Confronting the Origins of The Book of Mormon with Steven Pynakker

Greetings and welcome to all of you out there, whoever you are, wherever you are. This is the very latest episode of Inside Out. I'm Ian, and my co-host, as always, is the sprightly young whippersnapper, Mr. Jim Bennett. Hello, Jim, how are you today, sir?

Well, I'm doing just fine, how are you?

Thank you.

Well, that's the— I, I feel the opposite of a sprightly whippersnapper, so I thought I would provide that contrast with my, my old prospector voice or something.

Well, you're looking very well today, Jim, and towards It's great to be with you. And we're here as always, of course, to discuss some of the most pressing and interesting issues impacting the Mormon faith with none other than the legendary Steve Pynaker. Welcome, Steve. How are you?

Oh, thanks for having me back on, guys. I think you guys are doing a great job with your podcast. And it's always a pleasure to come back on here. I really enjoy our conversations. And I think what you guys are doing is modeling how we can have civil discussions with people that are inside and outside of the church.

Steve, that's wonderful. Thank you. And again, it's an honor to have you here. I prepared a little bit of a description about you, so hopefully I get this right. And if it's not accurate, please fill in the gaps. So the benefit, uh, for the benefit of our listeners, Steve is the founder and host of the highly successful and established podcast, Mormon Book Reviews, which can be found on YouTube. He's from Florida and identifies as an evangelical Mormon podcaster. His channel's purpose is to provide a safe space where different expressions and opinions of the Restoration movement can interact. He also offers his own outsider views and opinions on related subjects and interviews amazing authors and special guests. Guests. Steve grew up as an evangelical Christian and has a significant interest in Mormonism. He says that Mormonism has had a major impact and influence on his life. He studied, studied as a Methodist, sorry, studied at a Methodist college and took a semester at Brigham Young University. Steve is known for his respect. Is that correct?

No, that part.

Okay.

He didn't study at Seminary Brigham Young. Okay. That must be online. That was online somewhere. So I found that.

Interesting.

Oh, it's out there somewhere because I did a search. Um, uh, he's known for his— Steve is known for his respectful approach to the Latter-day Saint beliefs and movement, even though he's not a member of the church and has no interest in joining the church, as far as I understand, although I think he'd make a great bishop. He's considered by some to be a bridge builder in the online religious community. So apart from that semester in the book, in the, at the Brigham Young University, how was the rest?

Well, first of all, I don't have a Methodist background either. So I don't know where that came from, but I will say, I'm, you say I live in Florida, but I'm originally from just the Chicago area. So I identify more as a Chicagoan than, than just about anything. So, but that's okay. Otherwise it was great.

It's very interesting because there's some stuff out there on the internet that, that, uh, seems to support those.

Anyway.

I appreciate you correcting those things. Thank you for correcting those. Um, so gentlemen, here's the deal. I want to set us a bit of a challenge. Today, the three of us are going to try and solve one of the biggest mysteries on the planet, if not for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today, we're going to try and solve the mystery of the origins of the Book of Mormon. Are you both up for this?

You got it.

Here we go.

So where did the Book of Mormon come from? Were the characters and the events in the book real? Did they really happen, or is the book an inspired fiction produced by an imaginative, imaginative and talented Joseph Smith? Uh, as you both know, uh, many non-LDS historians, archaeologists, scientists generally do not consider the Book of Mormon to be an ancient historical record. The main arguments against the, the, uh, Istra, Istrosity claim is lack of archaeological evidence, uh, anachronisms, uh, the Hill Cumorah, which always puzzled me. You know, we have the, um, uh, the pageants at the Hill Cumorah. I've been to the, uh, the history tours of Hill Cumorah. There was a big fight there, a big battle where millions of, uh, Lamanites and Nephites died and seems to be very little or no evidence of that battle. Uh, linguistic genetic evidence, there are other issues. The golden plates, the whole conversation about how the Book of Mormon came about. Was it the golden plates? Was it Stone of the Hat? Uh, give me your, uh, headline, uh, thoughts and comments about the Book of Mormon. Do you think it's history? Do you think it's fiction? What are your opening thoughts and feelings about the Book of Mormon?

I would say, I think it's a little bit of everything. I think you can argue that there are certain parts, even from a believer's perspective, there are certain parts of the Book of Mormon that you could argue are fictional or mythological. I think some could make the argument that the Book of Ether is a, is comes across as a mythic, epic, a thing that probably isn't historical, even within the context of, of the Book of Mormon. That's just one argument. I also think that it could be that the Mulekites may have made up their origin story so they could be accepted by the Nephites. I think that's another interesting perspective to look at from there too. Is it historical? It's historical in the sense, is this an ancient document? Well, It's, it's, there is a basis for an ancient document here in that we do know that he was, that, that the basis would be the 1769, I believe it was 1769 King James Version of the Bible, which is based on an ancient text, right? So, so we have a conversation going on with ancient sources, which would be the Bible, and a 19th century religious genius, um, working with these, with these documents. So that's one way to look at it. Now I can tell people, I can put, I can put on the naturalistic hat and say it was all made up by Joseph Smith. I could put on the faithful hat and say, well, there's a lot of claims that Latter-day Saints, that a lot of claims that Joseph is making that are very similar to the claims that the early church was making about Christ. And so it is, especially in regards to the witnesses. Like I tell people, like one of the greatest, biggest mistakes that Paul ever made was he told us he had, I'm talking to 500 people that said that they saw Jesus, but he didn't. He, the best thing he could have ever done was written down 500 names and said, go talk to 'em yourself. That would then used as the biggest piece of evidence in favor of Jesus's resurrection that Christian apologists would make. He put 500 names in here. Okay.

Well, guess what?

We got names of witnesses that saw the plates. And, and that's, that's much stronger evidence in favor of the tangibility of the plates than anything that we have in the New Testament for the resurrection. Josh Gailey wrote a great book called Witnessing Miracles and Parallels, and he's with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is a great book because he's using all the Christian apologetic arguments in favor of the resurrection. Okay, he's just taking it one step further and applying them to the plates and makes a masterful argument that if you as a Christian accept the, the, the, the accounts, the witness accounts of the New Testament, you cannot dismiss the eyewitness accounts of the Book of Mormon. And so I think that's really important lens that I look through it. And like John Dehlin, his in the early days told me we all need to practice epistemological humility. And that's how I approach this subject as well. The Book of Mormon is an audacious document. It's, it's beyond anything that no other Christian sect has dared ever do something like this. And I think it really makes Mormonism so unique in that regard. I sometimes wish that within the Latter-day Saint movement, it would have just stayed with the Book of Mormon and not added a lot of other things that I think cause there to be some conflicts with Orthodox Christianity. The Book of Mormon itself is one of the most Christian books ever written on American soil. It is a, it's a, it's a remarkable document. And I've had conversations with John Hamer about this, where, you know, the beautiful thing about the Book of Mormon is we literally have 2nd Great Awakening sermons in the Book of Mormon. And it's so remarkable because, see, when they were doing sermons in that— during those days, they were extemporaneous. So back in the day, typically a pastor would write out his sermon and then give the sermon, and then the next week the newspapers would publish that sermon. Well, these guys were just doing 2, 3 hours of just talking off the top of their head, or maybe just using like like little outline notes in giving these sermons. And so we get to actually hear, if you will, the voice of these revivalists in King Benjamin's sermon. So it's a great, it's a wonderful thing because it gives us a remarkable insight of that time and place. And so for Protestant Christians who want to be able to be exposed to a Second Great Awakening revival, sermon, they can read it in the Book of Mormon. So I think there's a lot of complexities and a lot of interesting things happening in the Book of Mormon. That's why I don't dismiss it and just say it's all, you know, chloroform in print, you know, as Mark Twain said. I think it's actually stood the test of time. Many, many scriptures have come and gone. Many claimants to producing scripture have come and gone. But the Book of Mormon for over 200— closing in on 200 years now, is still here. And in many ways is remarkable in that, you know, everybody likes to talk about 19th century anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Well, my friend, Dr. Christopher Thomas, who wrote this book, A Pentecostal Reads the Book of Mormon: A Literary and Theological Introduction. All right. He just stepped down as the founding president of the Book of Mormon Studies Association, which meets every year in Logan. Okay. And he, as a Pentecostal— and you understand, Dr. Christopher Thomas is one of the top Pentecostal theologians in the world and wrote this beautiful book about the Book of Mormon. And he found that fully developed Pentecostal doctrine makes its way into the Book of Mormon, keeping in mind that the Azusa Street Revival didn't happen until 1906. Fully developed theology that we thought was original to the Azusa Street ministry, uh, or revival that gave us the Assemblies of God and the Church of God, which he's affiliated with, and other Pentecostal denominations, had new innovative approaches to what the Pentecostal movement and fire baptism and stuff was like. Guess what? It finds itself fully realized in the pages of the Book of Mormon. So my question is, is how do 20th century anachronisms get into a 19th century book? Fascinating stuff.

Steve, that's excellent opening commentary that helps certainly set the tone and direction and frames the conversation. Jim Bennett, what's your opening thoughts about the Book of Mormon from with your experience?

Well, I'm just basking in the glow here of Steve's brilliance with that opener. I'm here. I have not heard a Latter-day Saint ever give coherent and as powerful an overview of the Book of Mormon, Steve, as the one you just gave. So I'm really grateful for that and really excited by that. My entire approach to the Book of Mormon is inextricably linked with my father's book. My father, former Senator Bob Bennett, near the end of his life published a book through Deseret Book called Leap of Faith: Confronting the Origins of the Book of Mormon. Mormon. And that really sort of has— it's very hard for me to see, okay, how— where does my opinion begin and his end? I mean, because, because I have sort of marinated in those ideas throughout my entire life. And a lot of it is sort of warmed over Hugh Nibley. Uh, it's warm, warmed over Lehi in the desert and the world of the Jaredites. I mean, all of Hugh Nibley's apologetics that came out in the mid-20th century, which have fallen into some disfavor to some degree, although, uh, any— I, I don't necessarily want to dive down that rabbit hole, but the way Dad outlines it, if anybody's interested in reading the book, it's still available. Desert Book still sells it. Uh, I would recommend you read about two-thirds of it. Because there's a third of it that I think is just mind-numbingly boring. Dad wrote it during— to be released during the Romney campaign and thought he could get a secular publisher other than Deseret Book to publish it and didn't. But so he thought it would be helpful to outline the narrative of the Book of Mormon. So about a third of the book is him giving this lengthy synopsis where I just read it and my eyes roll in the back of my head and I think, I've read the Book of Mormon, I know the story, I don't need this. But the parts that are really interesting are the parts that reference his time working for Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes being, um, I mean, very eccentric. I think the world's first billionaire. If you go and watch the movie The Aviator with Leonardo DiCaprio, my father said that was fairly accurate. It sort of compresses a lot the details of Hughes's life into a shorter time frame than really happened. But, but that really is essentially who Howard Hughes was. He was obsessive compulsive and really just mentally ill. By the time when he died, he was about 79 pounds. I mean, he had just withered away to nothing. He had spent all the last few years of his life in Bermuda. And hadn't seen any soul other than his keepers and his nurses and whatever else, the people around him. And my father played a role in that to some degree. So the thing that's interesting about Howard Hughes, and this, this is going to sound like too much of a tangent, but it is going to come back to the Book of Mormon, I promise. I'll try to do this quickly. Um, Howard Hughes For whatever reason, only trusted Mormons. His entire inner circle was made of members of the church, and that was it. And one of the people in, in the church was a man named Bill Gay. His— one of his relatives, I think, is a general authority now. But Bill Gay started as Howard Hughes's driver, his chauffeur, and sort of moved up in the ranks. And he was also at one point my father's missionary companion in Scotland and hired Dad as, as Hughes's PR guy. And Dad never once met Howard Hughes, never once spoke to Howard Hughes. I mean, it was really bizarre. He was the head of PR for the entire Hughes organization, never once talked to Howard Hughes. And, uh, this began when Dad was running a PR firm in Washington, D.C., and he was hired to represent Howard Hughes. And when the PR firm went belly up, he ended up working in-house for Howard Hughes. But, uh, Howard Hughes's people called him and said, Howard Hughes is flying to London and does not have a passport. And Bob Bennett, it is your— we need you to help us. You need to go to all of your contacts at the Nixon Department of Transportation, where Dad had served as undersecretary of transportation, and, and get permission for him to land in London without a passport. And so Dad said, well, okay. And he calls and then calls back the Hughes people and says, okay, I've spoken to the Department of Transportation. They say That just can't be done. He can't fly to London unless he has a passport. And they said, no, you don't understand. He is flying to London. He is in the air and he is going to land in London and you have to make sure he can get into the country. And so dad called back and said, this is the circumstance, and did some finagling and then calls the Hughes people back and said, okay, They have agreed to let him land and give him 24 hours to report to the American Embassy in London. If he does not do that to get a passport, he will never be allowed to enter the United States again. Howard Hughes landed in London, did not go to the passport office, and never came to the United States again. He lived the rest of his life sort of in exile. He lived in Bermuda and nobody saw him and nobody interacted with him, which opened the door for a guy named Clifford Irving to perpetuate a fraud and a hoax. There's a movie about it called Hoax starring Richard Gere. It's a really good movie. And what he did was Richard Gere was a novelist and essentially a fail— not Richard Gere, Clifford Irving, the guy Richard Gere was playing. Clifford Irving was a failed novelist and was kind of broke, going broke. And he struck on this idea of, okay, I am going to write the autobiography of Howard Hughes. I'm going to write it in Howard Hughes's voice. I'm going to write it first person as if I'm Howard Hughes. And the way I'm going to get away with that is say I have been secretly meeting with Howard Hughes in the Bahamas, and, and he has given all of this to me, and that's, that's how this happens. And he, he knew he would get away with it because Howard Hughes, uh, was in hiding and wasn't going to come out and. And, and when he started doing this, Howard Hughes, there were missives from the Hughes organization vigorously denying this, but all that did was make Clifford Irving look cooler and say, yeah, of course they're going to say that. Yeah, of course. And Howard Hughes was weird enough that people thought, yeah, this is something he might do. And, and the thing that gave him a certain degree credibility was that he had, he had been asked to proofread the memoir of a guy named Noah Dietrich, who was very high in the Hughes organization at one point. And he read this memoir, and it was larded up with all kinds of details that only some, an insider would know. And he illegally made a copy of that memoir and made it sort of the blueprint of his hoax. And so when it starts coming out, everybody starts reading the Clifford Irving pages and saying, well, only Howard Hughes could have known this. They don't know that he had access to the Noah Dietrich manuscript. And they say only Howard Hughes could have known this. Yeah, maybe this makes sense. This works. And Dad was part of the PR effort to say, no, this is nonsense. Nobody's meeting with Howard Hughes secretly. This isn't happening. And the hoax kind of unravels when Clifford Irving gets a $1 million advance and tries to cash it at a Swiss bank. But he sends his girlfriend to go cash the check and make sure the check is made out to H. Hughes, not Howard Hughes, or the tech is signed by H. Hughes, not Howard Hughes. And they— she signs it Helga Hughes, and they start to realize, hey, there's something not going on in here. But it isn't finally overthrown until Howard Hughes himself finally surfaces. And he doesn't show up physically, but he holds a conference call back in a time when conference calls were not a thing. But he gets all of these, the press together, and Howard Hughes finally says, okay, this is a fake, this is nonsense, this did not happen. But up until that point, it was successful because it, it had everything in it that everybody expected to find.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So the reason all that backstory Uh, it also comes with another hoax perpetrated by someone on the Hughes organization, and this is the, the story of Melvin Dumar. Uh, you know Melvin Dumar, Steve?

Rings a bell, but I, you know, and just real quick too, Ian, I did an interview with Jim Bennett about this like a year or so ago. So remind me, I'll put the, I'll send you the link so you can put it in the show notes. Can watch it too. So I think those—

well, Melvin, Melvin Dumar, uh, there's a movie, uh, Mary Steenburgen won Best Supporting Actress for the movie Melvin and Howard. And Melvin and Howard— Melvin Dumar was a, um, service station attendant in Nevada outside of Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, his story is he was driving through the Nevada desert and picked up a hitchhiker, and the hitchhiker was Howard Hughes. And he picked him up by the side of the road and took him wherever. And as a result, when Howard Hughes died, no, there was no will, and there was a huge battle over who was going to get Hughes's fortune. A will showed up on the doorstep of the church office building. They called it the Mormon will, and it left a big chunk of Howard Hughes's estate to the church, and it also left a big chunk of the estate to Melvin Dumar, and because of his service that he had provided. Uh, and now in this will there were a number of things that didn't make a lot of sense, uh, one of them being that, uh, It talked about the Spruce Goose. You know, Howard Hughes had built a boat completely out of pine, not spruce, but he built what he called the flying boat during World War II. They were concerned that all of these Allied submarines were getting shot down— not shot down, sunk. And so he built this huge, massive boat that also flew so that it wouldn't be sunk by the Axis powers. It was too big to fly across international waters and only flew once. Howard Hughes was the one behind the cockpit when it flew, but it became this huge boondoggle and it was the subject of all these congressional investigations and it acquired the nickname the Spruce Goose. And Howard Hughes hated that nickname. Howard Hughes would always refer to it as the HK-1, which was its official designation, or the flying boat. And yet in the Mormon Will, it's referred to as the Spruce Goose. So there you have this anachronism that makes it clear there's no possible way that Howard Hughes could have written this. And if you go back both to the Mormon Will and you go back to Clifford Irving's hoax biography and you match it up with what we have since learned about Howard Hughes since his death, you see more and more and more anachronisms that have piled up over time. And you say, okay, it, it's clear that whoever wrote this stuff thought that they were convincing the people of the time. They were telling the people what they wanted to hear or what they were expecting to hear, which is why Clifford Irving was able to get a million-dollar advance. But over time, it looks more and more and more ridiculous. And Dad's thesis with regard to the Book of Mormon is, yes, there are anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Yes, there are problems and archaeological issues and all of those things. He says, but the thing that makes the Book of Mormon unique is that there are fewer of those as time goes on. Things that were initially considered to be absolutely ridiculous— the idea of ancient people writing on gold plates, uh, was one of the biggest, um, the, the biggest targets for early critics of the Book of Mormon, that this is just ludicrous. And then plates start popping up all over the place. Including some that are very similar to the ones Joseph Smith described. The Darius plates, uh, in Iran— there used to be a picture of them in the introduction to the Book of Mormon. They, they are in the kind of stone box that Joseph Smith described. They're about the same size as the plates Joseph Smith described. They come from the same time period as the plates Joseph Smith described. So The idea that ancient Americans were civilized and had huge cities was considered ludicrous in 1830 and is no longer considered ludicrous and is fact, established fact that yes, there were huge cities and we've just discovered in the past few years that they were much larger and more elaborate than we knew. The LiDAR data has uncovered cities that nobody knew were still there And, and so Dad's point is that frauds tend to look more and more ridiculous over time. The Book of Mormon looks less and less ridiculous over time with regard to some of the anachronisms. Now, all of that said, from my perspective, I've done a lot of conversations about Book of Mormon historicity, and I've leaned into a lot of the apologetic issues. You know, they talk about Nahom, which I think really is a remarkable archaeological bullseye, uh, something that Joseph Smith would not have known about. Uh, they lean into chiasmus, um, you know, being a form of poetry that wasn't discovered until after the Book of Mormon was published, and it's all over the Book of Mormon. And, and so all of these sorts of things, these breadcrumbs that, uh, I, I do think that the argument for a historical Book of Mormon is much stronger than critics are willing to allow. But all of that said, um, I don't really care as much as I used to, even if I care at all, because I have never met anybody whose life has been transformed by discovering that Joseph Smith was right about an ancient Arabian burial ground called Nahom. I've never discovered anybody who has drawn closer to Christ because they learned that there are chiasmic structures in the Book of Mormon. You know, we've had these conversations with Greg Prince, and we're going to have more of them. For those of you who are listening to this and saying, hey, where's Greg Prince? Because we haven't gotten through all of his roadmap, we're gonna, we're gonna get back to Greg Prince, but we're really happy to have Steve Pynaker here this week. But, you know, the thing that is so powerful about the Book of Mormon is that, as Greg Prince describes it, something happens to people when they encounter that book that is not in that book. There is some kind of catalyst for a connection to the divine that exists in the Book of Mormon that is remarkable and unique and has has become really the only thing that interests me about the Book of Mormon. Now, one of the reasons why I think these kinds of discussions are important is that, uh, I think there are irreducible truth claims about the Book of Mormon that I don't think we can get away from. In our last conversation with Greg Prince, Ian and Greg both talked about this idea of Okay, we need to move away from the idea of a historical Book of Mormon, and we can accept it as inspired fiction. We can still say it's, it's of God and it's wonderful, and, and I think that's a transition we're going to have to make. My problem with making that transition, even having said that I don't really care much whether the Book of Mormon is historical or or not, is that there are two irreducible truth claims that, that demonstrate Joseph Smith is either a complete fraud or indeed a prophet of God, one of them being the visit of Moroni. Joseph Smith insists that Moroni was an ancient American prophet who visited him 4 times in the course of an evening and the next morning, and he had several interactions with him after that and gave the plates to him after that. And if there— if the Book of Mormon is all a product of Joseph Smith's mind and is it just a brilliant inspired piece of fiction, it means Joseph Smith was lying about Moroni. And the other, of course, irreducible truth claim is the plates themselves. Uh, Joseph Smith said he had gold plates, or plates with the appearance of gold, and, and he showed them to 11 witnesses. There are also other people who claim to have seen the plates, other people who claim to encounter the plates. You know, Emma talks about them being under a cloth and sort of running her fingers through them. Or running her fingers over the cloth and feeling them, uh, feeling the metal leaves. Richard Bushman has written an entire book about, uh, the, the history of the plates, at least since 1830, or since, since 1827 when, when Joseph Smith first claimed to have them. And so it, it, uh I, I have a very big problem with the idea that, okay, Joseph Smith lied about an angel, he lied about plates, but the book that he faked is pretty good, so that should be the basis for the church.

Sorry, if I can, can I piggyback on?

Sure.

So I'll also send a link for my interview I did with Richard Bushman about his gold plates book because I think it was really an important interview. Um, I use this analogy about the plates and the tangibility of the plates. And, and CES instructors have actually told me they've used the same argument in clips, is that I tell people, I said, you know, when it comes, I parallel the tangibility of the plates and the claims made by them with the empty tomb. Okay, so either there's a, and this is just a simplification, a simplified thing. Thing here, but I think it's, it's really instructive. We have an empty tomb. Either Jesus rose from the grave or the disciples stole the body. We have a plate and a frock that are covered. All right, either they're of an ancient origin or they're of a 19th century contemporary origin. The two, the two challenges are It's a leap of faith. Either Jesus rose from the grave, and that's a— you're taking that leap of faith that you believe that Jesus rose from the grave the same way you're saying, I believe that those are ancient plates. That's a leap of faith. I think that's kind of the best way to kind of understand the plates and its relation to early Christianity as well.

That's a brilliant, that's a brilliant, brilliant analogy. The plates, the difference to some degree is that, um, I don't— well, I don't know if it's— if it is a difference, uh, but I, I think there's a difference in significance. I mean, the plates I think are far less significant than a risen Savior, um, but But what's more plausible?

You know, in one sense, defeating death is pretty remarkable claim, right? Um, coming across ancient plates is probably more plausible in many ways than a resurrection, um, especially since we do know that there was plate— there was a tradition of making plates in the Middle East. And actually, I have— I'm privy to information that there's going to be some more plates that are going to be coming forth that will be legitimately examined, that seem to bolster the claims that Joseph Smith was making about the plates as well, which parallel, are almost contemporary to Book of Mormon times. So there's a lot of interesting things going on about that. That's why I cannot just dismiss the claims that Joseph is making and the claims that they're making about the Book of Mormon. And then, you know, one of the best things I ever read was in the 1990s, I read this book called The Ironic Christian Companion. And the subject somebody brought up to the author, the idea of the Book of Mormon. And this person said, you know, 10,000 years from now, this period of time will be looked at as the early church history, which would include the Book of Mormon. And so 10,000 years from now, they'll look at the Bible and the Book of Mormon as almost being contemporary things. Happening near each other in the same time period. And if the Book of Mormon still stands the test of time 10,000 years from now, it cannot be ignored at that point. So I think it's better to look at it from a broader perspective too. You know, as Christians, as people of faith who do not believe in the Book of Mormon, I don't think they can easily dismiss it. Like they said, the Book of Mormon is the one book that you can have an opinion of and have never read it. And I think that's very unfair for Christians and evangelicals and Protestants. And so forth to dismiss the Book of Mormon and in such a way where they just conflate it with everything, all the other things about Mormonism. I tell people this, that there's very little Mormon theology, if any, in the Book of Mormon. It's a thoroughly Protestant Pentecostal Christian work. And I think it, and it really is an important, I think, thing that Christians need to engage, especially American Christians.

Yeah, this is, uh, this is interesting. There are three of us. I mean, Steve, you are not in the church. You have a very personal relationship with the church and the doctrine of the Book of Mormon. Jim Bennett, you're fully active in the church. I've left the church. And we each find the Book of Mormon to be incredibly inspired. That said, we can't have it both ways. Either, either it is a historical record that the church has claimed. I don't know when the last time it claimed that, but it doesn't talk about that so much these days, but historically the church has said very clearly—

but the church within the past 2 days has released a new Gospel Topics Essay about the Book of Mormon, and in it they very clearly own it as a historical record.

Okay, well, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for that. I've not— it's good to know that. And so the church continues to claim that the Book of Mormon is historical, based on historical events. Uh, I don't doubt it's inspiring. I have my own personal, uh, relationship with the Book of Mormon where I've immersed myself so intimately in those pages, those characters, where I felt I've been at those events and I've felt I was at times so close to those experiences where I could witness and observe those experiences through the power of the Spirit that I felt through the Book of Mormon. I have an unwavering experience that the Book of Mormon is inspired. It certainly inspires me, and I'm not in the church. But again, I don't think we can have it both ways. If we look at some of the issues against the Book of Mormon, so we have a— try to get that balance in our conversation. Historians have cited the lack of archaeological evidence, no evidence of the Book of Mormon people, the cities, artifacts. Extensive archaeological work in the Americas have not yet yielded any evidence of major battles, cities, or cultures. I remember in July '89— sorry, '87— when Elder Ballard reorganized, restructured the Scotland Edinburgh Mission, I asked him a question in front of all the missionaries about the geography of the Book of Mormon, and that was a topic that he didn't want to discuss. I've always been fascinated by the geography of the Book of Mormon. Anachronisms. Book of Mormon mentions technologies, animals, plants that are not supported by archaeological record for the time and place it describes. You know, steel, horses, chariots, barley in pre-Columbian America. I mentioned earlier the Hill Cumorah. I've been to the pageant a few times. Book of Mormon describes that final battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites, civilization at the Hill Cumorah. Where hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people were killed. This is the place where Joseph Smith said he found the golden plates. Yeks notwithstanding, there's no archaeological evidence of any kind found at that site, which is puzzling for, for many. Others are lack of linguistic and generic evidence like reformed Egyptian. Joseph said he translated the golden plates from a language called, reformed Egyptian. However, Egyptologists and linguists have found no evidence that such a lang— language ever existed. Um, there's other, uh, aspects of, uh, uh, you know, evidence, uh, against the Book of Mormon, um, which, uh, we can get into for sure. There's quite a lot actually. Um, if you remember a while ago in 19— uh, sorry, 2009, uh, Elder Holland who I've had the opportunity of working with directly and whose son served with Jim and I, uh, on our missions in Scotland, Matt, who was an extraordinary missionary. He gave a, a very fascinating, uh, conference talk in that 2009 General Conference titled Safety for the Soul. He said this, and, and I remember this, uh, quite, uh, clearly. He said, if anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages, especially without accounting for their powerful witness of Jesus Christ and the profound spiritual impact that that book has had on, on the lives of millions, and I include myself in that, that then such a person, elect or otherwise, has been deceived. And if he or she leaves the church, it must be done by crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon to make that exit. And so, and again, you've got many, many quotes and references from church leaders citing that, stating that everything in the church, everything rises or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. And by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith's account of how it came forth. Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph Smith said it was, or this church and its founders are false, fraudulent, and a deception from the first instance onward. And of course, Joseph Smith, the most famous quote, I think, which you can find at the beginning of the Book of Mormon, Joseph said this, he said, I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book. On earth and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts. So here's the, uh, the point I'm trying to make here. You've got this extraordinary, uh, document. You've got physical evidence against it. You've got the content of the pages, which is incredible inspiration. And I remember those pages very clearly, many of them. Alma 42 talks about, in a way, no other book that talks about the relationship between justice and mercy. 3 Nephi 17 is my favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon. Alma, all these, and Amulek, all the stripling warriors, Samuel the Lamanite. There is seemingly endless profound, compelling inspiration across its pages, which I cannot escape from in terms of the inspiration. Notwithstanding, I struggle to accept it being a historical document. And the reason for that is I think that if you look at other examples of profound literary examples, I'm thinking of books like Lord of the Rings. Now, I never knew about Lord of the Rings so much until the movies came out and that got me into some of the work that Tolkien's done. But if you look at that book, it's one of the most um, uh, profound, uh, uh, piece of, uh, literature that's ever been, uh, published in its linguistic roots. He created a language. I mean, it's complexity, it's genius, it's imagination, uh, the relationships between the cultures. It's a secondary world. It's a piece of mythology. It is an extraordinary, uh, piece of work. And, and Tolkien is, uh, an example of someone that in my opinion, either is similar to Joseph Smith or is very close to, um, in terms of imagination and detail, uh, you know, talking about the cultures and the events and the wars in the Lord of the Rings, et cetera. And it's just, again, Lord of the Rings, I've seen the movies, there are elements of that I find inspirational. I, I, I get the same feeling from Lord of the Rings, uh, which, um, I find extraordinary. And the power behind that imagination of Tolkien is, in my opinion, equal or close to the powerful imagination of Joseph Smith. So I think, you know, the beginning of the conversation here, we say we're going to try and solve this extraordinary mystery of the origins of the Book of Mormon. I mean, how audacious, how dare we even say something like that. But I've pored over this, these thoughts for a long time, and I've come to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon, uh, isn't, I repeat, is not a historical account. That these characters, similar to the Lord of the Rings, like, you know, Moroni, Nephi, did not exist yet, and they were put together by Joseph Smith's education, his association with different people, access to different sources. Even, uh, Richard Bushman said there's a lot of Protestant, 19th century Protestant language thinking and methodology in the book. So I believe a whole range of sources, including Joe Smith's extraordinary imaginative talent, which is just beyond most people's capability. He had this, I don't know how to describe this extraordinary level of being able to imagine things and get and collect ideas from all sources has put together this incredible inspirational book. However, it's not historical in my opinion, and but equally inspirational as any other book that, including the Bible, by the way, I find the Book of Mormon in parts to be more inspiring than the Bible. Frankly, there's parts of the Bible I struggle with. Bible I find is inspirational, and I think a lot of it is reliable in terms of being historical. Text. But the Book of Mormon equals, if not transcends, parts of the Bible. But I put it down to a, you know, Joseph Smith, Tolkien-type, Lord of the Rings-type approach to creating that extraordinary book, which has changed and influenced many people's lives. What's your— if you compare those two authors and those powerful imaginations, Do you see any parallels, any similarities between the two?

I think the world that Tolkien created and Joseph created, in one sense, we're gonna use those terms, they very much existed and that world was as real to them as the world that we live in, in some ways. And I think we see this, uh, with, we actually see this.

Okay.

So let me just step back and give you a naturalistic perspective here, um, to kind of like say, okay, if there's no God, there's no angels, there's no supernatural, how does— we do— do we account for this book? To the point that there are even some people who think that Joseph, still to this day, still believe that Joseph did not write the book, that he had— somebody else had to have written it. Um, but I, I think that, um, what was happening, and this is what Tolkien was doing and this is what Joseph Smith was doing, they were world-building. Joseph Smith was world-building while he was treasure digging. And what he was doing was— I, I ascribe to a limited geography model of the Book of Mormon taking place in western New York. And Joseph Smith is going around and telling stories while they're going around and doing treasure digging. They're encountering a hill here, a valley here, and Joseph is telling stories about Indian battles, most likely. That took place as he's doing this worldbuilding. And a lot. And so they're doing this while they're treasure digging. Now, a lot of people say one of the biggest arguments are used against the Heartlanders is, well, there's no snow, with one exception, but it's a visionary account. There's no snow in the Book of Mormon. And they said that's a major thing considering this is western New York or the Midwest. You would think there'd be a lot of snow. And I just tell people, well, it's because Joseph Smith wasn't doing treasure digging in the winter. Because the ground was frozen. So he doesn't have any stories to tell about winter in the Book of Mormon. Okay, so these are all happening in the spring and summer when Joseph is doing the digging. So he's going around, he sees a mound there, he says, well, some battle happened here, and this plain here, and he starts building this world. Maybe he's not even thinking about it as being a biblical story, but maybe more of a secular Indian story that he's telling. Of course, we have you know, Joseph's from his grandmother. Joseph would regale us with these stories. Uh, it is as if he lived with them, you know. It was— it was so acquainted with them. I think this token is, is in that same world.

He lives with—

in that world. But we actually see evidence of this happening in the historical record, and that would be Joseph Smith wandering the plains of the Nephites, right, as he called them in the letter to Emma. They come across a mound, right? They dig up the mound, and Joseph tells a story about this character named Zelph, the white Lamanite. So we— so now we see Joseph was doing the exact same thing while he was digging through things in hills in western New York, telling stories. And what's interesting is that the geography of the Book of Mormon expands in Joseph's world as Joseph's world expands as well. So now it originally took place in western New York, but as he, as he expands, he starts expanding the Book of Mormon world to the point that arguably, now there's some pushback on this argument, that it would by 1840s would also include Mesoamerica. So I think that's kind of what's, what we're seeing happening here is this world building. And then, and what's so fascinating is the world building took place before the Book of Mormon. During the process of writing the Book of Mormon and even after the Book of Mormon is published. And I think it just speaks to Joseph's amazing imagination and genius in telling a story. Now, that's the secular— that's my, you know, secular thing that I— that from secular naturalistic account, and I think that's a pretty strong one, you know, again. But at the same time, I really feel actually probably the strongest argument against the Book of Mormon is actually the Book of Abraham. I think that to me is, and actually that was, uh, was it, was it, what was the name of the archaeologist who tried to, in the '50s and '60s, started New World Archaeological? What was it? Sorenson? No, not Sorenson. What was his name?

Uh, oh no, I know what you're talking about. He wasn't, he was, he wasn't actually an archaeologist, right? But he I can't remember what— Jeremy Runnels talks about him in the series.

Thomas Ferguson.

Tom Ferguson.

Okay, so Thomas Ferguson was adamant about finding Book of Mormon lands and believed that they would find them relatively short period of time. He gets a— somebody sends him a letter, says, well, that time period is up, it's kind of like, what's going on here? Like, you still haven't found anything. Well, it was actually his study when they, when they, when they found the Egyptian papyri that was in, you know, literally proven to be the same ones that Joseph was working off of, and saw that the translation didn't work, he lost faith in Joseph as a translator, and therefore lost faith in the Book of Mormon. And so, like I said, I think that a lot of the problems with Mormonism isn't the Book of Mormon. It's a lot of the other things that came forth afterwards that make it more problematic, um, and kind of show that Joseph was probably capable of making this stuff up. Okay. But at the same time, I have to say, okay, so the keystone to this whole thing is the Hill Cumorah. I think that Joseph believed that it was an Indian mound. And I think that he thinks that this great, two great battles of two great civilizations happened in there. And I think the original outline of the story was probably the Jaredite story, was his original outline and then kind of tacked that on later. But we actually have a spot that is a geographical location that he makes a claim that tethers the Book of Mormon to the real world, right? So we have that. Now, I parallel it with this, with how we look at the Bible and how it was, it was created. I look at it as stories were told about things to, to, to about, like, for instance, see those ruins over there? I have a story about Sodom and Gomorrah I want to tell you, right? And that makes its way into the Bible. Um, we also know that there's no, zero archaeological evidence for the Exodus. Well, that's a major anachronism and a major problem for people who take the Bible literally. Because if you're going to use the same arguments about anachronisms and things that no archaeological evidence of, we have plenty of Hill Cumorahs in the Bible as well. Okay? So I think it's really important, again, epistemological humility here. There are issues with the Bible. There are stories being told about things that are probably made up. How is that different than Joseph Encountering a hill, a structure, whatever you want to call it, and telling a story about that in, in a similar vein that I think a lot of the Bible was written in as well. So it's actually invaluable to us. The beautiful thing about this is we get to see script— like I said, the greatest irony was he started a religion during the era of the printing press, as Fawn Brodie said. But the beautiful thing is we have— we get to see how the sausage is made. We get to see how scripture is produced. And now we have a better understanding of how scripture was produced in the Bible and other texts because it was, it was done contemporaneously. I tell people, imagine if somebody wrote a book, Christianity Unveiled, during the time of Christ's ministry, who interviews people that grew up with Jesus and grew up with the apostles that there were at the time, the disciples, and published it while Jesus's ministry was still going on. I'm sorry, we're gonna have a much different view of Christianity. I believe a much more human view of Christianity, a much rougher view of Christianity, a less correlated history of Christianity if we had contemporary sources like they did at the time of the founding of Mormonism. That's why I feel it's so important that people understand this. As you Christian apologists out there who bash the Mormons and then bash me for defending the church and, and its, its claims I want to make it very clear. I dare you to go and do the same thing. I want you to deconstruct the Bible and Christianity in the same way, the same, with the same tools that you use for the Bible, for the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. If you're unwilling to do that, I'm not interested to have in having conversations with you because you're being intellectually dishonest. Okay, that's what I hate so much about Christian apologetics. It's garbage. Okay, I'm sorry. And unfortunately, a lot of Mormon apologists have been using the same tactics, and they're creating garbage. As Jim— no, as we know that Jim is probably the most effective Mormon apologist out there, bar none. His CES letter pushback has been proven to be the only effective, uh, tool to counter Jeremy Reynolds' CES. So he's actually made contributions that have helped people in the way that other Mormon apologists cannot make those same claims, as at least on as high of a level as, uh, Jim Bennett has done. So I, I want to get off my soapbox, but I think it's really important to kind of, you know, look at the parallels of some of the issues and anachronisms that are in the Bible, that are in the early church history of our church, but then show that those same parallels exist in the early days of the Restoration. And I think we need to step back and say, okay, Rather than be upset by this, I take joy in being understanding. It's like the scripture producers of the Bible were just as human as Joseph Smith. They had their foibles, they had their character flaws, um, and everything. And that's fine. Okay. I think that Joseph Smith, that he not— you could take everything that was said about Joseph Smith. I do not think it disqualifies him as being a scripture producer or a prophet if we're using the Bible. As a standard for those, for that. So that, that to me is, I think it's just important I got that out there.

That's absolutely fantastic commentary. Jim, what are your thoughts?

Well, just very quickly, uh, and Ian, I want to hear your answer to this as well as Steve's. And Steve, again, well, first of all, thank you for the kind words. And, and also, again, thank you for framing this in a way that I think is far more effective and compelling than the way I hear members of the church describe this. I think the church is very lucky to have you, even though they don't have you. So there are 3 words that I want to get both of your reactions to, because when we talk about the Book of Mormon and we talk about, is the Book of Mormon historical or is the Book of Mormon fiction, I think we're creating a false dichotomy because there is another word that I think is essential to understanding it, and that word is ancient, because the fictions that are in the Bible— and the Bible is rife with them— I think the Book of Job— anybody who thinks the Book of Job is a piece of ancient journalism, yeah, somebody was sitting down and recording this actual conversation, that this actually happened, they're up in the night. It's very clearly fiction. Yes, but it is ancient. Yes, there is no doubt that the Book of Job was produced anciently, but it's a fictional story that was produced anciently. So when you point to stories in the Bible, and there are a number of others, I think Jonah also is very clearly fiction. I think actually most of the Old Testament until you get to around the time of King David, uh, most of the Old Testament. I, I, I hope to think there's sort of a kernel of historical reality upon which the fiction is based. And as a Latter-day Saint, it's very hard to say, okay, well, it's all fiction. Moses didn't exist. Abraham didn't exist. Well, then Joseph Smith talks about Moses showing up at the Kirtland Temple. So if he's a fictional character, so, so, uh, so I hold on to the idea that there is some nugget of historical reality upon which the fiction—

Jim, just to kind of agree with you on this too, is that I, I do believe that a lot of myths and stories are based on real people. And so I think there was a historical Moses. I think there was a historical Abraham. I think that there was stories, much like King Arthur, there was probably a tribal leader in England called Arthur, that became a king, and they developed a mythology about him. I think it's a similar thing that we're seeing with the biblical characters as well. I just want to hop on that.

No, thank you for that, and I think you're absolutely right. But the point being, so when we talk about the Book of Mormon, and Steve, when you compare the Book of Mormon and say, okay, well, if the Book of Mormon's fiction, but so much of the Bible is fiction, the, the word that's missing there is ancient. Uh, because it's not— to me, it's not a question so much as to whether or not the Book of Mormon is historical, because I think even particularly with the Book of Ether, because I think that the Tower of Babel is very much a fictional story, and the Book of Ether references it as if it is not. And I am more than willing to believe that that was sort of a Jaredite founding myth. And so they And then so it's similar process, the Bible. But the difference is, for the Book of Mormon to not make Joseph Smith a liar about Moroni and about plates, the Book of Mormon has to be ancient fiction. It can't be modern fiction. I mean, Joseph Smith, I don't know if 19th century is considered modern, but it's, I mean, it's modern enough. It's, it's So, so that is where I think the dichotomy is. That's where Ian, I think you and Greg, when you start talking about, okay, well, we just need to come accept, because Greg Prince was talking last week about the idea, look, just because something's fiction doesn't mean it isn't true. I mean, in the same way, Steve, you've talked about these worlds were just as true to Tolkien and to Joseph Smith as they, as the real world was. And yes, there are true principles taught in fiction, but the Book of Mormon becomes a lie at its core if this is a modern 19th-century creation. If— I am more than willing to allow for the reality that the, the narrative of the Book of Mormon includes fiction, but for it to be genuine, um, genuine evidence of Joseph Smith's prophetic calling. It needs to be ancient fiction. Does that distinction make any difference to either of you? Yeah, does that make sense?

I think that's a good way of framing it. And yeah, that, that becomes the challenge, you know. Uh, it, it, it, it's, it's so fascinating to me because I think that there's a few things in the Book of Mormon that I think we can't easily dismiss, right? And so it does, you know, and even Hugh Nibley said that if we want to find proof of the Book of Mormon, we should probably look to the ancient world. And so of course we got the Nahum. So that to me, I just kind of credit like, hey, that's a bullseye. I'll just give you that. I'll give you that one, right? Is it a compelling case that the Book of Mormon's true? Not necessarily, but it's, it's at least a data point that we can work off of. I also want to reference, you know, Hugh Nibley even said that, you know, the Book of Mormon context is best understood from the context of the mountain builder myth or society. So I think that that was heavily influenced on this as well. But I think also too, Jim, and I think I want to kind of circle back to what your, your father was saying. Which is, well, about forgeries and stuff like that, is that after a while the anachronisms expand. We get more and more information that shows, and of course if we look at the Book of Mormon, it seems like there's less and less anachronisms going on. And I think that's an interesting way, it's a compelling piece of evidence that I think is important that we have to deal with as well. I was going to prove, make a larger point, and I just lost my train of thought, so I will get back to you, but I'm sure we'll get back to many different subjects, so no worries.

I just want to know, that's fine. That happens to me all the time as I get older. Jim Bennett, to your question there, I think ancient— by the way, I want to thank you for bringing up the important point about the church has recently restated its position on the Book of Mormon being historical, because that's very important that we get our information right, and our listeners should be aware of that. Excuse me, your question about, um, you know, the, the point about ancient, you know, the Book of Mormon being ancient. I, I think the, uh, most significant event in the Book of Mormon is Jesus Christ visiting ancient America, right? All the prophets speak about that beforehand, uh, and they speak about it during the time, and they speak about it afterwards, right? It's the fulcrum of the Book of Mormon. It's there. It kind of, you know, uh, crescendo, uh, crescendo up into that point, and Jesus Christ comes and he visits. Did that really happen? Did Christ actually visit ancient America? When I read those passages, it feels real to me, but I don't know of any evidence that supports that. The second point is that I'm okay with it being inspired fiction. I just wanted to be able to, to say so. I, I, I'm okay if those characters were not real. I have problems, for example, learning that Moroni is a city on an island called Comora right now. I did, I may have mispronounced that, but there's an island in the Pacifics with a, a town or a city called Moroni, and the island is called Comora or Comora. Or Kumuros, Kumuros, etc. And, and again, having gone into this and try to research the Book of Mormon over the years, I find a lot of 19th century stuff come into it. So to your point, Jim, you know, using the Bible as an example, if these things didn't happen literally as we read them, but they are, um, important lessons and teachings and doctrines that we learn which have been developed from that time. Well, that's something I struggle to arrive at with the Book of Mormon compared to the Bible. We know that the Bible is pretty reliable in, in lots of ways. You know, that Paul exists, and, you know, a lot of stuff happening in the New Testament happened. Uh, we know that, uh, the ancient prophets talked about Christ, etc. But I— and we know that the Book of Mormon has this incredible intimate relationship with the Book of Mormon. I mean, it quotes Isaiah in quite a few— sorry, quotes the Bible. The Book of Mormon quotes the Bible, quotes Isaiah in quite a few sections. So I'm, you know, when I'm listening to people like Greg Prince, I'm okay if the church came out and said, look, Book of Mormon is not entirely historical, yet it contains powerful and important lessons and teachings of our time. I'm okay with that. I really am. I just, uh, don't buy that, um, you know, Christ actually physically visited ancient America based on the available evidence, and I just wish that it would be nice. I mean, maybe I sound like somebody who's, you know, it's a wicked and sinful generation that seeks after a sign. I maybe I'm assigned to that camp, but it would be wonderful to be able to find some physical evidence. You know, I'm a scientist in my work. I'm an environmental scientist and I use real data, with other professionals, other peer groups to test and analyze actual physical data on a whole range of different sciences and engineering disciplines. So we are, you know, we are intellects. Doesn't mean you can't be spiritual as an intellect, but intellects look for and appreciate evidence. And I think there is limited evidence to support the Book of Mormon. And I really appreciate and agree with Steve's very articulate commentary earlier, which I find incredibly profound. And you're one of the most amazing individuals I've ever met, Steve. You both are. You, you're probably the finest, some of the most intelligent people, um, on this planet to have this conversation with right now. And, and I go back to your point, Steve, about the Book of Abraham, because it's been proven to be false. I mean, we haven't got the plates, right? So we can't make a a modern analysis comparison between, you know, the Book of Mormon and the actual plates. If we had the plates, we could, we could do that. We'd have the physical plates. We don't have the plates. We do have the original papyrus, though, from which the Book of Abraham was produced. And we know that there's some problems with that. And so, you know, but at the same time, I find the Book of Abraham, Steve, inspiring, and I'm sure you do as well. Jim Bennett. I mean, Moses 7 is one of my favorites. It's just, I can't get away from its inspiration. It's just absolutely extraordinary. Was it, is it, is it literal?

No.

But I'm okay with that because it teaches profound lessons and doctrines. And so I'm okay with it not being real in that sense, historically real. I'm okay with it being like Jay J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings. I know it didn't happen, you know, I know Gandalf is not real, but my goodness, Gandalf is one of the most inspiring characters in Lord of the Rings, like a prophet. I find him incredibly inspiring. And there are quotes by Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, just as they're preparing for the final battle, which almost brings tears to my eyes. So yeah, I think Joe Smith was incredible, talented, imaginative. Who had very good intent, mostly to, you know, bring these important lessons into our lives. But I just can't accept that the Book of Mormon is a, you know, even the ancient component that Jim Bennett just struggled to get around that. Maybe I need to do a bit more research.

Well, Dallin Oaks will tell you research is not the answer. That's a whole other discussion. I'm going to have to— we're coming up near the end here, so I'm going to— so I'm trying to figure out a way to say this very quickly. One of the things that a lot of people have been upset about in recent years with regard to the Book of Mormon is the discovery that it was translated by means of a seer stone and a hat. Rather than the traditional story that I was taught in Primary, that Joseph Smith was looking at the plates through these spectacles that came with the Urim and Thummim and, and, and things like that. Uh, and I did not learn about the rock and the hat until my mission, uh, when Joseph Fielding McConkie, Bruce R.'s son, talked about it at zone conference. And the way he talked about it was, there's absolutely no way that Joseph Smith translated with a rock in the hat. I think the reason we never heard about it is that Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R.'s father-in-law and Joseph Fielding's grandfather, um, uh, absolutely believed it couldn't have happened. And the reason is the Doctrine and Covenants talks about Joseph Smith studying things out in his mind and that he was an active participant. And the rock in the hat model is he was a newsreader. He sat there and just read things off of a stone, and that flies in the face of him being an active participant. And so, Ian, the way I sort of reconcile a lot of the things you're talking about is— this has been fleshed out by others. I think it's Grant Hardy who first talked about the idea of the expansion theory of the Book of Mormon. And that sort of— that model is the idea that whatever was on the plates may not bear much of a resemblance to what ended up in the book. As lots of people— Steve, you describe this too, um, Greg Prince describes this a lot, uh— the Book of Mormon specifically answers every major theological question that was present in the 19th century. It does so so much that it's, it's very hard to believe that ancient America was having exactly the same sorts of theological wrestles that 19th century upstate New York was. And I think the only way to get there with any sort of intellectual integrity is to recognize that Joseph Smith, uh, was an active participant and contributor, in the translation process. And the expansion theory model is that whatever was on the plates sort of served as a springboard for this additional revelation that answered the questions that were important to Joseph Smith. And that's kind of where I've landed, that just as we talk about the idea that there's a nugget of historical truth to Moses or to other patriarchal ancient figures. I think there were gold plates. I think there were Nephites and Lamanites. I think there was a Moroni.

Okay.

I think that those, just as the papyrus served as a catalyst for a revelation with regard to Abraham, Those served as sort of the nugget of the expanded revelation that was provided as part of the Book of Mormon translation. And the word translation now— I mean, the current Gospel Topics essay essentially admits the Book of Mormon is not a translation in any way that we understand that word, because Joseph Smith was not taking language from one language and putting it into another language. He was— we don't know what relationship the text of the Book of Mormon has to the gold plates. We don't know if any. I'm comfortable with there not being any almost. But if there weren't plates, that ancient element, the plates and Moroni, those two elements have to be in place for me. I can't get around those.

Okay, uh, Steve, your concluding thoughts. Thank you.

Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here, and I, and I actually wanted to circle back to one of the things where I lost my train of thought was, is that the Book of Mormon doesn't— the text of the Book of Mormon should have had a lot more of what the mythology about the 10 lost tribes, other things that were in the ether at the time, don't make their way into the Book of Mormon. It also should have had more stuff about Indians, like the Book of Puki. It should have had— in other words, a lot of things that if it was a creation of its time that you would expect to be there, they're not in there. It's a— in other words, he's not talking about the 10 lost tribes. He's telling us about another tribe you've never even heard of. And so it's kind of an audacious thing. So it's kind of making some claims about itself that that you would not ex— you would expect different things to be in there. That's that. I just wanted to cover that. I also wanted to say, did Jesus come to the Americas? Well, the question I would say, if the Jesus of the Bible really existed as described, and that he was a resurrected being, and that he is God in the flesh, then I think that Jesus was perfectly capable of coming to the New World. And visiting other tribes and tongues throughout the world. And actually, I think if Jesus, as merciful as I think he was, I think I would hope that he would have done that. Okay, there's also a lot of people within oral traditions of Indians now that, again, they could have been an influence. But there's this book that came out in the 1950s by a Gentile, if you will, who wrote a book called He Walked the Americas, and it took about all the ancient myths, stories about this white-bearded guy or whatever that came and preach the gospel. That could be mythology, but I'm just saying that there have been people who have independently, without even using the Book of Mormon as a reference, have come to the conclusion, conclusion that he may have visited the Americas. Okay, now I want to end it on this about the stone in the hat and the Urim and Thummim. And this is my theory, and this is a parallel with Moses. And I actually think this adds something and actually gives to me a— I think this is a really important thing because I think this actually makes an argument in favor of Joseph and being a prophet. And the story is this: Joseph Smith had spectacles. He was more entranced by them than even the plates. So he had these spectacles, and let's say that they were holy relics. They were the Urim and the Tummim. Okay. Joseph Smith was using the Urim and the Thummim early on. Then he basically screws up by allowing Martin Harris to have the 116 Pages, and he loses them. The plates and presumably the Urim and Thummim are taken from Joseph.

Okay?

So this is how I parallel. We have Moses who goes up to Sinai. And he's given this— the, the tablets are written by the hand of God. Joseph then comes down, gets angered to see what his people are doing, and destroys those plates, and then goes back up to Sinai. Now what I have here is the parallel: Moses and Joseph. This time they return. The plates are returned to Joseph, but he doesn't get to have the holy instruments anymore. Moses goes up to— back up to Sinai, and God says, you're gonna have to write this with your own hand now. And maybe the Ten Commandments are more legalistic than the original version because of Moses' anger towards his people.

Joseph—

and then now, so now Moses has to write it with his own hand, and now at this point, now it's coming through the— through a person. Joseph is then forced to use the seer stone as punishment. So now it's going to be done by your own hand with this stumbling block, the stone in the hat, which was used for not good purposes. Just like human hands writing things down are going to be flawed, So this stone in the hat. So it actually tells me that it's a parallel between what happened to Moses in Sinai, is that they had to use their own instruments this time when they had access to literally the divine, and it was taken away from them. The finger of God was taken away and replaced with, uh, Moses's hand. The urim and thummim were taken from Joseph, and instead he had to use this, this, uh, secondary and lesser object. And so therefore, we have a corrupted text of the Bible, a Book of Mormon perhaps, and perhaps a corrupted text of the Ten Commandments. And to me, that's actually a strong argument in favor of Joseph Smith.

That's excellent. I could have this conversation with you all day. We need to conclude and wrap this up. Our listeners can decide whether or not we have, the three of us, have solved the extraordinary mystery of the origins of the Book of Mormon or not. I think this is an ongoing conversation. Perhaps my opening remarks about trying to solve the mystery was a little bit ambitious. But I think the conversation continues and would love to reconnect with you again, Steve. And of course, you, Jim Bennett, on this very subject. There's so much we could discuss, so many other points. To you both, again, as I said earlier, I can't think of two more intelligent, finer people on the planet to have this conversation with right now. It's interesting. We're all in very different places, uh, different positions, and yet we converge onto an area that we all agree on, that the Book of Mormon is inspired. I mean, it is. There are elements which you just inescapably inspired. There's no question about that. You know, I've resigned from the church. Steve, you're not in the church. Jim Bennett, you're fully active in the church. Yet we all, I think we can agree on that point. I want to thank you both so much, especially to you, Steve, for taking the time to come on to Inside Out. You're an extraordinary individual. We love you and appreciate you so much and the valuable contribution that you have to this topic and so many other topics as well. And Jim, as always, you are my friend, extraordinary. Your insights are just amazing. We agree on a lot. We might not agree on everything. And that's what makes the Inside Out podcast, that balance, the middle row, that's what makes it, I think, quite interesting. So to you both, thank you for taking the time to be on Inside Out today and for your extraordinary insights. And also to our listeners for being with us today. We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll look forward to joining you on another exciting episode sometime next week.

Thank you, Steve.

Thank you, Jim Bennett.

Thank you. Thank you both, appreciate it.