We brought an expert on the Book of
Mormon. There is nobody who knows more
about the Book of Mormon. Like Hugh Nibley, Parley
P Pratt. No, no. We have Mr. Smoot with us today.
In fact, Stephen wrote the Book of Mormon.
Shocking reveal!!! Pseudonym is Mormon!
Origins of Book of Mormon revealed! Moroni is
on this show right now. You're seeing an
angel folks.
Where you from? I'm from
Salt Lake City Utah originally. So I went
to BYU where I did my undergraduate in
ancient Near Eastern Studies yeah and
then after that I went up to Toronto
Canada where I'm currently doing my
master's degree in near Middle Eastern
civilizations with a focus or a
concentration in Egyptology. Wait, why are you in
Orem right now? Because I'm back
here working at Book of Mormon Central! Ah, got it.
What is Book of Mormon Central? Well said
very briefly Book of Mormon Central is your
one-stop-shop for Book of Mormon
scholarship. So that includes both
new scholarship that's being produced
today and that includes scholarship that
is being collected that's been done in
the past and being sort of collected and
gathered into one big online archive and
database that we've put together. Okay
cool. Hence, Book of Mormon Central.
You know, gosh.
Pulling from one of
the articles on Book of Mormon central
why was a stone used as an aid in
translating the Book of Mormon? And I
just want to preface this I didn't know
that this was controversial about the
seer stones and the brown stone. To me
this is just a part of the translation process.
But also I'm a convert and I didn't, I
wasn't raised LDS so I don't get a
different view, ya know? I mean in my shoes
growing up in the church, you know,
there's lots of artwork of Joseph Smith
translating the Book of Mormon with the
plates and there's people they're
looking at and all this stuff and so
lots of people like myself grew up with
this lens of artwork related to the
gospel doctrine that was in my head and
so when I found out that it wasn't
exactly how the artwork was depicting it
it can also threw me for a loop.
Yeah and one thing we discussed in the
article is the difference between sort
of artistic depictions of something
versus the accurate historical
information. So artists of course aren't
necessarily sticklers for historical
accuracy when they make their art.
Except for you,
Anthony Sweat. Yeah, shout out to Anthony
Sweat. We quote him in the article, he's
really great and we use his artwork a lot
Yeah, thank you Professor Sweat for
passing me in D&C 1. You know
you really didn't have to I didn't do
that good of a job but you sir, he even
let me take the exam after I missed it. Is this an episode
on grace or something? This is. I know you're
watching I am so, I thank you so much. It
really did help me out.
Anyways yeah
so back to stones. You're totally
right for a lot of people the idea of
seer stones is unknown or you know
foreign or even weird to them right?
Well people know about the Urim and Thummim
They believed that they were like these
white stones or something in the bow
and there's like a breastplate and
there's all of these instruments to
translate, right? Yeah one thing you have
to keep in mind is these historical
issues can become very murky if you're trying
to break down the different sources and
what they're saying. Take for example the
issue of what do they call these
instruments? we call them the Urim and
Thummim but the historical sources call
them all sorts of things they refer and
they sometimes refer them
interchangeably. They'll use
the same terms to refer to different
sets of instruments so it takes a lot of
work to sort of break down
what's going on historically to make
sense of what stones are being used and
when they were being used and what
capacity they are being used and that
can be off-putting for a lot of people
who you know just don't want really jump
into it that intensely. I think some
people might see it this way like you
could be saying in 21st century verbiage,
"Oh he was using a smartphone" but if
we're going to go into it like, oh was it
an iOS or was it an Android, you know?
Like this idea of people not exactly
using the correct term. I think people a
little bit too picky. Speaking of seer
stones I have my white seer stone here,
right, that I'm going to read some of the
Book of Mormon off of. It's in Alma 37, is
where we actually get this interesting
reference to, well I'll read the verse.
This is verse 23 "and the Lord said I
will prepare unto my servant Gazalem, a
stone, which shall shine forth in
darkness into light that I may discover
into my people who serve me that I may
discover unto them the works of their
brethren yay their secret works their
works of darkness and their wickedness
and abominations."
So the first part of that verse: Gazalem.
There's a big question. Is this the
servant or is it the stone yeah because
the way it's punctuated it's somewhat
ambiguous. "Gazalem" comma "a stone"
comma "which is my servant." So it
could be a
presentation of a stone or it could be Gazalem
and then this is the description: a stone.
But what's really significant I
think here is this idea that whatever is
going on with all this
the Lord is behind it this is a
divine miraculous work that's being
accomplished right? This isn't just
Joseph Smith doing his crazy folk
magic stuff like a lot of people maybe
assumed he was doing. No this was
Joseph was being divinely prepared and
tutored to use these instruments in a
miraculous way right and that's why
Joseph Smith could say it was
accomplished by the gift and power of
God. Yes and it absolutely was. And
so but at the time, 19th century, lots of
people were using divining rods, people
were you know people really believed in
the connection with the Almighty,
connection with the heavens and they
would try and like harness that energy
and so back in the day this wasn't
actually that weird. Like now
nowadays we think of like using a
brownstone to translate Egyptian like
that makes no sense to anyone but at the
time it wasn't it was actually
commonplace. And you know what, 100 years
from now people are going to be like you
put implants in your butt? Why would you
do that that's strange. And you go, well we
want to look like Kylie Jenner and Kim K!
Why? That's weird
that's so weird and I know you're
laughing but legit put yourself a
hundred years from now is you're gonna
look back and think that's so strange. I'm imagining
them now, they're like oh my gosh Kwaku, you
honestly just take one thing and relate it
to another and that's so ad-hoc and it's
just so straw man. And they are right!
They're right, it was a stupid comparison
but we have to be funny on the
show. You're doing a great job by the way. Thank you.
So you know besides... well here's the other
thing, besides just Joseph Smith, we have
other prophets in the Bible and other
scripture that used instruments to
accomplish God's work. Think of Moses
using his staff when he was in the
Court of the Egyptians. Think of the Ark
of the Covenant which the Israelites
literally hauled around with them from
place to place where they kept the Ten
Commandments, the tablets of the Ten
Commandments and so forth. Even think of
in the New Testament you have Jesus who
performs miracles by spitting into clay
and anointing people's eyes with it.
Even Harrison Ford and Raiders of
the Lost Ark. He even uses the
Ark of the Covenant so don't act like
this isn't secular.
That's right.
Look, you know this basically the... Using
Indiana Jones to back of your religion
huh? That's way to go, absolutely. Yeah.
Stephen Spielberg's a closet Mormon, we
all know it. No but you know, for
people who believe in God, people who are
part of the judeo-christian tradition
this shouldn't be this crazy, the idea
that God would prepare some kind of
instruments. The Book of Mormon calls
them means that God would prepare means to
accomplish his work and from the
perspective of faith we can see this
happening with Joseph Smith utilizing
these stones to translate the Book of Mormon. One
of the strangest things that I feel we
as Latter-day Saints get attacked for
and get distanced from the rest of the
Christian community is some of
the more, let's just take the stones
right? To a lot of people, though,
that's so weird
stones being used to translate ancient
records. Sir, you believe in a talking
snake. We cannot rule out miracles and
strange things in Christianity and in
theology. You can't say oh that's crazy
but this isn't crazy. Moses parted the sea. And not just
a talking snake but a talking donkey.
A talking donkey. That's in the Bible.
A talking ass. There's plenty of you out
there. Sorry.
And we're canceled haha. I think the key
scripture is Doctrine and Covenants section
88 verses 118 which says, "And as all have
not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one
another the words of wisdom. Yay seek ye out
of the best books words of wisdom. Seek
learning, even by study and also by faith."
So even when we have these Commandments
to study history and geography and
languages and so forth the component
there is faith, by study and also by
faith and so yeah we hope that you know
people won't sort of like base their
testimony on this evidence per se.
Ultimately it is the spirit that
witnesses of the truth the Book of
Mormon and that's what is key. So make sure
you like and follow the Book of Mormon
Central on Facebook, follow them on
Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to
them here in YouTube. But I got a
question. So in the end of the old
Genesis you know hey, Noah gets on a
boat. I can go find the boat that's in
the Bible. Wait, what? I can
find the boat.
Where's the boat? The boat's on the water,
Noah had a boat, therefore the Bible is true. I want
to know where's Mormon's boat?
Mormon had a book, not a boat.
Yeah, key difference. The boat of Mormon.
That is a spinoff. That's gonna be the next
musical. The boat of Mormon.
And then like Thomas the Train
rolls in.
Get the creators of South Park on the line right now.
Trey Parker. Matt Stone.
Okay, we got a new screenplay for ya.
We got a pitch for ya.