We’re continuing our conversation with David Hocking, author of LDS Annotated Scriptures. This time we’re going to focus on his amazing scriptures with the Book of Enoch and Book of Jasher. We’ll learn more about why David felt it was important for LDS audiences to see these books which are considered scripture in other Christian groups. We’ll also see his amazing work on the Book of Isaiah, including both JST and Book of Mormon differences. Finally, we’ll talk about his latest book, the Joseph Smith Translation of the New Testament. David has done some amazing things with it. You won’t want to miss our conversation. Check it out….
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Book of Jasher Part 2
Interview
GT 00:32 All right, so we’ve gone through the Book of Mormon. Is there anything else on the Book of Jasher that you wanted to add on that, or have we covered that pretty well?
David 00:38 Well, yeah. The Book of Jasher has something that’s very fascinating to me, that I’ve never had anybody explain to me, why we have the office of Seventy in the priesthood. How did that come about? You don’t read it–you read a little passage in the New Testament, “And he sent out 70.”
GT 00:55 Right.
David 00:55 “And they came back with a report.” And then you also…
GT 00:59 And there’s the Septuagint, which means 70.
David 01:01 Yeah, you have 70 people that put it together. But what is this term Seventy? And we have the office of Seventy. So, I think that the Book of Jasher may have, at least, a taste of what, perhaps, could be the derivation of the office of Seventy. And it goes back to Joseph, and it goes back to the Tower of Babel. So, in the Book of Jasher, the Tower of Babel has confounding of the language. But Jasher has it as the Lord sent 70 angels to confound their language. So, there’s going to be the original 70 new languages, versus the Adamic language. So, now, that’s an interesting number, 70. The other thing that’s interesting about those 70 angels, in the Book of Enoch, they give you the names of those 70 angels. So, that’s interesting, as well. So, 70 is important.
David 02:00 So, the next thing you read in the Book of Jasher, you go through, now you’re getting the story of Joseph. He’s the Hebrew that’s been sold as a slave. He’s in a prison. And now he’s interpreting dreams. The prisoners love what he’s interpreting. Now, the pharaoh wants his dream [interpreted.] But the people say, “You can’t talk to this Hebrew, unless he knows the 70 languages of the kingdom.” So, symbolically, everything in the scriptures has symbolism to it. Now, what is the symbolism? The symbolism is, in the nighttime, an angel comes to him and teaches him the 70 languages. The next day, he ascends to the pharaoh on 70 steps. He talks a language on each step, and he finally gets to where the Pharaoh is. And he now is second in command. So now you have a Hebrew from the house of Israel, in a Gentile nation. And what is his purpose? It is to save that nation and the house of Israel. And he is the emollient to that nation. And he is an example to that nation.
David 03:15 And what is the office of Seventy? What is their calling? It is to take the gospel to the Gentiles. So, for me, the office of Seventy may refer to that story, based on the 70–now there’s more than 70 languages today. But that’s the derivation of it. And I also further project that imagery or that symbolism when Peter says, “How many times are we supposed to forgive somebody?” Three times or whatever?
David 03:45 He says, “No, you have to do it seven times 70.” So, again, what is the symbolism of that? Is it 490? Is it a number? Or is it a symbol of something? So, seven, also is seven dispensations until the judgement, and 70 goes back to what, I think, is the 70 original tongues, meaning metaphorically or symbolically, you have to forgive everybody, no matter who they are, or the language they speak, until the Judgment Day. It’s God that’s doing the judgment. You have to forgive everybody. So, that’s what I think is another cool example of what I find in the Book of Jasher.
GT 04:33 Very cool. And does it have red lettering in there, too?
David 04:35 Yep. All the format–once I got the format down, and I fine-tuned it, like I did, everything transfers, which makes it, again, another cool way of uncovering the layers of what is really good, sacred texts. Now, we call it scripture, because it’s been canonized. But all of them were sacred texts. Not all the sacred texts have been canonized. It doesn’t mean it’s not scripture. Scripture, really, if you want it from a generic point of view, is a sacred text that has truth in it, that has validity, knowing that it has a history that has been validated by other histories. And so, I think that when Nephi sees other books, he doesn’t say other scripture. When he talks about the book that would come forth from the Gentiles, that’s a book. He doesn’t say a scripture will come forth. That’s a modern term that we’re using about sacred texts. So, when I came up with my company called Beacon Light Books, because I’m located in North Carolina, where they have seven active lighthouses with a light that goes out and it says this is where I’m at. You can come here and get safety here. I came up with the term Beacon Light Books, and the subtitle is Illuminating Sacred Texts.
GT 06:01 Okay.
David 06:02 And it’s the idea that all of this is sacred. This is all part of the history of the Hebrews, and the house of Israel. And I’m bringing it forth to light. I’m shining light on it. And I’m then elevating it to the fact that we’re finding these little breadcrumbs throughout these texts that support the revelations that Joseph Smith received.
Book of Isaiah
GT 06:27 Well, cool. So, Book of Mormon was first. Book of Jasher was second. What was your third book?
David 06:32 The Book of Isaiah.
GT 06:33 Let’s talk about that.
David 06:35 That one came about because that’s a commandment, of all of the scriptures or all the books, if you want to call it, that the Lord said, “A commandment I give unto you to search Isaiah diligently.”
David 06:48 And it pricked me, when I read that again. I go, “You know, who has really [searched Isaiah diligently?]” Avraham Gileadi [has.] He’s famous. That’s his specialty. He’s a Hebrew/Jew that has converted, and I honor him. I respect him. I feel intimidated by him. He is a scholar. I am not a scholar, I’m just Dave Hocking in Raleigh, North Carolina on a computer screen, researching on my own. However, I wanted to do something that was unique. And what I decided to do that would be fresh, that no one had ever seen before, is to take the differences in the Book of Mormon, and highlight them in the King James Version of the Book of Mormon. So, what I do here in my Annotated Edition of the Book of Isaiah, unlike Avraham Gileadi who does his own translation of the Hebrew texts, I’m taking the King James. But instead of just using the whole King James, I put in bold bracket and bold text, things that are in the Book of Mormon, that are not in the King James Version. And I cross out or strike out words that are in the King James Version, that are not in the Book of Mormon.
GT 08:10 Okay.
David 08:10 So, what that does, it visually tells you. What does the Book of Mormon contribute to the Book of Isaiah? And it’s remarkable what comes out. So, that’s my approach. So, I’ll just give you an idea of what that looks like. So, this is the–I’ll give you an example of– the most famous chapter would be Chapter 29. So, all of the layout, instead of double columns, like I do with my other books, here I’m going to have what I call more space. So, I’m not going to do columns, and I have the greater space because he does everything in couplets. There’s a lot of poetry that he does. He’s got all of this poetic parallelism. [That] is what they refer to it [as.] And in the back of my appendix, I give you some ideas of some of the iterations of those poetic path parallelism. So, what I’ll do here is I’ll have in blue words of Isaiah, and then over here, the words of the Lord. So, in this case here, we’re going to be into Chapter 29. And Chapter 29, I’ll say, compare 2nd Nephi Chapter 27. So now as you go through this, and you turn the page, you’re going to see bold text, and it’s in brackets, and you can see [that] quite a few of those have been changed. So, that’s a way for you to see, “Well, what did the Book of Mormon say about these things? And what does the word change? Does it change the meaning? Does it change the context of what’s being said?”
David 09:59 I’ll let the reader read for themselves. But, doing that is another visual for you to say that, definitely, Joseph Smith was just not copying from the King James Version. Then, if I go further in here, this is another example of what I do. So, this is Isaiah Chapter 29, verses 3 and 4. It’s all in red, because it’s now the Lord speaking. But now, I’m going to show you what Nephi does in 2nd Nephi, Chapter 26, verses 15 through 16, where he’s going to comment on this passage of Isaiah. And when he makes these comments, he’s taking from these verses. He’s introducing them into his commentary. And then he’ll keep on going on, then he’ll bring these things into his commentary. And then he’ll keep on talking. And then he brings these things. So, this is another way of visually showing you how Nephi is utilizing Isaiah in a way that he can then tell you what’s happening, and how to understand those passages, based on his setting, and why he’s quoting it.
David 11:11 Now, why that’s important is because it solidifies what I call–this is Dave Hocking talking, not any general authority, or any BYU professor. It’s probably going to be contrary to what they think. It’s just my opinion and take it for a grain of salt. But there’s two times that we hear the phrase, “For a wise purpose.” The first one is when Nephi is commanded to make a set second set of plates 40 years after leaving Jerusalem. So, he’s an older man, and he is in the land of promise somewhere, and he’s been commanded make a separate set of plates.
David 11:58 Also, we hear the same phrase when we get into Mormon. Mormon is the editor. We get into the Words of Mormon, and he’s saying, “I’ve completed the abridgement, and I’m going to give it to my son Moroni. But, before I gave it to him, I went and searched the other records, and I found this other small set of plates that have these prophecies. And I’m going to give it to my son for a wise purpose.” So, now you get two people saying, ‘wise purpose.’ So, the standard response [that] you’re going to get in Gospel Doctrine, and your manuals, and all your Institutes, and so forth, and from the General Authorities, which is the perfect statement, is to replace the 116 pages that were lost. And I’m sure that is a wise purpose.
David 12:44 But my take on that is more spiritual, than just the mechanical replacement. I believe that the wise purpose is Isaiah. And I say that, because it occupies those small plates, a large portion of those records, of those small plates, with a lot of commentary on Isaiah. That’s why when we get to 3rd Nephi, when the Lord, also, is quoting Isaiah, then [He] makes this statement, “A commandment I give unto you to search Isaiah.” So, then I would postulate that the abridgement that is being made by Mormon in the Book of Lehi, may not have had Isaiah in it. And so, for ‘the wise purpose,’ I want you to make another set of plates. And I want you to have, not only, your kind of retrospective history and who you are and why you’re here, but [to] give the spiritual background, based on the prophecies that Isaiah had made, to let the audience and the reader know that you’re fulfilling these prophecies that Isaiah made. That’s my perspective.
GT 14:05 All right. So, anything else about Isaiah that you want to add there? I have to tell you, when I get to Isaiah, my eyes gloss over. And I’m like, I don’t know what they’re talking about.
David 14:15 I think so far, the feedback I’ve been getting from those who have gotten it have said–and it’s true in the sense that not any one book is going to give you the answer. But they said, “Your book has given me a whole lot more answers than I had thought.” Even though I’m not a scholar, and I haven’t had any peer-reviewed articles. And I’m not in that little circle of people, that academic circle. But my intent, again, is to research in a way that is unique. So, without a computer or a software package and the Internet and the ability to search for things, I would be dead in the water. I’d be like back to the days of Hugh Nibley going to the library and taking three by five cards, and then assembling them in such a way, and handwriting it and giving it a secretary, “You type it out.” But I can do it all on my home now.
GT 15:05 Right.
David 15:06 So, therefore, what I do is I’ll go through, and I do my thing by organizing the format, and I do my format. And then as I read it, I get inspiration, if you want to call it that, or what does this mean? Or gosh, what is that referring to? I need to know more that. So, I go to different websites and different places where they have Bible scholars, Bible Hub, and Bible Study Light. There are many different sources. And I peruse them all. And when you go to these places, they have Bible commentators. So, you’ve got Protestant ones. You get Catholic ones. You get Hebrew scholars. You get Bible dictionaries. You’ve got Smith’s Concordance. You’ve got Cambridge Bibles. You’ve got all of these different sources I look for, and I scour them. And then I find something that is of interest. To me, that feels like, I think that’ll be a good thing to add. And so, I add that, and I add that, and I add that. And then I get our scholars and I get our prophets and so, I have a plethora of these different mixtures of different points of view. Therefore, it’s not my own point of view, or my way of doing it. I’m letting them speak so that you can get an understanding of what they think. And I think that is refreshing. It’s not coming from one point of view. And it’s not an LDS-only point of view. It’s a point of view, over a course of many generations, by different people from different backgrounds. And I have the gift to put it in, assemble it in a way that you can read what I found interesting, to make it, hopefully, interesting to you. I think that’s a good skill to have. And it means I’ve spent a lot of time doing it.
GT 16:53 Have you run it by Avraham Gileadi?
David 16:56 Yeah, I’ve got his. And, I reached out to him to say, “I’d like to have you contribute.”
David 17:01 And he says, “No, thank you,” for good reason. I respect him. Like I say, I think that’s the proper thing to do. He stands alone as a premier scholar in the world of Isaiah. You’ve got Rhonda Pickering. She is a scholar as well. She’s in the camp of an Avraham Gileadi. So, she is remarkable. He is remarkable. They would be the ones that I would say, you defer to them, because they know tons more than I do. However, what I’ve done is unique. They haven’t done what I’ve done. So, I think the two or the three or whatever…
GT 17:42 So, they haven’t commented on yours at all?
David 17:45 Yeah, I would say that Rhonda is the one that reached out and she said, “I like what you’ve done. I like the way you formatted it. I like what you’ve done with the Book of Mormon inserts” and so forth and bringing– but, again, my perspective is different than theirs.
GT 17:58 Right.
David 17:59 Yeah. So anyways, and then in the back of my [books,] I always have an appendix. The appendix are always filled with extra stuff. So, my extra stuff is, well, who are these kings in these different areas of Jerusalem, of Judah and the northern kingdom? Who are the surrounding nations and what’s their background? So, I bring that information and I have maps in there. And then I have, here are the different forms of poetic parallelism. And then I also have a section in– what I call the Oliver Cowdery letters and letter four, where he talks about how Moroni says that the prophecy must be fulfilled that is written in the Book of Isaiah, that the book that they sealed must be brought to the one that is learned. And so that’s an interesting thing that’s in that letter four, is that Joseph Smith, before he even started translating the Book of Mormon, he was told that it must be fulfilled in the Book of Isaiah. So, I bring all that stuff in the back, so that it puts in perspective, why we have Isaiah. From the very beginning, it’s part of the fulfillment of the Book of Isaiah.
Book of Enoch Part 2
GT 19:14 Right. So let’s talk about your fourth book. That’s the Book of Enoch, right?
David 19:18 Yeah, Enoch is the one that’s the most controversial, if you want to call it, because if you just look at Enoch at face value, it’s woo. It gets out there. Because there’s different iterations. Like I say, you’ve got Ethiopic. You’ve got Church Slavonic. You’ve got your Hebrew with a Sefer Hekhalot. In the Book of Jasher, you’ve got Chapter 3 and 4. And then I also include another thing called the Legends of the Jews by Lewis Ginzberg. He was a German Jew before World War I. What he did is he took all of the literature that was available at that time, the Hebrew corpus of material, and he came up with a narrative. Here’s this story. It’s like a Josephus type of thing, a story. So, it’s not chapter and verse. It’s just like reading history.
David 20:07 So, in the back of the book, I have his Volume 1, Section 3. And what that does is that it’s part of the Enoch story. And again, It’s called The Legends of the Jews, by Lewis Ginzberg. And so, when you get in here, it’s his writings about Enoch, based on all the literature. And look how many pages have to do with Enoch. I mean, there’s a lot. So, there’s a lot of history about the people that knew and taught about Enoch, that we don’t get in our Old Testament. So, I assembled every one of those issues that were found at different times and translated into English. And what that does, it helps one to see that Enoch was a major figure. And for some reason, and I don’t know all the reasons. There was a decision made that this stuff is just a bunch of made-up stuff, and therefore we’re not going to include it in any of our material. However, the Russians, they’ve highly regard Enoch as being an important book in their corpus of material.
GT 21:22 The Russian Orthodox Church?
David 21:23 Yes, they do. The Ethiopic group down there, they regard them–so, here’s what I do to begin with. What I end up doing with Enoch, is I have my introductory material, but then I have this chart. So, this chart is just a timeline that goes into Genesis. We know that Enoch walked with God. Then you get through the New Testament. You get St. Jude says that he’s going to come with his 10,000 saints and judge the ungodly. We also have a section in Paul, where he talks about Enoch was translated. Subsequently, I found a lot of other passages in the New Testament. We’ll get to that. But, anyways, all of the sudden, now, in this year, 1773, James Bruce, who is a Scottish explorer, wants to find the source of the Nile River. So, he goes down to Abyssinia. He’s also one who likes to go and find antiquities. And he goes to the museums, and somebody tells him that you’d be interested in this, this is the Book of Enoch. “I’ll take it back with me.” They gave him three copies. He kept one to himself. He sent one to the Bodleian Library in Cambridge, England, and he sent another one to the library in Paris. And it was there for a long period of time until 1921, Richard Lawrence, who could understand and read Ge’ez, which is a southern Semitic language, he translated it. And it was in a manuscript form in the library. It sat there until 1838, when it got put in a book form. So, then it goes from there. And then you’ve got the timeline that Joseph Smith receives his revelation and these other books come about.
David 23:19 So, I put it in this chronology, telling you the main events. It sets the stage so that when you get into your first chapters, you’re going to be reading, what was the Ethiopic. So, when you start from the beginning, you’re going to see my highlighting, like I did with the Book of Mormon, and all my other books. Anything of interest to me, you’ll see extra material down here. And then it’ll go on and on and on. You’ll see all of the comments and there’s multiple comments I’m making, because I’m finding connections left and right. I mean, they’re everywhere. So, at the very end of the book, I then compile all of that into graphs and into charts. And so, for 16 pages, I take a look at every one of the issues. The first Enoch, which is Ethiopic, the second Enoch, which is the Church Slavonic, the third Enoch, which is the Hebrew, and I compare passages from the Book of Moses that Joseph Smith received as a pure revelation. And I compare specific passages with passages that come from these various editions that have page after page after page after page of these comparisons.
GT 24:37 Oh, wow.
David 24:38 So what that does, again, is these are the bread crumbs that all ended up being slices of bread, that ended up being a loaf, indicating that what Joseph Smith received as a pure revelation is, indeed, something that has been supported by these other documents. So, again, all of these fragments that Joseph Smith received, are now being validated physically, by these additions. And so, there’s no possible explanation that Joseph Smith could have plagiarized anything. So now the next question.
GT 25:21 So, you’re saying the Book of Enoch is in the Book of Mormon, as well?
David 25:24 Yes. So, when you get into the Book of Mormon, for example, there’s a phrase that Samuel the Lamanite talks about, your riches are slippery and because they’re slippery, you’re not going to be able to hold on to them and so forth. That’s coming from the Book of Enoch. You’re not going to find that…
GT 25:43 No Masonic legends.
David 25:44 You’re not going to find it in the Old Testament. It’s in the Book of Enoch. Also, in the Book of Enoch, is the Book of Abraham, or the Book of Abraham comes from the Book of Enoch. And the reason why is because we get the names of these angels in the Book of Enoch. As I told you, there’s 70 angels here and each angel has a role to do in the planetary scheme of things. So what do we get for weird names in the Book of Abraham. One of the weirdest names we have is Kolob.
GT 26:19 Right.
David 26:20 Then, we have Kokaubeam. In the Book of Enoch we’ve got Kokabiel, who is the Angel over the constellations. What is Kolob? It’s one of the constellations, that big planet. So, I bring all of that out. And so, these weird words that Joseph Smith made up these words? No, they have historical precedent in the Book of Enoch.
GT 26:48 Very good.
David 26:49 Related to planetary stuff, celestial events. We also have in the Book of Enoch, the Enoch calendar. Now, John Pratt, that you interviewed…
GT 26:59 Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned that.
David 27:00 He mentions, and he does a lot of work on the Enoch calendar. I reached out to him. It’s so unfortunate that he passed away. Just two days after he passed away, that Book of Enoch that you saw, was delivered to him, because he gave me permission to use this material in the appendix.
GT 27:20 Right.
David 27:20 And I honor him by doing that. Because he said the Enoch calendar testifies of Christ. That was one of his main themes. And as one who researched ancient calendars, he was amazed that the ancient calendar of Enoch provided a lot of explanations of what we read in the scriptures.
GT 27:42 He told me about that calendar. It sounded really cool. I’d rather have a [calendar like that.] Every day starts on January 1st. It’s always a Sunday.
David 27:49 Yeah.
GT 27:50 Every I think each month has 28 days, right?
David 27:54 Yeah. It’s all based on the fact that you have the equinoxes that do its thing. Now, here’s another example of something that’s interesting. I have the different, what I call the Enoch is shown the 10 Heavens. So, he’s going to go up from the different portions. You know, we have our three kingdoms, but then there’s three kingdoms above that, and there’s another kingdom. So, in other words, this is another story that’s validating what Joseph Smith received as a revelation, because Enoch is experiencing these different levels, if you want to call it. But here’s what’s cool. I’ll read this to you. And the Lord said to Michael.”
David 28:38 Now, here’s what’s interesting. What do we know about Michael from Joseph Smith’s revelation? Who is Michael? He’s Adam. So now, think about this. “And the Lord said to Michael,” who is really Adam, according to Joseph Smith, “Go and take Enoch from out of His earthly garments, and anoint him with my sweet anointment and put him into the garments of My Glory.” Now I let it stand at that. What is that? [Does that] sound somewhat familiar to you? So this is in the Book of Enoch. There’s a temple experience that you’re going to find in the Book of Enoch, that relates to what we get in our temples.
GT 29:23 Very cool.
David 29:23 And so that’s why I say this is such an interesting book, and the fact that they all came after the Lord said in 1835, these things were written in the Book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time. So, for me, the perfect control is Enoch. Joseph Smith’s credentials is Enoch. It’s not the Book of Mormon. Enoch is the credentials, because he didn’t have any manuscripts. He didn’t have a parchment. He didn’t have metal plates. He didn’t have anything. It was just a pure revelation. Sidney Rigdon was just writing what he was wording out of his mouth. And there’s no…
GT 30:08 Sidney? Not Sidney. Sidney wasn’t his scribe [for the Book of Mormon.] Are you talking about something else?
David 30:13 Sidney Rigdon was his scribe for the Book of Enoch, that timeframe.
GT 30:16 Oh, yeah. Oh, okay.
David 30:18 Yeah. And so, what’s remarkable, Jared Halverson, who worked in the Religious Studies Center, he was the one that got to see the original manuscript that the Community of Christ had. So, there’s this synergistic thing. They have these ancient documents that are kind of decaying. And BYU has got these high-end cameras. They can digitize and so, “If you give us access to it, we’ll digitize it. We’ll give you the copy,” but it gives us access to the original. That way, we can look at transcription to see, again, not translation, but what’s going on with the lettering and in the handwriting.
David 30:58 He says that when you get to chapters six, seven and eight, in the Book of Enoch, it’s coming fast. He refers to it like a Mozart masterpiece, meaning Mozart wrote his symphonies once. That was it. He didn’t go back and edit it. He didn’t go back and change anything. “I already know it’s in my head. I’m going to go record it, and that’s it. It’s done.”
David 31:16 He says, “Do you do that in your college papers? Do you do it once and you’re done? No, you go back, and you correct, and you do this, and you change, you do this and that.” He goes, “This is what the Book of Enoch is. It’s just pure. It comes as fast as you can start writing. And there’s no revision.”
David 31:33 So, that’s the control I’m talking about. As a scientist, when I worked in research, you always had to have standards, and you had to have controls. So, now what is the control for Joseph Smith? It’s, actually, the Book of Enoch, because there is nothing that he has in front of him. He’s not plagiarizing anything. He’s not copying anything. It’s just words out of his mouth being recorded. So, let’s take a look at those words that were recorded, and the provenance of that is solid as a rock. And let’s compare it to these fragments of other things that purport to be Enoch, over many years, in different languages, in different cultures. How does it stack up? It’s clean, it’s precise, it’s clear cut, it’s rock solid. He is a revealer of ancient texts.
New Testament
GT 32:28 Very good. All right, well, did we save the best for last with the New Testament?
David 32:32 Yep. So, let’s say this is what I consider my culmination of all what I’ve learned and how I format, how I create, what I call the visual way of learning, the elements that I’ve done throughout. It’s also my learning curve with the software and what I can do with it, and how it enhances my work. So, again, as I said before, without a software package, without an internet, without my ability to learn that software– I’m self-taught in everything I’ve done. I’ve never had a program, or never been to school for any of this stuff. I’m truly self-taught. I believe, I feel I might have had this in the premortal life. Who knows what’s happened? But I just know how to do it. But this is the culmination of it. And I chose as the cover, an equivalent cover to the Book of Mormon. So, we know that when I came up with this cover, we made the decision that we’d have a picture of the Savior on it, and it because it’s Another Testament of Christ. And usually, when you have the New Testament, it just says the New Testament. But I wanted to make it look like the Book of Mormon cover that we chose. So now it’s the New Testament of Jesus Christ. And so, by doing that, I’ve separated it as a unique way of saying that this is a special volume. And then I say, it’s the Joseph Smith Translation, the 1867 first edition.
David 34:10 So, in this case here, what I do is I take the actual text that’s online, and you can download it. It’s 1867. It’s in the public domain. You can look it up on wiki, and you’ll see that it says it’s in the public domain. And so, when you get into the Gospel of Mark, there’ll be a page that says, “Okay, now, we’ve got a new gospel coming up. Then there’ll be a little blurb. Again, you’ll see my references, where I got it from, that tells you that this is a little bit of a synopsis of who Mark was. And then you’re going to get into, now, the actual text. You have the same elements. You’ll have the blue when it’s quoting scripture. In this case, it’s quoting from Isaiah. You’ll see the same gold shadowing that tells you about some information at the bottom. But everything that is from the Joseph Smith Translation will be bracketed text that’s been italicized. So, as you read, and you continue to read, you’re reading it fluidly. You’re not being disjointed. Every version that I’ve read, or I’ve seen, is that they’ll have either this is the original, and this is what the Joseph [Smith Translation says.] You’re always going back and forth. Or there’ll be a footnote, “This is from the Joseph Smith.” And so it’s cumbersome.
GT 35:36 Right.
David 35:36 So, I’ve made it, so it’s smooth. And it’s the entire {Joseph Smith Translation.] It’s not pieces. It’s not fragments. It’s not something that we’ve been in–our church, when I say our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. They have gotten an agreement with the Community of Christ Church, that they have access to portions of the Joseph Smith translation, not the whole part.
GT 35:59 Right.
David 36:00 And so, because they have copyrighted, like our Church has copyrighted, for their own protection, things that have value to them, they’re going to want legal protection, just like our church would do the same. However, once it’s out in the public domain, you can do anything. The Bible is out of the public domain. The Doctrine & Covenants is out of the public domain, unless a new revelation comes and so forth. So, what I ended up doing, is do that. Now the other thing that makes it very interesting, how I approach this, I’ll give you an example with the Beatitudes. So, the Beatitudes is Matthew 5. When you read the Beatitudes, you’re going to read it, just like you would normally read the Beatitudes. It’s going to be in red lettering. That’s the Lord speaking. But now you’re going to turn a page and there’s going to be two insight pages. So, now, I want to compare the normal King James Version beatitude, blessed are they, blessed are they. But right next to it, I’m going to give you the Joseph Smith Translation of the Beatitudes. Look at the whitespace here. Look at what’s being added. Now, all of that is bracketed because that’s coming from the new translation, not a phrase or too. It’s not Adam Clarke that’s making this. This is Joseph Smith. Well, you know, I don’t want to get into the controversy.
GT 37:28 Oh, I do.
David 37:29 Yeah. But, you know, there’s a lot of new stuff. Yeah, there’s a few things in there that might be, but you can’t say that’s from Adam Clarke. It’s brand-new material. So, now I have this comparison side by side. So now I’m going to take the same thing here, which is the Joseph Smith Beatitudes, and now I’m going to compare it to the Book of Mormon Beatitudes. Now, that’s interesting.
GT 37:55 Because there are differences, right?
David 37:56 Exactly, so instead of having to go back and forth, back and forth, and compare, compare, I’m doing it side by side.
GT 38:02 Okay.
David 38:03 And then I do that throughout this, because as you go through the entire new translation of the New Testament, there are many revelations during the process. He starts the new translation in June of 1830, which starts with the Book of Genesis, which is the Book of Moses, which becomes part of the Book of Genesis. Then it goes into a revelation he receives that we get in our Doctrine & Covenants. It says, “Okay, I want you to stop. And I want you to now do the New Testament.” So, he’s going to be working on New Testament. Now, as he’s working on the New Testament, he’s receiving many revelations. He’s got a brand-new church. It was organized April 6, 1830. Now he’s got conferences he’s going to. He’s got priesthood and blah, blah, blah. And now he’s going to be working on the New Testament, as well as getting revelations. So now he’s continued. So, as he goes through the New Testament, he gets another revelation, or let’s say, Section 76. He’s into a point where you get the resurrection. So, he’s making a question, “Well, if there’s been a resurrection, there’s going to be more than one place that people go to. Then he gets the revelatory experience.
David 39:18 So all of those I introduce, those revelations throughout the text, so you see what’s happening, as he’s going through and how revelations that we have in our Doctrine & Covenants relate to his process. So, I’m doing that, which is kind of neat, because you’re seeing it real time.
David 39:35 And then the other thing I do this unique that no one’s done, again, from a perspective of making this a unique volume–by itself, if all I did was that alone, I think it would be worth the effort to get it. I have the red lettering, I have that. But I do everything as letters when you get to the epistles. So, now we’re finally, we’re finished with the double columns. We’re finished with all my insights on the footnotes, on the bottoms, and the artwork and so forth. Now we’re going to get to the epistles. So, the minute you get these epistles, the first one will be Romans. So now we’re going to give you a little bit of history of how and where he is and what he’s doing. I have artwork, all this is from Wiki Commons or from some public domain source. And I give all the references to where I got it. And now we’re going to have no double columns.
GT 40:29 Right.
David 40:30 They’re going to be like letters. All of my commentary is going to be off to the side. Now that opens up more space for me to do things, because there’s going to be a lot of quoted scripture.
GT 40:41 Yeah, I’m glad you’re doing this, because I thought that was really cool.
David 40:44 So now, when you get into the open scripture, look at this. Now, this is something that no one’s done. And now it’s done. I did it. So, what does this say? What does it say is that he’ll say, as it is written, now in blue, it will be from Psalms. So, right from the beginning, who is Paul? He was a Pharisee. And what is the Pharisee? It is a person that really understood the scriptures. So, he was called by God, to be the apostle. So, why? Here’s some of the reasons why. He can take, ‘Are the Jews any superior to the Gentiles? No, no, not one.’ So, he’ll take from Psalms 14, verses one through three, these are the couplets he’s going to be using. Then he’s going to start with body parts. He’s going to have a mouth and tongues, and he’s going to have lips and so forth. And he’s going to pull from many portions of the scriptures, all over the place. So, he’s going to go to Psalms 5, then he’s going to go with Psalms 140, than Psalms 10. Then we’ll pick up Isaiah with the feet. And then he’s going to go all the way back to Psalms 36, with an eye.
GT 41:56 Yeah, that’s really cool.
David 41:57 So, now, having it done this way, and having in blue, and then highlighting where he’s getting it from, that’s worth the price of admission.
GT 42:06 Right, right. Because you can see it.
David 42:09 It’s a visual.
GT 42:11 And, you know, it’s poetic and everything. You can just see it.
David 42:15 Yeah, and I have so much in there.
GT 42:17 It makes so much more sense. I think it’s really cool.
David 42:19 So, to me, my audience, listening to me, I’m going to be a salesman here. I think this is essential for next year’s Come Follow Me. This is the first time we, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have the privilege, the honor of actually seeing what was commanded of Joseph Smith to do as part of a branch of his calling, is to do this. Now we have it in our hands. Now, yes, it’s not coming from the Corporation of the First Presidency, or the legal department, and they haven’t gone through it. It’s in the public domain. And no one’s going to beat you up saying you’ve got a copy of it. You can sit there with pride and say, “I finally can read what Joseph Smith did as part of his calling. And I am so grateful that I have it in my hands.” And not only that, but I have such a unique way of learning it and understanding it, that it is something that should be in every LDS home. And I’m not doing that for my own glory or gain. It’s because it’s essential you have this in your home, because this is part of his calling. And we need to honor Joseph Smith. This is the prophet of the dispensation of the fullness of time. We have it in our hands now.
Adam Clarke
GT 43:48 Yeah, that’s awesome. So, a couple of things come to mind. Since you mentioned Adam Clarke, let’s go there. One of the things that Thomas Wayment, a professor at BYU said, was a lot of the little one-word, one or two-word changes, come from Adam Clarke, not the revelatory sections, like you mentioned.
David 44:09 Right.
GT 44:10 But a lot of the little one or two-word, and he also said that if we updated the English into modern English instead of King James English, we wouldn’t even need a lot of those.
David 44:22 Yeah.
GT 44:23 Ignoring the revelatory passages, which you mentioned. What are your thoughts on that?
David 44:28 I would say that that’s probably 99.9% true, in the sense that there are many, many places, as you read what I’ve done, where it’s one or two words. Instead of which, it would be who. It’s more proper. You know, God which versus God who. So, did Joseph Smith, go to those commentaries by Adam Clarke? There’s a good possibility he did. Do we have a record? Is there any provenance that we can point to that would say we definitively know that he had access to those commentaries, and he tediously went through that? I would argue the following. Without Wayment’s scholarship, which I respect highly, in fact, he is superior in every way to who I am as a human being. My background is in science. His background is that. He’s done more work and more research in what he knows than I’ll ever know about what I’ve done. Having said that, I would say the following. When I look at the calendar, and I look at 1830, 1831, 1832 and 1833, and I go from June of 1830 to July 2 of 1833. That’s within about a three-year period of time. By the time he finishes up, he’s only 28 years of age. And during that time, he’s receiving roughly 57-58% of all of the revelations that we have in the Doctrine & Covenants. Think of that, what an output during that time. And it’s during that time, he’s going to conferences. He’s having meetings. He’s traveling. He’s got a family. He’s receiving revelations. Where does he have time to sit in the library and go through and research this stuff? That’s my question.
GT 46:33 He did that between 1820-1830.
David 46:34 Well, 1830 to 1833, you’re looking at a three year period of time. What I’m getting at is that where’s the time for him to take and do research like Wayment has? Wayment can do the research. I respect that. I mean, there’s no doubt. But there’s so many passages that do not come from Clarke. Is Clarke being inspired? I would say yes. Did Joseph Smith get inspired? Obviously, he did, because there’s things that Clarke never had. So, therefore, I would say it’s a combination. It’s a combination of Joseph Smith authentically, based on what I just showed you about the Book of Enoch, that he was a revealer of ancient texts. He had a gift that’s unexplainable. We have to have faith. Without faith, we can’t go and move forward. It is the essential of our Gospel. If we reduce everything to physical evidence, we will never get there. And those who want, always, to look for the physical and ignore the faith, they’re missing something. And so, I want to just say that I have the faith, knowing what I know, we’re looking at the calendar looking at time, and what humans can do within that time, within the environment of that day and age, and what’s available to them in that day and age. And looking at the output of what happened during that timeframe and looking at what’s come forth that is coming after his life on the Earth, I would say, unequivocally, I have the physical proof that he was a revealer of something that is unexplainable. And, therefore, I have the faith and the testimony that Joseph Smith is, indeed, a prophet, seer, and revelator.
GT 48:37 Cool. The other thought that I had was, are you familiar with Denver Snuffer’s version of the New Testament, or of the Bible, actually?
David 48:47 I don’t have his, but I am familiar with Denver Snuffer. And other than the fact that he was excommunicated. He was very prominent in the Church in the sense that he had good callings and leadership and so forth. And that he had issues with the doctrines and so forth. But I haven’t explored his teachings or his book. I know that there is something online. I’ve looked at it, casually, just to see it. Similar to what John Pratt talks about, the thing down in Brazil, I casually look at that. But most of it is casual, only in the sense that I’m interested in it. I like to explore it, but my time has been consumed because of these projects.
GT 49:30 Well, I can see why.
David 49:31 And you can see why.
GT 49:32 Yeah, the reason I bring it up, one of the things that Denver did, which I thought was pretty unique, was not only did he use the Joseph Smith Translation in much the same way you did, but a lot of times Joseph would say in his speech, “Well, I’m going to refer to this scripture and I could render a more [clear] translation, which might be this.”
David 49:56 Yeah.
GT 49:56 And so it wasn’t official Joseph Smith Translation.
David 50:00 Correct.
GT 50:01 But Denver has included those in his Bible, as well.
David 50:05 Yeah. And I think there’s some merit to that, because that does give you the mind of Joseph and know how he thinks. That’s a good thing, too. It should be no fear for that.
GT 50:15 Was that something that you think would be interesting to add into yours?
David 50:18 I mean, I could say, if Joseph Smith said the following, that could be one of my side comments.
GT 50:24 Yeah.
David 50:24 You know, this is what you see here, but then later on, he said the following.
GT 50:28 Right.
David 50:29 If I had access to that material, that would be something I would add, definitely. It’s similar to what Joseph Smith said, “I’m picking up the bone of a Nephite.” That’s something he said. I want to include that because that’s from him. So, yeah, I would be no problem with that. And, overall, anything that would enhance the role of Joseph is important. Now, having said that, one of the things that I learned in this process, as I assembled all of the commentators, so in the back of my appendix, I have a listing of all the people who have contributed to my side notes in the insight pages. And it includes Baptists and Lutherans and Catholics and, all the different…
GT 51:18 Even Adam Clarke, I know he’s in there.
David 51:19 I have Adam Clarke. I liked Charles Ellicott. I’ve gotten McLaren in there. I love McLaren. He’s the Baptist preacher up in Scotland. I love what he says. So, I include all this stuff in there, because I like it. And it says a lot of things that we learn, and we know about and our doctrine. So, I included it for that reason. And having said that, what I learned in that process, and I didn’t have enough time or space to do it, but it’s something that I’ve internalized. And I can speak in let’s say, in this setting, or in a fireside setting is that what I learned in this process is that the translations that we have from the King James to the American Standard or the new versions of this. Or if you go to Bible Hub, just I’ll give you an example. Go to Biblehub.com.
GT 51:52 Bible what.com?
David 52:06 Biblehub.com, and you go there, and that’s just one of many I go to, but you go there, you can choose the translation you want. Which version? And then you can choose which commentary you want. And what I find fascinating, a lot of them will say, “Well, this wasn’t rendered correctly. It should say this.” It’s amazing how many do that. It’s amazing to me, when I went through that exercise, that Joseph was doing what others were doing in his day. Others were doing the same thing. It should not be read this way or rendered this way. It’s more accurate, if you do it this way. So, he’s not out of the mainstream. But, because he’s controversial, he’s out of the mainstream. But they’re not controversial, but they did this same thing. So, I could have put that in the book, as well. But I didn’t want to clutter it that way. But I wanted only to them to have another witness to what Joseph Smith had in his version.
David 53:28 So, an example of that would be, Joseph Smith is always referring to the two roles, “It’s not my will,” Christ’s saying, “I only do, that which is I do is of my Father.” “Forgive them, Father, for they know not…” So, it’s always–you read the scriptures, and there’s two people. There’s Christ and there’s his father. He’s subordinate to his father. He’s not superior. He’s not equal to. He is subordinate to his [Father.] “I only do what my Father tells me to do. I get direction from him.” So, that’s what comes forth in the scripture as you read it. Now, you go to the Baptists today, you go to the Catholics, no they’re equal. They’re not. He’s subordinate to his Father. And you see the commentary, and I put it into the thing. They recognize he’s subordinate to his Father.
GT 53:07 (Chuckling) Can you give me an example on that?
David 54:21 Yeah. Gosh, I have to go through the pages. I’ve got so many pages, my mind. I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
GT 54:29 One of the things that I loved about my Thomas Wayment interview was where in his version of the New Testament, he talks about where they added the Trinity into the Bible, the Book of John, I believe it was. And that it was like a 15th century forgery. And I was like, what?
David 54:51 Here’s an example. I have an insight page. It says, “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father, who hath sent me. So, instead of ‘which hath sent me,’ it’s ‘who hath sent me.’ That’s the bracket. So, that’s John 5:30. So, now who do I get commentary from. I’ve got Charles John Ellicott. I’ve got Matthew Henry. Those are two that I just chose. I could have chosen more. Then I’ve got James Talmage, to add our voice to it, or I say, our Church’s voice. But I’ll give you some Matthew Henry. He’ll say, “Our Lord returns his declaration of the entire agreement between the Father and the Son and declared himself the Son of God. He had higher testimony than of John. His works were witnessed to all he had said, but the divine Word had no abiding place in their hearts. And as they refused to believe in Him, whom the Father had sent, according to his ancient promises, the voice of God, accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost, thus made an effectual to the conversion of the sinners, still proclaims that this is the beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased.”
David 56:05 See, I mean, that’s a pretty strong declaration from a Protestant. And Ellicott does the same thing. The verse, the expression, once again, “But now with special reference to judgment of the thought with which the discourse open, and which runs as a current throughout the whole, as in all his work, so is, in the greater works of life giving in judgment. The Son cannot act apart from the Father. The judgment must be just because it is not one of an isolated will, but one in accord with the eternal will of God the Father. He seeth the Father’s works, and in like manner doeth them. He heareth the Father’s will, and that, alone, he seeketh.”
GT 56:52 What page is that on?
David 56:53 That’s on page 163.
GT 56:54 Page 163.
David 56:56 So, I mean, those are strong emphasis from theologians that are Protestants.
GT 57:01 Right, very interesting.
David 57:06 That’s good research on my part, finding this stuff, and putting it in the palatable, short statements along with the picture, so that it becomes a visual, that adds emphasis to a little phrase. So, you get this little phrase, one verse, but now I’ll expand that with these other points of view. And they’re not only our point of view, and that, collectively, are other witnesses to what we learn.
Joseph Smith’s Revelations (D&C)
GT 57:39 Very cool. Well, what are you working on next?
David 57:43 Well, the next logical series would be, of course, after the Book of Mormon, you’ve got, I think it’s the Doctrine & Covenants.
GT 57:54 Oh, really? Not the Old Testament.
David 57:56 We’re doing the Old Testament. Now, I know, when I’m looking at the Come Follow Me classes.
GT 58:00 Oh, okay.
David 58:01 Yeah, when I look at that…
GT 58:02 Are you going to create a Doctrine & Covenants like this?
David 58:04 I pretty much have done a lot of it. But what’s unique about what I’m doing, again, is that it’s not going to be called the Doctrine & Covenants. It’s kind of sad that we call it the Doctrine & Covenants, because, originally, it was the Book of Commandments, and then there was the Lectures on Faith. But the lectures never got codified as canonized material.
GT 58:26 I thought they were canonized and then they took them out.[5]
David 58:28 They never got canonized, that’s why they took them out. And so, what happened is the doctrine really was the Lectures on Faith. And the covenants became the revelations or, you know, that. But, anyways, what I have in mind, what I’ve started to do is, I show you that, I’m going to introduce Matthew. I’m going to introduce Luke with a separate– now there’s a division, here’s a page. Now, we’re getting into Luke, and we’re going to go into John. Now we’re into the Acts of the Apostles. So, what I’ve got is sections based on the chronology of his revelations. So, I’m going to be calling it the Revelations of Joseph Smith, in chronological order.
GT 59:13 Oh, I love that.
David 59:15 So, what happens is their story is unfolding. You actually get a story with it.
GT 59:20 Yeah.
David 59:20 It’s not jumping around.
GT 59:23 I’ve always wondered why we jumped around so much, because I would love–that’s always been one of my things. I want to read it in chronological order.
David 59:30 And I’m working on it. So the first section that you’re going to get in my section is the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon. All of the revelations that are early on have to do with that. Interesting, isn’t it?
GT 59:43 Yeah.
David 59:43 So you see it now progressing. You see it as it’s coming and coming and finally, they get the book and so forth. Now, the book is published. Now a new section comes in: The Church of Christ, April 6, 1830. That’s on a Tuesday, by the way, it’s not on a Sunday. It’s on a Tuesday.
GT 1:00:03 Right.
David 1:00:04 Now the revelation has to do with Church government priesthood, duties and responsibilities. It’s beautifully laid out. And you see it just keep on going. So, that’s 1830. All of a sudden, there’s going to be another break, another heading, another break. In 1834, they are no longer the Church of Christ. They’re the Church of the Latter-day Saints. They’re building a Latter-day Zion. They’re going to move to Zion. So, now the story unfolds. It’s cool. Then you get 1838, “Thus shall my church be called in these last days, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Now you’re getting line upon line, more and more doctrines, more and more stuff that’s completing, finishing up the great dispensation that is being given by Joseph Smith. Now we’re going to get the temple. We’re going to get ordinances. So you’re seeing the story develop. It’s fantastic, how I’m laying it out. But I’m including other things that have not been canonized.
GT 1:01:10 Oh, really?
David 1:01:11 Yeah. So the idea is that these are the revelations…
GT 1:01:13 The 1886 polygamy revelation with John Taylor? (Chuckling)
David 1:01:18 Yeah (tongue in cheek.) But it’s going to be on Joseph Smith, up to his point. But there are, for example, when he was on the Zion’s camp, he had a revelatory experience. “The heavens were opened to me and I know this man was named…” That is a revelation he received. Now, it’s not canonized. It’s not like verses and so forth. But that is a revelation that is in line with the history of who he was.
GT 1:01:42 How are you going to decide which revelations to include, and which to exclude?
David 1:01:45 That’s going to be the trick. That’s going to be the trick.
GT 1:01:48 Yeah.
David 1:01:48 Because a lot of it is esoteric things. But the idea is, I’m going to include more than what we have. And it’s not going to be another Doctrine & Covenants. What’s making this more difficult for me is that I need a lot more time to do Church history without plagiarizing. Because there’s so much out there that could be taken from source material. But a lot of it has to do with the Joseph Smith Papers, and you’ve got the new Church stuff that’s coming out that does a lot more background on what’s the historical setting that created this and who the people were, and all. It can get out of hand. But if I focus in on the chronology, and I focus in on the synopsis of the history and the people with the way I do my insights, and the way I do what I do, I think it has some merit. And then I’ll have to do a cross referencing that if somebody wants to have a–to go to section so and so, they’ll be able to easily go to that. Because it may be out of sequence. It could be, for example, Section 1, in the Doctrine & Covenants does not come, but later.
GT 1:03:09 Right.
David 1:03:10 So, therefore, if you want to go to the D&C 1, you’re going to have to go to page 56, or something, instead of page three.
GT 1:03:16 Right.
David 1:03:18 But I’ve already got a lot of that done.
GT 1:03:21 That’s cool, because I’ve always wanted to read the Doctrine & Covenants in chronological order, but it’s hard to go to the back and then forward.
David 1:03:28 The other one I’m working on, that I think will be the one that might cause me to have some dialogue with the intellectuals, if you want to use that term, or the brethren, if you want to use that term, is that I am already halfway through the five books of Moses by integrating into one whole, your Genesis Chapter 1, which is a prologue to Genesis. Moses Chapter 1 is a prologue to Genesis Chapter 1. And it’s comparable to the Book of Jubilees, Chapter 1. The Book of Jubilees was written in Ge’ez language, like Ethiopia text of Enoch. And it’s translated 1902 by R.H. Charles, that also translated the Book of Enoch in 1912. So, I’ve taken that first chapter, and Ethiopic Book of Jubilees is also known as the apocalypse of Moses, his vision. And so, therefore, I start out with Moses Chapter 1, highlight a few cool things about him going to the mountain, conversing with the Lord, and then being told, “You write this in a book.” Jubilees has the same scenario. He goes to the mountain, has a conversation, he’s told, “Now you go write this in a book.” So, I put those together. Now you’re going to get to Genesis Chapter 1, compared to Moses Chapter 2. So, I put in bracket.
GT 1:05:16 Oh.
David 1:05:17 And so now you’re going to read, like I do in the Joseph Smith Translation, everything that flows naturally, including Enoch text, because we get the Book of Enoch. Don’t we? We get the Book of Jasher in there. Don’t we? Because they’re part of it. See how I’m working this through. And then all of a sudden get the story. You get Joseph of Egypt, you get Jasher in there, because it’s so rich. And then all of a sudden, you get Abraham. We get Abraham first, the Book of Abraham in sequence within the five books of Moses.
GT 1:05:50 Oh, wow.
David 1:05:51 And then I have Enoch going to validate the Abraham text. See, so I bring all this stuff is one whole. So, the guy I talked to on the phone, Dr. Rust, Professor Rust, and he was on the phone, and he says, “This is earth shaking what you’re doing. This is monumental what you’re doing.” Because instead of flipping and doing this and changing and adding these other books that Nephi saw, that would testify the prophets. I’m integrating.
GT 1:06:23 Yeah, that’s awesome. That is really cool.
David 1:06:25 So, not bad for microbiologist.
Next Projects
GT 1:06:27 So, your next project is Doctrine & Covenants?
David 1:06:32 Well, I would say, I would say right now, I should be completing the Five Books of Moses.
GT 1:06:41 Oh, so that’s next.
David 1:06:42 However, I cannot guarantee you that it will be next year. I just don’t know. Because, again, it goes back to funding. And I’ve spent so much of my money, and I need a return of what I’ve already done.
GT 1:06:58 So, you guys have got to go buy his books.
David 1:06:59 Yes. It’s not that I’m trying to say, “Help me, help me, help me.” But I’m trying to help you. And the purpose is not for me to get the monetary part. I really want to be spiritually fed. And I have been spiritually fed, especially at these conferences. Because I’m from the East Coast, I get to get out. And people get to come up to me and tell me how much I’ve helped them. So, that’s really the goal of what I [do.] Why I did this is because I wanted to help me. I struggle reading the scriptures. I needed a way for me to not be bored with the scriptures. So, when I started this project, it was for me. And others saw what I did, and they go, “That would help me as well.” And so, I’m doing this for us. And you can learn from it, if you are in that place, too, where you want some extra help. This is one of many helps you can go to. I said that when I teach the Come Follow Me classes, the Old Testament, and when I brought in my version of what I did with the Book of Isaiah, because we had that this year. I go, “I’m only one book that you can go to the Deseret Book store, and I think they have 20 plus books on the Book of Isaiah. And mine is the most expensive and I’m the least credentialed of them all. However, I have something that no one’s done before.
GT 1:08:29 So, these are for sale at Deseret Book?
David 1:08:30 All of them.
GT 1:08:31 Oh, nice.
David 1:08:32 And Costco.
GT 1:08:34 Wow.
David 1:08:34 And Amazon, and you can get them through the FIRM Foundation. You can get them through Digital Legend Press. So Boyd Tuttle is my publisher. And so, he has them on his website. Rod Meldrum has his website. You can get them here out in the west. You can get them through these bookstores and the Costco stores. Out in the East, we don’t have them. They don’t sell them in the Costco’s. That’s not where the LDS community is. However, I do have a website and it’s Beacon Light Books. Just go to beaconlightbooks.com or you can email me at Dr Hocking. That’s like [email protected]. That’s David Robert, shortened to Dr. And at Gmail and just call me or email me and I’ll work with you. There’s no standard price. I have it on my website. I pay for the shipping. I can sign books. They are my property. I bought them. It’s my labor. It’s my effort. How I distribute it is through Boyd Tuttle. He is the publisher. He has the right to set pricing and so forth and so on so that we don’t dilute the market and get competition. So, we have to maintain what you call marketing integrity.
GT 1:09:53 However, having said that, since I’m the owner, I’m not the publisher, but I’m the owner and have paid for them, and I inventory them and I can sign them. I’m free to do what I want with my own property. And I’m not here to usurp other mechanism for you to get the book. However, if you want to talk to me, I love it when people call me. I love it when people want to have interaction with me, because it’s human to human, it’s brother to sister, it’s brother to brother. And it means a lot to me when I have conversations with people. Because that’s my goal is to talk to people and to get people to help. And it’s so rewarding. I mean, it’s emotionally rewarding to me. It’s a spiritual experience for me. I get emotional here, but when people tell me how much I’ve helped them, and gosh, that is a good feeling. And boy, is that worth it? I mean, I can lose all that I have, and if I have one person, and I have now hundreds of people tell me, “Brother Hocking, God bless you for what you’re doing. You have made a difference.” Wow, that makes me feel great.
GT 1:11:13 That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So, the five books of Moses is next, and then you’re working on the D&C, as well.
David 1:11:21 Yeah, it’s a project I have ongoing.
GT 1:11:23 Those will be your next two. And then you’ll have to figure out something else to do, I guess.
David 1:11:27 Yeah, who knows? By then I’ll be, what, 75 or 74. And if I keep on going, hopefully, the software can last through these different upgrades that they do with Word and all that. Not Word but with Windows. I guess we’re into Windows 11. I’m hoping it’s compatible. I have to get a new computer now. Because I want to get one that–when I came to the conference, I have a VGA that I have a converter that goes to HDMI, but somehow the converter is messing up their system. And so, I had to put everything on a flash drive and then get one of, somebody, “Can I borrow one of your computers?”
David 1:12:06 So here I am trying to make money, and you can tell you don’t have much because I can’t even get an extra computer. So, yeah, the books are really pricey. I understand that. But there’s a reason.
GT 1:12:17 They’re full color and they’ve got some amazing resources.
David 1:12:19 But, the reason why we did it is because we wanted to make them really special. We wanted to make them heirloom quality. When I say we, that’s Rod and I and Boyd Tuttle. Boyd helped me with the, what I call the look and feel. I had it in a different color format. And I had a different kind of a feel to it. And it was good, and people loved it. And that’s what we took to the Scripture Committee. And they loved it. But his market survey was, “You know, this is kind of old look. Let’s freshen it up with the blue and the gold.” I chose all those colors. In the software, you have what you call the color combinations. Normally, on a video, you have RGB, as you know, for red, green, and blue. Whereas in printing, you have CYMK, cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. K is black. And so, you blend the different blending’s of the numbers, if you want to call it, they come up with a color. So, I blended, whenever you see color in my book, it’s the blend that I chose.
GT 1:13:21 Right.
David 1:13:21 But the blend I chose on CMYK was being visualized by an RGB monitor. So, there’s a conflict. So, a lot of the things that are behind the scenes is that I was unfamiliar of how a CMYK would look in print, knowing that I have an RGB monitor. So, what I had to do is…
GT 1:13:43 We’re really getting techy now.
David 1:13:44 Exactly. So what I had to do is send portions of my text to the printer in Hong Kong, and say, “How is this transposing?” So, when I did red lettering and the blue lettering, when I first did it, it didn’t look good, because of the RGB monitor. So, then I went with a whole series of blending. And I sent them all of the file and they sent me back all of the prints, what that would look like with these different combinations. And then I said to my wife, “Okay, what do you think? Which is the best looking red? Which is the best looking blue?”
GT 1:14:22 Right.
David 1:14:23 And that’s why I made the choice. And I did that for the cover. It’s the same thing, the blue cover. So, now the Church had an issue with that because their Book of Mormon is blue. And they said you can’t do blue. And I go, “But I don’t know your color.”
GT 1:14:37 They don’t have copyright on colors. Do they?
David 1:14:39 Exactly. I said, “I don’t know what your code is. Give me your code, so I can see if I’ve mimicked it.” And then, silence. I never heard anything from it. But what I’m getting at is that every code color I have, the gold color, those other things I have, I blended it. So, that’s the technical side that I go through. That’s my technical nature. But I chose all those colors. And I did it because the Book of Mormon started– it was gold plates.
GT 1:15:06 Oh, okay.
David 1:15:07 So I wanted the gold to come out. So that was my gold theme.
GT 1:15:10 Well, I liked the, whatever they call that, on the side, the leaf. It’s kind of gold leaf.
David 1:15:14 It’s gold leaf. Yep. And I have what they call Smyth binding. So, what’s nice about this is you have a big book like this. And typical books, when you open them up, they don’t lie flat. If you have a page like this, that would start to go back here.
GT 1:15:31 Right.
David 1:15:32 Because they have the glue in the back. And they’re hard. So, if you do something like this, they lie flat. That’s because there’s this thing called a Smyth binding, which means that they’re all laced in. It’s a way to sew them in the pages, so that when you open it up, they lie flat. So that’s why this lady who told me you’ve ruined my life, she has a thing so she can put it like this on her kitchen table. And it’s not going back and forth all the time with the pages. So that’s why. And, also, the quality of the paper is, there is a shine to it, so, certain light can make it difficult to read. However, it enhances the color. And it makes it easier to store for long term. They call it coated paper. And the beauty of it is that my software–and not knowing anything about printing, it has these little buttons on it that says, ‘What is the formula for your paper.” I don’t know what formula it is.
David 1:16:33 So I call back to the printer, “What kind of printing process formula or naming is–so they gave me these weird names.” I go, lo and behold, they show up on my software. I get to pick that little button and click on it, and that’s what they’re going to use. So that’s why the quality of the printing looks so good, as well as the images. So, the software I’m using has a built-in photo editor. These are all what I call public domain pictures, and I label everyone, here’s where I got it from, here’s where I got it from. But they could be very low resolution. And so, I need to upscale them to make it look pretty. Well, this software is built in to do it. And it has color correction. I can go in and correct color. And so, the printer was impressed. They go, “What software are you using?”
David 1:17:19 “It doesn’t exist anymore. I got out of England. It’s called Page Plus.
David 1:17:25 And they go, “Wow, this is a good software package.” That’s why it looks so nice. All of my books have a beautiful…
GT 1:17:31 You don’t want to upgrade your computer. It will break it.
David 1:17:32 Right. Yeah, exactly. But anyways, it’s a little technical at the end here. But what I’m getting at is that these are high quality printings with a lot of thought behind it. And that’s why the price is a little higher than a normal, just standard print. And it’s an heirloom quality, meaning that you should be proud to have that in your home. And you have something that says, ‘This is quality.’
GT 1:17:55 Well, that’s exciting. Well, any last thoughts before I let you go?
David 1:18:00 I want to thank you, Rick, for having that short, little conversation at the conference. Because I’ve watched your work that you’ve been doing. And I admire you for what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, is to get this out there, so that people who are like-minded have an ability to see what others are doing, what’s in their heart and their soul. And to expand on it and enlighten people and give them an opportunity to see who these people are and how they think and feel. And I thank you for that. Because you’ve given me a wonderful opportunity to give those who don’t know me to know a little bit more about me and why I’m doing what I’m doing. Thank you for that.
GT 1:18:47 Well, I appreciate that. And so, this is kind of a labor of love. I just love doing this. I love talking to people like you and so thank you for all your hard work. And go buy his books. these are awesome. You can get them autographed. I bought them this weekend. Because I know on the price list, and I don’t know if that was a special price.
David 1:19:08 It was.
GT 1:19:09 They start at like 75 bucks, but if you get all five, I got them for, like, $200, which I thought was a pretty good deal.
David 1:19:15 Yeah.
GT 1:19:16 So, that was only 40 bucks a book. I don’t know if Boyd Tuttle is still doing that, so check it out.
David 1:19:23 If you go to Dave Hocking at Beacon Light, or if you contact me and I’ll help you, if you need some help, let me know. I’ll help you the best I can.
GT 1:19:31 Amazon, check out his website. Give us it one more time.
David 1:19:35 Beaconlightbooks.com.
GT 1:19:36 Beaconlightbooks.com, Digital Legend. Check it out.
David 1:19:41 FIRM foundation.
GT 1:19:42 Yep.
David 1:19:44 You can get them all these places.
GT 1:19:45 So all right. Well, David Hocking, I thank you so much for being here on Gospel Tangents.
David 1:19:52 And thank you for allowing me to participate in this wonderful conversation.
[1] Stands for Foundation of Indigenous Research & Mormon Studies. It chiefly promotes the Heartland Theory of the Book of Mormon.
[2] Duke is affiliated with the United Methodist Group.
[3] It is called “The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition” and can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3P9kG6R
[4] That was his second book. He also has published “The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition“ which can be purchased at https://amzn.to/3P3XNlr
[5] This is a subject of debate. Richard Van Wagoner, Steven C. Walker and Allen D. Roberts wrote an article, “The ‘Lectures on Faith’: A Case Study in Decanonization.” See https://www.jstor.org/stable/45225561#metadata_info_tab_contents . However FAIR quotes the introduction to the 1921 version of the Doctrine and Covenants which states, “were never presented to nor accepted by the Church as being otherwise than theological lectures or lessons.” See https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Doctrine_and_Covenants/Lectures_on_Faith/Removed
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