John Bytheway: 00:00:04 Hello, everyone, and welcome to followHIM: Voices of the Restoration. My name is John Bytheway. I’m here with my cohost Hank Smith, who is of a native, cheery temperament, a phrase we hear in the Joseph Smith history about Joseph Smith. We’re excited this year. There’s a new part in the Come, Follow Me manual called Voices of the Restoration, where we hear from people who were there. We’re excited this week to have with us Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. So excited to have him. We’ve had him with us before, who’s going to help us talk about these voices of the Restoration. Hank, what are you looking forward to today?

Hank Smith: 00:00:45 John, I love history. I think the listeners who want to know the history, they want to know the lives of these people, what life was like. We get the revelations, but just to know what the Smith family was going through, what their lives were like, I think it brings the scriptures to life. When you have a historian who can lay that out for you, it is so fun. I’m very grateful for the Come, Follow Me team who puts these manuals together that they’ve put in these 12 sections this year called Voices of the Restoration.

John Bytheway: 00:01:23 Yeah, and Hank, I know that you and I both love a quotation. Some British novelist began a book by saying, “The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”

Hank Smith: 00:01:36 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:01:37 I’m so thankful this morning, Hank. I know you are. One of our favorite guests that we’ve had, I don’t know if I’ve ever laughed so hard on a followHIM recording and learned so much at the same time. We have Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat with us today. Gerrit, what are you looking forward today in Voices of the Restoration?

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:01:56 Yeah, I’m looking forward to talking about the real people that are involved in the history of the Church, the revelations that Joseph Smith receives that make up the Doctrine and Covenants, at least a healthy portion of it. They’re not received in a vacuum. They are very often real-world problems being solved as Joseph goes to The Lord. These people that are experiencing it, these people that are closest to Joseph, the people that are around him in difficulties and in happiness, they are the ones who are most certain that Joseph Smith is receiving revelations from God.

00:02:38 It feels like part of the idea behind the Voices of the Restoration is to say, “These aren’t just documents in a book, and these aren’t just some clever sayings and some Aesop’s Fables here.” These are real people who had real experiences. They saw the revelations unfold as they unfolded. They took each step of the Restoration in a way that it’s easy for us to look back and say, “Oh, of course, they were going to end up in Missouri. Everyone knows that.” I mean, well, nobody knows that, not in 1829 or 1830. You get an insight, a personal insight from people that experienced these miracles, and I think that that would allow the Spirit to speak to us as we study because it’s easier for us to apply it to ourselves. We think about our own lives and our own struggles and how The Lord has helped us.

Hank Smith: 00:03:37 Gerrit, I already am loving this. Years ago, John, David McCullough, a historian, came to BYU in a talk called The Glorious Cause of America. President Hinckley loved David McCullough. This is what he said. “Nobody ever lived in the past. Jefferson, Adams, George Washington, they didn’t walk around saying, ‘Isn’t this fascinating living here in the past? Aren’t we picturesque in our funny clothes?’ They were living in the present just as we do. The great difference is that it was their present, not ours, and just as we don’t know how things are going to turn out, they didn’t either.” Right, Gerrit? If you think they know, “Well, this is where the part where we move to Ohio, oh, this is the part where we go out into Salt Lake. Of course we’re not going to die out here. How would we have the conference center?” You miss it all. You miss their stress. You miss the difficulty of, “What do we do?”

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:04:37 I think that that actually is one of the great traps of learning things about the past is if you want to make yourself feel better, if you want to feel like you’re smarter than everybody else, if you want to feel like you’re more moral than everybody else, if you want to feel incredibly intelligent, then you study the past with that kind of a mindset where, of course, you’re smarter than everyone in the past. They don’t know what a germ is, so yeah, you’re coming across as like you’re Einstein compared to them. Of course they don’t know what’s actually going to happen with world events, but of course, you do, and so sometimes people study the past so that they can break their arm patting themselves on the back. “Oh, if I lived back then, I wouldn’t have thought that.”

00:05:23 Well, yeah, I mean, if you got into a time machine and got it up to 88 miles an hour and went back to the past, then you wouldn’t have that viewpoint, but if you were raised believing that all disease was caused by having too much blood in your body, you would think the only way to cure someone is to bleed them. That sounds idiotic and ridiculous to us today, but it didn’t seem idiotic to them, and there are things right now that we all do that future generations will look back at us and say, “Wow, Gerrit was stupid.” Now, they might say that for other reasons, but let’s just say for sake of argument that a hundred years from now they determine that cellphones were one of the leading causes of cancer.

00:06:11 Now, I’m not saying they are, I’m saying, what if that happened a hundred years from now? We’re shoving the phone right by our face. We’re wearing it in our pocket. Our great-grandchildren, if that were the case, would be like, “Great-Grandpa was an idiot. Didn’t he know that that would…?” That’s something you have to think about. I mean, a great example of this, students of history, when they first start seeing photographs from the 19th century, how happy do those people look? You know the 19th century was terrible because in every photo it’s just straight-

John Bytheway: 00:06:46 Yeah.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:06:47 … there is no smile. It looks like everyone’s posing for a passport photo where they tell you that you can’t smile at all.

Hank Smith: 00:06:54 My Dad was so mad once because I was like, “Is that Grandma or Grandpa?” Like-

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:06:59 Oh.

Hank Smith: 00:06:59 … it…

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:07:00 A photograph’s a great example because I show a photograph of someone from the 1870s and 1880s, 1860s. I show that photograph to a student in 2025, and their cultural knowledge causes them to immediately place their culture on this person from the past because in their current culture, you smile in photographs and if you don’t smile in photographs, then you’re angry or there’s something wrong with you, and so what do they do? They immediately interpret the past through their own lens, and unfortunately that lens is horrifically erroneous, but they’ve already made a conclusion.

00:07:44 The conclusion they’ve made is, “Oh, people were miserable in the 1860s.” They hadn’t really invented good deodorant yet, so maybe they were kind of miserable, but the other aspect of it is think about how we take pictures right now. Everyone knows who’s ever gone to do a family photo. Everyone knows that seconds before that, everybody beaming, smiling picture is people yelling at each other, telling everybody, “Move over, I can’t see you.” Everyone’s mad. “Mom, aren’t we done with this?” Those family photos are actually these very angry times, and then what we do next?” Everyone’s just like, “Eh,” and they’re beaming. Frankly, that’s not how people walk around normally. I’m a pretty happy guy, so I’m smiling a lot, but even I’m not walking around all day with that-

John Bytheway: 00:08:27 That-

Hank Smith: 00:08:27 Yeah.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:08:29 … the giant grin. If you’re watching the video, you can see. It was cultural for people to take photographs in the 19th century in a natural, unemotional state because that’s how you normally are.

00:08:45 When you see people, they generally aren’t beaming with a tooth grin ear to ear when they’re not talking to anyone unless they’re crazy. They would see our photographs and they’d be like, “I know they do drugs in the future, but apparently they do a lot of them.” I mean, everybody’s just… They all have this toothy grin. Even as photograph things change over time, though, culturally it takes well into moving pictures before you start seeing photographs change to the smiley happy ones.

00:09:13 A photograph is a great example of how someone in an instant can misjudge the past because they are treating the past like their present. They’re injecting into the past what they know, and that’s a totally normal and natural thing to do. It’s not like some kind of evil, nefarious thing for an 18-year-old student to see a photograph from 1860 where the person looks pretty angry and to say, “Wow, they must have been very depressed.” It takes education to say, “Actually, no. This is culturally how you pose for a photograph in a more natural state.” Understanding what was culturally acceptable in the past, understanding what stresses and ideas they had.

 00:09:57 We this religiously all the time. There are aspects of Latter-day Saint theology that I would guess almost nobody in the Church struggles with today, but were incredibly difficult for early Church members. For instance, what’s something that early Church members struggled with? They struggle terribly with Doctrine and Covenants Section 76. They struggle with the idea that essentially everyone, or as President Oaks said, “With exceptions too few to mention,” that essentially everyone is going to Heaven, different degrees of Heaven, and that those kingdoms of glory are so great and so glorious that they can’t even be described. You don’t find very many Latter-day Saints today having a faith crisis, crying on the edge of their bed saying, “If God really provided a way for everyone to be saved, there’s no way this Church is true.”

00:10:58 It would be weird, in fact, if someone came to you and said, “Hank, John, I just don’t know if I can believe anymore. I mean, if God really provided for all of His children to go to Heaven, there’s just no way.” To us, that seems crazy that that would be a concern someone would have, but that’s because we’re the product of 200 years of revelation. For the people who first hear about the vision in Doctrine and Covenants Section 76, they have 1800 years of hell is a place that people are going to go and it is awful and it is horrible, and almost everyone’s going there.

00:11:38 Christianity is almost everyone’s going to hell. The whole world’s going to hell. A very small number are going to be saved, and then Joseph and his revelations, he comes along and says, “Actually, no one’s going to hell.” As Joseph says famously later, he says, “I have no fear of hellfire that don’t exist,” because people are always condemning him to hell and he’s like, ‘Oh, the joke’s on you.”

Hank Smith: 00:11:59 Let’s find out.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:12:00 There isn’t one. Not that people won’t suffer for their sins. I mean, of course, you’re going to suffer for your sins, but the entire point of hell to Christians in the early 1800s is that it was forever. It wasn’t hell if it was temporary. Hell is forever. People leave the Church over it. There are people that they beg to maintain in the Church and they’re excommunicated because they refuse to accept that Joseph Smith’s vision, Doctrine and Covenants Section 76, is true. Why? It conflicts with their culture.

 00:12:34 I think it’s important to note that whether we’re talking present or past or whether we’re talking about members of the Church in the United States or Canada or North America or Western Hemisphere, they’re going to have different questions about God than members in Africa, members in Europe, members in Asia, members in Micronesia. We ask questions about the things that related to our current beliefs. People from the past have a different culture. They have different questions. They have different ideas, and those are valid just like our questions are valid, even if they might seem ridiculous like staring blankly with a morose face in a 19th century photograph.

John Bytheway: 00:13:25 Gerrit, this is so good. People are doing the best they knew with the time they were in and what their culture was, and it’s so helpful. I want our listeners to know about a podcast that you have called Standard of Truth, a phrase that comes from that Wentworth letter–

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:13:42 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:13:43 … that was a favorite of our founder, Steve Sorensen.

Hank Smith: 00:13:46 First of all, I personally love Standard of Truth. Gerrit, you do it with a friend.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:13:51 Yes. My best friend, Richard LeDuc, we’ve been friends since our first married days. We moved into the same house split up into tiny apartments that should not have been livable. Today, I’m sure it’s been condemned, and we’ve been friends ever since. We go over Joseph Smith in early church history and we answer questions from listeners.

Hank Smith: 00:14:14 And other historical questions. There’s a lot in there, American history.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:14:18 Yes, we do American history, we do Latter-day Saint history. We hope to help build faith in the Restoration.

Hank Smith: 00:14:25 I’ve recommended the Standard of Truth Podcast to quite a few people, but recently a close friend of mine who I just adore and younger than us, a young adult, and he came to me and he said, “I need to talk to you,” which is not like him. “Can we sit down for a second?” I was like, “Sure, sure.” We sat down and he served a mission and he loves the Church. He said, “Hank, I’m struggling.” I said, “Well, tell me what’s going on.” He’s been online and he says, “I just don’t know if I can trust the character of Joseph Smith.” He started to go through some of the things he’s read, and I said, “Okay, okay,” and we talked for about an hour. He’s the type of guy, he loves to laugh, and I said, “I got a show for you. I want you to listen to The Standard of Truth Podcast and just enjoy Gerrit. I think you’ll really like him.”

 00:15:14 He said he would. He came back about three weeks later. I saw him again, and this was a beautiful moment. I said, “How are you doing?” He said, “Hank, I love Joseph Smith. I love him.” I said, “Why?” Gerrit, you might be like, “No, don’t do this.” He listened to every single episode of Standard of Truth, every single one.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:15:40 There’s a lot.

Hank Smith: 00:15:42 He actually got a little Gerrit in him. He was starting to use your vocabulary, had your demeanor, and he said, “People just don’t understand what it’s like to live in the past.” Gerrit, just someone I adore, someone who’s future is very important to me, it changed him. He was on a trajectory going one way, and now he’s completely opposite, so thank you.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:16:08 Oh, thank you for sharing that. I mean, that’s the hope and the goal. I mean, I desperately, desperately want people to understand the Prophet Joseph Smith and to have faith in the revelations that he received. That was really the whole point of doing that. You hope that that message reaches people and you feel sometimes a little bit like a fraud in the sense that people will be like, “Wow, I really enjoyed that podcast.” I was like, “I know, I was quoting Joseph Smith the whole time.” You could do a pretty good job if all you’re doing is quoting the prophet, you end up people are like, “Wow, that was really profound.” Yeah it was, I was just quoting someone else.

 00:16:47 One of the things that I hope people take away from that, and obviously here as well, is that it’s essential that you come to know that Joseph Smith saw Jesus on multiple occasions, that he communed with your Savior, and people, “Well, why does it matter whether or not? Joseph Smith’s a prophet.” Well, it matters because I know who Jesus is. I know what my purpose in this life is. I know who I am. I know that I had a pre-mortal life. I know that this life is designed for me to become like my Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, things that I would never know.” I wouldn’t know Doctrines and Covenants Section 93 declares that you might know what you worship. Of course, I don’t worship Joseph Smith. I’m well aware that Joseph made mistakes in his life, so did all of the early leaders and members of the Church, just like the leaders and members of the church today are all mortals with mortal failings.

 00:17:52 Joseph Smith revealed the most important truths about our Heavenly Father and about our Savior, Jesus Christ, that change trajectories of lives. It brings solace to the suffering. It brings purpose in this chaos of life, and it brings that peace in knowing about the plan of salvation. I know that Jesus Christ lives because I know Joseph Smith saw and talked to him, and that is the bedrock of my testimony. Hopefully people will be willing to place their doubts and questions a little bit on hold and allow The Holy Spirit to speak to them as they read these revelations in the Doctrines and Covenants this year, as they study the revelations of the Prophet Joseph, it’s the best way to know, was he a prophet of God?

Hank Smith: 00:18:53 John, Gerrit and my office for years was just across the hall from each other.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:18:59 Our offices were tidy, by the way.

Hank Smith: 00:19:01 Yeah, they were, yeah.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:19:01 They put both of us in a broom closet, which was fitting of our station. Let me tell you that.

Hank Smith: 00:19:06 They put us up there, just forget about us. We got to talking one day, and Gerrit taught me something that I thought to myself, “How did I not see that?” Here’s kind of what it is in my words. He said, “You make sure you get your dental work by a dentist. It’s very important to you. You don’t just find Bobby in the strip mall who’s like, ‘Well, I watched some YouTube videos.’ You get your medical advice and if you’re going to have surgery, you get it from a trained surgeon. Why? Very important to you that this person knows what they’re doing because this is pretty vital stuff. Then, he said something that I should have known the whole time. He said, “You should get the history that really matters to you. You can look at WebMD, or you can watch somebody teach you how to floss online, but I mean, this is history that really matters to you and your family and your future and your faith. You need to get that from a historian.”

00:20:01 Then, he taught me what it’s like to become a trained historian. John, I didn’t realize this is as difficult as medical school to become a historian. There’s so much to it, yet we go online or we read a book, someone who wants to be a historian who has done some research, done some work. Then, they say, “Well, yeah, I know the history,” and Gerrit’s not being arrogant about this. He’s just saying, “Look, you don’t get your dentistry from someone who hasn’t gone to dental school.” You should get your history from someone who’s a trained historian. Briefly, Gerrit, could you just give maybe that little spiel for our listeners?

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:20:41 Well, I don’t remember exactly what I said in it, but the reason why it’s important is part of what a PhD trained historian, what they’re taught is how to use sources properly. They’re trained in what types of sources are better and what types of sources are worse, and sometimes what happens, especially when it comes to things like religion or politics, because people feel very strongly about a thing that causes them to elevate sources over other sources, not because they’re better sources, but simply because they say what they want them to say.

00:21:20 A great example of this you could find circulating on the internet today is someone might say something like, “Martin Harris denied ever seeing the gold plates.” Now, if you’re a Latter-day Saint, you’re what I’ve been told my whole life. He never denied it. What do you mean? No, no. Look here, I’ll even share a letter with you and here in this letter is someone saying, “I heard Martin Harris say that he never saw the plates,” and that can rock your world. I have been told my whole life, and it’s from a letter, look at this. It’s a letter from 1838. That means it must be true. People feel like they’ve had their legs knocked out from under them, and this is where it’s important to be able to look at sources and know what they actually are.

 00:22:09 Yeah, there is a letter that exists from 1838 from someone claiming that they heard Martin Harris say that he never really saw the plates. Well, who was writing that letter? Well, it’s a recently excommunicated member of the Church who’s writing to another person trying to convince them to leave the Church, but he doesn’t just say that Martin Harris said that he didn’t see the plates. He also claims that Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer also said that they never saw the plates, and then he says that actually all of the eight witnesses, which would also include Hyrum Smith and Samuel Smith, and Joseph Smith, Sr., are also all saying that they never saw the plates. In other words, it is a hyperbolic, wildly overstated, and clearly inaccurate biased letter.

00:23:02 This person is making a claim with actually no evidence, but if I don’t know that and someone shares that with me online, I begin my tailspin before I actually find out this is a terrible source. It’s even a terrible source for historians. Why? Do I know of that public meeting where Martin Harris said that? I have no other evidence of that. He says it was a public meeting that Martin Harris said, “I never saw the plates.” Okay, well, why are there no other sources of that public meeting? Why is it no one else says that that meeting occurred? For all I know, there wasn’t even a meeting, but here’s what I do know. Martin Harris, on occasion after occasion after occasion after occasion himself said, “I saw the angel. I saw plates.”

00:23:55 As a historian, you’re taught to prize first-hand accounts where people are speaking their own experience and contemporary accounts, people talking about events when they happen. It doesn’t mean that great-grandma reminiscing about what happened during the Dust Bowl is being dishonest. I’m not saying that, but there is a very big difference between reading great-grandma’s diary when the first Dust Bowl storm hits and having her talk about with 80 years of experience removed because the one reflects what she actually thought at the time. The other, while still credible and still important, reflects how she understands it now given 80 years of life.

00:24:44 There are three areas of life where a wise man once said that people are so passionate that they believe they’re experts, even if they don’t have any training. The first of these is obvious, it’s sports. Look, you’ve never even coached a little league football team, but you know exactly what play Kalani Sitake should have called. You know exactly. You have no idea the personnel. You’ve never been in practice, but because you love sports, because you’ve watched a lot of it, you start to believe that you’re an expert in it. No doubt you know more than other people do, but that’s not the same thing as being trained in it.

00:25:29 Similar, another is politics because people feel so passionate about political beliefs and political positions. Now, you’ve never even run for an unelected PTA position, but you know exactly what the congressman should have written in his bill. Because you’re passionate about it, you start to believe that you’re an expert in it. The other is religion. That is because we’re all passionate about it. We start to believe that religious history, 

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:26:00 that passion is the same thing as having formal training. And no doubt, if you are passionate and you read whatever you can get your hands on, you are going to know much more about a thing than other people. A great example of this is if you go to the Gettysburg Battlefield, and you get one of their park rangers to take you on their tour, you will come away often, and people will, saying, “That park ranger knows more about the Battle of Gettysburg than literally anyone alive. I mean, that guy, he’s like, ‘And they advanced 10 paces to this fence, but then fell back five more paces.'”

00:26:35 And you’re like, “Wow. How in the world do you know how many paces they were?” “And the cannonball hit near this tree, but not the tree.” Usually not quite as excited, but they are giving you information that you are thinking, “It’s incredible. That person is the greatest expert on Gettysburg that has ever existed.” And yet the reality is that park ranger is repeating things that he has read from a different source. He’s essentially memorized, he’s incorporated the histories that were written by historians who looked at the thousands of letters and the hundreds of dispatches, and the dozens upon dozens of interviews of Gettysburg survivors who wrote the book on Gettysburg that was then used by the tour guide to make the argument.

00:27:29 The great experts are the ones who wrote that book containing that source, because they gathered all of the other sources. In a lot of ways, like Mormon is with the Book of Mormon. He’s got records everywhere. And as the first great historian, he compiles it down into something that is beautiful and readable. Not that I have any skills that Mormon had. But I do think it’s important for your listeners. If you hear someone make an antagonistic claim against the Church that’s based on some aspect of history, it’s important to take a pause and stop. First of all, find out from a credible, trained person what it is we’re even talking about.

Hank Smith: 00:28:17 Yeah, and Gerrit, you would say, “It doesn’t mean you can’t read a book by someone who’s”-

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:28:22 No.

Hank Smith: 00:28:22 … “pretty excited about something.”

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:28:23 Sure.

Hank Smith: 00:28:24 But I’m talking history that really, like you said, is going to determine whether I stay in my church. That’s important history.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:28:34 Unfortunately, we sometimes think that, well, getting information quickly is more important than getting information deeply. The Church has provided wonderful resources. The Joseph Smith Papers Project and all of its research is all online at josephsmithpapers.org. The Church History Library has wonderful resources for members. There are revelations in context. There are answers to gospel questions online. The Gospel Topics Essays, which provide sound and historically reasoned source-based arguments about these things in the past. I hope that people who are struggling with aspects of Church history will go to those sources the Church has provided.

John Bytheway: 00:29:20 I love that we get to have a historian here who has looked at these original sources, who knows who those voices are, these voices of the restoration. In this first episode, we’re talking about the Smith family. Do you want to take us away on that, Gerrit, right now?

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:29:36 Yeah. I think the first message that they have in the Voice of the Restoration, it comes from really one of the heroes of Church history. If you study Church history at all, especially if you study the early life of Joseph Smith, most of the credible information we have about Joseph Smith’s early life, it comes from Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith’s mother. She writes a book in which she details a lot of this early life.

00:30:05 Joseph talks a little about it in his history. Mainly, he’s telling you that “We were poor, and we had the ground rules in reading, writing, and arithmetic.” He doesn’t spend a ton of time on his much younger days. And those gaps are really filled in by Lucy. She’s writing this book in 1844 and 1845.

00:30:26 What historians find, it’s remarkable how accurate she is looking back on some of these events. She provides this insight into Joseph’s character that frankly only a mother could know, someone who knows him from the time he’s a child. The voice of the restoration that the Manual provides from her is a powerful thing, because it’s actually before Joseph has his first vision. It’s before there’s any thought of gold plates or a church being restored. This is earlier in Lucy’s life, where the family is taken just deathly ill, and Lucy really believes she’s going to die. In fact, the ministers and doctors think she’s going to die. She recovers. And as she says, she “begged the Lord that He would spare my life, that I might bring up my children and comfort the heart of my husband. Thus, I lay all night. I covenanted with God that if He would let me live, I would endeavor to get that religion that would enable me to serve Him right, whether it was in the Bible, or wherever it may be found. If it was to be obtained from heaven by prayer and faith. At last, a voice spoke to me and said, ‘Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Let your heart be comforted. Ye believe in God. Believe also in me.”

00:31:55 And she considers this this great conversion experience for her own life. Lucy does not come from an incredibly religious household. Her father, Solomon, is a soldier. And in his own admission, you can read Solomon Mack’s history. He writes the history of his life at the end of his life. And he will let you know even though he’s a soldier there in the Revolution, he essentially has no use for God. Said, “People try to talk to me about it. I’m like, ‘Well, whatever,'” and he’d just move on. And it’s a little bit sad, because when he finally does get religion as an older man, he credits many of the physical ailments and struggles that he’s had in life with the fact that he didn’t get converted earlier.

00:32:43 Why I tell that story is Lucy Mack is not someone who grows up in a household that’s going to church. Her mother believes. Her mother tries to share some Bible with her, but her father not only doesn’t believe, he’s got a real problem with people who do believe for most of his life. Not until well after Lucy’s married does her father finally have this conversion.

00:33:09 Here she has her own experience, where she’s begging God, and she sees this change. Now, what they don’t have here, what happens after this is actually fun, and a story that tells you the religious world they were in. After she’s miraculously healed, I mean, again, doctors had already said, “Nope, that’s it. That’s the end.” She then wants to go to church.

00:33:37 So she’s married. She tries to convince Joseph Smith, Sr., who’s also, while a believer in God, not a churchgoer. He’s become cynical of the established religions, that they are not really leading people to Christ. So she tries to convince Joseph Smith, Sr., “We need to go to church.” And she says, “Because he loved me, essentially, he agreed to go with me to a few Methodist meetings. But he didn’t want to go. He did not.” I mean, this is a story no one’s ever heard before about a spouse dragging another spouse to church. But at least back in the 19th century, occasionally, a wife was like, “No, you’re coming to church.”

00:34:15 “‘I don’t want to go to church,’ and then there I was, sitting on a pew.” Once Joseph Smith, Sr., when his father and his uncle find out that he’s going to church, Jesse Smith is so outraged that he comes to their house, and at the door wings a copy of Age of Reason by Thomas Paine at them and says, “You read everything in that before you go back to that church.”

00:34:45 And Thomas Paine, while he is an American founding father, he wrote Common Sense, he is a well-known-to-be, I mean, if I’m very kind, I’ll call him an agnostic, but he’s essentially an atheist. In Age of Reason, he basically argues that all organized religion is just garbage, and that it’s made up, and that it’s used to oppress people. Jesse Smith wings a copy of it in the doorway and yells at them, “How dare you go to church.”

00:35:13 Lucy is experiencing a great deal of familial pushback in her conversion experience. I often think that that must’ve been terrible for Lucy, that she has a husband who doesn’t want to be a part of organized religion. She’s had this incredible spiritual experience, and she wants to pay it back to God. She wants to be a part of it, but her family members are thinking that that’s ridiculous.

00:35:46 And it makes me wonder if that’s part of the reason why when her son comes to her, having had a religious experience very different from her own, I mean, Joseph is telling her, “I’ve learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true,” that her reaction, she doesn’t just wing a copy of Age of Reason at Joseph. But her reaction is one of almost this patient understanding of “I know what you are going through. I experienced this, where I had a religious conversion, and no one wanted to listen to me.” Lucy Mack, she is such an incredible woman. It is clear that she leaves an indelible imprint on all of her children, but especially on Joseph in his religiosity.

Hank Smith: 00:36:40 Beautiful.

John Bytheway: 00:36:41 I love that background. They were actually in a different place when all of this happened, but I especially love winging books at people, telling them to read it.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:36:54 I actually had a missionary email my podcast, and he said he is serving in a very difficult stateside mission. And he said, “I’m trying to figure out just how many copies of the Book of Mormon I have to throw at people before they start listening to me.”

John Bytheway: 00:37:11 “Before it sticks. And I saw another book flying in the midst of heaven.”

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:37:18 “And it had the everlasting gospel.”

John Bytheway: 00:37:19 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:37:23 I’ve heard it said, I think Steven Harper, that not only is Joseph Smith facing religious tension in where he lives, it’s also in his own home.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:37:33 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:37:34 There’s religious tension there.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:37:36 If we fast-forward a little bit to when Joseph is going to have the first vision, the Second Great Awakening that they’re all living through, there’s a reason why they call that portion of New York the Burned-Over District. It’s important for listeners to understand that the way that you conceive of American religious identity today is essentially exactly the opposite of what it was then. If you talk to someone today and you say, “Oh, they’re from the South,” you might immediately in your head think, “Oh, they’re probably religious.” Because in today’s world, the American South is the most religious part of the United States, and the least religious part of the United States is the American Northeast.

00:38:22 It’s literally the exact opposite in Joseph Smith’s day. The most religious state in the entire union in 1830 is Vermont. The least religious state in the United States today, based on the number of atheists and people who attend church, is Vermont today. You have to keep that in mind. Consider the most Bible-banging part of the Bible Belt, that.

00:38:48 There is constant, constant discussion of religion. And in the Second Great Awakening, people are very passionate about it. There are two schools of religious thought in American Protestantism that are desperately competing with one another at the time. One is Calvinism. And the other is on the other side, Arminianism. So not like Armenia, the country. Arminianism, named after a Dutch theologian… The name rolls off the tongue… Jacobus Arminius.

00:39:21 John Calvin was the primary religious theologian for American Protestants. Calvin believed that salvation had nothing to do of yourself. It’s not what certain American Protestants today believe. So again, if you’re thinking, “Well, that’s not what my friend thinks,” I know it’s not what your friend thinks. Let me tell you what John Calvin taught and what Americans at the time thought. It is very different than what most Evangelical Protestants think today. But John Calvin taught that salvation was by grace and faith alone, and that itself was a gift from God. Calvinism rests on this idea of the absolute sovereignty of God. There is no free will. There is only God, and you in your sinfulness, thinking that you have free will.

00:40:17 Most American Protestant denominations, most of them were Calvinist in nature. Presbyterianism, for instance, was hardcore Calvinist. Then again, it’s a little different today in America, but very much believed that almost no one was going to be saved. A preacher then might say something like, “If you are sitting in these pews and you feel as if you have faith in Jesus, praise God. You might be one of the few people that he decided to save. Now, none of us deserve to be saved. We are all horrible sinners. We all deserve to burn in hell, so God isn’t terrible if he sends us where we deserve to go. But praise God if you happen to be one of the few that he gave the gift of faith to.”

00:41:03 And during this time of the Second Great Awakening, that’s the Church that Lucy Mack and Sophronia feel called to, that they join. They join the local Presbyterian church in Palmyra. Joseph likely goes to that church more often than others, because it’s where his mother goes. In fact, as poor as they are, she’s donated enough money that their family has a pew in the Presbyterian Church. And in order to have access to that pew, you had to donate enough money to the Church. That’s how fervent Lucy feels about her Presbyterianism.

00:41:45 And it makes sense. She was completely outside of anything but God’s help. And in her miraculous recovery from her disease, she feels this total devotion to God. “God is everything, and I am nothing.” And she would’ve heard that message at that church, and it would’ve spoken to her.

00:42:09 Now, on the other side of the ledger… I know I spent too much time on this… Arminianism was the other Protestant wing of belief that believed, “Yes, mankind is fallen. Mankind is evil, but there’s one good thing mankind can do. And that is they can choose to accept God’s grace.” That in this viewpoint, which was primarily espoused by the Methodist Church, salvation is a lifelong process. If you ask a Methodist, “Are you saved?” They’re going to hem and haw the same way a Latter-day Saint does. They’re going to be like, “Well, I mean, I’m trying to follow Jesus.” And they believe the way of viewing salvation is that Jesus has extended his hand to you. He desperately wants to save you, but you have to agree to grab that hand and hold onto it for the rest of your life.

00:42:59 Those are pretty diametrically opposite viewpoints. Either God has already decided whether or not you are saved, and there is legitimately nothing you can do about it, or you have to embrace the truth about God, and if you don’t, you’re going to go to hell. Both of those can’t be true. Either I have to choose salvation and make the right choice, or I have no choice in salvation.

00:43:28 So Joseph’s going to these local Methodist churches. He’s hearing the exact opposite message. And when he talks about, “They believe the same passages of the Bible so differently,” you couldn’t find a starker contrast than Presbyterianism of the 19th century and Methodism of the 19th century. As I said, back to our Voices of the Restoration, it’s because of Lucy’s character that when Joseph has his questions, she isn’t reactionary about it.

00:44:03 I mean, what would’ve happened if Joseph came to her and she was like, “Well, then, that’s it. You’re going off to boarding school, because you’re not going to have any more of this nonsense”? Instead, she embraces it. Something that is understated about the Smith family in general: his sisters, his brothers, this is a large family. They have many different interests and many different ages. All of them believe Joseph Smith. All of them suffer some form of persecution for the rest of their lives because they believe Joseph Smith.

00:44:43 Some get more of a witness. Samuel and Hyrum are going to be hefting plates around. Some of them are going to really know. I don’t know that Don Carlos isn’t going to get to lift the plates, but he is adamant that Joseph is a prophet and that he’s received these revelations. The people in Joseph’s family are certain he’s talking to God. They’re never wavering from that, even when they waver from other parts of their faith.

00:45:14 William Smith late in life isn’t exactly a poster child of what you want to believe, but even in those time periods, he is certain Joseph was a prophet. He is certain Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. He’s certain that Joseph received these revelations we’re studying. That alone speaks to Joseph’s character. Why is it the people who know him best are certain he’s speaking to God?

Hank Smith: 00:45:43 Now, Gerrit, you said that there’s Arminianism and Presbyterianism, which Joseph Smith, Sr. doesn’t seem to buy into organized religion at all. Is that right?

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:45:55 Yeah, Joseph Smith, Sr., it’s interesting because his family comes from a long line of Congregationalists, which is a very Calvinist viewpoint, very similar to Presbyterianism. And his family in the Church has a relatively new monument that is in the Smith family homestead for years there in Massachusetts. They seem to be quite religious, right up until Joseph Smith Sr.’s father, who seems to become disillusioned with organized religion.

00:46:32 It’s not the same thing as saying, “Oh, someone’s an atheist.” I mean, clearly, Joseph Smith, Sr. believes in God, but he doesn’t seem to believe that the people who claim they have all the answers actually have all of the answers. He is a spiritual man in his own right. Joseph Smith, Sr. has had a lot of bad luck. It seems like every time Joseph Smith, Sr. makes a financial decision, it’s the wrong decision. He could be great at picking stocks if you just pick the opposite. If he was like, “I don’t know, I’m thinking about Enron,” you’d be like, “Okay, go the other way. Go the other way. We got to short sell that in a hurry.”

00:47:13 He seems to work hard. He does seem to have this idea that he wants to try to raise his family out of poverty. But often, because of other bad actors, he invests in ginseng, and yet the person who invests with him steals all of the money. And they are just met with financial reverse after financial reverse after financial reverse, until, as Lucy Smith explains, after crop failure, after crop failure, after crop failure in Vermont, he goes to New York and sees that the land seems to be producing “wheat in abundance” is what he says. And decides he’s going to move his family there to Palmyra, all with the goal of trying to take his family from this horribly desperate poverty that they are now in, the bottom rung of society, and providing a better life.

00:48:06 And that’s what’s going to bring the Smith family to Palmyra in the first place. Those poverty experiences, those reversals, in a way that the Lord seems to know what needs to happen, they bring the family to the place where the Lord needs them to be for the restoration to take place.

John Bytheway: 00:48:25 A place that’s near a hill where a record is hidden. I love what you’ve done here. I love just the context of the “war of words” that Joseph Smith mentioned. Is there free will or is there just the illusion of free will? He’s hearing that. That really sets that up nicely for what was about to happen, and that Lucy Mack Smith was part of that.

00:48:51 I was wondering if our listeners might’ve wondered, the book that Lucy Mack Smith wrote, A History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, that is a good source from what I am hearing from you.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:49:02 It’s a source you take with a grain of salt, in the sense that it is her looking back over the course of time, and so she’s not going to be perfectly accurate on everything. She’ll be off on some dates, and she’ll be off on some things, especially as it relates to some of her other children. Surprisingly, a mother very much wants to paint them in a positive light.

Hank Smith: 00:49:24 Shocking. Yeah.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:49:26 Sometimes William are not exactly doing the most positive things in that regard. I think it was a book that Brigham Young felt wasn’t that great of a book, because it made William Smith seem greater than he was. But as a tool for this early period of Joseph’s life, it’s one of the best tools that historians have. And many of the things that we can corroborate with other sources, we find they line up very well with other sources.

00:49:56 A good example of this, in Joseph Smith’s history, in the history of the Church, when they first write it in 1838 and ’39, they are using the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants as their guidepost. They’re using the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. They aren’t professional historians. They’ve just been run right out of Missouri. I mean, I don’t even know what papers they even have anymore, and why does Joseph say we need to write this? “Owing to the many false reports.”

00:50:22 I mean, there is nothing but lies in circulation about the Latter-day Saints, and Missouri just ratchets those up even more. “Yeah, we had to murder them because of stuff.” They’re trying to defend their own actions by defaming the Saints. “Owing to the many false reports, we need to tell our own story.” They use what resources they have on hand. And it’s very clear that what they are using as their primary source to start with is the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. And so they’re going from revelation to revelation to revelation.

00:50:59 And it works out great, right up until the summer of 1829, when there aren’t any more revelations, or at least no revelations that they think are in that time period until March of 1830. And so you actually have this real gap in the history of the Church where it’s, “We’ve got the Book of Mormon at the printer’s, and we’re getting ready to get the printers. And we’ve got talking to people. And now we’ve got the Book of Mormon.” And like, “Well, what happened between July and March?”

00:51:29 We know things happened. Joseph receives a revelation even during that time period that’s in the Revelation book, that’s acted on as a revelation, but because it wasn’t one of the revelations included in the Doctrine and Covenants, the history just doesn’t even mention that. It just passes right over it. Well, one thing we know happened is that Abner Cole tried to steal and print the Book of Mormon on his own to try to make his own money while they’re trying to get the Book of Mormon printed. 

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:52:00 And it’s Lucy, who tells us that whole story. Now we know that what she’s saying happened because thankfully we have some copies of Abner Cole’s garbage newspaper that he used to steal the Book of Mormon, and it corroborates exactly with what she’s saying. Imagine if we didn’t have any copies of his newspaper, and Joseph never mentions Abner Cole. No one else ever mentions Abner Cole. We might say, “I don’t know what… Is Lucy just like… Who’s trying to steal copies of the Book of Mormon?” But because we have the newspaper, we can say she tells this whole story about them catching him trying to print the Book of Mormon on his own in his paper, and here’s his actual paper. He really was doing it, and at the exact same time she said that he was doing it.

00:52:52 So, it is a good source. It’s available on josephsmithpapers.org. If you go under Histories and go under Other Histories, onto that tab, you can see both versions, both her earlier version and her edited version, 1844 and then the 1845 version, and its transcript is there so you can read it. It’s an outstanding source to get to know early Latter-day Saint history.

John Bytheway: 00:53:12 I love what you said about all this stuff was being written in Missouri, because those were original sources, but there’s another question a historian would ask. “Now, wait, who’s saying this? And what’s their background? And what’s their motive?” Because yeah, you can find things that were written, but who was talking, and why were they saying it? This is an excommunicated person writing to try to persuade other people to leave. What do you do with that kind of original source?

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:53:41 Yeah, and I think you just have to place them in context. It’s an original source, but that doesn’t mean that it carries the day, especially when you’re talking about religious experiences. When someone says, “I saw an angel,” that is outside of the realm of historical inquiry. Why? Well, because I don’t have the ability to replicate it. This isn’t a science experiment, where I can go, “One plus two, angel.” I can’t do that.

00:54:12 So, a historian doesn’t try to do that. In fact, one way that you can know that you’re dealing with someone who’s not a real historian is they will try to refute religious experiences of other people. A real historian knows that they can’t, because those are phenomenology, in the lingo of the… We use big words to make ourselves feel better about the fact that we became doctors that no one cares about. We’re the kind of doctors that don’t make money and can’t help anyone, and so we use bigger words to try to like, “Look, no, I’m important!”

00:54:49 You take something like Jesus walking on water. Jesus’s followers really believe that He walked on water. How would I prove that He did, as a historian? Well, I can’t. Even if I wanted to try to replicate it, I could go march everyone off to the nearest body of water, and not one person would walk on water. Would that prove that Jesus didn’t walk on water? No, because if Jesus walked on water, He did it because He was the Son of God. When it comes to miracles, a judicious historian isn’t going to spend time trying to prove that they couldn’t have happened, because they know there’s no way to prove that it did or did not, because if it happened, it’s the interposition of God.

00:55:41 In many ways, a historian’s job is to talk about what most likely happened in the past. You have all different sources: what most likely happened at the Battle of Gettysburg? Based upon sources. One person says that they advanced a hundred yards, the other person says they advanced 50 yards. Well, there’s 30 people that say 100 yards, there’s one person who says 50 yards, and most likely, it was a hundred yards, I guess. That’s what a historian does.

00:56:07 Miracles, by their definition, are the least likely thing to occur, because people can’t walk on water. People can’t call down fire from heaven. People can’t be resurrected, except when they do. Except when they are. And it’s when they are that is the pinnacle, it is the main point of religion. We don’t believe that Jesus walked on water because everyone else walks on water. We believe in Jesus, because He performed miracles that couldn’t possibly be done. For a historian, the best you can do is say, “This is what this person said happened to them.”

00:56:56 So, Oliver Cowdery says an angel appeared to him. A historian, a non-Latter-day Saint historian, if they’re being judicious, they would say, “Oliver Cowdery said an angel came and appeared to him and showed him the gold plates.” He would not say, “Obviously, Oliver Cowdery’s a liar, because angels don’t exist, and there’s no possible way that he had plates.” That’s my antagonistic voice. They wouldn’t say that. And you find this with people claiming that other people didn’t have their spiritual experiences. People saying, “Oh, yeah, Joseph told me that he just made up the whole Book of Mormon.” Okay, well, Joseph Smith doesn’t say that. You’re claiming a conversation dozens of years after the fact in a conversation that I don’t even know if it took place, and that I know that you’re very antagonistic to begin with. And also, you’re wrong about X, Y, and Z, and the things that you’re claiming, I can demonstrate that those aren’t accurate. There are lots of ways to look at things that can help you have a better perspective.

00:58:05 When it comes to someone declaring, “God spoke to me,” there is only one way that you can know whether or not that happened, and that’s the same way that Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ: “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.” The only way that you can actually know religious things, that you can actually know, is from the Spirit.

00:58:35 I love history, and I love to talk about it, and I love how it bolsters my faith and testimony, but fundamentally, I believe Joseph Smith saw and talked to God, because God has told me, through the Holy Spirit, that Joseph Smith saw and talked to God. And that’s where we all have to get. We don’t have to have a PhD in history to know that. You don’t even have to have the ability to read, to hear the Joseph Smith story, to hear him say, “I saw that pillar of light,” and to know that it’s true.

Hank Smith: 00:59:19 Gerrit, this has been fantastic so far. I love history, and to hear it from a historian, also has a sense of humor… I don’t know if that’s rare for historians. I think our listeners would be interested, especially those who haven’t had the time to go through and understand this family and the dynamics, maybe walk through Joseph, Lucy Mack we’ve talked about quite a bit, but Joseph Smith Sr. down to the siblings.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 00:59:45 They have a very large family, which is absolutely common in the 19th century, especially for New England families. It is not uncommon for a family to have eight to 12 children in it. The average woman in America at the time is going to have somewhere around 10 live births. Child mortality is pretty terrible, it’s very rare that all of them would make it to adulthood. But they have a very large family. There is an infant that dies in the Joseph Smith Sr./Lucy Mack Smith family, even before Alvin’s born, an unnamed infant, that would’ve been Joseph’s oldest brother.

01:00:25 But then you have Alvin, and after Alvin you have Hyrum, so he has these two oldest brothers, and then Sophronia, which is his older sister, and then Joseph Smith. He’s not quite a middle child, he’s up on the upper echelons of what will be a much greater extended family, because after him you have Samuel Smith, is his next youngest brother. Then you have Ephraim Smith, which is another brother that is born and dies just the same day. You have William Smith, who’s part of this Voices of the Restoration, where he gives this account of their religious upbringing. Then you have Catherine Smith, so Catherine’s his younger sister. After Catherine, you have Don Carlos Smith.

01:01:09 It’s funny, one of the questions I get from students fairly commonly is like, “What were the Smiths doing? What are they calling him Don Carlos? Were they from Spanish Fork? Why were they…” For those of you who don’t know, in Spanish Fork, Utah, the high school mascot of Spanish Fork is the Dons, because it’s Spanish Fork, so the Spanish Dons. What are the Smiths even doing? It’s actually a fairly common name. It’s not like Jack, okay, but one of the Union Civil War generals who would’ve been contemporary to Don Carlos, who would’ve been born roughly around the same time, is Don Carlos Buell, who ends up being a terrible Civil War general, and anyone who’s an enthusiast listening will be like, “Oh yeah, he was terrible.” It demonstrates this is not just a name they’re pulling out of a hat. It’s not a ridiculously common name; is a name that is being used by people as a name.

Hank Smith: 01:02:10 It’s kind of like Charles, right?

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:02:12 Yeah, it is, but with this kind of Spanish flair to it.

Hank Smith: 01:02:16 That’s right, flair to it.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:02:16 I could name my son Enrique. Maybe that gets him a little more gravitas? I don’t know.

Hank Smith: 01:02:23 Yeah.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:02:24 And then their youngest is Lucy, named after Lucy Mack. She’s actually not even born until after the first vision, so it kind of gives you an idea of the family dynamics that are going on. That means in Joseph’s household growing up, there is someone at essentially every single station of life. There is adult brother Alvin, who’s going to be engaged to be married, and there’s baby little sister Lucy, who can’t walk, all going on at the same time. All of our indications are that their family dynamics are incredibly close.

01:03:09 Now, later in life, just as a caveat, William Smith and Joseph, they will have words with one another. There are multiple occasions in which William and Joseph will fight with one another. I know that no one today has a sibling that they’ve ever argued with, but back then, it was occasional that siblings would argue with one another.

Hank Smith: 01:03:31 Even as adults.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:03:32 What I’m talking about is when they were adults, actually. In the Kirtland, Ohio period, William and Joseph get in an argument. They actually come to blows, and in fact, Joseph goes to take his jacket off so that they can fight, and William Smith, because it’s the kind of person he is, sucker punches him while he’s trying to take his jacket off. Which, if you’re a younger brother, this is what you have to do.

Hank Smith: 01:03:56 Yeah, this is your moment.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:04:00 Now’s your chance, and boom.

John Bytheway: 01:04:03 Now’s the time.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:04:03 Younger brothers everywhere are saying, “Yeah, that’s how I won my fights too.” Which is funny, because he and Joseph exchange letters with one another like, “Hey, I’m sorry.” And one of the letters, Joseph’s like… Well, it doesn’t say sucker punch, but, “If you wouldn’t have punched me when I was trying to get my coat off, it would’ve ended differently” kind of thing. Trying to reassert. Obviously they have sibling fights and difficulties, but again, when it comes to following Joseph as a prophet and believing he receives revelation, they’re all there.

01:04:36 Alvin is someone who clearly impacts Joseph’s life in ways that are almost immeasurable. If you think about the dynamics, Alvin is an adult, several years older than Joseph. He is actually one of the people that is co-signing on the debt with Father Smith when they are borrowing money, because Alvin, as an adult male, his labor is worth something, so the idea that he could pay back a debt because of that labor. He’s the one who leads out in saying, “You know what? Mom and Dad need a house that’s not a log cabin that’s two rooms.” So, he leads out in trying to build the frame house that you can go to Palmyra today and still see the frame house, which is mostly original, that is mostly built by Alvin, at least started by Alvin.

01:05:37 When Joseph has his visitation from Moroni, Alvin is going to be a part of that whole discussion, and he says, “Go and do what the angel says.” And it’s right after that that Alvin is going to tragically die. It’s where we get our first-hand experience at just how terrible 19th century medicine is, where Alvin has a sickness in his stomach, they don’t know what it is. To treat him, they administer to him essentially powdered mercury, which those of you who know the properties of mercury know that it’s a poison, and not something that helps in healing, but that was what medical doctors of the day… Joseph, later in life, is very actually bitter about it. It’s one of the few things that Joseph seems to be bitter about, is the death of his older brother, because he blames the physicians for it, that they just kept giving him more and more and more mercury until it killed him. It is something that clearly affects Joseph for the rest of his life. Alvin is on his mind, always, and it leads to some of our revelations.

01:06:55 The fact that Joseph experiences these heart-rending losses of his family means the question about life and death is not a theoretical one for him. The fact that he’s buried his first infant son, that his two twins that are born next also die immediately, that the two adopted twins he gets, one of them dies. The fact that there’s been five infants in Joseph’s household by 1833, and four of them have died, means that Joseph is very attuned to the horrors of the thought of death, and the seeming permanency of the hole that it leaves in our lives. And Alvin really seems to be that first entree point to this horrible grief. He clearly loves Alvin. He spends the rest of his life talking about how great Alvin was.

01:08:04 You, of course, get the best example of this in Doctrine and Covenants, section 137. We’re in Doctrine and Covenants section 76, now this is a spoiler alert for the remainder of the Doctrine and Covenants.

John Bytheway: 01:08:15 Just in case.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:08:16 You’re like, “What? There’s a Doctrine and Covenants 137?” I mean, yeah, there is. You’ll get to it eventually. But in Doctrine and Covenants, section 76, Joseph is told by God in the vision, there’s three different degrees of glory, and the only way you can enter into the celestial kingdom is if you’re baptized into the Church of the Firstborn. Unless you are properly baptized, you can’t go to the celestial kingdom. And what that means is Joseph, who’s learned this incredible truth that eternal hellfire doesn’t exist, that no one’s cooking forever in hell, and that there’s all these other kingdoms of glory and happiness, it clearly weighs on him that he thinks his beloved older brother is not going to be able to go, because he wasn’t baptized. It’s not like he’s just making that requirement up. He received a revelation from God that said, “If you aren’t baptized into the church, you can’t go to the celestial kingdom.” And so Joseph is following that.

01:09:27 When he has his vision in 1836, which is now Doctrine and Covenants section 137, and he sees Alvin in the celestial kingdom, his response, “I marveled, that he could have obtained to such a kingdom.” The sad part about that is it means there must have been a weight that Joseph was carrying around. It means if you would’ve asked Joseph Smith in 1835, “Can Alvin go to the celestial kingdom?” It probably would’ve cut his heart out, and he would’ve been quoting revelation as he said, “He wasn’t baptized, so…” And it took further light and knowledge, further revelation for Joseph to know all those who would’ve embraced the gospel are also heirs of the celestial kingdom.

01:10:23 And that actually doesn’t even resolve the contradiction. The amazing part is in 1836, Joseph Smith and all other church members now have to believe a contradiction. You absolutely have to be baptized to go to the celestial kingdom, except when you don’t, which is apparently most of the time. But you have to.

Hank Smith: 01:10:48 If you would’ve received it, then yes.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:10:50 But you have to, but you don’t have to. “So, everyone has to be baptized?” Yes. “What about people who haven’t heard about it?” Well, not them. “But I thought you said every…” So, that looked like a contradiction. It looks like a contradiction only because further revelation hadn’t come yet. Once the Lord reveals, four years later, the doctrine of baptism for the dead, then everything becomes clear. And it’s an interesting thing that God doesn’t reveal all of it at once. Why doesn’t He, in the temple, when He shows Joseph the celestial kingdom, why doesn’t Jesus say, “By the way, there’s a thing called baptism for the dead, that’s why this works”? Instead, it’s here a little, and there a little, a little bit of a time, even for Joseph.

01:11:40 When Joseph is going to have these experiences with losing family members, even after Alvin, the one that hits him very hard is in 1841, and it’s when his brother Don Carlos dies. We have some records of him, we have some letters he wrote to Joseph Smith. There’s a very interesting letter he writes to Joseph in 1841. He basically says, “Joseph, I need to talk to you about some things, but you’re super ridiculous busy, so I’m just going to write you a letter. I know it seems weird that I’m your brother and I’m writing you a letter about that, I should just go to your house, but I know you’re super busy and I want to get this out.” I think it was Don Carlos’s version of texting, essentially.

01:12:23 When he dies, he’s young, he’s 24, 25 when he dies, it hits Joseph really hard. It doesn’t help that only a few weeks separated from that, Joseph’s own son, named after Don Carlos, in August also dies. His brother dies August 7th, 1841, and Joseph’s own son dies very shortly thereafter, and it’s this painful thing. In one of Joseph’s great sermons that he gives, he draws from that wellspring of that grief. Ephraim Marks, who is the adult son of William Marks, the stake president in Nauvoo, he’s, I think, 24 years old when he dies suddenly. As horrible as these deaths of children are, because infant mortality is so bad, it somehow seems even more tragic when someone finally makes it to adulthood and dies suddenly and instantly, because they’ve beat the odds, it seems, and then they haven’t.

01:13:32 And Joseph spoke at that funeral, and he referenced both of his brothers that had died, both of his adult brothers that died. And you kind of get a sense of this. He says, this is someone recording this, so it’s going to be in third person. “President Joseph said that he spoke on the occasion with much feeling and interest, and among his remarks he said, ‘It is a very solemn and an awful time. I never felt more solemn. It calls to mind the death of my oldest brother who died in New York.'” That’s Alvin. “‘And my youngest brother, Don Carlos, who died in Nauvoo.'”

01:14:07 “‘It has been hard for me to live on Earth, and to see these young men, upon whom we have leaned upon as a support and a comfort, to be taken from us in the midst of their youth. Yes, it has been hard to be reconciled to these things. I have sometimes felt that I should have been more reconciled to have been called to death myself, if it had been the will of God. Yet I know that we ought to be still and know that it is of God and be reconciled. All is right. It will be but a short time before we all in like manner shall be called.'” He goes on to say that, in this same sermon, that, “We should let death prove as a warning to all men to deal justly before God with all men, and then we shall be clear on the day of judgment. When we lose a near and a dear friend upon whom we’ve set our hearts, we can never feel the same afterwards, knowing that if we set our hearts upon other things, they may, in like manner, be taken from us.”

01:15:19 As someone who has experienced some grief, I can tell you that he’s speaking to my soul. When you lose someone that you love desperately… Only a few years ago, my youngest brother suddenly and tragically died. Man, yeah, I guess time makes it so I’m not crying every day. I am never the same. There is a hole there that I can only hope that at some point, in the eternities, through the atonement of Christ, that somehow the suffering will be made up. Joseph understands the poignancy of grief and death in a way that maybe he wouldn’t otherwise, without having lost his children and his siblings.

Hank Smith: 01:16:10 So touching, to get in their hearts like that. It seems that he and Hyrum are close.

John Bytheway: 01:16:17 We get that impression.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:16:18 It seems. They have such a strong bond with one another that Lucy accords in her book to the fact that when Joseph was at his sickest, when Joseph was in agony, that his older brother would kneel down next to him on his sickbed and press pressure on the sore in his leg, so that there was some modicum of pain relief. Hour after hour, day after day, desperately trying to provide some kind of pain relief to his younger brother, Joseph. They had a heart cemented to one another.

01:17:20 Of all of the horrific things that take place in the events of the martyrdom, all of the things that are horrible in the ungodly murders of those two prophets of God, I think perhaps the worst is that Joseph sees Hyrum die first. All of our accounts that we have of the martyrdom is the absolute destruction of soul that Joseph feels in that instant, when he sees Hyrum die. As John Taylor says, he rushes to his side and says, “Oh! My poor, dear brother Hyrum.”

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:18:00 I think they have a bond with one another. It can’t be overstated. It can’t be replicated. They clearly don’t agree on everything. Brigham Young will talk about the fact that Hyrum feels much more strenuously about the word of wisdom than Joseph does. Joseph believes the word of wisdom is something that is a guideline, and Hyrum Smith believes it’s, he’s kind of like Heber J. Grant about it.

01:18:29 He needs to be 100% all the way even before that revelation becomes a codified thing, that it’s an absolute abstinence from alcohol. But they love each other. The fact that they are together is, it’s a poignant thing. Joseph has many visions and revelations that we may not get to directly talk about in this year of the Doctrine and Covenants because they aren’t part of a revelation or a section in the Doctrine and Covenants, so they might be a footnote.

01:19:01 They might be a part of the story that we get, but one of his greatest revelations that he has is he has a vision of the day of resurrection and he seems to have multiple of these visions. He is very clear about what he saw. It involves him thinking back on these people that he’s lost. He says, “I would say that God has shown me a vision of the resurrection of the dead.

01:19:33 I saw the graves open and the saints as they arose and took each other by the hand even before they got up, while getting up and great joy and glory rested upon them.” He says again in another sermon, “Would it be strange if I were to relate to you that I’ve seen a vision in relation to the resurrection? Those who have died in Jesus Christ may expect to enter into all the fruition of joy when they come forth, which they possessed or anticipated here.”

01:20:08 That part speaks to my soul with my lost brother. Apparently what I get back in the resurrection is the joy I should have had, what I anticipated having. I’m going to get back through the atonement of Christ, through the resurrection. Goes on, “Which they’d possessed or anticipated here. So plain was the vision that I actually saw men before they ascended from the tomb as though they were getting up slowly.

01:20:38 They took each other by the hand and they said to each other, ‘My father, my son, my mother, my daughter, my brother, my sister.’ And when the voice calls for the dead to arise, suppose I’m laid by the side of my father, my mother, my brother, my sister. And when they are by my side, I embrace them and they embrace me.” It is something that clearly he feels very strongly. The resurrection is a doctrine that Joseph loves and constantly talks about.

01:21:14 He’s come to understand that this world is terrible. It doesn’t mean that you have to have a long face and not ever laugh. Joseph is, as much trials as he faces, is jovial and joking and lover of a world, the lover of the people, but things have been really hard and he knows it. It’s in this resurrection and that blessed day that everything’s going to be made right.

01:21:42 In another sermon says, “Can you be shaken from your faith by all these various things that can happen?” He says, “You need to lay hold of these things and let not your knees or joints tremble or your hearts faint. What can earthquakes, wars and tornadoes do? Nothing. All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection. I have seen it. All of your losses will be made up to you provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty, I have seen it. More painful to me than the thoughts of annihilation then death.

01:22:21 If I had no expectation of seeing my father and my mother, my brothers and sisters and my friends again, my heart would burst in a moment and I would go down to my grave. The expectation of seeing my friends in the morning of the resurrection cheers my soul and it makes me bear up against the evils of life. It is like they’re taking a long journey and on their return we will meet them with increased joy.” Man, I don’t know how anyone can read the words of the vision of the resurrection of Joseph Smith and not have the Spirit tell them, this man is a prophet of God.

Hank Smith: 01:23:07 That was beautiful.

John Bytheway: 01:23:09 Yeah, that idea, “All your losses will be made up to you,” boy, hang on to that. What a wonderful thing to hang on to.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:23:19 Sometimes that’s all we have to hang on to. There are people listening who have lost all of their family members in horrible accidents. There are people who’ve had all of their family apostatized. There are people who’ve never been able to have a family that are separate and single and say, “What does this church or world even have to offer me?” The Lord has promised in the next life everything will be made right. And I don’t know what that constitutes for everybody, but I believe it. I believe it because Joseph Smith saw it.

Hank Smith: 01:23:56 Me too. It’s beautiful. Gerrit, we haven’t really looked at Samuel yet or Joseph Smith has sisters. I don’t think many people know much about Sophronia, Catherine and Lucy, what about Samuel and Joseph’s sisters?

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:24:12 For Samuel, he is in the early workings of the Restoration, very early on. I mean, it’s Samuel that is leading Oliver Cowdery down to Harmony. The other thing that Samuel is, is one of the earliest and most effective Latter-day Saint missionaries. He is the type of person that we would like to put in the MTC right now to train people up on how to do it because he is incredibly energetic in doing it.

01:24:44 I mean, he seems to be almost boundless in his energy to share the gospel. He’s one of the earliest converts of the church. I can’t even say he’s a convert to the church because he’s actually baptized before there’s a church. He’s one of the people who’s baptized prior to the church being organized. He’s one of the few that’s baptized after they receive the authority from John the Baptist.

01:25:09 His offices of missionary work in those early days in 1829 and then especially in 1830 with the Book of Mormon, is going to lead to dozens and dozens of people joining the church. He is not passively believing that Joseph Smith is in fact a prophet of God. He is telling other people of that in his missionary efforts. An early convert to the church who has a lot of zeal but not a lot of depth is Joseph Wakefield, who gains a testimony becomes an incredible missionary.

  01:25:41 He converts George A. Smith’s family, so part of the extended Joseph Smith family, and yet as Joseph reveals doctrines that are beyond what his sensibilities can handle, he will turn against the prophet and become one of the leaders of the opposition in Kirtland. Speed at conversion is not always the best indicator of whether or not someone is going to be a lifelong member of the church.

  01:26:12 The real question is have they fully consecrated their soul to God to where they know these things to be true, and I know them even if all of life’s events turn against me. And I know them even if the church teaches a doctrine that I didn’t already know or I don’t agree with. And I know them even if my family apostatizes. It’s getting that place in our faith where it’s not a question of whether or not I believe.

01:26:44 I believe because the Holy Spirit has told me. For Samuel Smith, he doesn’t know immediately that the Book of Mormon that he’s dropped off will eventually be the one that will end up in the hands of Brigham Young and that will lead to his conversion.

Hank Smith: 01:27:00 Who has some impact. I don’t know if you guys know, he has a pretty significant impact.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:27:06 It’s a good reminder to people today, you just don’t know. When you share the gospel, you have no idea what your impact is. There was a family that I had been meeting with. It was a young couple, been hit pretty hard with antagonism, people saying antagonistic things about the church and its history. They were a wonderful good couple. I met with them multiple times trying to resolve their concerns.

01:27:32 After one of the last times we’d met, they were very kind, but they basically were like, “Look, we just don’t believe anymore.” And I’ve had a lot of people say, “Hey, can we talk about church history?” I know it’s not the case, but I remember driving home from that church building because it wasn’t mine and I just started crying because I was just like, “I’m so bad at this. Their whole lives were dependent on me doing a better job. I failed them and now I’ve failed their children and I failed their children’s children. I just failed.”

01:28:12 I cried driving home because they were such good people and I couldn’t help. I obviously moved on with life and a few years ago I had another colleague contact me and tell me that this couple would rejoin the church, that they were in their ward and they told them that part of their conversion experience, reconversion was they couldn’t get out of their head some of the things that I’d said when we had talked before.

01:28:47 I think a lot of us have those experiences and we don’t know it. We share the gospel with people and we sure see a lot of failures. Failures are easy to see. The failures are the ones that are right up there front and center, and they make you feel like, is anyone even listening? Does it even matter? But I don’t think we ever fully get to see all of the successes.

01:29:08 I think about my own family. My grandfather and my grandmother converted to the church in the Netherlands in the 1920s. My grandfather was not a religious man, so I don’t know how quickly thereafter he went inactive. He was not somebody that was going to be going to church a lot. The Dutch mission was a pretty rough mission.

01:29:32 You could have some missionaries on today that would let you know, “Yeah, there’s a grand total of nobody who listens to you there.” And so I always think about that missionary, I don’t know who it is, but he probably left home from his mission thinking he was a failure.

01:29:47 He probably thought, “I only baptized two people my whole mission, one of them went immediately inactive. I’m a failure. I did nothing.” And yet there are literally tens of thousands of people because my brothers were much more effective missionaries than I was that are members of the church now as a result of that one conversion.

01:30:12 I get the opportunity to share the gospel with people as a religious educator and to bear my testimony to groups of people all on the basis of that one missionary’s sacrifice who probably spent the rest of his life thinking anytime someone brought up a mission, he probably, “Yeah, served one.” “Don’t you have a lot of baptisms? I had like 400 in the Philippines.” “No, I baptized two people.” I do think it’s important. The old adage, you know how many seeds are in an apple, but you don’t know how many apples are in every seed. You don’t know where the end is going to be.

Hank Smith: 01:30:50 That’s beautiful, Gerrit. That’s Samuel Smith. Let’s talk about Joseph’s sisters. These aren’t people that we get to talk about very much as we move forward through church history.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:31:02 Yeah, there’s less known about them in their experiences. I mean, it’s not an uncommon thing that in the 19th century women are not as prominent and so many documents don’t reference them as closely. Of course, Joseph is often referring to his sisters in letters that he writes. They go through the trials and tribulations that the saints go through. As they get married, they will move with the church to Ohio.

01:31:33 They’ll move with the church to Missouri. Once I say the words, Missouri, you know that things aren’t good. They go through a significant amount of trial and they all remain steadfast in their belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet. After Joseph’s murder, they’re in various places in their life, in part because their husbands in some ways dictate their religious life as is pretty common in 19th century America.

01:32:03 So they all maintain their faith that Joseph was a prophet, but none of them actually come to Salt Lake. One of them actually is very much contemplating it, at least from letters that we have, but then doesn’t, and then eventually will join the reorganized church. They all maintain their belief that Joseph saw God and that Joseph was a prophet of God, the Book of Mormon was true. They maintain that belief in Joseph even though after Joseph’s murder, their lives take them in various directions.

Hank Smith: 01:32:41 Just that you’ve told us between what? 1840 and 1844, they’re going to lose their father and four brothers.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:32:50 And they’re not just losing them because of disease. Two of them are murdered and at least they believe that Samuel, that his death is also caused by the mob chasing him when he’s trying to get help for Joseph and Hyrum when they’re in Carthage.

01:33:11 They at least believe that three of those brothers are murdered directly or indirectly by the mob. I think that’s one of the more difficult aspects of this time period of Latter-day Saint history is think of how difficult that would be to go through not only the scenes the church is already going through, but then also to go through the tragic personal loss that’s going on.

Hank Smith: 01:33:35 Gerrit, we’re going to wrap up here and I know everyone if you love history like I do, I could listen to Gerrit teach all day every day. But Gerrit, why don’t we ask you one last question and then we’ll pick up the next time we have you is about a month and we’re going to look at the translation of the Book of Mormon, which you may have written a couple books about. So…

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:33:55 I may have.

Hank Smith: 01:33:57 So Gerrit, let’s ask you one last question. How significant is it that all of Joseph Smith’s family believes he is a prophet? Knows he is a prophet? That seems to me to be pretty significant.

John Bytheway: 01:34:13 Who would know him better?

Hank Smith: 01:34:15 Yeah. I don’t know about you guys, but I really have a hard time fooling my family. When my sisters talk to me or my wife, Sarah, talks to me, they just know me differently and that’s okay. They know me, but it’s really difficult to put on a religious face around your family.

John Bytheway: 01:34:32 Right.

Hank Smith: 01:34:32 All the time.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:34:34 Sibling love only goes so far. I mean, I’m willing to help you out if you’re in a hard time, but I’m not willing to have my house burned down for you. I think there’s a few lines you draw on the sand, and I really think that those family members who grew up with him clearly did not feel that there was any disposition in him to do evil. Obviously, he sinned, but he clearly wasn’t doing evil things to them. He clearly wasn’t lying consistently to them.

01:35:13 He clearly wasn’t a negative influence in their life because they had every opportunity to separate themselves from him. They didn’t have to follow him where he went. Especially his sisters when they got married, they could have stayed in Ohio and not moved on or stayed in New York. In a lot of ways, they’re voting with their feet. The fact that they follow his prophetic utterances means that they see him as who he claims to be. And a lot of antagonists will say things like, “Well, if you only really knew Joseph Smith, then you wouldn’t believe.”

01:35:49 But what you mean is I watched a TikTok that someone made in their basement where they misquoted something that was written 50 years after the fact by someone who wasn’t there, who claimed that they knew something that they didn’t even know. And you think that carries more weight than his brother saying he’s a prophet. And again, antagonists will say, “Well, that’s why the conspiracy goes. I mean, they’re all in on it. They’re all in on it. They’re all profiting from this.”

Hank Smith: 01:36:23 They’re all liars. Every one of them.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:36:26 Yeah. They’re profiting from it so much they keep having their houses taken from them. It’s amazing. If they profit anymore, they’ll have nothing left. It speaks to the fact that especially his older siblings. With younger siblings, maybe they don’t really know exactly what’s all going on in the household. Lucy’s two when Joseph has Moroni visit, so I don’t know how well versed she is.

Hank Smith: 01:36:51 Right.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:36:52 On that. But Alvin and Hyrum and Sophronia, well, they’ve known Joseph since Joseph was a baby. They’ve seen Joseph before his sickness and after his sickness. They see Joseph as he becomes studious, inquiring about which religion he should join. They know Joseph after the first vision.

01:37:14 They see his response to persecution. They hear him speak. Why don’t his siblings just simply declare to others, “Look, my brother wrote a book that he thinks came from God, but he obviously didn’t.” That’s actually a much more natural thing when you’re being hated and persecuted for the fact that your brother claims something. All of us have an extended family member who says things that you’re like, “You can’t listen to aunt so-and-so because she’s crazy.”

Hank Smith: 01:37:49 Yeah.

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:37:49 All of us have had that experience of distancing ourselves from someone who’s saying something that puts us at odds with society and his family just leans right into it. If Joseph says it, then it’s true. Well, this is contrary to all religious doctrine that exists. For a historian, it very much speaks to the fact that whether you believe Joseph Smith saw God or not, you have to believe that the people who were closest to him believed that he did, that they saw him as honest, that they saw this as real and they reordered their entire lives because of it.

Hank Smith: 01:38:34 Yeah, that is beautiful. It’s been fun to get to know this first family, John.

John Bytheway: 01:38:40 Yeah. I’ll begin my teaching a Book of Mormon class by saying, we have a special guest today. Lucy Mack Smith is here with us today, and I try to ask the class to imagine what she might say something like, “Do you know what it cost my family to bring you this book?” And she doesn’t say, “This book has ruined us or ruined my family.” She says, “Oh no. Believe it to the end.”

Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat: 01:39:03 So in the organization of the Relief Society, one of the people who speaks is Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith. Now at this point, she has suffered incredible loss. This is 1842. She has not only lost Alvin as well as several infant children, she has lost Don Carlos as well and lost her husband. She has experienced some very difficult times on top of all the difficulties of being driven out of your home over and over again as you follow the teachings of Christ laid out by your son.

01:39:42 These are from the Relief Society minutes. It’s Eliza R. Snow recording her as she’s speaking. And so it’ll be in third person because she’s recording. This is what Mother Smith said. Mother Smith said, “This institution is a good one. We must watch over ourselves.” That she came into the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to do good, to get good, and to get into the celestial kingdom.

01:40:11 She said, “We must watch over and cherish one another, watch over one another and comfort one another and gain instruction that we may all sit down in heaven together.” That is a very succinct and powerful testimony. ” I came into this church to get good and to do good, and we’ve got to help everybody get to the Celestial Kingdom.”

Hank Smith: 01:40:38 How grateful every member of the church could, should be for this first family. Every member. What a beginning. What a beginning.

John Bytheway: 01:40:50 With that, we’d like to thank Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, founder of the Dirk Moss Academy. So thankful for him and his knowledge and testimony of this. This is pretty exciting as we begin this Voices of The Restoration.

Hank Smith: 01:41:07 He’ll be back.

John Bytheway: 01:41:08 Thank you so much for joining us today on followHIM. We’d like to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and we always remember our founder Steve Sorensen. Please join us next time. We’re going to have Dr. Scott Woodward with us talking about Moroni’s visit and section two of the Doctrine of Covenants and a good chunk of Joseph Smith history. We’re excited to see you next time on another episode of followHIM.

Speaker 1: 01:41:38 Do you or someone speak Spanish, Portuguese, or French? You can now watch and listen to our podcast in those languages. Links are in the description below. Today’s show notes and transcript are on our website, followHIM.co. That’s followHIM.co. Of course, none of this could happen without our production team, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Neilson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Amelia Kabwika and Annabelle Sorensen.