Episode #20 Mormon Doctrine In the Apocrypha W/Ken Peterson

0:04 So I have a question if Joseph Smith really restored the gospel, we should be able to look back to ancient prophets and their teachings. And we should see that those line up with what Joseph Smith taught, right? Well, on this episode of the podcast, have a conversation with Ken Peterson. Ken is a devout lifelong member of the LDS church. He recently released a book titled, Mormon Doctrine in the Apocrypha in the book. Ken lines out where teachings from the Apocrypha are exact matches to the teachings of the restored. For start by Joseph Smith, we cover Ken's back story. How he got involved writing this book. His process in selecting material some of the content of the book and ultimately what Ken hopes that the book will do for Mormons. That's next on this edition of the Mormon Renegade podcast. So, I just want to take a moment to thank you. The Listener, when I started this podcast I wasn't sure if anyone would really listen.

1:00 Now to my surprise, this thing has taken on a life of its own and that's all due to you the listener, spending your time here with me, and it means a great deal to me now, as a husband and father, I'm keenly aware of how important time is. It feels like there's just never enough of it. So when you are spending your time here, listening to this podcast, I feel a responsibility to never waste your time in that Spirit as this podcast has grown. I feel like I need to do you The Listener. Just This, I want to continue to produce good content and upgrade the audio quality that takes better equipment and better software and that all takes money. Now, I've tried to advertise, but you'd be surprised. There's not a lot of people want to advertise on a Mormon fundamentalist podcast. I know surprising right now if you want to help support the podcast, you can do that.

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2:27 We're all squeezed right now with high gas prices and high inflation. So even if you can't please keep listening and maybe keep the podcast in your prayers, so we can continue to grow produce. Good content, and better audio quality. Thank you. Welcome back to the Mormon Renegade podcast, as always you can get ahold of me either by email at Mormon Renegade at gmail.com. You can also get a hold of me on Instagram, and Twitter, and getter under the handle. Mormon Renegade. Also we have a website up and that's Mormon Renegade.com, so go check that out. Can thanks for being here, man. Thanks for having me.

3:08 So I'm just glad you appreciate the book. Yeah, I know, I've had a couple days to go through it and I think it's absolutely phenomenal. I mean, the way that you lay it all out, the way you are able to say, hey, go here and look for, you know, look, you know, you give your references so it makes it real easy to do your own. Research to which is absolutely awesome. Good, so, real quick, we're were you born LDS? Were you raised? Yes, let me. Yeah, I was raised in a of those little Mormon towns and Wyoming, probably one of the lesser-known communities in the Bighorn Basin area. It's what was one of the last colonization efforts in the church place called Cowley.

3:48 Okay, named after the disfellowshipped apostolate is Callie, okay, All right. What was that like was that kind of cool being raised out there is paradise. Whatever. Nice. I mean, when I was growing up, you know, in the 60s and the 70s, we didn't have much. We had dirt roads and our water supply was not great but as a kid growing up there was it couldn't have been more beautiful. The Summers seemed to last forever everybody up to this day. The communities Communities much improved, you know, purest water in the state, paved streets, and sidewalk curb and gutter now and it's a I love to go back to visit. I have lots of family there.

4:35 Still today, my mother still lives there in the same house, I grew up in. Wow, I it was wonderful, one of those communities you get on your bike and your mom was a welcome back for dinner. Yeah. And you'd go wherever you want it with your friends and mess around and have you know, Some fun. You know, I moved my family. Gosh. I want to say, well, over a decade now ago, we moved to a little town, just south of excuse me, just north of Twin Falls called Shoshone and it was like stepping back 75, 80 years in terms of just a tiny little town, kind of isolated had everything there, you needed had a grocery store gas station.

5:22 Few places to go and eat, but by and large, it was just kind of like a town Time Forgot. Yeah. And I remember when we moved from from, you know, the Western Treasure Valley in Idaho Boise in a meridian, and we moved out there, it felt like we could breathe, right? We could just let the kids kind of wander around a little bit and didn't have to worry as much. And it was, it was so nice and it broke our hearts when we had to leave there. At was right before the collapse of 08 and we had to go look for work other. Basis. But yeah, I miss that kind of environment all the time, but we're to this day, my wife and I are tempted by the community like that, especially colleagues, lots of family around, would be ideal to raise our children, right? You know, but the question is as adults, what I mean, how would I support us there?

6:12 You know, that kind of a thing, right? Because there's really no money, right? You know? Technology is a great thing. I mean, I'm doing this by technology, right? We have talked all the way across Ross, the state in real time, but sometimes I think we've lost something too a little bit. So I'd much prefer having this conversation in person. I mean, yeah. There's no no question in my mind. Yep. Yep. So was it a strong LDS home? A lot of gospel teaching and that sort of stuff in your home. Yeah. Yeah my mom and dad both devout Latter-Day Saints. Both had been raised Latter-day Saints.

6:53 My mom's side. Gosh, probably third or fourth generation Latter Day Saints on my father's side. Maybe two generations, but it wasn't if you've heard the term Uber Mormons, right? Yeah. But there's a little bit on the crazy side things. My parents weren't like that at all. They loved us and to give you an example, We did we'd have home evenings, fairly regularly and family prayers. But they never made us coerced us to believe or to do anything like that. And I remember very distinctly my dad telling me said son, you know what I believe.

7:44 That you have to figure it out for yourself. And so they were, you know, we talked about moroni's, promise that if you do your own invest your own time and restarts that God will tell you, so you don't have to believe anybody else. And as we'll discuss during our time together, I'm a natural-born skeptic And plus all the schooling. I've had my secularly train scholar which only exacerbates your skepticism, right? I don't believe, I don't believe anybody at face value. I don't take anybody at face value. I need you to give me concrete reasons to take your word for it, and that was my approach to the restored gospel. So, a very loving home.

8:34 I have four. Well, six siblings. I'm the fifth and they were all devout. And so there was that kind of a kind of a natural reinforcement. I wasn't in terms of peer pressure. I didn't understand what that was. Because my family, my brothers and sisters were my peers, they were good to me and they were exemplary and I had no reason. I never felt any need for outside validation. It still left me kind of independent of the trends of what was going on in the world. What my friends were. We're not doing because what matter most to me where the opinions of my siblings and my parents not because they forced me to, but because they were good to me and I can see how good they were and I respected that.

9:23 So in all earnestness I wasn't particularly scholarly as a kid, I was interested in motorcycles and Girls and basketball in that sort of thing. But as a junior in high school here each kind of a choke point in your life where it's like I need to it's going to be this or that, right, right? And that's when I really invested myself. In a cold hard look. At the truth claims of the Latter-day Saints. So real quick being a skeptic and I can I can identify with you.

10:03 I mean, I remember when I was first reading the book of Mormon and I got my confirmation that it was true. I was like, I don't want to be a Mormon. They're kind of crazy. I don't want to do this because I'm naturally skeptical, right great. But that that confirmation you can't deny. So you got to kind of put some things in faith. Was there a time? During your upbringing where you were questioning things quite a bit? Because I mean on the surface, if you If you are a skeptic that whole Joseph Smith, First Vision thing, that's bat-crap crazy, right? This is funny.

10:45 You should mention that my first memory of hearing the account of the first Vision, I was sitting in Sunday school or something that six or seven years old. And I distinctly remember thinking to myself, well, he's lying. Right? I might my best friend across the street makes up stories better than that all the time just to get attention. It was far easier for me to believe that he was just trying to get attention, then that he was telling the truth. I mean, trying to aggrandize himself as being the prophet of God etcetera. So, from the very GetGo, I was skeptical even as a kid. I never just, I never sat there and went I believe telling you, I believe, whatever you tell me I was never was never like that.

11:28 I don't know. Oh, why? And I so I I love to meet with people who don't come by their faith naturally or they're not. And I wouldn't call myself a spiritual person either. I do believe I have received Revelation and insights through the Holy Ghost, but that is only as the result of priming the pump as they say, investing investing the work and looking and doing comparative. Analyses studies and I can't begin to tell you everywhere. I've looked I've gone down every rabbit hole that I know of because I'm one of these guys that I don't like to be ignorant of any in any case, I was always skeptical and it wasn't until much later in high school when I began to be exposed to archaeological discoveries. There were extraordinary and one of my formative experiences of Zon I serve to Youth mission in Bozeman Montana and I was still actively searching for A knowledge of what is true because I still didn't know what that time. Well, actually, at that time I just had this transformative experience where I first had

12:59 some concrete knowledge in my mind. Oh my gosh. Joseph Smith was telling the truth. I was so excited and we went to this appointment with this Christian. Evangelical Christian, who knew the Bible inside? Now you could see it is. Bible's just this is bajor all curled. Yeah, so I went in there with my bright, shiny new testimony and was telling him, you know what, I knew to be true and he proceeded to bind and gag me with his Bible and I was I was utterly embarrassed. Not because he had diminished to my beliefs, but because I still knew what I knew. But I was so ill prepared to defend what I knew I was embarrassed, if I couldn't they, you know, when I actually came down to discussing the nuts and bolts of Christianity, at least as a starting point, I was a failure. And I vowed to myself at that very moment that I would never let that happen again. if I were going to be, if I were going to be a representative of what I had come to understand to be true that I was going to do a lot better. At being able to defend what I knew to be true and I've spent my life pursuing that incident, I never look back. I've never I was 17 at the time

14:31 and since then I've never I've never questioned. Well, I always question I'm always asking the questions because it's still unbelievable. You know, it's the craziest Story Ever Told number one, number two, I mean, I understand perfectly, well, how the World Views Joseph Smith, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because that's, that's my viewpoint. That's the skeptical view point, right? And it is Fantastical add to the death. I mean, what are the odds, honestly, against you and I being born at this time?

15:14 In the 4.5 billion history of this globe. And being a part of this. I mean, it's their astronomical, they're impossible. Odds, I was out. It is just a coincidence that you. And I are born Here. And Now, with this Silver Spoon in her mouth, that's the hardest thing for me to believe. Yeah. The science is statistical probability rule that out entirely right? And yet and yet, here we are. Yep, at the Pinnacle of human development. Yep. Yep. So that's amazing. To me, let me ask you this, what, what was it? That ultimately converted you to the gospel?

15:59 Matthew chapter 7 I want to read it because I want to make sure I get it right. I remember I was on this Youth mission, I had a great companion, was very patient with me. And so I just drove in and I remember thinking, if Jesus Christ really was, who he said he was, he would know of my dilemma. And he would know what to tell me. And and miraculously, miraculously shortly after that, I was reading a Matthew 7:15, as beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ravening wolves. So, the first question is well, which was Joseph Smith then? Was he a ravening wolf?

16:48 Or is he the real deal? Because Jesus is admitting that, there were going to be false prophets, you will know them by their fruits, do men, gather Grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. Yes. And just skeptical mind like me. That's like duh of course I mean, this is science. That's what it is, right? Even so every good tree bringeth forth, good fruit but a corrupt tree bringeth forth, evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth. Good fruit every tree that bringeth not forth. Good fruit is hewn down and cast and for wherefore by their fruits you shall know them and even though I had I wouldn't call myself a scriptorium by any stretch at that time of my life. I had been raised in the middle of this faith. And and I remember sitting in the car, we were going to some appointment in Montana. and I had these questions and ideas swirling around in my mind and I had committed myself that I was going to study every religion on the face of the Earth so that I can person can be using figure out which one I wanted to be affiliated with then, of course.

18:03 The soon as I thought of that, the thought occurred to me, well, that's impossible. Because the new their new religious being established everyday. You will never ever speak to me your whole life, you can't do it. It's impossible for can Peterson to figure that out. On your own. And it's funny that the Revelation comes at a point of desperation and humility. You do it? Yep. I was I was desperate enough. I I really couldn't move forward without some understanding number one. Number two, it was abundantly clear to me that I on my own I was I was never going to happen.

18:48 It was at that moment that I had this But a Joseph Smith call it. I gotta read that. I love this. I'll tell you about this in a second, but no you're good. Those are Smith described as a person, may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of Revelation. For instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden Strokes of ideas and thus by learning the spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of Revelation until you become perfect. In Christ, give you seven strokes of ideas and the Science World calls at the Eureka moment where suddenly it hits you and you didn't think of it didn't doesn't feel like you thought of any way. Sarah was my moment of desperation and abject humility. Going on, about you selling all of these things that were swirling.

19:44 These pieces that were swirling around in my mind. Came together. And it Revelation took what I did know, which wasn't a lot but it was significant because I had grown up in the middle of it, right? And put it in the context of Matthew Chapter 7, every good thing in my life. Including the good choices that I made were a direct result. Of what Joseph Smith restored. And it was interesting because I had grown up in this, Mormon bubble and out here. I was in the world. And it was eye-opening to me that it was not the same.

20:27 That everything I loved about where I grew up was a direct result. Of the restoration through Joseph Smith. Everything I didn't like about the world was the absence of all of that. And to my young mind that was undeniable fruit, it was no accident and it wasn't and I wasn't alone everywhere. I looked in every devout LDS Community LDS fan, when you saw those same wholesome, positive healthy, Good traits. An evil tree cannot bring forth a corrupt.

21:07 Tree cannot bring forth good fruit anyway, that's where it started, you know, and it's fascinating and the the more I talk with people, the more I realize that Everybody's road to the recognition of the who the savior is and who Joseph Smith is comes in a little bit different way, right? I remember when I was praying to get my answer about the restored gospel, it was a very strong Feeling to my core that I could not deny. And it happened quickly and it happens suddenly, right? Right?

21:51 It's instantaneous isn't it right? So what I get it. Yeah. And then I hear your story and I've heard very similar stories where it kind of a gradual process a little bit and then it works up to something right and we approach it from different things. I have I have this experience. That changes me fundamentally to my core, right? Eight quickly instantaneously. And it's all done from the heart. It's all work on the emotions and in the heart You come at it from a very academic point of view, a very scholarly point of view, but here's the thing.

22:37 It accomplishes the same thing and it's so beautiful to me that the Lord works with who we are. He doesn't seek to necessarily change who we are at our core. But no, it's about being able to work with us where we are and then bring us to a knowledge and understanding of the truthfulness of the Gospel per our strengths, which I find amazing. Because here's the thing, right? Being an emotional guy, what we're doing this Works great for me. This works. Fantastic for me, you as a scholar problem. I'm just guessing. Love research. Oh yeah, love you love tearing it apart, put it back together, seeing how it works and in some levels, I think, I think And this is the the genius of the program. I guess if you want to say it that way we all kind of need each other.

23:32 That way right here you're singing my song Good that without pain Peterson doing this research, that I want to talk to him about without the the natural gifts that he's given. And I would say that being being somewhat skeptical is absolutely a gift, right? Because you have different gifts. Yeah, we all do Doug, Eat, right? And so I don't know, I think it's just genius the way it all comes together. An LDS caller called it, the law of individual differences. And book of Abraham points this out, that none of us are the same. We never have been the same.

24:12 And then, of course, the Apostle Paul puts it all together. Me compares the church to the body. Yeah, we have the fact that we're all different is necessary for the body to function. If we were all the same the body wouldn't function, right? So our differences are not something that we put up with our differences. Are things that we should celebrate. Yeah, and I love, that's my one of my favorite hours of the entire week is Gospel Doctrine and I get to teach it. I'm teaching it now. But to be able to share our comprehension understandings, testimonies feelings regarding the most profound Concepts known to man being able to call them.

24:58 The terrible questions is fascinating because there is something to learn from every single other person because they're coming at it from a slightly different angle and now the bottom to bottom line that we are invaluable to God. Because of that very Very thing. Each of us, as individuals are irreplaceable in the grand scheme of the scheme of things in my father's house are many mansions. I have created a place for you. So what he says in the Doctrine and Covenants, past tense, that there is a place for each of us in the Eternal scheme of things that can be occupied by no one else. We are irreplaceable, you know, valuable to God, and that's something.

25:45 I didn't know until I became a father myself, right? And we all at least I did when we started having kids me and my wife, I always thought. Okay. These will just kind of be like, spitting images of me and my wife, right? Nothing could be farther from the truth, right? My kids while they certainly have certain characteristics of mine both physically, and in the way they act, And the same can be said of my wife, right? Hurt. You know, our daughters have her characteristics physically. And, and in the way they act, at the end of the day, they're still people and they still have come, come up with things on their own because they are people. I can't I can't wait to see how they develop and who they become.

26:32 Yeah, it's just, it's like a, it's like opening a gift and watching it. I mean, Will be the last thing I would want is to see a copy of myself, right? Right. Yeah, absolutely. But as you say it's also a very interesting Eternal question. Why do we have similarities at all? Yeah, yeah, you know have ideas but I'm not going to make to them online. Ha ha, you know, I What's been fascinating to me? Are you a grandfather yet? Yes, II. Have to fact, ones, living to this living with us right now, here his mom and he's about to have another baby. So we're like let's take the graduations. Yeah, grandbaby for a while.

27:21 What's been most fun is to see my kids raise their kids and that that has been just absolutely fun and fascinating. A whole nother level. But yeah, no, I think we need each other. We need each other's gifts because we all have something to contribute here, right? I mean, this isn't a zero-sum game in the sense of, you know, some of us are going to Excel and others of our won't. I think it's a matter of finding out how it is. You click with the gospel and then use that strength and at the same time, develop those weaknesses, a little bit. I'm in the end choose exactly where you want to fit in this grand scheme, right? As you say, it's not binary.

28:07 It's not black and white and a section 76 shock to the world that the degrees of Glory. Well, let's take it, further section, 88, There is no space in which there is no Kingdom and there is no kingdom in which there is no space which suggests the potential infinite variety of glories that we can choose to be a part of by our own volition. There is no other way and absolutely absolutely. So you have your experience, you go on a mission, do you enjoy your mission? Loved it, Ike's, I served it was called a Youth mission. I grew up in the Montana Billings Mission. That's where Northern Wyoming.

28:52 That's the mission. It was in and they were having a shortage of missionaries. A number of them, that went home at the same time. So they to pre-staged young men who were interested. They allowed us to go out and serve for a month or two. Oh, wow, with full-time missionaries, and that experience changed my life. For the better. That's where I kind of Had them the right circumstances to be able to spend the necessary time pondering studying and asking God about these things. Not a great companion and formative experiences.

29:36 That established that foundation for me anyway. the other thing that happened to me on that mission, that was The seedling for the book, this was in the late 70s 1978. There were a cassette tapes circulating around you know copies of copies of copies and the that have riding on this looks at Tate, the Dead Sea. Scrolls tapes, my companion was like who you need to listen to this. I like Devin, what? I hadn't heard anything about it. There were some of the very first paperback printings of what was available.

30:18 Then of the Dead Sea, Scrolls were just beginning to be published Fjord at Theodore casters first. Paperback edition like, 1976, something like that. And The Latter-Day Saint, someone call them an amateur scholar inner Erickson or was giving these Sensational lectures. About the corollaries between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the restored gospel. And the Dead Sea Scrolls. I mean this is a wonderful test case because the Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden from the world for 2000 years. They predate Christ.

30:58 And they weren't discovered until 1947, I think. So, we dig them out of the. Dig them out of a cave in Nicki Minaj's, right? All right. It's done jars. Evidence, Ela bitumen So, here we had these people. Riding the most valuable sacred texts burying them in the earth. Forsaken safekeeping to be discovered at a later date. Who else believes that? That's crazy. First of all and then they had a ruling Council of 12 and a presidency of three. They had Rich for ritual purifications by by immersion on all kinds of these things that only Mormons really thought we kind of believed in so that fascinated me that was My mind was first blown open to the fact that there are other sacred writings in this world that are not a part of our Bible, nor the Book of Mormon. But as Latter-Day Saints, we are taught and second. If I'd that Bible a Bible, we already have a Bible. We have no more need of a Bible that there are other sacred records to come for.

32:12 So that was my initiation to that and I was terribly excited about that. Much later. In fact, just a few years ago I got to meet in your Erickson toward the end of his life and he invited me over to see he lived here in st. George he invited me to see his Library. I went down, it was library with his basement. In his basement, add the same square footage as the main floor. And it was nothing but a library. Wow, wall-to-wall books and I think you'd read all of them, he was amazing and so forthcoming. And so giving it was time, he's recently deceased but and a lot of people looked at him ask you because he didn't come out of Brigham Young or any academic Circle, but he was certainly well read anyway.

33:05 So then my full-time mission was in Japan. The Japan Foucault commission. Mmm. It's a heck of a change. Yeah, yeah. And I was at first a little disappointed because I didn't want my mission to be about language. I wanted my mission to be about Doctrine. I wanted to go to the Bible Belt and I wanted to do some. I wanted to Crunch through the New Testament with people and but God knows us better than we know ourselves and what we need. The Japanese people were. How do you put it into where they? They were wonderful.

33:48 They treated us quite wonderfully, not everybody. But most, and as my mind needed to see more of a worldwide perspective of how God used this plan and his children and how that all fits together, but I would have to say, The single greatest and most significant occurrence of my mission was one of my last companions. His name is Joe swick. And he was my junior companion, he was the smartest missionary had ever met. He was a convert to the church as a teenager very well. Read a prolific reader gave the missionaries a very hard time and to had a miraculous conversion experience. I don't think I have the right to say it on the air, but sure, make a long story short, he was the opposite of me. I wanted the miracle without doing any of the work. He did all the work and never asked God. They were filling the font in the missionary says, was giving him the interview.

35:06 Do you believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God? No, I don't do. The Joe Smith has brought up know. I don't. Well, we've answered all of your questions. She says. Yes, you have Did you pray about it? He says, no, I haven't oh in their Zeal to answer all of his questions that neglected the key. So in terms of pondering and working it out in his own mind, hit done all of that in Spades. And so, the missionary wild follows finally said, well let's each of us go and pray. And because of everything that was in his head, you have a very miraculous conversion experience. In any case we hit it off beautifully, we had so much fun as companions and our companion study time was revelatory. But his great gift to me, was Hugh Nibley. I didn't, I never heard of you didn't lie. This is a 1980 82.

36:14 In farms had just started their work and at the time all Farms doing they were photocopying nibblies lectures and stapling them. And you could buy these photocopied lectures know for like a dollar eighty or something for each at the. So I have this little stack of nidalee lectures and he introduced me to Farms to Hugh Nibley and the LDS intellectual Milieu that holds scholarly approach to the restored gospel, which fit me to a tee. I Loved You. Glee real quick explained it because I do have some listeners who aren't Mormon or LDS what was Farms foundation for ancient research.

36:59 Mormon studies. It was a nonprofit organization formed and I was in some burned-out building on campus and their initial goal. Was to publish The Works of Hugh Nibley. That's all they were wanting to do. You nibbly. Was the smartest Mormon who ever lived? And if you don't believe me Farms completed that work, 40 years later. And the work is.

37:44 Photographs of the summer, the collected works of Hugh Nibley. Hmm, I think it's 20, that's 20, 20 volumes, I'm talking volumes. I'm not talking about 100 Pages. While talking in some cases, thousand-page volumes of original writing, original thinking, things that no one else has discussed or put down in print before. All all the product of one mind. It was a genius by all accounts and because of an early experience in his 20s he had a life after death experience which set the stage to Humble him so that he could become a more effective purveyor of this knowledge so that his pride was out of the picture and he could do what was really important.

38:38 So yeah, that was the purpose of the origin of farms is to publish the works. If you nibbly, it expanded into much, more than that spanning publishing, The Works of John Sorensen, the late, great John Sorensen, who was the great Anthropologist who laid? To do it to this day. The most thorough case for Book of Mormon geography, he, he knew the Book of Mormon inside now anyway, and and John Welch, the discoverer of Thai asmus in the Book of Mormon. At all of these began publishing. They were a magnificent resource for people like me.

39:18 And that was my companion. Joseph gave me that gift. And anyway, I will always be grateful to him for setting me down that path because what you nibbly showed me, he opened the door, you know, in your exit, open the door of the Dead Sea Scrolls, you nibbly. Open the door to all these other, we should call them extra canonical, writings sacred books, that are not a part of the Bible, right? The most confusing thing about the title of my book. My Doctrine in the Apocrypha when I Apocrypha can mean, either the 14 intertestamental books between Malachi and Matthew that you'll find in the Roman Catholic Canon or in a more General sense. Any sacred texts?

40:01 That is not a part of the camp more appropriately known as extra-canonical you know Joseph Smith. How many of those works are right. Joseph Smith had, I believe it's in the Doctrine and Covenants, he'd actually mentioned his chakra for yeah, Crocker from yeah. What was what was Joseph's take on the I prefer. There are many things that can be learned there from if one is Guided by the spirit. Mhm, but there, but it's not all inspired. So his approach to all other learning, c key learning from the best books, right? And so I took what Joseph Smith advised regarding the intertestamental, Apocrypha and applied it. To the broader meaning because how many of these other extra canonical writings, like the Dead Sea. Scrolls are there.

40:49 That was my first question. When I was started, reading you nibbling and having my mind blown yet again. Oh my gosh, how many of these things are out there? Because as much as I admire the mind of he nibbly, I was still skeptical. Or I was skeptical of Boehner Erickson that. It's nice guys. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I want to read these checks for myself so I want to see if you're telling me the truth. So that began in my twenties, right? Early 20s, I began to find and collect my own library of extra canonical writings and there are hundreds.

41:30 Yeah. Hundreds of So I collected all I could find that. I think all that there are, although they're still being published today, a new volume of extra canonical. Writings New Testament, Apocrypha was published a month after I published my book. Wow. And there's there's already stuff in there that I'm going to have to add 2 second edition, right? So when you get home from your mission, you meet your wife. Would you decide you're going to go to college and study? I For whatever reason. I love to sing, okay? And I was really good at and I had scholarships all my schooling was paid for because I would sing in their programs. Wow.

42:21 And I had I was enthralled with the singing of Luciano Pavarotti if you're in remember arguably the greatest tenor of the 20th century. And I aspire to do that. As crazy as that sounds. You know, a kid in Northern Wyoming, listening to Italian opera and wanting to sing Puccini, not having any idea what that entailed. I was just going to go for it and so, I did. I meant that my first wife at Rick's College BYU-Idaho where I was studying singing and was singing in Pirates of Penzance seing the role of Frederick and had a wonderful experience there from there. I had a scholarship to sing for Arizona State University that a very demanding and advanced musical, theater degree program or a singing musicals operas and operettas from there. Went to Utah State, where I met and study with Michael balam was saving influence in my life and career had a marvelous experience there.

43:37 Got my bachelor's degree and then staying at Illinois, State University, for my masters degree and voice performance started teaching. And ultimately got my terminal degree doctor of the Arts and voice performance and pedagogy at the University of Northern Colorado. So I spent the next 28 years teaching singing in higher education, which is what brought me to st. George to teach at what the time was. Dixie State College and taught there for 16 glorious years. Had marvelous success. Has an award-winning Productions, hundreds and hundreds of great students.

44:19 It was just an ideal atmosphere But as all things do that came to an end, the administration did a number on me. That was the end of that career. So gotcha and this whole time you're just collecting books of the oh yeah right I mean this whole time you're just you're just going through and you're you're collecting these now during this process and we should probably make sure we Define the Apocrypha for what it what it really is. It's as you were saying, extra canonical books, write correctly by various authors. I believe most of the ones that were in the Dead Dead Sea in that were found with the Dead Sea.

45:00 Scrolls were produced by the gnostics if I'm not mistaken. No. Okay. Well, they're not that's why I don't want smarter than me. They're not they're not exactly sure who produced them made me think it was the essenes. Okay, reduced them, but they did, the they were found near the community of qumran which is on the shores of the Dead Sea, which is very interesting. Area. I mean it's I mean it's very arid. It's really can't sustain populations there but they had buildings and they had dining holes and they had plates and they had all these records there. And so we don't even know what we do know, is that the, the cast of priests that were there were critical of the priests in Jerusalem that the priests in Jerusalem had gone astray. So we're not exactly sure.

45:57 Sure if they lived there or if they just gathered there to share their writings that have conferences. It's hard to say but no, they were not the gnostics. They have nearly every amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are copies of most of the Old Testament, we have the oldest surviving copy of the book of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is fascinating in, and of itself, a beautiful large scroll. They also discovered, it's called the temple, scroll that the people in qumran had plans to build their own Temple. Wow. Basically a blueprint, which is critical for Jews because they want to rebuild their Temple and they didn't.

46:43 Are we going to do it? They didn't have blueprints. Will now, they do thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Then they had a Copper Scroll which is interesting to Mormons. Yeah, ancient writings written on metal plate so go figure dude who the couple to come. Get right? It a thought. Anyway. Anyway, the Dead Sea Scrolls. They do figure significantly in my book. Not because of those things per se because I'm what I was looking for were teachings. And there are teaching straight out of the Temple. From the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's extraordinary and endowed Latter-Day. Saint will read those texts and go all my gosh. How did that get there?

47:27 Right? Right. So so real quick, as you're as you're accumulating, all these books. Do you ever have an idea of, you know what I'm going to do with this? I'm going to write and design for them through it. I like to say it's like macaques Mormon Doctrine, but Comparative between what Mormonism believes and what was taught in the Dead Sea. Scrolls, is that a fair assessment? Yeah, in fact, we were talking earlier, I wanted I'm a great admirer of Bruce mcconkie and yes, I fully realized that. Not everything he put in Mormon Doctrine, this factual. But I have an incredible appreciation for what he did in the age before.

48:15 Computers this man single-handedly put together, the first Encyclopedia of Mormonism right by himself encyclopedic and it's magnificent And he was humble about it. I mean, there's a certain amount of confidence that comes with being so well-versed at so, well read as Bruce, mcconkie was, but when the first presidency called him into their office and said now this is a nice book because you heard there's some things in here were concerned about his response to them was I will do whatever you Brethren, tell me to do. And so they can't remember who it was. I think it was David Dylan McKay that, they assigned to work with him.

49:07 For his last edition of it in which he made many Corrections very humbly. So but but it was a standard model and it's easy for us to look down on it today in the age of computers or we can you know, the touch of a button have access to the Corpus of the world's knowledge. I remember what it reminds me of When the very first digital LDS library was produced, it's called the LDS collector's edition like 97 1997. Is the first one I was aware of the box that it came in, it had Recommendations of various Scholars on the back. One of them was Hugh Nibley.

49:54 You nibbly was recommending this new digital library. What did he say about it? He said, one sentence, I wish I'd have this 40 years ago, Chris, when he was doing all of this stuff, 40 years ago, he had to go to the library. Physically find the book, copy it on a note card and go home, right? So when he was doing, when he was preparing to write a book, you'd have a stacks of note cards on his desk that he would use to Right? Footnotes, and to no teeth stuff. I can't imagine why. I mean, I grew up in that era to some extent, but the book that I produce today, I in never would have happened prior to the digital age, never gonna happen.

50:42 So it's your collectiveness. Are you getting the feeling that? Hey, I want to write a book or you collecting this more like this is for me. And for my, of course, my intro. I mean, I couldn't have any concept of book because I didn't even know what I was trying to wrap my arms around. so, my first question is, how much of this stuff is out there? What does it say? How does it relate to me is a Latter-Day Saints. So I began, you know, saws searching out the stuff that looking, you know, I'd read nibbly. Then he'd have these extensive bibliographies so I could go to the source, the thanks to Amazon and Modern Age, I could get all this stuff most of it digitally. Don't PDF documents.

51:24 Then of course it took time to read it and then my friends would say what is it all say? That would immediately get tongue-tied, what do you start right way too much stuff I began I love the topical guide, the oldest topical guide in our printing of the LDS Bible of the King James Bible, the LDS printing of it. And I thought, man, if I could organize all of this stuff, like the topical guy, That would be helpful. So I make notes in the margins of my topical guide or not. I'm trying to relate scriptures that aren't already in there. I thought, hey, I'm going to start doing that. These extra canonical texts, I'm going to footnote them like the top guy doesn't know.

52:08 So I go to my top of God in my Bible and have it all there. What a brilliant idea until I realized. There are going to be more footnotes to these extra canonical text and there are two the biblical texts. There's, as I wrote in my preface does not approve of the margins to do that. Even if I could. And so, in order for me to be able to answer the question, the other question I had to answer of all of these hundreds of extra canonical texts, which of them are actually useful. Some of them are are flawed deeply flawed. Some of them are false, right? Falsely attributed, Yes, my name is Paul and I and I'm teaching you to be celibate and, and, of course, Scholars have looked at many of these falsified documents and I've deciphered that their faults because the these acclaimed author of this supposed author is referring to things that Paul could not have known about, right?

53:12 Well, something something from there later time for your goods into the writing and is clear that this guy's taking upon himself, the name of Paul try and steal his Copyright was not a thing back. So we have to be careful in these texts to determine which are useful and which are fallacious. So the first question is, how am I going to study these and be able to adjust it for Fred were to ask me? What do you think of this book? I have to be able to give them some sort of an answer. I mean, just be, you have to have an opinion about it, right? And so, It occurred to me, the only way to make sense of this.

53:55 The idea of actually came to me that I had to build an alphabetical topical concordance of these things for every what I wanted was a complete concordance for the whole Corpus, but that's that would take teams of Scholars. Mmm, I couldn't do that. What I could do, given enough time I could read through all of these hundreds of texts, tens of thousands of Pages and and identify LDS teachings that would present themselves in these texts that could be a mean because they are teachings are so distinct from the rest of the Christian world that those teachings just jump out at you.

54:37 It's like, wait a minute that shouldn't that's Mormonism. I should be there. What's that doing there, right? So I have no idea to begin with how many texts there were Nor did I know how many corollaries I would find? So I couldn't see the forest for the trees and even once I began to discover them, there were so many there's no way you can keep track of her track of it all up here. So I started to build this alphabetical database at topical, concordance of extra canonical writings dealing with LDS teachings and so that idea was seared into my mind.

55:17 At least a decade or two ago. And it was endlessly frustrating because my life was already full. How in the world am I going to have time to do this? I believe this is a very important think that how am I going to get this done? Right? And I, and then I lost my job and then the pandemic, it, I'm sitting there at time on my hands on the gun. Hey, now's the time before I embarked upon my next business adventure, Which I'm doing now. Let me treat this as a sabbatical and do it. So, I spent months finalizing all of this stuff compiling it all into a single text.

56:00 And I didn't I had I did not know until it was finished. What? The end result would look like? There's no way I could. And the end result was extraordinary more than I anticipated. I counted 179. Distinct LDS teachings in 66 different ancient texts. None of which were known to the world until after the life of Joseph Smith. The world didn't know anything about these texts, most of until the 20th century. Wow.

56:41 That's crazy. That's crazy. You know, there there's a lot there in that last part I kind of want to I want to unpack a little bit and talk about one is is what you said that that you just feel it on your heart and you have to do that. I can totally identify with that when I was laying in my hotel room at 2:30 in the morning for work, right? Because look, it was a time where and it doesn't happen frequently. There was this time where I was away from home more than I was home right out and about so country and I never sleep. Well when I'm away from my family I just yeah.

57:21 Right. Yeah. So I am laying, I'm laying in bed and I'm looking up the ceiling and thinking about what more can I do for the gospel for for the Lord, you know, and, you know, as a fundamentalist Mormon, what can I do? And the thought of a podcast came in and I was like, I don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. Look at where I'm at. Look at what I am in bed in. Tyler Texas. I can't sleep. This isn't going to work. and then, As soon as I said that kind of like an excuse and I probably am God's most difficult and petulant child because I was like I can't do it. I wish I could I don't have time sorry you know my my bad don't don't have it.

58:15 My circumstances changed to where I got a ton of free time, I got a promotion and now I can do this and I had no more excuses. The next thing is that we looked at covid as a really horrible thing and for a lot of folks, it was, I don't want to minimize that. However, I do believe that the Lord in his infinite knowledge blessed, a lot of people during that time, I'm sure to come out of that. You came out of it with a book that is, by all accounts weeping in its Vision, right? And and what you've been able to do here is Amazing. so, with all this said, you start compiling this, this stuff right now.

59:07 Had you already made, like the like notes about where the God, we're certain restored, gospel teachings were during sure, I'm in covid. So you could go right to it and you, okay, this is where this fits and that sort of thing, that was the only way I could do it. I, I mean, I have a fairly good memory but I don't begin to have kind of memory to remember where everything is. And I do this with all of Books that I read that are important to me, I'll mark them up leaving a trail of breadcrumbs so I can find them again, initially started doing that with my scriptures. As I said, I vowed I would never Be caught unprepared again. And if you look at my scriptures, you see them. I was in church, one day Mark, and at my scriptures. My daughter is said, what are you doing? Are you decorating your scriptures? And I'm, yes, I'm decorating my scriptures, so I can find stuff because I'm just not this.

1:00:06 This book, that I produced was, first, and foremost, for me, I'm ashamed of the fact that you read all these marvelous text, and then I'm Tongue Tied, because I can't tell anybody anything about it, because I can't remember. Now, I have something Now I have a book I now I can remember it all because it's alphabetized and it's indexed and there's no excuse for me, not to be able to know that this stuff now that work is done. I would have paid a fortune for someone else to have done that. But I, but I'm it was fun. The process was fun. But so, yeah, so I would read all of these texts and I have a very specific marking system that I've developed over the years.

1:00:49 Very simple to the point, which makes perfect sense to me. And as easy is a partial photographic memory, I don't have a photograph but I but I do I'm if I hadn't played football I might have a photographic memory now you know, but not too many brain cells around. But I remember how things look on a page. Okay, I can flip through and I can see the marking because I know what book it's in. I so I can makes it easy for me to find and then I and then I have the tabbing system alt-tab the book. So again, easy access. So you almost like a to write this book in your research, right? Without realizing you were going to write a book.

1:01:31 You already had set yourself up. Through right through fortunately through, right? Probably the promptings of the spirit, right? So you could find all this again and and so when covid hits, if I'm understanding the chronology here, you now have the time. You're no longer employed with what used to be Dixie State and you can now devote yourself to this work of getting this book out. That's exactly right. And it's like, it's already been prepared. All you have to do now and I Want to minimize it, right? Because writing a book is different. You're right, you're right. That. Once, once the reading was done, once the doctrines had been the teachings have been demarcated, it was simply a matter of compiling, which was, I mean, the whole thing was fun. It was like a treasure hunt and the reason I was marking these stuffs being you find a treasure you don't want to lose it and the thought of forgetting you read this ago I don't ever want to forget this six months later, you forgot. In it that stuff drives me crazy. So I go to Great ends to be able to find stuff again and I will man, could you imagine he could remember everything you've ever studied?

1:02:47 I know that be amazing. I know that would be amazing. You know what drives me nuts is when something leaves in just a strong impression on you, that, you can quote, it word for word, but you can't quote where you saw it to me. That drives me nuts. So well, which is why I was I It teaches us line upon line precept, upon precept, here a little there, a little to him that saith. See, Tim that receiveth will I give more from him to say, if I have enough shall be taken, even that? Which he has that part immortality. It's not a one-time test of our devotion. It is a daily, I mean, because immortality because we're constantly forgetting things, it is a Reflection.

1:03:38 Of how badly we want it. Because if we want to keep it, it has to be a daily daily process. Daily effort. Put into it for us to be able to keep the the truth of our existence. In our minds or as Ezra Taft. Benson said, the testimony is not something we receive only once. It is to receive you just have current inspiration to know that. The work is true. Yeah, I think that's a great point because I don't think you're ever done building a testimony, right?

1:04:19 And I are you're either moving forward or moving backward, you never stagnant. I remember so. And most people who listen to the podcast know this. I'm a land surveyor by profession. Right? So I would spend at this point in my career, I'm about to talk about I would spend about, I don't know, two or three days in the field and then two or Three days in the office, right? And if I don't get out in the field a little bit, I start to go stir crazy. And yeah, we'll be right and I tore my ACL once and just laid me down, right? I mean it's the surgery. It's six months of rehab before you really start to really rehab, right? And so going out in the field is out of the question. There's only so much office work to you. I had a great employer at the time who was like, you know what, just go home and chill out your Having me nuts. Go home.

1:05:12 Your key won't leave me. Alone about giving you more office work. Just go home. I'm going to pay you regardless, just go home, right? Just be around, can't be that. If the guys are going to need something, you can at least be a resource for them, right? So I go. Yeah, but there's a lot of downtime and I discovered. There's only so much Madden. I could play on the Xbox before I went crazy. Yeah. And so and I should have thought about it first but I didn't so but I thought you know So what I'm going to do something where I'm going to go through my scripture, so I bought a brand new set of scriptures and I'm a very tactile guy, right? I like I like to hold a book. I'm - I'm not big on Kindles or anything else.

1:05:54 I'm not saying one is right, or what is wrong, it's just how high. And so the first thing I did is I went through that scripture and every time God spoke I highlighted it. Yeah. All the way through any time he spoke in the first person. Well, obviously in the Doctrine and Covenants, not that's 90%, right? All the way through. And I walked out of that experience with a much deeper testimony than what I had went into it. And so I don't think, I don't think the work of ever building that testimonies done. Oh, no. And so I think, I think that it's in those times, whether you take a tear your ACL or in the middle of a global pandemic, if we're not using that time to do something other than what I started out doing, which is getting really good at Madden and everything up, my fantasy football team.

1:06:40 Team. Yeah, yeah, we're selling ourselves short. My my kids, I mean, their Generation all grow up with these digital games. These digital formats would ask me dad, dad, why don't you like to play these games with us? And how do you explain to them? Because there is something better. Way more exciting. Yeah and relevant and significant to our lives than that manipulating digital figures on the screen. Right. Right on. And I mean there it's fun it's just fun to interact to do some little things with them.

1:07:20 But in terms of spending real time, There isn't anything. I mean, when I'm just too tired to do anything else, I'll sit down and watch some interesting science fiction or something that just fires your imagination, that kind of stuff. But other than that, if I am not well, we develop addictions healthy, addictions, and unhealthy addictions. And you, this is a real thing. You can develop mental, stimuli that you get used to it. I'm not because of We're spoiled. Today we have access to the entirety of knowledge of humanity.

1:08:07 I can get on my computer and see what James Webb is looking at today, kind of a thing. If I'm not learning, something, new and exciting. Every single day, I start to feel depressed, right? That's how addicted I become to having my brain fed at this enormous rate every single day, every day. Alright, let's talk a little bit about the book coming together and I just got to ask because I would dare to say that they're probably as we were there moments at which you're putting this book together during the pandemic that you see the Lord really at work, Small Miracles, anything like that. Well, As we talked about before.

1:09:01 I felt like this idea that was put into my mind to produce this in the first place. It was divine. And I've had other book ideas that I was going to write something about Joseph Smith, the world's luckiest guesser kind of a book next thing, you know. Great LDS author, Michael. Ash reduces evidences of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which is basically the same thing. And so I kind of half expected someone to write this book before. I would be able to get to it. And Danny Peterson organization. The Interpreter has danced around a little bit and taking small bikes of it, you know, dealing with the Enoch texts. Jeffrey Bradshaw's, you know, he's great author and has done a lot of work in that regard, but I didn't see anyone who was positioned to do this work and the more that comes into Focus, the more pressure I felt to not blow it. I've been given this idea.

1:10:08 I've been given the means and the resources to see it through. Now, it's on me. I would lay in my bed at night. Freddie, ha ha. How am I going to do this? You know, where am I going to find the time and wait for everybody else? To go to bed and stay up as late as I could working on it or reading. And my wife who is a saint In every sense of the word. believed in this, And ran interference for the months that it took for me to get it done and didn't worry about where the money was coming from, you know, that sort of thing.

1:10:50 That she had to be married to someone who has enough faith in you and whether she understood it completely or not, but to give you permission and to give you assistance to make it happen is an invaluable gift. So that's once I'll tell you, I hear you, we could spend a whole other podcast on my marriage and this woman that I married to, I can so identify with that he's seven. God sent her to me. Yep. Yep. When I came home after my last trip out of town that I would have to take for a long, long time, I showed up, and I was unpacking my suitcase and it was a new laptop, some microphones, some headphones, and the receipts for some software I bought. And my wife's like, what's that?

1:11:43 Now it's like I'm going to start a podcast and I'm going to profess to the world and started podcasting. Hi. I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you know, I'm going to profess to the world that I'm a Mormon fundamentalist and we're going to talk about some really cool things in my wife. I mean, she's been nothing but supportive and what was, what was hilarious. And this is a woman who's had to endure me for going to be 27 years. In November, we got married activations. We got married young, moved across the country once halfway across the country twice. She just looked at and she went, you've had Worse ideas and then just, you know, really supportive.

1:12:23 Really supported have been has been so supportive of this as as I brought people into the house because I have my, where I record is upstairs in this glued, secluded part of the house, nothing but support so I can I can so identify with your statement there that we as men you know, we get we get these things to do, but we couldn't do them without Her wife. Yeah. Well so yeah I it wouldn't have happened without my wife and her support and her belief in this and talking it over with me. Then of course the necessary software that made its came into my hands the time.

1:13:12 The text that you find serendipitously online. You're looking for one thing, you know, hey I need that one too kind of a thing and then the means to publish it. Once it was done, it was like oh my gosh, it's done, it's 400 Pages now, what do I do? The first thing I did, I started giving it away, right? I went on Facebook and I said, I just finished this project if you want one message me and I'll attach the PDF. I don't know how many Hundreds copies. I gave away full of typos, by the way, because I had no other proof read it for me. I think I've since corrected 120, some typos in the book, but found another one, just the other day, is going to drive me crazy, in any case, And I began to approach various Publishers.

1:14:01 Also, at that time, serendipitously, my cash, and Brant Gardner, very fine, Scholars LDS, Scholars. Published authors came to me with some very, very timely and helpful advice. They were so kind. And so for I've never met either of them personally, but they would take their time out of their busy schedules. To be interested in this work. Number one, at the Complimentary of it. And then number two to have constructive input meant a lot and just I mean you read their works and man, I hope this guy's is nice.

1:14:43 It's his book is nice, you know, they are they are so good, so they gave me some very good advice, necessary changes that we may not massive changes just in terms of vocabulary and stuff like that. Very very helpful and then of course and I thought you know what, I let's see if anybody's interested so I put it out there. I sent it to I think four different Publishers if you don't mind. Could you tell us who you send it to? Yes, I before I do that. I I realized this book was not Harry Potter. And I wasn't writing this book to be famous or popular to make a lot of money. I don't think I'm making anybody. I'm advertising it and it's selling but the advertising still and I think I give more weight than I sell. Again, that's not why I put this book together. It would be gratifying for to get in front of more people but So I realized it would not be a great self the Publishers who have to make money, right?

1:15:53 How do you, how do you Market a concordance? Both people that you don't even know what a concordance is anymore because we don't need them because we have digital databases but we don't have a digital database but the sum total of extra canonical writings which is like this concordance is necessary. So I realized that it was going to be a hard sell on the other hand. I also realized it is utter uniqueness. There is nothing else. Like that I have seen, I submitted it to Signature books, which publishes my cash read coffered books, which publishes Brett Gardner, right? I didn't submit to Desert book. I just didn't think I had a shot with that, and I submitted it to The Interpreter.

1:16:38 Who, although not necessarily A Publishing House, have been known to publish books along, so I was I was targeting more scholarly publishers. the authors that I mentioned before, we're not very encouraging in regard to their Publishers, the Publishers. Again, if you look at what they're publishing. They're publishing smaller works. That have a broad appeal that will sell. Right, even though in the past, they've done scholarly stuff are not their kind of heading away from that because of the almighty dollar, I understand that any case, every single one of them were We're highly complimentary of the book. This is a great work.

1:17:32 But in two of the cases signature and greater Comfort, they said it's too big. We don't publish text this large and we don't, you know, and then they ask me, how do you propose to Market it? And I'm like, Oh, I thought that was, that's why I'm coming to you, you know, right. I realized that for them to invest, you know, publishing costs money, the interpreters response. I was a little disappointed with they were complimentary of the concept. But they, they ran it up the chain to their expert in this area. The expert said that some of the sources I used were not reliable sources. And I wanted to write back and say, what are you talking about? Yuri, if you look in the extra-canonical sources, the annotated bibliography, you can see that are each and every one of these. 66 text that I have cited come from reputable, scholarly Publications.

1:18:31 So I'd like to have that conversation with them and say, what were you thinking? You just shooting from the hip because you read things, you saw text that you were unfamiliar with or do you really have issues with some of these texts? I mean the criteria for the text that I did use. They had to be ancient, they had to be as old as the New Testament itself or their clothes. It had to be at least within the first few centuries aiding, right? And many of them predate, the new I mean so they had to be ancient, it had to be authentic, it couldn't be like the your auntie a book that some guy received hiking trip up in the you inches or something, it couldn't be that. So I didn't include the very popular book of jasher. I did not include that.

1:19:18 Book of jasher is far too late. It's well into the second Millennium ad and it's highly derivative clearly borrowing from earlier authentic text. I didn't want to have Anything to do with that stuff. It was very important for me. That this book could be. Two things. It could be accessible to the average reader if they wanted to dig a little bit, but it could also be respected as a scholarly reference text and for it to be respected as a reference text. It couldn't have any of my own personal bias in it. So as you read it you won't see my opinion on anything. I think this or I think that I don't do that.

1:20:01 I simply post as authoritatively as I can the LDS source of an LDS teaching. And then I sight word for word from the extra canonical texts. And I want that to be very clear because I don't want it to turn like any Source of scholarly source. It can be used in an infinite number of ways and it has an infinite number of things to teach us our to say to us because I didn't write that stuff. I just compiled it right? And I didn't want my commentary to ruin that it could be so many different can mean many different things for many for people. I'm still working on that.

1:20:46 I mean so I put it together so I can see what it has to say as a whole and what it has to say specific to given subjects and topics which is Mind-blowing still seems odd that you would say. I'm studying my book, but I understand a little bit about Joseph Smith, translation of the Book of Mormon doesn't mean you understood it. All right? Right away and he studied he studied his own translation, right? Is also evidence of its authenticity, why would you study something that he that he made up, you know? Right, right. But let me ask you this, I got two questions for you here off of off of that little piece of conversation, we had What was it like to after?

1:21:29 You've spent sounds like well over 20 years compiling, all this information to have some 40 years, 40 years to have someone tell you that. Hey, your sources aren't up to Snuff was that kind of infuriating a little bit over a younger and more prideful. It might have but I've been around this scholarly bush. A few times. I had a published dissertation that I presented at an International Conference in Philadelphia, a couple of decades ago which was really quite significant and field of singing and It was a physiological study and the expiratory mechanism musculature and the politics of it, stunned me. I mean I was naive I thought in the field of science and either it you can prove it or you can't nobody can argue with you. But the chairperson of that committee begin to argue with me.

1:22:32 Because I had cut in front of her prot��g�� who was studying the same thing and it was like are you kidding me? And I began to, I didn't know she was the chair. She was the internet. She was the national chair of that but I don't want to name names but I'm people apologizing to me the next day that she would do that to me, you know, that's funny. You should bring that up. I have a I have a thick skin. I have six years. They said that I wasn't hardly surprised. That's why I'd like to have an honest conversation with them and say which ones because I didn't bother to do that which is a red flag, right? Well really like which ones are you prefer? Which of this?

1:23:16 You read through all 66 and you're going to tell me right? Anyway it's funny you should bring that up because I have a good friend and I'm not going to name names because he's At a very prestigious University on the West Coast. And he he's starting to find now that the assumptions we've had in archaeology for the last 100 years. Are wrong. I think on a lot of things that's never happened before and I and he, well in welcome to the world of science. Yeah, he's he's the first to admit that, you know. Hey, Archaeology is really recent, right? We've, it's only been just a Top Gear. Yeah.

1:23:59 That, that we've been doing it and we're still using a lot of the same models that that we used that assumptions, right? I mean right down to the peopling of America, right? Like the whole club exactly the hole. Clovis. First doctor. So he he was telling me in a phone conversation once judge and he's not LDS right? And he doesn't have the same kind of dog in a fight like maybe right I would talking about the Western Hemisphere but he was like it's not about the data, right? The data is secondary to the politics and it is happening. And the problem is that they have the ability to turn. People into pariahs.

1:24:43 The other thing is that a lot of these Scholars, now are realizing that, because of just the prevalence of the amount of knowledge that's available to the average person. Greatly greatly diminishes, the idea of the of the date, Gatekeepers or the middle men. If you're right though, as the experts who know experts, right? So as soon as you set out to do something like this, you know, his opinion was, it's not Gathering the data that stuff, its Getting people to, at least be open enough to consider the possibilities and, and the politics that go along with it. And if you're in those circles heavily, if that's your full-time career, good luck on being different because they'll just defund you as far as grants and scholarships. Yeah.

1:25:39 My next question is is your as you're putting all this together? Or do you have something you were going to say? Well as finishing, the publishing story, both brand. Gardner in my cache suggested that I self-publish. Mike says that he's had that he has enjoyed more self-publishing than being than having a publisher because if you sign with the publisher their limitations. So you're talking about these serendipitous things that occurred in order to make this happen. I got online with and, you know, I did some research on self-publishing and the most highly recommended was the Amazon the Kindle system.

1:26:20 I had that thing published in a night. One night you get on there and it's it's it is beautiful and they don't limit you. You can Market it, sell it, buy it. You can do whatever you want with it and they will print on demand doesn't cost you anything initially at all, isn't it? Never cost you anything you say? Money. You upload the PDF, you design the cover, you design, the government Tyrael, the assign it, an ISDN number, till you, what the cost of it's going to be, you determine the mark-up you want. You determine the final price. And the next thing, you know, it's available on Amazon for the whole world to see in Dubai, and now they have available and the, the printing quality is really quite nice. Initially, it was you could get it in Amazon Kindle, the only thing I don't like about the Kindle formatting. Is that it messes up the pagination. Okay, so the contents and the, so the pdf version I sent you. That's the one you want.

1:27:21 Gotcha, God, if you can't, the Kindle version, it's nice. And I've sold a number. A lot of those, but the Nation is messed up, but for there are people who love to rekindle. That's the only way that have it, that it was initially available on Kindle and it's soft. Cover high quality. Now, you can get it in hardcover, that was just made available just as last year. Wow. So I'm super pleased with that, and I probably give away two cases of books a month in addition to what's being sold on Amazon. But if I didn't advertise, I wouldn't sell anything right? So, I run an advertising campaign on Facebook. Which is a lot of fun and it's reasonably priced and I've experimented with advertising it to thousands a day and yes it does sell more but it doesn't. It doesn't pay back.

1:28:13 You did. It doesn't pay for guide. Kind of finding that sweet spot. But what's funny about that in the advertising process you have to create a Facebook page for the book. Which people can comment on. And I spend hours every single day. Fielding comments for better for worse. Most of them are straight up at a Mormon, right? We hate you. Hate your book, get up. I feed Satan kind of stuff which is, I think kind of funny. Because it tells me that they understand the significance of the book. Right? So I take that as a compliment and whenever possible I will try it. If they'll give me even one, just just one little opening that I can get in there and start having a real conversation with them about why they feel this way, or did they know about this or have they actually read?

1:29:09 Probably. Five out of a hundred of actually read the book before they comment, right? Yeah, yeah. I know ends up being it ends up being a defense of the faith. I didn't necessarily want that. I wanted to be about the book, but her some point you're like, oh why not? Here we go. Happy to do that. Have been love that but it's a lot of fun. You can get it to Mormon Doctrine, the Apocrypha on Facebook, you can jump in all you want. Yep, I when I first started the podcast I felt like I was it was needed. Army to defend defend it. And now I've come to realize, especially on YouTube, right? I'll load some of these up on YouTube and I'm a fan of post and ghost, I mean, get it, get it, post it, and then get out of there.

1:29:58 You're not changing. I shouldn't say never, but the chances of change in somebody's mind on Facebook, or comments and YouTube are just astronomically low, right? I mean it's not a real conversation. Ation. It's just however, however and I do this a lot. Anyway, I won't go into specifics but there have been a number of circumstances where At the very least, you blunt. Sure Force. But here's the most important aspect of it. My primary concern, I mean, those people who get on there with flamethrowers and are just looking to damage a person's faith. I like you, I have my doubts about making a dent, dirt, finding an opening in the thinking at all. What, I'm more concerned with our the Innocents, who stumble across that on Facebook and are influenced by that. So my, my fundamental goal in all of this is simply to provide the alternate View.

1:31:02 So the people have a choice, they can make informed choices. If all they see is the lopsided anti-mormon Viewpoint and that's all they know what chance. Do they have making a rational decision? An informed decision. So every opportunity I have given time I will happily post the you know, the opposing Viewpoint. Sure. People can see their multiple sides to any argument as any true scholar would Want right, right? Yeah. If you really are interested in the truth and you're making decisions without exploring all sides of the argument, you are making a decision in ignorance. Yep.

1:31:42 And that'll and you'll pay for that. Absolutely. Um, how did you determine what was worthy of going into the book? And what wasn't at what point and not. And that question has two, two branches. If you One is doctrinally significant, right then? Also historically, reliable, does that make sense? Exactly. How did you come up with those two criteria on? Hey, this this should be there, this shouldn't well from a doctrinal point of view and from a authen authentic history point of view, very good, that's a best the really great question. The easiest part of that answer is to determine which were ancient at authentic I started Say if they weren't ancient if they weren't within the first few centuries ad, I wasn't interested in them.

1:32:42 So all 66 date, almost as old as the New Testament itself or older that carries a lot of weight. The whether or not they're authentic has been determined. I mean when you buy most of these texts come from highly reputable, scholarly text Old Testament, pseudepigrapha volumes one. Two and now volume 3, New Testament, Apocrypha now. And four or five volumes mean. These are published by experts in the field and who spend multiple Pages before the text telling, you how they dated this and what they think about it. So they have very very solid reasoning behind whether they would choose to even publish it or call it authentic in the first place.

1:33:29 So it's not just me deciding. This is based on The preeminent scholars in that particular field regarding the authenticity of the text. Also they know The extant copies of those texts. Tell you a lot about it for one more. My favorite arguably? My favorite extra-canonical work is the pissed is Sophia. One time known as the Askew manuscript because it was discovered, we don't know where it came from. Oddly enough. We know what it is because we have the original manuscript written on papyrus in Coptic first person. It turned up at the top of the London Bookseller Market. Some grave robber, found it in the Middle East. Somewhere showed up in London in the late 1700s bought by a doctor doctor asked you, and they call it the asking manuscript for years and wasn't translated into English until around 1920.

1:34:31 It's 300. And some pages of Jesus. Christ's teaching his disciples after he was resurrected. He gave him a and he had a question and answer session with them said, because my work is completed, ask me whatever you want and I will answer you openly. So, you know, you know, to tell us about the kingdom of God and he tells them about the kingdom of God, in astronomical terms, they can understand when does the spirit end of the body Mary asks, he says 70 days, I mean stuff like that. And you think this is crazy but the fact is we know that it's ancient it dates to the 1st 2nd 3rd century.

1:35:12 On original Papyrus. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that blows my mind. So, this game. Okay, hold on. Because now I'm fascinated. I got to take a side tangent here. There are millions. Yeah, 70 days from the moment of conception, you don't know if you know here's here's what's crazy about a two thousand-year-old document. He says 70 days when the spirit enters the body he says that and we now know in terms of gestation what that is. That's the tenth week and what we know in the stages of gestation the 10th week is when the body is first fully formed, everything is there? Hmm coincidence.

1:35:57 Hmm. Well, the really interesting thing for me, one of the it's Pista Sophia, it's Jesus starts telling his disciples about the degrees of glory and the laws governing the degrees of Glory. And then he starts telling them about the ordinances necessary to enter into those kingdoms and to pass through the veils that are guarded. You have to know certain words and certain signs and tokens to pass through these veils in order to reach the kingdom of God. And he tells them what they are. And then after all that he says, and this is Jesus talking to his disciples if you know of a righteous disciple.

1:36:42 Who died before receiving these ordinances, you can perform them. He can perform those ordinances in their behalf. Wow many. And then he teaches them the true order of prayer teaches in the prayer circle the apostles and their wives. All line up, dressed in garments of white linen, Jesus standing in the middle of them and he teaches them how to do it. Wow, ha ha ha. I would like now now that that that was written by the gnostics, okay? And when I say gnostics, the very early gnostics and the later gnostics that we hear about are not the same, okay? I mean that's that's true for, you know, the Egyptian religion if you want to call it that at the very beginning looks like the temple, right? But over time they began adopting, everything else. And other traditions in the pretty soon, the ferals are building temples under themselves instead of temples up to their God.

1:37:40 Wow, so this is the way. Well, what are we call it the cycle of dispensation apostasy apostasy cycle, right? Yeah. Surprise surprise anyway, sorry I got stuff on the side tangent because I was just slow your roll for a second. We're going to have it. So so you're looking for things that are old. Right first century. Second century. After after the death burial and resurrection of the Savior. And the we have ancient an Manuscript of manuscripts are these things that are truly ancient.

1:38:21 So they I mean so they can be the monster bleep reuven to be authentic in ancient that was that site. Now, for which text, I would include in my book from the ancient, not authentic, because there are lots of ancient authentic, Texas, don't say anything particularly about LDS teachings. So as I put in my preface the LDS teachings listed herein We're not pre-selected but we're included simply because they presented themselves in one or more of the extra conical extra canonical works. So I wasn't looking for anything. I was just reading And when I would come across as a teaching, that was like, what? What was that doing there?

1:39:04 That's what I would Mark. So even so the list of the 179 teachings, I didn't pre-plan any of it. I couldn't I couldn't these are just 179 things. Different things that present themselves and those hundred segments and teachings are each a tested multiple times. So we're talking about thousands of ADD test stations of these teachings. Wow. The temple, for example, the section on Temple rights. It's over 50 pages. Long and in two tests, every aspect of what we do in our temples today, From 2000 years ago in earlier. and the only people who understand who get it are endowed Latter-day Saints, Everybody else is going well that's not Christianity, right? So is that how you came up with things as far as doctrinally sound?

1:40:02 Which is you would, you would look at it and say, is this something that would be familiar to Latter-day. Saints was exactly. That was the criteria. That was the criteria. I was looking to find what I had time to do in my lifetime. In this lifetime was to find out. Teachings within this body of literature and it ended up being a huge. I mean it was it was for me the completion of what a nor Erickson and you nibbly started and finding corollaries between these ancient documents and the restored gospel. And someone said what's What's the greatest thing you learned from this whole process? And again, I've kind of tongue-tied because it's this is massive, but I would have to say the overarching question. it has to be answered but has asked by this text If these ancient texts really do, I mean, if you take me at my word and you read the book and see for yourself, there are 179. Unmistakable.

1:41:09 Distinct LDS teaching these in these ancient texts. None of which were available to Joseph Smith. The question you have to ask is why, how, how is that even possible? I mean drills, the Smith produced a lot of stuff more so more than any other prophet in history. More pages of text. But even so, I mean, so given that it's a are, I'll give him six lucky guesses. But 179 in incredible, specificity surprising specificity names, dates, and years, and ordinances, and specific words all in the same context that Joseph Smith, gave to us, which to the modern world was utterly foreign. if it is like that's crazy, no one, no one believes that well, two thousand years ago, they did Right, half, how do you explain that?

1:42:09 And I've actually had a very few thoughtful people, try to explain that, who acknowledge the significance of what that is. How did Joseph Smith Channel, ancient Christianity, or even pre-christian the ancient Judaism, omni-channel that Yeah, well, he well he had, he secretly had access to the book of First Enoch. Which was the first of the apocryphal texts to be translated as translated in 1820 in England. Yeah, that's that's not making its way over here that quick in Palmyra. Ya know if this 20 year old punk is reading it and I do that's a stretch.

1:42:53 And even if let's say for the sake of discussion, let's say he did have a secret copy of the Book of Enoch under his pillow Book of Enoch. It doesn't account for what two percent Of the teachings presented in that book. Yeah, it's first. Enoch is significant but doesn't even begin to cover the gamut of what was restored through Joseph Smith. So he was either the luckiest guesser or he was magic or he was telling the truth, it's what we're left with right, I had one gentleman, try to explain. He said well it's the teachings of Plato were in the air at the time and he was channeling Plato.

1:43:36 I'm like, first of all PL 8000 the Greek philosopher, Plato. Well, I know who you're talking about Play-Doh, right? That either, you know, I would be surprised at Joe Smith. New Play-Doh was And as I pointed out that did this commentator, that the teachings of Plato were nonspecific, and we're talking about Old Testament characters, Melchizedek and Shem. Then Abraham very specific than Enoch in very specific ways. I mean, even identifying how long medic lived when he was translated Joseph Smith, did that nobody else knew about that until the discovery of these documents right now, it's all It's all there. so does In what you were seeing. Because Joseph did a lot of I guess you could call it C or ship or revelatory work here concerning the Old Testament, right?

1:44:40 Yes, we have the inspired version and that's where my command God. Kept after him, you need to get back to his fired version of the Old Testament. You know why the majority of the doctrine covenants came from that work and yep, door of his Revelations came from the inspired version of the Bible. Let me ask you this. Do you see anything in in the Apocrypha That's a bull's-eye in terms of Joseph's work in the Old Testament. Yeah, let me count the ways. Just if you just just a few that jump out at you, let me go through this real quickly. And terms of Enoch, the bull's-eyes.

1:45:21 Well, let's talk about Abraham, an angel saying to Abraham Abraham Abraham. That Abraham desires, great knowledge, that Abraham learned astronomy, from God, that Abraham received an angel from God, that Abraham was seeking. The one true God, that Abraham was shown all things that Abraham taught, astronomy to the Egyptians. That's not biblical that comes from our book of Abraham writes. All the tests that is all a tested in these ancient documents repeatedly that Adam could not change before the fall. That's significant to our beliefs of by the Fall was necessary. That is a tested. Ancient documents that Adam presides over the Human family in priesthood.

1:46:04 That is also a tested in these documents that Adam had a very specific language. The adamic language also tested in these documents then we get to Enoch. All the creation is also, we're taught that creation was spiritual and then temporal by Joseph Smith. That is a tested in these documents. Wow, verbatim And is that in the book Old? I'm quoting for the book. Oh, okay. Good enough / the want to scrub. It's all here alphabetically. Here's Enoch. We are taught that Enoch was taken to heaven and translate it literally.

1:46:46 That's a tested of course in first second, and third Enoch, the Enoch lived 365 years that's from Joseph Smith. Also tested of these documents that Enoch sees Angels descending that Enoch weeps for the Earth. That's a tested. Anyway. Wow, those are a few. Wow. Milk is Adecco, that's good. So let me ask you this question. We've been at this now, almost two hours, just a little less than two hours. What? For people who would say you know what, that's all good stuff to know, but my my testimony is strong.

1:47:30 It's efficient. What? Good is it to know about these things? What would, what would you tell them? I would say, that's fine. You don't this book isn't for everyone. It is dense and it goes deep and My favorite missionary companion Elders, quick Tommy. This quote, there is a hedge that protects the mysteries of God. It is the hedge of Revelation, it, protects the mysteries from the unprepared. And to prepare and it protects the unprepared for the Mysteries. So that if you're not ready to read this, don't read it. It's not for everybody.

1:48:11 On the other hand people and we see this a lot in the world, let alone within the Church of people who only want to know this much. Right? The Prophet Joseph Smith Joseph F Smith Joseph Fielding Smith, Brigham Young, on down the line, all taught that you will only be saved as fast as you gain knowledge. That no man can be saved in ignorance or the Book of Mormon from him that say, if I have enough shall be taken away, even that which he has our quest for knowledge is the ultimate determiner of valiance. Section, 76 states.

1:48:51 That only those who those who will be exalted, are those who are Valiant in their testimony of Jesus. Not just good. Which is not a bad thing. And we are who we are. There are degrees of intelligence are inherent in us. And so we will. And if this vide the plan B, why agency is the fundamental governing principle of the plan. I can't be smarter than I am. I can't have more intelligence than I have. I can't. I mean, I was teaching a sentence gospel documents, and a, to drive home. This point, I said, raise your hand if you want to be like, Jesus, everybody. In their class raises their hand. I said now raise your hand.

1:49:39 If you were willing to do, what Jesus did, nobody raised their hand. He had to be crazy to do that. Who'd want to go through Gethsemane who has the capacity to do that. None of us do So I don't presume to know where I'm going to end up in the eternities. I don't possess that knowledge and that intelligence all I know is what I know and what I love and what what gives me joy and happiness and fulfillment. And that's what I pursue. And then I have complete and utter trust in the almighty, in the omnipotent, the omniscient. On Judgement Day, I'll get exactly what I want. No more, no less anymore.

1:50:25 I would be, I couldn't comprehend it any less. I would be unfulfilled that is true for all of us, but I do, I do have concerns for people who in, who purposefully limit their learning. They're setting themselves up for deception. And especially the world in which we live today. The parable of the ten virgins describes it. Perfectly Christ will come at midnight, The Darkest Hour. The darkness is symbolic of the absence of Truth, evil wickedness, deception the father of Lies. I mean, it's who he is.

1:51:08 It's what he does. And the world is filled with darkness. And the only way any of us will be able to survive that darkest hour is by having enough. If of our own light, right? The lamps the oil that's in there that to provide enough light for us to make our way through the darkness to be. Part of that second coming, the great marriage feast and it's funny of the ten virgins, the five that were foolish. They all had wedding garments. They all have invitations, they all had lamps, and they all had oil and they were all virgins. So they were righteous, they were endowed, they had the capacity for knowledge.

1:51:54 They had some truth. But they didn't have enough. Does not enough, you know, and they got lost. It's not because they were bad Spencer. Kimball he says, the 10 virgins of the church not the world, the righteous endowed half of the righteous. Endowed will have insufficient light. To make it to the marriage supper of the Lamb, right? That's sobering to me and it should be sobering to all of us, right? Yeah. And it's something that I remember taking away from the temple, is this idea of I got to stop thinking, in terms of just tell me what I need to do. Ya got there, right?

1:52:39 Give me give me the checklist, right? When you follow Adam story, he wasn't. Concerned with quote unquote, just the checklist, it was light and knowledge, right? It was it was information. That could be transformed into wisdom, and that's what I think Mormonism supposed to be doing for us, right. Is not just giving us that light and knowledge, but Sparking our souls in a never-ending quest for further light knowledge. Exactly. Because without that we cannot attain to what the father has. Oh no and we need that light and knowledge that information which becomes wisdom to get to where it is. We want to be the glory of God is intelligence. Yep yep.

1:53:32 So so this idea of I'm just going to work the program doesn't necessarily I mean look I would rather a person Work the program than not but I feel like I feel like you're missing out on some of the best perks if you just shut it down at that. Well, but I've also had to and being a father teaches us this. We don't all have to be exalted. Not all of us. Want to be exalted, right there. Are kingdoms of Glory for everyone relative to their desires and their capacities. And so I we get caught in his trap of gold medal. Silver medal, bronze medal, baloney.

1:54:15 They're all kingdoms of Glory all created for the children that he loves specifically to fulfill them. And what, you know, I imagine the terrestrial Kingdom will be the most peaceful place in all of eternity. Right, it's Celestial, Kingdom. We're going to be working their asses off. No, you're good. I cuts on this but we'll be working. Your good eye cream will be working, there will be struggling, and the heavens will weep because of the work that is being done on behalf of this new eternity and they struggling in the suffering in the Sin and the sorrow.

1:55:00 That is a necessary part. Our development. so, I don't I confess, I used to be pridefully judgmental of people who didn't, Who didn't engage? In a scholarly way, like I enjoy doing but in the end not everybody has to, right? Not everybody wants to see if if you want to do, what God does, you have to write? That's, I mean that's it, but God doesn't say everyone has to do what he does. in fact, Joseph, F Smith said, the most interesting thing regarding He said. The holy priesthood.

1:55:52 After the order of the Son of God is the only priesthood we know anything about For every different Kingdom or even degree within that Kingdom, there's a different order and the restored gospel doesn't teach us about those orders that teaches us about the Holy priesthood. After the order of the Son of God, that's the only one we know anything about. We can surmise what the other orders are about by the choices that people make, and the choices that we make now will determine the kingdom to which we are assigned later. Which is a reflection of those choices, right? Bike clean with, to like, yep, we'll go where we choose.

1:56:37 Yep. Yeah, I agree with and I love what Elder Holland said. And remember, we're not the first to ask is there no other way. Right? That was asked in the Garden of Eden. Is it? No other way? There is no other way. This is how it's done. We have to choose our Destinies are self-determined. God, does not God as the hymn says, God will force. No man to heaven. Yep, it wouldn't work. So one last question before we go every book, even a Concordance. Ultimately has. A message behind it.

1:57:22 If you were handing this book to somebody else and you had five ten minutes to explain to him what this book has meant to you to put it together and what you hope it means to them. What would it be? That there is more of God's word. Aha, there is more. That's such a hard question to answer when you try and build a Reference work. And I someone asked and they said, what was your premise? What was your thesis? I didn't have a thesis. There was so much that I had to compile this to even make sense of it at all.

1:58:04 I wasn't, I didn't go about this trying to prove anything But I will say, having said that the question having completed it. Now, the question really does have to be answered how Why is this even this book shouldn't exist? I shouldn't have been able to compile 400 pages of Joseph Smith teachings that turn up in 2000 year old documents. That's not that shouldn't be a thing, it shouldn't be possible and yet here it is. Why how? How is it? I mean people should have laughed at me as I started this process.

1:58:49 So you'll be lucky to, you know, come up with two or three corollaries, not 179 multiple, you know, multiplied times for on the average. How does that? I mean, my skeptical mind is like, okay, I found all these corollaries. How How did Joseph Smith do that? Why should he even have them? Why should why should that even exists? Why should they even be a thing? And the only, you know, Occam's razor suggests. There's only the most rational explanation is the one that Joseph Smith gay.

1:59:32 He wasn't creating anything he was restoring but has existed in multiple dispensations. Before on this planet my book a test to that dispensation of Adam. Dispensation and of Enoch, dispensation of Noah of Melchizedek of Abraham, and Moses and the dispensation of Christ. There is this, they taught the same stuff. Who believes that? Right. That's correct. That's crazy. Talk outside of Mormon of that she's crazy stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So I I resist. Encapsulating a 400-page reference work into one polemic argument that undermines what this book can be, but that is probably the largest looming question that's brought up. How is this possible, Right?

2:00:39 How did he do it? Or did can Peterson just make all this stuff up? Right? Well, I don't know you extremely well, but In these conversations, people inevitably reveal their soul. So I have no doubt that this is not made up, right? You've spent too much time doing it as I've went through this book. Now, over the last couple of days, I just can't recommend it highly enough. I feel like it's, it can only serve to deepen one's faith and give almost a sense of awe. That's, that's the one thing I've taken away with it. As it continued sense of awe. At from the beginning. of time to now the teachings of the restored gospel have always been there and it has deepened, my testimony of Joseph Smith, and of his prophetic calling, because for an uneducated, Guy from the American frontier.

2:01:43 Who can barely write his own name without misspelling? Has somehow managed to come up with all of these bulls eyes. Again I go back to the science of statistical probability, it just doesn't work. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning, they you of finding these things. Well after his death Buried in a cave on the shores of the Dead Sea that have sat there for the better. Part of 2000 years undisturbed translated by other Scholars, that just somehow magically miraculously lineup.

2:02:27 Yeah, with what Joseph Smith had said, yeah, yeah dude. I so have enjoyed this conversation. Enjoyed your book. I got a question for you, okay. Could you be willing to come back on and talk with me at a later date? Just about the, the pistol, severe, Sofia? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, if you be up for that, oh my gosh. Yes. All right, let's let's do that. That would be so fun. All right, the name of the book, Mormon Doctrine in the Apocrypha. A concordance of P of the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and extra canonical writings and they can find that at Amazon. Is that right lasagna /?

2:03:11 Just Google it? Yeah, there are other places they're selling it now but it's on Amazon where you can buy it and my life's work, my life's work for 20 bucks and it's well worth the $20. I mean, yeah, you're not going to find a better deal anywhere else real quick. Can if anyone wanted to reach out to you and and had questions for you, where can they They reach out to you. Well, if you go to Facebook, okay? And look at Mormon Doctrine in the Apocrypha. That would get you there. Perfect. And then and then if we want to make personal contact from there, I can message you personal information and I'm happy to buy anybody. Lunch and give you a free copy of my book. Awesome.

2:03:55 All right, that was great. All right everyone, we'll see you next time. Bye.