This has been bizarre to me that never-mos like this stuff. However, I think back to when I was an active member and watched so much stuff on Scientology; it was just fascinating to me as I thought those people and that “religion” were nonsensical and idiotic.🤦🏻♀️
have you seen what's happening in the ex scientology community at the moment ? you should watch kelli copter's iceberg series! when I was 10 I made fun of my cousin because she believed in god, as a punishment my parents sent me to cathéchisme it's for catholic kids to learn about jesus (catholic is the main religion where I am at ) actually I really enjoyed learning and ever since I have been studying all kinds of religions and their scriptures . mormons are really facinating to be honest , when I first read book of mormon I could not believe the guy would be so bold as to write his own version of the bible . but he did! I miss LDS discussions series @@apehorton2
As a member I was taught “anti mormons” were terrible, devil listening people… and as I’m out of the church longer and longer I realize is we apostates are the ones who have a better grasp on reality. Great episode. 👌🏻
Really great chemistry and mutual respect among this group.... it's NOT easy to get four individuals to convey knowledge, make it entertaining with a touch of humor, while keeping it relevant and concise. Kudos to John for superb hosting skills. I think a topic could be randomly pulled out of a hat, and this channel could handle it with equal efficiency and effectiveness.
For anyone who wants the fancy-pants term for the phenomenon of backdating prophecy, it's "vaticinium ex eventu". It's a "must have" for parties and special events. Use it in combination with "pseudepigraphy" (which is often the favored mechanism for showcasing a vaticinium ex eventu product) and you'll be the most popular person standing around the refreshments and punch bowl table. (You can ignore people rolling their eyes as they walk away from you with some excuse as to why they can't keep talking with you. That just means they're jealous...and they want to go find someone else, so that THEY can drop the phrase "vaticinium ex eventu" into a conversation.) If you say it the way that an Italian Cardinal does, it will be even more impressive.
So this weekend we decided to stay 3 hours away at my grandparents in-laws house. I happen to have a close friend that lives an hour away from them, so I was going to go over for a bit. My TBM Grandma in law offered to take me. She spent the hour trying to re-indoctrinate me and it was very uncomfortable. Although she was as nice as she could about it, she called us selfish for straying from he word of god and I just wanted to come here for safety 🥴😂😅
bless you my child! lol. i know the feeling. people dont understand how silly and disgusting religion looks to me now that i have figured out its all fake.
That was awesome...it covered everything!. I know I'm learning so much when I can recognize all those people and I still can recall their names and a feeling of genuine love and respect. Thank you John...and everyone for this very informative podcast Since my mom is now out of the church (60 years in) we can listen -learn- lean-on- and laugh together. Thanks again 💗
I remember thinking “wait, why did JS take the characters to a scholar? I thought he said it was reformed Egyptian that no one could speak or translate without the power of God. If he was already translating it, why would he need a scholar’s opinion?”
I think Martin Harris wanted some kind of assurance that Joseph wasn't tricking him, so he asked Joseph to write down some characters with the associated translation. I think it would have been enough for Harris just to hear that it at least "seemed" like the characters had been correctly translated into English. The trip to Anton wasn't for Joseph, it was for Martin.
100% this, I remember thinking this at 17 or 18 and my book of Mormon seminary class but of course, having to dismiss it because reasons and conditioning and it’s so frustrating to be out at 40 to have a better understanding of all this stuff and realize us out of the church people were right all along. It’s so frustrating sometimes. Thanks for your comment
I always wondered how the most correct book that contained the fullness of the gospel (Book of Mormon) speaks nothing of the most profound doctrines of Mormonism: temple covenants and ceremonies, eternal family relationships, priesthood power needed to perform baptisms, eternal progression to godhood….. Instead the BOM contains the beliefs and sermon topics of Joseph Smith’s day. It also contains King James biblical text that Joseph Smith later changed (supposedly by revelation) in the bible. This confused me for 30 years but miraculously it all makes perfect sense now 😊
I’m listening at 2:37 and Nemo just said; “JS is claiming a 1838 version of T-Swift’s Shake it off (haters gonna hate)” and now I *really* want to see a parody video done. If the internet Gods see this, please send that video content my way. Prayers and thanks!
Wow, so much here, and having Nemo and RFM here to add their expertise and knowledge was fantast. Also, Maven's time codes are a lifesaver! I keep going back and listening to sections that went so fast I might have missed something. It's so hard to look at all of this and wonder how I have friends and family that refuse to believe Joseph Smith was nothing more than a conman. :(
Let it be known by God, angels, and these witnesses that I said “No thank you.” I know you can buy anything in this world with money, but we have sufficient for our needs.
Great work from Mike as always! I love his thoroughness and his willingness to dive into every issue he encounters. I always learn something from these episodes. 54:09 This is such a great point, and interesting speculation, from RFM. I could never understand as a believer how all these other languages got onto the gold plates in the first place. (Actually, I could never make heads or tails of the story about Charles Anthon as a believer.) By the way, Chaldaic is not Babylonian, even though the biblical authors probably (mis)used "Chaldaea" to refer to the area we call Babylonia. For a long time Chaldaic or Chaldaean was misunderstood by scholars to be Aramaic, a closely related language, and that's no doubt what was meant in this context. (Chaldaean and Aramaean tribes both infiltrated Babylonia in the first millennium BCE and lived in tribally organized polities within Babylonia, which otherwise had an urban social structure, for a period before gradually being absorbed into the indigenous population.) Babylonian Akkadian is a different language from both Chaldaean and Aramaic entirely and was written in a sequence of related cuneiform scripts. Babylonian Akkadian didn't begin to be deciphered until the mid-nineteenth century, long after breakthroughs had been made in Old Persian (1802) and Egyptian (1822). (To confuse matters even further, when Babylonian Akkadian was first deciphered, it was initially labeled Assyrian.) If Charles Anthon definitely couldn't read Egyptian, he for sure couldn't read Babylonian Akkadian. Also--and I know this is pedantic!--"textual criticism" is the study of variants in manuscripts in an effort, where appropriate, to reconstruct the original text and to piece together the text's transmission history. This is what was once known as "lower criticism." You're thinking of historical criticism in general, or "higher criticism."
Brillant, I knew there were massive inconsistencies in the accounts of the texts. Your talks kick the validity right out of the park. Thank you so much for your work. It would be so helpful to have it in print. You know, highlighting, arrows, scribbles on the sides and dog ears for reference. I am older. Love from orig. Ca. and now Utah.
Thank you so much gentlemen! These episodes are so enlightening and help me to see the patterns and what was factually happening during Smith's period of time.
Nowadays it’s highly illegal (not to mention immoral? ) to be acquiring and removing ancient papyri from Egypt whether it’s wrapped upon a mummy or not.
I find this episode extremely interesting. What is being said here? The church leaders work directly through God, so is he purposely misleading us or are the leaders of the church going against Gods wishes to mislead us? Neither answer sits well with me. Comments anyone?
Great episode! Just to avoid easy mistakes that critics can harp on, the book wasn't invented by Gutenberg. The codex book arose in Europe in the Roman Empire during first centuries AD as a convergence of the tablet and scroll formats--instead of writing on boards *or* scrolls, scrolls could be cut up and placed *between* boards which was the best of both worlds. Far from inventing the book, from Gutenberg's perspective, he was trying to develop a labor-saving device for scribes and scriptoriums--moveable type meant that rather than spending most of the time copying books by hand, they could devote that time to adding elaborate decorations to books whose words were produced by the press. (It took about 50 more years before printers started realizing there was a market for crappy, cheap books with no decoration, and that movement is generally considered to have started in Venice in 1501.) All of this is still long after Lehi would have left Jerusalem, of course, and the closest thing to a book that we find in pre-Columbian America is long sheets of paper folded into accordion-like stacks (which was an intermediate step between scrolls and books in many cultures). Maybe they would have invented codex books if given a few hundred more years of uninterrupted development, but we'll never know. Just one more thing on the list of BoM anachronisms, basically.
Textual criticism does seem very in the weeds for people who aren’t used to these strategies. However, it was this type of evidence that finally broke my shelf. So RFM is right-there are different “smoking guns” for everyone, but that’s why it’s important to come at these issues with a variety of methods. You never know what will flip the switch for people. Also, having so many fields come to the same conclusion using different methods is a great example of converging evidence, which is the elusive gold standard that academics in many different fields shoot for
I’m now an ex-Mormon in my late twenties living in Salt Lake City. I’m struggling finding a community after leaving the lds church. Does anybody know if there’s a group of people also ex-Mormons who gather socially in Utah?
Recommended piece by psychologists addressing how people inside a sect respond to failed prophecy: When Prophecies Fail, by Reicken, Festinger and Schachter
Besides prophecying events in the future, the book of Mormon also "prophecies" language of later cultures. E.g. Mosiah 4:27 "prophecies" Olympic running, i.e. running to win a prize, which is prevalent to St. Paul's writing (e.g. 1 Cor 9:24) because he was a Hellenistic Jew. It was however unknown to Lehi, etc. who lived in pre-Hellenic Israel. Similarly, the phrase "the foundation of the world" can only be found in the Greek new testament, but not in the Hebrew old testament. Thus, the book of Mormon prophets "prophecy" language of the future, similar to the Greek word "Christ".
This may be overly simplistic, but if God wanted to reveal the one true church, why did he make it so difficult to get his message out? Why didn't the angel just give Joseph, in English, everything in the book of Mormon and in a book? No translation issues, no losing 116 pages, no need for a hat and peep stone.
24:01 small correction. Matthew is making up a prophecy that the messiah would be a Nazarene precisely because the historical Jesus WAS from Nazareth. Matthew was not as clever as Luke placing Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem because the Messiah was expected to be from Bethlehem which didn’t exactly fit the historical Jesus who was from Nazareth. So Matthew added a prophecy to explain away Jesus being from Nazareth though there is no Old Testament prophecy to this effect.
@LDS Discussions You're doing awesome, Mike! Nobody can keep every detail straight off the top of their head, and you've synthesized a huge amount of information. I'm loving your series.
A reaction to time stamp 3:00 (re: prophecy): Member of the Church here, inactive with lots of questions and wondering (it began with my lack of appreciation for the Church’s stance on same sex relations, but I have always hated being hit with the question, "Aren’t you married yet?" f off w that); only recently discovered this series. Thanks so much! I have always wondered that if a prophet prophesies, what have LDS prophets prophesied--at all? Does the Church expect us members to think that one prophet might have 1 prophecy under their belt (maybe more), but not all should be expected to? I’m not onboard with that.
Commenting before watching. Human behavior can not serve as a true fulfillment of prophecy because the prophecy itself can, intentionally or unintentionally, knowingly or unknowingly, alter the behavior of humans. True fulfillment of prophecy would not be subject to human decision making in any way. It should be something that humans can neither cause nor prevent. So we would be talking about things like eclipses, or earth quakes and the like. The trouble with this is that on some level those events are certain to occur somewhere eventually, so a prophecy needs to be specific about time and place or it's just a barnum statement. Wars and rumors of wars ... and such like are not good examples of prophecy.
EXACTLY. And, of course this applies to any- & everyone outside Mormonism as a response from Mormonism. And NEVER a direct response from them to a direct question put them. Screwtape Letters. Oh, & they can appropriate anything belonging to any other mind or thought & thereby legitimize their skulldamnduggery & bring someone into collusion with them who would fly to another planet to avoid them!
This really depends on the theology of the denomination. You have to distinguish between predestination denominations such as Calvinism or Lutheranism and free agency based denominations such as Arminianism and Mormonism. If this weren't messy and said contradictory enough, check out Molinism.
@@charlesmendeley9823 are you so sure Mormonism is not predestination ideals..according to some old Brigham Young writings that have never been walked away from by the church and some learers still use and stick in peoples faces..and stuck in my husbands face..because he can't have bio children he is "deemed" a less righteous person and that God deems him a less righteous person that can only ever be a serving angel and can't get full glory and that adopting children dors not count..and Brigham taught that was predesination because it was already determined you were a less spirit because you were not given ability or it was take away..In my husbands case it was taken away but an act of nothing more than child abuse by his according to the church righteous father that will certainly get full glory even though they know his child abuse took anothers seed...so Mormons do teach predestination cause according to Brighams writings and stuff still being thrown at my husband..His dad is off the hook cause God would not allow something to happen to you unless he wanted it to happen to you..therefore my husbands damage was all along God will according to them...of course We both have rejected that garbage but our learers won't..they also refuse to give him a higher preist hood and said the reasonibg is he will never be allowed to have it no matter his age or anything he does because they know he can't have children..that is progression was stopped by God...said to my husbands face
Jesus taught in the temple everyday, one day he opened the scroll of Isaiah and read these to the people: The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion... and Jesus said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
I would humbly request that you read Ivan Panin's work related to The Bible and mathematics. This may shed some light on the scriptures that you say are backdated prophecies.
*Oops! Joseph Smith NEVER counted on the easy FACT CHECKING CAPABILITIES available with the dawn of the INTERNET!* 🤢 Regardless, it IS IMPRESSIVE that Joseph pulled ALL of this off WITHOUT a COMPUTER.
when a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18 22
Minute 25…4 gospels, 4 different authors, 4 viewpoints, 4 different audiences, each with their own story. Also, the chronology of Jesus…Mary and Joseph in Nazareth, the census is ordered and each family must go to their ancestral hometown, Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem, Jesus is born there, Herod gets wind of the birth of a Jewish king, and attempts to wipe out any boy child in the age bracket, Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt and stay there until they are given word that Herod is dead then they return to Nazareth. And at each step in the journey they are guided by God’s hand.
Give Brigham Young some credit for adding some of that unique doctrine post 1844 and backdated it to originate with Joseph Smith. He revised the church History even Joseph Smith's personal journals.
Because Nazarene and Nazirite have similar spellings, many people confuse the terms. But it is important to make the distinction, since Jesus was often called a Nazarene (e.g., Mark 10:47 and Acts 22:8) but not a Nazirite. Our Lord did not follow the rules laid out for a Nazirite in the Mosaic Law.
Many politicians and radicals use the same persuasive method. Promise treasure and offer prophecies. When the treasure or prophecy do not come true, blame someone and then promise another treasure or prophecy.
What you said reminded me of how Trump’s number one point for his first election was building the wall. Now he’s trying to run again post presidency with the exact same promise.
Not sure how I ended up here. It’s interesting, but also, from a totally outside perspective, it kind of does my head in that it takes this much intellectual work to prove that religious texts are stories written by humans with agendas. Like…I *know* that some people take religious texts literally, but seeing folks working so hard to prove that religious texts are often inconsistent, incoherent and self serving is totally fascinating and more than a little jarring.
Off topic, but I liked that Nemo joked (paraphrasing) “nah, scripture siding with the colonists doesn’t make us British hate ourselves _because we do that all by ourselves_ “ and it seemingly went over John’s head, who restated it as the opposite: “yes, you’re too proud of your country to be affected” - seemingly without sarcasm. The American mind cannot comprehend anti-patriotism, even when it’s sarcasm :)
Heads I win tails you loss I fell the patriarchal Blessings can fall into this also. They an member you try to fit it in where you can. My experience my former wife and I where married and not sealed, and then where seald a few years later,and in my PB, it said I would take to my wife and be sealed. I used this as an excuse to say see god knew I was not going to have a temple wedding, and it was ordained by God. It also said I would hold every priesthood calling even bishop. Now we know the church keeps these sobif I had not left. I would have been bishop if I was to their standards. I took this as I was going to be a prophet; i daydream about being the one to translate the seald portion of the BoM due to being told I was not going to be buried so I thought Ib was the last propert before the second coming. What it missed What it did not say was that I will overcome the sexual abuse that was currently going by an extended family member. That I would meet a person that would turn on me and use me. But now I left and the member will say you were not worthy to get these blessings
Hearing all this, the supposed plates both the translated and untranslated or sealed, one would be represended as the Book of Mormon and....the untranslated version, which I argue, is an actual copy of the KJV sitting next to hand and pen writing jazzed up (josephy smith translation of the bible). He simlpy ran out of time the FULL complete version of the BIBLE, suiting the tastes of the proud early American territories and expansions. after the Civil War.
Great episode guys, it seems like it would just be so much work to do all this lying wouldn’t have beeeen nice if he would’ve just farmed like he should have lol. Looking forward to more grade content
If they couldn't find it in the Bible, they wrote their own scriptures to serve their purpose. But, what a sloppy mess it turned into, as modern research tools are revealing. But then, the Bible also is a bit of a sloppy mess with tribal myths, superheroes, creative writing with lyrics and poetry and parables, revised history, plagiarism elements, and on and on. Here is an interesting interview of Francesca Stavrakopoulou PhD, a professor in England who researched the history and origins of the Bible and concept of god, etc. th-cam.com/video/dMQciYeDHU0/w-d-xo.html
"Washed-up, has been, barely relevant Podcaster" ????? Don't think so!!! You do the members who learn that the Joseph Smith we were taught to love, never existed and the beautiful story we were taught to believe, never happened and the Church we were taught to love, accountable. You do the Church a very-very great service by holding them accountable. Being their Checks and Balances. No longer can they say whatever they want to say, do what they want to do, without being called out of it. That's what Jesus would do. You're doing Jesus a favor.
The gospels do harmonize. Jesus grew up in Nazareth. No one said he was born in Nazareth or lived in Egypt education. I was born in Atlanta but grew up in Savannah.
So far as "prophets" are able to predict the future, I dont believe that's ever been possible. If that's the definition of a prophet, I think such a person has never existed, and anyone who claims it is a fraud.
25:28 I’m not agree with that cuz Jesus are the son of God. And even you try to prove it not your tongue and thoughts was confused you barely can finish your on thoughts. Jesus love you even if you don’t want it.
"Wo unto the liar for he shall be thrust down to hell." 🤔🤔🤔 "Thou shalt not bear false witness." 🤔🤔🤔 If asked "Are you honest in your dealings with fellow man?" The best response is: "Yes. That's why I tell people Joseph Smith Jr was a self-aggrandizing liar. This history you keep trying to hide, but is publicly available proves that matter. I cannot 'sustain' or perpetuate Joseph's Myths." 🤷
Though Jesus grew up in Nazareth, He wasn’t born there. Jesus was born to a virgin, Mary, who was engaged to a man named Joseph. Luke 2 records that at that time there was a census, for which Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem in Judea because of his lineage from David. Mary, pregnant with Jesus at the time by the power of the Holy Spirit, came with him. At some point, while they were in Bethlehem, Jesus was born. The Bible doesn’t say how long they were there before this happened, and it isn’t clear exactly how long they stayed afterward. Forty days after the birth of her son, a Jewish woman was to go to the temple for purification, which Luke records that Mary and Joseph did, after which they appear to have returned to Bethlehem. The wise men from the east came while Jesus was “a young child” and visited him at a house in Bethlehem, which was probably a year or two later. The family left Bethlehem and fled to Egypt after Joseph was warned to leave in a dream. This was because King Herod decided to have all boys under two years old in and around Bethlehem killed. Herod had heard about the new “king of the Jews” from the wise men and was determined to eliminate the threat to his power. This, then, ended the family’s time in Bethlehem. After Herod died, an angel told Joseph in a dream that it was safe to return to Israel. Depending on when scholars date events in the life of Jesus, the answer for how long they remained in Egypt will vary, but it was most likely less than two years. After the dream, Matthew 2:21-23 records: So he [Joseph] got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene. Thus, Jesus, most likely around two to four years old, finally landed in the town in which he would grow up.
The only thing I disagree with here is that homosexuality IS mentioned in the Bible KJV.. see Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 I’ve heard you say in other discussions as well that it isn’t mentioned in the Bible.. but it is. Just not in the BOM. I’m not condemning the practice just merely pointing out that it is in fact written in the Bible.
I hear the 15 are traveling to Missouri recently. Perhaps the saints will be moving headquarters soon. PSA: Buy up all the land you can in Jackson County, you might just get some tithes back when you sell that property to a shell company of the church. 😅
But what about Harry Potter? Can we please devote the time and research to disproving the factualness and the very real magic of Harry Potter--all seven books! I mean, seriously, no one outside the LDS church needs this kind of in depth analysis of what is clearing a work of fiction.
Well, I would say that the target audiences for this content are primarily: (1) questioning members of the LDS church; (2) former members who are still in the process of deconstructing and examining what they once believed in (in many cases, beliefs that were hammered into them from early childhood); and (3) non-mormons (aka people "outside the LDS church) who are nonetheless very interested in what Mormons are taught to believe and how those beliefs stack up against reasonable analysis. Of course no one outside the LDS church "needs this kind of in-depth analysis" if they have no interest in the subject matter. They obviously are not a target audience and also have no obligation to watch/listen. Hope that answers your question.
I'm not a mormon , not even a christian and I am still addicted to this series. watched every episode
Certainly eases my conscience about any kind of organized religion
I'm thinking they should shut the doors an LDS
Why aren't you a Christian?
This has been bizarre to me that never-mos like this stuff. However, I think back to when I was an active member and watched so much stuff on Scientology; it was just fascinating to me as I thought those people and that “religion” were nonsensical and idiotic.🤦🏻♀️
have you seen what's happening in the ex scientology community at the moment ? you should watch kelli copter's iceberg series! when I was 10 I made fun of my cousin because she believed in god, as a punishment my parents sent me to cathéchisme it's for catholic kids to learn about jesus (catholic is the main religion where I am at ) actually I really enjoyed learning and ever since I have been studying all kinds of religions and their scriptures . mormons are really facinating to be honest , when I first read book of mormon I could not believe the guy would be so bold as to write his own version of the bible . but he did! I miss LDS discussions series @@apehorton2
As a member I was taught “anti mormons” were terrible, devil listening people… and as I’m out of the church longer and longer I realize is we apostates are the ones who have a better grasp on reality. Great episode. 👌🏻
Exactly! 👏🏼🙌🏼💯
Anti Mormons are Pro Christ and God Giving Truthers to the Factful Devil Listeners aka Mormons and the like via jwitnesses etc.
Really great chemistry and mutual respect among this group.... it's NOT easy to get four individuals to convey knowledge, make it entertaining with a touch of humor, while keeping it relevant and concise. Kudos to John for superb hosting skills. I think a topic could be randomly pulled out of a hat, and this channel could handle it with equal efficiency and effectiveness.
LDS DISCUSSIONS ARE THE BEST!
those seeking prophets
in their time of need
mostly often find
those seeking profits
in their time of need
Kudos!👏👏 It's incumbent upon every individual to: question all things, investigate, and search for truth.
For anyone who wants the fancy-pants term for the phenomenon of backdating prophecy, it's "vaticinium ex eventu". It's a "must have" for parties and special events. Use it in combination with "pseudepigraphy" (which is often the favored mechanism for showcasing a vaticinium ex eventu product) and you'll be the most popular person standing around the refreshments and punch bowl table. (You can ignore people rolling their eyes as they walk away from you with some excuse as to why they can't keep talking with you. That just means they're jealous...and they want to go find someone else, so that THEY can drop the phrase "vaticinium ex eventu" into a conversation.) If you say it the way that an Italian Cardinal does, it will be even more impressive.
😂❤️🙏
♥️♥️♥️😂😅🤣 mic drop.
So this weekend we decided to stay 3 hours away at my grandparents in-laws house. I happen to have a close friend that lives an hour away from them, so I was going to go over for a bit. My TBM Grandma in law offered to take me. She spent the hour trying to re-indoctrinate me and it was very uncomfortable. Although she was as nice as she could about it, she called us selfish for straying from he word of god and I just wanted to come here for safety 🥴😂😅
bless you my child! lol. i know the feeling. people dont understand how silly and disgusting religion looks to me now that i have figured out its all fake.
That was awesome...it covered everything!.
I know I'm learning so much when I can recognize all those people and I still can recall their names and a feeling of genuine love and respect.
Thank you John...and everyone for this very informative podcast
Since my mom is now out of the church (60 years in) we can listen -learn- lean-on- and laugh together.
Thanks again 💗
Excellent episode, guys!! Great collaboration between all of you 👊🏼
I remember thinking “wait, why did JS take the characters to a scholar? I thought he said it was reformed Egyptian that no one could speak or translate without the power of God. If he was already translating it, why would he need a scholar’s opinion?”
+
I think Martin Harris wanted some kind of assurance that Joseph wasn't tricking him, so he asked Joseph to write down some characters with the associated translation. I think it would have been enough for Harris just to hear that it at least "seemed" like the characters had been correctly translated into English. The trip to Anton wasn't for Joseph, it was for Martin.
100% this, I remember thinking this at 17 or 18 and my book of Mormon seminary class but of course, having to dismiss it because reasons and conditioning and it’s so frustrating to be out at 40 to have a better understanding of all this stuff and realize us out of the church people were right all along. It’s so frustrating sometimes. Thanks for your comment
I always wondered how the most correct book that contained the fullness of the gospel (Book of Mormon) speaks nothing of the most profound doctrines of Mormonism: temple covenants and ceremonies, eternal family relationships, priesthood power needed to perform baptisms, eternal progression to godhood…..
Instead the BOM contains the beliefs and sermon topics of Joseph Smith’s day. It also contains King James biblical text that Joseph Smith later changed (supposedly by revelation) in the bible. This confused me for 30 years but miraculously it all makes perfect sense now 😊
I’m listening at 2:37 and Nemo just said; “JS is claiming a 1838 version of T-Swift’s Shake it off (haters gonna hate)” and now I *really* want to see a parody video done. If the internet Gods see this, please send that video content my way. Prayers and thanks!
Yes... do FAILED PROPHECIES
Wow, so much here, and having Nemo and RFM here to add their expertise and knowledge was fantast. Also, Maven's time codes are a lifesaver! I keep going back and listening to sections that went so fast I might have missed something. It's so hard to look at all of this and wonder how I have friends and family that refuse to believe Joseph Smith was nothing more than a conman. :(
I’ve got last week’s lottery numbers if anyone wants them?! 😂
Let it be known by God, angels, and these witnesses that I said “No thank you.”
I know you can buy anything in this world with money, but we have sufficient for our needs.
@@funkyfreshtx did you miss the joke entirely?
@@elyseparker5333 nope. I got it. did you miss my blatant use of temple video phrases?
I just haven't seen it all yet. Sorry!
I've got next weeks lottery numbers, but you can't see them for 2 weeks.
RFM is smart as heck AND entertaining as heck! He is a wonderful gift!
I agree with Nemo that the truth can withstand scrutiny. Scrutinize your life and beliefs to see if they can withstand it.
Great work from Mike as always! I love his thoroughness and his willingness to dive into every issue he encounters. I always learn something from these episodes.
54:09 This is such a great point, and interesting speculation, from RFM. I could never understand as a believer how all these other languages got onto the gold plates in the first place. (Actually, I could never make heads or tails of the story about Charles Anthon as a believer.)
By the way, Chaldaic is not Babylonian, even though the biblical authors probably (mis)used "Chaldaea" to refer to the area we call Babylonia. For a long time Chaldaic or Chaldaean was misunderstood by scholars to be Aramaic, a closely related language, and that's no doubt what was meant in this context. (Chaldaean and Aramaean tribes both infiltrated Babylonia in the first millennium BCE and lived in tribally organized polities within Babylonia, which otherwise had an urban social structure, for a period before gradually being absorbed into the indigenous population.) Babylonian Akkadian is a different language from both Chaldaean and Aramaic entirely and was written in a sequence of related cuneiform scripts. Babylonian Akkadian didn't begin to be deciphered until the mid-nineteenth century, long after breakthroughs had been made in Old Persian (1802) and Egyptian (1822). (To confuse matters even further, when Babylonian Akkadian was first deciphered, it was initially labeled Assyrian.) If Charles Anthon definitely couldn't read Egyptian, he for sure couldn't read Babylonian Akkadian.
Also--and I know this is pedantic!--"textual criticism" is the study of variants in manuscripts in an effort, where appropriate, to reconstruct the original text and to piece together the text's transmission history. This is what was once known as "lower criticism." You're thinking of historical criticism in general, or "higher criticism."
Brillant, I knew there were massive inconsistencies in the accounts of the texts. Your talks kick the validity right out of the park. Thank you so much for your work. It would be so helpful to have it in print. You know, highlighting, arrows, scribbles on the sides and dog ears for reference. I am older. Love from orig. Ca. and now Utah.
Glad it was helpful!
I love this whole series, especially the Nemo episodes. Cool to have RFM on this time too
Thank you so much gentlemen! These episodes are so enlightening and help me to see the patterns and what was factually happening during Smith's period of time.
Nowadays it’s highly illegal (not to mention immoral? ) to be acquiring and removing ancient papyri from Egypt whether it’s wrapped upon a mummy or not.
I find this episode extremely interesting. What is being said here? The church leaders work directly through God, so is he purposely misleading us or are the leaders of the church going against Gods wishes to mislead us? Neither answer sits well with me. Comments anyone?
Great episode!
Just to avoid easy mistakes that critics can harp on, the book wasn't invented by Gutenberg. The codex book arose in Europe in the Roman Empire during first centuries AD as a convergence of the tablet and scroll formats--instead of writing on boards *or* scrolls, scrolls could be cut up and placed *between* boards which was the best of both worlds. Far from inventing the book, from Gutenberg's perspective, he was trying to develop a labor-saving device for scribes and scriptoriums--moveable type meant that rather than spending most of the time copying books by hand, they could devote that time to adding elaborate decorations to books whose words were produced by the press. (It took about 50 more years before printers started realizing there was a market for crappy, cheap books with no decoration, and that movement is generally considered to have started in Venice in 1501.)
All of this is still long after Lehi would have left Jerusalem, of course, and the closest thing to a book that we find in pre-Columbian America is long sheets of paper folded into accordion-like stacks (which was an intermediate step between scrolls and books in many cultures). Maybe they would have invented codex books if given a few hundred more years of uninterrupted development, but we'll never know. Just one more thing on the list of BoM anachronisms, basically.
You updated me proficiently on backdated prophecies 🎙😊📖
Textual criticism does seem very in the weeds for people who aren’t used to these strategies. However, it was this type of evidence that finally broke my shelf. So RFM is right-there are different “smoking guns” for everyone, but that’s why it’s important to come at these issues with a variety of methods. You never know what will flip the switch for people. Also, having so many fields come to the same conclusion using different methods is a great example of converging evidence, which is the elusive gold standard that academics in many different fields shoot for
1:46:00 Priceless!
I’m now an ex-Mormon in my late twenties living in Salt Lake City. I’m struggling finding a community after leaving the lds church. Does anybody know if there’s a group of people also ex-Mormons who gather socially in Utah?
Recommended piece by psychologists addressing how people inside a sect respond to failed prophecy: When Prophecies Fail, by Reicken, Festinger and Schachter
Please do an episode on failed prophecies. Thats what I thought this episode was going to be about before it started.
Same here exactly.
This info on backdated prophesies is fascinating and so educational!
Thank you. Watching from Alaska.
Brilliant.
Well clearly 2 Nephi 3:14 failed. God didn't protect Joseph from being destroyed by his enemies.
For a really good look at the New Testament, the work of The Jesus Seminar and in particular, the work of Marcus Borg is very helpful.
Matthew was written to evangelize Jewish people, so his whole purpose was to show Jesus was fulfilling Jewish prophesy.
Besides prophecying events in the future, the book of Mormon also "prophecies" language of later cultures.
E.g. Mosiah 4:27 "prophecies" Olympic running, i.e. running to win a prize, which is prevalent to St. Paul's writing (e.g. 1 Cor 9:24) because he was a Hellenistic Jew. It was however unknown to Lehi, etc. who lived in pre-Hellenic Israel. Similarly, the phrase "the foundation of the world" can only be found in the Greek new testament, but not in the Hebrew old testament. Thus, the book of Mormon prophets "prophecy" language of the future, similar to the Greek word "Christ".
Hindsight is a marvellous thing…especially for failed profits….🤠
This may be overly simplistic, but if God wanted to reveal the one true church, why did he make it so difficult to get his message out? Why didn't the angel just give Joseph, in English, everything in the book of Mormon and in a book? No translation issues, no losing 116 pages, no need for a hat and peep stone.
i Have loved the series very much from Mike and Larsen all a big help! Will you do one on Biblical problems like the lies??
I still have 1 yr food supply for myself - it is one of the things I kept from my upbringing
In the 70’s food storage was HUGE within the church
I've helped throw away so many old Mormons food storage when they died, most of it rotten and expired..
Legendary cast!!
List of former or dissident Mormons: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_former_or_dissident_Mormons
24:01 small correction. Matthew is making up a prophecy that the messiah would be a Nazarene precisely because the historical Jesus WAS from Nazareth. Matthew was not as clever as Luke placing Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem because the Messiah was expected to be from Bethlehem which didn’t exactly fit the historical Jesus who was from Nazareth. So Matthew added a prophecy to explain away Jesus being from Nazareth though there is no Old Testament prophecy to this effect.
Right. The issue is that the Messiah is the new David, and Bethlehem is David's city.
@LDS Discussions You're doing awesome, Mike! Nobody can keep every detail straight off the top of their head, and you've synthesized a huge amount of information. I'm loving your series.
@LDS Discussions lol no worries it’s a heck of a lot of information to keep straight. 👍
I’m so glad you guys have passion for truth! I new Smith wanted to be a god, didn’t realize he wanted to be a prophet as well🤨
I gotta go guys, see ya on Sunday night, and at Thrive next weekend
A reaction to time stamp 3:00 (re: prophecy): Member of the Church here, inactive with lots of questions and wondering (it began with my lack of appreciation for the Church’s stance on same sex relations, but I have always hated being hit with the question, "Aren’t you married yet?" f off w that); only recently discovered this series. Thanks so much! I have always wondered that if a prophet prophesies, what have LDS prophets prophesied--at all? Does the Church expect us members to think that one prophet might have 1 prophecy under their belt (maybe more), but not all should be expected to? I’m not onboard with that.
I'm surprised you failed to mention the back dating of the priesthood restoration.
They have an episode about that, but it's not the same issue because it wasn't a prophecy, it was a claim that something had happened in the past.
Commenting before watching.
Human behavior can not serve as a true fulfillment of prophecy because the prophecy itself can, intentionally or unintentionally, knowingly or unknowingly, alter the behavior of humans.
True fulfillment of prophecy would not be subject to human decision making in any way. It should be something that humans can neither cause nor prevent. So we would be talking about things like eclipses, or earth quakes and the like.
The trouble with this is that on some level those events are certain to occur somewhere eventually, so a prophecy needs to be specific about time and place or it's just a barnum statement. Wars and rumors of wars ... and such like are not good examples of prophecy.
EXACTLY. And, of course this applies to any- & everyone outside Mormonism as a response from Mormonism. And NEVER a direct response from them to a direct question put them. Screwtape
Letters. Oh, & they can appropriate anything belonging to any other mind or thought & thereby legitimize
their skulldamnduggery & bring someone into collusion with them who would fly to another planet to avoid them!
This really depends on the theology of the denomination. You have to distinguish between predestination denominations such as Calvinism or Lutheranism and free agency based denominations such as Arminianism and Mormonism. If this weren't messy and said contradictory enough, check out Molinism.
@@charlesmendeley9823 are you so sure Mormonism is not predestination ideals..according to some old Brigham Young writings that have never been walked away from by the church and some learers still use and stick in peoples faces..and stuck in my husbands face..because he can't have bio children he is "deemed" a less righteous person and that God deems him a less righteous person that can only ever be a serving angel and can't get full glory and that adopting children dors not count..and Brigham taught that was predesination because it was already determined you were a less spirit because you were not given ability or it was take away..In my husbands case it was taken away but an act of nothing more than child abuse by his according to the church righteous father that will certainly get full glory even though they know his child abuse took anothers seed...so Mormons do teach predestination cause according to Brighams writings and stuff still being thrown at my husband..His dad is off the hook cause God would not allow something to happen to you unless he wanted it to happen to you..therefore my husbands damage was all along God will according to them...of course We both have rejected that garbage but our learers won't..they also refuse to give him a higher preist hood and said the reasonibg is he will never be allowed to have it no matter his age or anything he does because they know he can't have children..that is progression was stopped by God...said to my husbands face
Jesus taught in the temple everyday, one day he opened the scroll of Isaiah and read these to the people:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion...
and Jesus said, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
This episode on the podcast only loaded in as five minutes long for me. Is that an issue on my end? Watching here for now instead 👍
I love RFM's shirt!!
I would humbly request that you read Ivan Panin's work related to The Bible and mathematics. This may shed some light on the scriptures that you say are backdated prophecies.
*Oops! Joseph Smith NEVER counted on the easy FACT CHECKING CAPABILITIES available with the dawn of the INTERNET!* 🤢
Regardless, it IS IMPRESSIVE that Joseph pulled ALL of this off WITHOUT a COMPUTER.
145 minutes. Excellent analogy with the camel RFM!
when a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.
Deuteronomy 18 22
"Washed up barely relevant podcaster" 😭 omg pls don't be so mean to yourself!! ❤️ you're the only podcaster regularly listen to John!!!
John is so humble these days, maybe he becomes the next Mormon prophet???
Or did an angel bring down the small plates at another time? After they plates were taken away? Ever explained?
Minute 25…4 gospels, 4 different authors, 4 viewpoints, 4 different audiences, each with their own story. Also, the chronology of Jesus…Mary and Joseph in Nazareth, the census is ordered and each family must go to their ancestral hometown, Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem, Jesus is born there, Herod gets wind of the birth of a Jewish king, and attempts to wipe out any boy child in the age bracket, Joseph and Mary flee to Egypt and stay there until they are given word that Herod is dead then they return to Nazareth. And at each step in the journey they are guided by God’s hand.
The history around the Smiths location in 1820 and Dartmouth college… very interesting
Is it just semantics that the word FRAUD isn't used more?
Give Brigham Young some credit for adding some of that unique doctrine post 1844 and backdated it to originate with Joseph Smith. He revised the church History even Joseph Smith's personal journals.
Because Nazarene and Nazirite have similar spellings, many people confuse the terms. But it is important to make the distinction, since Jesus was often called a Nazarene (e.g., Mark 10:47 and Acts 22:8) but not a Nazirite. Our Lord did not follow the rules laid out for a Nazirite in the Mosaic Law.
This feels a lot like how many say Pres. Nelson "knew COVID-19 was going to happen" because of rolling out Come Follow Me...
Many politicians and radicals use the same persuasive method. Promise treasure and offer prophecies. When the treasure or prophecy do not come true, blame someone and then promise another treasure or prophecy.
What you said reminded me of how Trump’s number one point for his first election was building the wall. Now he’s trying to run again post presidency with the exact same promise.
So what I'm hearing is that the BOM is just as true as the Bible. Got it.
Not sure how I ended up here. It’s interesting, but also, from a totally outside perspective, it kind of does my head in that it takes this much intellectual work to prove that religious texts are stories written by humans with agendas. Like…I *know* that some people take religious texts literally, but seeing folks working so hard to prove that religious texts are often inconsistent, incoherent and self serving is totally fascinating and more than a little jarring.
Some wired stuff in jsh/books and can't forget brigham young stuff.
Some very interesting analisis guys.
Never thought of things in this perspective.
Off topic, but I liked that Nemo joked (paraphrasing) “nah, scripture siding with the colonists doesn’t make us British hate ourselves _because we do that all by ourselves_ “ and it seemingly went over John’s head, who restated it as the opposite: “yes, you’re too proud of your country to be affected” - seemingly without sarcasm. The American mind cannot comprehend anti-patriotism, even when it’s sarcasm :)
Guilty
Heads I win tails you loss
I fell the patriarchal Blessings can fall into this also.
They an member you try to fit it in where you can.
My experience my former wife and I where married and not sealed, and then where seald a few years later,and in my PB, it said I would take to my wife and be sealed. I used this as an excuse to say see god knew I was not going to have a temple wedding, and it was ordained by God.
It also said I would hold every priesthood calling even bishop.
Now we know the church keeps these sobif I had not left. I would have been bishop if I was to their standards. I took this as I was going to be a prophet; i daydream about being the one to translate the seald portion of the BoM due to being told I was not going to be buried so I thought Ib was the last propert before the second coming.
What it missed
What it did not say was that I will overcome the sexual abuse that was currently going by an extended family member. That I would meet a person that would turn on me and use me. But now I left and the member will say you were not worthy to get these blessings
Wow so many ads it was so distracting
Great episode. You could have also discussed that section 13 regarding the restoration of the priesthood was inserted much later.
I hate it when LDS prophets, seers and revelators will only use their rear-view mirrors -- face forward once in awhile gents!
Any one can make a prediction wait thousands of years and voula youre a prophet
Hearing all this, the supposed plates both the translated and untranslated or sealed, one would be represended as the Book of Mormon and....the untranslated version, which I argue, is an actual copy of the KJV sitting next to hand and pen writing jazzed up (josephy smith translation of the bible). He simlpy ran out of time the FULL complete version of the BIBLE, suiting the tastes of the proud early American territories and expansions. after the Civil War.
Great episode guys, it seems like it would just be so much work to do all this lying wouldn’t have beeeen nice if he would’ve just farmed like he should have lol. Looking forward to more grade content
A profit would have been able to warn of WW1, WW2, after all he predicted the revolutionary war. ????
Using the term “Sus” makes John sound like a valley girl teenager.
If they couldn't find it in the Bible, they wrote their own scriptures to serve their purpose. But, what a sloppy mess it turned into, as modern research tools are revealing. But then, the Bible also is a bit of a sloppy mess with tribal myths, superheroes, creative writing with lyrics and poetry and parables, revised history, plagiarism elements, and on and on. Here is an interesting interview of Francesca Stavrakopoulou PhD, a professor in England who researched the history and origins of the Bible and concept of god, etc. th-cam.com/video/dMQciYeDHU0/w-d-xo.html
"Washed-up, has been, barely relevant Podcaster" ????? Don't think so!!! You do the members who learn that the Joseph Smith we were taught to love, never existed and the beautiful story we were taught to believe, never happened and the Church we were taught to love, accountable. You do the Church a very-very great service by holding them accountable. Being their Checks and Balances. No longer can they say whatever they want to say, do what they want to do, without being called out of it. That's what Jesus would do. You're doing Jesus a favor.
😂 I was feeling a bit silly that day.
We love ya JD. We all love ya.
The gospels do harmonize. Jesus grew up in Nazareth. No one said he was born in Nazareth or lived in Egypt education. I was born in Atlanta but grew up in Savannah.
Joseph Smith was called a.profit, dum, dum, dum, dum,.dum 🎶
So far as "prophets" are able to predict the future, I dont believe that's ever been possible. If that's the definition of a prophet, I think such a person has never existed, and anyone who claims it is a fraud.
25:28 I’m not agree with that cuz Jesus are the son of God. And even you try to prove it not your tongue and thoughts was confused you barely can finish your on thoughts.
Jesus love you even if you don’t want it.
"Wo unto the liar for he shall be thrust down to hell."
🤔🤔🤔
"Thou shalt not bear false witness."
🤔🤔🤔
If asked "Are you honest in your dealings with fellow man?"
The best response is: "Yes. That's why I tell people Joseph Smith Jr was a self-aggrandizing liar. This history you keep trying to hide, but is publicly available proves that matter. I cannot 'sustain' or perpetuate Joseph's Myths."
🤷
So is Joseph an anti-Isaiah Josephite ?
Though Jesus grew up in Nazareth, He wasn’t born there.
Jesus was born to a virgin, Mary, who was engaged to a man named Joseph. Luke 2 records that at that time there was a census, for which Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem in Judea because of his lineage from David. Mary, pregnant with Jesus at the time by the power of the Holy Spirit, came with him.
At some point, while they were in Bethlehem, Jesus was born. The Bible doesn’t say how long they were there before this happened, and it isn’t clear exactly how long they stayed afterward. Forty days after the birth of her son, a Jewish woman was to go to the temple for purification, which Luke records that Mary and Joseph did, after which they appear to have returned to Bethlehem. The wise men from the east came while Jesus was “a young child” and visited him at a house in Bethlehem, which was probably a year or two later.
The family left Bethlehem and fled to Egypt after Joseph was warned to leave in a dream. This was because King Herod decided to have all boys under two years old in and around Bethlehem killed. Herod had heard about the new “king of the Jews” from the wise men and was determined to eliminate the threat to his power. This, then, ended the family’s time in Bethlehem.
After Herod died, an angel told Joseph in a dream that it was safe to return to Israel. Depending on when scholars date events in the life of Jesus, the answer for how long they remained in Egypt will vary, but it was most likely less than two years. After the dream, Matthew 2:21-23 records:
So he [Joseph] got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.
Thus, Jesus, most likely around two to four years old, finally landed in the town in which he would grow up.
The only thing I disagree with here is that homosexuality IS mentioned in the Bible KJV.. see Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1:26-27
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
I’ve heard you say in other discussions as well that it isn’t mentioned in the Bible.. but it is. Just not in the BOM.
I’m not condemning the practice just merely pointing out that it is in fact written in the Bible.
I hear the 15 are traveling to Missouri recently. Perhaps the saints will be moving headquarters soon.
PSA: Buy up all the land you can in Jackson County, you might just get some tithes back when you sell that property to a shell company of the church. 😅
How did JS be smart enough to create the BOM is it didn't come from God?
Do research you will know
💜
what if JS's prophecy was for WW1 or WW2? (i'm kidding)
2:39:39 reminds me of Trump.
I know I just adore resident Biden
You still believe it was a real pandemic?
If you all really beleave you dont speak so much about it. It just be.
Matthew didnt know the old testament? Are you kidding me? I think this guy needs to study the bible. Shame on you.
But what about Harry Potter? Can we please devote the time and research to disproving the factualness and the very real magic of Harry Potter--all seven books! I mean, seriously, no one outside the LDS church needs this kind of in depth analysis of what is clearing a work of fiction.
Well, I would say that the target audiences for this content are primarily: (1) questioning members of the LDS church; (2) former members who are still in the process of deconstructing and examining what they once believed in (in many cases, beliefs that were hammered into them from early childhood); and (3) non-mormons (aka people "outside the LDS church) who are nonetheless very interested in what Mormons are taught to believe and how those beliefs stack up against reasonable analysis. Of course no one outside the LDS church "needs this kind of in-depth analysis" if they have no interest in the subject matter. They obviously are not a target audience and also have no obligation to watch/listen. Hope that answers your question.
People in the LDS church have been taught that it’s true with a capital T. Nobody has been taught that Harry Potter is true and factual.
@@s.a.6082 right?!
Slanderous and I'm not even Mormon never have been.
So, a religion totally based on one man's imagination. Book of Mormon is complete, total lies. I thought so.
This is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Par excellence.
Thank you, again. Watching from Alaska.