Hank Smith: 00:01 Welcome to followHIM, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come, Follow Me study. I am Hank Smith.

John Bytheway: 00:09 And I’m John Bytheway.

Hank Smith: 00:11 We love to learn.

John Bytheway: 00:11 We love to laugh.

Hank Smith: 00:13 We want to learn and laugh with you.

John Bytheway: 00:15 As together, we followHIM.

Hank Smith: 00:20 Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name is Hank Smith, I am your host. I am here with my stunning co-host, John Bytheway. Hi John.

John Bytheway: 00:33 That reminds me of Star Trek when they set phasers on stun.

Hank Smith: 00:37 We have a lot of listeners out there. I was in Alamo, Nevada the other day, and Lonnie Walch stopped me and he said, “Thank you so much for your podcast. I have never missed an episode. I have not missed a single episode.” So Lonnie, and all of you who are listening, we want to give you a big thank you and we know you’re in for a treat today. So John, we are going to study two years of Church History today, so we had to get someone who knew their stuff. Who’s with us?

John Bytheway: 01:07 We are so delighted to have Elizabeth Kuehn with us today and Kuehn is spelled K-U-E-H-N, so Elizabeth taught me how to say that. I am now keen on how to say that.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 01:20 Nice.

John Bytheway: 01:20 That’s an awesome word. But we’re so delighted to have her here today and it’s so fun, every week Hank, to just know how many folks there are with strong testimonies who know this stuff. Elizabeth received her bachelor of arts degree in history from Arizona State University and her master of arts from Purdue. She entered a doctoral program in history at the University of California – Irvine and became a PhD candidate there in 2011 and since 2013 she’s worked as a documentary editor and historian on the Joseph Smith Papers Project based at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City. She is a co-editor of several documentary editions of the Joseph Smith Papers including Documents, Volume 5 and she is currently working on a financial series.

John Bytheway: 02:15 The last six years of her research has specialized in the Latter-day Saint community in Kirtland, and on the financial records of Joseph Smith. More recently she has worked on controversies in Nauvoo in 1842, including Joseph Smith’s bankruptcy proceedings and plural marriage. She has worked to bring greater inclusion of women and representation of their experiences to the Joseph Smith Papers Project. So Elizabeth, we’re so glad to have you and your perspective and your expertise here today.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 02:46 Yeah, glad to be here.

Hank Smith: 02:48 Elizabeth, we are in Sections 111 through 114 of the Doctrine and Covenants and like we mentioned before, this is two years’ worth of time in just these four sections. So John and I, we’re just going to kind of sit back and let you take over and say, “Okay, what do we need to know in order to jump into this time period?”

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 03:08 So I think the natural backdrop is the Kirtland Temple Dedication and kind of everything that happens after that. Section 111 takes place in August, but of course between the temple dedication in March and August, a lot is happening, and so Joseph really turns his attention to building and expanding the city of Kirtland as a gathering place for the Saints and as a stake of Zion. So he expands this view and also takes on a more kind of temporal role in this kind of active city-building. I think an important thing for listeners to realize is that Kirtland was a growing and thriving community in 1836. This is a really prosperous time for Kirtland and for the United States more broadly. Sometimes we look at the failure of the Kirtland Bank and the different crises, the apostasy that happens, and we want to kind of throw that back on 1836 and say, “Oh, it was just a dark, difficult time.” It became a very dark and difficult time, but not in 1836. 1836, it’s prosperous, the Saints are ambitious, and they’re kind of excited, right, for these possibilities that Joseph is outlining for a greater city. So I just kind of want to set the scene that way and make sure that we keep in mind that ’36 is a prosperous time.

Hank Smith: 04:35 Yeah. Wonderful. It seems like sunny days are about to turn into stormy days.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 04:42 Yeah, and that’s really the context of this kind of shift from ’36 to ’37. You essentially see an economic bubble burst, kind of akin to 2008 and the economic crisis that we all probably remember. 1836, everyone was so excited about the prosperity that they were doing kind of unwise financial things. They were overextending their credit, they were taking out more loans than they probably should have, and the market wasn’t able to sustain that, and so in 1837, you have a devastating financial crisis that historians call the Panic of 1837. This shuts down banks, it plummets land values, and it really adds to the complications of 1837 for the Saints and it’s kind of the setting that we need to keep in mind when we talk about all the crises and difficulties that accompany 1837.

Hank Smith: 05:33 Okay. That’s smart, because I remember 2008 and I remember having good friends who are bishops saying, “I’ve never seen this much welfare,” people coming in saying, “I’m in more really serious trouble than ever before.” So I’m sure we’ll get a chance to talk about that more.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 05:50 Of course there are financial realities in connection with the temple, and the construction costs for the temple had resulted in thousands of dollars of debt. Joseph and other Church leaders were aware of this debt, and concerned about it, and we kind of see that addressed in D&C 111. But again, to kind of set the scene, I want to emphasize that this wasn’t crippling debt. As it’s kind of sometimes been portrayed. Church leaders were worried, they were working on the problem, but they weren’t desperate. There is sometimes a tendency to see the events of 1836 and 1837 as acts of desperation or recklessness on the part of the prophet, and I think it’s really important for us to realize that that’s not the case.

John Bytheway: 06:34 I think I read somewhere, $13,000 was owed on the temple?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 06:38 So we don’t have exact figures. Building the temple cost between $20,000 and $30,000.

Hank Smith: 06:44 So that’s like, “Wow, okay, this was significant.” But you’re saying they’re not panicking, right?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 06:49 Right. They’re not reacting out of panic. I think it’s a definite concern, but it’s not leading them to make bad choices and sometimes we have the tendency I think to read, especially the bank and the Salem trip as these kind of like poor choices in light of the desperation of debt.

Hank Smith: 07:14 Got it, and you’re saying don’t look at it that way. They’re exploring options maybe.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 07:20 Exactly.

John Bytheway: 07:21 Well, I came across in trying to prepare for this the name of Jonathan Burgess as part of 111. Can you tell us what was going on there?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 07:33 So we get this story later that there is a member known as Burgess, and he’s not identified as Jonathan Burgess in the sources, that he comes to Kirtland with this idea that he has a location in Salem where there might be hidden money that Joseph might be able to access. Now there’s some problems with this story, and I would urge us to be a little bit more open-minded than the scripture heading might frame it.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 08:10 So we do have a promissory note that Joseph writes to a Jonathan Burgess, in the course of the Salem trip. So Jonathan Burgess is someone that he’s talking to, but there is … We get this story essentially through Fawn Brodie from Ebenezer Robinson, and so Ebenezer Robinson kind of on the surface looks like someone who would be really credible. He worked in the printing office, was a partner of Don Carlos Smith, and he writes these reflections later on in the 1880s, where he’s clearly using a journal and an account book. So he does have some sources from the time, but I question a little bit how much he is correctly remembering facts from the 1830s. So in 1889 –

Hank Smith: 09:04 50 years.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 09:04 50 years. Yeah. So this is 50 years and also at this point, he has kind of left Brigham Young and the Church, he was with the RLDS Church for a little while, and in the 1880s, he is a member of David Whitmer’s Church of Christ, and so he’s very focused on making Whitmer kind of the focus. So he uses this Salem narrative to show how Joseph is a fallen prophet by going after temporal things and how David Whitmer is kind of his rightful and chosen successor in the Restoration.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 09:38 So that’s kind of the background to this treasure hunting hidden money aspect of the story, and there might be grains of truth to it. We know that Joseph did look for … Was involved with treasure digging in his earlier years, and I don’t want to say that it’s not possible. I just want to kind of show that we should be a little skeptical about taking Ebenezer Robinson at face value with everything that he’s saying.

John Bytheway: 10:09 Hank, this is why I love having historians on it. This is exactly why I love it because there are so many different things that enter into a story. Is it a recollection, is it a fact, is it third person.

Hank Smith: 10:26 Yeah, in fact, Elizabeth could we stop, just for a second. I want to ask you about this skill set because it’s something that I try as a teacher to give my students. Being source critical. That doesn’t mean criticizing every source, just being source critical. You can find a lot of history online these days, you can find what people say is true history and you as a historian are going, “Well, we need to learn how to look at sources.” Can you give us some tools that the average member can use when they’re looking at history just in general?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 10:58 So I think some things to keep in mind, like John was saying, how direct is the source? Is it thirdhand, is it a firsthand account? How close to the facts is the person giving you the information and is there a way to document it? Are there any kind of supporting sources that can say something like, “Oh hey, yeah, we can see something else from an entirely different perspective,” that essentially says the same thing.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 11:23 Another thing to be critical of is if you’re getting the exact same story, people don’t tell stories in exactly the same way and so if it’s verbatim, then it’s usually a little bit more kind of rehearsed or remembered and not always an authentic memory as it were. Sometimes you have to take kind of their intentions into play. Like with this Ebenezer Robinson thing. He really doesn’t have Joseph’s best intentions in telling the story, so that’s one of the kind of red flags for me as a historian to say, “Well what is his intention and what bias can I identify in these sources?”

Hank Smith: 12:05 If I go online thinking any source is a good source, what’s going to happen to me? I mean what’s going to happen to me is I just dig in, “Well, they have a source, so obviously is it true, right?” I mean that seems pretty dangerous. I bet you’ve run into that.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 12:20 Yeah. It’s actually really interesting because other historians can be guilty of it. One of my favorite examples is with the Kirtland Bank, a scholar who is completely outside of Mormonism, has not worked in Church History, took at face value Warren Parrish’s editorial ranting about how Joseph was a tyrant and had ruined everything and it was just like, “Gosh. Look at this Joseph Smith guy.” Because he took at face value the words of a dissenter who had every intention of painting Joseph in a negative light.

Hank Smith: 12:52 Right, and he took that, that’s truth. I think any time you can help us not just with our sections but also a skill set, please do so today.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 13:02 Well and history’s ever changing, and one of my kind of favorite examples of that is that those changes can sometimes take … Add problems as well, right? So in the instance of this 111 Revelation, August 6 revelation, the 1940 Doctrine and Covenants heading for this section is much more streamlined and just says, “Joseph went on a trip and here’s what happened in Salem.” It doesn’t set at all the context of this hidden money story. It’s later historians, largely using Fawn Brodie, that introduce that story, taking it again at face value.

John Bytheway: 13:43 Yeah, you bring up the name Fawn Brodie and I think she’s the one who wrote the book No Man Knows My History, antagonistic to Joseph Smith, but yeah, tell us where Fawn Brodie is coming from in all of this.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 13:55 So she’s antagonistic but I think it’s also important to remember that she was kept out of the archives. She couldn’t get into the actual sources, especially ones like the Joseph Smith Papers are making available, and so she’s using outside sources like this Ebenezer Robinson source, like a lot of kind of the rumors and secondary sources, to create a narrative and historians today are very skeptical of that narrative because of the sources that she was using.

Hank Smith: 14:25 Okay, and that’s important.

John Bytheway: 14:27 Yeah, I’m looking at the heading and it says, “Revelation,” as we’ve seen so many other headings, “Given to the prophet at …” …” Is it Kirtland? Is it Nauvoo? No. Is it Jackson? No. It’s Salem, Massachusetts? How does this happen?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 14:41 Yeah, so this is definitely a departure for Joseph, right? So they leave on the trip on 29 July, but a few days beforehand, he had written letters to William W. Phelps and other church leaders in Clay County about the situation of the Saints there. The Saints had been forced out of Clay County, much like they had been in Jackson County. It was playing out very similarly all over again, and so you can tell the redemption of Zion is on his mind, and it’s a concern and yet he goes to the Eastern United States, and that’s kind of a puzzle. We don’t exactly know what his intentions for the trip are, so it’s a group of four that go on the trip, Joseph, Sidney Rigdon, Oliver Cowdery, and his brother Hyrum Smith. One of the possible intentions had been a prophesied second Camp of Israel expedition in September.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 15:42 So it might have already been planned to kind of do this, this effort to raise money and men who would go on the expedition, and of course that kind of gets shelved when they find out that the Saints are forced out of Clay County now. But it’s possible that they were following in on the intention to go anyway and they kind of take a wandering trip, by boat and train and they’re proselytizing along the way, they stop in New York for several days, tour the financial district, there had been a fire there a year before. They stop in Boston and visit several historic sites, and then they come to Salem and it’s in Salem that Joseph gets the revelation that we now know as D&C 111.

Hank Smith: 16:27 I find that interesting that Joseph Smith is stopping at historic sites because every historic site I go to has to do with Joseph Smith.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 16:34 So if we look at the verses, the first several verses, I think it’s powerful to keep in mind the reassurance that the Lord is giving them, that church leaders will be able to address these two weighty concerns, the redemption of Zion and the repayment of their debts, and as I mentioned, the redemption of Zion was kind of in flux. The members had been kicked out of Clay County. They didn’t really know how they were going to address that situation and so I imagine that’s very much on Joseph’s mind and in this revelation we see the reassurance, like things will work out, Zion will be redeemed.

Hank Smith: 17:14 Okay. Yeah, because we had been driven from Jackson County into Clay County, hoping to get back in, and now we have to leave Clay County and go even further north in Missouri, further away from Jackson County, and that’s got to be a little frustrating, saying we’re going in the opposite direction we want to go.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 17:29 Exactly, and then in terms of the debt, the temple was this large and beautiful building, but it was expensive to construct, and the Saints had sacrificed a great deal to complete it. But they hadn’t been able to provide for all the costs, and so there were significant debts that went into completing the building, and I don’t … I’m not sure that many listeners would understand why Joseph and other Church leaders would go into such debt. I think sometimes the current church emphasis on self-sufficiency and staying out of debt is so kind of present in our minds that we do a disservice to Joseph and the early Saints and kind of read this fear of debt into the past and be critical of Joseph Smith and others who really have no other options. He had few resources and to do what the Lord directed meant that debt was necessary.

Hank Smith: 18:30 Yeah. I think this is another important skill, Elizabeth, wouldn’t you say, is not taking our 2021 knowledge, views, doctrine, everything we know –

John Bytheway: 18:39 Our social morays, everything.

Hank Smith: 18:41 Yeah, and placing it in the 1830s.

John Bytheway: 18:45 That’s not fair. These people aren’t here to defend themselves.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 18:49 Right, and it’s a very different world.

Hank Smith: 18:51 Yeah, I just think life’s al to easier when I just assume, “Hey, were doing the best they could and they were very new at all of this and in this case here’s Joseph being told, “Build a temple.”” He’s never done it before, nobody else has, we need an architect, should we make it out of logs, I don’t think so. All of this stuff we’ve talked about, and they were kind of going … Making this up as they went along but he wanted to keep the commandments. I think that’s the part that I just want … The Lord told us to do this, and you remember Hank in those sections, like 94 through 97, it’s just so obvious the Lord was really anxious to give them the temple blessings but they hadn’t finished it yet. So they finally have … Okay, now they’ve got a debt, but the Lord will help us with that too, it sounds like. I like these verses 5 and 6, “Concern not yourselves.” In fact, Elizabeth, you said a phrase that I remember Sheri Dew saying once, “If you are to be around President Hinckley a lot, you would hear this phrase over and over again. You would hear him say things will work out.”

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 20:00 And to me, that’s kind of the takeaway and the hallmark of D&C 111 is the reassurance. I find it very interesting that the revelation doesn’t tell them how this is going to be accomplished. It doesn’t lay out step by step what they should do. It just gives them the reassurance that it will happen.

Hank Smith: 20:19 It’s going to work out, and I like … Me personally, Elizabeth, jumping into Verse 1, I love the Lord’s attitude here is –

John Bytheway: 20:26 [inaudible 00:20:26]

Hank Smith: 20:26 I’m not displeased with this trip, notwithstanding your follies. Okay.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 20:33 Maybe your motivations weren’t quite –

Hank Smith: 20:34 Probably not the best idea.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 20:35 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 20:37 Yeah. It’s like I’m not mad at you, I’m not displeased. I felt like … The Lord is doing a facepalm here, “Well, okay, no I’m not displeased, you’ve got some follies,” and then gives them some ideas of some of the positives.

Hank Smith: 20:53 To me that sounds like a parent. I think I’ve said almost the exact same thing before.

John Bytheway: 20:58 Yeah, you can do that if you want.

Hank Smith: 20:59 Like, “Okay. What did you do? Alright. Okay. Let’s work this out. Let’s work this out.” Very patient, very understanding. Elizabeth, tell us what you think of Verse 1 and just walk us through this.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 21:15 I think verse 1 plays into us not knowing the motivations for this trip and it’s just kind of a historical silence. Later on, verses indicate that they’re looking for something in Salem, but we just honestly don’t know what it is and there could be some truth to this Ebenezer Robinson kind of search for money. I also think that we should kind of be broadly minded here. Joseph’s doing a lot. He’s just acquired the Egyptian mummies, he’s learning Hebrew, he’s very interested in ancient things and artifacts and manuscripts and I just think that the way that Ebenezer Robinson framed it is in terms of money and treasure which I think he pulls from the second verse and is using it to kind of shape an interpretation that could be negative when I think what the Lord is saying in the second verse is coming to this city, I will make this a really good thing for you. There’s so much that the city can provide Zion that … Kind of like you used that parent analogy, like not only will I run with this, but we will make this a really good thing for you and for Zion.

Hank Smith: 22:33 That’s great, even with some follies involved, I can make it a good thing.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 22:40 Right, shortcomings, and I think that that’s an important thing to remember. Joseph never held himself up as perfect. He tells the Saints many times, “I’m not perfect. Don’t expect perfection of me or I’ll expect it of you.” He was aware of his shortcomings and I think he largely owned up to them.

John Bytheway: 22:59 Yeah, and I mean, in fact he puts them in the Doctrine and Covenants. How many sections have we seen the Lord saying, “I know he has sins. I know he has problems. Let me deal with them.” If he wants to be seen as perfect, don’t let these get published. Keep these ones out of there.

Hank Smith: 23:15 I love how authentic that is. I think I would be suspect if he put himself out there as perfect in all these sections. The fact that he has to be forgiven over and over again makes him a lot more relatable to folks like me I think, that the Lord can use whoever he’s got to do what he needs to do.

John Bytheway: 23:36 When the Lord says I have much treasure in this city to help Zion, my guess, automatically, and you can correct me here Elizabeth is he’s not talking about money, he’s talking about souls, people. Am I right about that?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 23:50 Yes, I think you are. It’s not borne out in the 1836 context, but in 1841, Erastus Snow was essentially handed this revelation as a missionary and told him, “Go fulfill this. Go gather Saints to Zion.” There’s not even a branch in the city at that point and poor Erastus Snow, his companion Benjamin Winchester kind of leaves him, he’s trying, he’s trying so hard, all of his reactions are negative. It takes him five months to finally start getting converts and he writes in his journal that if he didn’t have this revelation, he doesn’t know if he would have stuck around for all those months without success, thinking that he would eventually be able to form a branch and actually gather 75 people to Nauvoo when he comes back in 1843.

Hank Smith: 24:40 Wow. And that is treasure.

John Bytheway: 24:43 Yeah, this idea of treasure being people makes sense to me. I’m using ancient paper scriptures and there’s room, right after the Romans 1:13 reference on Footnote 2A, for me to write Exodus 19:5, and I know that Hank spends a lot of time in Exodus, he loves that book.

Hank Smith: 25:03 I do. Yes.

John Bytheway: 25:04 But this verse specifically refers to people as treasure, it says, “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people.” I think I’ve heard that called [inaudible 00:25:19], I think I heard [inaudible 00:25:21] that we’ve had before talk about peculiar treasure that his people were, and so I love the idea that the people could be the treasure that this is referring to.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 25:33 Right, and I think that … That seems a more likely interpretation to me than just reading it in kind of a literal sense as money.

John Bytheway: 25:45 Especially if it’s the Lord talking. It’s not mortals talking, it’s the Lord talking by his definition of treasure.

Hank Smith: 25:52 And it does, “I will gather out in my due time.” So you’re talking, “Well, the Lord’s due time is five years later, 1841, with Erastus Snow going to Salem and baptizing so many.” It’s almost as if the Lord knows everything. I am just really impressed with him.

John Bytheway: 26:11 They called it the Salem Treasure Branch is what they ended up calling –

Hank Smith: 26:14 They should. Your treasure is here.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 26:18 So Verses 3 and 4 give the four men that have been on this trip additional instructions about what they’re supposed to be doing in Salem.

Hank Smith: 26:26 Elizabeth, we haven’t mentioned this. This is kind of like an all-star team here. Joseph, Sidney, Hyrum and Oliver. Like this is a group of friends going on a historical trip. Like this is a … These guys have known each other a long time. When you’re talking about how long have people been in the Church, three of the four have been in since the beginning. Really, right? Then Sidney came along very early.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 26:49 Right, and we know that one of the reasons that Oliver Cowdery is going on this trip is for his health. He wants to take the waters in on the kind of coast, that kind of older belief of kind of relaxing, especially warm water, helping your health, and Sidney Rigdon it turns out is kind of the most prominent preacher over the course of this trip. We don’t see Joseph preaching that much but Sidney is kind of giving, kind of directing the services that they do hold.

Hank Smith: 27:23 Wow, that’s pretty cool, and he was good at it.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 27:26 Yeah, he was a phenomenal preacher.

Hank Smith: 27:28 He had the gift.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 27:29 So the revelation further instructs them to essentially meet people, to learn about the area, learn about its history, learn about its ancient inhabitants. I think it’s really important to keep in mind that that’s exactly what they had been doing and what they continue to do. So they were preaching, they were proselytizing, they were meeting people and they were touring all these kinds of famous areas in kind of Salem in the Boston area, going to museums, historic places. Some of these are the famous East India Marine Society Museum which is actually still there and you can tour and there are all these locations around Salem that are related to the witchcraft trials. Oliver Cowdery in particular, in letters that are printed in The Messenger and Advocate, the Kirtland newspaper, [inaudible 00:28:14] kind of effusive about Gallows Hill and kind of freedom of religion, religious freedom, and how the Salem witch trials are kind of one of the lessons about that. They also go to Charlestown, where an Ursuline Convent had been destroyed years earlier because of essentially public suspicion and anti-Catholic sentiment. There were all these kinds of rumors about the Catholic convent there and so they’re seeing this as kind of in the vein of religious liberty and religious freedom. They also go to the Bunker Hill Monument, which was only partially constructed at that point.

Hank Smith: 28:54 Oh my goodness, it’s partially constructed. My brother-in-law Derek Booth took me there, we ran up to the very top. I felt like I conquered Bunker Hill. I didn’t know Joseph Smith went there. That’s fantastic.

John Bytheway: 29:09 You know what I love about hearing this is they had been counseled in earlier sections to learn about countries and kingdoms and the perplexities of the … I mean they have been counseled to learn everything they could, in what Section 88, and what’s the other one? And here they are doing it there. Love it.

Hank Smith: 29:27 Yeah. That’s fantastic. I did not know all this. Elizabeth, this is great.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 29:31 So this is just kind of … I feel like it’s kind of a corrective to some of that kind of Ebenezer Robinson viewing this revelation in kind of a negative light. Like they’ve made a mistake, and the Lord is somehow kind of punishing that. Maybe there weren’t the greatest of motivations and maybe there were some issues of money or finance that were incorporated with this. But I think there’s a lot around that. There’s more going on.

Hank Smith: 30:00 Yeah. I really like that. We won’t bring my wife on the podcast but I have made a few not great financial decisions before in my life, and that was not my entire life. When I made that decision, it wasn’t like that’s all my focus was, and I think you’re trying to put it in its proper perspective. Maybe they were up there for this money that was hidden. But that wasn’t them. That’s not their entirety, that’s all they’re talking about and focused on and I can see how we can slip into that narrative if we’re not careful.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 30:30 Right, and then kind of looking at verse 5 and the debt, kind of the reassurance of repayment there, I think something we tend to overlook in connection to kind of the emphasis that’s placed on the Church debts in Kirtland is that the Church and its leaders were in debt from 1830 on. There was never a time in Joseph Smith’s leadership of the Church when he was not in debt, when the Church wasn’t in debt, and I think it’s important to realize that this isn’t out of any misguided speculation or excessive spending. It’s just the sheer necessity and circumstances that they’re in. They have to provide for the poor and impoverished among the Latter-day Saints. They’re overcoming expulsions of the Saints from first Jackson County, then Clay County, then trying to buy land in Caldwell County, building communities from essentially nothing, and that required substantial resources. Which led to them purchasing land and goods on credit and working to repay those loans. It’s essentially how growth was funded in the 19th century. In order to start something, create something, a farm, a business, a building, you went into debt and hoped to be prosperous enough that you could repay the debts that you’ve taken out, and they really have few significant assets and I think it’s a testament to their faith that they dedicated what they had to the work of the Lord.

Hank Smith: 31:54 Wow. Very well said, Elizabeth. That really shifts the narrative on the Church’s debt for me personally.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 32:02 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 32:02 I feel like … I think that you guys are too young to remember the movie The Windows of Heaven about Lorenzo Snow going to St. George. You’re a St. George guy, Hank.

Hank Smith: 32:14 Yeah. I thought you were going to say we were too young to remember when Lorenzo Snow was president.

John Bytheway: 32:19 You’re too young to remember Lorenzo Snow –

Hank Smith: 32:19 Like you were.

John Bytheway: 32:21 We were friends, right. And I think I remember kind of a postscript of the movie is that he goes down there, there’s a drought in St. George and he preaches tithing and since that time, the Church had not been in debt but that’s … So if that’s historically right, that’s long after they’re in Utah.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 32:41 It takes a long time for the Church to be truly financially solvent.

Hank Smith: 32:46 So Elizabeth, did you cover what you wanted on the debt there? Or did you have some more?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 32:52 That was the heart of it. I’ve got just a tiny bit more.

Hank Smith: 32:55 Okay, yeah, please do. Because I think this is something, this skill of not only just with debt, of saying, “Look, this is how debt is today, I can’t believe they would do that then.” We need to fix that and I think you’re the person to do it. So I think this is really, really good.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 33:15 Well I’ve been working with Joseph’s finances for about eight years now, so … So I think it’s also important to realize that the debts mentioned in D&C 111 in connection with the temple were not even Joseph Smith’s personal debts. The bulk of the Church’s debt, the thousands of dollars spent in building and completing the Kirtland Temple, weighed primarily on the shoulders of the Temple Building Committee, which was composed of Hyrum Smith, Jared Carter, and Reynolds Cahoon. So Joseph wasn’t even personally on the line for these debts, but he really cared about repaying them and in a huge testament to me of who he was as both a person and a prophet, he will eventually take these on as his personal debts and this will send him into bankruptcy.

Hank Smith: 34:03 Wow. Good point, and I think that … As I was reading this earlier today, I thought he wasn’t hoping to find money so that he could have a lavish lifestyle or something. Whatever lavish means in 1836, you know, have a nicer covered wagon or a nicer coach or stagecoach, but his motive was to pay the Church’s debt. Is that fair?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 34:28 Absolutely. We very rarely see Joseph kind of acting solely on his own benefit and his debts are so intertwined with the Church’s that it’s really hard to separate the two. Because when he has resources, those are going either … Essentially to his family and their needs, or to the Church’s needs, and that is true in Nauvoo as well.

John Bytheway: 34:51 Wow. Wow.

Hank Smith: 34:51 Yeah, and that’s coming from Elizabeth, who I don’t know who else would know more about his finances than you, eight years. I mean that’s coming from a historian that knows his finances. I love that.

John Bytheway: 35:06 Yeah. I don’t want Elizabeth to spend eight years going through my financial … She might be like, “You just kept 7-Eleven in business. That’s all you did.” I think it would be misapplication for us to take verse 5 and say, “Hey look, debt’s okay. I can go into debt because the Lord’s going to give me power to pay them.” I think that would be a misapplication of scripture, where you’re saying, “Look, the Lord is okay with debt.” Because we have how many statements today from General Authorities about debt?

Hank Smith: 35:43 Go to Section 19, pay the debt you’ve contracted with the print or release yourself from bondage, right? So this is concern not … To me it’s like don’t worry about it, the opposite of worry is faith. I’m going to help you with that, that’s what I’m seeing there. I’m on your side here and I’m going to be here and help you with that.

John Bytheway: 36:04 And the debts they’ve incurred Elizabeth is telling us, they’re not foolish debts because they wanted a new boat or they wanted the latest car. I think the Lord might say … If that was the case, he might be like, “Yeah, you need to concern yourself with that debt because you have not been smart.”

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 36:18 It goes back to what I was saying earlier about reassurance. They had gone into debt for good reasons, to build the temple as the Lord had directed.

Hank Smith: 36:26 Build the temple.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 36:26 And this was kind of the consequences of that, and the Lord’s saying, “We’ll work it out. We’ll figure it out.”

John Bytheway: 36:32 Maybe this is overstating it, but there were people living in lean-tos who were building the temple, right?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 36:38 Absolutely. No, that’s definitely true. You’ve got these kind of partially constructed homes, people living in essentially wagons, that are doing everything they can, but they have such little means that they can’t give money they don’t have.

Hank Smith: 36:55 In verse 6, you already told us, this is the idea that they’re worried about what’s happening in Missouri, right?

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 37:01 Right. So the Saints had been … Had essentially agreed to leave Clay County. There were again threats of mob violence as their Missouri neighbors didn’t want them there and tensions were high and William W. Phelps, Edward Partridge, they’re seeing it play out very similarly to what had happened in Jackson County, and this time, they essentially say, “Okay, we’ll move on,” and agree to the demands of the Clay County citizens.

Hank Smith: 37:35 Yeah, and their lawyer, Alexander Doniphan helps them get a place of their own, right? Further north.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 37:42 Right, and this is the founding of Caldwell County and Far West, and the Saints moving to Far West and trying to establish a settlement there. So when we talk about these later verses, it kind of I think helps us understand that they are looking for some place. Like they are in Salem for a reason, unfortunately we just don’t have existing sources that tell us what that reason is, and I do find it interesting that he says that essentially by the spirit they’ll know it. Which is interesting, especially if we overlay that with this kind of … If we do go with the Ebenezer Robinson story and the place they’re looking for is this kind of deserted house that Jonathan Burgess allegedly tells them about. Apparently the Lord isn’t actually displeased with that. Or it’s that there’s direction to do something else, to look for something else. In a letter that Joseph writes to Emma in this same period, he talks about trying to get access to a place to a house and essentially they aren’t able to, and that’s kind of one of the questionable departures in the Ebenezer Robinson story because in his telling, Burgess isn’t actually able to show them the location that he alleged he knew. But yet according to Robinson they’re able to find it but there’s no money there and they were chasing after false leads and go back to [inaudible 00:39:17].

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 39:19 Not only should we again be skeptical of the Ebenezer Robinson narrative here, but kind of with that broader lens of were they actually searching for a location, like an actual building, a house that they were supposed to rent for the church in some regard. Or that would have something in it. We just don’t know.

Hank Smith: 39:37 I like this Elizabeth. You’re saying the narrative that we’ve kind of gone with for Section 111 needs to be looked at again and said, “Listen. There could be a lot of other things happening here than the one we’ve put forward from a source that’s pretty dubious for many reasons.”

John Bytheway: 39:57 Yeah, we don’t know his motives. It’s like, “Ramses, tell us all about Moses.”

Hank Smith: 40:02 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 40:02 You got to consider what angle he’s coming from.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 40:08 And Robinson has other accounts that we do trust as historians that are valid. So I don’t want to just kind of like smear him. He is a valuable resource for historians and I’d say even those that are very questionable, like for example John C. Bennett. We can still learn a lot by what even essentially anti-Mormon sources are telling us. But you have to kind of read between the lines and like we were talking about be skeptical of the source, kind of realize the bias, realize where it’s coming from. And there’s just a lot of … Distinct lack of contemporary sources for this period. Like we don’t have a Joseph Smith journal. Unfortunately we don’t even have like Oliver Cowdery keeping record. We have a few letters that Oliver Cowdery is writing over the trip, talking about going to Gallows Hill and going to these sites, but he’s not saying here’s our intention, here’s what we’re hoping to succeed in doing. We don’t get that subtext, we just get kind of events.

Hank Smith: 41:06 We all have to infer things. Yeah.

John Bytheway: 41:07 Yeah.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 41:08 There’s a lot of inference and I just … I think when Ebenezer Robinson is our only source for that, there just needs to be a little bit more skepticism.

Hank Smith: 41:17 I heard you say something earlier, you said historical silence, and I think you as a historian are probably comfortable with historical silence. It happens. I think those of us who aren’t are saying, “Well, nature abhors a vacuum. If I don’t know, then fill it in for me, fill it in with some sort of -“

John Bytheway: 41:34 Make something up.

Hank Smith: 41:35 Yeah, with some sort of knowledge. But as a historian, do you get comfortable with historical silence? That you’re just not going to know some things.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 41:43 I think you do have to get to that point. I will say in kind of the years when I was actively working on researching D&C 111 for the Joseph Smith papers, I found the silence very difficult and very frustrating because you’re essentially saying, “I don’t trust Robinson anymore, but I don’t have anything to replace it with.” Which is a very unsatisfying model, right? When you’re like I doubt the only source we do have and I don’t know what to tell you. So I think the silence is important but it’s still a challenge.

Hank Smith: 42:18 Yeah. So everyone out there needs to keep a journal. If there’s any lesson, if you’re going to take a trip, make sure you tell us why you went on that trip.

John Bytheway: 42:30 Hank, I think you probably are like this too, but I find myself so many times in my teaching, if there’s a question, “Well, I’ll say one school of thought is this, and another school of thought is this.”

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 42:44 They don’t give us that much information, right? I mentioned the letter that Joseph writes from Salem to Emma. We have that. We have a single promissory note to Jonathan Burgess that we don’t know what it’s for. We know it was paid. That’s about it, and we have these letters that Oliver Cowdery is writing. So yeah, there’s just scant sources.

John Bytheway: 43:04 The very last verse of this, I don’t want to overstate this, but I don’t … This was one of the most important verses to me in my life was Verse 11. “Be as wise as serpents and yet without sin,” not that part, but this. “I will order all things for your good.” I have an unconventional story of how I met my wife. All of us have our own story. It’s dangerous to say if it happened that way for you it should happen that way for me. I came to trust that verse and have shared it with a lot of young adults as well, that the Lord is saying I will order things. Your attempts have failed, and I will judge when you are able to receive them. That gave me a tremendous amount of comfort, that I could trust God and that he would order things because I wasn’t good at it and that he would judge when I was able to receive them, in his judgment when I was able.

John Bytheway: 44:03 And the day that, and Hank, you know Kim. I just felt like the day that we got married that I just keep feeling like the Lord was saying, “I told you. I told you.” And it was verifying for me verse 11. “I will take care of it.”

Hank Smith: 44:18 That’s wonderful.

John Bytheway: 44:18 So that’s been a very important verse for me and I hope it gives people comfort, especially when we talk about … You’ve heard this phrase a lot, part of trusting God is trusting his timing, and that is one of those verses right there.

Hank Smith: 44:31 Yeah, that’s awesome John, and for those of you who don’t know, John was actually doing well as a single person. Every girl he dated went on a mission and so he was really helping the church at that point.

John Bytheway: 44:40 No, that’s what I tell people. Something about looking at my face made girls want to go on a mission and I could give you their names and their missions but I’m not that bitter but I’m close. No but anyway that –

Hank Smith: 44:54 I think you did a lot of great work then, but no John, you’re right, that is a wonderful verse. It is.

John Bytheway: 44:58 Very, beautiful, helpful verse. Again as we said, as Elizabeth pointed out in verses 5 and 6, I’ve got this. The Lord is saying, “I’ve got this, and don’t be overly worried. Concern not yourselves.” So I love 111:11. I tell my single adult students all the time, 11111. Go read that one. 11111, right? Easy to remember.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 45:25 Well I also love the clause that’s at the end there, that it shall be as fast as you’re able to receive it. Like the Lord is not holding back. We just have to have faith and trust.

Hank Smith: 45:36 Yeah. How open are you to this? I remember … Someone told us that Joseph Smith said, Elizabeth, you’ll know this quote, he said, “I want to give you more. I want to give the Saints more. But every time I introduce something new, they fly to pieces. So I can’t. So as fast as you’re able to receive it, I’ll give it to you.”

John Bytheway: 45:54 And we may have a different idea of what we’re able to receive. That’s what I like here.

Dr. Elizabeth Kuehn: 45:58 Absolutely.

John Bytheway: 45:59 He’s the one who judges if we’re able to receive it or not and that’s part of trusting is timing and his judgment of us. So I put in my, I’ve underlined, [inaudible 00:46:10] able in God’s judgment. He’s the one who judges when we’re able and he loves this. We can trust him, so to me it’s a … Can’t overstate how important that verse has been to me in my life.

Hank Smith: 46:21 Yeah, and a good teacher knows where the next little step needs to be, right? Instead of I’m going to give you all of this right now and overwhelm you, I’ll give you a little bit at a time and I feel like the Lord is a great teacher here. We’ll do it.

John Bytheway: 46:38 Yeah, and that’s an application of that verse, a personal application. That’s what we’re supposed to do with the scripture sometimes is how can I apply this to my own life, so …

Hank Smith: 46:48 Beautiful.

Hank Smith: 46:51 Please join us for Part Two of this podcast.