Hank Smith: 00:00 Welcome to part two with Dr. Casey Griffiths and Dr. Scott Woodward on the introductory pages of the Book of Mormon.

  00:07 Casey, we so often focus on the three witnesses that sometimes the eight are overshadowed. You said that these two testimonies complement each other. One is the supernatural experience, the other, this very tactile natural experience. What do we need to know about these eight witnesses?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 00:24 The eight witnesses, like you mentioned, have a much less supernatural experience. In fact, here’s their words. Joseph Smith Jr., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold, and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated, we did handle with our hands. We also saw the engravings thereof, all of which has the appearance of ancient work and curious workmanship, and this we bear record with words of soberness that the said Smith has shown unto us for we have seen and hefted, and no of assurity that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. What they bear witness to is that they actually physically handle the plates, that they’re able to turn the pages. We have a document that community of Christ has in his possession, that we’re fairly sure comes from John Whitmer, where he copied characters from the plates called the characters document, and they tell a story too.

  01:19 Not all of the eight witnesses stay in the church either, and the general rule of thumb is if their last name’s Smith, they died in the church. If their last name’s Whitmer, they didn’t die in the church with two exceptions, Christian and Peter. Christian and Peter both die in 1835 and 1836 respectively and don’t ever leave the church, die faithfully. But Jacob Whitmer, John Whitmer, and Hiram Page, Hiram Page is a brother-in-law, the Whitmer, he’s married to Catherine Whitmer, all do leave the church but also never deny their testimony. The witnesses are essentially from these two families. They’re Smiths and they’re Whitmers. The Whitmers were the family that Joseph and Oliver stayed with during the last month of Book of Mormon translation, and they become the stalwarts in the church. Unfortunately, in 1838, when David is excommunicated, the Whitmer [inaudible 00:02:14] leave together, and that includes Oliver, who’s a Whitmer as well.

  02:18 So walking through each one of them, there’s a hundred other stories to be told about their faithfulness, their fidelity, their integrity when it comes to questions about the Book of Mormon. For instance, John Whitmer, who is assigned his church historian, who writes some of the early histories of the church, is bearing witness of the book of Mormon into his late seventies. This is something that was written down when someone saw him preach February, 1878. Mr. Whitmer is considered a truthful, honest and law abiding citizen by this community. That’s Kingston, Missouri, the town where John Whitmer settled and stayed there the rest of his life. Consequently, his appointment drew out a large audience. Mr. Whitmer stated that he had often handled the identical golden plates, which Mr. Smith received from the hand of an angel. He said it was a pure gold. Part of the work was sealed up as solid. The other part was open. And it was this part that was translated, which is his day termed the Mormon Bible.

  03:19 This is the first time Mr. Whitmer has attempted to preach in a good many years, and the time who waits for no one, has written many a furrow upon his brow. He’s upwards of 60 years old, and gave some good advice to both old and young before closing and asked the audience if they would take the book Mormon in the Bible and compare them, and to take Paul’s rule to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good. So not just the three witnesses, but the eight witnesses demonstrate absolute integrity and fidelity when it comes to their testimony, that there were plates, that they handled the plates. In fact, Hiram Smith, you know, right? And Joseph Smith Sr. is the original patriarch in the church. That’s Joseph Smith’s father.

  04:00 Samuel Smith is a Smith brother that we don’t hear as much about, but he is the first missionary of the church, and apparently as soon as the Book of Mormon was published, took a ruck sack of copies of the Book of Mormon and started going around and preaching. And the story we usually tell is that Samuel wasn’t super successful, that he didn’t convert anybody on his trip, and even got turned out of doors for testifying in the Book of Mormon. But the second part of the story that we need to tell is that he does place a copy of the Book of Mormon with John Green, and he’s married to a woman named Rhoda Green. Rhoda’s maiden name is Young, which should ring a bell. Rhoda’s the sister of Brigham Young. Eventually, she starts to read the book of Mormon and converts, and she brings her brother Phineas Young to meet with Samuel.

  04:50 So Samuel comes back. And apparently they’re all sitting there at a table, and Phineas Young pulls out the book of Mormon and turns to the back of it, because that’s where the witnesses are found in the 1830 Book of Mormon. They’re not at the beginning, they’re at the end of the book. And he read through the testimony of the eight witnesses, then pointed at Samuel H. Smith, then turned to Samuel and said, “Sir, is this your name in the book?” Samuel said, “Yes, and I want to bear you my testimony in person, that I saw the plates and that the book is true.” Samuel was a little bit more successful than we sometimes give him credit for it because he does convert Rhoda Young, and then Phineas Young, and then eventually Brigham Young down the road, all become part of this chain of conversion that Samuel sets off.

Hank Smith: 05:34 And they have some impact, right, Casey? They have some impact on the future of the church, right?

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 05:38 They do a good thing here or there. The school I work at is named after one of them, so they turned out okay. Always nice to look back on your converts and see how they’re doing.

Hank Smith: 05:50 Yeah. Yeah, Samuel’s like, “How did mine turn out?” He did all right.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 05:54 Pretty good. Pretty good. But again, none of these eight witnesses either ever did either testimony though. Three of them end up outside the church.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 06:02 I just wanted to put a quick plug if anyone wants to do a deep dive into the witnesses, there’s an awesome book. It’s called Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses by Richard Lloyd Anderson. I think it’s a single best thing ever written about the witnesses, not quite 200 pages. So it goes a deep dive into not just their witness, but also critics. It’s awesome. It’s excellent.

Hank Smith: 06:25 Wonderful. Let’s move to a different section of the manual. It’s called the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon As a Miracle. If someone asked you where the Book of Mormon came from, what would you say? How would you describe God’s involvement in giving us the Book of Mormon? As you read Joseph Smith’s testimony, pay attention to how he described it. Based on what you read, how do you think God feels about the importance of the Book of Mormon? Now, Scott and Casey, I know that you have episode after episode, episode on the Church History Matters podcast about this. Our listeners can go there if they want to get the details, but give us a 30,000 foot view, as John likes to call it.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 07:01 I would say it this way. Sometimes when I teach this, I’ll ask my students, “Do you guys want to see a miracle?” And they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I’m like, “No, honestly, do you guys want to see an actual miracle? I’m not joking. Okay, does this look like the face of a guy who’s joking right now?” Kind of build it up, and they’re like, “Okay, sure, sure, sure.” “All right, I got it right here,” and then I pull out of my backpack a Book of Mormon, just the nice missionary blue one. I’m like, “It’s right here. Do you guys want to see it?” Kind of walk up and down the roads, do you guys want to… Do you want to hold it? But then I just want to say I am dead serious about this, and then we get into it, right?

  07:41 The Book of Mormon itself frames the coming forth of the Book of Mormon as a miracle in context of describing the coming fourth of the Book of Mormon to an unlearned boy struggling to get a sealed book translated. The Lord is quoted in second Nephi 27 as saying this, so it’s in this context he says, “For behold, I am God and I am a God of miracles, and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I work not among the children of men, save it be according to their faith.” And he says, “Therefore, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people. Yay, a marvelous work and a wonder for the wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid.” That’s the framing of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. It’s the God of miracles working through an unlearned boy to bring about a marvelous work and a wonder. That’s how the Book of Mormon frames it. That’s perfect.

  08:39 And as we do a deep dive into the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, it just gets more and more astonishing how miraculous this actually was.Let me just drop a few things, 30,000 foot view here. The last of the book of Lehigh was super brutal for Joseph Smith. The plates and the Yurman thumb were taken away for a season, a season of repentance. On the 22nd of September, 1828, Joseph gets his gift restored, the plates are restored, the Yurman [inaudible 00:09:09] restored. He doesn’t seem to do much translating during that time until Oliver Cowdery shows up in April of 1829, April 5th to be specific. And then two days later on April 7th, they start. They begin what is basically the entire Book of Mormon as we have it. Joseph picks up right where he left off. The book of Lehigh probably starts in Mosiah, goes all the way to the end of the Book of Mormon. And then they ask, “Should we retranslate? The book of Lehigh?” Answer is no. D&C 10 says, just do the small plates. And so they’ll actually translate first Nephi through, words of Mormon last.

  09:40 In the midst of all of that, we can actually track a few key dates, a few anchor points as to the speed of the translation. This is where it just kind of starts boggling my mind. The speed of the translation was about 65 working days within about a 90 day period, about 65 working days is how closely we could track it. And credit to Jack Welch, founder of Scripture Central for really doing the hard work at pinning down these anchor points. So good, so meticulous. 65 days, why might that matter, to know that the Book of Mormon came forth in 65 days? I would respond the speed at which this comes forth is very suspicious of a miracle. It kind of smells… It smells miraculous. For comparison, King James Bible took seven years for 47 scholars, theologians, clergymen to translate from Hebrew and Greek into English, the LDS triple combination Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants Pearl of Great Price, that took three years for six full-time, general authorities, full staff and secretaries, 100 plus return missionaries three years to get that done.

  10:51 Some people might say, “Well, it’s fiction. Book of Mormon, it’s fiction,” to which we’ll shelf that argument for now, but I’d say, well, let’s compare it to some fiction. The Hobbit, JR Tolkien, this took two and a half years for him to write. Lord of the Rings trilogy, 12 years. Harry Potter, just volume one, just volume one, where we’re doing some serious world building, Tolkien and JK Rowling build a world, which would be required for the Book of Mormon, Harry Potter volume one took six years. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo took 12 years. Let me just state it again. The Book of Mormon took 65 days. One pass and it was done, no punctuation. One sentence.

Hank Smith: 11:35 One sentence.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 11:37 The witnesses who were scribes for Joseph Smith, we’re talking Emma Smith, we’re talking Martin Harris, we’re talking Oliver Cowdery, they say that Joseph was just looking at the instruments that came with the plates to translate, or alternately a seer stone that Joseph had. Several of them talk about him putting it in the bottom of his hat, so as to block out extraneous light. And he would put his face in the hat, and the rocks, the stones, the seer stones would shine. David Whitmer says, “He drew it, the hat, closely around his face to exclude the light. And in the darkness, the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. And Joseph would read it off and Oliver Cowdery would write it down. And if it was correct, then it would disappear and another character would appear with the interpretation underneath it.”

  12:32 He says, and this is David Whitner saying, “Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God and not by any power of man. You think about this, a book like The Book of Mormon, 65 days, Joseph Smith, 23 years old at this time, dictating to scribe that wrote it down, and we get a book like The Book of Mormon. And the complexity of this remarkable book, the literary complexity, and we could talk about that for a few hours if you want. Just a few things to throw out. There’s just a few examples of complexity like geographical complexity. There are more than 500 references in the Book of Mormon to 150 plus geographical locations that are internally and spatially consistent with each other. There’s three different calendar systems that are referred to consistently and without error throughout the whole book from the time my father left Jerusalem, and then the reign of the judges, then from the time of the sign of the Savior’s birth. That’s just in the background. It’s so subtle, but it’s always consistent.

  13:37 There’s efficient monetary systems of weights and measures. There’s authentic legal cases. There’s realistic warfare. Huey Brown broke it down like this. He said there’s 71 chapters on doctrine and exhortation, and 21 chapters on the Ministry of Christ that clarifies and expands upon, but doesn’t contradict biblical doctrine. Let’s add another one. There’s one chapter, 77 verses long that describes an extended allegory about taming wild olive trees that cryptically expounds upon the scattering and gathering of Israel throughout all time, all while agreeing both with true botanical principles and true biblical doctrine. There’s one chapter, 30 verses long that forms the most complex and complete chiasmus known in scripture, and there’s no attention drawn to the fact… We’re at 30,000 feet, Hank. Let me know if we need to go lower on any of these things.

Hank Smith: 14:27 Hey, give us a preview for what we’re going to look at this year. Yeah.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 14:31 Yeah, that’s right. We’re previewing this. This chiasmus is just a nice ancient literary style of writing of parallelism. Nobody even knew about those in the Book of Mormon until about 120 years after Joseph Smith’s death. Then we have a missionary in Germany, John Welch, who discovers this after attending a Jewish presentation about Chiasmus in the Bible. And he thought, well, the Book of Mormons ancient scripture, so maybe it’s in there too. It was written by people who spoke Hebrew, so maybe we could find it in there. And sure enough, all the chiasmus research of the Book of Mormon is born through this marvelous moment in time. Throughout the entire book, you’re going to find this kind of complexity, Hebrew complexity, literary complexity, elaborate flashbacks, literary foreshadowing, allegory, metaphor, unique figures of speech. There’s locations that will later be discovered as real Nahom, the place of bountiful where Nephi is ship. These areas that have been studied like crazy by scholars for years and years and years saying this is all not just plausible, but there’s actually a few anchor points that are really incredible here.

  15:41 Joseph Smith whipped through all of that in 65 days. And I’ll say that there are some seeming anachronisms, things that don’t seem like they should be there, like steel in 600 BC, or cement horses. And there’s been big long lists made of the anachronisms book of Mormon. But what’s fascinating is that over time, that list is shrinking. We’re finding more and more evidence that what we thought was anachronistic in the Book of Mormon shouldn’t be there yet. Actually, oh, it turns out there was barley over here. Oh, it turns out there were people using cement. Yeah, there are actually steel swords. We found some manjerico about this time period, and are [inaudible 00:16:21]. So there are still some on the list of anachronisms that don’t seem to fit in time yet, but that list is slowly but steadily getting authenticated over time.

  16:32 John, Hank, Casey, he’s 23 years old. I don’t know any 23 year olds that can crank something out like this in 65 years, let alone 65 days. And from that experience, we get the Book of Mormon. It’s dumb founding. Astonishing isn’t quite strong enough. As the Lord said in 75:27, “The wisdom of their wise and learned shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent shall be hid.” It is absolutely a bonafide remarkable miracle, a marvelous work and a wonder. To keep that in mind as you read the Book of Mormon is phenomenal. Oh, by the way, we haven’t even mentioned the spiritual convincing power of this book and the clarity of the doctrine and the principles that it teaches to actually help drive you to Jesus, millions can bear this testimony, that that’s what the book does really, really well. That’s part of the telos of this book, is that in the Book of Mormon brings people to Jesus, and it does it really, really well.

  17:34 You add all that together, the young, inexperienced, relatively uneducated, 23-year-old translator looking at stones, his process, looking at stones in his hat and reading words that appear, and then the remarkable content with the complexity, the coherence, and the remarkable spiritual convincing power of this book, you understand why this is called a marvelous work in wonder. The miracle is that a book like this came through a boy like that. But then you add the stones in the hat bit, and it’s off the charts. You want to see a miracle? You want to see a miracle? Get a copy of the book of Mormon and you’re looking at it.

Hank Smith: 18:10 It’s no wonder B.H. Roberts, church historian, church leader, when someone said to him, “Come on, it’s just a book.” He said, “Match it. If it’s just a book, you do it. Match it. Match it, I say, or with hands on lips remains silent when Joseph’s name is spoken.” If it’s so simple, you do it.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 18:32 I do joke like that with my students. I’ll say, you know what? You don’t have to do another assignment in my class. If you just want to write your own book a Mormon, I’ll give you an A. You can skip all the other stuff.

Hank Smith: 18:42 Don’t even have to attend. Yeah.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 18:44 Here’s the criteria, and then I lay all that out.

John Bytheway: 18:46 You can’t have any notes. You have to just look into a hat and dictate it to Siri. And you can’t go backwards.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 18:51 Exactly. Brian Hills has that challenge. He says, you don’t even need a scribe today because you could just use that little button on your phone for text messaging, and you’ve got a virtual scribe. He said, “Here’s what you got to do though.” He said, “You need to recite a series of text messages of 20 to 30 words each to a recipient who’s then going to compile them to create a manuscript.” And he says, “To more closely emulate Smith’s efforts, the text block should be consistently spoken in a vernacular that’s different from the author’s daily speech. Before hitting send, spelling and grammar could be corrected, but once you hit send, that’s it. The sequence and the meaning of the sentences will not be altered. And after repeating that sequence around 10,000 times to create a continuous string of words of about 270,000, the text is then immediately delivered directly to a publisher for typesetting and printing.” So give it a shot. That’s how you do it.

  19:42 Nobody knows exactly how it works, but what we do have is the end product of that. I don’t know much about seers stones, and I find it a little bit odd, but what I do know is the Book of Mormon text, and if that text came through seer stones, then I’m a believer in seer stones.

Hank Smith: 19:58 I have a thought here from Elder Callister, Tad Callister, and I think this sums up pretty well what you’ve taught us, Scott. He says, the argument that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon is simply counter to the realities of life. It is one thing to have creative ideas. It is quite another to put them into a complex, but coherent and harmonious, whole inundated with majestic doctrine, all truths all done in a single draft.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 20:24 Amen.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 20:25 What Scott’s done is exactly the way we should approach this. There’s a lot of complexity. We did six episodes on it as to how the Book of Mormon was translated as to what David Whitmer said, versus what Oliver Cowdery said, versus what Emma said. But in all of that, don’t miss the forest for the trees here. The big view is that every single person that was involved in the coming forth the Book of Mormon saw it as miraculous, as something that they could not explain through natural means. In fact, if I can share an experience really fast, a couple of years ago, I was in the community of Christ Temple doing research in their archives and I was with Taunalyn Ford who’s this wonderful scholar, one of my favorite people, and they brought out a manuscript to her. It was just a bunch of loose leaf paper written all over in pencil. And I walked over and said, “What is that?”And Taunalyn said, “These are the notes from the last interview Emma Smith gave before she passed away.”

  21:24 The interviewer was her son, Joseph III, who was president of the organized church at the time. Boy, am I suddenly interested. Because of all the people involved in the translation process, Emma is there the night that he gets the plates. She’s literally at the hill when Joseph goes up and gets the plates and brings them down. She’s probably the earliest scribe. And other than a couple of weeks when Joseph was at the Whitmer home, Emma is there for the entire process, from when he gets the plates in September, 1827 to when the manuscripts completed in 1829, and during those crucial three months when Joseph and Oliver produced the entire 531 page manuscript that we’re familiar with. At one point in this interview, and I took a picture of this page, he flat out asks her, “Do you think he could have faked this?” And this is what he wrote down Emma as saying.

  22:16 She said, “My belief is the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity. I have not the slightest doubt of it. I’m satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired. For when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour, and when returning after meals or after interruptions, he could have once begin where he left off without either seeing the manuscript or any portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would’ve been improbable that a learned man could do this. And for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.” There’s the person closest to Joseph Smith through the whole process basically saying, “I can’t explain this. I knew him better than anybody else. I can’t explain where it came from.” And one point in here that John Hilton, our friend, likes to point out is that she says Joseph Smith would leave and come back and pick up without looking at anything.

  23:13 There’s intersectionality in the Book of Mormon. There’s places in the Book of Mormon where prophets in the Book of Mormon quote earlier prophets. The Book of Alma quotes King Benjamin. The text produced exactly. What Emma is describing, if it’s accurate, has no physical explanation for how he could have done this. It’s like Scott said, the book starts with a miracle. Don’t skip over the material before the record begins in one Nephi, because what they’re documenting here is a miracle as well-documented as any I can think of. Maybe the resurrection of Christ, but you have so many people who had so many reasons to doubt what happened that all came away with this ironclad testimony that they had participated in something miraculous. And for those of us today that look for miracles, that wonder if God is there, if he hears us, if the day of miracles has passed, this is proof positive that it has not, and God can and will still do miracles for us.

Hank Smith: 24:11 I’m glad you brought up the resurrection there, Casey. It just reminds me, when I see that empty stone box, the paintings of the empty stone box in the Hill Cumorah, I always think of the empty tomb, right? Two miracles, two miracles with that empty stone box.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 24:26 Well, 12 witnesses of both, right? It lines up really well as well.

Hank Smith: 24:29 And a woman named Mary. Yeah.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 24:32 Oh, that’s a good one, Hank. Well done. Yeah, I hadn’t made that connection. Nice.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 24:38 So in saying all of this about the miraculous nature of the Book of Mormon, does this actually prove the Book of Mormon is true? I think that’s an interesting question to ask. Does that prove that it’s true? And if I’m being totally honest, I have to say no, it doesn’t prove that it’s true, but it does prove that this book should be taken very seriously, that this book should be studied very seriously. Although it’s casually dismissed by far too many people in the world, we’re not going to let that happen, are we? Not this year. We’re going to study this book deeply in this church. We have the singular opportunity to do that, to dig deep, to examine, to ponder this book more deeply and seriously and carefully than maybe we’ve ever done before in our life. What an opportunity before us now. This book deserves our careful, careful study, and we get to do it this year. It’s amazing.

Hank Smith: 25:31 Absolutely wonderful. It has been such a treat to have you both here. I picture our listeners at home, they’re either folding laundry or they’re shoveling snow, or maybe they’re down in Australia on the beach. What are you hoping? What do you want us to know? Casey, let’s start with you.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 25:50 The first thing that comes to mind is just read it. My testimony of the church and my testimony of Christ is linked to the Book of Mormon. Before I knew all this stuff about the witnesses, before I knew all this stuff about translation, before I was familiar with the evidence, which I find overwhelming that the Book of Mormon is an authentic document, that it’s exactly what it claims to be, I was just a college freshman who came to BYU with a lot of doubts and questions and was asked by a great religion teacher, Todd Parker, to read the book of Mormon 30 minutes a day. That was the only assignment in his class, pretty much was you have to read the Book of Mormon 30 minutes every day. That year of my life when I was in the Book of Mormon every day, because I took his class two semesters in a row, first half, second half, changed me, helped me know that Jesus Christ was my savior, helped me make the decision to serve a mission.

  26:48 All good things in my life I could trace back to those choices that I made. I would say pick up the book and read it, and read it intensely. And read it with those three things we’ve talked about, what good things Christ has done for people, what covenant he’s made with people, and that he is the Christ manifesting himself to all nations. And you don’t have to dress it up much fancier than that. If you do that, you’ll gain a witness that Jesus Christ lives and that the book of Mormons true. Or if you already have those things, you’ll find your witness strengthened and your spiritual health restored as you spend time in these pages.

  27:27 Weird experience I could share really fast. We had a strange event happen on my mission where these elders felt like demonic spirits were influencing an investigator. And we were all panicking. We called our mission president. Our mission president said, “Just sit down and read the Book of Mormon with them. Read the Book of Mormon. You’ll have those anxieties, those fears, those evil spirits cast out, and you’ll feel the Holy Spirit in your life.” Read it. Get your nose in the book and read it would be my first counsel to everybody.

Hank Smith: 27:58 Thank you, Casey. Scott, what do you think? We’re setting off here in 52 weeks of intense study of the Book of Mormon, and I hope all of our listeners can commit to that. I know with Come Follow Me, it’s often the beginning of the year, we hit it hard, and then we kind of dwindle a little bit, and we can all commit I’m going to get all the way to the end of the row here. What are you hoping happens?

Dr. Scott Woodward: 28:19 Well, I want to share a little quote from Wilfred Woodruff who was hanging out at Brigham Young’s house on November 28th, 1841. Here’s what he said. “I spent the day at Brigham Young’s home in company with Joseph and the 12 in conversing upon a variety of subjects.” He said that Joseph started talking about the Book of Mormon. This is cool, right? This is now what, 12 years almost removed from the translation of the Book of Mormon. It’s had a life so far, a short life in the church, but it’s had a life in the church. And here’s Joseph Smith reflecting on the Book of Mormon a little bit, and Woodrow Woodruff writes this down. He said, “Joseph said The Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth and the keystone of our religion,” and this part’s my favorite part, “and a man would get near to God by abiding by its precepts then than by any other book.”

  29:19 I guess that would be it, Hank. My testimony is that the Book of Mormon can not only withstand careful examination, but that when we seriously engage with it, do what Joseph said here, abide by its precepts, that it leads to incredible spiritual strength and intellectual satisfaction. That has absolutely been my experience. That’s what I would leave with you, abide by the precepts. Abide by its precepts.

Hank Smith: 29:47 Abiding by its precepts. Over the course of my teaching, I had a long conversation with the Lord in which the beginning of my teaching, the beginning of coming out of my teenage years reading the Book of Mormon, I think I told the Lord, “Lord, the book of Mormon’s true,” and he said, “Yes. Yeah. It is. I’m glad you found that out.” I’ve learned since that that wasn’t the end. That was the beginning. I thought that was the point where we find out the book is true. And then I see that there’s so much more than that. Because once you realize the book is true, I’ve come to realize it can make me true. That’s what I’ve seen the power in it, not necessarily in finding out that it’s true, which it is, but finding out what it can do to me as I abide by those precepts, like you’ve said, Scott,

Dr. Scott Woodward: 30:38 That makes me think of a verse in doctrine and Covenants 84 where it’s a famous verse where the church is under condemnation because they have not been remembering. Yeah, they’ve been taking lightly the things of God, particularly the Book of Mormon. He highlights in verse 57, he says… But listen to this just in light of what you were just saying, being in light of that Joseph Smith quote, the Lord says, “They shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the New Covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments, which I have given them, not only to say but to do according to that which I have written.” Now, what you doing? I didn’t give you the Book of Mormon just so you could have fascinating intellectually stimulating conversations. I didn’t give you the book of Mormons so you could talk doctrine with each other. It’s not just to say… I do want those conversations, yes, but not only to say but to do according to that which I have written, he says, which I have written.

  31:34 I think that just goes hand in hand with what you’re saying and with this abide by its precepts concept. That’s powerful.

Hank Smith: 31:41 Wow. Wow, John, what a day. If I was excited before which I was, I’m even more excited now.

John Bytheway: 31:49 Absolutely. I’ve got pages of notes of additions to my own teaching that I’m going to make. I love what Scott just said about abide by its precepts. Because I think when I was younger, I thought a testimony was a feeling. It was, I’m going wait for the burning. That’s how I know I have a testimony. And I’m still growing and learning, but I feel like more and more of my testimony now is you’ll know by their fruits. It’s you’ll see results, you’ll see outcomes. And abiding by its precepts brings outcomes. It changes me. It has changed me. It’s changed people that I have loved by reading it, and then abiding by its precepts. And that is what is the real testimony. Do what the book says and watch what it does to you and for you, and watch the light that you get from it and the hope and the forgiveness that you get when you start abiding by its precepts. And that’s where my testimony is. It’s look at the fruits of this, look at what it has done for people I know and love.

  32:47 And for so many, this is going to be a very fun year for that reason.

Hank Smith: 32:52 Absolutely. Let’s return to where we started this opening paragraph of the manual. Before you even get to one Nephi chapter one, you’ll notice the Book of Mormon is no ordinary book. This year, as you read, pray, and apply its teachings. You’ll invite the Savior’s power into your life, and you may feel moved to say, as the witnesses did, “It is marvelous in my eyes.” Scott, Casey, thank you so much for your time. It has been wonderful to have you back, friends.

Dr. Scott Woodward: 33:24 Thanks for having us.

Dr. Casey Griffiths: 33:24 Thank you. Wonderful to be here.

Hank Smith: 33:26 John, this is just the beginning of what’s going to be a powerful, wonderful year.

John Bytheway: 33:31 Absolutely.

Hank Smith: 33:32 We want to thank Dr. Casey Griffiths and Dr. Scott Woodward for being with us today. What a joy. We want to thank our executive producer Shannon Sorenson, our sponsors David and Verla Sorenson, and we always remember our founder, Steve Sorenson. Join us next week. We’re jumping into first Nephi on Follow Him.

  33:52 Today’s transcripts, show notes, and additional references are available on our website, followhim.co. That’s follow him.co. You can watch the podcast on YouTube with additional videos on our Facebook and Instagram accounts. All of this is absolutely free, and we’d love for you to share it with your family and friends. We’d like to reach more of those who are searching for help with their Come Follow Me study. If you could subscribe to rate, review, and comment on the podcast, that will make us easier to find. We’ve just completed a new project we think you’ll love.

  34:22 If you would like short and powerful quotes and insights from all of our Old Testament episodes, join our mailing list on our website, followhim.co, and we will email you a PDF of the first three chapters of our new book, finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. If you enjoyed our guests on the podcast last year as much as we did, we think you’ll love this new collection. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Will Statton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Quadra, and Annabel Sorenson. We also love hearing from you, our friends and listeners. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nielsen, Wilson Statton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Quadra, and Annabel Sorenson.

Speaker 5: 35:10 Whatever questions or problems you have. The answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Turn to him. Follow him.