We’re switching gears and talking about an interesting topic: biblical giants! Did they come to America? Adam Stokes is an apostle for the Assured Way Church, and he discusses how his beliefs about giants also help him support the Heartland Theory of Book of Mormon. Check out our conversation…
Copyright © 2023
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Biblical Giants (Nephilim)
GT 00:24 Well, let me ask you this, because I read this today, From Egypt to Ohio. And I know you’ve got the picture right behind your head there. I think that’s the same cover, right? The subtitle is A Semitic Origin for the Giants of North America. Let’s talk about that. Because I know you talk about Goliath, and I just talked with Trevan Hatch recently about Goliath.
Adam 00:55 Yeah.
GT 00:55 Well, and this is another thing. Because you even told how tall you are in this book.
Adam 01:01 Yeah, I’m only five [foot] four [inches.] I’m short.
GT 01:03 Okay. And I’m six [foot] four [inches.] So am I a giant?
Adam 01:12 In a pre-modern context, I think in the 1700s, you would have been.
GT 01:16 Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, I guess I can get behind that a little bit if we’re talking about giants. Because I know Trevan said [that.] I’m curious about this. Sometimes I read too fast, and I don’t maintain [what I read.] So, this is why it’s good to ask questions. Because Trevan Hatch, we were talking about how tall Jesus was. And he agreed with you that Jesus was probably like 5’2″ to 5’4.” [Jesus was] pretty short for our modern day, but that was average back in Jesus’ day. And that Goliath was probably 6’5″, 6’6″, 6’7″, somewhere around there.
Adam 01:57 Yeah.
GT 01:58 And, I mean, if we were to stand next to each other, I’m a foot taller than you. And so, I guess you could claim that I’m a giant. That makes a lot more sense than a nine-foot giant, because, basically, Trevan said that story got embellished over time. And so, Goliath went from six and a half feet to nine feet tall. Would you agree with that interpretation, first of all?
Adam 02:21 No, I think Goliath was huge. And I think that he came from [a large race of people.] if you look at their larger biblical tradition, he came from a race of people, from a group of people who were above normal human stature. So, I argue, and this goes back to thinking that humanity has de-evolved. I think that if you look at the earliest biblical traditions, there were these giants, these Rapha, Gigantes in the Latin and Greek, if you want to call them that, who were around, and they were of extraordinarily high stature. And they seem to have a very sophisticated culture, which is basically what I argue in, From Egypt to Ohio.
GT 03:07 So you think Goliath was nine feet tall?
Adam 03:10 Oh yes, yeah.
GT 03:11 Okay, because it seemed like you did reference that some of the early traditions said he was shorter.
Adam 03:18 He’s shorter than some of the other giants that we have mentioned in the Bible.
GT 03:23 Okay, because I thought you had said he was like six and a half feet tall.
Adam 03:27 Everybody talks about Goliath. But Goliath is kind of on the short end, compared to some others. So, there’s an Egyptian giant that’s defeated by the Israelites. And he was pretty tall, at least, you know, 10 feet, 11 feet or so. And the Nephilim, however we interpret that term, the fallen ones, they seem to have been pretty tall as well.
GT 03:53 Okay, so you’re taking a lot of these, what most scholars would say would be legends, and [you’re] saying that they’re literal?
Adam 04:06 Yeah, I think that there’s a historic [origin.] So, I know this seems like I’m trying to balance out two different views, and maybe I am. But one of the things that I would criticize biblical scholarship about is not taking the Bible literally enough. And that comes from biblical scholarship’s roots. So, people like Herman Gunkel, German biblical scholar, he is one of the founding fathers of biblical scholarship. One of the big things that German biblical scholars did was to argue that the Bible was basically metaphor, that it was so etiological, that these were mythical stories meant to explain things. They weren’t meant to be taken literally. I don’t think that takes the Bible, in my opinion, seriously enough.
Adam 05:01 Remember, this is the ancient world. People are only going to write down what they think is of utmost importance, what they think actually happened. However, we may interpret what their worldview was like. But I think that, a lot of times, when the biblical authors wrote stuff down, they were writing what they perceived to be, indeed, what actually happened. Now, do they embellish it sometimes? Yes. And that draws a tricky line into what’s embellishment, what’s not? That can apply to the giants as well. But I think that in a lot of cases, this wasn’t just a metaphor. This wasn’t just an etiological story explaining how something came to be. It was what happened.
Adam 05:55 So, for myself, a lot of the biblical stories, for me, they have a historical root. And this is the case with a lot of stuff that we deem mythology, in modern times. So, if you look at the classical stories, for example, for many years, up until Schliemann, we didn’t believe that the Trojan War actually happened. He uncovers Troy. He finds Troy. And now we know the Trojan War actually happened. So, again, apart from their own worldview and their cosmology, I think that, historically, these stories are telling stuff that actually happened, and that the traditions of giants, at least in my view, goes back to something that’s historical. Hence, again, my view, [of] why I think we’re kind of de-evolving rather than evolving.
GT 06:08 Because I’m trying to remember. I don’t have the reference off the top of my head, but somewhere, I believe it’s in Genesis, it says that the sons of God and the daughters of men married, or something.
Adam 07:00 Intermarried. Yeah.
GT 07:01 And so in our modern lens, we’re like, that doesn’t really make sense. So, how would you explain that? Because it sounds like we’ve got humans and non-humans mating with each other, which sounds very Greco-Roman mythology, Hercules.
Adam 07:18 Yeah, it depends on how you translate them, how you understand Nephilim. So Nephilim, traditionally, have been taken as spiritual beings, kind of fallen to the earth. There is a whole Ancient Aliens-type of subplot to this. So, Vandana Canon people say that the Nephilim were remnants of this crashed spaceship that came and mated with humans. So, in that case, it’d be something supernatural or paranormal mating with human beings, interacting with the natural world. I just tend to view the Nephilim as above average stature. So, these giant behemoths…
GT 07:21 Could we argue it’s like Neanderthals and Homo sapiens getting together maybe?
Adam 07:51 I think it’s possible, yeah. That’s how I would say it.
GT 08:07 That would make more sense to me than [other explanations.] Yeah. I think there is a little bit of a height difference between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
Adam 08:17 There is, yeah. And especially, my friend, Greg Little talks about this and Andrew Collins, the Denisovans, for example, they were considered giants in their time. But they mated with homo sapiens. So yeah.
GT 08:33 I mean, to some degree, I can go with that. But, I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve found on the–I mean, I know there’s the story of Zelph. I was hoping. I didn’t see Zelph in here. I thought for sure you were going to put Zelph in there. But you didn’t.
Adam 08:49 I forgot to; next edition.
GT 08:52 So for those who don’t know the story of Zelph, tell us about the story of Zelph and does that relate to your book in some way?
Adam 08:59 I know a little bit about it. I don’t know Zelph very well. But it’s a giant. They came across the ruins of a giant and Joseph Smith said that this is one of the people in the Book of Mormon.
GT 09:09 Yeah, a Lamanite general, I think he said. Or was it Nephite? I can’t remember.
Adam 09:12 I think he’s Lamanite. I think he’s Lamanite.
GT 09:15 I think so, too. He was supposed to be nine feet tall. But the question is, is that an exaggeration?
Adam 09:24 Yeah. And I tie that in. So I say, basically, that the Nephites were probably related to this group of giants, in my book From Egypt to Ohio. So, Zelph actually ties in very well to, basically, the premise of that book, but I forgot to put them in there. So, if I do a future edition, I’ll put them in there.
GT 09:49 There you go. There you go. So you believe there were really nine-foot tall humans that lived in America and in the Old World and in the Bible?
Adam 09:58 Yes, yes, I do. Absolutely.
GT 10:00 Really?
Adam 10:01 Yeah.
GT 10:04 I bet a lot of people kind of scratch their heads when you say that?
Adam 10:07 Yeah, yeah. So that’s where my academic credibility gets thrown out the window, kind of. {chuckles} But, yeah, one of the things, one of my favorite things to do, Rick, is I travel across America, across this beautiful country and I stop by various Native American mounds. I usually take my kids with me kicking and screaming. They hate that. But a lot of the mounds, especially in the Midwest, there’s a long history, a long tradition that they were built by a group of people known as the Mound Builders. And within Native American tradition, and early European tradition, a lot of people made the argument that these mound builders were giants. And I think that they were on to something there. Now, people such as my friend, Greg Little, will say, what do we consider to be giant? So, in his books, Denisovan Origins, giants are between seven or nine feet. But, in any case, they’re above average stature. And for your typical normal human being living in ancient times, they would have been considered gigantic and pretty scary.
GT 11:25 Because I’m not familiar with any nine-foot skeletons that have been found. Are you?
Adam 11:31 Well, there’s actually, there’s a guy who has a site, Giants of North America, and he gives newspaper clippings. One thing that’s not very well-known is that in the late 19th century, people started to find gigantic remains in various mounds across the United States, ranging from seven to nine feet, and there were newspaper clippings, with photographs of these giants. Now, mainstream archaeology, mainstream academia rejects a lot of these things, because they say people could have manufactured these photographs. These images could been forged. Where are the remains? A lot of the remains weren’t really kept very well. They were fragile to begin with, because they were in these mounds. They were in a bog-like environment. So, the bones would deteriorate easily once you put them out in the air. And then a lot of the bones got sent to the Smithsonian. And they just disappeared for one reason or another. So, I won’t go too much into that. People might call me a conspiracy theorist, which I guess I kind of am in some ways. But there is evidence. There are 100thousands of articles and newspaper clippings. Even some journals like Scientific American from the late 19th century talk about findings of gigantic skeletons.
GT 13:03 Okay. But you would acknowledge that mainstream science has a problem with these, but you think they’re legit?
Adam 13:13 Yes, exactly.
Heartlander
GT 13:15 Okay. All right. I guess this kind of leads to, we’ve kind of been hinting, this pretty much makes you a Heartlander. Is that true?
Adam 13:28 Very much so, yes. I definitely fall in the Heartland camp. I have many friends who are Mesoamerican. In the Mesoamerican field, I guess most of my LDS friends are going to be in the Mesoamerican fields. I have many dear friends. But, for me, the events of the Book of Mormon took place in North America. And those mound builders are, for me, synonymous with the Lamanites and Nephites here in North America. So, I do a lot of stuff. I write for Wayne May and John Lefgren. I do a lot of Heartland stuff. It’s actually one of my favorite things to do. And interestingly enough, going back to my church tradition, this is one of the things where we’ve kind of shifted on. So, if you look at an older version of the record of the Nephites, we have a Mesoamerican map, because I would say about 30 or 40 years ago, we very much held the Mesoamerican view, similar to what the LDS Church holds. And that’s shifted. So, we took that map– in the recent publication of the Record of the Nephites [his church’s version of the Book of Mormon], we took that map out. Now, we haven’t put in North American map in yet. But I think the consensus among the quorum elders is that we agree that the Book of Mormon, the Record of the Nephites, the events in that book took place in North America.
GT 14:46 So you’re leaning towards making the heartland an official church position? It’s not currently, right?
Adam 14:51 Yes, it’s not currently but that’s basically what most of us believe.
GT 14:55 Okay, okay.
Michigan Relics
GT 14:57 Well, I do want to get into your third book here, Relics of Babel. Do you say Babel or Babbel?
Adam 15:03 I say Babbel.
GT 15:05 Okay, Relics of Babel: a Reexamination of the Michigan Relics. So, tell us. What are the Michigan relics?
Adam 15:14 The Michigan relics were found in the late 19th century, early 20th century. They have weird writing on them. And they portray a bunch of scenes that appear to parallel some of the biblical stories. And there’s a whole controversy around them. Because this was the same time that these giant skeletons are popping up. And a lot of people, what mainstream academia, the consensus that they come to, is that these relics were hoaxes. And there’s a dude named Scotford, who found a lot of these relics. And it turns out that he was manufacturing a bunch of them. And he was trying to basically make money. His farm was going into foreclosure. He was trying to make money. And so, because, if you tell one lie, people think that you’ve lied about everything. So, because he manufactured some of these–you can kind of tell which ones he manufactured. They’re really low quality. But because he manufactured things, basically, the public came to the conclusion that the Michigan relics were forgeries. Now, the problem with that is that we have relics that are similar to the Michigan relics that are basically classified as Michigan relics. Michigan relics all have something called a mystic symbol on them, which is three lines, and then a slash line.
GT 16:46 Is that on your cover?
Adam 16:49 Yes, yes.
GT 16:51 I’m trying to get it in there close.
Adam 16:53 See it? Yes, at the top, at the very top, you’ll see three lines and a dash. So, people assumed that these were hoaxes. But they were found in a variety of counties, and Scotford really didn’t have anything to do with the relics that were in these counties. And so, in my book, I’ve looked at the Michigan relics up close. I’ve studied them. I’ve gotten to touch them. Wayne May owns a lot of them. So, I got to look at them. And basically, what I argue in my book, is that many of these are not hoaxes and that they correspond to the history that we get with the Nephites and Lamanites, and the origin that they claimed, that they came from the ancient Near East. And that’s why you have so many people claim imagery in these relics. So, I fully acknowledge that people think that many of these are a hoax. Many of them were a hoax, but there were items with the mystic symbol on them found all throughout Michigan, in various counties. And many of them, I believe, are authentic.
GT 18:13 Okay, because I know one of the big things against them was, some of them are like clay pots or something. Is that right? I haven’t seen them so I don’t know what they look like.
Adam 18:26 Some of them are copper.
GT 18:29 Okay. Well, I know what some of the clay ones, they were like, “Well, they dissolve in water. And so they couldn’t have been here for thousands of years.”
Adam 18:35 That’s how people knew–those were the ones that Scotford forged. And that’s how people knew that they were forgeries. But there’s others that are made of copper, that are made of much more durable material, that seem to be authentic. And we know, if you compare the Michigan relics, they don’t seem to have been made by one person, which is what you would expect, if Scotford was making all of these himself.
GT 19:04 The first thought that comes to mind is Mark Hofmann. One of the problems with him was he would take a legitimate object. And then he would add [a forgery.] Who was the lady? Betsy Ross. [He would] sign it by them, and then it’s worth more. And so, the problem is, you can take a legitimate object, but then once you get some funny business, like nobody will tell– if they know that Mark Hofmann had anything to do with it, then it’s like, we can’t trust this at all. And so, it seems like a losing argument, to say that well he forged some stuff, but not others. It just taints everything, doesn’t it?
GT 19:09 Yeah. I agree with that. I mean, that’s something that people who advocate for the Michigan relics, like I do, that’s something that we have to deal with. I will say Scotford and other places where the Michigan relics were found, there was no agenda here. We get a lot of things. I’m blanking on the name of it. There were some plates that Joseph Smith thought were real, but they weren’t.
GT 20:09 Kinderhook Plates.
Adam 20:22 The Kinderhook Plates. So, we get a lot of the stuff that pops up in the 19th century. But the thing with the Michigan relics is that they, initially, have no connection to any agenda. They don’t seem to have been made, for example, by Mormons to prove that there are Israelites here, pre-Columbus. Now, the Mormon Church, eventually, takes a stake in them. James Talmage, one of my favorite authors, he comes down, and he actually looks at the relics. And then the relics actually end up being the property of BYU, which I think they’re still property at BYU. So there is an eventual Mormon interest in them. But, initially, on the surface, when these items appear, there doesn’t appear to be any agenda connected with them, which seems, to me, one of the things in evidence of their authenticity. Whereas, with Mark Hofmann, his agenda was basically to destroy Mormonism, destroy the Restoration. And that’s why the Salamander [letter] and stuff like that, he does that to kind of discredit Mormonism.
GT 21:32 Well, and I was trying to look because–and the Kinderhook Plates are a good example. Because it seems like those were made by anti-Mormons.
Adam 21:42 Yeah.
GT 21:42 You know, they were claiming a similar sort of thing. “Hey, we just found this,” and it was a trap for Joseph.
Adam 21:48 It’s the same for Michigan relics.
GT 21:50 Yeah, you know, the next thing that comes into my mind is how close is it to Beaver Island?
Adam 21:58 That’s pretty far away, actually. Because James Strang said [that] he had found some plates.
GT 22:09 Yeah, and he found them in Wisconsin. And then he migrated to Beaver Island, Michigan, and he was the king of Beaver Island. And I just wonder, you know, and he claimed to be a Mormon. So, you know, people would definitely confuse Strang and Brigham Young, they’re the same church as far as [some people are concerned.]
Adam 22:26 This was kind of around the Detroit area. I’m not sure how far that is. My geography is kind of off here, from Beaver Island.
GT 22:32 Okay. But, still the thought comes in that these are probably people [who] will say, “Hey, the Mormons would be interested in that.” And you said that BYU bought them. Of course, Mormons are going to be interested in this. But it seems like–I was trying to remember. I was trying to look it up on Wikipedia. I thought even James Talmage thought these were forgeries.
Adam 22:53 Yes, yes. And, officially, I want to say BYU, I have a couple of friends who are archaeologists. Their official position [is that] yes, they’re forgeries. That’s BYU says position on them. And they wrote an article on them saying that they were forgeries. That’s a view I disagree with, but that is the position of BYU.
GT 23:09 So, your position is some of them were forgeries, but some of them were not.
Adam 23:09 Yes.
GT 23:12 You also mentioned, because it was funny that you mentioned this. The James Ossuary. Can you tell [us] what that is?
Adam 23:28 Yeah. The James Ossuary was an ossuary that had inscribed on it in Aramaic, Jacov bar–let me see, it wouldn’t have been bar. It’s, basically, James, the brother of Jesus.
GT 23:47 Son of Joseph and Mary.
Adam 23:48 Yeah, written in really good Aramaic, at the time. But then it turns out later, that it was a hoax. It was a forgery.
Adam 23:51 Well, and what I understand, because there’s a guy…
Adam 23:53 The inscription was, I think…
GT 23:58 Yeah, because basically, there’s a guy, Simcha Jacobovici, he did a film several years ago called The Jesus Tomb. And an ossuary is a stone box. Your longest bone in your body is your thigh bone. And so apparently in the first century, after a person’s body decomposed, they’d come back a year later, they’d put all the put all their bones in a stone box, called an ossuary and then it took up a lot less space.
Adam 24:34 Yep.
GT 24:35 And so they found six of these ossuaries and one of them went missing on the black market. So, it sounds like somebody did kind of what Hoffman did. “Oh, I’ve got this. If I put James, Brother of Jesus, Son of Joseph and Mary, it’s going to make it worth a lot more.”
Adam 24:53 It was a big deal. I remember I was in college when that finding came out. And, the archaeological world was really, really excited about it.
GT 25:01 Yeah, yeah. But then people were like, “No, it’s a forgery.” Simcha’s position is this was the missing box of the six. He still tries to make the case that this is the Jesus family tomb. But it just makes it a lot harder, when somebody forges it like that, to give it any credence.
Adam 25:26 And that’s a very, very big problem with the Michigan relics. And I would acknowledge that to anybody [who] I talk to about the relics. You lie once, it’s very hard for people to take you [seriously}, to believe everything else you said wasn’t a lie.
GT 25:39 Right, right.
Interfaith Catholic Marriage
GT 25:40 So all right, well, have you got any other books out there?
Adam 25:46 I’m currently working on a couple of books. I want to update my perspectives on the Old Testament textbook. So, I’m working on a second edition of that. I’m working on another book now about Mulek, the son of Zedekiah who’s mentioned in the Book of Mormon. So, I’m preliminarily working on that and hoping to take some time. My birthday is January 19. So, I’m hoping to take some time to work on that, kind of as a birthday present to myself…
GT 26:17 (Chuckling) Well, happy birthday.
Adam 26:18 …in addition to what my wife and kids will do for me.
GT 26:22 This will probably be coming out around then, I think.
Adam 26:24 Very cool. Awesome. Nice birthday present.
GT 26:31 So, your wife is still Catholic. Is that right?
Adam 26:33 Yes. Catholicism is in her blood.
GT 26:41 Okay. And so your kids, are they Catholic Mormons or Mormon Catholics?
Adam 26:45 They go to Catholic school, but they know every–but it’s so funny, because they know about, they know everything about the Book of Mormon. I have Book of Mormon story books and stuff. So, they know very much about the Restoration. And they’ll tell [people.] My son Grayson, one time said to the one of the religious teachers, Well, after Christ rose from the dead, he went to America and visited Nephites.” And their religious teacher was like, “That’s not Catholic doctrine, dude.”
GT 27:14 (Chuckling)
Adam 27:15 So it was funny. I thought it was hilarious.
GT 27:20 He didn’t get kicked out of school for saying that though, huh?
Adam 27:22 Yeah. But I mean, we raised our kids. They’re very knowledgeable about both of our traditions.
GT 27:31 Do you guys alternate weeks or anything? Or I guess, it sounds like you don’t even have a congregation, or do you?
Adam 27:36 I don’t have a congregation here in New Jersey. When I was with the Community of Christ, I used to take the boys all the time to church services.
GT 27:42 Okay.
Adam 27:43 So, they knew about the Restoration and the scriptures, Doctrine & Covenants, the Book of Mormon very, very well.
GT 27:53 Well, how is it to be an apostle who can’t go to his own church?
Adam 27:58 I mean, I worship. It’s funny, because one of the things, we bash social media a lot. But one of the things I think it’s done is it’s made us, in some ways, a closer community. So, I’ll Zoom with some of the other churches in Independence, and just hang out with them via Zoom. So, even though I’m not with them in person, sometimes I do that to attend services. So, back in the day, they used to send me, when I was talking with Apostle Greenwell, before he passed, he would send me cassette tapes of the services, and I would listen to those and stuff like that. But, I also do Zoom conference from time to time with them. So, even though there’s not a church for me here, in Jersey, I still interact with the churches that are in the Midwest.
GT 28:49 Okay. Do you do a lot of traveling to Africa or anything like that?
Adam 28:53 I have not been to Africa. No, I have not been. I correspond with our African apostles. We have several apostles over there, now. I correspond with them quite a bit. In fact, probably every couple of days. They’re much better at keeping in touch with me than I am with them. But we do correspond. I have not traveled to Africa, but I do plan on traveling to other places. I’m hoping to go back down to Alabama. I did not go with the other apostles. But I hope to go to Alabama sometime this year, to visit our church community there.
GT 29:27 And you going to spend some time in Iowa at the Phoenician Museum?
Adam 29:30 Yes. I hope to go back there this year, sometime. I think it’s the first week of August. So, if John will let me I’ll go back there.
GT 29:38 Okay, so we need to coordinate. I would love to be there at the same time you are. I’ll try to get Steve Pynakker to do it, too.
Adam 29:45 Yeah, that’d be great. That’d be great.
GT 29:48 That would be fun, because I definitely want to go. I was in Independence, I guess it was in September, but I didn’t make it up to the museum or anything.
Adam 29:59 That was where the John Whitmer Conference was, right?
GT 30:03 Right, right.
Adam 30:04 Yeah, I’m sorry I missed it. I definitely want to go.
GT 30:07 Well it’s in Texas in September. So, save your money.
Adam 30:13 Okay. I was supposed to present there one time and it fell through, because I think, I don’t think we had money for the plane ticket or something. This was a couple of years back. I was supposed to present, and it just didn’t work out.
GT 30:25 Okay. I’m trying to remember is John Whitmer, or is MHA in New York this year? I think it is.
Adam 30:33 That’d be nice. That’d be very convenient.
GT 30:34 New York’s a lot closer for you, right?
Adam 30:36 Yeah. That would be very convenient. That’d be sweet.
GT 30:39 I think that’s in June. Should I double check that? MHA 2023 in Rochester, New York. So, there’s your reason to go to New York. That’s in June.
Adam 30:51 All right.
GT 30:53 So you need to come.
Adam 30:56 Yeah, I can definitely make that. I usually go to Palmyra once a year. So that’s not a problem.
GT 31:03 Okay, June, you need to come okay.
Adam 31:07 Yeah. I can do that.
GT 31:09 All right. Okay, well, is there anything we’ve missed about you or your church or anything else you want to mention?
Adam 31:16 I think we touched on all the main points. We have a website. I mean, if you type in Church of Jesus Christ, the Assured Way of the Lord, I think it’s https://JohntheBaptist.info. Let me see. But we have a website for anybody who is interested. I should really know this as an apostle of the church. But we have a website for anybody who’s interested in learning more about us. And we have digital copies of all of our Scriptures, the Bible, the Record and the Nephites and the Word of the Lord on that website.
GT 31:48 Now, do you call it the Record of the Nephites because the LDS Church would sue you if you called it the Book of Mormon?
Adam 31:54 No, we call it the Record of the Nephites–that’s an interesting question. We get that straight up from David Whitmer. So, David Whitmer had the fall out with Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith. He goes to found his own church in the mid to late 1800s. Mormonism is kind of a pariah at that time. Nobody wants to be associated with that. So, instead of calling it the Book of Mormon, he calls it the Nephite Record or the Record of the Nephites. When his church dissolves, there’s a lot of people who go over to the Temple Lot Church, and those people, their descendants go over to the Fettingite church and the Draves church. So, the Elijah Message tradition. So we get that, in kind of a weird, funky roundabout way, we get that directly from David Whitmer.
GT 32:39 Yeah, well, the 1830 edition is in public domain, so you can print it without worrying about getting sued, right?
Adam 32:45 Yes, yes, which is good.
GT 32:49 My brother-in-law just gave me an 1840 edition. I’m like, “What’s the difference between 1840 and 1830?” And I still don’t know.
Adam 32:57 There’s, yeah, there’s not. I know, the whole white and delightsome gets changed to pure and delightsome, I think, in the 1840 edition.
GT 33:05 Okay.
Adam 33:06 Don’t quote me on that. But I think there’s some subtle changes. And, of course, the Modalism, the Jesus as being the Eternal Father, as being God, the Father, is taken out and [it says] Son of the Father. Yes, https://JohntheBaptist.info. If you go into that, that gives you information about our church. It even gives the church newsletter, The Greater Light, which I’d love to send to you, which we publish bi-monthly. And that newsletter always contains one of the messages and just what we’re doing in the church. Okay.
GT 33:48 Very cool. Very cool. Well, I think I’m out of questions now. I’m looking forward to seeing you in June, maybe August in Iowa, and that would be awesome.
Adam 34:01 That would be great.
GT 34:03 Do you guys call yourselves elders? Should I call you Elder Adam Stokes?
Adam 34:06 Elder, yeah, elder is fine. I don’t like [to be called] apostle. I mean, I like it. I’m very blessed to be an apostle in my church. But I feel like if you go around saying that you’re an apostle, and this is my black Baptist tradition coming out. We have so many apostles in the black Baptist tradition. And it’s always, like, some dude who is wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and gold rings on his fingers and everything like that. So, I prefer elder.
GT 34:33 Okay, so Elder Adam Stokes, from the Church of Jesus Christ the Assured Way, thank you so much for being on Gospel Tangents really appreciate it.
Adam 34:44 This has been an absolute pleasure. I’ve loved this conversation. Thank you so much for having me.
Copyright © 2023
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:22 — 33.3MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Email | | More
