Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. I am one of your hosts for today, John Dehlin. We are knee deep or waist deep in an amazing series on Mormon Stories podcast called LDS Discussions) with Mike from a website by the same name, ldsdiscussions.com hey, Mike.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:00:23] Hey, everybody.

John Dehlin [00:00:24] Thanks so much for joining us today. It's so this series has just taken. Caught storm. It's taken storm.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:00:30] Yeah. Like, you know, I feel like. I feel like a broken record, but I just, I hope it's helpful for people that are kind of in that point where they're trying to kind of understand these issues maybe in a little bit more detail than like, say, the CS letter and in a way maybe that incorporates both, you know, the critical approach and the apologetic approach. And like, you know, we've talked about in previous episodes, it's obviously not going to cover everything, but it gives an overview, I think. And within each episode, they build on each other to hopefully give a broader context to all of these topics. So as we get further along, it's going to make a lot more sense than if we just kind of covered them without going through this process of trying to do it in kind of a chronological manner.

John Dehlin [00:01:11] Yeah. Yep. By my count, we're 14 episodes in. Really quickly. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. I want to state our intentions. Our intentions are not to harm the Mormon Church. They're not to take people out of the LDS Church. They're not to destroy faith in the LDS Church. The overwhelming mission of this series and a Mormon Stories is what we call informed consent. We just believe that everyone who is either investigating the LDS Church or is a member of it deserves to understand the truth claims and then to make informed decisions. So that's our intention. I will also just really briefly say we're getting some mixed feedback. We love your feedback. Many of you are saying that they like the panel. They like Gerardo, they like Jen, they like Nemo, they like me being a part of the discussion. Many people like a more extensive discussion. And many people do want us to not go too fast and to have points in the conversation where we summarize. So we're getting a lot of that feedback and we're getting some feedback that's like, John, please don't summarize. Just let Mike just do his thing and stay as quiet as possible. And we don't need a lot of contributions. And all I'm gonna say is we're listening to both and we're going to try our best to find a balance between the two. But we also encourage you to use the Speed feature on your podcast app or on YouTube where you speed things up if you want to go faster or you slow things down if you want to slow things down. And on YouTube, we're putting jump points in or time codes where once we've covered one of the slides, it's easy for you to jump either through the forward arrow or through clicking to jump to the next point and the next point and the next point if you're feeling like we're going too slow. And of course, you can always rewind if you feel like we're going too fast. All right, so today the topic is Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Mormon. We've alluded to this or even talked about it more extensively in past episodes. I'm pretty sure we covered this, at least in the Anachronisms episode. Is that right, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:03:14] Yeah, I think we covered this in the Anachronisms episode, and I think we also covered it in the episode on the King James Bible and the Book of Mormon. Mormon, just because this is a really important kind of illustration to show how Joseph Smith is pulling material in and then kind of making changes to work within the Book of Mormon. And it's a really good indicator from, like, a critical perspective as to how we did it. And so a lot of times we always say, like, how could Joseph Smith have done it? And these are the kind of the incidents within the Book of Mormon that you can look at and go, this is an example where we can kind of see where he's starting with and how he makes changes and how it fits in the Book of Mormon. And that allows us, again, from like, a critical perspective, when you're not starting with the conclusion, to say, this is how he's creating material, and, you know, as David Bachway would say, actualizing it to the Book of Mormon to try to make sense for them. But it also leaves his fingerprints all over the text to tell us that he is going to ultimately be the author of the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:04:11] Okay. And yet you feel like this Sermon on the Mount in the King James Version, Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Mormon is so important that it kind of merits its own drill down. And so that's what today is going to be.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:04:26] Yeah. And real quick, if you don't mind, our last episode was on the Tower of Babel, and we had talked about the Jaredite stones and how they end up being the Nephite interpreters, and you had mentioned that you weren't sure if that was like an official position. And I tried to look since that episode to see, and I have found a lot of references indicating they are. I don't know if it's like an official church position, but I just wanted to read. I didn't make a slide on this, but I just have it noted from a Deseret News article where they were going through these stories. And so just real quick and then we'll hop in. But regarding the Nephite interpreters, which would be from the Tower of Babel, which is important because if the Tower of Babel is not historical, these Nephite interpreters are not historical, which means Joseph Smith claimed to find physical items that did not exist. But the Deseret News says last week we revisited the brother of Jared's experience when the Lord touched 16 stones to light the barges for the group's oceanic voyage. The Lord told him to write a record and to seal it up with two stones, possibly two of the 16, so future generations could interpret the text. And then they basically say they don't know, kind of the chain of command, but effectively they say that they eventually go to Mosiah and then it says Mosiah 2 eventually pass the interpreters to other Nephite prophets. And it seems they were included in the stone box with the. More with the Book of Mormon plates. So just to say that from the church's teachings. Yeah. That this has been taught, that this is how the chain of custody goes from these special interpreters that were touched by God all the way down to Joseph Smith getting them. And that's why when we talked about that in the last episode, it was so important, because if the Tower of Babel is not a historical event, which I think most scholars, all scholars that are non secular and even a lot of secular scholars. I flipped that. Yeah, yeah. All secular scholars and even a lot of religious scholars will agree it's a mythological ideological myth then that says that when Joseph Smith claims to have gotten physical objects, they weren't really there. So I just want to clarify that because that was one thing we had kind of open ended from our last episode. So now we can jump into the Sermon on the Mount.

King James Version of the Sermon on the Mount

John Dehlin [00:06:27] All right, let's do it. Let's talk about the King James version of the Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Mormon. Here we go.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:06:36] Yeah. And so we've, you know, again, we've done this in multiple overviews to talk about why the New Testament material is so problematic for the Book of Mormon and the Sermon on the Mount is One of those episodes within that that gives us a really good view as to how Joseph Smith was pulling that material in. And it's an area. Again, we've talked about this in some of our previous overviews on biblical scholarship, but biblical scholarship provides a lot of, I would argue, insurmountable challenges to the Book of Mormon's truth claims of being ancient and authentic as a record of the people of the Americas. And as I mentioned too, when we're doing the intro, this is an area where Joseph Smith is going to leave his fingerprints on the text by making very superficial changes when he realizes they're problematic from the text of the Gospel of Matthew, but then he leaves in other material that he doesn't understand, also has no meaning to the people of America, but he just doesn't realize it. And so by leaving it in, it tells us the source text he was working from. And it allows us to understand why he's making some changes but leaving others in.

John Dehlin [00:07:42] Yeah, it's almost. I was thinking about an analogy of like, forensics. This textual analysis sort of approach allows you to pick up textual clues that helps you understand where. Where the book comes from. Yeah, and. And textual analysis just, it's. It's almost like clues and fingerprints. And if you really, really care about authenticity and origins of a text, this. This approach is. Is super. It's almost scientific. Like, I think it's important to understand that this is a scientific process. It's not just kind of artsy, it's not just shoot from the hip people like David Bachavoy or Bart Ehrman, they're very serious thinkers, and they take a sci. Or Brett Metcalf, they take a scientific approach to textual authenticity. Is that fair to say?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:08:35] Well, yeah, and not only that, but you gotta remember, like, I am just some random dude who likes doing research. When you talk about Dr. Bart Ehrman, Dr. Dave Bachavoy, Brett Metcalf, Dan Vogel, they are going through this stuff in such a meticulous way, not just reading the text, but looking for the original. Like, when you talk about the Bible stuff, they know the original language, a lot of it was written in. And because of that, they can show different translations and how they got to be where they are. And all of those little clues are things Joseph Smith didn't have access to. And so it's very scientific in the sense that now we can apply all of that information we now know about biblical history, the text, all of that into the Book of Mormon and we can assess where Joseph Smith was pulling from. And so to your point, yeah. It is like going through a crime scene. And every time you see these fingerprints Joseph Smith leaves on the text, you can now go, this is where it came from. This is how it got here, and this is why it's right or it's wrong. And we can look at that at face value. And that is why I think a lot of times when people hear critic, they think someone is just trying to tear down the Book of Mormon. It's not that they're trying to tear down the Book of Mormon. They're trying to say, what if we take it at face value as we would with any other religious text, what does that tell us about who composed it and how they did it? And these are the areas of biblical scholarship that are so damning for the Book of Mormon because of the fact that Joseph Smith did not have access to the composition of these books that we now have in 2022. And so he took them as literal history when we now know that even back then, a lot of people didn't take them that way. And they most certainly do not now.

John Dehlin [00:10:09] Beautiful. And Gerardo, I forgot to introduce you and you're a super important part of today and our team. So, Gerardo, thanks for joining us. We're so happy to have you. The viewers and listeners love your contributions. And is there anything you want to say?

Gerardo Sumano [00:10:25] I've just been listening and this is great conversation. I'm super excited to dive in. The Book of Mormon is really important for a lot of people. I think it's one of the reasons that keeps a lot of people inside the church, you know, like so really understanding how it came to be and all this Joseph Smith fingerprints in it and stuff that we can learn about it are really important, you know, for people to make decisions about their lives.

John Dehlin [00:10:57] Yeah. All right, well, let's go to the next, next slide.

Historical Background and the Synoptic Gospels

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:11:02] Yeah. So this is going to be a write up, part of a write up from Dr. Bart Ehrman. And this is important to understanding kind of the history behind the Sermon on the Mountain. So for those who are not familiar, there is this idea of the Synoptic Gospels. And so those are Luke or Mark, Matthew and Luke. And because they're synoptic, because they kind of work together. And so I'll just read Dr. Barter makes. He explains it better. But scholars since the 19th century have worked out the relationship between the synoptic gospels with one, with one another. Matthew, Mark and Luke are called synoptic because they tell many of the same stories, often in the same sequence. And Sometimes in exactly the same words. Synoptic means seen together. You can see these Gospels together by laying them side by side and noting their abundant similarities and differences. But the only way they could have such extensive similarities, especially the verbatim agreements, is if they were copying one another or are copying a common source. It has long been known that Mark was the earliest Gospel and that Matthew and Luke used it as a source for many of their stories. But Matthew and Luke have a number of traditions about Jesus in common that are not found in Mark. For example, the Lord's Prayer and the Beitudes. Almost all, not entirely all of these traditions are sayings of Jesus. And So scholars in 19th century Germany who worked out a solution to the synoptic problem, which is the problem of explaining why the synoptics have so such precise similarities among them. Yet differences suggested that since it appears that Matthew did not get these sayings from Luke or math from Luke, Matthew

John Dehlin [00:12:36] didn't get it from Luke or Luke,

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:12:38] Matthew didn't get from Luke or Luke didn't get it from Matthew, they hypothesized that there was a source at one point that is now lost, that they called the saying source. And the German word for source is, I think it's quell.

John Dehlin [00:12:50] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:12:52] And so the hypothetical document is called the Q source for short. And all that's saying is effectively that Matthew and Luke both have their gospels that borrow heavily from Mark. But then they also have these other stories that are so similar that it would be really hard to believe that they were coming up with them on their own because they're just too similar. And so the belief is that there was a saying source or the Q source and that they were both incorporated into their gospels. Once they incorporated them into their Gospels, there was no need to keep copying the saying source because it had no real value now that it was interwoven into this narrative. And so the belief of scholars is that's why it's now lost. Not because it's bad, but because it had no real functional use. Because remember, it was not easy to copy and carry all these scrolls and all of these writings. And so this is a really easy way of just kind of explaining why Matthew and Luke both are going to have their version of, you know, the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plains, but they're going to be very similar, also have some differences. And this is also going to play into Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon because he is going to pull directly from Matthew and not from Luke.

John Dehlin [00:13:57] And I know we're going to be getting to this. But if I'm summarizing or anticipating what I think your argument is, or this argument is, is that we, as we talk about the, the pure word of God going through, you know, Book of Mormon prophets to Joseph Smith to the Book of Mormon through a pure translation, we would expect the most pure source to flow through. Why are we adding these layers if, if we know that, that Matthew and Mark and Luke all probably pull from a more current, more pure source, why wouldn't the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith be pulling from that or even the pure word of God versus what appears to be clearly pulling from secondary and tertiary sources? Is that kind of where this is shaping up?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:14:51] Yeah, I mean, like, and again, it's because of the fact that we are being told that the Book of Mormon plates are being written by the people of America. And so to have New Testament material is a problem because you are then. And we'll get to this obviously, as we go, but you're effectively claiming, and apologists do claim this, that Jesus is in some way like a politician giving a stump speech throughout the country and you're going to give the same speech to everyone. Except in this case, we are going to have instances where it just makes no sense. You know, again, it would be like going, you know, to, you know, California and giving them a speech and then going to Florida and talking about the problems of San Diego in ways that people in Florida wouldn't understand. And so this idea that Jesus is just giving this same blanket speech over and over again is highly problematic. And so by looking at the way that the Sermon on the Mount is going to come into Matthew, it really leaves a lot of problems because as we'll get into, it was never given as a standalone sermon. And so to be in the Book of Mormon, it's, it's just, it's out of place in almost every way.

Gerardo Sumano [00:15:58] But also, I think what's really interesting is that, I mean, I, I pulled up, I pulled up Luke's sermon on the planes, and while it sounds a little similar to Matthew, there's striking differences, you know, so, yeah, I can see why scholars think they are both taken from, from a, from one single or now lost source. But it's interesting that what we're gonna end up having in the Book of Mormon is just Matthew and not. It's.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:16:31] Yeah, exactly.

Gerardo Sumano [00:16:32] Pretty much like a copy of the Matthew Sermon of the Mount. Nothing really that indicates that he was looking or whoever was writing. It's almost like Jesus went to America and Gave the Matthew Sermon on the Mount and Bud forgot Luke.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:16:49] Yeah, that's just it. That mean. And that's just it. And that's why we try to cover this in the previous episodes in different ways. But when you can pull the exact part that Joseph Smith is borrowing from, it opens up a lot of doors into how to explain how he did it. And so in this case, to your point, he is looking directly at Matthew. And so then you have to believe that, you know, I mean, like, the difference between Matthew and Luke aren't addressed at all. It's just those are the little clues that are telling you this is not going to be a composition done by the ancient Americas because the fact they have difference between Matthew and Luke would tell you there should be more differences between Matthew and the Book of Mormon. And we just don't see it.

John Dehlin [00:17:32] Okay, so let's go to the next slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:17:35] Yeah, and so this is another way to look at why they believe that there's this Q source that's being used, which would be kind of a secondary source that's being used to effectively kind of like weave a narrative of Jesus's teachings. And so Dr. Ehrman explains that the Q source, again known as the Sayings Gospel, is believed to include many sayings from Jesus during his lifetime, which were then woven into Matthew and Luke in the voice of Jesus. And scholars believe that Matthew and Luke had a separate source, which would be this Q source, because while they have the same material, it's not used in the same way. And so Bart Ehrman says the beitudes in the Lord's Prayer, for example, are in different sections of Luke, but are joined together as part of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. And so this is not a universally held view, of course, and there are people that kind of dispute the idea of a separate source that would just be a bunch of Jesus's sayings. But it is a view that has a lot of consensus among secular scholars who study the textual similarities, similarities between the synoptic Gospels. And so while we don't have an extant Q source, scholars believe that basically, like I said earlier, once they incorporated it, there'd be no reason to continually copy those things, because picture a sheet of sayings that you said on your podcast, John, and then someone writes a two page article and they weave those all into the article. Like, why would you keep copying those sayings separately? Because they'd have. No. They have a lot more value in a narrative setting than they do just on some separate thing. That's basically just like Copying down stuff that they believe Jesus said. And so it's just kind of to give a background into why they believe Matthew and Luke are similar but different. And it's not. The Q source itself isn't entirely important to the Book of Mormon, but it's important to give that context before we get into the Sermon on the Mount.

John Dehlin [00:19:26] Okay, all right, that's fascinating.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:19:31] And so this is done by the website Thoughts on Things and Stuff, which is Jonathan Streeter's website. And what he did was he tracked all of the changes between the King James Bible translation of the Sermon on the Mount and the Book of Mormon sermon at the Temple. And I'm going to go through this really quick. It's just basically you look at Matthew 5 against third Nephi 12, 31% of the original words of Matthew 5 are deleted and 33% were added to the text to create the chapter 12. And basically, I mean, 66% were copied verbatim. Matthew 6, verses 3, Nephi 13, 90% of the words were copied verbatim. Matthew 7, verses 35, 14, 94% of verbatim. So overall, just 16% of those three chapters were deleted, 19% were added, which means that 81% of basically the sermon of the Temple is copied verbatim from the King James Bible Gospel of Matthew.

John Dehlin [00:20:33] Okay, and so what do we derive from this slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:20:38] I think this is just a way to show that Joseph Smith, when he's bringing this into the Book of Mormon, is just taking the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew as his foundational text and then he's just making changes as he saw fit. But the fact that 81% of it goes completely unchanged tells you that without any question, he's pulling from the King James Bible and not from some ancient record of the ancient Americas, because that is too high of a number to believe, even if like. And you got to remember, I think I mentioned this in here, but remember that Matthew is not going to be written, I believe, until about 50 years after Jesus dies. And the manuscript we have available to us today is probably later than that. So think about how much a speech or a sermon would change with oral retellings over 50 years.

John Dehlin [00:21:27] And then imagine 50 years.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:21:30] 50 years. And so you've got about a 50 year window after Jesus dies before this is going to be written down. I believe Matthew is written about 85.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] Just. Sorry, just to drive that home, you know, we've all played that game of telephone where you sit in a circle and someone starts with a sentence or a phrase and then they whisper it in the ear and whisper it in the air and it goes around a circle. And then you look at how much it's changed just within the same five minutes, going around the room. Imagine a story that's told for 50 years, how much it changes. Sorry, I just had to just really drive that point home for listening.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:22:04] Well, you have. I mean, again, you know, I know people hate that example because they feel like it's overly simplistic, but take a group of adults. Take adults, you don't even have to do kids. Take 10 adults and line them up and, and give them just one, just one paragraph and see what it ends up at the end of 10. This is multiple, three chapters of text over 50 years. And so not only are they going to mess it up unintentionally, but they are going to change it based on the needs of their community. And so we've talked about this in previous episodes, but this is going to have so many differences from the way Jesus may have given it. You know, so the idea that it would be the same as being written down in the ancient Americas is just without any basis in logic. Because if it was also written down on the gold plates, there is absolutely zero chance 80% of it is going to match the King James Bible because that the set of plates should have been an abridgment of contemporaneous records, not an abridgment of 50 year old king James language. And that's why we've tried to hammer this home, because when you start with the King James Bible as your foundational text, you have already abandoned the idea that this is an ancient text. Now if you want to say there's an ancient core, you have to show that. And this is telling you again that we look at the Book of Mormon, the crowning event is Jesus coming. And 81% of it is directly word for word from the King James Bible. There's just no way this gives you any indication outside of it being a 19th century text.

John Dehlin [00:23:37] Yeah, and just one more high level thought I had, which is that we only have to look to the Mormon Church, the LDS Church and the Articles of Faith. We know that, that the LDS Church is on record as saying that the Bible has translation problems.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:23:52] Right.

John Dehlin [00:23:52] So that begs the, you know, for me that, that makes me want to ask the question, why are we using the King James version of the Bible at all? This is God's chance to communicate the pure words of Jesus to Joseph Smith through inspired prophets, which the Book of Mormon prophets would be. And I was just in the uk. I was just in Oxford where the King James Version of the Bible was produced. And for me, that just adds extra teeth to this idea. Why are we using the King James version Bible at all when Mormonism itself teaches that it's a flawed and a corrupt book? It just. Yeah, so anyway, we've made that point.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:24:37] Yeah, no, it is true. And this kind of actually leads into this point really well, which is, you know, scholars believe that the Sermon on the Mount was almost certainly originally written in Greek. Some argue there might have been some earlier records in Aramaic because that's the language Jesus spoke. But the New Testament as we have it, the manuscripts we have are Greek. And so the Sermon on the Mount as written in the King James Bible has been through two language translations because Jesus spoke in Aramaic during his lifetime. And then the King James Bible is translated from Greek manuscripts. So we have a Book of Mormon that's supposed to be, as you just said, a record that avoids all of these problems with material getting corrupted or lost during translations. And yet Joseph Smith here is taking the lane of taking what would be like the crowning event in the Book of Mormon and taking a version that's been through two different translations. And the final point to that is we talked about this in an earlier episode, but Joseph Smith made a big point. And Oliver Cowdery, I also believe, said it. I know Joseph Smith said there was absolutely no Greek on the gold plates. And if you want to make that claim, then you have to argue why is a sermon that was derived out of a Greek translation finding its way into the Book of Mormon if there's no Greek on the plate? You can't have it both ways.

John Dehlin [00:25:50] Yeah. So many layers from Aramaic to Greek to King James English.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:25:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:25:56] So many opportunities for corruption. Why?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:25:59] And that's just it.

Gerardo Sumano [00:25:59] Like.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:26:00] And the whole point is this is supposed to be a sermon that's being given in the ancient Americas, which would be done in its. In a pure. I'm not saying pure demic language, but pure language to this, to these people who could write it down contemporaneously and you would gain so much knowledge. Right?

John Dehlin [00:26:15] Yeah.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:26:15] But instead, in this crowning event, you're kicking the can to the King James Bible. And I'm not trying to be facetious. I'm just saying, like, this is a huge event in the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, effectively, as I believe David Whitmer or Martin Harris said for convenience, is going to. Well, I guess convenience was a seer stone, but I would say for Convenience is just going to riff off the Bible. And by riffing off of the Bible, not ripping off, riffing off the Bible is going to pull in all of those same issues that he is claiming to fix by bringing the Book of Mormon forth. And it just, it makes no sense.

John Dehlin [00:26:48] Okay. Wow. Yeah, that's powerful.

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:50] And I.

John Dehlin [00:26:51] Go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:26:52] I think as you, as we consider all this stuff, as people are considering all this issues, it's important to keep that number in mind. Right. Like 80%. Is that, is that what you said?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:27:04] Yeah, yeah, 81.

Gerardo Sumano [00:27:05] 80% of the sermon of the Mount War forward ends up being in the Book of Mormon of Matthew, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:27:13] Yeah. And from Matthew, Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. Yeah, that's just a problem.

Textual Anachronisms and Aramaic Words

John Dehlin [00:27:18] Okay.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:27:19] And so this is what I was talking about at the beginning. Remember, there's 81% is the same, but there are changes. And so when the writer of the Book of Mormon comes across Matthew 5. 26, and he saw the phrase, thou hast paid the uttermost farthing, he immediately knows that that's an English currency and would have absolutely no meaning or purpose to those living in ancient Americas. And so Joseph, I mean, I'm obviously the belief Joseph Smith wrote. So then Joseph Smith changes to until thou has paid the uttermost C9 in third Nephi 1226. And C9 is the Nephite coinage that is mentioned in Alma, which is just two books prior and then is never mentioned again after this chapter. And so that tells you that I'm not. I'm not sure if Joseph Smith in Alma is thinking ahead to the Sermon on the Mount and is trying to figure out a way to basically fix the. The currency issue, or if it just happened to be that he had the currency issue in there. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, that's perfect. But it's mentioned just two books previously mentioned here and then just basically thrown out for the rest of the Book of Mormon. And that tells you the currency is not something that is this complex part of the Book of Mormon that you often hear. They'll say, oh, there's this complex currency system. It's like, well, not really, because it's never mentioned outside of basically two parts of two books of the Book of Mormon. But the bigger flaw to that is that the Sermon on the Mount Jesus refers to the Roman law of going a mile in chapter five, verse 41. And it says, and whoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him. Twain. This is a reference to a Roman practice where Roman soldiers could Grab any Jewish citizen they chose and force that person to carry luggage or other items for a standard mile. That kind of oppressive, invasive act would naturally inspire a hunger for revenge. That's from a Bible reference dictionary. That would have absolutely no meaning whatsoever to the people of ancient America. But Joseph Smith had no idea that that line is a Roman law. He just, you know, he wouldn't know. Why would he? Why would he know that? But because he doesn't know that, he puts that in the Book of Mormon and all of a sudden you now have a fingerprint that shows Joseph Smith is willing to make changes when he realizes it's a problem. But when he doesn't know it's a problem, God's not telling him the rocks, the seer stone's not telling him. No one's telling him. You can't leave this in here because this has no meaning. And it again shows you that the King James Bible is the foundational text and it's not a set of gold plates.

John Dehlin [00:29:43] Yeah, for me, I told Gerardo before the show, for me, this is a. This is a real smoking gun. The fact that he was conscious enough to not use farthing and instead use C9, but then he leaves mile in, which is a British unit of distance measurement. Like, why isn't there some Nephite equivalent to a kilometer or a mile? It just is a clear oversight. And it shows that he was semi conscious but not conscious enough.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:30:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:16] And for me, this is. This, this slide right here is a smoking gun upon a thousand other smoking guns for me. Now, I'm not saying listeners and viewers need to see it that way. I'm just saying, for me, I'm like, wow, why isn't there a gooberla instead of a mile? You know what I mean? A fluber jab instead of a mile. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:30:37] And not only that, but imagine if Joseph Smith had made that change, all of a sudden it would go, okay, he was aware of something that people were not aware of at that time. But as we've seen, and that's a pattern throughout everything we've done, which is Joseph Smith only is aware of what everybody else was aware of in his lifetime. And so this is an issue where he would not have known this is a specific Roman law. So he puts it in there and it's just, you know, it's very clear at this point that he's willing to change things that he's aware of, but when he's not aware of it, he's powerless to make those changes. And before I forget, I want to give another shout out to Brett Metcalf because this was something that he had mentioned, I think, on an episode with you that I had listened to early on when I was trying to figure all this out. And it was another one of those moments where you're like, holy crap, that's a big deal. And so, you know, I love Brett Metcalf's work with all this because he explains it in a way. I think that really just drills down to the fact that this is the crowning event of the Book of Mormon. And yet we can see where Joseph Smith is pulling the text from, and we can see his fingerprints all over these changes.

John Dehlin [00:31:39] Yeah, beautiful. Okay, next slide is entitled Leaving the Aramaic word raca in the Book of Mormon.

Gerardo Sumano [00:31:49] Yep.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:31:49] And so this is along those same lines. So in Matthew 5. 22, it says, but I say unto you that whoever, whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And who, whosoever shall say to his brother, raa shall be in danger of the council, but whoever shall say, thou fool shall be in danger of hellfire. And the Book of Mormon in 3rd Nephi 12:22 says basically the same thing. It just says, you know, by saying to you that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of his judgment. And whoever shall say to his brother, raqqa shall be in danger of the council. And whoever shall say, thou fool shall be in danger of hellfire. And this is really important because Joseph Smith makes a small change, right? So in Matthew it says, whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger. Joseph Smith changes that to whoever whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger. So he takes out without a cause, but he leaves the word raqqa in there, which is an Aramaic word that means fool or empty headed, which means that Joseph Smith made a change to this verse, bringing it into the Book of Mormon, but did not realize that Raqqa was not a name, but an Aramaic word that stood for basically a fool. And so it tells you again that Joseph Smith is actively changing this verse, but is unable to understand that the word raca would have absolutely no meaning to the Book of Mormon people. Again, it would be like a visitor to the USA using the word lure to describe a fool, which is fool in Norwegian, instead of just saying fool. Because if I went to, you know, if a Norwegian came and looked at me and they said, you lure, I'd be like thinking like a fishing lure or whatever. That's what the Book of Mormon is effectively doing. It's using a word that has no meaning. And in that same verse, Joseph Smith makes other changes. So you can't even make the argument that Joseph Smith wasn't even like actively engaging in this text. He is actively engaging in this verse and yet leaves that Aramaic word right in there.

John Dehlin [00:33:38] Is that, Is that. Oh, go ahead.

Gerardo Sumano [00:33:41] I have a question, Mike. Would Lehi have a. Would Lehigh Doc Aramaic?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:33:48] I don't think so. I think, I mean, I think I believe Hebrew would be. Would he be it? Because that was like the whole thing with. When Lehi leaves, it's Hebrew and then obviously there's Egyptian, but the earliest forms of the Pentateuch would be in Hebrew. Obviously this would be written in Greek because Greek slash Aramaic because of, you know, being New Testament. But yeah, there's no reason to think in any way that they would have access to any Aramaic, nor is there any indication anywhere in the text that they are kind of using that. So I would say no, no chance.

John Dehlin [00:34:22] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:34:23] Okay, cool.

John Dehlin [00:34:24] Why would, why would Lehi have spoken or written in Hebrew but Jesus would have spoken in Aramaic? I'm confused about that. Why would Lehi had the same spoken language as Jesus?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:34:43] I am not positive on that. I just, I mean, I believe that Hebrew, man, you know, you'd have to have someone like David that, just because I don't know the relationship. I know that they, you know, they had the Hebrew text at that time, but I think they spoke in Aramaic. But again, I'm not super positive about it.

John Dehlin [00:34:59] Maybe Aramaic was the spoken language, but Hebrew was the written. I'm not sure.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:35:03] I think that's how it was.

John Dehlin [00:35:04] I'm sure our viewers and listeners will let us know.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:35:07] Yeah, like I said that one I'm not totally positive on. But regardless, Aramaic would have no place within the Book of Mormon timeframe just because we have one, no mention of it. And two, I don't believe Aramaic was a factor in Old Testament writings when Lehi left. But if I'm wrong, please correct me on that.

John Dehlin [00:35:21] Is the word raca used erroneously in Matthew?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:35:26] I don't think so, because I think they're saying in Matthew, you're saying to your brother that he's a fool, you know, so shall say to his brother Rocco, which is like saying, whoever shall say to his brother, you empty headed fool, shall be in danger of the council. I think that's what I mean. I think it's used correctly. It's just that is not a name. It's Like a. An insult. And so I think Joseph Smith is thinking that's a name like your brother's raka, or maybe rock is another word for brother. But instead, he's bringing in a word that, you know, effectively is just not going. Again, it would be like I said, it would be like saying lure, which is a Norwegian word for fully. It would have no meaning to the ancient Americas because they wouldn't speak that language. And they would just be like, what do you talk. Who's Rocco? What are you talking about? You know, I mean, it just wouldn't even matter.

John Dehlin [00:36:10] Yeah. Okay. All right, so next slide is late additions from the Sermon on the Mount in the book.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:36:16] Yeah. And so this is. Again, we've talked about this in previous episodes, but Joseph Smith uses late additions in the Bible that come into the Book of Mormon, and that, again, tells you that he's working off the King James Bible and not off of gold plates. And so in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer is in Matthew, chapter 6, as it is in 3rd Nephi 13. The ending of the Lord's Prayer is considered a doxology that was not present in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew. And so specifically Matthew 6:13, which is the same as Nephi, third Nephi 3, 13:13, says, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. And scholars consider this a late edition, as it's not in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew, and the edition is considered a doxology, which is what they call a hymn or form of words containing an ascription of praise to God. And so we talked about this in the long ending of Mark, but this is another area where you'll have some Bible translations that'll actually make a note to say that that's a late edition. It was not on the earliest manuscripts, but because it's in the King James Bible, it goes into the Book of Mormon. And this is another area, just as I mentioned at the start of this episode, where Joseph Smith does not know about this biblical scholarship stuff for obvious reasons, and it comes back to bite him.

John Dehlin [00:37:36] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:37:39] Makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:37:40] Yeah. Anything you want to add to that, Herodo?

Gerardo Sumano [00:37:43] No, I mean, it's. I think it's pretty straightforward. Like, it's kind of like the long ending of Mark, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:37:50] Yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:37:52] It's not there on the earliest manuscripts, but somehow it ends up in the Book of Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:37:58] Yeah. And. And the fact is this seems it's such a small thing, right? It's just one phrase off of the. The verse, but that one phrase tells you that Joseph Smith is using something that is not original or contemporaneous. And because of that, we can now go back and say, well, the King James Bible had it. That's what Joseph Smith is using, and that's why it's there. But that little. That little verse is an anachronism in the Book of Mormon that we can now show exactly where it's coming from and why it's there. And that's how you know this is not an ancient text. Because of all of these little issues that might seem small, but they're markers that are telling us this is not ancient. Because he's pulling from a source that happened, you know, hundreds of years later, potentially just like long ending. And Mark, they. They think it was probably 200 years after Mark was composed. Well, this is going to be a similar situation. And that little. That little verse is an anachronism that. That's screaming to us. Not only is it not an ancient text, but we know where he's pulling from.

John Dehlin [00:38:53] Yeah, makes sense. Okay, next slide is apologetic responses to the Sermon on the Mount.

Apologetic Responses from LDS Scholars

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:39:00] Yeah. And so most of this is going to be from an article from Book of Mormon central, just because they had done an article that tried to kind of explain this. And so what they're trying to. What they say is, yet there are several elements present in the third Nephi text that distinguish it from the version of Matthew. These differences are significant and set it apart as distinct and powerful testament of its own. For instance, in this setting, Jesus declared that the law had been fulfilled instead of pointing towards a future fulfillment. He also taught that as a glorified being, he was perfect like the Father, and thus omitted thy kingdom come in the Lord's Prayer. He also specifically spoke of the Nephite Sinai instead of the Jewish farthing. And we talked about this already, but these differences fit exactly into what we were saying earlier, which is that Joseph Smith used the Sermon on the Mount as a source text and changed it to fit the needs of the Book of Mormon. Jesus declared the law was fulfilled in the Book of Mormon because he had already been crucified.

John Dehlin [00:39:54] Jesus, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to kind of make that change.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:39:58] That's just it. Like, of course you're reading that and

John Dehlin [00:40:00] you're like, oh, Jesus is there now, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:40:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:40:04] I mean, he's just died. He's there. He's gonna, like, Joseph's gonna be smart enough to kind of change the wording of the world.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:40:10] Yeah. I mean, that's the whole, like, this is why this is like such a horrible argument. And it's just, I mean this is a terrible argument from Book of Mormon central because they know full well why these changes would need to be made. These are not a good example from Book of Mormon central be Joseph Smith made this change of the Roman law because he knew that was a Roman law. No one did at the time. Or that he got rid of the Aramaic word Raqqa. They are giving you three examples that a 12 year old who is trying to redo that would know because obviously the idea is that Jesus would be perfected because he was resurrected. And then obviously Joseph Smith is going to change the word farthing to c9 because farthing in ancient America would have no point. And so these three examples are terrible examples and yet they're going to present them to try to get readers to glaze over and say, oh my goodness, how did Joseph know? It's like, how would he not know? I mean these are, these are the most basic changes. But what they're actually doing is proving the point we're making is that Joseph is willing and able to make basic changes but completely misses the other ones.

John Dehlin [00:41:13] Like Mile. Like mile question. Right.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:15] Because it says is this, is this a copy paste of Book of Mormon central.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:41:21] The, the first paragraph is the second tour, as they say.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:25] He also specific at the end of the first paragraph. He also specifically spoke of the Nephite instead of the Jewish farthing.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:41:33] Yeah, you're right, it's not Jewish. That'd be.

John Dehlin [00:41:35] But it's not Jewish English, it's British English.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:38] And the farthing is a former monetary unit and coin of the uk.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:41:41] Yeah. So they must have had a typo there when they were putting that together because I did copy and paste from them on that. I did actually. I didn't even catch that they had the typo there. But yeah, I'm sure in their head.

Gerardo Sumano [00:41:50] I don't think it's just a typo. It makes it look more impressive because Joseph wouldn't have known about Jewish coins, but he would obviously know about UK coins, you know.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:42:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, and the thing is it makes, you know, from a King James Bible perspective, it makes some sense to have it say farthing because you're trying to make it make sense to the people that are reading it. But the Book of Mormon again is going to. It's not so much that they're changing it to C9, it's that he's making that change but leaving others in. I think for me it's that's the most important part because I obviously, I think to your point, apologists would just say, well, he changed. Jesus isn't going to say farthing there. He's going to say C9 because farthing will make no sense. And I agree with that. But then you have to take it a step further and say, well, why didn't he change the other things that would make sense. Yeah, because just. Yeah, so I agree with you. Yeah, I totally agree with you on that one.

Gerardo Sumano [00:42:44] What, what I'm saying is like they're, when they're calling the coin the farthing coin, they're calling it a Jewish coin, which is not true. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:42:53] Yeah. I'm guessing that's a type one Book

Gerardo Sumano [00:42:55] of Mormon central, but they're making it sound more impressive.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:42:58] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Gerardo Sumano [00:42:59] Jewish because. Yeah, because how would Joseph know about Jewish coinage? But. Right, right. But he obviously knew that it was a New England. A coin that would be found in New York or something like that.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:43:11] Yeah. And so I think, you know, in that regard, it's one of those things where I think you try to kind of gloss over the fact that this is a manual. The King James Bible has gone through, you know, the New Testament has gone through probably two translations, right. From, you know, being said in Aramaic to written down in Greek to translate into English. And if you start to say these things to a believing member of the church, and then you say, but it's also brought directly in the Book of Mormon, it raises eyebrows. So I think you're right. They're trying to make it, I think, seem more. They're trying to make it seem like it's more credible by just kind of jumping over the fact that there's multiple translations here that are making their way into a text that says there was no Greek on the plates.

Gerardo Sumano [00:43:50] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:52] Did. Is there more. Were you, Were you going to. Is there more you wanted to say about this slide, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:43:58] No, I'm good on this one.

John Dehlin [00:43:59] Yeah. I'm just going to say that it's also deceptive of Fairmormon or Book of Mormon Central to call a hit Joseph's using of C9 instead of farthing, but to intentionally, I assume, neglect to mention that he, that he blew it with mile. You know, the, the sort of unit. Unit of distance, British unit of distance. They. They know they would know better. And if they're honest, they're not just going to put forward the, the hits from their perspective. They're going to acknowledge the glaring misses. Right.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:44:39] Well, I mean, yeah, if you're being, if you're trying to be like. And that's, you know, again, we talk about this in all these episodes. We're trying our best to present the apologetic response and that's why we're doing this here, to at least explain what they consider to be hits. And so this is what they consider to be hits on this part. And when you actually look at what they consider to be hits, this is something. Again, if you had given me this part of Matthew and said write this as if it's being said later on, I would do that too. Because even I, who am not nearly, I mean, I'm not nearly as familiar with the Bible as Joseph Smith was, I could have done that. Because you could understand that from the perspective that Joseph Smith is bringing us into the Book of Mormon, Jesus is already dead and resurrected, well then that's going to change those things. But the problem is in, we've talked about this in previous episodes and I think any scholar would admit one anachronism tells you it's not from the time frame. These are anachronisms. By leaving in Roman laws that have no meaning to the ancient Americas or leaving in Aramaic words or bringing in late editions, those are all problems that don't go away. Even if you want to claim Joseph Smith made a hit by realizing that ancient America wouldn't know what farthing is. And so that's why I think these are deceptive, because they're trying to present this as if, holy cow, how could Joseph have known? But when you actually read the text, like, how could he not? How could anyone not know? It's so he's making me most obvious superficial changes. And that is, that's just, it's bad. It's, you know, in Book of Mormon central I obviously am not a huge fan of, because I think they do a lot of this kind of stretching more so than, than like I would obviously way prefer Richard Bushman or Terrell Givens, but these are the types of things that they'll do and say, how could he have known? And it's just, it's so dishonest. And from a believing perspective, you, you read this and you go, oh, wow, that's okay, cool, I now know it. But at some point you'll probably come across something that says, oh yeah, they were full of crap when they told you that. And more importantly, the Book of Mormon central people almost certainly know better because they are reading the critical stuff to answer them. And so they're likely coming across this and then cherry picking a few things and ignoring all of the really core problems, they're looking at superficial things. And I don't mean to rant on this. I'm just saying this particular example is just so egregiously bad because they know full well that those three changes anyone would notice whoever was writing it. And to cite that as some sort of proof that this is ancient is just ridiculous. Okay, yeah, sorry, I don't mean to rant on that. It's just that is a horrible apologetics. And so.

John Dehlin [00:47:01] So the next slide's entitled Jesus Gave this Sermon the same sermon all over the world.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:47:06] Yeah, and so this is from. This is a Book of Mormon Central. And I've seen this from other people too. But they say the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount were an important set of teachings which are likely older than the Gospel of Matthew itself. It is therefore not surprising that they are presented in various writings and settings. A similar but selectively shorter body of teachings is found in Luke 6, 1749, which is often referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. The exact relationship between these two texts is debated, but they arguably represent two occasions in which Jesus propounded similar teachings, but a smaller set to the crowd out on a field. And so the thing is, it's absolutely true that the Sermon on the Mount is older than the Gospel of Matthew because we talked about the Gospel of Matthew wasn't composed until about 60 or, sorry, 85 AD, which is about 50 plus years after Jesus dies. And so the idea that this is older is that that's correct. But the problem is that the Book of Mormon is using the text directly out of the King James Bible. And so we talked about this in previous episodes. When you look at apologetics, they'll say, well, what about this, this and this? And you go, but that doesn't answer the problem. The problem is still, no matter what Jesus might have taught, Joseph Smith is still pulling directly out of the King James Bible. So even if Jesus went and gave sermons all over the area that were similar, and that's possible, it doesn't matter when what we have is coming directly out of the King James Bible and more specifically, Matthew.

Gerardo Sumano [00:48:29] Right, right. That's a good point. Because if, you know, like in a short period of time, Jesus was giving similar but not exact word for word sermons, even, you know, even if we take Book of Mormon Central's idea, you know, that Luke and Matthews were two separate sermons, why would Jesus give almost word for word in America, the Matthew sermon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:48:55] Exactly. I mean, and that's just it. So, like, they're gonna go, well, look, Jesus gave a really different, shorter sermon in, in Luke. So obviously Jesus was giving similar talks around the world. Well, but then you'd have a difference from Matthew. Like, that's the problem. The problem is it's so similar to. It's so laser focused on Matthew. And so they're making an argument that I think, again, would sound good to a believer because you're not giving the underlying context that the problem isn't necessarily the similarity. It's that Joseph Smith is pulling directly from the King James Bible, which is not written for 50 years after Jesus would have died. And it's being translated from Greek and it's specifically from Matthew. And they're leaving in things that, you know, that would make no sense. It's all of these things. It's not. They're trying to kind of deflect by giving you these, like, well, maybe it's this or maybe he gave this. But at the end of the day, they're ignoring the underlying problem intentionally, which is that no matter what you want to say here, Joseph Smith is still pulling from the King James Bible and bringing in errors, late editions, all of those problems. None of that goes away, no matter how many times Jesus gave the sermon.

John Dehlin [00:50:00] Got it. Anything else from this slide?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:50:02] No. You know, and the other thing I'll mention real quick, and it's just, I don't think I mentioned this early on, but a lot of scholars don't believe that this was ever a standalone sermon. And so when we mentioned the Q source and we talked about how that was a sayings document, they don't believe this was ever a sermon that Jesus would have given at one time. They believe this is that group of sayings that we discussed earlier and that the writers of Matthew and Luke remember, they're not actually Matthew and Luke, they're anonymous. Writers are basically trying to weave in these sayings in order to effectively give a better meaning to their communities. And so not only does the Book of Mormon central argument not really help of saying Jesus probably gave these same teachings, it's that, you know, in the Book of Mormon, it's the same order as Matthew, same wording as Matthew, same problems as Matthew, so the problems just get deeper and deeper once you get below the surface. And that's why I think here they're trying to tell you, you know, don't, don't look under the hood, don't worry about that, everything's fine. Because it gets a lot worse when you start getting deeper. It does not get better,

John Dehlin [00:51:06] okay? Does that take us to the next slide? Why the Sermon. Why the Sermon on the Mount is in the Book of Mormon.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:51:13] Yeah. And so Book Book of Mormon, is this another apologetic?

John Dehlin [00:51:15] Okay, there's another apology.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:51:16] Yes, there's one more from them and actually there's a couple more from two more from them. But they're saying that there's three reasons why the Sermon on the Mount appears in the Book of Mormon. So the first one is that they say the likelihood that the teachings upon which the Sermon on the Mount is based and which are older than the Matthew text were taught in diverse places to different audiences. The second one is the giving of the sermon was modified to be appropriate for the particular audience. The textual differences between the examples available are appropriate for each audience. Specifically, the Sermon at the Temple in Third Nephi has such modifications as would be expected for a post resurrection version of the sermon. And the third one is the sermon may have served as a set of temple teachings, information that he would have wanted all worthy and prepared disciples to learn. And so we've already covered those first two points. So the first one, you know, is to say, yes, it is older than the Matthew text because Matthew wasn't written for about 50 years later. The second point is to say that yes, Joseph Smith made some changes that would be appropriate, but he also left others in, which tells us that Joseph was actively engaging with the Matthew text and not from an ancient text. So if we go to the next slide, let's tackle that third one real quick because they're saying that the Sermon on the Mount was a temple prep sermon, basically. And so this is a quote from Book of Mormon Central. They say some scholars have noted the parallels between the Sermon on the Mount and the ancient temple. George Strecker, for example, refers to the Beitudes as the conditions that must be fulfilled in order to gain entrance to the holy of holies. Hans Dieter Betz compared the Beitudes of the sermon with the initiation rituals of ancient mystery religions. And just to point out that the writers of Book of Mormon Central here are just looking for ways to tie the serious problems that the Book of Mormon has, bringing the King James translation to give it a deeper meaning. But there's no there there. If you read the Beitudes for yourself and then compare it, if you've been through the temple, compare the Beitudes to what you experience in the temple. And I'm telling you right now, it's parallelomania at its worst. It's just, it's bad. And they conclude with this quote from John Welch which says when Jesus addressed the Nephites of Bountiful, he spoke in terms they would understand. The change in setting from Palestine to Bountiful accounts for several differences between the Sermon on the Mount and the sermon at the Temple. And again, we've covered that already. We don't need to keep hammering this. But they're trying to find all of these things where it's like, you know, squirrel here, squirrel there's, there is. Again, I don't want to go into temple stuff, but just read the Beitudes and if you've gone through the temple, compare it to your temple prep in your temple experience and it's just not there. And so I feel like this is one of those things where you just throw a lot of fancy sounding things out or you try to give a deeper meaning and you hope people don't look because it's just not there. And this is why when you get into apologetics, you run into really bad answers sometimes because instead of just saying we don't know why Joseph Smith copied the King James Inn, they're trying to cover it up with these really bad band aids and they just don't work.

John Dehlin [00:54:15] I mean, that feels so ridiculous to me. If you think about it, what is the modern Mormon Temple ceremony? It's a riff off of the Masonic Lodge ceremony that Joseph himself participated in that we know has origins of, let's just say post 1500. But there's no credible evidence that the Mormon Temple ceremony or the Masonic Lodge ceremony, better said, has any ancient origins.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:54:43] Right.

John Dehlin [00:54:43] And so to try and pass it off like Jesus is basically. And then when you think about how we wouldn't be talking, you know, the apologists, if it were true that Jesus were giving a temple prep class, he wouldn't be giving one based on the temple ceremony in 2022, he would be giving it based on the temple ceremony of 1844. Right, right. Which had the throat slitting and the disemboweling and the pele ale and just all the, the five points of fellowship, all these super Masonic, just barbaric violent acts that don't have ancient origin. So to project back into Jesus's time a temple prep class. Yeah, that's makes no sense. And by the way, like Jews weren't going through the temple as kind of a common ritual that all Jews went through. The only Jews that were going into the temple were like priests. Right? Am I right? They didn't even have common temples and

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:56:03] there was like, there's just one temple.

John Dehlin [00:56:05] Carry your little, you carry your little pouch of Temple clothes and you, you get your little Jewish temple recommend and you like go through the Temple now as like an adult Jew and then do all these violent Masonic. Like that didn't. That wasn't even a thing. So it feels ridiculous.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:56:23] It's just, it's in. Like I said, re. Read the Beitudes and then think about how it connects to the Temple. It's just, it's not there. And so for Book of Mormon Central to put that in there, it's just, it's. It's bad. And again, like Beatitudes, right?

Gerardo Sumano [00:56:37] Beatitudes are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill. Like, what does that have to do.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:56:46] Nothing. I mean, it's just, it's. That's why it's so bad.

John Dehlin [00:56:50] Not only that, Gerardo, but the early versions of the Mormon Temple ceremony called for justice against the people of Missouri. Like, we're talking violent death oaths of retribution against the enemies of the Church. So if anything, the original Mormon Temple ceremony was anti Christian in the sense of instead of being about peace and forgiveness, it was about violence and retributive justice. Does that make sense?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:57:24] I mean, even if you kind of get the blood oath stuff out there, it's just you still have, like, there's just. There's no connection. It's not there.

Gerardo Sumano [00:57:32] Blessed are ye when they shall revile you and persecute you and speak all that is evil against you untruly for my sake, be glad and rejoice for your reward is very raining. Heaven. Like that doesn't sound anything. No, it's just the call for God to bring justice and bloodshed in Missouri. It's just the people that killed the prophet.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:57:55] I mean, it has nothing to do with the endowment ceremony, has nothing to do with polygamy, has nothing to do with ceilings, has nothing to do with Adam, God, all those things that were part of the early Temple, like, none of that's there. And it's just to just throw it out there. Like we put it this way, if the Beatudes really had a connection to the Temple, they would book a. Mormon Central would have put that in there. They would have said, here's the Beitude, here's where it connects. But they don't do it because there, it's not there. And so it's such a dishonest way to try to tell people, don't worry about this problem we've got. It's all been figured out when they can't even back up their own work. They're throwing these, these claims out there, these what ifs out there, but they're not actually putting the underlying text to say, here's the connection. They're just saying there might be. It's just bad. And again, I'm not a fan of Book of Mormon Central. I think that their work is a lot like this. Whereas they are willing to just throw out the worst parallels and say, oh my goodness, what a hit. When you look at it, you're like, that's not there, but this one's just particularly bad.

John Dehlin [00:58:49] Yeah. And we've already talked about in our Anachronisms episode how they stretch these attempts to say, maybe instead of horse, what Joseph meant was tapered. You know, maybe when they said steel sword, what they meant was some type of like stone, like I've heard wood. Yeah. And to even quote from Jack Welch. Jack Welch is so problematic. He is the scholar most known for allegedly finding chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, which literally can be found in Dr. Seuss books and is no evidence of antiquity. And that's Jack Welch. And they're using his quote scholarship. He's an attorney. He's not a scholar in any meaningful, credible way. Yeah, so. But that's what modern Mormon apologetics really are.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [00:59:48] Yeah, I mean, it's just like I said, and Jack Welch, I feel bad for him that he got roped in because I'm sure he did not want to be in that article from Book of Mormon Central. But yeah, it's just they're trying to find these connections that aren't there. And again, if the connections were really there, they would explain why they're there. Instead they're just saying, well, it could be this, it could be that, and the truth is plausible. You know, as we've said before, if there was truly a connection, they'd be a general conference every six months saying, holy crap, did you. Can you believe Joseph Smith guess this. Hahaha. But instead they're just like, don't, don't even, don't look at it. You know, because there's no answers here. I mean, we've tried to illustrate that and. Which is a good time to bring us to the conclusion. So.

John Dehlin [01:00:24] All right, final slide.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:00:26] Yeah. And just to summarize, you know, the Book of Mormon includes almost the exact same sermon, 81%, that was not written down until about 50 years after it would have even been spoken in a language that had gone through two different translations from Jesus's original teachings before being copied into The Book of Mormon. And then, you know, further than that, the Book of Mormon's use of the Sermon on the Mount from the King James Bible suffers from the timing of when these accounts are recorded. Because the Book of Mormon tells us that Jesus visited the Americas in about 34 AD and gives a sermon at the temple that year. But again, the problem is that the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew is not going to be written down until about 85 AD. And so that's that gap I'm talking about. So it's being written 50 years later in Greek. And yet we are to believe that somehow through those two translations, it gets back to the exact same wording that Jesus used in ancient America is 50 years earlier. And that's just a problem. And as we said earlier, you know, beyond the 50 year fact, it's being in a language that has all sorts of changes in current Bible revisions, such as telling people that that doxology in Matthew was a late addition. And so this is an anachronism because it wasn't written when they claim it was set in the Americas. It's got translation errors, it's got the late editions, and then it's going to have the Aramaic word Raqqa, the Roman law going a mile that have no meaning to the Americas. And so all of those things together tell us without any question that Joseph Smith is pulling these from the King James Bible as his foundational text and then making very arbitrary changes to suit the Book of Mormon the best he can. But in doing so makes a lot of errors by leaving other material in that he is unaware is problematic. And so all of those things, again, through all of these different topics just keep telling us without question that when you put these puzzle pieces together, Joseph Smith is the author because we know where he's pulling from and we know the changes he's making. And that is something that we can now look at with a 200 year hindsight. But it's inescapable for the Church because those truth claims in the Book of Mormon are cemented the moment Joseph Smith puts it into the text in 1829. And the church has basically put the entire reputation of the Book of Mormon and the fact that Joseph Smith is dictating it through the power of God. And now 200 years later, we can see that those truth claims are simply not holding up.

Summary, Reflections, and Closing Thoughts

John Dehlin [01:02:45] Yeah, two things I want to, I want to just add in summation and Gerard, I want to get, get you in as well. Like, like, I just want any believer or, or apologist Scholar to explain why farthing was changed to C9, but why mile was left in, assuming the tight translation, which. Which is you can't wiggle out of the tight translation. You just can't.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:03:14] No, you can't.

John Dehlin [01:03:15] And so how do you explain, given the tight translation, mile being left in, but Farthing being swapped for C9. That's number one. Number two is inspired by Michael Coe. For me, it's not just all these glaring fingerprints and the fact that Matthew from the King James Bible appearing in the Book of Mormon literally makes no sense. No sense. But I also just want to add what we learned from Michael Koh, which is what about what is not there that should be there? Why, if this is God's glorious chance to get the pure words of Jesus to the Native Americans, right? And all the. You know, again, we've talked about this in past episodes. The Mormon Church likes to claim that the Scriptures are written for us in our day. So Jesus is going to speak to Native Americans in a special way, in a pure way, for their particular needs and for their day. This is the chance for Jesus to really connect with Native Americans in ways that he wouldn't connect with anyone else on the globe. And it's the chance for Jesus to communicate his pure gospel, right? His pure gospel, unadulterated by the Catholic Church and Protestantism and all the different translations from language to language to language to language. This is his one shot. And there's literally nothing cool or meaningfully new there, let alone none of the Nauvoo innovations that we would if that if ceilings and work for the dead and, you know, temple marriage and the endowment ceremony and three degrees of glory and men becoming gods and polygamy. If that's all like the real juice and the real value add of Mormonism, Jesus could have included some of that in his speech to the Native Americans. And there's nothing new or cool or meaningful. It's just clumsily reworked. Matthew. King James Version. Matthew. Like, that's disappointing. Gerardo, you get the final word here.

Gerardo Sumano [01:05:47] I remember when I was on my mission, you know, and I think one of the things that we were encouraged to teach people the most or promote the most was how amazing it was that the Book of Mormon contained a record of Jesus coming to America. And I remember always going through Third Nephi and reading through the chapters where Jesus came to America and being so underwhelmed by how dry those chapters are, how there was not much more added other than what was already on the Bible. I mean, maybe there was A couple accounts of Jesus praying with the people and stuff like that, but it was nothing amazing. I mean, I was expecting for a record that was kept and preserved for hundreds of years that was written in the moment, that was written in and inspired by God in the way it was written and then translated by the gift and power of God to have it perfectly how God wanted us to have it. And then just reading how Jesus spoke was so boring at times in the Book of Mormon. I remember thinking it was little disappointing. And then, well, now learning how we can see Joseph Smith's fingerprints in. In the Book of Mormon and specifically on this part, you know, like we've talked about, that explains why I was so underwhelmed. And so, yeah, I think this was great episode, great information. Thank you, Mike, for bringing this on.

John Dehlin [01:07:36] Yeah, thanks, Gerardo. We're so glad you joined us, Mike. Thank you as well. And we've got many, many episodes to come. According to the document I'm looking at, this is will appear as episode 14. By the way, Mike, I was going to make the joke or the observation that we recorded these episodes out of order because of different schedule needs. And if people wanted to do use our recording of this as an opportunity to exercise textual analysis, they could actually analyze each episode and probably arrive at the sequence in which we recorded them, which is different than the sequence that we released them. Wouldn't that be a fun exercise for people?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:08:20] It would. I mean, I hope you don't. I hope no one actually is bored enough to do it. But yeah, that's the whole. And that's the whole thing is that because we're out of order a bit, there are going to be clues where we'll maybe reference something that's from an episode, you know, that we'd recorded, but it hasn't been aired, that was recorded,

John Dehlin [01:08:34] that was sequenced later.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:08:35] And those are the clues that people are now using. Like, you know, Brett Metcalf did that to get the translation or the Book of Mormon. And we could do that now to see where he's pulling from, like with the Sermon on the Mount. And that's why when you mentioned earlier, it's a scientific process. It is a process where you're using a lot of critical thinking. You're using scientific analysis, using all of these different things. And it's not just someone slamming the Book of Mormon, saying he ripped it off. It's saying, this is why we can show where he's pulling from and the changes he's making. And once you do that, then all Of a sudden, your source text is not gold plates. It's the King James Bible. And that is why scholars outside of the Church can look at it without any hesitation and say, yeah, this is not an ancient text, because everything about it is screaming 19th century. And the only way you're not going to come to that conclusion is if you're working from an equation that says it cannot be a 19th century text. That's the only way you can get there. Because if you start with a blank slate and you say, I'm not going to give you the answer to the equation, it's going to lead you to the 19th century. It's never going to lead you to an ancient text. It just can't, because it's not there.

John Dehlin [01:09:36] And a free steak dinner with me, Gerardo and Mike for anyone who conducts that analysis and is able to accurately tell us the actual recording order of these episodes. Is that fair, Mike?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:09:50] Yeah, if you could do that, that would be kind of amazing, because I think it would be. It'll be easy. I think on some. I'm sure there's some will be harder. But, yeah, if you could pull that off, more power to you, that'd be pretty impressive.

John Dehlin [01:09:59] Or at least come close, right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:10:00] Yeah, come close at least.

John Dehlin [01:10:02] So, just to let people know a couple final things, we do plan on putting all of these episodes together in a standalone podcast. So look for that podcast, we'll just call it LDS Discussions). I don't think we've even told you this, Mike. We will be putting all these episodes in its own standalone audio podcast. And on YouTube, we've created a playlist called LDS discussions under the Mormon Stories Podcast channel, where if you just want to watch these videos in sequence, you can do so in the playlist and you don't have to wade through the entire Mormon Stories library. So those are some things we're doing. And we're gonna look into providing the video through Spotify as well. It turns out that Spotio now is offering video, so we're going to look for ways to make it really easy for people to consume this series in sequence without all the Mormon story stuff muddled in between.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:11:00] Very cool.

John Dehlin [01:11:02] And then one last thing. We still have the long ending of Mark to go, which we've already recorded. Deutero Isaiah, which we've already recorded. And then we're going to get into First Vision, priesthood, restoration, Word of wisdom. So many other cool episodes in the future.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:11:20] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:11:21] Right?

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:11:21] Yeah, we got one more episode in biblical scholarship, and then we get into history, which I think will be, you know, more fun for people that are really into Mormonism. But I feel like these are important because it's going to give you a lot of underlying info on the Book of Mormon. And in some of our previous ones, it also impacts Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, Doctrine and Covenants. So I think they're areas that aren't touched by a lot of other people. That's why we wanted to do them. But we're almost out of the black hole of scriptures and into the history, which I think will be a lot of fun to kind of transition to

John Dehlin [01:11:50] and to give more clues. We're going to be releasing these episodes once a week over the next few months. In 2022, there may be a couple weeks where we don't have episodes, but then by summer, by fall, by late summer, early fall, we'll get back into recording these uninterrupted. But viewers and listeners, you'll see these for the next few weeks. If there's a week or two where we don't have an episode, don't fret. We'll get back to recording these. All right, Mike, we really appreciate all that you've done, especially given stuff that just happens in our personal lives. So, Mike, we really appreciate you. We can't thank you enough.

Mike (LDS Discussions) [01:12:32] Thanks so much. Thanks, Gerardo.

John Dehlin [01:12:33] Gerardo, you're the best. Come back. Okay?

Gerardo Sumano [01:12:36] Thank you.

Support Mormon Stories Podcast

John Dehlin [01:12:37] All right, everyone. Take care, everybody. Be kind to each other. Be good to each other. Please Support us@mormonstories.org if you can, if you. If you value this content. We. We've been losing donors. We lose donors every month. We've lost some big donors recently because of some financial hard times that people have fallen upon. So if you value this series or other series like it, the Simon Southerton series, the John Larsen series, the Margi Thrive series, we would love you to make up the lost donations with your own support by going to MormonStories.org clicking on the Donate button, becoming a monthly donor. 10 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month. Whatever you can afford. It makes a difference. So please step up and become a donor. Less than one out of a thousand listeners supports us. So please join our list of supporters. We really appreciate you and it means the world. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Be kind to each other. Take care and we'll see you all again soon. On another episode of Mormon Stories and on the LDS discussion series Take Care of.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.