18: Priesthood Restoration

- Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of "More Mysterious Podcasts." I'm your host, John DeLynn. It's August 24th, 2022, and we are super excited to be continuing our series, the LDS Discussions series, and today the episode, the focus is going to be the LDS priesthood restoration. As far as I'm concerned, this is the one of the most important topics that we can cover when someone is trying to objectively look at Mormon church truth claims. Before we jump in for today, I will just kind of let you know that all of this series is based on an amazing website called LDS Discussions.com, and this is where my good friend, Mike, has painstakingly written, you know, over a high, I would say over a hundred essays and much, much more, just doing a real critical, thoughtful, neutral, objective, but evidence-based look at Mormon church truth claims. Check out LDS Discussions.com. This series has become so popular where, you know, almost two, we're getting close to two dozen episodes in. People love it so much that they've asked us to make it its own standalone podcast or series. We want to just remind everyone that this is available on anchor, this is also available on Spotify at LDS Discussions, and it's, there's a YouTube playlist where you can play this as well. And even Spotify these days is allowing video. So that is cool for those of you who like to do video through Spotify and set a video through YouTube. But this series is really having a huge impact. And Mike, it's so great to have you back for this series, thanks for what you do. - Hey everybody, it's good to be back. - All right, so Mike, I wanted, you know, there's gonna be a few people, a bunch of people have our audience that have never been Mormon before. And they're not gonna even understand what we mean when we talk about priesthood or why it's important. So is it okay if I just kind of set that up in one slide? - Yeah, of course. - So in the Mormon church, we are taught that our church is true and all other churches are false. And when we say false, one of the things, you know, the two things that we basically claim that was kind of the narrative we were sold from the beginning that we actually when missionaries meet with investigators, you know, what's sold is that when Joseph Smith was called to start the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that God said all other creeds are abomination, all of the religious creeds are abomination. And all the other churches lack God's stamp of approval or authority, which means that all non-Mormon baptisms do not count in heaven as getting you to heaven. All non-Mormon marriages and weddings don't count in heaven. Your marriage and your family dissolves when you go to heaven. If you don't get a Mormon marriage. And so that's kind of the authority part and all other churches are, it's like a McDonald's that doesn't have franchise rights. You might claim to be McDonald's, but you're not really the McDonald's unless you have the piece of paper saying you are a certified franchise. And in a very real and literal sense, I was taught growing up that the Mormon Church views all other churches as illegitimate in the eyes of God and that God only approves one church. And it is the priesthood authority that is God's stamp or seal of approval. And as the pictures show, the story is that before the church was ever founded in 1830 that Joseph Smith and Oliver Caldry were visited by John the Baptist who gave the Aaronic priesthood, which is the lower priesthood. And then later Peter James and John showed up and gave Joseph Smith and Oliver Caldry the higher priesthood or the Melchistic priesthood. And that sort of set Joseph and Oliver in the church up to kind of then function with God's franchise approval or the authority. And then the only other thing I'll add is that the other thing is power and Mormons literally believe that we can heal the sick through like anointings where you put oil, sacred oil that you've blessed with priesthood authority, honest sick person's head, and then you lay your hands on their head, say a prayer. And God's gonna give you special power to heal the sick that someone without the priesthood. Even a mother who doesn't have the priesthood, a Mormon mother who doesn't have the priesthood, it's not gonna be as powerful as if it's a male priesthood holder within the Mormon church giving that blessing with the oil. There are other sorts of power. You actually have the power within Mormonism to raise your right arm to the square if you have the priesthood and you can cast out devils or evil spirits in God's name. And again, it's the priesthood power that you get through the laying out of hands that gives you that power. And so when you're 12 years old as a Mormon boy, you receive the erotic priesthood laying out of hands that makes you a deacon. When you're 14, you become a teacher. When you're 16, you become a priest. And then when you serve a mission, you get ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood with the laying out of hands, which is the higher priesthood. That's when you become an elder. And then there's high priest, which is the highest office in the normal higher Melchizedek priesthood within the church. What am I leaving out, Mike, in terms of priesthood and authority within Mormonism? - No, I mean, I think speaking as someone who was a convert, I mean, it was taught to me that there was a priesthood in ancient days, which you see in the Bible, there's obviously there's concerns about the priesthood. And I know David Bacchavoy and his episodes with you had talked about how that drove the priestly source of the Bible and all that. And so for me, I was taught like, okay, there was this priesthood. That was in ancient times, and they apostasy. So it was just gone from the earth. And Joseph Smith, by being visited by John the Baptist and Peter James the John, restored what was lost so that no other church had the authority to speak for God on earth because they had all been corrupted. They were all as, you know, the first vision states, you know, abominations. And that because the priesthood was restored within the Mormon church through Joseph Smith, we are the only ones on earth that can perform true miracles because we have that power bestowed upon us. And, you know, to me, it plays a lot into the folk magic which we talked about in our early episodes, it was just this belief that you can channel this power, like you said, to heal people to, you know, really create miracles and more importantly, to speak on behalf of God with proper authority. So it is power to do things, but that power also gives you authority. I guess in a lot of ways it's almost circular. Like, you know, having authority gives you power and having power gives you authority. And the priesthood, I think in a lot of ways, closes that gap within Mormonism to say, this is how you know, we are the one true church because we're the only church that has that authority that's been restored and gives us the credibility and the power to speak for God. - Yeah, and I don't think the importance of this topic can be overstated because this is the whole inshelada. And Mormonism what drives its power, its money, its influence, its whole value proposition is that it's God's sanctioned one true church, its ordinances count, its priesthood authority counts, its power counts. So this, I mean, this really might be the whole inshelada in some ways. I mean, some would say it's the first vision, some would say it's the Book of Mormon. I would almost say it's priesthood and authority that really is the whole inshelada. You know what I mean? Is the Book of Mormon true? But the church be false. - Right. - So the current modern Latter-day Saint Church, I think this is the whole inshelada. - Yeah, I mean, the first vision last week is gonna play into this one because there's so many similar issues that happen in the first vision when you talk about late creations of stories and retrofitting. But the first vision in a lot of ways, if Joseph Smith had never told that story, it wouldn't really alter the church today, outside of the fact that it takes away a foundational story that they use to convert people to the church. But the priesthood restoration, if it's not true, it's like, if you have no true authority, if that authority is a story that is created late and is not true, then yeah, it's like, so what do we have left in the church? If the first vision didn't happen, which I think last week we showed, it's the story is a late creation. If Joseph Smith had some born again experience, it was not the first vision as told in the church and it certainly has so many errors and changes. And then if the priesthood restoration is also a story that didn't happen as stated, you now have two foundational stories in the church that we can show Joseph Smith created to bolster himself and to establish his changing theology. And at that point, to what you're saying, it's like what are you left with? If you now see that the priesthood authority is kind of fictional and that Joseph Smith was willing to create this long after the fact in order to really put himself above others, but also to put the church above others. And once you take that away, it's like what are you left with, especially when you look at what the church demands from you to either get that or to be married to someone who has it. And I think that's what these episodes are trying to show is all of these things build upon each other. So today we're gonna see how the first vision builds into this, we're gonna see how treasuredigging builds into this in a way, how folk magic, all of the things we've talked about are gonna play into this. And that's why it's so important because this has implications in our daily lives as members. This is something that you are going to see people talk about time and time again in church. Like you said, they do blessings. This ties into the temple, this ties into everything. So if this is a very central topic and that's why we're gonna go through this in a lot of detail to illustrate how it evolved and why we can show, kind of we said with the first vision that we have the receipts to show this is just not the way the church talks about it today or even talked about it 10 years later. It's just a slow evolution and it comes out of necessity for Joseph Smith and it impacts everything we do today. - Yeah, and not to poison the well, but this was a huge shocker for me. Even after I'd become a progressive liberal Mormon, I didn't know about this and it was really shocking. Like treasuredigging was shocking. The Book of Mormon was shocking and this priesthood restoration, almost invention after the fact, just blew me away. And again, like you said, all three of these things happen before the church is ever even founded. So let's jump in. So now that we've covered what it is, let's talk about the timeline as the church argues it. - Yeah, and this is just the most simple way to put it. And I remember when I was doing this overview, I looked at the church's website and they gave you this timeline of the priesthood restoration and it is super simple on May 15th, 1829. John the Baptist conferred the Aaronic priesthood on Joseph Smith and Oliver Caldery and a Harmony Pennsylvania. Then they'll say in May of 1829, basically sometimes shortly after, Joseph Smith and Oliver Caldery received the Melchizedic priesthood from Peter, James and John, near the Susquehanna River behind Harmony, between a Harmony Pennsylvania and Colesville, New York. And in April 6th, 1830, the church is gonna be organized and that's important because you need to have the priesthood restored before the church is restored so that you have the church has the correct authority and so this is the church's timeline, super simple, super clean, much like you see with the first vision. This is just how I was taught it as a convert, as a member, it's just very clean. - And I'll just validate that every year you celebrate the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood because we always had a date for it. I never thought to ask about the date for the Melchizedic priesthood but we'll get there. But these are stories you hear every year as a Mormon. There's nothing ambiguous. It's very simple and elegant. And there's nothing even question about this if you don't scratch the surface. - Okay, all right. - So last week we talked about the first vision and I kept on hammering how important timelines are and this is gonna be the same thing, which is to say, all of this is about looking at the timeline to see if it adds up, if it's kind of linear, if it builds in the way it should build or if it's created in the way that the church says it happened. And so we're going to cover the timeline using historical documents, statements, revelations and it's just so important because if you look at the timeline and you ignore the way the church portrays it. And I mentioned this in the first episode but picture this like a puzzle. And the picture on the box is the correlated version of Joseph and Oliver being ordained by John the Baptist and then Peter James and John. And that's what the church tells you the boxes and then you open it up and all of the pieces are what we're gonna talk about today. It's about not using the church's correlated pictures to put that puzzle together but to use the historical documents to see where the piece is fit together. And once you do that, then you look at the puzzle and say what does the puzzle actually show compared to what the church tells us it will show. And so I think that is something to keep in mind as we go and just one of the things I want to point out as we get going is the church site's DNC 13 as the revelation that led to the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood in 1829. But that revelation or that excerpt that's used for the DNC was not written until 1838. And so one of the things we're gonna kind of point out is that the church uses a lot of entries in the DNC that were written long after as if they happened almost at the time and sometimes they'll say this is an excerpt from Joseph Smith's history that doesn't really tell you the fact that this is being written nine years later in a completely different area of need for Joseph Smith. And so keep those things in mind because we're gonna go through the timeline in a linear way. We're gonna start from the beginning and work our way up as opposed to starting with the conclusion that this happened and working our back as you'll see the church often do in their materials. - That's already a tiny bit shocking to me and here's why. Joseph Smith received revelations prior to the April 6, 1830 founding of Mormonism, so not like the DNC, the revelations that make up the doctrine and covenants come after the church is founding. - Right. - So if Joseph is going to receive revelations by God prior to 1830, why the fetch aren't some of those revelations behold, Joseph Smith, I shall give unto you the priesthood of Aaron, which is the lower priesthood and then behold, I will send Peter James and John and they will give you the mychezic priesthood. That those revelations never came and you have to wonder that's already a problem. - It is, yeah, it is. I mean, and just as a real brief spoiler alert, he does get revelation or at least he claims revelation about getting baptized and has no mention of the priesthood and those will get into it later of course, but those revelations, those early revelations are coming through the rock and a hat. So they're tight translation. So again, why are we using an 1838 source for these revelations when these things would have been documented because Joseph Smith has a scribe who's writing down these early revelations coming through the rock and a hat and yet as we'll see, there's no mention of it and so they're going to use an 1838 source which should be a red flag, except for the fact that I think for most members and this was true for me, you just don't really understand when you see it's from Joseph Smith's history that it's a late edition, that the story has changed 'cause why would you look unless you kind of get that jolt internally that says I need to figure this out, which for most people, just it takes a long time to get to that point. - Really quickly, you're making me now think of the first vision discussion that we just had last week where we realized that his first entry of the first vision reflected his view on the theology in 1832 and then obviously his 1838 version reflected his evolving theology later. The Book of Mormon, since it came before 1830, would show us his view on priesthood and authority, you're right at the founding of the church. I didn't see in the slides you talking about this, what does the Book of Mormon have to say about Aaronic versus Melchizedok in the need for a higher and a lower priesthood and authority to do ordinances and baptize the church because that would show what Joseph's actual view was of priesthood at the time of the founding of the church. Am I stealing your thunder? Do you talk about that later? - We talk about it later more when we get to the apologetics, but I think one of the things, 'cause I think it's important in the timeline. - You wanna get to it now? - Well, I just wanna get really cool. - Yeah, so my level's super high. - I think one of the ways I look at it, and I've heard other people say it, is that Joseph Smith in the early days talked about more authority than priesthood. So it was about having the authority to baptize by having the authority to perform miracles, healings, all that stuff. It wasn't really referred to as priesthood. And one of the things about the Book of Mormon and we'll get to it with the apologetics is that it does not mention or discuss really these separate priesthoods. And I think there's two references to a high priesthood. The references to the Melchizedok priesthood come. Joseph Smith is not really aware of a Melchizedok priesthood at this point. And it's just, it shows as we get into because that comes from Sidney Rignan. We'll get into all that with the timeline. But I think the Book of Mormon is more concerned about authority than actual idea of priesthood. And I'm probably oversimplifying that a bit. But that's why you start to see priesthood used years later, whereas early on, it was more about authority. - Well, I just wanna make one point. And that's that part of the selling proposition of the Church of Jesus Christ, the letter he says, is that it's a restoration of all things. But we're all taught that Jesus set up his true church and he did everything right. But then the Catholics and the Protestants came along and ruined Christ's true church 'cause he set up apostles and he set up the church. And then I all got ruined. So Joseph was called to restore everything. And so if that's true, and the Book of Mormon represents Christ setting up his true church in America. And if the way that the church now is the true order of things, then I think for me logically, the Book of Mormon in its purity would have said and behold, there's a lower priesthood called the Aaronic priesthood. And then there's a higher priesthood called the McKessic priesthood. And Deacon's teachers and priests do this with the lower. And elders at high priests do this with the higher. And none of that's in the Book of Mormon. And I think that's important. - Yeah, well, we talked about it in one of our earlier episodes about the Book of Mormon, which is, the Book of Mormon is framed as the fullness of the gospel. And yet, the Book of Mormon doesn't include the McKessic priesthood. Doesn't include the endowment ceremony. Doesn't include baptisms for the dead. It doesn't include trying to think of the other ones. There's all of these, you know, wearing, you know, garments with Masonic symbols on it, you know, trying to think of all the later innovations. But none of that. And so none of that's in the Book of Mormon. And so you do have to go, why are we restoring this Book of Mormon that's supposed to restore the fullness of the gospel when it's basically giving us nothing that is really uniquely Mormon? The only thing that really mentions this polygamy and even then it condemns it. So I mean, it really is one of those things that you don't think about as a member. Like the Book of Mormon. And again, I'll speak as a convert. When I read it, it didn't stick out as being anything weird. It just felt like you're reading the Bible because you basically were reading somebody who was trying to write in the language of the Bible, use the ideas of the Bible and make them more of a 19th century context, which to a modern reader doesn't feel that weird. And at some point, my head should have been saying, why are none of the things that you hear about with Mormonism in here? But you just don't because you're told it's a privilege in the book. And so yeah, to your question, there's no real mention of a Melchizedic priesthood or the need for two priesthoods. They do reference a high priesthood, but as we'll see in the apologetics, even then, like Pharaoh Mormon really stretches to redefine what the Book of Mormon is saying. And that's a problem because these things should be in there if Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery are truly dealing with them at that time before the church is founded and it's just not. - Okay. - What was the episode we did that would have mentioned all the things not in the Book of Mormon? - I can't remember 'cause we did the surrounding influences one, which kind of covered some of that. And anachronisms, we kind of covered like what's not in there. So it's one of those that have to look at it. I'm not sure which one that was that had that one. I'm trying to include it in the show notes if we remember. - Yeah. - All right, let's jump to the Melchizedic priesthood thought up in 1827. So that's your question. Is was the Melchizedic priesthood thought up in 1827, right? - Yeah, and this is kind of like foreshadowing. Like if you're watching a movie and you see some little scene with it with a character that you don't understand who it is and you're like, why are they doing that? We're doing this because this is really important. In 1827, the disciples of Christ has nothing to do with Mormonism. The disciples of Christ, from which many early members of the church converted, had developed its own priesthood doctrines which were influenced by Alexander Crawford who was a Scottish minister living in Canada. In 1827, Crawford had delineated the existence of three distinct priesthoods, a patriarchal priesthood, which he also called a priesthood at the order of Melchizedic, an erroneical priesthood originally held by Aaron and a priesthood held by Jesus Christ. Crawford regarded Melchizedic as a greater priest than Abraham, citing the fact that Abraham paid ties to him. Indeed, according to Crawford, Melchizedic was one of the key players in the order of the patriarchal priesthood. Crawford also considered the patriarchal priesthood and the erroneical priesthoods as branches of the Levitical priesthood, regardless as one historian claimed Alexander Campbell, who was influenced by Alexander Crawford, taught his understanding of the priesthood to many of his followers who became part of the Mormonite community and continued to believe the same doctrine. This is from BYU Studies and it's basically saying that in 1827, the idea of the Melchizedic priesthood was being taught by Alexander Crawford, who taught Alexander Campbell, who led the Campbellites, who just happened to be where Sydney Rigden was a part of, and that is really important to keep in mind that Sydney Rigden would have heard about the Melchizedic priesthood from Alexander Campbell before the Mormon church or the Book of Mormon was created in any way. Okay, so are you saying that there's a high probability that three years before the Book of Mormon was created, some dude in another church named Alexander Crawford comes up with the idea, this is the thesis, comes up with the idea of a Melchizedic priesthood, maybe Sydney Rigden was exposed to it, and then in the mid-1830s, Joseph Smith learns about it and then incorporates it after the fact. Is that the thesis? - Yeah, it's in, and you can see, well, as we go through the timeline, you'll see it, I mean, it's all there and it's, yeah, but it's like that, if you're going through a linear timeline, that's the first thing, 'cause this is happening before Joseph Smith, and as we've talked about in previous episodes, this is another area where you have these surrounding ideas that are more unique to Joseph Smith's time in place, it just happened to make their way into the theology, and if you ask Bible scholars, and I'm sure there's not 100% consensus on this, but the idea that there would be a Melchizedic priesthood that people like you and me could hold, it's kind of a misreading of Hebrews. Hebrews is more or less saying, Melchizedic is not like a person, it's not like John, it's a title, it's the King of righteousness, right? So it's not about giving it to John or to Mike, or to anyone, it's about, this is a priesthood that is the King of righteousness that would be equated with Jesus, not one that is going to be given to a ton of people in a church because they turn to certain age, and so those ideas were coming in, this kind of what's second grade awakening, but a lot of scholars would argue that's a misreading of the Bible in the first place, even before we get to all this other stuff. And so this is another area where you can make a strong case that Joseph Smith is misreading or misinterpreting the Bible, putting it concretely into the theology of the Mormon church in a way that again tells us it's not really being restored from God, it's being restored by a guy using 19th century ideas. - Wow, and that's, I'm reading the slide now, and I'm just kind of blown away that the book of commandments comes out a couple, what year the book of commandments come out? - 1833. - So three years after the church is founded, the book of commandments comes out, and there's no mention of either the erotic or the Melchistic priesthood, and it doesn't mention the visitation from Peter, James, and John. That's kind of mind blowing. - Yeah, I mean, it should be a red flag, and I think it's one of those things where you can look at it and go, you can find all this stuff online, but nobody's gonna tell it to you. And I think in a lot of ways, you hear the story about how they were printing the book of commandments, and they were attacked by the mob, and only a few survived. And in a lot of ways, that's probably a good thing for Joseph Smith because it allowed him to change it with very few people having access to what he originally wrote. And we'll get to that as we go, but yeah, I mean, this is a big deal in the sense of when you look at the timeline, it does not line up with the correlated material in any way. - Also, we've already talked about the first vision problem of no mention of the first vision until 12 years after it happens. Like there's this pattern of like, why are these stories appearing five to 10 later after they happen at a convenient moment? And I'm just noticing that pattern here because five years after the event was supposed to happen is the first time that the, there's a mention of John the Baptist or Peter James and John delivering these priesthoods. That's mind blowing. That should have been there before the church was started in the revelations, and it's not even in the book of commandments three years after the church was founded. That's a problem. It's a huge problem just because of the fact that people will say I was too sacred to speak about. But if you're claiming to have a priesthood. - Now it's a brag, right? - Well, yeah, that's the thing. And at some point, I think it was a brag because you, well, we'll get to it as we go through the timeline, but it became a brag because Joseph Smith needed to be able to say, listen guys, I got this directly from them in Oliver also would say that too. And because of that, it elevated their status in the church. But more importantly, not only would it be a brag, which it was to that degree. But if you get your priesthood restored through a specific person, you would want to tell the church that so they understood that there was authority behind it as opposed to that Joseph Smith's earlier belief was that he could get authority by divine command through the rock and a hat. The problem is when you do that, Dan Vogel talks about this a lot and I'm going to be huge shout out now to Dan Vogel because a lot of what we're going to talk about with the timeline comes from him because he puts so much work into looking up all these documents and all of these changes. So Dan Vogel was just so good at this and we'll put in the show notes some of the stuff he's done. But he talked about early on when you are charismatic leaders, Joseph Smith was divine command as a charismatic leader is kind of one of those things that people can replicate a little easier because you could say, well, I was told by God that I was supposed to do this. Well, when you make it concrete with the story about Peter James and John, it takes it a little bit further away from just being a divine command to it's being restored by specific figures from biblical times which gives Joseph Smith a more concrete authority to kind of rest on with it being harder for somebody to challenge his authority. Got it. OK, so the next slide is the second half of 1829 articles of the church. Yeah, and so actually go back one slide real quick. Because I don't think-- So basically, as per the official timeline, Joseph Smith claims he was called by the spirit to restore the priesthood. Did we not do this slide yet? We did that one. We didn't do this next one. Yeah, you'd mention it, but I don't think we actually went through it real quick. We don't have to go through it too much. Oh no, this-- no, you're fine. So go to the-- yeah, that one right there. So the church basically says very cleanly on May 15, 1829, Joseph and Oliver were called to restore the priesthood and it's cited in the church's narrative. It's in all the videos. I mean, it's what you're going to hear. Everywhere you go within the church, I mean, as a convert, this was just drilled into me. And it was given restored through John the Baptist because he had the authority to baptize. And as we'll show, this story is so anachronistic to 1829 because Joseph Smith does not mention the Aaronic or Melchizedic priesthoods for years to come. And there's going to be no mention of Peter, James and John, or John the Baptist until about 1835. And the original revelation I talked about this earlier in this episode, the original revelation that discusses the baptism for Joseph and Oliver in the Book of Commandments, which is now DNC 18. There's no mention of either priesthood nor does it mention any visitation from Peter, James, or John. And so it's completely absent from the revelation entry in the Book of Commandments that should cover this event. And yet it's just completely missing. And are you going to show us later that they changed the revelation? Oh yeah, yeah, we'll go through all that. Yeah, those are-- that was a big one for me when I saw the visual of that, which we'll show. Oh, that's awful. OK. And so to continue the timeline, so now we're going into the second half of 1829. And the articles and covenants of the Church of Christ is released in the second half. And it's written down by Oliver Cowdery and it's chapter 24 of the Book of Commandments. And again, there's no mention of priesthood divisions. In fact, in this revelation apostles were elders, which waters down the authority in the church. There's no quorum of the 12 here. And this is not going to be changed until the revelation is altered in 1835. And it's now known as DNC 20. So in these articles, Joseph Smith dictates the following, God visited him by a holy angel whose countenance was his lightning and whose garments were pure and white above all whiteness and gave unto him commandments, which inspired him from on high and gave unto him power by the means of which was before prepared that he should translate a book. So again, there's no mention of angelic ordinations, priesthood restoration, or Peter James and John, anywhere in the initial articles of the church that's put in the Book of Commandments to try to illustrate how the church came to being, how it has authority. If I'm just being honest and honestly objective, that fits the pattern, that all the most important things happen are never recorded at the time, and they show up years later contradicting what was actually said and believed at the time. The miraculous events supposedly happen. That totally fits the pattern. - Yeah, and that's why we keep hammering on this idea of these episodes are not in isolation. These problems continue and they compile and they compound. And that's why I did this overview project. I wanted to do it in this order of the subjects was just to say that as you look at this, this ties into the first vision. It ties into how he spoke about the restoration of the gold plate stories, how all of these things have these details that just keep getting bigger and bigger as we go in order to backfill the story to give himself authority. And when you look at the actual timeline, it's telling us this just did not happen, at least as stated, if it happened in any way at all. - Yeah, and we just did the first vision episode. But again, call your attention to that. I don't even know that we included this in the first vision episode. But they're like writing down the articles and covenants of the church. And they're not saying, pay attention. They're not saying God and Jesus visited Joseph Smith. They're saying an angel, right? - Yeah, yeah. Like that's almost you go in the first vision episode, right? - Yeah, I mean, like I said, these things, when you see the way these stories develop and then you kind of, especially for like the first vision, the priesthood restoration are really like sibling episodes because they're gonna kind of cover a lot of the same ground because they're basically having the same issues of late creations of stories that need to be backfitted into the history. - Yeah, and again, they had the chance to mention both priesthoods and they didn't. - Yep. - Okay, that's important. Okay, so in June 1830, the articles and covenants of the church are released. And so the articles and covenants of the church outline the duties of the various church offices and ordinances and it was drafted by Joseph Smith. And that's from the, you know, the, or the doctorate covenants had her. And the document begins by stating the authority upon the church was organized, including a summary of the miraculous events proceeding, that organization. Yet it is completely silent about the angelic ordinations that Smith and Caldery later claimed. Instead, it mentions only divine and angelic commandments as a source of authority. For example, this document reads, "God ministered unto him by an holy angel and gave unto him commandments which inspired him from "on high and gave him the power by the means "which were before prepared." They should write translated books as we talk on the last slide. Which book was given by inspiration and is called the Book of Mormon and is confirmed to the others by the ministering of angels and declared unto the world by them. And so this is from Dan Vogel's presentation about the evolution of these claims. And what he says is, if you look at the phrase ministering of angels, it's a very generic phrasing and that is referring to the vision that the three and eight witnesses would have had to the Book of Mormon. That is not talking about a priest's restoration. That's talking about, because if you read it in context here, it's saying the book is called the Book of Mormon and the Book of Mormon is confirmed to others by the ministering of angels and declared unto the world by them. So again, there's no mention of the priesthood. There's no mention of the Melchizedek or the Aaronic or anything in here. This is just straight up what you would expect to be said in 1830, given how Joseph Smith's timeline on the first vision of priest's restoration goes. But this matches completely nothing from 1835 as the church would state today. I'm also going to note that in terms of like a bait and switch when it's my feeling that when the church was first founded, Joseph's authority primarily came from a perception that he had the power as a seer and as a translator. In the doctrine of covenants, it literally calls him a seer and a translator. And that was like, whoa, this guy has power from God to translate ancient records that none of us can read. We should pay attention to him. And that's a problem for two main reasons for me. One is that we now know that the Book of Mormon is not a translation because of all the episodes we've already talked about with the anachronisms and the plagiarisms. And then if you add to that the Book of Abraham, which is a false translation, we now know. And the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, those are like three fails, the ad-kinderhood plates. Like he's debunked as a translator. Which is his primary source of authority when he starts. And then you have that being replaced by these later claims of priesthood authority. And then in the modern times you have the church backing away even from the term translator. And they're even trying to redefine the word translation to mean other things or change the description of both the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon away from a translation to inspiration or revelation. And that's like, again, building a house, claiming you're building a house on cement and then trying to remove the foundation and wanting the house to still stand. That's a bait and switch and it's a problem for me. - Well, I mean, yeah. And you're not gonna hear this taught like, we'll get into it later. It's just you're not gonna hear the stuff taught on Sundays because again, once you start going through this, as we said at the beginning, all of everything that comes from these stories falls apart when you're finding out it's a late creation. And so you can't teach it. And so this is why you keep getting these kind of like, choral, you know, like the saints book where they kind of try to correlate some of this material to give you just a little bit of info but not actually tell you the full story. And so, yeah. - With the timeline. - Yeah, and that amount is so important. - Yeah, they really are, especially with Joseph Smith and the way he kind of creates stuff. So, all right, so if we go to the next slide, this is what I kind of talked about earlier. So, in November 1830, Sydney Rigden is going to be baptized into the church. And he is baptized, he's ordained as an elder in the church. And this is important because Rigden, as I mentioned earlier, has been teaching the ideas of the Aaronic and Melchizedic priesthood as a candlelight. And this is really important 'cause remember, 1830 November is after the book of Mormon, this is after they have been operating the church for a while. He's gonna come in and this is going to begin to show us how Joseph Smith is gonna use his ideas to change his own theology. - And I'm just gonna take a minute to say, there are a lot of people when they're trying to figure out how the book of Mormon got written. They want to include Sydney Rigden as a co-conspirator, co-conspirator, as a co-author secretly of the book of Mormon. And of course, John Hammer and others say, that's not necessary for the book to have been created. But if Sydney Rigden is teaching Aaronic Melchizedic priesthood as a candlelight before he joins the church, and he was a co-conspirator in writing the book of Mormon, then he probably would have written that into the book of Mormon, but that didn't happen. So maybe this is an evidence that Sydney Rigden wasn't a co-conspirator in writing the book of Mormon. Is that a valid conclusion? - Yeah, I mean, I have no belief whatsoever that he was a co-conspirator to the book of Mormon. So I agree that if he had been, you would see these ideas in the book of Mormon as opposed to waiting until a year after, which makes no sense if he were to have been involved. And I think your point is, I think your point is so good that no one else could have written the book of Mormon. - Yeah, I mean, if Sydney Rigden had written the book of Mormon, it wouldn't have had Joseph Smith's own life experiences as father's dream. I mean, you just wouldn't have that stuff in there. You'd have stuff that was more familiar to Sydney and not Joseph. It's pretty clear when you read it, nobody else could have written it. - There would have been prophecies about Sydney Rigden being an amazing human when he-- - Yeah, exactly, and I, you know, that there's just, when you talk about the way the power struggles go in the church, you would have, that stuff would have been more evident, I think, early on. - Yeah, okay. All right, so Sydney comes on the scene. - Yep, and then, so June of 1831, the High Priesthood is introduced for the first time in the church. And so, according to BYU studies, the authority of the Melchizedic Priesthood was manifested and conferred for the first time upon several of the elders at this conference. This further clarifies that until 1831, the title of elder in the church did not equate to priesthood as we kind of mentioned earlier in the articles and covenants of the Church of Christ. And the really interesting thing about this is that the journals for this conference refer only to the High Priesthood. There's no mention of the word Melchizedic is not, this is just not created yet. So, this further adds to the idea that we're talking about that, the erotic and Melchizedic priesthoods were retrofitted in history and are not thought of yet. And so, Ezra Booth, this is from the Journal of Discourse. So, it says Ezra Booth was present when the elders first received the ordination of the High Priesthood. They met together in June of 1831, while they were there at the manifestation of the power of God being on Joseph. He said apart, some of the elders to the High Priesthood, the priesthood was confirmed on a number of elders. And so, this is just telling us that until 1831, there was no upper priesthood in the Mormon Church. It was non-existent. And even now, it's still going to be called the High Priesthood. I think some people refer to it as the High and Holy priesthood, but it is not the Melchizedic priesthood even now. So, okay, so there's two questions I'm asking. So, first and foremost, I think it's important. So, in the first five years of the church, there's no sense of like, oh, you're 12, let me ironic priesthood ordination. Now you're a deacon, now you're a teacher, now a priest. Oh, you're 18 or 19. Now we're going to make you an elder and give you the Melchizedic priesthood. You're saying that did not happen for the first several years of the church? I don't think that they looked, I mean, I'm not positive on that. I don't think that they had like, the organization to kind of have it by age. I think it was more like when you joined. I'm sure it was by like, you're an adult, you know, and then this High Priesthood was given in 1831. I don't think it was given to all of the men. So, I think that was a way of saying, you've been in the church long enough, now you've earned this as opposed to just giving it to anybody, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Okay, well, that's what, that was going to be my second question. So, like a bunch of people join the church. Like right now, if you join the church in 2022 and you're an adult male, you're kind of almost immediately ordained into the priesthood, right? Yeah, I can't remember how long I had to wait before I got to Melchizedic because I think you're immediately into the Aaronic. I feel like there is a period where you wait. I've just heard of people like an adult man being baptized. Yeah, I might have been being ordained as a priest in the Aaronic priesthood. And then he's able to actually perform the baptism of a loved one, same day, right? Yeah, I think that makes sense because I think you get, once you're baptized, you can get the Aaronic priesthood. And then I can't remember, though, if I had to wait, if I had to wait it all for the Melchizedic, I don't remember, but I think you do. But this is my question. My question is, so in 1830, '31, someone joins the church, a male joins the church. What I'm here you say is there's no immediate giving of any priesthood in 1830. I don't think so because I think in 1830, they still just refer to when you got baptized as having the authority. There's no real mention of priesthood in that first year. This is really when the idea of priesthood starts getting going as far as I know. I mean, there's certainly not in the way we talk about it today. So when Ezra Booth receives a high priesthood, is it without ever having received a lower priesthood? Well, there's no Aaronic priesthood then. So if there was a priesthood, I think they were ordained as elders. And then I think they went from elders to the high priest, but I'm not 100% sure if there was any kind of consistency or confusion on that either. So that, 'cause I think they're still figuring it out at this point. - So when someone, when in 1831, someone receives the high priesthood, so that sounds like there's an idea of a higher priesthood, but you're just saying it wasn't named Melchizedek yet? - Yeah, so in 1831, that's like, actually go to the next slide. So the next slide is like the best slide, I think, 'cause it just illustrates how this is completely-- - Sorry, I'm just trying to make sense of it. - No, no, this is why this is so important though. So this meeting in 1831, Joseph Smith himself is first ordained to the higher priesthood. So there is no high priesthood until 1831. And so this is from Ruff Stonerolling. During the turbulent meeting, Joseph ordained five men to the high priesthood in Lyman-White ordained 18 others, including Joseph. The ordinations of the high priesthood marked a milestone in Mormon ecclesiology. Until that time, the word priesthood, although it appeared in the book of Mormon, had not been used in Mormon sermonizing or modern revelations. Later accounts applied the term retroactively, with the June 1831 conference markets, first appearance in contemporary records. The Melchizedic priesthood, Mormons now believe, had been bestowed a year or two earlier with the visitation of Peter, James and John. If so, why did contemporaries say the high priesthood was given for the first time in June 1831? Joseph Smith himself was ordained to this high priesthood by Lyman-White. If Joseph was already an elder and apostle, what was the necessity of being ordained again? - Okay, so that makes no sense, because I'll just repeat it as I understand it. And if Joseph Smith is given the Melchizedic priesthood in 1829 by Peter, James and John, why the fetches he being ordained to a high priesthood, not named Melchizedic in June of 1831. So that makes zero sense. - Yep, and so that's the thing. You cannot have Peter, James and John restoring this in 1829 if Joseph Smith is going to get it for the first time in 1831. And that tells you, the contemporary records tell us that Joseph Smith first got in 1831. Those are gonna be the most reliable, 'cause that was happening at the time it happened. They have journals from this meeting explaining that Joseph Smith was ordained at this meeting. So this is the introduction of the high priesthood in the Mormon church. It wasn't called Melchizedic. It functioned similarly, it just didn't have that title. And Joseph Smith was ordained. And even Richard Bushman is admitting, if he already had it two years earlier, what in the world is he doing getting it now? This is this one event to me as the biggest smoking gun that the priesthood restoration is a late addition. Because here you can see Joseph Smith evolving it. And he himself is taking part in the ordination, which tells you without any doubt that this did not happen in 1829 as the church would tell you today. - So that question, if Joseph was already an elder and apostle, what was the necessity of being ordained again, that's Richard Bushman asking the question? - Yeah, he asked it in the book. I wonder what his answer is. - I think we'll get to it a little more at the end, but yeah, I think his argument is effectively that this gives off the, I mean, he uses the phrase, we'll get to it later where he says, this basically feels like a late addition, but he also says that Joseph Smith, as he changed the revelations, changed them as he got a better understanding. And so I think what he's trying to say is, Joseph didn't really understand in 1829, what was really happening, which is horribly problematic when you again are bringing in very well-known figures into your stories, as we talked about with the first vision, this idea that you remember it better later is just completely contradicted by like literally everything we know about memory. - So if we're trying to follow what we think is the real timeline, no Peter James and John visit in 1829, no idea about a Melchistic or Aaronic priesthood. But then by 1831, there's this idea of a higher priesthood. - Yep. - And so a bunch of people, including Joseph start getting ordained to a higher priesthood in 1831, even then the actual name Elkezic priesthood isn't coming for many years later. - Correct. - The thesis of the timeline is where-- - Yeah, so basically 1831 is the first time that they give us a higher priesthood in the church. There's no use in Melchistic, still no mention of the visitations. - Okay, this is really, really important. I can see why that's such a critical-- - Yeah, that one I think is the most important one. But so in 1831, Joseph Smith is going to Missouri, and he's engaging with this ongoing dispute with Bishop Edward Partridge, over which land to purchase in order to establish the new city of Zion in Missouri. And I mentioned this last week, this is where you've got this Ohio branch and the Missouri branch and the Missouri branch is starting to question Joseph Smith's leadership. And so according to Ezra Booth, who did leave the church later, Partridge claimed that the land which Smith and Oliver had selected was inferior in point of quality to other lands that were adjoining. And so what was happening was Joseph Smith was coming to Missouri and telling Partridge that he had a revelation from God telling him, this is the land you need to buy. And Edward Partridge is saying, this land is not nearly as good as this other land. Why are we not buying that? And Joseph is saying basically because I have the authority, this is what it's going to be. And so Partridge, being ordained as a bishop, believed that he had the authority to run the church in Missouri because at that time churches were run by the bishop. So he thought that was his decision and not Joseph's and this led to a bit of a conflict. - Okay, so we're starting to develop a theory on what forced the need for a priesthood hierarchy to be developed and it starts with contention like how power struggles between Joseph and some of the leaders including Ezra Booth and Bishop Partridge. - Yes, yeah, I mean, yep. - All right, all right, so there's a power struggle going on. - Yep, and so this is where we're gonna start to see and this one's a really cool one. And this is a letter that Ezra Booth wrote to Edward Partridge in November of 1831. And in the letter, he says, "When you intimated to Joseph that the land which he and Oliver had selected was inferior in point of quality to other lands joining. Had you seen the same spirit manifested in me, which you saw in him, would you not have concluded me to be under the influence of violent passion, bordering on madness rather than the meek and general spirit which the gospel inculcates. When you complained that he had abused you and you observed to him, I wish you not to tell us anymore that you know these by the spirit when you do not. You told us that Oliver had raised up a large church here and there's no such thing. He replied, I see it and it will be so. This appeared to me to be a shift better suited to an imposter than a true prophet of the Lord. - Okay, so what do you interpret that is going on here? - Well, I think what's happening here is the people that are in the Missouri Church are seeing Joseph Smith come in and he does not seem to take criticism well. And so I think he here, as Rebuth is telling us a departure, basically, if you saw me act the same way that Joseph did, would you say that was the spirit of God coming down on me? And no, because Joseph Smith was acting, I think he says bordering on madness. And also the fact that, you know, Joseph Smith promised that the church was just going to flourish and it doesn't. All of these things are getting the people in Missouri to start to question him because you have these, all of these prophecies he's making, all these promises he's making, they're not coming true. And then he's telling him by revelation to build in this one area that apparently is inferior to this other one that they had picked. And when he's challenged, apparently just throws down, you know, at least some a little bit of anger towards Bishop Partridge and it just kind of, I think shows that this is leading the Missouri church to really start to question Joseph Smith, which is creating a lot of problems for him. And this is what's going to lead to the first vision and presid restoration stories, start to get recorded down. - And tell me if I'm understanding this right. So basically Joseph is saying, hey, by this parcel of land, 'cause the gift and power of God has told me that it's the one God wants. And the dude's actually go there and they're like, this land is a piece of garbage. There's this other land that's way better. Joseph, you're not really a prophet. Your God clearly can't be leading you or he wouldn't tell you to buy a piece of garbage land. And that's where Joseph has to move to authority as what's behind him instead of his ability to make really great decisions because God's clearly telling him what to do. Is that, am I? - Yeah, that's pretty much what it is. So, you know, and so Joseph goes down there basically to try to straighten them out and it doesn't really work because, you know, when he leaves people are still mad that basically he's going down there yelling at them and then leaving. And, you know, I remember doing the saints book when I was doing that chapter by chapter stuff. I first started the website. And I remember, I didn't know as a member. I didn't really realize how many of these revelations that Joseph Smith has that are basically admonishing the church and blaming them when things don't go right. And this is another area where Joseph Smith is going to kind of use the voice of God to tell them, this is how it has to be. And then he's also going to use his revelations from God to, you know, admonish these people, you know, and we'll get to in a second, he has a revelation which basically goes after Partridge. And it's just, it's quite convenient. And I think that's part of what Dan Vogel was saying, though I mentioned earlier, which is, when you're just giving revelations, it's more of charismatic that people have to believe the revelations. But when you go into that more concrete visitation from biblical figures, it gives a lot more credibility. It's kind of like we talk about with Sudapigrafe, like people believe it a lot more. If it's written in the name of someone else, like say the book of Abraham, whereas if it was just Joseph Smith's thoughts about the priesthood, which the book of Abraham is very focused on the priesthood, then it would not be nearly as well received because it's just like what's just Joseph Smith, you know, writing down his thoughts. And so in this case, Joseph Smith often uses these revelations from God to get people to do what he needs them to do because they believe they're from God. But that only works so long. And so that's, I think what's going to lead to Joseph Smith needing to kind of make his story more grand and concrete. So it's not just, hey, this is what God's telling me. It's, by the way, Peter James and John came to me. Did they come to you? Didn't think so. And I think there's a lot of that going on. - If you can't rely on superior decision-making, then you gotta just pull authority as your Trump card. - Yeah, well, I mean, you know what happens when you're a parent, right? It's like, it ends up being because I said so. And if your kid doesn't view you as the authority, they're not going to listen to you. But as long as they view you as the authority, they're going to it. In this case, it's a similar thing where I think the Missouri Church is starting to go, you know, you're not my dad. And Joseph's like, okay, I gotta up the game here because it's, you know, I mean, I know we're oversimplifying it, but it is similar to that where now all of a sudden, you need to play a Trump card that gives you more authority than you had. - Like in the military, you need to have ranks, you can pull it. - Exactly. And that's what this is going to do in the office. - That's awesome. - Yeah, and so we're going to go-- - You got to have ranked to pull rank. I'm going to write that down. - All right. - No, it's true, all right. - And so this is where we're going to go, actually go back one more. - Go back to slide. - Yeah, go back one slide. So following is-- - Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So we finished this. - We did this one, yes, go to the next one. - Okay, okay. - Yeah, so following the visit to Ed Partridge, Joseph dictates a revelation that states that Partridge have sinned and Satan's sequence to destroy his soul, says DNC 64. So as soon as he gets back, he dictates a revelation basically going after Partridge and trying to use that to get him to basically fall in line. And then in November, escalating the altercation with Edward Partridge in the month's prior, Joseph dictates a revelation that calls for Joseph to be the president of the high priesthood, which makes clear in the revelation that the office of a bishop is not equal. So he's basically now writing into a concrete revelation that Edward Partridge is now below him, which is, again, making sure, you know what I said earlier, it's like all of a sudden he's like, you know, you're not my dad, he's like, yes, I am, and here's a revelation proving it. And so that's just a few months after. So we're already starting to see Joseph Smith using a revelation to establish his authority above people that might question him. And this one's kind of a side note. But in 1831, Lucy McSmith writes a letter to her brother to discuss all of the beginnings of the new church. No mentions of angelic visits for the priesthood restoration. No mentions of the first vision. And I'm just putting that in there in the timeline just to show that there's still no real discussion or knowledge of these issues even within his own family. And then in 1832, so now we're a couple months later, in January, Sydney, Rigden, ordained Joseph as the president of the high priesthood in Ohio. And Joseph was sustained in April and Missouri. So within just a few months of being challenged in Missouri, Joseph Smith has now created this new presidency, which as a small side note, we're told this is the restoration of the way things were in ancient times. There's no presidency in ancient times. That is a completely modern term that Joseph Smith is now using in the voice of God. So that's just a small tangent. But you can't respond. So also like right now, is there in 2022? Is there a president of the high priesthood? I mean, I don't think so. You would never hear that phrase ever being used in Mormonism. Yeah. Why was it important back then for Joseph to be ordained as the president of the high priesthood? When today, you would never hear that mentioned. You would never hear like Russell M. Nelson as the president of the high priesthood. I think he basically is. So I think because if I might be off a bit on this, because I haven't read this stuff in a while. But I think the president of the high priesthood, Joseph, had two counselors. So it basically is the first presidency. And then later they're going to do the, the, you know, the quorum of the 12 and the 70s and all that. Maybe in some charter document somewhere, but like never in Mormon. Oh, yeah. Our launch. He's referred to as the prophet and president of the church. Not of the high priesthood. So all I'm saying is, is it makes total sense that this idea of a higher priesthood that evolves into Melchistic is literally just a power grab of Joseph trying to solidify his authority so that people will obey him and do what he says. Yeah, this is basically just him creating a position above everybody else. And remember, he ordained, think like they said, like he ordained five people and lemon white ordained 18. So now all of a sudden you got 23 people at least in the high priesthood. And then you've got people that are bishops, like at repartures, questioning, well, this now puts them above everybody. So now there's nobody that can touch his authority. The other thing, it challenges the idea that this is a restoration. Because if it's a restoration, God's going to just set all this up with the commandments of the beginning. But if it's, if it's emerging practically out of conflicts on the ground that Joseph needs to resolve, that defies the idea that it's like a restoration of the old and everlasting church. But instead, this slowly creeping, evolving power grab that evolves out of practical issues on the ground. Yeah, well, I mean, look at it this way. So think about it, this is how I always look at it. We are told in the church that God knew thousands of years ago that Joseph Smith was going to lose the 116 pages. So he created a second set of plates. So Joseph Smith would have perfect replacement texts for these lost pages of the Book of Mormon. Yet God didn't know that Joseph Smith was going to have his authority challenge in Missouri to tell him which offices to create right off the bat so he'd avoid all these issues. I mean, it's just that's those are the inconsistencies that come from a guy who is basically trying to-- I'm not saying wing it, but he's kind of making it up as he goes. And so on one hand, you've got this representation of God that knows every single thing that's going to happen to the point where he's making the secondary record. Then you also have this God who has no idea that there's going to be all of these challenges to authority that could be easily avoided with a revelation in 1829. Yeah, God could have just set all this up with a revelation before the time he ever started. Especially if it was identical to the way Jesus started his church two millennia ago, right? Yeah, well, I mean, if you get into a lot of the scholarship there, I don't think-- Yeah, the Book of Mormon. These are the chances God had to set this up right. He had the Book of Mormon. He had revelations Joseph received before he started the church. And then he had the Book of Commandments. And in none of those opportunities did God set it up right. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's like we're told this is the fullness of the gospel and the complete restoration. And yet, if you actually look at it, it's always changing until it gets solidified down the road with stories that just don't add up to being there in the beginning. Yeah, OK. All right, so next slide. Yep, so now this is the summer of 1832. This is about nine months after the Missouri conflict begins or at least where he visits. And this is where Joseph Smith is first going to mention angels being a part of a priesthood restoration in his 1832 history, which also includes his first account of the first vision. That only has one person appearing. With regards to the priesthood, Joseph writes among his miraculous experiences, "Thirdly, the reception of the holy priesthood by the ministering of angels with two A's, I'm not sure why." This is important because this does not mention John the Baptist, but it is consistent with his early generic accounts of angels as that John the Baptist story had not evolved yet. And so Joseph is using the plural of angels instead of a singular angel, meaning this cannot be referencing John the Baptist for the Aaronic priesthood as a story later evolved into. And when he continues, he says, "forthly a confirmation of the reception of the high priesthood after the holy order of the son of the living God, power an ordinance from on high to preach the gospel in the administration and demonstration of the spirit." And so this is referring to the 1831 conference where he was ordained to the high priesthood. But again, there's no mention of the terms of Aaronic or Melchizedek, nor does it mention Peter, James, and John. And so it's really clear this 1832 history was almost certainly written to address the growing infighting from the Missouri branch and to kind of re- to get the church on better footing and to get Joseph Smith's authority on more solid ground. And it also explains the first vision account appearing at the same time, because Joseph Smith here is trying to get these miraculous experiences that are singular to him in order to tell the rest of the church, again, this did not happen to you, this happened to me. That's why I am the one authority to speak for the church. Wow. So this is really starting to come together for me, and I just want to make sure I understand this. So first of all, there's conflict arising in the church. People are starting to question his authority. That's why the 1832 version emerges first and foremost. But in addition, he's now for the first time claiming angelic, because he can't, again, he can't just say, I have the authority, it's got to be from God. And so he's earning an angelic visitor without a name, right? As a way to say, this is the source of my authority. But he has the chance there of saying, it's Sean the Baptist and Peter James and John, but he doesn't do either. He doesn't call the, he doesn't name the angel and then he doesn't mention Peter James and John and he doesn't mention a division in priesthoods of a lower and a higher priesthood. Again, this is a massively obvious failed opportunity to like tell it all, like it's late. It's super late. But I like now get it right. Well, yeah. That's just so. And this is, this is Joseph Smith writing in his own hand. He has nobody next to him. That's going to question him as he's writing it. And it just doesn't have anything with the, you know, with the way that we're told the first vision happened with two personages, not there. And then the way that we're told the priesthood restoration happened is just not there. So I mean, both of these are missing and we're, you know, it's just, it's so generic. And as we'll see, it just gets more and more grand. Yeah. And I mean, the only thing that I'm hearing apologist say later, and I haven't read your slides, is that they're going to say that, oh, he never mentioned Peter James John because it was so sacred and so special. Yeah. That's got to be what they end up arguing later, because it's just so obvious. But yeah, I mean, it just, yeah, it doesn't work. But yeah, I mean, that's what you have to do. If we brag about it now, Joseph would have bragged about it then he wouldn't have been scared to tell people. No, there's no reason he would have been scared to tell people within the church of these, I mean, there's just, there's no reason to think that it makes no sense. And again, it's not just this vision that's telling us it didn't happen. It's all of those things we've already covered, all the things we're going to cover that don't mention. So he's not, it's not just like we talked last week where the church will say, oh, the first vision in 1832 is an outlier. And I kept saying, no, it's the starting point of the first vision story. Well, this is another incident. This is not an outlier. This is consistent with everything else he's been saying up until this point and still for some time to come before that story begins to evolve. Yeah. Well, that's, that's a huge deal. And it's just making it really obvious why this, why the omissions and why this is slowly creepy and evolving, you know, this is totally making sense. This is bringing a lot of things together for me. Yeah. No, it's not. Well, keep going. It's going to, it'll just keep going that way. And so this is in September of 1832, Joseph Smith writes what is now DNC 84, which is going to structure the lower and the higher priesthoods for the first time. And so what's interesting is this one section where it says, and this greater priesthood and minister of the gospel and hold up the keys of the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, the key of the knowledge of God, therefore in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto man in the flesh. For without this, no man can see the face of God, even the father and live. And the reason this is so interesting is because Joseph Smith is going to claim later at an 1820, he saw God in Jesus in the first vision, which is clearly before he had received either priesthood as we've shown already in the timeline. And so by Joseph Smith's own revelation DNC 84, he couldn't have done that and lived to tell about it. And you know, the apologists argue very much like kind of that lawyerly thing. Well, they'll say the word this is the power of godliness, so they'll say, and without this, not meaning the Melchizedic priesthood, but the power of godliness, but the power of godliness cannot be manifest until you receive the priesthood is stated above. They say, without the ordinances thereof meaning the priesthood and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest. So one way or the other, you still need the priesthood in order to get the power of godliness to see God and live. And yet Joseph Smith will later claim to have seen God in Jesus and lived. So either way, Joseph could not have seen God and lived in the first vision if that happened by his own revelation, which is also from the words of God. And this is where you start to twist yourself into a pretzel if you want to try to make sense of this in a way that maintains faith. Yeah. So I mean, let's just assume that Joseph Smith isn't dumb for a second. What's he doing coming out with an 1832 account of the first vision, claiming that he was that the Lord visited him, not God in Jesus, but the Lord visited him. And we talked about the Trinity to him. The Lord would have meant God, because there was no God in Jesus being separate. Right. He's not dumb. Why is he writing down and publishing a claim to have seen the Lord when he was, you know, when he was 14 and 1820, and at the same time, saying you have to have the higher priesthood to not die when you see the face of God? What in the world? He's not that dumb. No, but, you know, again, remember the summer of 1832 account that Joseph Smith wrote. He never did anything with it. So he may have written it down, scrapped it, which just appears to be what he did. He wrote it down and just never did anything with it. And so he might not be thinking about that in September. He might not be thinking about that, because he's not telling anyone about that story. He's talking about the priesthood at this point, but he's not talking about the first vision. And so it could very well be that it's not that he's dumb. He just he scrapped that mental idea and just put it aside and just forgot about it. And then all of a sudden now, he writes this revelation and basically puts himself in a corner with regard to the first vision, because now all of a sudden the first vision would would basically lead to his death, because he was not ordained. And this is something, I think it's Parley Pratter, Orson Pratt, later said that the way to get around this is to say that Joseph Smith was actually ordained to the Melchizedic priesthood before he even came to the earth. So he was ordained to the highest priesthood before he was here from the pre-existence, which if you really want to get into that, one, it's ridiculous, because it doesn't match the, you know, the timeline we have here, but two, that also puts Joseph on more of a divine footing, which the church really tries to avoid saying we worship Joseph. And if you start to go that route, that he was given these ordinations before he got here, it starts to put him on that kind of footing, which early leaders did do. But yeah, it's just, it's a mess. Yeah. And it's talking about, I'm just trying to process this, the greater priesthood hold the key of the mysteries of the kingdom. So it's something about like learning deeper doctrine, right, right, for somehow getting this Melchizedic priesthood, you learn things from angels in God about the mysteries of the kingdom and the key of the knowledge of God. That almost sounds like Denver Snuffer stuff, where it's preparatory to you actually seeing God, and I can already see where Denver Snuffer stuff is going to start arising where in 2022, there's a bunch of Orthodox Mormons who are trying to actually get a witness of Jesus or God directly. That's because they're reading that that's the whole purpose of the priesthood to begin with, whereas in the modern Orthodox LDS church, that's never something you're taught you should try and seek, right? These days. You know, it's kind of one of the things where it's like the longer the church exists, the less and less we're really, we know. I think it's one of those things we're back then. They did have this idea of being able to have all of these visionary experiences and being able to commune with angels, and today they don't talk about it because I think we all kind of live in a worldview that says that just doesn't happen, whereas back then, a lot of the early members absolutely believed in folk magic and visitations and all that. I think it's just more of a, you know, a change in what the audience of the church will accept today versus what they would have accepted back then. One more question. It says that that final little phrase for without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father and live. Does this show the development of Joseph's theology around the Godhead? Because now he's saying God the Father, which suggests God the Son, the existence of God the Son, is this an emergence of his evolution about God and Jesus becoming separate? I don't think so, just because I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but a lot of times in church, they'll do that thing where they'll say something and they'll say even. So they'll say, you know, even the Church of Jesus Christ, Elijah, saying so they just say the church. I don't know if it's a wording issue, and you could also make the argument that if you believe in that modalistic, trinitarian view that God and Jesus are kind of part of one, you could say, well, you know, you could see Jesus in the flesh because obviously people saw Jesus when he was alive, but you can't see God's, I mean, I don't know it, the wording is-- It'll be trinitarian. Yeah, you could kind of do with it. You could take it either way, I guess, depending on how you wanted to, but I wouldn't necessarily be too much into that. That's right. Okay. All right. I just wanted to-- No, that's fine. Okay. Next slide. Yeah, so we already talked about this. We don't need to go into this too much. In 2003, they released the Book of Commandments, and this has all of the revelations that have been written up until this point because they basically wanted to have a book of all the revelations that members could understand, all of the different commandments and organizations that God had restored through Joseph Smith. There's no mention of the Aaronic priesthood or the Melchizedic priesthood at all in the Book of Commandments, whatever. What's the matter? And there's no mention of the visitations of John the Baptist or Peter, James, or John in anywhere in the book. And that's super ridiculous for at least two reasons. One is because it's the whole foundation of our claims of authority. Two, it's allegedly angelic visitors bestowing that authority. And then number three, this is your chance to codify it all, and it's completely left out. And then four, what you're going to show later is that it's then written back in afterwards. Yep. It's just ridiculous, right? Yeah, I mean, it's just it's a red flag that should be really, really obvious to anyone who is not a member that this is this is a late creation that now has to be put back into the history so that it lines up. That's super duper sketchy. Yeah. Super sketchy. Both of it. It's not there when it should be again, and that it gets written in later as if it was always there. Yeah. And it's members, when you read the doctrine of covenants, it's not like, oh, by the way, this version of reading, it was totally different when they first wrote it and they had a bunch of stuff. You're never ever told that as a moment. No, it would be nice if they had a little, like if they put little footnotes, like when you read online, there's footnotes on like every other word, it would be nice if on the doctrine of covenants, they had footnotes to tell you what it originally said, because I think that would be something members should should be have access to. Yeah. That's a problem. Okay. That's a great slide. It's a great slide. And so now we're in 1834, when April, and this is more from Dan Vogel, and it says, "At a meeting held in Norton, Ohio, Smith gave a relation of obtaining and translating the book of Mormon, the revelation of the priesthood of Aaron, the organization of the church in 1830, the revelation of the high priesthood, and the gift of the Holy Ghost poured out upon the church, and Dan Vogel makes a point of saying, there's no indication in this brief entry that the revelation of the priesthood of Aaron was different than the revelation of the high priesthood, or that it was anything more than a reference to the reveals command for Smith and Caldery to baptize one another. So what he's saying is, the notes here are just super limited, so it's hard to really pull too much out of this, but he also notes that these notes, while they're limited, have no mention of Peter, James, and John, or John the Baptist at all. So even in 1834, there's no kind of conceptualizing this visitation yet, so it's still now just focusing on the priesthood restoration and not at all the visitations. Or are you saying here that it's not until 1834 where the idea of an eronic priesthood first emerges? Within the church, it seems like it's the first time it's being labeled that way, because erotic priesthood is something that comes from the Bible, so that would make more sense to frame it that way. But I don't think there's any real mention of it being that the erotic priesthood up until this point, even here, as Dan Vogel mentions, it's really limited, so it's hard to see if he's really expanding on that at all, because it's just like meeting notes. But yeah, this seems to be the first time he's really equating the lower one with Aaron, even though the high priesthood is still not the Melchizedic priesthood. Yeah. That's super late. Yeah, we're five years, basically five years now, so we're just now starting to evolve it into the name, so it's important. Yeah, that's a problem. Okay. All right, so now Zion's camp is going to happen, and this is another area where Joseph Smith is going to have his leadership question. So for those who are unfamiliar, Joseph launches Zion's camp to regain the land that was lost in Zion, Missouri. And he's trying to assemble this, basically, this like army or militia to go down there and get the land by force of necessary. When he gets there, he realizes they're outnumbered, and he's not able to get the help he wants. And so it just turns out to be a failure. Joseph turns around and leaves Missouri, basically, on their own. And so Joseph records a revelation to not help the church in Missouri. Once he realizes he can't secure enough help, which shakes confidence in his authority as a prophet and leader. And so I mentioned this earlier, but this leads to DNC 105, which puts the blame on the Missouri church for not being faithful enough. He says, but behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of all manner of evil and do not impart of their substance as become a saints to the poor and afflicted among them. And the revelation then calls for no further action to be taken to help them. And one final note is to say that the revelation in DNC 105 gives Joseph and the top leaders an out, which is to say that same revelation says, I speak not concerning those who are appointed to lead my people who are the first elders of my church for they are not all under this condemnation. So, basically, Joseph Smith says he's going to get the land back. He doesn't get the amount of people he claims he's going to get, doesn't get the healthy things he's going to get, turns around. And then when the Missouri church gets mad that he left him behind, records a revelation being basically saying they're full of evil and that whatever, we're not going to do anything more. And by the way, all of the people who lead my church are not being condemned for this. It's just you guys in Missouri, which I think is one of those, it's another one of those signs that tells you that Joseph Smith is writing these revelations because they're very concerned with the needs of Joseph Smith and not necessarily giving the people in Missouri the power you're supposed to get to defend, you know, to be protected by God or any real revelation on what you're supposed to do next. Yeah, the science camp is really important and Mormons, you're never taught really about science camp in the core curriculum because, you know, this is something that's really lost in many ways to the modern church. Joseph not only says, you know, Missouri is where the Garden of Eden happens. He says this is where Jesus is going to come in the second coming any day now. Yep. And he sets up the church. He calls it Zion. Like this is the place, right? And yeah, you know, he's he's doing the Kirtland Ohio thing, but like independence Missouri is going to be that place. But then, and so that's like his alleged prophetic power really being specific and saying, you guys go do this. Then he sends them there, they experience all these problems. Then he gets the revelation about Zion's camp, he sends them, it's a failure. I mean, that's a really obvious point where the members are like, I think you're just making this up. Yeah. You're, I don't think you're really a prophet because like none of this stuff that you're prophesying is going to come true is actually coming true instead, the opposite's happening. And so see why that would cause a huge problem for numbers down there, because they're the one sacrificing and toiling and getting, yeah, we beat up. And so I could see Joseph having to do two things, number one, the blame reversal, which is so common in high demand religions or cults where it's like, I know I made a prophecy he warned Jeff's does this or Rulan Jeff's, I know I prophesied the world would end when the 2002 Olympics come, oh, but now the Olympics have come and gone and the world didn't end. Well, it's either because the members were so righteous that I gave them more time or the members were so wicked that God, you know, the God's, you know, delaying it now. Joseph's doing the same thing here. He's blaming the Missouri people, which I think is cruel because they're blessed in their tales. Yeah. Joseph prophecies come true. It's just so cruel to then blame them for the prophecies not coming true. But then there's the second part, which is the power grab, which is, hey, now that there's trouble in the ranks, let me extend my authority and power through the scriptures even more, because otherwise we're going to have, we're going to have a fracture. We're going to have a schism. Yeah. That's basically what I mean. And it's, we'll do, I think, an episode down the road about, we're going to do a few on revelations, but you know, one of the things, that's one of the things that I was reading the saints book, and I mentioned already, but just how a lot of the revelations, when things go wrong blame the members yet, you know, and then sometimes they'll do like this little like off-handed, kind of swipe it Joseph in the revelation, but then get right back to blaming the church. And so it just feel like his revelations are awfully convenient when you read them all together, especially in the context of what they're written in. They do seem awfully concerned with, with elevating Joseph and not nearly as concerned, with taking care of the problems for the people beneath him. And this is an area where that does lead to people questioning his authority. This reminds me of his revelation, Emma, that she's under condemnation if she doesn't practice polygamy. Yeah. It's so convenient for Joseph. Yeah. And here again, God is saying, oh, you know, when we talk about, you know, people who are under condemnation, I don't mean the people leading my church. I mean, all the rest of you, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's just, it's just gross. It's kind of gross. It is. And it's frustrating just because I read this now and I'm like, man, you know, like if I had read this before I joined the church, I'd be like, this guy is making it up because you can kind of see all these little fingerprints where he's, you know, doing, making these errors and then, you know, blaming people and it doesn't go right because everything and when you're a convert is presented as if Joseph Smith knew all these things and we'll get into those as we do these episodes. But yeah, it's just, it's not how the history shows it. Yeah. So this is where we're going to really start to see this story kind of move into the, the way we're seeing it today. And this is more from Dan Vogel and he talks about how in September of 1834, Oliver Cowdery is writing this series of letters to W. W. Phelps and Missouri. And in these letters, he tells them for the first time about an angel ordaining him and Joseph Smith in May of 1829. The purpose of the letter is Cowdery explained was to strengthen the Missouri Church in their faith. According to Cowdery, the angel said in the name of the name of Messiah, confirm, confer this priesthood and this authority was shall remain upon the earth that the sons of Levi may yet offer in offering unto the Lord in righteousness. However, the word priesthood did not appear in any church writings until June of 1831 and connecting the lesser priesthood to the Levites until September of 1832. This letter is going to, as we'll talk about, is going to almost raise Oliver Cowdery instantly to equal status with Joseph Smith. And so when we talk about how these different stories put Joseph Smith above everyone else, Oliver Cowdery here is writing these letters to W. W. Phelps to try to calm tensions. Oliver Cowdery pulls a pretty slick move here because by tying this event not just to Joseph but to him, it puts Oliver now as number two. And you got to remember at this point, Sydney Rignan is right there as a number two. It's not Oliver Cowdery. And guess what? Oliver Cowdery is making a little bit of a power move here as well in these letters by saying, yeah, it wasn't just Joseph, it was me as well. I'm just going to say, and maybe this doesn't make sense, but there's always this idea that was Oliver a co-conspirator in the fabrication of the Book of Mormon? Or was he sort of, if the Book of Mormon was authored by Joseph Smith? Was Oliver just duped? Or was he a co-conspirator? And if Oliver is writing into the history of visitation from John the Baptist and then Peter James and John, if he's knowingly writing that into the history four or five years after it happened, it makes you wonder whether he was in on the Book of Mormon potential fraud as well. Does that make sense? Or does that not make sense? I mean, it makes sense. It's just, it's hard because we don't have any real like good way to show that. But we'll see it here as we go. This is an area where Oliver Cowdry is absolutely engaging in lying for the Lord or however you want to phrase it because he's creating a story that we know was not talked about the time and did not happen in that way. But more importantly, we can look at Joseph Smith got arrested and we'll talk about this a little bit later. In 1830, he's arrested basically for treasure digging. And what they try to do on the trial is to say that Joseph Smith is using the same technique for translating the Book of Mormon as he does for treasure digging, which means he's still engaging in this practice that is illegal. And Oliver Cowdry testifies that no, Joseph did not use the seer stone. He was using these Nephut Nephide interpreters, which we know from all of the accounts from all the people involved in the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith was using the seer stone. So Oliver Cowdry in 1830 shows that he's willing to lie for Joseph Smith. Now in this particular instance, he shows he's willing to lie not just for Joseph, but for his own sake as well. And so it does show that Oliver Cowdry is willing to lie. The question of whether or not he's a co-conspirator in the Book of Mormon, that's a little bit dice here because that's early on and we don't really have any, like we could show it with the trial, we could show it with this, but the Book of Mormon is just more like speculation and we don't really need it to show how the Book of Mormon was done. So for me, it's not really a huge issue, but yeah, it does show Oliver Cowdry was willing to lie to protect Joseph himself and the church. Okay. And so coming back to the point of this slide, it's not until 1834 when the power is really, the Missouri problems and the power problems are really coming to a head that Oliver Cowdry starts mentioning an angel and a lower priesthood. Yes. Years after a lower priesthood gets claimed. Yes. So basically, we've got Oliver writing a series of letters to Missouri, basically trying to build back up faith in Joseph Smith and the church and to do so. Again, he's trying to create this event that elevates Joseph Smith as, yes, this is the guy. And is there a date yet for the Aaronic priesthood, you know, by 1834? Well, I think there is just because they're tying it to the May 15th day, which is the, I think the day they got baptized. So I think that is always been kind of like, they've always been tied together at least at this point they certainly are. But I don't think, I don't know if they're really referring to the dates or not. This day doesn't have a date because it is because there's no documentation of it, which again, you'd expect. And to be honest, there's no documentation of this. They just tie it back to the baptism day and that's, and that's how they get around that. But yeah, for the Melchizedek, there's just no way to make that work because there's, yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah. And before we go to the next slide, just one note that he's not mentioning John the Baptist. So he is introducing the idea of an angel. He is not introducing John the Baptist yet. Okay. So we still don't have John the Baptist. You still don't have John the Baptist. We just have the angel. In 34, we have an angel in a lower priesthood. Yeah. And again, you got to, you got to, you know, why would he not mention John the Baptist? That's what I'm saying. Like, if you know, you know what's John the Baptist, why are you not saying we're ordained by John the Baptist? Like, it's, again, it's, it's another tell. This is a developing story. This city grows over time. Yep. Yeah, that's suspect. Okay. Now we go September to December and guess what, Oliver Caldery gets a big promotion. And so this is more from Dan Vogel. Only a few months later, on the 5th of December 1834, Oliver Caldery was ordained an assistant president or co-president to Joseph Smith by Joseph Smith. About this time, Caldery made a suspicious entry in Joseph Smith's large journal, which tried to explain his sudden rise to the top. The angel in May 1829 commanded it to be done according to Caldery, but things got in the way and delayed it for five years. The idea that Joseph Smith and Oliver Caldery knew about the president and assistant president of the high priesthood in 1829 is not believable. The office of the president of the high priesthood came about because Partridge had challenged Joseph Smith in November of 1831, and assistants were not even added until 1832, and they were not Oliver Caldery. Caldery's excuse for the delay is also unbelievable since there were several opportunities before December of 1834 to ordain Caldery. Caldery even assisted Joseph Smith on the 19th of April 1834, before Joseph Smith left with Zion's camp and confirmed upon Sidney Rigdon, the authority is the first counselor to preside over the church in the absence of Brother Joseph. So I'm going to just tangent here. What Dan Vogel is saying is that not only did Joseph Smith have tons of opportunities to put this to confer Oliver into this position over the previous five years, but when Joseph is with Oliver and is getting ready to leave with Zion's camp, he does not put Oliver in charge of the church, but Sidney Rigdon in charge of the church, which makes no sense given that we're told now that the angel basically ordained Joseph as number one in Oliver's number two. So anyways, back to Dan Vogel. Then he says, "When the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was organized in February of 1835, Oliver Caldery did not mention Peter James and John restoring the keys of the Apostleship. Instead, he said, "You have been ordained to this holy priesthood. You have received it from those who have the power and authority from an angel. By this, he was referring to Moroni. It was the duty of the three witnesses to ordain the Twelve Apostles. The three witnesses received their commission from the angel Moroni. So this is again showing that in December of 1834, the story is still talking about an angel. It's not mentioning John the Baptist. And in the context of what he's saying, it would actually be referring to the fact that the three witnesses were the ones that were told to basically choose the Twelve Apostles, which again kept Joseph Smith as number one, but it's not John the Baptist and the story is still evolving. And because of Oliver Caldery creating the story and the letter to W.F.ELP, Joseph Smith makes him the number two person in the church just a few months after. Okay, this is a lot for me to try and absorb, and I'm right now focusing on the third paragraph. Okay. These are Daining Apostles. These are Daining Twelve Apostles claiming that they were, that this authority came from a single angel, not from Peter, James and John. So he, but at minimum, if Apostles are functioning, number one, they have to have the Melchistic priesthood. Number two, it has to be known that the Melchistic priesthood came from Peter, James and John, which at a minimum would be angels, if not named, but there are Daining Apostles based on the authority of a single angel, right, that is unnamed. And that's really sketchy to me. Yeah, I mean, like this is, you could tell this is a story that's developing and it's developing kind of quick now, but at the same time, you can tell us now fleshed out. And Oliver gets a promotion for basically creating this story in September. Now in December, he gets that promotion of being second in the church, but they still have not fleshed out the idea of it being Peter, James and John or John the Baptist. It's still just an angel. Okay. Summarize that middle paragraph really quickly for me, because I, yeah, this is from Dan Vogel. And what he's just basically saying is, and now if you, well, we need to include it in the show as Dan Vogel has two YouTube videos on this, Oliver Caldery is going to create the story in September as we mentioned. And then Joseph Smith is going to make him the number two. But now there's this huge problem, which is that the whole story would make Oliver Caldery the number two person in the church since the church was formed, right? But Joseph Smith instead goes over Oliver and chooses other people to be his counselors. So now Oliver has to go back and say, well, if the angel or commanded this in 1829, why did it not happen until 1834? And so Oliver is basically saying, Oh, you know what? There's just so much stuff going on. We didn't have a chance to do it. And what Dan Vogel is saying is, no, there were tons of opportunities where they were together that Joseph could have done it. And he chose not to. And then right before the story is invented, Joseph leaves for Zion's camp and has to leave somebody in charge of the church, which should be Oliver Caldery, right? Because he's a number two. But instead he chooses Sydney, Rigdon, even though Oliver was with Joseph. And so what he's saying is Oliver Caldery's excuse for why this didn't happen for five years is just blatantly a lie. I mean, it's just it's dishonest. And again, we have so much documentation to show that if they wanted to have done this over the previous five years, they had so many opportunities. And yet it never happened because this story was not created until September. Okay. So Caldery's inserting a suspicious entry in Joseph's journal trying to, is he kind of post dating it? Yeah. I mean, they're kind of trying to to basically backfill how this story happened. And yet, Oliver was not made the number two person in the church until December of 1834. And so he's making this entry to try to explain why did this not happen? And that's when he's saying, basically, it was just there was no chance to do it, which is just not true. So he's basically trying to Jimmy with the history to show evidence of what they're inventing after the fact. Yeah. I mean, in a lot of ways, this is like inserting apologetics into it because he realized this is this is an issue when he's trying to put in the apologetics to say it's not really a big deal because we just couldn't get it done. But when you have all of the different documentation of the times they were together, it's just simply not true. I mean, this is just outright dishonest to claim that, you know, they couldn't get it done and things got in the way and delayed it. It's just not true. Yeah. And again, they could have mentioned all this in the book of commandments in 1833. Yep. This was so important. I would think that a president and a system president leading the church, that's something worth mentioning before the church is formed. And if not, within three years of it being yeah, not four or five years later. Yep. Absolutely. Okay. All right. And so now we're getting to the stuff that we know in the church today, which is so between March and August, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery changed the wording of earlier revelations when they compiled the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, adding verses about the appearances of John the Baptist, along with Peter James and John, the book of commandments, which later basically is turned into the Doctrine and Covenants, says nothing about these appearances. Nor is there any explanation for the incredibly consequential additions into existing revelation. They appear in the Doctrine and Covenants with no justification for the change. Nor are they backed up by historical records as we've shown through this timeline. And this is another, this is from a Sunstone History podcast, which is awesome about the Preset Restoration and Dan Vogel notes between about March and August 1835. Joseph Smith added mention of the coming of John the Baptist and Peter James and John to his early revelations to section 27 dated September 1830. He added, John the Baptist, I have said unto you, my servants Joseph Smith, Jr. and Oliver Cowdery, to ordain you unto this first priesthood, which you have received that you might be called and ordained even as Aaron and also Peter, James and John whom I have set unto you by whom I've ordained you and confirmed you to be apostles and special witnesses of my name. Note that the first public mention of the three ancient apostles ordaining Smith and Cowdery associated this visitation with the apostleship rather than the elder ship as commonly assumed. One might therefore conclude that the story of Peter, James and John was invented after February of 1835 when the quorum of the twelve was organized and Cowdery did not mention it, but before it was published in the DNC in September of 1835. Ha, are you kind of saying that originally, maybe I'm misunderstanding this, that originally the higher priesthood was more associated with becoming a twelve apostle than it was some general priesthood office that all mid-aged Mormon men are going to possess? Well, so yeah, because so the thing is when you look at the original revelation, Joseph is ordained as the first elder of the church, Oliver is ordained as the second elder of the church, and so he's just saying, even if there's no Melchizedek priesthood. Yeah, and so now he's saying that the fact that they've kind of changed that focus to a apostleship tells you that this has changed and then obviously there's all the implications like you said as to what does that mean as far as why did it change? Did they have authority before the story has changed? If not, you know what I mean? Like all of those things come into play because we're now seeing how Joseph Smith is changing the revelation and why is changing the revelation and then what those implications are, which are huge as we talked about at the beginning of the episode because if this story is made up, then what power does the church have? Like all of these things are so incredibly important and you hear about them. I mean, my goodness, I can't tell you how many times I heard and I feel horrible. Since I've lost faith in the church, even though I'm still a member, when you're in a mixed faith marriage, I have a wife who constantly hears about how important it is to have a priesthood holder in the home and when you're a believer in the church, that is something that weighs on you because obviously I still have the priesthood because I'm a member even though I'm not active, but to me it's not real and obviously this message is so critical and just fundamental to the church and so if Joseph Smith is making it up as he goes, what does that tell you about what you hear on Sunday about the priesthood because it's simply not real and this is really starting to show you how you can piece together what Joseph Smith was doing, but it doesn't lead to good conclusions. Yeah. Okay, so one question that emerges for me from this and I don't expect you to be able to answer this, but if he's telling the apostles a year earlier, this higher priest that I'm giving you came from an angel and then a year later he's writing in the doctrine and covenants that this Melchizedek priest of power came from Peter James and John. Why aren't the 12 apostles saying, wait a minute, you didn't tell us about Peter James and John last year. You just said it was an angel, maybe Moroni. Now you're saying Peter James and John, like I'm curious why that didn't cause more of a stir or questions or did it or do you even know? It did among some of them and we'll get to those quotes as we go. I mean, there are people that will say, like, I never heard about this. So, you know, I don't know where it came from, but obviously to your point. And I think at the time, I don't know, I don't know if it's that they knew and they just didn't want to make a fuss or if they didn't weren't aware of what was in the DNC or what because, you know, obviously a lot of these early members of the church are not going to be involved in the church for much longer. So I don't know, yeah, I don't know exactly what might have been said, believe the church. Yeah. So a lot of their early witnesses are gone. So or will be gone. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, this is fascinating. So it's basically 1835. 1835 is where we finally get yeah. Oronic, a lower priesthood, a higher priesthood, you know, John the Baptist, Peter James and John, it's the first time six years after the fact. Yep. We're finally, we get the details. Yeah, six years after the fact in a whole lot of changes. Yeah. Yeah. A bunch of changes in between. Yeah. Yes. All right. And so this is more from Dan Vogel and kind of going over because we just talked about I think section 20. So this is to section 107, which was originally given in November 1831 about Joseph Smith being president of the high priesthood. Joseph Smith added a genealogy of high priest from Adam to Enek and then stated that the details of this are given in the book of Enek, which was to be testified of in due time. This never happened. The book Abraham appeared in July 1835. Joseph Smith procured two Egyptian scrolls. One, he identified as the book of Abraham and the other as the book of Joseph. The first thing Joseph Smith did was to translate an alphabet of the Egyptian language, which contained a mixture of the pure language and Egyptian part of its content that was dealt with the lineage of high priests. About this time, Joseph Smith dictated the first three verses of the book Abraham to W. W. Phelps. The remainder of the first two chapters of Abraham won't be dictated until November of 1835. These verses mention Abraham's seeking the right to be a high priest from his fathers. Here is in DNC 107. Joseph Smith is attempting to establish a lineage for the high priesthood. This was a problem no doubt for some members of the church as well as those outside the church who believe that the high priests were associated with the erotic priesthood and that Jesus was the only more causative high priest. And so what Dan Vogel is saying here and we'll get more into this when we do our book of Abraham overviews. The book of Abraham in a lot of ways is going to serve as a vehicle for Joseph Smith's evolution on priesthood. It's very concerned about priesthood, whereas the book of Mormon is not. And so what he's saying right here is he's trying to establish a lineage of the high priest because as I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of Bible scholars will tell you that the Mormon church is a whole idea of Melchizedek priesthood as a misreading of Hebrews and that Jesus is in the Melchizedek priesthood, which means we are not because Jesus obviously is above us. And so this is Joseph Smith now trying as he learns more about kind of the Bible writings. I don't know if he's taking the Hebrew lessons yet, but he's obviously learning more about the Bible. I think he's now trying to see how to fix some of the problems he might have created with some of his earlier innovations. And this is a way where Joseph Smith now is trying to make sure he can give some sort of historical lineage for the Melchizedek priesthood to give it legitimacy within the church. And I apologize because this should be obvious to me, but I'm not getting what the book of Abraham has to do with this priest's restoration thing. Can you just summarize that really quickly one more time? So okay, so I haven't read the book Abraham's stuff in a while just because we haven't done those yet, but effectively the Joseph Smith doesn't DNC 107 that he's going to give the lineage of the basically the high priesthood in the book of Enoch. And that never happens. And so what happens instead is Joseph Smith is going to start writing the book of Abraham shortly after when they get the scrolls. And he's going to use that opportunity to establish the lineage for the high priesthood in order to try to give legitimacy to the idea that there was a high priesthood that was passed down as opposed to it just being the Melchizedek priesthood just being Jesus. Because as I mentioned, Melchizedek is a title for King of Righteousness, which is Jesus. So a lot of people think thought that it meant that Jesus didn't really need a priesthood. That was just a way of saying that was like a title of a priesthood for Jesus because he was by himself. He wasn't equals with us. And here Joseph Smith is trying to find a way to make it ancient so that it lines up. And that's a huge red flag because like I heard once several years ago that the tarot givens has recommended privately to top church leaders that they need to remove the book of Abraham even from the canon. Both because it's gibberish, but also because it's now been shown to be a fraudulent translation. So if Joseph Smith, if now we see a motive, a partial motive for him of creating the book of Abraham, which is to then do the pseudopigraphy stuff where he can show ancient prophets who are using this priesthood and then using that to bolster his his claims about this six year after the fact invented lower and higher priesthood. That's problematic because now he know the book of Abraham is a fraud from start to finish. And so that the book of Abraham itself and its its false translation completely undermines the priesthood as well as the book of Abraham, right? Well, yeah, I mean, I obviously the apologetic to that it's going to be that it was the book of Abraham is a revelation, a translation, which we will get into. I know, I know, we'll get into that. But yeah, it's it's it's migration. The word all over this history of six years. Yes, it's the translator. He's a prophet, seer, revelator and translator. None of this garbage about uh, you know, um, what is the inspiration thesis of the book of Abraham? Oh, the oh my goodness. Yeah, I cannot say about the catalyst theory. You can't put that back in in 189, 1835. He is a translator, not a revelator in that way. Yeah, but no, I mean, I would just say that would be the response would be to say, well, that was a revelation from God that was establishing, but that gets into so many issues too. Because again, we talked about in our six or seven episodes on biblical scholarship. I mean, I would argue most biblical scholars that are not like fundamentalists would argue that Abraham probably was not a real person. So to establish a Melchizedek priesthood through a fictional or a mythical character doesn't work. And so that creates more problems where you can show that Joseph Smith is basically trying to back fit a story by using something that's not historical and trying to cement it down as historical and then all of a sudden you're screwed because if that's not true, everything above it is not true. And so, you know, this is where things get messy because it's like everywhere you go, you're going to run into more problems with the way Joseph Smith is piecing together theology. And he's using these different scripture productions as vehicles for this theology, like the book of Abraham, like the first vision, like the doctrine and covenants. Book of Moses does the same thing. All of these are vehicles for his ideas. But the problem is when you show those ideas are not based in a historical setting, then everything that comes from them is not true. And this is a problem when you're trying to establish a higher priesthood in a set of scriptures that we know is just historically and historically wrong and the translation is completely wrong. Again, it's like, what are you left with because of the fact that he is tying the priesthood into the book of Abraham? So yeah, it's a problem. It's a huge one. And Joseph is creating a fake translation in the book of Abraham as a way to justify his manufactured priesthood that comes six years after it allegedly was given. That's a house of cards falling right there to me. Yeah. And remember, the first three verses that Joseph Smith is going to do in the book of Abraham, which he does and then kind of pauses, is those first three verses are trying to establish the priesthood that he is also establishing in 1835. So he's doing both of these at the same time, which is a huge tell that this is a laid innovation that he's now trying to figure out a way to give authenticity to by trying to put it in the name of an ancient prophet. He's making the stuff up as he goes along. Yeah, and he's making it up as he goes along. And now he's trying to find a way to solidify it on solid grounds that he can't be questioned. But again, as we've talked about with the book of Abraham, there's just that there's so many issues and we will do that. And I think we're going to be doing those like in a few episodes or something, but yeah, those will be okay. Going through that some more. So thanks for explaining that to me. I'm sure the listeners of viewers get it all, but I sometimes need a little extra. No, this stuff is so this stuff is so in the weeds. And it's essential. It is. And like I said, if you want to know more, watch the Dan Vogel videos because he goes on to even more depth and you go cross-eyed at some point, but man, it's just so damning how many data points are. And this is we're not going to read it, but if you're watching this, this is a look at the Tanner's put together a image of the changes made to the Book of Commandments. And these are the two main revelations on the priesthood. And if you if you can look at it, it's just there these are not small changes. These are massive block changes being made to these revelations from God that we can show that he's making it. It's just just to be able to see it. I think kind of illustrates just how vast the changes that are being made with no, no, you know, header in the DNC saying he changed it. This is being done with no announcement. Walking that is shocking because, look, look, was the Book of Commandments revelation or not? If it was revelation, it should stand. But if it requires almost half of it to be written, is this visualization shows, then it wasn't revelation. Yeah, you know, go back and rewrite revelation years later and change it all. That is a that is a huge smoking gun. I mean, I'm sorry, people are going to go, John, you know, this is too anti or this is too negative. I'm just I'm giving a genuine reaction because I've never seen this visual before. That is shocking to see how much they're changing what was an alleged revelation, how much they're altering it to an updated revelation after the fact. That's how revelation works. Revelation works. God tells Joseph what the revelation is and it's revelation. It's not God tells Joseph what the revelation is. And then three years later, God says Joseph completely rewrite the revelation and change it based on stuff you've made up between then and now. That's not how revelation is supposed to work. Yeah, I mean, it's just like it's yeah, because our next episode is going to be on changes to the revelations and it's going to go into this in more depth. But yeah, I mean, the moment that you start to say, Joseph had the ability to change him as he saw fit, you're just you're indistinguishable from out right fraud because even if you believe they're originally correct, now Joseph Smith is corrupted him, it's like no matter how you go here, it's going to end in a bad way because we've already shown he's willing to deceive in order to better his own situation. And this is another instance where he's creating these changes in order to bolster his authority. And now he has to back fit it into the text and just yeah, I'm wondering like how did how did he get away with this with all the members and all the leaders like him literally rewriting the revelations within two or three years of them being printed. But then I think Warren Jeff's and Rulan Jeff's and how, you know, like freaking Warren Jeff's goes to prison and starts telling people they can't get married and have sex and everybody's okay with it. Like once you once people perceive that you're God's spokesperson, you can almost do whatever you want. And people are going to just let it slide. Yeah, the more people are willing to let stuff like this slide. Well, yeah, you know, we've talked about in the treasuredating episodes too, it's like once you get someone to believe that you have that authority, they'll let you get away with a lot of stuff until they don't. And we do have a lot of the early members and a lot of the early witnesses who leave because they mentioned this is being a reason they leave. So it definitely does resonate. It's just like you said, you would expect more widespread, but remember, very few members have a book of commandments to compare to is there are only a few, you know, there weren't a lot of copies that survived. So it's not like they all had that like as a quadback, then that was a very rare thing to have. So it could just be that most early members just didn't know any better. Yeah. And we're going to get the David Whitmer. Yeah, so we'll get to all that as well. So so yeah, so that's just a good visual look. And, you know, going back to Oliver Cowdry, this is more from Dan Vogel, which is really interesting. Late in September of 1835, Oliver Cowdry was copying the 1833 blessings of Joseph Smith's senior into the patriarchal blessing book. Cowdry wrote an introduction that explained the authority by which Joseph Smith's senior gave blessings and uses the same language as Abraham chapter 1 verse 2 about the right of the priesthood, which means he has access to that at that point. He then tried to claim that the visitation of John the Baptist was predicated by ancient Joseph evidently alluding to one of the Egyptian papyri that Oliver Cowdry identified in the December 1835 issue of the messenger and advocate. This is what he wrote. We repaired to the woods, even as our father Joseph said we should. That is to the bush. The angel came down and bestowed upon us this priesthood. That is, he explains they were ordained by the angel John unto the lesser or ironic priesthood. I'm going to take a quick pause on that one just to say that again, when you realize the book of Abraham and what they claimed were the book of Joseph, those two scrolls were funerary schools. The fact that Oliver Cowdry is now saying that they include this prediction that they're going to get the priesthood restored tells you that the story is completely made up because we know those scrolls don't say that in any way. So I just want to throw that there real quick. We'll get back to it. But then Dan Volkl continues and says still writing in the patriarchal blessing book in early October 1835, Oliver Cowdry altered and expanded a blessing that Joseph Smith gave him in 1833, deleting some negative comments and adding a reference to the priesthood restoration. He wrote, "These blessings shall come upon him, Oliver, according to the blessings of the prophecy of Joseph in ancient days, which he said should come upon the seer of the last days and describe that should sit with him and that should be ordained with him." He then mentions the ordination by John the Baptist and then states, "And after received the holy priesthood under the hands of those who had been held in reserve for a long season, even those who received it under the hand of the Messiah, while he should dwell in the flesh." The expansion of the 1833 blessings, without notice, Cowdry even claimed that he was copying faithfully, creates a highly suspicious situation which Oliver inserts ancient Joseph's prophecy about priesthood restoration. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdry were apparently planning to use the papyri to support priesthood restoration to put authority claims and their leadership on a firmer foundation. And so this is the same thing. I just want to say that like if I'm reading this correctly, there's a patriarchal blessing that's been given in 1833 that doesn't mention any of this priesthood stuff. That's not the way patriarchal blessings are supposed to work. Number one, that they're changed two years later, but what's even worse, and this is like Joseph fielding Smith-level fraud but worse. He's adding two years later details that weren't given in the original in the in the original revelation and then claiming claiming that they're that they're a prophecy. Yeah, that's amazing, right? All right, fraud. That's ridiculous. Yeah, and that's why you can. Cowdry to be a bad dude. That's why you can't rely on them because now we've got all these instances where you can show he's willing to use fraud. And in this case, he deletes, I think in the original blessing, it talks about how Oliver has to overcome his temptations of evil or something like that. There's like this little admit, you know, little jab at him in the original blessing. And then two years later, not only does he remove that so that it's not in the record, but then he also adds these ideas that were not even invented until 1835 and puts them back into 1833, which shows he is willing to lie. I mean, he lied here. He lied and he intentionally covered up information deleted and added. If you read this about any other religious leader to a Mormon, to a true believing member of the church and said, do you believe this person is acting in good faith? They'd say no. But then when you say it's Oliver Cowdry, you know, or Joseph Smith, you know, it's all about consistency. But yeah, this shows he was willing to lie for Joseph. He was willing to lie for himself. And he was also willing to alter a change, delete, edit, as needed to make it happen. Yeah, there's no Mormon that should feel good. Just imagine you have a patriarchal blessing that you've received. And then two years later, somebody else comes and adds a bunch of stuff to it. It's not even the original patriarch. And then, and then claims it was a faithful, you know, rewriting of the original blessing. That's, that's just outrageous fraud. And I'm, I'm, I'm livid. Well, yeah, this one, this one's a bad one. And this one I obviously didn't know about. I didn't, I didn't know this. And, you know, this would be the equivalent of like, in this one, it's home for me a little bit. I hear a lot of people who say this, as they'll say, I received my patriarchal blessing. And it's that I was going to have a bunch of kids. And then they have infertility issues, right? And then all of a sudden, someone takes up that patriarchal blessing and they, they delete the part about having a bunch of kids and they write. And you will have great challenges having children in this life, but be sure you'll have them in the next life. And then they sign that as if it happened years earlier. I mean, that's what this is. This is taking something that was created years later and putting it back into a previous text. And remember, patriarchal blessings are supposed to be revelations directly from God. These are not just people randomly spouting off their ideas. So this is, you know, this is a really damning piece of evidence that Oliver Cowdery was willing to lie and did lie to put the story back in. And this is the story that the church tells us every week on Sunday is what happened. And we know it's a late addition and that they're having to cover their tracks to make it fit the history. And I don't know what more to say outside the fact that every person who knows this like aologist and who could don't teach it this way are being intentionally deceptive. And that's why we've talked in previous weeks. I can't stand it when people who know better still tell the correlated material when this is clearly not what happened. Yeah, that's outrageous. All right. Next slide. Yep. So next slide. And I think a lot of people who might be listening or watching will be aware of this. But in the 1836 vision at the Kirtland temple, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery claim a vision where they receive additional priesthood keys from Moses, Elias, and Elijah. This claim gives them the ultimate authority in the church, but does not come without problems. Elias and Elijah are actually the same person even though Joseph treats them as separate visions. Elias is a Hebrew translation and Elijah is the Greek. Nonetheless, it's effectively finishes a priesthood restoration by confirming an authority to Joseph Smith that can never be challenged by anyone else in the church. And so this is just as I'm just going to say three huge problems here. Number one, Joseph and Oliver have already been shown to be liars or to be willing to lie. Number two, they're not even getting, they're calling two historical figures that were actually one. And number three, this is just a huge transparent power grab. They realized a couple of years prior that they've they've they'd need to keep keep hold of their power. And the only way that they can do it is to claim angelic visitations. And so this is like a triple. This is triply problematic. They're not credible to begin with. They're getting the actual historical figures wrong is if it's two people existed when it was only one. And it's clearly a blatant power grab that they're making up to keep their power. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's one of those things where once you realize that Oliver is willing to effectively lie for Joseph. And you know, Joseph's been willing to make up stories to bolster his authority. This then all of a sudden, it's like, well, why should I believe it? Because we have in the previous year, Oliver changing the blessing book to reflect the story and Joseph changing the revelation. And you know, we don't need to get into this too deep. But a lot of the apologetics would say that Elias is the title of a forerunner, which most people would say will be John. But then remember a year earlier, they're saying how they were visited by John. So you would never call him Elias in this vision. So that's one area where I kind of laugh because they'll say, Oh, Elias was just a forerunner title is actually John. It's like, well, then he would say after this John appeared because he had already seen him. It would be silly for me to call someone by a title if I had already interacted with them in a vision. So I just want to note that because that's probably what a lot of people will respond to that section or this section of the episode by saying is, well, Elias was a title. They really were two different people. It's like, no, this is I remember when you had David Bacchewoy and I think you'd ask him and you just kind of said, yeah, that's it's really just that simple. You know, they're just different translations. And that's why one is in the Old Testament, one's in the New Testament because the New Testament is in Greek. Old Testament is in Hebrew. And so, um, yeah, it's just Joseph Smith didn't know that. And so here, he's creating a vision to effectively solidify his authority in the church by setting two different people who are actually the same person with different translations. So it's just it's you're saying, you're saying biblical scholars kind of universally acknowledge that now. I think so. I mean, it's funny. A lot of people will argue that Elias is the term of a of a forerunner or frontrunner or whatever. And if you Google it, almost every response you see is a affiliated with like an LDS apologetic because it really is not a big deal for anyone else. But because Joseph Smith, you know, we've said this so many times in these episodes, that would be because Joseph Smith cemented this as a real historical thing. Um, that's where the apologetics come from. And like I said, if you want to claim it's John, you got problems because they just claim to see John. So why wouldn't they just name as it was? It would be like if I said, you know, uh, and then, uh, President appeared to me and then, um, Presidente appeared to me and then you go, oh, they meant they meant it was, um, you know, George Washington. And I said a year later, I'd visited with George Washington. I would just be like, oh, and then George Washington came. I would be like, oh, and then President came. It's just I realized people might think I'm being facetious and I'm not. I'm saying like, that's what you have to deal with. If you want to use that apologetic because the transparent argument out of necessity. Yeah. Yeah. And even an even that argument out of necessity runs into the problem that Joseph Smith already claimed to see John. So why would he then come Elias when the overwhelming consensus is that the same person anyways, it's just you can't use that argument given that they're making that story up a year earlier. So this is anyways. Yeah, it's a big deal. So now as we talked about with the first vision, Joseph Smith is going to write kind of a new version of the history in 1838. This is what's canonized. This is what's now in DNC 13. Um, and this entry matches the official church narrative includes the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods along with the visitations. This is where we mentioned this earlier where it says upon my fellow servants in the name of Messiah, I John the Baptist confer the priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels and of the gospel of repentance and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. In this shall never be taken again from the earth until the sons of Levi do offer again in offering unto the Lord in righteousness. And, you know, like I said on the surface, it sounds like a miraculous visit by John the Baptist, but it's just this entire thing. It's an it's an anachronism to everything we have about what happened in the preceding years. And so I'm super livid about this because it's very personal for me. I remember memorizing the scripture when I was in the in Aaronic priesthood holder when I was a young teenage boy and I'm being told this priesthood is so important and it's so important that I received it and it gives me all this power and authority. Never was I told that this was invented nine years after the alleged event ever happened and that it was retrofitted into the DNC and put as section 13, like as if it came early when in reality it came so much after many of the sections of the DNC that are placed after in subsequent versions. Yeah, no, I mean, like I said, this is, you know, is a convert, you know, when I when I when I first came across this information, it was just like I felt like I was all over getting these words. Yeah. I mean, where did these words ever appear before 1838 anywhere? They might appear after 1835, but they're anachronistic between 1829 and 1835 for sure. There's no like this. This is like literally what John the Baptist is saying when he gives Oliver and Joseph, these are the literal words he's saying when he gives Joseph and Oliver the priesthood. Yeah. And yet they were never written down until eight years six to nine years later. Yeah. The first time they were actually written down with this amazing level of specificity. Yep. That that just appears literally out of nowhere six to eight years later. Yeah, ridiculous. And so I'm just looking at the section heading on DNC 13 online. It says, an extra an extract from Joseph Smith's history recounting the ordination of the prophet prophet and Oliver Cowdery to the Aaronic priesthood near Harmony, Pennsylvania, May 15, 1829. This ordination was done by the hands of an angel who announced himself as John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the New Testament. The angel explained that he was acting under the direction of Peter James and John, the ancient apostles who held the keys of the higher priesthood, which was called the priesthood of Melchizedek. The promise was given to Joseph and Oliver that in due time the higher priesthood would be conferred upon them. The keys in power of the Aaronic priesthood are set forth. And so this heading makes no mention of the fact that this is a recounting nine years later that it completely was changed from the original setting. And I realized the church isn't going to announce the fact that Joseph and Oliver created this story long after the fact. But just reading this heading would not give the impression to a reader that this is a late edition or even nine years after the fact. It just makes it look like Joseph Smith's history was written contemporaneously and that they just pulled this a little bit out because they don't have a direct revelation. And yet none of this happened. This is just we can show this did not happen because we could show the evolution of the story. And yet we're still getting this as the heading of DNC 13, which is just it's dishonest by the church's own definition of honesty. This is dishonest. Yeah. And people are going to criticize me for being a little bit too angry or harsh or emotional because we're trying to be objective here. But I'm just get this is my authentic reaction. I haven't studied this stuff before. And as someone who's raised a life-long Mormon, this is outraging me and my outrageous authentic. And it's all new information to me, honestly. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I when I start going through this, it's like holy crap. Like every time you see something, you're like, that makes so much sense, but it also is pretty angering to see. So yeah. So anyways, this one I mentioned because Lucy Max Smith, who's Joseph Smith's mom, writes about the formation of the church again in 1845. And she recounts the introduction of baptism, but she does not mention John the Baptist or any angelic visitations, which were to have taken place on that same day. So she writes, one morning, Joseph and Oliver were translating in third Nephi in the book of Mormon, the first thing that presented itself to Joseph was a commandment from God through the stone in a hat that he and Oliver should repair to the water in each of them be baptized. They immediately went down to the Susquehanna River and obeyed the mandate given them. They had now received the authority to baptize. And so much like the first vision, the story just isn't really well known because it wasn't talked about in the first six years. So I think a lot of people, they have the DNC, but they don't probably know these stories as well because they weren't foundational then. And I know some people will say that by Lucy Max saying they now had received authority to baptize, that that was a reference to the visitation, but it's not. It's a reference to the fact that at this point early in the history, Joseph Smith believed he received divine commandment through the rock in a hat, not through the visitation that would happen years later. So Lucy Max Smith is not saying they received the authority to baptize by getting the priesthood. She's saying they received the authority to baptize by translating the book of Mormon and then getting the commandment through the stone in a hat to go and baptize each other. But wait, is John the Baptist anywhere there? No, I'm just saying this is even an 1845 in Lucy Max Smith still seems to be not mentioning it when she recounts history of the church. So this is just one of those stories. I think that wasn't foundational. Yeah. So why is Joseph's own mom when she writes about Joseph and all of her kind of baptizing each other? Why is she not mentioning John the Baptist? Now, should I get the 1838 memo? Well, let's just say it like because she doesn't mention, I don't think she really mentions the first vision either. So I don't think she's aware of, I mean, to be honest, she's probably recalling what she experienced in these early days. And in this matches, that matches the 1829 timeline that they were translating the book and believe they need to baptize each other as they're starting this church. That makes sense. But this is completely out of line with the correlated version that we've gone over now from the official DNC. The other thing is, tell me if I'm remembering this right. But the first instance of like, Christian baptism in the book of Mormon is when Alma goes to the waters of Mormon and starts baptizing people. I think so. Yeah. And there's no mention of anyone ever ordaining him priesthood. Yeah. You know, almost gives the impression that like the Holy Spirit, if I'm remembering right, it's almost like the Holy Spirit descends on him. Yeah. Where he gets his authority from. Yeah. So the book of Mormon had this amazing chance to say and behold, Alma, some angel appears to Alma and ordains on him the Aaronic priesthood, which gives him the authority to baptize in the waters of Mormon. The book of Mormon had that chance. Yeah. And it never, it never does that. Yeah, because it wasn't thought up yet. Yeah. I mean, that's just it. That's what we, that's why it's always when we mention these things. It's like, yeah, it's not there because Joseph hadn't thought it up yet. And when you look at it today as a member, you think he had because it seems so clean and correlated. But no, he had the story is not in his idea in his mindset, yet. And so of course, it's not going to show up in the book of Mormon. Okay. All right. But the point is the fact that the prophet's own mother, who was a first hand witness all along, never mentions John the Baptist, even as late as 1845, that should be sketchy at minimum to people. Yeah. I mean, it's noteworthy. You know, it's one of those things where you look at that. And that's another data point that shows people just weren't out aware of it because it didn't happen. And then here's all over Caldery. Sorry, sorry. I had the wrong side there. Yeah. Referring you say back to another recollection. And this is a good one. This is from the Sunstone History podcast on the priesthood restoration. This was a really cool one that Christopher C. Smith mentioned, which is Oliver Caldery gets excommunicated from the church because he's upset about Joseph Smith having an affair with Fannie Alger. And he goes back to the church later. And when he goes back, he's talking to the church. And this is what he says, I was also present with Joseph when the higher or Melchizedek priesthood was conferred by the holy angel on high. What the hell the holy angel? Yeah. And so he's going backwards to the story he told in 1834. So he says, just outrageous. No, so I mean, like it's just it's amazing. I was also present with Joseph when the higher or Melchizedek priesthood was conferred by the holy angel on high. This priesthood we then conferred on each other by the will and commandment of God. And it's just like I said, that's interesting because here's Oliver Codry who's the one that kind of introduced the angel story in 1834, which leads to Peter James and John. But here, even knowing that that story was was done rewriting stuff into the blessing books, all that stuff. When he goes back to the church in 1848, he reverts back to his original 1834 story. And also makes clear to say, I was present with Joseph, which in a lot of ways is kind of more of a passive language. So in 1834 and 35, Oliver Codry was like, I was there. I was a part of this. You know, this is when it all happened. And then all of a sudden now he's kind of falling back to that kind of more generic angelic visitation, which obviously makes no sense given the fact that he's well aware of the story in 1835 because him and Joseph rewrote it into the DNC and he rewrote some of it into the blessing's book. So it's almost significant. It's almost like in mid to late 1830s, their authority is being challenged. They're needing to pull rank. So they're making up all these stories about specific angelic visits that granted them the authority. But maybe by 1848, well, not only is Joseph dead. So the authority is kind of a matter of the past. But also the authority is kind of well established by then. And at that point, it's less important for Oliver to be making such specific claims of authority. Well, that and I think Oliver at this point is coming back to the church. This church is not going to let Oliver take control of it anyways. So I think at this point, he doesn't have any real need to lie because it's not like, you know, brick him young and then we're going to like put him in charge. So I think at this point, they view him, I think kind of suspiciously a bit and because he'd been excommunicated. He'd be excommunicated. So he's kind of accusing for accusing Joseph of it. Yeah. And so he comes back. They, you know, I think there's a lot of bad feelings. And so it's just interesting that he's now reverting back to the story. It's almost like now that it doesn't suit him. He's not going to tell the full story. But he's still giving this other story to certainly to elevate himself. But yeah, it's just amazing. And he reverts backwards instead of just sticking with what the evolution of the story was. Yeah, it's crazy. Okay. And then this is a real quick data point. It's a late reminence. But it's a journal of Oliver Huntington. And it's a reminence. It's from oh my gosh, Addison Everett, I believe. And he says that basically Joseph had told people in Navu that in Colville, he and Oliver Cowdrew are under arrest on charges of deceiving the people. And in court, he stated that the first miracle done was to create this earth. Brother Joseph said that at the very time Peter, James and John came to them and ordained them to the Apostleship. And this incarceration is mid to late June of 1830. And Wesley Walters is located the court bill for this trial. It's dated July 1st, 1830. And that if this is true, and this actually lines up a little more with the history as far as Joseph and Oliver being together, that would put the priesthood restoration weeks after the church was founded, which is another problem. So this is a late reminence. It's just another data point. It's just to say that even in Navu, Joseph Smith is telling a story about the priesthood restoration that doesn't line up with what he wrote in the doctrine of covenants, which would have I believe been about seven years earlier, because I think that this was supposed to be in like 1842 in Navu. So even here, we're seeing just all sorts of inconsistencies with how Joseph is framing this experience. And I wonder if that's just a confused memory because if Joseph wasn't even talking about Peter James and John, until 1834, 1835, why would he have mentioned that in 1831? He didn't. No, he didn't. This is, this is Joseph Smith telling a story in Navu. So like say, around 1842, he's telling people about the restoration. So this is only important in trying to try to date when they're saying it was. So it just shows that it couldn't have happened in May of 1829 because this trial happened about a year later. And in the church was, the church was founded in April six, I think, right? April six, I think so. So it just shows that even if you go with what Joseph Smith was teaching in Navu, this would have happened after, which it just has all sorts of problems as well. So, maybe Joseph was talking about it in an inconsistent manner. Yes, Navu. Yes. I mean, like I said, it's just one data point. It's just more or less to say, here's another data point, which does line up with regard to the trial. But it would be bad for the timing because it would be after the, well, after it was supposed to have happened. So super sketchy. So many instances of sketchiness. Yeah. So now we're going to get to some of the quotes that I found to be very impactful to me about the priest's restoration, some from faithful, some from non-faithful. So Richard Bushman, a faithful source, would say related. Yeah, churches foremost scholar on Joseph Smith, a former Stink president, which is higher than a bishop, former Stink patriarch, like this is the guy. Yeah. So he writes in his book, "Ruff Stone Rolling," the late appearances of these priest's restoration accounts raises the possibility of later fabrication. And then Bushman goes on to add, did Joseph Smith add the stories of angels to embellish his early history and may come self more of a visionary? If so, he made little of the occurrence. Caldry was the first to recount the story of John's appearance, not Joseph himself. So this is, I think Bushman trying to say the later appearance of these accounts certainly looks like a late addition to Joseph's history. He tries to give a little bit of an apologetic spin to say if he was doing it to bolster's authority, he made little of it. But I think that neglects the fact that he does create the story of John's appearance because Oliver mentions an angel, Joseph links him to John. And that's an 1835 at a time after Zion's camp when things are happening. So yeah, I mean, I would say that Joseph did embellish his history to make himself more of a visionary. And he made little of the occurrence before 1835 because he hadn't developed the story yet. And I think the timeline kind of, I think, shows that. And I also think, like I said, Caldry did introduce the idea of an angel, and then they kind of solidified that to John, like right before they did the DNC entry. So between was a February and May of 1835, I think. So I think I'm still confused as to how Bushman can be an Orthodox believer and know this stuff. But at least he's acknowledging that it's a real problem. Yeah. It's Robert stood about the view of the Hebrews, right? Yeah, I think that to me, that's the takeaway. It's just even even he's saying, basically, this looks like later fabrication. And even if he does give a apologetic spin to it. Yeah. Um, BH Roberts, who was an Apollo, was he a general authority for the church? It wasn't an apostle. So he writes in his footnote in the history of the church. Um, there is no definite account of the Melchizedek priest's restoration event in the history of the prophet Joseph or for that matter in any of our annals. Um, which is to say, there's, there's no, there's no contemporary record of this happening anywhere in the church's records. And I'm there in a guy already made this point, but Mormon should realize we celebrate the date of the erotic priesthood every year. Yeah. We never celebrate the date of the Melchizedek priesthood because we, we don't, there's no evidence that it ever happened. Yeah. So I mean, it's just, it's another way of saying this story just does not exist. Um, David Whitmer said, I'd never heard that an angel had ordained Joseph and Oliver to the erotic priesthood until the year 1835 or 1834, 35 or 36 in Ohio. I do not believe that John the Baptist ever ordained Joseph and Oliver and William McClell and along those same lines said, I joined the church in 1831. For years, I never heard of John the Baptist ordaining Joseph and Oliver. I had heard not of James Peter and John doing so as to the story of John the Baptist ordaining Joseph and Oliver on the day they were baptized. I never heard of it in the church for years, although I carefully noticed the things that were said. And so these are two people that are in the early church, David Whitmer, one of the three witnesses, both saying this story just was never talked about. It's a late creation and that they don't believe it because again, they were there. They were around. They heard Joseph Smith talk about this stuff and it's just a late addition that was simply not developed at this time. That's why they didn't hear about it. And, and okay, so yeah, that should be very significant because the church wants us all to really, you know, the Book of Mormon stands on the on the witnesses of the three and the eight witnesses. And David Whitmer is one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon, like a super crucial, you know, witness, right? Wait, he's one of the three witnesses, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon early founders of the church. And here he's saying, I never heard anything about an eronic priesthood or an angel or on the Baptist. So that's a huge problem. And then we'll in McLean, you'll hear the church reference him all the time about his important role in the early church. And here you've got early founders saying we never heard anything about this. Yeah. Now, didn't David Whitmer say also, he knew nothing about a Melchizedek priesthood? Yeah, I think so. And the next, the next one actually is going to be pretty important for that. Actually, it's from from from Whitmer. So yeah, this is really important because I mentioned at the beginning, Sydney, and so David Whitmer says in August 1829, we began to preach the gospel of Christ. The following six elders had then been ordained. Joseph Oliver, Peter Whitmer, Samuel Smith, Hiram Smith and myself. We preached baptizing and conferred members into the Church of Christ from August 1829 until April 6, 1830, being eight months in which time we proceeded rightly, the offices in the church being elders, priests and teachers. In no place in the word of God does it say that an elder is after the order of Melchizedek or after the order of the Melchizedek priesthood. An elder is after the order of Christ. This matter of priesthood since the days of Sydney, Rigdon, has been the great hobby and stumbling block of the Latter-day Saints. Priesthood means authority and authority is the word we should use. I do not think the word priesthoods mention in the new covenant of the Book of Mormon. All authority is the word we use for the first two years in the Church until Sydney, Rigdon's days in Ohio. This matter of the two orders of the priesthood in the Church of Christ, in linear priesthood of the old law of being in the Church, all originated in the mind of Sydney, Rigdon. He explained these things to brother Joseph in his way out of the old scriptures and got brother Joseph to inquire, etc. He would inquire and as mouthpiece, speak out the revelations just as they had fixed up in their hearts. This is the way the high priest and the priesthood, as you have it, was introduced into the Church of Christ almost two years after it's beginning and after we had baptized and confirmed about 2000 souls into the Church. So yeah, I mean, that speaks for itself. This is what I was saying at the beginning of this. I memorized this. I memorized this for us. Yeah, he's just based. Sydney, Rigdon, came from the Cambolate movement. The Cambolate movement spoke about the Melchizedek priesthood. Sydney, Rigdon joined in 1830 and up until that time, Joseph had no idea of this idea of two priesthoods. Sydney, Rigdon, taught him about the multiple priesthoods. And after then, Joseph Smith started layering in these details about the high priest in 1831, then they bring up the the the name Melchizedek in 1835, the Visitations. None of that happened in the early Church. And so David Whitmer was there and they baptized people. They ordained people. This stuff was never mentioned in any way until Sydney raining came. And everything lines up the timeline lines up. Sydney, Rigdon's background confirms what David Whitmer was saying about this belief about the Melchizedek priesthood. All of this stuff lines up. And that's why it's so cool. Because as I mentioned at the start of the episode, you got this puzzle. And now these pieces are fitting together really well. Now it's telling us the priest's restoration didn't happen in the way that the church tells you if it happened at all. But this is what the historical records are telling us. And they're all confirming each other. So here David Whitmer is confirming what we talked about earlier about the Campbellites and the Melchizedek priesthood. And it's also confirming the timeline, which is to say this was never even developed until years after the church was formed, which is a huge problem because they're telling us it happened before. Now I'm I'm pulling up Mormon think really quick. And I'm just going to read to you what I'm reading. And this might be repetitive. But this is David Whitmer in and address to all believers in Christ. This might be repetitive, but I'm going to read it anyway. This is this is one of the three witnesses early founder of the Mormon Church David Whitmer. He says this matter of the two orders of the priesthood in the church of Christ. They didn't even get the church's name right at first. And Lineal priesthood of the old law being in the church all originated in the mind of Sidney Rigden. He explained these things to brother Joseph in his way out of the old scriptures and got brother Joseph to inquire. So that is Sidney Rigden saying this this stuff about Peter James and John, Aaronic Melchizedek priesthood did not happen in 1829. Something Sidney Rigden introduced and the Joseph and Oliver adopted later. And if you're how can the church wants us to believe David Whitmer as a credible witness to the book of Mormon will then can he also be a credible witness to the invalid in validity of the priesthood restoration. Yeah, and that's the problem with the inconsistency kind of of apologetics because I'm willing to say David Whitmer absolute may have believed or probably believed that the book of Mormon was was from God and he may have believed he saw a vision. I mean, I have no problem with that. But I will also say that the other things he says also I think you have to take account of it. And the fact is he's telling us the story is created long after the fact and then retrofit it back in the church, which is also confirmed by everything else we have. So to try to vilify him in that regard, I think is is just dishonest because we can show it. This is not this is not a matter of opinion. This is a matter of fact. And it's just it's all over the place. We've like I said, go watch Dan Volga's videos because he has so many more data points than I know we brought up here. It gets worse. It does not get better when you go deeper into this stuff. It's so disingenuous to say, believe David Whitmer when he testified to the book of Mormon, don't believe him when he testified as to the invalidity of the priesthood restoration. Believe all of her calorie when he's a witness of the book of Mormon, don't believe him when he calls Joseph an adulterer. Right. You can't rely on witnesses, but only the witnesses, only the testimonies that are convenient and that ignore the ones that are inconvenient and apologists, Bushmen, all of them should should know that they know this. Yeah, they do. Yeah. I mean, they do. Yeah. Okay. So now we're going to get to the apologetics and for this one, I use the the the fair Mormon response to the CES letter because there's no official church essay to kind of use to to pull the main apologetic. So fair Mormon response to the CES letters to say records indicate that visits of Peter James and John for the purpose of ordination was being discussed in 1830. And when you read their reply, they're going to give no sources and yet they make this statement as just a complete statement of fact. And then they follow it up by saying the author of the CES letter has no idea whatsoever. Joseph may have told his family about the priesthood restoration because there are no historical documents to support his position one way or the other, which only further proves our point that the event was not spoken of to anyone on record. So they're saying basically no one no one was told about this. And then fair Mormon calls this idea a logical fallacy and argument from silence. The author has formed a conclusion that is based on the absence of statements and historical documents rather than on their actual presence. And again, this is just simply not true because of the fact that we can actually show all of the different ways that they talk about this. It's just not mentioned. And so fair Mormon here is being intentionally disingenuous because they are trying to use this idea of you can't prove a negative. So of course, it's true or could be true. So keep believing except for the fact that we can show all of these different areas where Joseph and Oliver and other people are talking about the priesthood and it's just not there because it's not created. And last, the fact that Joseph Smith was not even ordained into the high priesthood until 1831, which tells us that this visitation did not happen in 1829. And so this is just the first kind of area where apologetics are going to say, well, Joseph Smith didn't write a lot of stuff down so we can't really say anything's wrong. Jim Bennett does that and his CS letter replied to. I think he has a page where it's just like an open page and says, this is what Joseph wrote up until 1832. So basically saying, you know, how dare you judge it. It's like, no, there's a lot of documentation as to what he was teaching. This isn't there because it's just not created. And we could show when it's created because it starts showing up in greater numbers all of a sudden out of nowhere. I don't know what more to say on that one. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting what the church chose to do gospel topics essays on versus what they chose not to do gospel topics essays on. So as an example, there's no gospel topics essays on historicity in the Book of Mormon. Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. And I've always wondered why not. Yeah. I've wondered if that's such a it's such a problematic apologetic argument. And it's so central to the church's truth claims. The church just said, it's too important and we don't have a good enough case. And I wonder if that's what they did with the priesthood restoration. I think what the priesthood one it is because it's just it like there's no good way around this. And obviously we'll get to the rest of them. But it's just these apologetics are terrible and they're really misleading if you're willing to look at what they're saying. So you've got this phrase we just read which is that the fair Mormon says that records indicate there was discussion of Peter James and John in the 1830s. Yeah. Are you going to tell us their evidence for that? Are you saying they're saying that out of whole cloth? Well, so if you go to this response to the C.S. letter and you do it, there are no sources to show it. I don't really have anything to show. They just tell you that and then they go on to basically say, you know, I mean, it's a really bad one. Okay. They just make basically you'd make that up. Yeah. It's like more support. Not to date this episode too much, but it's a lot like the the current church statements on the sexual abuse case in Arizona. And they say the AP got all the stuff wrong. And then you're like, what'd they get wrong? And they don't actually put it in the statement. It's a similar word. They're just stating this is fact. And then just moving on. And obviously, yeah, they're just making the assertion and then just hoping you don't actually need to see the sources. So fair Mormon responds to C.S. letter about whether or not the priesthood restoration was backdated. And they say when all circumstantial evidence is studied, the approximate time of the Melchizedic priesthood restoration can be plausibly narrowed down. Although historical documents do not give an exact date for the restoration of the Melchizedic priesthood, we can pinpoint its occurrence to a seven-day window between 15 and 31st of May 1829. The window that is known is small enough to preclude a labor later fabrication of events by the prophet to increase his authority. Fair continues. Some have claimed that Joseph only began to mention epistolic ordination to the priesthood several years after the church's organization. Contrary to this claim, there are clear references to Joseph Smith stating he had seen Jesus Christ. Joseph's conversations with the apostles could be a reference to having seen spoken to. And been ordained to the priesthood by the early apostles, Peter, James, and John. Having received that priesthood, Joseph Smith was now qualified to perform healings and other miracles. And so what's this saying? They're basically saying that Joseph Smith mentions that he saw apostles so clearly during that time he could have been ordained without actually mentioning it. And so if we can go to the next slide, the two slides kind of work together. Fair Mormon here is basically going to make a claim that it's not a late edition by using a late edition to back up their answers. So what I said earlier, Fair gives no sources beyond this because Joseph Smith never made the conclusion that he was ordained to the priesthood that Fair is doing here. But then Fair attempts to lump the first vision into the priesthood restoration as proof that Joseph Smith could have been talking to Peter, James, and John. But then the question is why it was never mentioned in the early forms of the revelation. So Fair Mormon then says, Joseph learned from Moroni in 1823 that when the golden plates are interpreted, the Lord will give the holy priesthood to some and they shall begin to proclaim this gospel and baptize by water. And after that, they shall have the power to give the Holy Ghost by laying on of hands. The problem is this footnote from Fair Mormon leads to a letter written by Oliver Caudrey in 1835, which only further adds to the idea that we're talking about that this was a backtaded story. So they're trying to show that the problem of backtading the revelation isn't really a problem by citing a letter that is a retrofitting of the story. And they have to know this because it's a footnote, but they're counting on people who are reading it not to look at the source and below the surface of what they're saying. I'm mentioning by mentioning the date 1823, they're trying to establish some things happening seven years before that bolster the idea that the priesthood was given by Peter James and John. And yet it's actually an account written five six years after the fact that's trying to fill in history in a post-ated way that's actually disingenuous. So super disingenuous of them to quote 1835 writings to bolster an 1829 event. Yeah, I mean, if anything else they're actually making making the point I'm trying to make here, which is to say that this story is evolving and by 1835 this is a story that they're now retrofitting back into their history, but they don't tell you that letter from 1835. I just think that's so misleading. That's super sketchy. But we have no credibility anyway. So I just Fair Mormon is ridiculous. Yeah, it's not great. And that's a simple way to look at and just say that should not be there. It's almost not worth responding to. Well, I think they're the best way to do it just for this because there is no essay. I think they're a good place because this is going to be the most common response as you're going to hear. But yeah, it's it's one fair Mormon shows is how how awful the church's case is for responding to any of these arguments. Yeah, in this particular one too, because they're going to use a lot of deflection and kind of misdirection. But if you look at the sources, it's not saying what they're telling you. So they're they're now going to kind of describe how the Melchizedek priesthood was restored. And so they say between April and June of 1829, the Book of Mormon records information about the high priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek in verses such as Mosiah 1817, Alma 420, 530, 3rd Nephi 1125 and 3rd Nephi 121. And so I went through and I looked at these verses. And this is really an incredible start here because they cite five verses as proof that the Book of Mormon is discussing the high priesthood after the Order of Melchizedek. That's their words. Read the five verses and tell me what word is not any of them. And just I mean, I was being facetious here, but it rhymes in Melchizedek. I know the word Melchizedek appears nowhere in the Book of Mormon. Yeah, it's nowhere in there. So yeah, they're now making this they're trying to make this claim that the word high priesthood equals Melchizedek, which it does not. And furthermore, of those five verses, only one of them mentions a high priesthood. The other four are really talking about baptism. And so this is just incredibly misleading to say that those five verses talk about the Order of Melchizedek. They do not mention Melchizedek at all. And only one mentions a high priesthood. It's just that's silly. And then their second data point says, apparently in April 29 during the translation of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and Oliver Codry had a dispute as to what happened with John the Apostle that they settled by revelation C John 2120. The revelation is canonized as DNC 7. And you know, my point is I don't really know how to respond to this because it has nothing to do with the priesthood. So I'm not sure why they're including this here as proof that the priesthood restoration was not refitted. So I'm mentioning it because they do, but I don't know why it's in there. Okay. Yeah. And yeah, I did see that the other day when I mentioned somewhere on the internet that there's no Melchizedek priesthood in the Book of Mormon. Then somebody responds, oh, but it mentions a high, it mentions high priesthood. One time. Yeah. And that one one of those verses has it. Yeah. I mean, someone would say, well, that's significant. There it is. Checkmate Mike Ovaldea's discussions. It mentions high priesthood. I mean, I guess except for the fact that, you know, it's it's not identified in a way and I, you know, I don't know what to say because they're taking a term that is kind of not common in the Book of Mormon and then saying this back to supper except a dozen because we have all the other stuff that goes with it. I mean, I just mean priest. It could just mean good priesthood or high priesthood or elevated or divine priesthood. High in that context. Right. Doesn't immediately mean, oh, there's structure and there's a lot. And the eronic and there's a higher animal. The Kestek, you're you're you're you're adding way too much in there. Exactly. The claim that the text is actually referring to that. Yep. You're writing stuff in there that's not there. That's just what it is. And if you look at when when 1838, 1831, when Joseph's working with the founders of the church, they do reference high priesthood. Yep. But it's in no way, it's a reflection of how vague it is in the Book of Mormon versus any sort of validation of some sort of formal structure that evolves much later. Right. To me. Yeah, I think that's fair. So here's more of how their steps go. So their third point is an August 1830, the Lord spoke to the prophet Joseph Smith of Peter, James and John whom I have sent unto you, by whom I have ordained you and confirmed you to be apostles and a special witness or in special witnesses in my name, and bear the keys of your ministry and of the same things which I revealed unto them. Again, this is from 1835. So they're now using an 1835 revelation to claim it wasn't retrofitted, which is a problem. Number four, it says April 1830 and to Oliver Cowdery, who is also called of God in a possible Jesus Christ to be the second elder of this church and ordained under his hand. And you know, this is from the DNC 20, which was heavily altered after the fact, which is the point we're making here. So fair Mormon is saying it wasn't retrofitted by giving us a bunch of retrofitted source texts. I just, I don't know what they're trying to do here. For them to put the 1830 date on that as if it was revealed in 1830, when we know it was written in 1835, once it was all manufactured, is high, it's as deceptive as Oliver Cowdery. Yeah. It's bad. We're deceptive and disingenuous. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's like one of those things where I'm like, I don't know what to say. You're using late additions to prove that it wasn't a retrofitted story. You're making my point. And so it's super deceptive. It's very, it's very effective on people who want to believe. And I guess that's what makes me mad because I know people who have read this and go, they'll come to me, and they'll say, you're lying. Look at fair Mormon. I'm like, I'm looking at it. I've responded to it. And then they kind of don't want it going any further, but it's like, this is effective for people. And that's what makes me mad because they're they're being dishonest intentionally. And they know what they're doing. They know this material. And so I know not only because there's there no 1830 document that has says any of these words. Yeah. You know that they actually 1833 book of commandments that had to change. Right. These words didn't say these words. Yeah. Well, that's just triply deceptive. Yeah. And they know that. I mean, these are things they know. So I go to the next slide. So number five, they say, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery sought after this higher authority. And the Lord gave it to them before the rise of this church, sending that sending to them Peter, James and John. What for? To bestow upon them the apostleship. That quote from the 1870s. So now they're using a quote from from Parley Pratt to say that the restoration was like legitimate and not a retrofit except it's from the 1870s, long after the story was kind of solidified. And this in no possible way is proof that it happened. It's just proof that they're now teaching a correlated story. Number six, Hiram Page, a son-in-law of Peter Whitmer senior in one who was present on the day of the church's six of April 1830 organization later confirmed that Peter James and John had come and bestowed the holy priesthood before the 6th of April 1830. This is from 1848. 13 years after Joseph Smith changed the priesthood restoration to Adam, Peter, James and John. Furthermore, Hiram Page would not have been there in the first place, which means this recollection is entirely upon what he heard from other people. And he never mentioned this before 1835, which tells you that this clearly was not something he found important if they actually mentioned it, which clue they did not. And so they're using all these late editions to say, "Oh, see these people that were around at the time said it happened, but it doesn't line up with the historical record, but it does line up with the later correlated record." And that's a pretty big tell that these are not people writing contemporary thoughts. Yeah, yeah. Quoting, you know, citing 1848 and 1870 quotes to justify an 1829 event. It's bad. It's super bad. And I know sometimes you have to because that's all you have, but in this case we have a lot. And so they're picking ones and they're picking them in a way that doesn't let you know that these are late reminiscence. Anyway, so the next one is kind of more the same. No, you're good. There you go. And so number seven, it says from Brigham Young, "I know that Joseph received his apostleship from Peter James and John before a revelation on the subject was printed, and he never had a right to organize a church before he was an apostle, same thing late edition." And I just again point out, compare the Book of Commandments versus the Doctrine and Covenants to see just how vast the changes they are, how much the story changes. We put the images up again here. I mean, they're making this sound like this revelation was given before the church was organized as it is today. And it's it's simply not. I mean, these these revelations are vastly changed. So that's Brigham Young contributing his complicity to, I mean, he may misremember it. He might, he wasn't there. I don't think at first, but he's misremembering it, but it works. He's just flat out. Yeah, I forgot when he came, but he wasn't there at the very beginning, but yeah, I mean, it's just this is the story being solidified in the church. And so now they're going to do what they can to kind of privilege it because they need to. I mean, Brigham Young has no power if people don't believe there's a, he is the, you know, leader of the priesthood. So all right, so more from fair. So fair explains that the priesthood story was indeed talked about before 1834, and they say it should be noted that many critics ignore versus in the Book of Mormon that refer explicitly to the high priesthood of Melchizedek, such as Alma 1318. Alma was confined to the high priesthood of the Holy Order of God, Alma 420. It is therefore unlikely that these accounts are pure fabrication since we know that these verses and verses in Mosiah would prompt Joseph and Oliver to inquire about the proper mode of baptism under his authority, under this authority. And again, I'm just going to note this is a major assumption being there. We don't know when Oliver first mentioned the priesthood restoration to anyone. We only know when he first put it in print, but consider this. If Oliver was covering up a fraud on the part of Joseph Smith when he talked of receiving the erotic and Melchizedek priesthoods, then why didn't he expose the fraud after he fell into disagreement with Joseph Smith? It was excommunicated from the church. Why in fact that Oliver continued to insist that the events related to the restoration of the priesthood actually happened? And, you know, even if you have a falling out with Joseph, you're not going to discredit yourself. That's the problem. I think that, you know, I go on the next slide, but it's like we, this argument is one that is used often by the church. Well, if the witnesses that, you know, were lying, why didn't they? Well, because if you admit that, you're admitting that you lied to the world, your family's name is mud. You know, your reputation is just destroyed. So they have very good reason to not want to basically implicate themselves in a con. And I'm not saying that the three witnesses believe they were lying. I don't know, but I do know that Oliver Cowdry was intentionally changing the history. So he knows he was lying. And so I can't speak to why he didn't do it, but we know he didn't. We know he changed it. And then we know when he went back to the church, he changed the story, kind of reverted back to an earlier version of it, too. So I mean, the inconsistencies, if this was from, if Fair Mormon was looking at Warren Jeffs and Warren Jeffs had this thing, they wouldn't be like, well, Warren Jeffs didn't really write it down wrong, so they'd be like, yeah, he lied. I mean, that's because he did. And Oliver Cowdry lied, because we can show it. And, you know, I just, I get frustrated with that. You've been falling out with the other guy. You're going to show where the other guy was a bad actor in a liar, but you're not going to show you where a bad actor in a liar. Yeah, you just won't. I mean, that's how human nature is. So, so yeah, so, you know, as we said, there are many reasons why the witnesses did not deny their testimony after leaving the church. And many that who left the church did so for reasons other than the book of Mormon or the priesthood restoration. As we mentioned, he left because of Joseph Smith having a nasty dirty affair with Fanny Alger before Joseph Smith had even developed the idea of sealing keys. We'll get into that in the polygamy episodes. But if, you know, as we said, if he admitted the church was a lie, he'd be admitting that he will fully lead people to a lie that he changed blessing books, that he changed stories, which brought people into the church, which brought people into a situation when they're giving up their lives or property to a church. So, you know, I think there's a lot of reasons why you wouldn't want to tell that because there's a lot of damage that came from people who joined the church, not everybody, but some. And if you told people it was not all that you lied, that's that's pretty damning to yourself. And, you know, the last point, and I'm kind of reiterating here, but the mention of Melchizedek is from Hebrew 7. It's not from the book of Mormon. So, the fair keeps saying that the book of Mormon mentions the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, they don't. It's not in the book of Mormon because it wasn't a term Joseph was using until after 1834. Because it came from Sydney Reagan. Yeah, according to David Whitmer. Yeah, according David Whitmer, according to the timeline, something Joseph Smith was not familiar with or teaching before Sydney Reagan came and even then, it wasn't something being taught for even what three years after three, four years after Reagan joined. So, it's just it's not in the book of Mormon because Joseph Smith wasn't thinking about it. So, yeah. So, okay. So, fair again, it's going to use a late addition to say it's not a late addition. And he says, "Many ignore that Joseph Smith mentioned that the Holy priesthood in the first 1832 first-vision account and that they soften their stance by ignoring that fact." And the thing I want to mention is this is after the 1831 elder mating when the priesthood was first conferred. It again does not mention the erotic and moccasic priesthood. It doesn't mention John the Baptist, Peter James and John. And so, to use the 1832 first-vision is a late addition to the priesthood story. And it still is not getting it to what they would later teach it was. And so, Fair Mormon is using what is a late addition to mention the Holy priesthood after the Holy priesthood was developed in 1831. This is just not helpful to their case. And again, we point out, why is this story going to get more specific and grand as it goes on? And how could Joseph Smith forget that God visited him in the first vision with Jesus or that John the Baptist was there to confer the erotic priesthood to him? We have two now areas where Joseph Smith is forgetting very prominent people coming to visit him in various setting this as actual proof that he wasn't making it up. I'm just, I don't know what more to say. It's just hard to take them seriously. Yeah, this is just it's a problem. And so, this is one I've gotten a lot of pushback on over the years where they say the priesthood was mentioned in newspapers how dare you say this. And I just want to read these really quick. This is what Fair mentioned. There's a few of them. We'll go over quickly. And it says the priesthood was mentioned before in 1834 in newspapers. Painsville telegraph December 1830. Mr. Oliver Cowdery had his has his commission directly from the God of heaven and that he has credentials written and signed by the hand of Jesus Christ with whom he has personally conversed. And as such, said Cowdery claims that he and his associates are the only persons on earth who are qualified to administer in his name. By this authority, they proclaim to the world that all who do not believe their testimony and be baptized by them for the remission of sins must be forever miserable? Again, no mention of the priesthood. No mention of the eronic or moccasitic priesthoods. No mention of John the Baptist, Peter James and John. This quote is about having the authority to baptize and to form a church. But Fair is now trying to insert into it the priesthood restoration where it's not. And it's just not there. We live herring. Yeah, Cowdery never makes any references to the restoration, just authority. As we discussed earlier, authority was the word they used in the first few years, not priesthood. And this is a good evidence of that. Yeah, yeah, that is a red herring, that reference that alleged evidence is a total red herring. Yeah, so we'll go to a few more of these newspaper quotes. This is from Paynesville Telegraph November 1830. About two weeks since some persons came along here with the book, one of whom pretends to have seen angels and assisted in translating the plates. He proclaims the destruction upon the world within a few years, holds forth that the ordinance of the gospel have not been regularly administered since the days of the apostles till the said Smith and himself commenced the work. The name of this person here who pretends to have a divine mission and to have seen and converse with angels is Cowdery. Same thing as before. No mention of the priesthood restoration, Peter James and John John the Baptist. They're just conflating the translation of the book of Mormon and seeing the angels with the plates with the priesthood restoration. It's not there. It's just, I mean, you can read it. It's not there. And they're absolutely referencing other events, which Fair Mormon knows and they're trying to insert, well, it could have been this too. It's not. What this reminds me of is I think it's elder oaks who once said, it's not that we need good answers. We just need answers. Yeah. Almost like they're just providing answers. And as long as that's what it is. Number goes, oh, wait, fair said blah blah blah. Fair just wrote a bunch of words. Oh, well, that solves the problem. Even if the words actually don't address the problem. Yeah. And if you're motivated to believe, like I've had multiple people come to me on this specific part with the newspaper, if you're motivated to believe, you'll read that and go, where are you lying? I'm like, they're included in the overview. I've had these on the websites since the beginning. And I explain exactly why these are not good evidences, especially against the fact that we have very specific references to the priesthood that don't mention these stories. And you're right. This fair Mormon here is trying to throw anything out that they have in the hopes that if you want to believe you can take this and be inoculated to the problem in the future. But it's not true. It's not an honest way to do it, but that's what they're doing. And you know, we got a few more to cover, but yeah, this is just this is this is a horrible apologetic response. So I almost are wondering why we even keep mentioning them. So we've got another newspaper. Yeah, I'm just doing it because like I said, I've gotten this from multiple people before. So this one's from 1831 from the Palmyra reflector. They then proclaimed that there had been no religion in the world for 1,500 years that no one had been authorized to preach and converse. I don't know for that period that Joe Smith had now received a commission from God for that purpose. Smith they affirmed had seen God frequently and personally. Kadri and his friends had frequent interviews with angels. Reverend Richard Taggart to Reverend Jonathan Goings and Cleveland Ohio of 1833 said, the following curious occurrence occurred last week in Newburgh about six miles from this place. Joe Smith, the great Mormonosity was there and held forth and among other things he told them he had seen Jesus Christ in the apostles and converse with them and that he could perform miracles. Again, there's no mention of Aaronic or Melchizedek, no mention of John the Baptist, no mention of a priesthood restoration. And this is again, this is years after the fact. This is Joseph Smith trying to grow the church by saying he had converse with God. It is obviously early references to the fact that Joseph Smith was having visions, but we knew that from other writings. So this is just again, fair giving us something that we kind of already know Joseph Smith was was was boasting about and then just trying to impose the priesthood restoration there which is which is just not in the text and either of these. Yeah. Yep. They're just like if they can find any any newspaper article that talks about authority or visits from God or Jesus somehow that principle point. Yeah. It's just it's just it's bad logic. They would never do it for someone like another religion. It wouldn't accept it if somebody else used this type. No way. And we're going to do more about the changes of the doctrine of covenants in our epics our next episode about that, but just to go over it quickly because it does impact this so much. Richard Bushman said he revised his own revelations adding new material and splicing one to another altering the words as he saw fit. He felt authorized to expand the revelations as his understanding expanded. And we'll go over that. But again, once you start to say Joseph Smith was able to change them as he saw fit, you're really becoming indistinguishable from outright fraud. And you know, as I mentioned earlier, if Joseph Smith did not understand that he saw God and Jesus in the first vision or that he did not understand that John the Baptist Peter James and John were there with the priesthood restoration. How reliable is anything else he recorded that he claimed to see or experience? Because if he didn't understand that, why should we think he understood what else he wrote down? I just you know, it's you get into this really bad area when you start making these arguments and it leads to a lot more problems in itself. Yeah, it reminds me of this apologetic argument that's necessary for the catalyst theory to be true that it's somehow Joseph thought, you know, somehow the doctrine of covenants proclaims Joseph a propensity revelator and translator. He thinks he's translating the Egyptian Papyrus. He's using a stone in a hat, reading the characters, doing the alphabet in the Egyptian grammar. He thinks he's translating. There's all the evidence in the world, including his own testimony that he claims to be translating, but somehow he didn't realize he wasn't translating and he was doing something else totally, totally entirely different. How can we rely and we know that the text is gibberish? How can we rely on Joseph as a credible, you know, instrument of God when he doesn't even know what he's doing? Yeah, fundamentally, fundamentally. He thinks he's walking, but he thinks he's swimming and he's telling everybody he's swimming, but he's actually walking, but somehow he's walking is still of God. Yeah, well, and within this argument, it's basically stating that Joseph Smith doesn't even understand what he's doing. It's not even they doesn't, you know, I mean, in that point, it's just like, what are we doing? Yeah, what are we doing? Yeah. And then, yeah, so that raises to our conclusion of this a little bit longer episode, but yeah, I think this one was an important one for so many reasons and, you know, that's really. So we got our final slide and, oh, that's here. Yeah, yeah, there you go. So just, you know, to wrap up, you know, just like we said last week of the first vision, the priesthood restoration story can be shown to be a late edition just by looking at the timeline of Joseph Smith's teachings, accounts, revelations in the accounts of those around him. The simple fact that Joseph was ordained to the high priesthood in 1831 with the first ordinations makes very clear that the priesthood Melchizedek priesthood was a late creation that just like the first vision had to then be retrofit it back into the history. And just like we said last week, Joseph Smith was using elements of treasure digging to keep members eternally looking, I should say not last week. As we said in our first episode, this is an area where you could show Joseph Smith, in my opinion, using some of those elements of treasure digging to keep members kind of eternally digging for treasure because as I said in that first episode, Joseph Smith needed to produce a physical reward for treasure digging or else he had to stop the dig by creating a religion, he can constantly keep people allowing him to do the digging because the promises he's making do not have to be delivered until after we die. In this case, priesthood as a very powerful, magical vehicle to keep people believing that they're uncovering this treasure, even though it's something that is not tangible. And Joseph Smith as the seer and the prophet could keep providing them these new priest, the new priesthood, the second priesthood, and all of these ordinations as rewards that aren't really being given, but the member believes they are and as such, they stick with Joseph Smith. And I think in a lot of ways, there is some outgrowth of treasure digging in the way he structures the way he kind of gives out rewards and, you know, bonuses on the church. And I think the priesthood is a reward for being loyal to him and the church. Yeah. And if I had to summarize this, I would just say this. If we were to look at how Joseph worked before the priesthood narrative and after the priesthood narrative, it's basically, you know, whatever he ends up claiming happens. Number one, never happens. Number two, there's no contemporary evidence of it ever happening. Number three, you know, he starts, it's always a response to some sort of threat to his authority or power. And then he starts to trickle out what actually happened. And then you can just guarantee it's going to change substantively over several years until he finally settles in something official, which always is a power grab. And it's always a late addition. And it's always growing in magnificence and importance over time. That's the pattern that he shows before and after these priesthood claims that you would sort of anticipate, you know, that he would have done with this if you were looking at this in isolation. And it's exactly what he did. Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's just it's a pattern that shows that when he was confronted with challenges, he was able to use his status to elevate himself and to, you know, push the other people back into their place. And the fact that we could show it's a late addition from the timeline, really, at the end of the day, that's the end of it. Because once you can show that they're willing to create a story long after the fact that completely comes out of thin air and contradicts a lot of your earliest up, it's impossible then to try to say that you should still trust them anyways, because we can show it with multiple foundational events. Yeah. All right. Well, Mike, this was a really of all the episodes we've done. To me, this is absolutely one of the most important when we've done. So thank you so much. And I'll just say, you know, listeners and viewers, make sure if you want to watch these in isolation, you can do it on anchor, you can do it on Spotify, and you can use the YouTube playlist. Please share this with other people. Give us your feedback. It's always valuable. And then, you know, make sure and check out all the us discussions.com for the text version of these. And we've got more to come. So, you know, coming up, we've got word of wisdom, changes to the doctorate and covenants, race in the scriptures, temple endowment, polygamy, book of Abraham, kinder hood plates, so much more coolness to come. I got a lot to go. All right, Mike. Well, thanks for doing this. You're the best. Thanks, everybody. Thanks everyone for joining us. We could do this without your support. And, you know, be good to each other, be kind to each other. Share this with everyone. And we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcasts. Take care, everybody.