Hebrew Voices #194 – Pious Fraud

Dr. Nehemia Gordon - Bible Scholar at NehemiasWall.com

In this episode of Hebrew Voices #194 - Pious Fraud, Nehemia and Dan Vogel discuss a shared concept in early Mormonism and rabbinical Judaism about lying for the Lord, what biblical studies can learn from Mormon history, and the dangers of the “idealist” fallacy.

I look forward to reading your comments!

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Hebrew Voices #194 – Pious Fraud

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: And for me, the takeaway from early Mormon history, what my whole interest in this really has developed into is, we’ve got to be really careful making the types of arguments we’ve been making, because we have this case of early Mormonism where there are these evolutions of ideas within, like you said, the same month the book came out, he’s saying the opposite in what later becomes Doctrine and Covenants.

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Nehemia: I’m back with Dan Vogel, the greatest living historian of early Mormon history, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating there, at least that’s my view on it. So, I want to respect people who are coming from a devout perspective, but I also want to hear what the truth is, and then I want to think about how this applies to other situations. For me, that’s the bottom line. How can I apply this?

And I want to I want to tell you one of the things, Dan, that I take away from this. We have all these ideas in biblical studies, Old Testament and New Testament, that are completely undermined by what happened in Mormonism. And I’ll just give you an example. I have no doubt whatsoever that Joseph Smith Jr. wrote the Book of Mormon, that he created it out of his own imagination, and that the Doctrine and Covenants were created out of his own imagination.

Yet they sound like they were raised by two different authors. One of them is… I mean, we started, and we didn’t get to it… before the discussion about what it means “eternal damnation”. Eternal damnation on its face in the Book of Mormon means, if you don’t have the right beliefs and do the right things, you’re going to hell for eternity. But then in Doctrine and Covenants, he explains, “No, it means you’re going to be punished by the Eternal One, by God, and eventually end up in some kind of heaven.” So, how could that be the same author? But it is.

Dan: And so soon.

Nehemia: Yeah… within a few years, he’s… within a year, even, he’s giving a different story…

Dan: The revelation you just quoted…

Nehemia: Yeah.

Dan: …is given the very month the book comes off the press.

Nehemia: That’s amazing! So, now when I look at a document and I say, “Oh, this was …” and this is a real example.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: I say, “Well, how could this have been written by Maimonides in the 12th century, because Maimonides in his Systematic Theology says X, Y, Z, and you realize, well, okay, even though he was a systematic theologian, he’s also a human being, and in some context, he’s being systematic, and in other contexts he’s not.” And that’s really important for historical study of documents, not just the Bible, but for historical philology. We have this tendency… and I know you quote, and I want you to talk about this, there’s a concept you talk about here, a certain fallacy, I forget what it’s called, that people aren’t really consistent.

Dan: Right. The Idealist Fallacy.

Nehemia: The Idealist Fallacy. So, we employ…

Dan: The Idealist Fallacy is that you hold the ideal view of humans, and the ideal view of humans is that they’re always consistent. And so, you argue, “Well, Joe Smith couldn’t have said that because that contradicts what he said over here.” And you go, “Therefore, he didn’t mean that, he meant something else.” And then you tried to spin it and try to harmonize.

And my position is, well, that’s an apologetic position to demand that Joe Smith never contradict himself. “He’s always consistent.” And to use consistency as the rationale for your very difficult interpretation to accept… like with Masonry. How could he be anti-Masonic in the Book of Mormon and then join Masonry in Nauvoo? That’s contradiction, so therefore the Book of Mormon is not anti-Masonic.

Nehemia: Or it wasn’t written by Joseph Smith. That’s the other option, right?

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: Maybe Sidney Rigdon was anti-Masonic, and he duped Joseph Smith, who actually… because that’s one of the claims, that not only is Joseph Smith a Mason, but he came from a Masonic family, right? Isn’t there a whole discussion about that?

Dan: His brother, we know, was a Mason.

Nehemia: So, if his brother was a Mason, that means, by implication, maybe he was a Mason. How could he be anti-Masonic in the Book of Mormon? And it seems like he is, though. Secret combinations, you argue, refers to Masonry, right?

Dan: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay. So, it’s like… and we didn’t really get into the whole Masonry thing. Why was this such a big deal, Freemasonry, in that time period?

Dan: Well, 1826. There’s always been anti-Masons from the very beginning.

Nehemia: Tell us about Morgan.

Dan: Morgan. When Jefferson ran for president, it was anti-Illuminati; basically the same thing. A French version of Masonry. So, there have always been anti-Masons around, but it really took fire when this gentleman named William Morgan, who lived in a town just east of Palmyra… He was going to publish The Secrets of Masonry, and he eventually did, after he died, but he was planning on it. The Masons got wind of it, and he got arrested on trumped up charges and put in the Canandaigua jail, which is about ten miles below Palmyra. And while in the jail, he disappeared from jail. Some Masons in a carriage drove up, yanked him out of the jail, put him in the carriage, and he rode off, and no one ever saw him ever again.

Nehemia: And the assumption is he was murdered by the Masons, right?

Dan: That’s what everyone assumed, that he had been assassinated.

Nehemia: What do you think happened to him?

Dan: Yeah, I think that’s what happened to him.

Nehemia: He got…

Dan: There were trials, but some people that were involved only got light sentences, and so a governmental conspiracy theory started that they got off easy. They didn’t have the body, of course, but they got off easy because the judges, the juries, they were all Masons. And they all gave each other the secret handshake or secret word or sign or whatever, and they all stuck together and protected… because that’s part of the covenant, of Royal Arch Masons especially, is to protect one another no matter what circumstance. Murder and treason not excepted.

Nehemia: And it’s my understanding, and someone correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that in the United Kingdom today you can’t be a judge if you’re a Freemason.

Dan: I don’t know.

Nehemia: That’s what I’ve read. I don’t know if it’s still true.

Dan: There was a lot of anti-Masonry there as well.

Nehemia: Well, it’s also a fear that they’re going to they’re going to be biased in their judgement of a court case…

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: …based on that. So, on the one hand, it sounds like insane conspiracy theories; Masons are murdering people. I met this guy who was a Mason, and he said, “Look, they’re just a bunch of old nice men who get together and play games.”

Dan: Yeah, I’m sure.

Nehemia: And that might be true today, but if they’re murdering people in the 1800’s, then that’s a different sort of thing.

Dan: Well, that was an isolated instance, they would say. They would say that maybe the Canandaigua Lodge had apostatized from the truth.

Nehemia: But now we’ve got the idea of rogue Masons, which is… that’s what, essentially, Joseph Smith accused the Masons of being, rogue against the true ancient… what is it, religion or customs, or isn’t there something like that?

Dan: Well, that would be a Mormon apologist position or…

Nehemia: Wasn’t there something that that… what’s that?

Dan: There’s a new book out recently that tries to argue that Joseph Smith was always a Mason, that from birth, his family wanted him to be the restorer of the pure Masonry.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: Which I don’t follow any of this stuff.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: So, they would argue that, because the temple, the Mormon temple, is somewhat like the Masonic ceremony, or part of it…

Nehemia: And maybe was more so in the 19th century, right?

Dan: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: And so, they tried to argue that Masons are apostate and… Well, Joseph Smith said in Nauvoo, after he joined and borrowed their ceremony, “Masonry is an apostate Mormon endowment,” or, “they’re an apostate priesthood.” So, he bought into the notion that Masonic ceremony was handed down from Solomon’s Temple, and that that was the ceremony, a part of the ceremony in Solomon’s Temple that was handed down by the Masons, and he restored it to its pure form.

Nehemia: So, this statement of Joseph Smith that you just cited, is this a matter of dispute? Like, would Stoddard accept that Joseph Smith said that or…?

Dan: About Masonry? Yes. It’s…

Nehemia: We don’t know what Stoddard would say. Well, is this something that, like, was said by the enemies of Mormonism, or just…

Dan: No. This was quoted by Heber C. Kimball.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: An apostle… Morman apostle. He recalled it while he was in Utah, an apostle, and Joseph Smith said that Masonry is an apostate endowment. And so did another guy, Benjamin Johnson, had a similar statement. It’s not disputed that Joseph Smith said that Masonry… He’s trying to explain that his ceremony, that he gave, which is different… it’s different than the Masonic ceremony. It’s more religious. It’s Mormonized, let’s put it that way. It’s Masonry Mormonized. And so, he was claiming to restore Solomon’s Temple ceremony and restore and purify Masonry at the time of his death.

Nehemia: So… wow.

Dan: That creates a problem with… And so, they would say that there is true Masonry, pure Masonry, and spurious Masonry.

Nehemia: That’s what the apologists say? Or Joseph Smith basically said that?

Dan: That’s what these new authors I just mentioned…

Nehemia: Okay. And what Joseph Smith was saying is that there was some true ancient ceremony from the time of Solomon that the Masons have corrupted.

Dan: No one really actually believes that… no critical person believes that Masonry was handed down from Solomon’s Temple.

Nehemia: No, of course not. But Joseph Smith made that claim that he’s just restoring some ancient custom that they’ve corrupted.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay. And then the apologists want to say, “Oh, well, he didn’t learn that in Nauvoo, he knew that from the time he was…” I don’t know, a child or something. Is that what they’re trying to argue?

Dan: The apologists would not argue that. That’s a new interpretation that’s going around on the internet now.

Nehemia: Right, okay.

Dan: It’s a book written about Joseph Smith and Masonry. They try to harmonize how Joseph Smith could join the Masons and be an anti-Mason in the Book of Mormon. And I say, “He’s still an anti-Mason in Nauvoo, because they they’re apostates!”

Nehemia: So, they’re committing the Idealist Fallacy, which, frankly, is something that, and I’m speaking here coming from philological studies, it’s something people are doing all the time in my field. And they’re doing it about things where they have no vested interest in their ideology or theology. Like I said, it could be something about what Maimonides or Sa’adia Ga’on wrote in the Middle Ages. And you say, “Well, Sa’adia couldn’t have written that, because he wrote the opposite somewhere else.” Or maybe he contradicted himself.

Dan: I mean, it’s something to point out. This is a problem, but you can’t put too much stock in that kind of argument because humans contradict themselves.

Nehemia: It’s kind of the bread and butter of some fields of historical, philological studies. And for me, the takeaway from early Mormon history, what my whole interest in this really has developed into is, we’ve got to be really careful making the types of arguments we’ve been making because we have this case of early Mormonism where there are these evolutions of ideas within. Like you said, the same month the book came out, he’s saying the opposite in what later becomes Doctrine and Covenants.

Dan: The thing about that revelation is that the revelation itself says to not publish it, to keep it secret, and not to let people know that it’s around contradicting the Book of Mormon. That’s one of the reasons David Whitmer and others didn’t want it published, because it said not to publish it. And the reason for that is, the revelation itself gives reason for not letting it out.

Nehemia: Let’s go back to explain to people what we’re talking about, because that was an hour ago that we talked about that…

Dan: So, the Book of Mormon is anti-Universalist. It’s against those who shall, in the last days, preach, “I shall be beaten with a few stripes, but at last I shall enter into the kingdom of God” kind of a thing. That it’s okay to sin, that all shall be forgiven. That kind of a thing. And there was a sect in the Book of Mormon time period, supposedly, called the Order of Nehor, who were Universalists, that their prophets pound on all the time. And then it predicts that in the last days there will be the same kind of people, believing that you shall be saved no matter what you do. But the problem that the Book of Mormon worried about was that if you have that, no one will ever obey the commandments. There’s no incentive to…

Nehemia: So, you need the fear of eternal hell in order to be a good person, basically.

Dan: Yeah. So, Martin Harris is a Universalist, and he believes in universal salvation, and it might be one reason he was starting to hesitate here for a second. So, the revelation explains… and the revelation is given to Martin Harris, telling him not to covet his own property and to give it for the publication of the Book of Mormon, not to hold it. So, before it says that, it says…

Nehemia: Spoken like a true socialist. “Don’t covet your own property”. Go on.

Dan: Yeah. So, it’s on Martin Harris that, it has been said in olden times that you should… that eternal damnation and everlasting damnation, endless damnation… But it doesn’t say that there shall be no end to that punishment, which…

Nehemia: Well, the word “eternal” would imply that.

Dan: Well, then it says, “for eternal is my name”. So, “eternal punishment” is just saying
“God’s punishment”. It doesn’t mean forever. It means the eternal, everlasting part, is God. It’s a noun. Okay?

Nehemia: Yeah.

Dan: A noun. God’s name is eternal. So, it’s God’s punishment, but it’s not eternal in the sense of duration.

Nehemia: Okay, so, is the phrase he’s referring to “eternal punishment,” help me out. That’s in the Book of Mormon?

Dan: Yeah. You should be able to find it. Eternal, everlasting… I don’t know if the two words…

Nehemia: All right, the Book of Jacob 7:18. “And he spake plainly unto them that he had been deceived by the power of the devil. And he spake of hell, and of eternity, and of eternal punishment.” And I’m not sure what the context here… Let’s see… Okay.

Dan: It also uses language of the Book of Revelation, “the Lake of Fire” and “it shall be everlasting”, and things like that.

Nehemia: Okay. So, what’s so interesting to me about this is that the Book of Mormon is making sort of a big deal about how there’s this heresy that needs to be combated, and “it will appear in the last days.” Meaning it’s Joseph Smith projecting about “let’s be concerned about these Universalists”, and yet when he has this “revelation” for Martin Harris, he’s interpreting his own book in a way that’s completely far-fetched. Yet he’s the author of both the book and the interpretation, obviously.

Dan: Well, the revelation explains that… that this language, which has been used so that it may work upon the hearts of the children of men…

Nehemia: Mm-hmm.

Dan: And not to let the revelation be known, not to publish the revelation.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Dan: Because that the people need milk and not meat, and that they shall use it as an excuse, and to their own punishment, their own damnation. So, in other words, what it’s saying is that God uses misleading language on purpose. On purpose. The Book of Mormon doesn’t mean eternal damnation, it’s using misleading language in order to deceive his children into obeying his commandments so that they’ll be saved. They’ll be saved anyway, but they’ll be saved from a temporary hell, and the revelation itself describes this temporary punishment. Even though it’s temporary, it’s something you want to avoid because it is so painful that it caused “even I, God”, it says. Jesus, “I God”, Jesus, “to tremble and to bleed at every pore in the Garden of Gethsemane.” Right?

Nehemia: Yeah. This reminds me of a scene in The Sopranos where they’re talking about purgatory, and the one guy says, “Oh, I’m not going to go to hell. I gave all this money to the church.” “Yeah,” he said, “I figure I’ll do 6,000 years. I could do that time standing on my head.” So, he’s okay being this, like, degenerate murdering criminal because he thinks, “Oh, I’m not going to go to hell forever. It’s just purgatory.” I mean, they’re Catholic, of course. And so, Joseph Smith is explaining in this revelation, “Let people think it’s eternal hellfire, or they might think it’s okay to sin.”

Dan: Right.

Nehemia: And he’s attributing that to God. And so, my point is that it sounds like a far-fetched interpretation of what’s in the Book of Mormon…

Dan: Yes, it is.

Nehemia: … yet Joseph Smith is the author of both the Book of Mormon and The Revelation. Meaning, I think he made them both up. In which case it really raises some issues of historical philology. When you see a far-fetched interpretation, we would call this a drash in Judaism, here’s an example where the drash is the pshat, is the plain meaning, is the original intention of the author, that is to say. Unless he’s just telling Martin Harris what he wants to hear, and then Joseph Smith really maybe does believe what’s in the Book of Mormon about eternal punishment, but he doesn’t want to lose Martin Harris or his money. Now I’m attributing motivations that I don’t have evidence for.

Dan: Well, the setting given to Martin Harris rather than somebody else, and the revelation also talks about using his money to publish…

Nehemia: “Don’t covet your own money,” yeah.

Dan: Not to hold on to his farm. I mean, the situation implies very strongly that he’s saying words that Martin Harris wants to hear. And…

Nehemia: But what does Joseph Smith believe? That’s the question.

Dan: I use this as one of the evidences for his pious fraud thesis, and that’s…

Nehemia: Oh, talk about that! That’s fascinating.

Dan: This is one of the evidences that Joseph Smith is portraying God as deceiving his children for a greater good. To help them avoid a temporary hell, anyway. So, he’s laying at God’s feet this notion of “God sometimes deceives us”. And religious deception; deceiving for the greater good. And I go to the Bible sometimes. I go to the Old Testament; I go to Jacob and Esau. I go to Jacob and Esau and how they deceived Isaac to give the blessing to the wrong son. Well…

Nehemia: The right son, just not the one that Isaac wanted to give it to.

Dan: Just not the one he thought he was giving it to! And it still…

Nehemia: At least that’s the Israelite perspective, not the Edomite perspective.

Dan: And it still worked!

Nehemia: Yeah, that’s interesting.

Dan: God still honored it!

Nehemia: So, here’s an example from the Talmud, which later became a principle in Rabbinical Judaism, and I’ll just say up front, I’m biased because I’m not a Rabbinical Jew. I’m a Karaite Jew. But that’s beside the point. The example is, there are these two rabbis and they’re traveling just before the Sabbath, and one of them knows the correct practice of what they’re supposed to do while they’re traveling, because there are special rules when you’re traveling just before Sabbath. So, one of them knows what the correct ruling is, but he lies and attributes it to another rabbi, and then the Talmud comes along discussing this incident. And they say, “Well, we know that other rabbi didn’t say it. Why did this rabbi attribute it to the other dead rabbi?” And the answer is, “Well, how else would the other guy have accepted it from him?” In other words, it’s exactly pious fraud. He believes what he’s saying is true, but in order to get somebody else to accept what he’s saying, he lies and attributes it to someone who didn’t say it. He attributes it to an authority, in that case another rabbi, to say, “Well, this other rabbi says you’re supposed to do X, Y, Z,” knowing that was a lie. But the purpose of the lie was, “Well, I know I’m right. And how else will you accept it from me?”

So, this later becomes a principle that’s discussed in Rabbinical Judaism. And it’s the question of, to what extent are you allowed to attribute something to someone who didn’t say it in order to get people to accept your authority when you know something is true; you know the ruling is true? I would argue that the entire Oral Law is based on that, but that’s the topic for a different discussion. I mean, the opening…

Dan: That’s what ancient pseudepigraphists believed.

Nehemia: Absolutely! That’s what the pseudepigraphists believed. And I’ll just finish this example of the Oral Law. So, the opening passage of the Mishnah says that the Oral Law was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, and he transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the… there’s a chain of transmission. Did the rabbis who said that really believe that? Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe they just said that because they said, “How else will people accept it if we don’t attribute it to Moses?”

Now, where do I get that from? And I don’t know if I want to go into too much detail, but there’s a story in the Talmud about… Moses is in heaven and he sees God doing something mysterious, and he says, “Why are you doing that?” He’s tying crowns upon the letters, whatever that means. And God then puts Moses forward in time, into the time of Rabbi Akiva, and Rabbi Akiva… this may be the first time travel story in history, I’m not sure. And Moses hears Rabbi Akiva teaching something completely nonsensical and ridiculous. And people challenge Akiva, and they say, “Where’d you get this, Akiva?” And they even call him Akiva Bar-Joseph; they’re being very familiar with him. And he says, “It was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai.”

And the point of the story is, Akiva made something up and attributed it to Moses, but it was still what God intended, even though he knew he didn’t hear it from Moses. It was, in a sense, revealed to Akiva, and because Akiva believed it was revealed to him, he was allowed to falsely attribute it to Moses because God intended it. It’s a very complex theology, but it really is the pious fraud concept. And they’re telling you, in a sense… this is my interpretation of the story in the Talmud, they’re telling you in a sense that every rabbi knows he’s doing this and it’s legitimate.

And so, is Joseph Smith doing that? I don’t know. I can’t read his mind, but you’re arguing he is doing that. That he knows that he didn’t see these words on the stone. But he worked it out in his heart, and he had a burning feeling that it was true and therefore he was able to attribute it to God. That’s basically what it is.

Dan: You got it. He does believe it’s from God.

Nehemia: Yeah.

Dan: Just not in that manner.

Nehemia: Yeah. And the rabbi who says, “This was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai,” believes it was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai, even though that’s not where he heard it from. He made it up.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: But he believes it must have been revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. How else would I know this?

Dan: Yes.

Nehemia: And the way they expressed that in the Talmud is, they say, “Even that which a student asks his rabbi was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai.” Well, I mean, the student made up the question. What are you talking about? “Well, yeah, it was revealed to that student, and therefore it must have also been revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai.”

So, there’s this whole theology of attributing something to Moses that nobody believes they heard from Moses. They know they made it up, because five minutes ago they didn’t know it and they’d never heard it before, but they can attribute it to Moses because of this complex theology. Things were revealed to Moses that even Moses didn’t know. And I know that’s off the topic of Mormonism, but to me it’s uncanny, the parallel there of pious fraud. So, anyway.

Dan: That’s a term that they used in the 19th century… the deists called the Book of Deuteronomy a pious fraud.

Nehemia: Right. So, they claim that it was made up by Ezra, you say, and I know there’s people today who would argue it was made up in the time of Josiah by Hilkiah. It doesn’t matter. Anyway.

So, I found the earliest use in the English language, what I think is the earliest use of “pious fraud,” and it goes back to the early Reformation where they were talking about the Catholic monks who were creating… what do you call those… indulgences. They were selling indulgences, and they knew… this is the accusation of the reformers. They knew that there’s nothing about the indulgence that gets people out of sin, it’s the Catholic priest who just… and I don’t know the exact theology, but something to the effect of the Catholic priest, he absolves you of the sin, but he needs money for the church. So, he can charge you for it and tell you that paying for the indulgence gets you out of the sin. So, you can look it up, that pious fraud was used in the early Reformation to refer to the indulgences. And they’re not saying it in a positive way. They’re saying, “This is why we need the Reformation, because the Catholics were doing this.”

Dan: I say that Joseph Smith, like the pseudepigraphists, needed authority. He’s just a farm boy. What does he know about theology and things? But he believes he’s right. He’s prayed about it. He’s gotten confirmation from God about it. How does he get someone else to believe it?

Nehemia: Right.

Dan: And he wants to fulfill God’s will, and that takes other people to do it. But he starts out with this Book of Mormon, moves into church, then moves in, as he’s writing the Book of Mormon, it’s a total institution thing where he’s going to set up the Kingdom of God on earth.

Nehemia: And we’ll go back to that. Just to end here, although I want to bring a quick example of pseudepigrapha that wouldn’t be controversial even to anybody. Which is, you have in the Second Temple period Jews writing all kinds of works, like the Book of Jubilees, which claims to be an angel that’s revealing things to Moses on Mount Sinai. Well, there are no Jews, certainly today, who believe that the Book of Jubilees was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai by an angel. Everybody pretty much accepts that that’s falsely attributed to Moses in order to give it authority. Even the most devout Jew today would believe that.

Another example is the book of Zohar, which some Jews today would say was the revelations of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Many Orthodox Jews, and all historians, anybody from a critical perspective, would say it was made up in the 13th century by a rabbi who, in order to give it authority, attributed it to a rabbi, Shimon bar Yochai, in the 2nd century. Why Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai? Because he was known as a mystic. So, attribute it to somebody who has this mystical authority, even though it was written 1,100 or 1,200 years later.

So, just to end here, it’s your contention that Joseph Smith wanted to establish… or at certain point, at least, in his career, wanted to establish a theocratic government in the United States. Talk to us about that. Let’s end on that note. That’s really fascinating.

Dan: What about it?

Nehemia: So, just explain that concept. Like where do you get that from? That he wanted to establish a theocracy.

Dan: Well, the theocracy… I mean, a lot of people in past history have wanted to set up theocracies, like the Anabaptists in Europe. Even the Puritans came to America believing that America was the New Jerusalem, the seat of the New Jerusalem. So, it’s a concept that Joseph Smith inherited from his Puritan ancestors.

Now, why it was in America… So, he tries to make America relevant to God’s prophecies. And he wasn’t the first one to do that, either. I mean, like I said, the Puritans saw themselves as the new Israel in America, and that they were setting up a New Jerusalem. They tried to have a theocracy here in America. Then other Puritans, like Roger Williams and others, started saying that they didn’t have authority to set up a New Jerusalem, or to “restore the true…”

Nehemia: And you mean they didn’t have the religious authority, right? We’re not talking about from the king.

Dan: Right. They had left that behind. They left England and all that problem, the Church of England and all that behind when they came to America because they were being persecuted there. So, they came here, and they wanted to set up a theocratic government, and they did. And it kind of went a little astray here and there with the witches and all that, but…

Nehemia: That didn’t work out well for a lot of people, yeah.

Dan: So, there is that dream, that strain of thinking from Joe Smith’s ancestors up to his time… And he read the Bible. He was a literalist. He believed that God would restore Israel. First, the mound builder myth and the Indians coming from Jerusalem, or Israel; the ten tribes. It was mostly the ten tribes came from Israel to America, and the Indians are ancestors of the ten tribes. That was a theological solution to, how did the Indians get here? Who are they? Are they even related to Adam? Do they have souls to be saved? Or should we just destroy them and take their land?

And a group of evangelical types, different religious types, started believing that the Indians were the lost ten tribes of Israel. And one reason why they wanted to argue that was that it would fulfill Bible prophecy of restoring Israel, and that they’re worth saving… That if you convert the Indian, which you should be spending a lot of your energy converting instead of destroying the Indians, that you will fulfill Bible prophecy and hasten the Second Coming.

Nehemia: That’s interesting.

Dan: This is how they thought.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: So, they were trying to save the Indians from being destroyed by suggesting that they were the ten tribes of Israel. And there were people that believe they came from Asia all along. They kind of became the minority. People mostly turned to the Bible. Like, maybe it was the Tower of Babel. They were spread throughout the world, Genesis says. And then the next obvious thing was the Apocrypha, and the Book of Ezra talked about the ten tribes of Israel being led eastward to a land where never mankind dwelt.

Nehemia: Hmm.

Dan: And that became America.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: And so, they ran with that, and Joseph Smith picked up on it, and he thought that would be a great way of converting the Indians, telling them that they’re really Israelites and that they’re fulfilling Bible prophecy and…

Nehemia: Do you think he believed that? Or is that, again, the… Well, I mean, it’s the pious fraud idea. He believed it, but it was also a strategy to advance his agenda, in a sense.

Dan: Yes. He had ambitions beyond… I would argue that he had narcissistic tendencies as a charismatic leader himself, and he shows signs of having narcissism. I don’t know how psychological that became, whether it was an actual personality disorder or not. I would not go that far. But he has psychological… he has narcissistic tendencies and grandiose ideas, and eventually he saw himself as the great prophet of the latter days that would set up the kingdom for Jesus to come to, the New Jerusalem. The Lord would come into his temple in the New Jerusalem, and they would be there to meet him. They would be caught up in the air, this rapture kind of concept that a lot of Christians have, and then the millennium will begin.

Nehemia: Okay. So, he was proclaimed king. Let’s end with that. Shortly before he was assassinated, wasn’t there a Council of Fifty that proclaimed him king?

Dan: Yeah. They set up a secret Council of Fifty. It was made of Mormons and non-Mormons that were trying to help him in his bid for the United States presidency, actually. And part of what they were doing was looking for a new place of settlement.

Nehemia: So, he was running for president when he was assassinated?

Dan: Yeah. How serious he was is not sure. Sidney Rigdon was the vice president candidate.

Nehemia: I mean, we recently had a president elected that nobody thought was serious either, so…

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: You know, who’s to say?

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: No, I mean, nobody thought… I shouldn’t say nobody. Very few people thought, let’s say in the mainstream media for sure, very few people thought President Trump would ever be elected. Yet he was.

Dan: True.

Nehemia: So, who’s to say that Joseph Smith wouldn’t have been elected? I don’t know. Anything’s possible.

Dan: Well, in that day he had some things going for him.

Nehemia: He definitely could have taken Illinois.

Dan: He had a whole missionary program that could spread his pamphlet. He had a presidential platform of “my views on the” whatever, and the missionaries would spread that all around. So, yeah, he was running for president. And he gave various solutions for the problems of his day, on slavery, to give them their own state.

Nehemia: Hmm. Okay, that’s interesting. I don’t know that anybody else has suggested that, or in the period had suggested that.

This has been a fascinating conversation, Dan. Definitely kind of a first for me to talk about a topic that I wish I knew a lot more about, and hopefully I’ll learn more about. I’ve already learned more about it just from talking to you.

Well, I want to say one final thing, and then I’ll let you say some final closing remarks. If you’re watching this, listening to this, and you have the burning feeling in your heart that tells you Joseph Smith is a true prophet and the Book of Mormon is true, far be it for me to tell you that that’s not the case. I was trying to have this conversation to… I’m not a believer, as Mormons would define it. And so, I want to understand what happened, and how, more importantly, for me, how I can apply that to other situations. And I think I’ve learned a lot from this process. Dan, any final words?

Dan: It was great being with you today. I’ve just recently become aware of your show. I must say that I have a lot of Jewish relatives.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: My wife is Jewish.

Nehemia: Oh, wow.

Dan: But she’s a Christian now.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: And I’m nothing.

Nehemia: Kind of like the Nephites, right? I mean, the story in the Book of Mormon… and we didn’t even really talk about this, is that you had these Jews who came to believe in Jesus even hundreds of years before he came, and… so that’s… I was kind of making a joke there, but there is an interesting… “Jesus believing Jews”, according to the Book of Mormon.

In some respects, the Book of Mormon is what you would have expected to find in the Old Testament if Christianity is true. In other words, you have people openly saying hundreds of years before Jesus that “God is coming soon,” and, “He’s going to come down to earth,” right? That’s the way that Isaiah is interpreted, but it’s explicitly stated in the Book of Mormon.

Dan: Yes.

Nehemia: By Christians, I should say. So, I think that’s really interesting. Anyway, thanks so much for all your time.

Dan: Thanks for having me.

Nehemia: I hope we are able to broadcast all of this. We’ve been recording, at this point… guys, I think this is a personal record for me. We’ve been recording for, I want to say, almost like 7.5 hours or something like that. So, thanks so much.

Dan: All right.

Nehemia: All right. Shalom, goodbye, thank you. Shalom to your wife.

Dan: Yes, sure.

You have been listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

We hope the above transcript has proven to be a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the text has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If you would like to support our efforts to transcribe the teachings on NehemiasWall.com, please visit our support page. All donations are tax-deductible (501c3) and help us empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!

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VERSES MENTIONED
Doctrine & Covenants 19:6-12
Doctrine & Covenants 19:26
Jacob 7:18 (Book of Mormon)
Revelation 19:20; 20:10; 20:14-15
Doctrine & Covenants 19:21-22
Genesis 27
Eruvin 51a:3-5 (Talmud)
Menachot 29b:3-5 (Talmud)
Pe’ah 2:4:9 (Jerusalem Talmud)

BOOKS MENTIONED
Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet
by Dan Vogel
Charisma under Pressure: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1831–1839
by Dan Vogel
Early Mormonism and the Magic World View
by D. Michael Quinn
The Magus (1801)
by Francis Barrett
Book of Jubilees
Book of Zohar

RELATED EPISODES
Hebrew Voices Episodes
Hebrew Voices #164 – A Karaite Jew on Mormonism: Part 1
Support Team Study – A Karaite Jew on Mormonism: Part 2
Hebrew Voices #183 – Early Mormonism Revealed: Part 1
Support Team Study – Early Mormonism Revealed: Part 2
Hebrew Voices #190, Mormon Chains of Authority: Part 1
Support Team Study: Mormon Chains of Authority: Part 2
Hebrew Voices #192 - Early Mormonism on Trial

OTHER LINKS
Dan Vogel’s YT channel
FAIR Mormon Apologetic Site
The Joseph Smith Papers

The post Hebrew Voices #194 – Pious Fraud appeared first on Nehemia's Wall.