  

Speaker 2    00:44:31    She didn’t, she didn’t leave him. She capitulated. That’s why the, the article talks about vacillating back and forth. She never liked it. She never, um, said, oh, yay. You know, this is so, I’m so glad God revealed this. And, um, I think the real ultimate, um, test of her, uh, or evidence of her response is that when, after Joseph died, and Brigham Young became the leader of Mormonism, and they, Brigham Young had been initiated into the polygamy doctrine, um, in these, in these same timeframe, that, that Emma didn’t go with them. She didn’t go west with the Mormons. Hmm. She stayed in Nav and married somebody else later. And so she always disavowed in, in her later life after her husband was gone. She always disavowed polygamy. Hmm.  

Speaker 1    00:45:19    Okay. We’ve gotta, I’ve just gotta ask you, Ross, about a couple of these other statements in this gospel topic. Okay. It says there about Joseph Smith imp plural marriage. A couple things. First of all, it says that his first, his first wife, his first, well, his first wife, wife was Emma, but his first plural wife was Fanny Alger. And that was all the way back in Kirtland, Ohio in the mid 1830s. So this was not even revealed yet. 1843, I think we just read, is when it, it came out officially in scripture, but apparently it was sort of secretive for a while before that. So, do we know anything more about Fannie  

Speaker 2    00:45:59    Alger? Yeah. We know something about her. Um, her situation is, you stands alone in a sense that it wasn’t because there wasn’t a sense that after Fannie Alger that Joseph was engaging in plural marriage relationships for the next 10 years until 1843. So it’s kind of a, it’s kind of a outlier in a sense. Um, Fannie Alger was a, was a girl who came to live with the Smiths. She was, she was lived there for three years, I think from 1833 to 1836. And, um, and during that time, she was between the ages of like 16 and 19 years old. Um, and so Jo, so Joseph Smith did have a liaison with Fannie Elger to the best of everybody’s knowledge that now at the time it was considered to be an affair. And there were other, there were le uh, even some of the voices within Mormonism, um, some of the original leaders of Mormonism thought it was a disgusting thing, and, and, and called Joseph Smith out about it.  

Speaker 2    00:47:05    Um, some of the persecution that we mentioned earlier that happened in the Kirtland, um, Kirtland era was related to this. One time Joseph Smith got, uh, a mob knocked at his door late at night, and they grabbed him and pulled him out, and they tarred and feathered him. Now, I, I grew up lds and I was always taught that was because of religious persecution. Hmm. It’s more likely that that was because of his relationship with Fannie Alger. They were gonna castrate him. They didn’t get around to it or something that, that night for some reason. Um, and so why would they castrate him over religious issues? It was because he was, um, he was taking advantage of this teenage girl living in their home now. So, so it’s interesting, it was interesting to me when I first read the gospel topic essay that it took the, the umbrella of Joseph’s polygamy and nav polygamy and it, and it cast it backward to cover Fannie Ald as well. Yeah. Um, I would look at that a little bit differently. I would say, you know, maybe, maybe he found some justification for that affair by the stories of, you know, David and Abraham, the polygamous in the Old Testament. But, um, to me it was nothing more than just, um, just a, an a affair where he took advantage of a young woman living in his house. I I, to me, it’d be hard to see that even, um, even in the category of a plural marriage.  

Speaker 1    00:48:34    Yeah, yeah. Today, if someone were to do that, they would be in prison, right?  

Speaker 2    00:48:40    Yeah, absolutely.  

Speaker 1    00:48:41    And really, it, it, later on in the gospel topic, um, article, it says, most of those sealed to Joseph Smith, again, married to Joseph Smith, were between 20 and 40 years of age at the time of their ceiling. To him, the oldest, Fannie Young was 56 years old. The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of Joseph’s close friends, Heber Sea and Violet Murray Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday. Which is interesting that they say it like that. Like <laugh>, she was a 14 year old. Yeah. Guys, listen, I, I, I mean, I just want to, I wanna appeal to any dad out there. And I know for Mormons, this was a big sticking point. Could you, Ima I don’t understand any justification at all for someone coming, a cult, a religious leader coming to you as a dad and saying, I wanna marry your 14 year old daughter.  

Speaker 1    00:49:36    To me, that’s, I would, I immediately, Ross, I would run, I would run from the, uh, that right there that, and I know there’s a lot of abuse in the Mormon church. It’s been well-documented to even today that there’s bishops and whatever. And a lot of that stuff just gets, you know, look, don’t say anything to anyone about it. We, we’ve, I, we hear that all the time, and not just in books. We’ve done ministry here for over 20 years, and we’ve seen that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it’s, it’s very, very sad that almost like, this is almost like a part of the ethos of the Mormon church. I think, Ross, am I being, am I being unfair in saying No,  

Speaker 2    00:50:12    Not totally. It is fair to connect the dots to some extent. It’s certainly is a culture of secrecy that protects leaders. And that goes all the way back to Joseph Smith because he, so when he went to Hebrew Kimball and Violet Kimball, uh, and, and he said, I’m sure he said, I, I wanna marry your daughter. And God told me mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So there’s this kind of spiritual authority that, that leaders hide behind. Um, and it, it, Joseph had cultivated the loyalty of these leaders and they looked up to him. And so eventually you keep pushing the boundaries and eventually your leader’s gonna ask you to do something that’s, you know, and you keep doing it because of the loyalty and the, and the belief in the system and the everything that’s happened in the past. And I think that, I think that culture of, of unthinking loyalty to spiritual leadership mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, a lot of, a lot of bad people have hidden behind that.  

Speaker 1    00:51:08    Right. And I would even say not, not even just in Mormonism, cuz I think that’s that’s true for some Christian churches as well. Yeah, it is true. So I want the Mormons to hear this, who are listening. We’re not just, we’re not just expose, we wouldn’t just expose this in Joseph Smith’s story. We would expose this in our own church. We would absolutely expose, we would expose this in Christian churches. We don’t think this is right in any church. Right? Amen. But, but in a, in a Christian Church, it’s the pastor of the church. It’s not the founder of the Church of the Religion. Right? Right. Joseph Smith is the founder of this religion and these five things, and there’s so much more, these five things to me are sketchy. And it, it, I think it should really cause you to question if you’re a faithful Mormon, it should cause you to question, should I really, should I really be a Mormon? I know that’s a hard question to ask and that’s scary to think about the ramifications of leaving a church that maybe you grew up in or maybe your whole family grew up in. But I wanna call you back to what we read at the beginning, Ross from Joseph fifth, Joseph Fielding Smith, who was, who was a prophet. The third prophet. Fourth  

Speaker 2    00:52:13    Prophet. No, he was, he was, uh, I don’t know, seventh or down the  

Speaker 1    00:52:16    Line. Okay. He was down  

Speaker 2    00:52:17    The line, his 20th century.  

Speaker 1    00:52:18    So here again, what we started with, I wanna read this again now that we’ve been through this, over this last hour, Mormonism, he said, as it is called, must stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. We agree with that, Ross, he was either a prophet of God, divinely called, properly appointed in commissioned, or he was one of the biggest frauds this world has ever seen. There’s no middle ground. I so agree with that. And, and what’s, when I read that, it reminds me of a CS Lewis quote from mere Christianity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, CS Lewis essentially says the same thing. That Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. There’s essentially, there’s no middle ground like he was. He was either, he was either crazy or he was a liar, or he is who he says he is. And so I, I think maybe we should just close by saying that, Ross, what, what is true of Joseph Smith and Mormonism is also true for Jesus and Christianity.  

Speaker 1    00:53:14    Christianity stands and falls on the person and work of Jesus Christ. Not anyone else. Not a pastor, not an evangelist that you’ve not your favorite televangelist on tv. It stands and falls on Jesus Christ. And Jesus is proven over and over that he is trustworthy. Mormonism stands or falls on Joseph Smith, and I don’t think we can say the same thing for him. Yep. All right. If you wanna learn more about this, you can find this and so much more on Mormonism and christianity@pursuegod.org slash Mormonism. Encourage you to share this with a friend. We’ll see you next time.