Have you ever wanted to get more resources for the Book of Mormon? David Hocking has put together an amazing resource, the Annotated Book of Mormon. We’re going to dive deep into his edition. It’s a beautiful book, with not only gold leaf, but he has the words of Jesus in red, similar to those red letter Bibles. I was surprised to learn the LDS Church hates red lettering! David will tell us more about his dealing with Church leaders over this edition. Check out our conversation…
Copyright © 2022
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Overview of Annotated Scriptures
Interview
GT 01:03 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have an amazing scholar and scriptorian. Can I give you that title?
David 01:10 Yes.
GT 01:13 So tell us your name. And where are you from?
David 01:16 I’m David Hocking. And I’m from Raleigh, North Carolina.
GT 01:19 Now, that doesn’t sound like a Raleigh, North Carolina accent.
David 01:21 That’s correct. Because I was born and raised in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
GT 01:25 That doesn’t sound like you’re from Boston either. I lived there for four years.
David 01:30 That’s because when I got to be a student at BYU in 1969, the bishop of the student ward was a speech pathologist.
GT 01:38 Oh, really?
David 01:39 Yes. And he would have me over to his house for family night, because I was a fish out of water. I didn’t have any family or friends or anybody. And he took pity on me, as a good bishop would. And so, after the meal and a family night, we’d go into the basement, and I’d put the headphones on. And I would have to take my R’s, like Donner and say Donna. Instead of say, Paack, I would say Park. Instead of saying wata, I would say water.
GT 02:13 I used to paak my caa at Haavaad yaad.
David 02:15 Yeah, that’s it. So, anyways, that’s why I have, hopefully, a little bit more of a generic accent.
GT 02:22 Well, I would have never guessed where you were from. Did you say Cape Cod?
David 02:25 Yeah. Hyannis is where I was born and raised. Yeah.
GT 02:29 So Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots?
David 02:30 Yeah, that’s it. Carl Yastrzemski.
GT 02:33 Yeah, I watched Yaz play in person at Fenway.
David 02:37 That’s it. There you go.
GT 02:39 Yeah. So, we go way back. Well, good. I’m glad to hear you’re a Red Sox fan. (Chuckling) Well, awesome. Tell us why we’re here today.
David 02:51 We’re here because you and I first had our meeting at a conference called The FIRM[1] Foundation at the Salt Palace. I mentioned that I had liked your podcast, and I’d been watching it on YouTube. And then we had a brief conversation. And evidently, you said, “You’re an interesting man, and I’d like to talk to you.”
GT 03:13 (Chuckling) Well, you’ve rewritten the Book of Mormon, the Bible, well, I guess it’s just the New Testament. Can you show us? You’ve got five books of scripture here. It’s just amazing.
David 03:24 Yeah. So, this is the beginning of my journey into the world of taking sacred scripture and putting it in a format that is easier to comprehend and to read, as well as to highlight the beauty of the scripture. So, this was my first foray into it. And this was published in 2018. It was a collaboration of what I did to reformat the text, and then, also, to incorporate information that I believed in, and I learned from many sources, many of which were a part of The FIRM Foundation or the Heartland (if you want to call it) theory of where the Book of Mormon took place. And that meant something to me, and I wanted to incorporate some of those elements into the narrative. And so, Rod Meldrum, I reached out to him, he thought that what I had done was something that would be of interest to him. I then visited with him. And then that collaboration occurred, and others got involved.
David 04:39 So this is my first foray. Once I did this, I then said, “You know, I’ve got the format down. I think I’d like to continue.” So, I then did the next book, which was, of all things, called the Book of Jasher. And I’ll refer to that a little bit later. But it’s an interesting book, a great provenance and, in fact, once the original publisher, which is a New York Jew by the name of Mordecai Noah, once he passed away, the copyright and the licensing of this book, went to the G.H. Perry Company out of Salt Lake City. So, the consumer of this Book of Jasher, were actually Mormons. So, the next one that came after that was the Book of Isaiah. This one was my personal journey, to take the divine commandment of all of the scriptures, when you think of all the books, there’s only one book that the Lord has given a divine commandment, and that is to search Isaiah, casually. No, no, no, to search Isaiah, by just reading a few verses and then passing over it. No, no. He said that you have to search Isaiah diligently. And I didn’t do that. And here I am in my late 60s. Now, I’m 70, going on 72. And I said, “You know what? I’m going to do that.” So, this is my effort to search Isaiah diligently.
David 06:05 And then after that, I then went into the Book of Enoch. And I did this because I took a class from Hugh Nibley in my senior year at BYU in 1975, Senior Topics of Religion. We went to the Joseph Smith Library, and there was maybe 15, maybe max 20 of us around the library table. And Hugh Nibley, was with all his disheveled look to him, with all of his notebooks and papers, and he would just rattle on like Hugh Nibley does. And then at the end of this semester, in my senior year, [we’d had] no quizzes, no tests, until the last day of class, and on the chalkboard was, “What are Joseph Smith’s credentials?” And I had to write an essay. We all had to. So, if he was still living today, I’d present this to him. And hopefully, he would say, “You’re the Hugh Nibley, heir apparent.”
GT 07:08 (Chuckling)
David 07:09 So, anyways, that’s why I did this, and we’ll get into that. Then my final one is the Joseph Smith Translation of the New Testament. And I went ahead and was bold enough, and have the gumption to take the challenge, if you want to call it that, by being bold enough to research the provenance of that manuscript that Joseph Smith called as his–another calling that he had that was given to him by the Lord, a branch of his calling, to revise the errors and the interpolations of men that were part of the Bible. And so, in 1867, the Reorganized Church published it. And so, this is in the public domain, the text. And so, I went ahead and felt that that would be important [that] we, as members of the Utah Mormon Church, if you want to call it that, we’ve never had the full benefit of everything that Joseph Smith did, by way of commandment. And because of that, I felt that since next year would be Come Follow Me in the New Testament, what better opportunity for we, as Church members, to actually read what Joseph Smith contributed. So, this is my latest book.
GT 08:31 That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So, one of the things that was most impressive to me was, not only have you put the words of Jesus in red, I think that’s probably one of the easiest, most notable things. But you’ve added a lot of scholarship, to these books, as well.
David 08:51 Yes.
GT 08:53 So, do you want to start with the Book of Mormon first, since that was the first one?
David 08:56 Yes. So I think this is going to be an interesting story for you, too.
GT 09:00 And then before we get there, I just wanted to get your educational background and everything like that.
David 09:04 Good. So, I’m a graduate of BYU. I got two degrees there. The first one was in electronic engineering.
GT 09:11 Okay.
David 09:12 And that was in 1971. Then I went on my mission to England, London South mission. And I’m in the home right now of my missionary companion.
GT 09:22 (Chuckling)
David 09:23 And he and I were companions for many months while we were on our mission. And we were in a singing group, too, called the Family Portrait Singers. So, anyway, I came back from my mission, and I then majored in microbiology and chemistry.
GT 09:39 Oh, wow.
David 09:40 So, the goal of what I wanted to do was to become a pedodontist, which is a child’s dentist. And that was an era when–I was the baby boomer, born in 1951. If you look at the Gaussian distribution of children being born after the war, I’m in that highest peak. So, the number of people going to medical school or dental school was enormous. For every one that got in, there were like 150 applicants. And at the same time, not to denigrate this, but for the first time in that timeframe, there were more women applying than ever before. So, therefore, if you didn’t have superior, ultra-superior grades, it would be hard to get in. So, I had to look for a different course. So that’s why I went into microbiology and chemistry, knowing that if I didn’t get into medical school, at least I could do something in that.
David 10:47 So right out of college, I got to work at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. And my research I was given to do was in virology. And at BYU, I took a 600-level course in virology. So, you can say that I have some really practical knowledge about viruses and vaccines and so forth. So, that’s where I came from. And then after that, I got into business. And then business took me into a field that I became an expert in. And that expertise allowed me to travel the world. The expertise had to do with hemoglobin disorders, and the separation of hemoglobin variants and the hemoglobin molecule is very complex. There’s what they call globin chains. There’s betas and alphas and gammas. And all these different things. So, I became an expert in that field, because I was part of a company that formatted a procedure to separate different hemoglobin variants. And I was the one that understood what the pattern recognition was. So, I wrote a book on how to interpret hemoglobin variants. That book brought me into the field of teaching others and traveling the world. I got a call from a doctor from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, called Dr. Ohene-Frempong. And he was setting up a sickle cell conference in Africa. And he asked that I be the teacher for the laboratory diagnostic way of interpreting different variants, as well as the thalassemias and the iterations and what that means. So, I went over to Ghana, and I did the course over there. And then, eventually, I ended up with a couple of patents in that field. So, that’s my background. My background happened to be in the sciences.
GT 12:44 So you got an electrical engineering degree and then went into microbiology.
David 12:48 Yep. Very heavy in science.
GT 12:50 Wow. Well, we are the best source for Mormon history, science, and theology.
David 12:55 There you go.
GT 12:57 I was going to say, you sound kind of similar to Greg Prince. I know he’s been into that kind of area, as well.
David 13:02 Yes. So that’s my background. And so, actually, that helps you get an idea of what I call the logical thinking, if you want to use that term, of how I approach what I did with the scriptures.
Book of Mormon
David 13:19 So, that then leads into what is the mechanism that makes the Book of Mormon when I first when it first came out? What was the thing that made it different than any other edition that you could get? And the difference is how I formatted the text. And the textual formatting is something I always knew had to be redone. And the reason I say this is that the tools and the technology that was used when the scriptures were being first recorded anciently, and then when the printing press came and the type of printing processes, and then when the Book of Mormon came about, the Book of Mormon had the foolscap paper, they call it, in handwriting. And so, there was a man who was working at the Grandin Press by the name of John Gilbert. Here’s a picture of John Gilbert. And he is the one that was responsible for typesetting the handwritten document. But the handwritten document had no capitalization, no periods, no commas, no nothing, no punctuation. So, he did everything in pencil, and he wanted to take it home with him, but he was under commandment not to do so. Anyway, they relented. But it was John Gilbert that made what that original Book of Mormon looks like, the type font and how he put it together. Anyway, so I said, “You know, the mechanical way he did that in 1830 has advanced to an electronic way of doing it.” So, we have computers, we have software. And I’ve always felt that scripture, there’s things, if I peel back the layer of the text, that I can see the beauty of the text, the Hebraisms of the text, the prophecy, who’s speaking, how scripture is being quoted? So, I came up with the stylized elements to help people see what they’re reading.
GT 15:22 Right. And can you show us some more examples of that, because that was what was really impressive to me. Because I know, for example, you’ve got–or maybe I’m mixing it up with the New Testament.
David 15:34 They’re all the same way.
GT 15:35 Okay.
David 15:36 Yeah. So, an example would be–oh, let’s go through here. Here’s a just a good page. Here’s a page where, as you read the text, you’re going to see something that relates to the text. So, they’re going to go up to Jerusalem, and they’re going to go down to the wilderness. Well, what does that mean? Does it mean they’re going to go north, and then they’re going to go south? Well, now I have a picture that says, well, here’s where Jerusalem is. And this is where the wilderness is. So, no matter where you’re going, whether you’re in Samaria, which is north of Jerusalem, when you read the text in the Bible, it says, we’re going to go up to Jerusalem. Or if you’re in Jericho, which is a very low place, which is still north of Jerusalem, you’re going to go up to Jerusalem. Whereas if you think in in terms of north, south, east, and west, you won’t get that. So, I have a visual, I also have what I call little highlights in gold, that will then relate to certain things that will give you an insight, certain insights you’ll see here.
David 16:42 So, now the textual things that I do here is I create my own paragraph. I do all things in paragraphs, versus versification. All the numbers that you see, the verse numbers, are superscript, so that they don’t get in the way, but they still correlate. And then when there’s poetry, I show the poetry. So it slows you down, and you look at it and go, “Oh, I didn’t realize that that was there, that’s how it should be read.”
GT 17:08 Right.
David 17:09 And, so, then, when you get into the issue with the colors, now, angels will be in blue. So, now you know the voice Nephi is talking that’s in the first person, I Nephi. But all of a sudden, an angel comes to him and the angel converses with Nephi. So, instead of having it in black, like you do with Nephi, I changed the color to a blue color. And then, if the angel is quoting from the Lord, or if the Lord speaks to Nephi, it’ll be in red. Now, the other thing that will be interesting, that is a visual, is that if there is a prophecy associated with that, whether it be an angel, or Nephi himself, or whoever’s giving the prophecy, I will indent it. It’s a way of visual cue to you, that this is a special text, because now it has something to do in the future. So, these stylized elements, make all the difference in how one comprehends what you’re reading, and it engages one. In fact, one of the members that attended the conference this week, came up to me, “Brother Hocking, I’m mad at you.”
David 18:25 “What do you mean, you’re mad at me, what have I done? What have I said?”
David 18:28 “I go to the kitchen table, and I get my Book of Mormon. I have a stand, I open it up and I’ve been reading, I read from it. And I have my breakfast, and I’m reading. And I keep on reading. And I keep on reading. And I keep on reading. And now I get look at my clock, and I’m, like, wait a minute, I’m way behind time, because I can’t put it down. In the past, I used to read like two or three chapters, and I’d get bored. I’m really mad at you. You’ve ruined my timing and my schedule because I love your book.” So, that’s some of the elements I use.
Book of Mormon at Duke Divinity School
GT 19:07 Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Now, I’m trying to decide if this is a good place to jump in there. You live in North Carolina.
David 19:18 That’s correct.
GT 19:21 Tell us about where you live. There’s a lot of Ph.D.’s there.
David 19:24 That’s correct. I live in Raleigh, which is part of the Triangle Park. Now, the Triangle Park was created by the state of North Carolina because of the three universities that dominate that area. You have the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Duke University in Durham, and then North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
GT 19:46 So, who do you root for?
David 19:48 It’s difficult.
GT 19:49 Wolfpack, Tar Heels or Blue Devils?
David 19:51 Which really is interesting, because you bring that up, because when the temple was built there, the Raleigh Temple, the architect who also designed the stained glass windows, she came up with a brand new color of blue. Because she didn’t want to have any partisanship with Carolina Blue versus Duke Blue.
GT 20:11 (Chuckling)
David 20:12 So, it just so happens that our son was born in Durham. So, we kind of followed the Duke group, only because he was born there. So, he became a Duke fan. But, as far as I’m concerned, I root for them all. I’m for North Carolina, no matter who’s in there.
GT 20:34 Well, very cool. So, the Book of Mormon, was that what you had presented to the Duke Divinity School?
David 20:41 Yes. So, when I first moved to North Carolina, which was in 1979, we were in a branch, the Chapel Hill branch. And we were meeting in a junior high school, the Culbreth Junior High School. So, there was no church building. We had no facilities. And since Richard Rust, Professor Rust was an English professor there, when we first moved to that branch, he was the gospel doctrine teacher. And it just so happened to be the Book of Mormon timeframe cycle. And he opened my eyes up to the beauty of the literary aspects of the Book of Mormon. He had just completed a book called Feasting on the Word: The Literary Testimony of the Book of Mormon. And retrospectively, now that I’m older, I can look at that particular volume of scholarship that he did as a pivotal point in my life, not only because I knew him personally, but because what he did, and what he wrote, affected me internally. So, from that internal moment that I recognized that this Book of Mormon is more than just words, or a spiritual thing, but there’s actually literary qualities to it. And there’s a literary testimony built within, whether it be chiastic forms, or Hebrew poetry, all of the different elements that go into it. But that moment, I said [that] if I ever had an opportunity to do what I had envisioned, I would present it to the Duke Divinity School, because they’re in my backyard. The reason I thought that is because Duke Divinity School owns two original copies of the 1830 Book of Mormon.
GT 22:46 Oh, I didn’t know that.
David 22:47 Yeah, they have two copies. And every once in a while, they’ll have a notice. They send it out to the newspapers, as well as the media, is that they’ll have a showing, a special showing of those books. And so, in my mind, I thought, if it ever happens, if I’m able to make this go forward, that if I did it, I would present them with my version of the Book of Mormon. And it happened. And it happened when I was called to be the Historical Chairman when the Raleigh Temple was dedicated. And so, I got a call from an Area Seventy, “Brother Hocking, we’d like to have you be the—and write a book, about the temple, the open house and so forth, and the rededication.” So, I was on the committee members’ meetings, and one of them has to do with the VIPs and making sure that the government knows about it, and the media knows about it.
David 23:57 And I brought up, “Does Duke Divinity School know about this?”
David 24:01 “Yes, we need to do that. We need to let them know [and find out] if they’re coming.”
David 24:05 I had in my mind, if somebody from the Duke Divinity School came, I would be alerted, and, therefore, I would be prepared to let them know what I’ve done. And it came true. I got up one morning. There were two days of VIPs. I said [to myself,] I’m just going to bring my annotated Book of Mormon with me along with the Book of Jasher. I had already completed it.
GT 24:27 Oh, okay.
David 24:28 And so they had the VIP tour. They then go back into the stake center where they have the displays. And I had a really nice conversation with a really nice-looking guy that looked like he was professional. I didn’t really ask for his name, nor did I know where he was from, because the conversation just flowed the way it flowed. And then he left, and I had that impression [that] I need to find out who he is. So, he’s just about to exit the stake center and I go, “Excuse me, what was your name again? I didn’t catch it.” And he gave me his name. I said, “And where are you from?”
David 25:05 He said, “I’m from the Duke Divinity School.”
David 25:07 “Oh, I’m so glad I caught you before you left. Do you have any extra time?”
David 25:12 “Yeah, I can do– what do you have in mind?”
David 25:14 I said, “Just sit here on the sofa here in the foyer, and I’m going to get something for you. I’d like to show you something.” So, he sat down, I opened up. I gave him a Book of Mormon to look at. I said, “I’d like to show this to you, because I want to donate this book to the Duke Divinity School.”
David 25:29 He looked at me. He said, “Okay.” And he opens up the book and he goes through the pages. He goes, “Wow, this is gorgeous. This is beautiful. Now, who are you again?”
David 25:42 “I’m Brother Hocking, David Hocking.”
David 25:45 “Are you a professor?”
David 25:50 “No, I’m not.”
David 25:51 “Gosh, this is great.”
David 25:53 “And oh, by the way, I also have this book of Jasher.”
David 25:56 “You’ve got the Book of Jasher? No one knows about that.” He looked, he takes the book, and he goes through it and he goes, “Who are you again?
David 26:04 I said, “I’d like to come and donate these to you.”
David 26:10 He said, “Absolutely, we’d love to have you come.”
David 26:13 And so I had an appointment, and I got to meet the faculty, and the librarians and so forth. We sat down at this big table. I brought several copies so people can look at–of both the Book of Mormon and the Book of Jasher. I said, “I’d like to donate three Books of Mormon. I like to have one here in the Duke Divinity School Library, one in the general library, and you can do whatever you want with the third one.”
David 26:37 One guy said, “I know what we’re going to do with the third one. We’re going to put it in the Duke Chapel.”
GT 26:42 Really?
David 26:42 “We have people, ” he said, “We’ve got the Torah there. We’ve got the Old and New Testament. We’ve got the Catholic Bible. We’ve got the Hebrew stuff, and we’ve got the Quran. This would be perfect in there.”
GT 26:55 Holy Cow.
David 26:56 So that’s where it is.
GT 26:57 Wow.
David 26:58 It’s in the Duke Chapel.
GT 26:59 Now, Duke, Duke is a religious university. What is the denomination it was affiliated with?
David 27:05 I think it’s the Presbyterian or something. Or it’s not Lutheran, because that’s German. But it’s one of the Protestant groups, yes.[2]
GT 27:13 Okay.
David 27:14 But they were very amenable. In fact, they were just enamored that I would donate. Because they looked at it with the quality, because it’s kind of like leather bound with the gold gilding and high-quality images and red-letter edition. And, by the way, you bring that up, because as a Protestant–I’m a convert to the Church. I grew up in New England, in Massachusetts, and virtually all of the Catholic Bibles and all the Protestant Bibles in that area are red letter editions. When I first showed that to Rod Meldrum and that group, they had no clue what red lettering meant, because people here in Utah never have had a red-letter edition.
LDS Church Hates Red Letter Scriptures!
David 27:59 Now, to put it into perspective, we wanted to submit my work here, or our work, I should say, Rod Meldrum and the others, to get permission from the Church to use the current edition of the text, which is copyrighted by the Church.
GT 28:18 The 1981 edition?
David 28:19 Yeah. So, what we wanted to do is get their permission to use that text. And that’s how I actually did the formatting was using that text. And so, what had happened, then, was–I kind of knew beforehand that they weren’t going to do it. And the reason why I knew that beforehand is because, previously before I knew Rod Meldrum, before I knew anybody, anywhere, I’d already formatted the Book of Mormon for my own personal use. And I put it in a spiral bound. I printed all the pages out, put it in spiral bound. And I showed people, “Oh, I love what you’re doing. I want to buy one of those.” So, I have to print out every page and they go to the thing and print out and get a spiral bound. And so, I sent one to L. Tom Perry. He set me apart on my mission.
GT 29:11 Oh, wow.
David 29:12 He was as the stake president, at the time.
GT 29:15 Oh, yeah, in Boston.
David 29:17 Yeah, in Bawston, in Boston. Anyways, so I sent it to him. Unfortunately, he sent me back somewhat of a terse letter. Oh, I mean, it was like “Brother Hocking, you’ve done a really remarkable job here. However, there are so many copyright issues, and I’m forwarding this to our legal department, and they will contact you shortly.”
GT 29:41 Oh, no.
David 29:42 So, three weeks later, I get a letter from the legal department, Intellectual Reserve, “Brother Hocking, wow, you’ve done a good job here.” But then they list all of the things that are copyrighted.
David 29:57 And I go, “Bingo. Now I know not what to do. And now I know what to do,” unbeknownst to them. So, I went ahead and did the 1981, knowing they would reject it, but I had a plan. Because when I went my mission in 1971, what edition did I have? The 1920 edition that was done by James Talmage. And you can get that online as a text. And there are sources where you can see where there’s changes in that text. So, in the back here, I actually have a listing of somewhere in the appendix, and I list all of the different words that have been altered in the text.
GT 30:43 Between the 1920 and the 1981?
David 30:45 Yes, so I have it all listed in there. So, what I ended up doing was–so Boyd Tuttle, myself, he was the publisher at Digital Legend Press, Rod Meldrum, and Jonathan Neville and Rian Nelson, we all had a meeting with the Scripture Committee in the Church Office Building. And it was a very–and there were General Authorities there.
GT 31:04 Is 1920 public domain?
David 31:06 Yes.
GT 31:07 It is.
David 31:07 Yeah. So, here’s what happened. We go up there. All of the Scripture Committee members are there. General Authorities, I can’t tell you who. I’m under covenant not to tell. But, anyways, they saw.
GT 31:21 We’ll wait till you’re off camera.
David 31:22 Anyways–yeah, exactly.
GT 31:23 (Chuckling)
David 31:23 But they saw my work, they appreciate it. In fact, I can tell you, I got a lot of hugs, like, “Brother Hocking, you’ve done a great job.” But anyways, they said…
GT 31:35 This is the 1920 edition?
David 31:36 No, this is what I had submitted to them, and they rejected it. But here’s what they rejected, not that it’s just the 1981, because that is copyrighted. The text, itself, has been copyrighted, because of what happened with Royal Skousen, with his critical text project, looking at the original manuscript, and the printer’s manuscript, and then it went into 2013, I think is when the updates have been coming. So, they have been updating the text, similar to what we do with the Joseph Smith Translation of the New Testament. The 1867 is in the public domain. However, the Community of Christ has amended it, just like our Church has amended text. And they have copyrighted those amendments, to protect themselves, which is good. It’s a legal protection. But once it’s out of that time frame, which I think is 75 years, then you you’re free to do what you want with it. Anyways, when they gave me, in that meeting, they said, “It’s not that you can’t use the text, which we’re not going to give you anyways. But it’s not that, per se, it’s because you have red lettering. We will never produce a red letter of the Book of Mormon. We just won’t do it.” Now, I hate to say this while I’m on camera, and it’s going to go out into the world and people are going to hear this. But they also told me and us all of us that were there, “And you’ve got a map. You’ve got maps in the Book of Mormon, and we will never produce a Book of Mormon with a map in it.”
GT 33:03 Yeah.
David 33:03 And then, what, two years…
GT 33:04 Because 1920 had a map in it, right?
David 33:06 Yeah, but now what we’ve got is we’ve got the–BYU Studies came up with their thing with Grant Hardy out of North Carolina, Asheville. He and I have been pen pals, if you want to call it email pals. He thinks I’m a scholar, which is kind of cool. And I’ve got permission from him to use some of his work in the Annotated Book of Mormon.
GT 33:32 Nice.
David 33:32 Yeah. So, anyways, he…
GT 33:34 What book has he written?
David 33:35 He’s written, his first one that was published by Illinois Press was the–what’s the title of it?[3]
GT 33:47 Understanding the Book of Mormon?[4]
David 33:48 Yeah, something like that. But he had his version of the Book of Mormon. And what’s scary, I mean, what’s really scary is that we had not communicated at all. I had already done my work. I had submitted my work on how I formatted the text to L. Tom Perry, Elder Perry. And then, all of a sudden, his book comes out in Illinois Press a few years later. And it’s almost as if there was some aura because he was doing similar to what I had done. I, at first, thought he had plagiarized me.
GT 34:24 Oh, wow.
David 34:26 I didn’t tell him that. But I’m just thinking woo. This is strange. Because when I sent him my version, he goes, “Wow. I wish I had known about you because I would have liked your impression.” So, it’s funny how that was all happening right in North Carolina, of all places, but anyways, so it’s the red lettering and it’s in the maps. Well, when…
GT 34:47 So, the Church has an issue with red lettering?
David 34:50 Yeah, they don’t want it.
GT 34:51 Because it’s too Catholic or something?
David 34:52 Well, I don’t understand. I think they want the individual to study it and then find the voice on their own. Whatever. But I’m not going to figure out their view of it. And then, of course, I have blue lettering, too. I struggled with the fact that if I’m going to use the red lettering. I had to have the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I can’t have them–I will have them all red lettering, but I have to differentiate them from voices. There are different voices. They’re not the same. Now, the Catholics and the Protestants thinks they’re the same. But, no, we don’t. So, when you get into the 3rd Nephi, for example, Christ will quote his Father, “Thus saith the Father.” So, I made the Father[‘s words] italicized red.
GT 35:44 Okay.
David 35:45 So, now you see a differentiation. Visually, you’re saying, “Now the Father is talking.”
GT 35:49 Okay.
David 35:49 See, so I have these visual cues. And men are visual, right?
GT 35:53 Right.
David 35:53 But it makes all the difference.
GT 35:55 No, I think it’s awesome. I love what you’ve done. And I don’t understand what the aversion is to red lettering. And maybe it’s because my dad, my dad’s a convert. And so, we had red letter Bibles that I remember growing up. I just grew up with it. I didn’t think it was any big deal.
David 36:12 So here’s, really, the ultimate thing about the formatting. So, if I concentrate on the formatting of the text only, then there’s like an onion. You peel off this layer, and then you peel off this layer. Underneath this layer is another layer, another layer. So, what happens when you do just a normal black versification, you’re missing a lot of what’s behind those words and those sentences. When you put it in the format that I’ve worked hard to do, it’s like peeling off layers. You get to see the voices. I put quotation marks. I make it a paragraph. It flows better. Then, when there’s a prophecy, you see that it’s a prophecy. Now, if there’s poetry in there, you see the beauty of what is being said. And then when there’s what you called inspired utterances, which becomes poetical, you see the Inspired Version. So, there’s a psalm of Nephi, chapter four, in 2nd Nephi. Well, I write it as poetry. It’s a true psalm. And within that psalm, he is pulling from that psalm, portions of Psalms. So, there’s fragments of Psalms within his psalm, and you get to see it. And it’s very complex.
David 37:43 Similarly, I do the same when you get to the each of the Isaiah chapters within 1st and 2nd Nephi, and even Jacob. They will quote many chapters and verses of Isaiah. Now, in my annotated, I underline all of the differences that are not in the King James version. So, as you open up my book, you go to Isaiah, and you’ll read it and you’ll see underline, underline, underline, underline. He’s not plagiarizing from his King James Version. He’s not doing it, because there’s so many differences. But here’s what’s good about that is the fact that I’m taking the effort to see the differences. Therefore, I have seen enough of the versification, or the verses and the differences, that when you then go, and you continue with the narrative, and now Nephi says, “Okay, now, I’ve just quoted Isaiah, and I want to expound on it.” So, as he expounds on it, he will then glean from what he has just quoted, passages within his exposition. So, what I do visually, is I italicize in blue those passages that he’s just quoted. And then I learned later, that’s a form of what a rabbi does when they do a Midrash.
GT 39:18 Oh wow.
David 39:18 They’ll take a passage. They’ll read the passage, and then they’ll make a commentary on the passage, similar to what Christ did when he went to the synagogue. He opened up Isaiah, and then he said, “This day, the scripture is fulfilled in your ears.” He’s making commentary of what he’s just quoted.
GT 39:37 Right.
David 39:37 So that is rabbinical. That’s Hebraism right there. You’ll see that in my work, which gives you another reason why you pull the layer back. What farm boy in upstate New York in 1829, 28, is going to do that? How sophisticated is that? That’s another one. I call those breadcrumbs. These breadcrumbs are dispersed throughout the entire Book of Mormon. If you get enough breadcrumbs, you get a slice and a loaf. If you get enough of the slices, you get a loaf. And the loaf is pretty much proof that this can’t come from just the mind of a charlatan. It has to have so much information in there that is impossible to plagiarize, or to come up with it on your own. Or you knocked off this, you’re knocked off that. And I have enough of that, if I could give workshop after workshop after workshop, I can tell you all these breadcrumbs I’ve found.
Explaining Translation Process
GT 40:33 So, you’re just begging me to ask you what do you think of William Davis’ book? Have you read it?
David 40:37 No, I have not.
GT 40:39 Did you watch my interview with William?
David 40:43 No, I have not. I need to do it.
GT 40:45 Oh. Okay, well, we might have to have a sequel, then. You’ll have to watch that and read that book and see. Because William–I mean, I think what you’ve done is amazing and impressive. But I always like to hear all sides about all the stories. And William says that there’s evidence of oral tradition, that it was an oral dictation, and that Joseph had training as a Methodist exhorter, and things like that.
David 41:14 And I think all of that has merit. I mean, there are elements to that, because again, it comes from the mind of Joseph. He’s the one that is involved in making the translation, using what Jonathan Neville would say, his mental vocabulary that he had, his way of expressing. And how did he do that? You know, I think Jonathan Neville has done a fantastic job of at least giving you a rational explanation of how that could have happened, being that Joseph had that leg surgery. He was bedridden. You don’t have TV back then. You don’t listen to the radio. They didn’t have money to buy newspapers, you read the scripture. So, he might be one of those gifted people like William Bean, that had a great photographic memory, could memorize stuff. So, now, they moved to Palmyra, and now he’s got a farm and stuff. And he’s still not well, because he still limps. He’s not completely healed. And now he’s going to the town to get the newspaper. But now he’s kind of like a vagrant, in the sense that he’s spending time looking at periodicals or something. And what’s there? Jonathan Edwards. And next thing you know, who’s Jonathan Edwards? He’s one of the leading theologians.
GT 42:27 He’s the Billy Graham of his day.
David 42:29 Exactly. And the next thing you know, he’s got phraseology within the Book of Mormon that has the same phraseology that Jonathan Edwards has. So, it’s a way of saying that he’s taking this ancient record and putting it into, how does this character through the aid of the Urim and Thummim, “I get a handle on it, but here’s how I would express it.” And so that expression comes from his mental bank of how to express it. So, I think that that has some merit to it. And it helps you understand that it’s not something that was just given to him, with some fifth century English. And so, whoever is the one that’s giving him the words on a stone that he’s putting in his hat, somehow, it just doesn’t make sense to me. What makes more sense to me, he’s actually using the plates. He’s actually having the spectacles that were designed to be used with those plates, and then using his mental vocabulary to express what he’s seeing. So that, to me, makes more sense. And then when you go into that way of thinking, and the work that I’ve done, is that I find–and that’s why I have these other books. I find that there are phrases within that Book of Mormon, that come from these other books that Nephi saw in Chapter 13, 1st Nephi, Chapter 13. Near the end, he says, “And I saw other books that would come forth, that would testify of the prophets and the apostles, and that these records would be there.”
Book of Enoch
David 44:08 And so, in Doctrine & Covenants, Section 107, March 28, 1835, Joseph Smith, part of his–that big, long section, “These things were written in the Book of Enoch and are to be testified of in due time.” So, here’s the Lord giving a prophecy to Joseph, who’s already received Enoch in 1830 in Moses, Chapter 6 and 7.
David 44:39 So, if I’m Joseph Smith, I’m saying, “Wait a minute. Lord, you’ve already given me Enoch. I’ve got it in Chapter 6 and 7.” He didn’t call it Chapter 6…
GT 44:47 It was in the Book of Moses, right?
David 44:48 It was in the book of Moses. Eventually, that actually got printed over in England, but it got into the Pearl of Great Price. But, anyways, guess what happens? In 1835, three years later, in England in the Bodleian Library, a manuscript that was done by Richard Lawrence, that was written in Ge’ez language, and which is, back then, called Abyssinia, now called Ethiopia. James Bruce explores looking for the source of the Nile River and he’s going to libraries. As well, he has an interest in antiquities, and he has been given three copies of this thing that is purported to be the Book of Enoch. So, he goes back. He takes these manuscripts. He doesn’t know anything about Ge’ez language, Southern Semitics language. So, he donates one to the Bodleian Library. He donates one down in Paris at the library down there. He keeps one to himself. And Richard Lawrence, this is the 1775 when this happens. Now we’re up into 1821 when Richard Lawrence transcribes it into English, but it’s in a manuscript form, and it’s only in that library in England. It wasn’t until 1838, three years after that revelation was given, that it’s in book form. In 1840, Parley P. Pratt is now the editor of the Millennial Star in Manchester, England. Volume number one, he’s reading the Book of Enoch.
GT 44:53 The English, okay.
Book of Jasher in Book of Mormon?
David 45:28 Because now it’s in book form. At the same year, 1840, the Book of Jasher that was found in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by a Roman soldier from the Iberian Peninsula. The Roman soldier is decimating and destroying Jerusalem. The Roman soldiers want their spoils of war. This Roman soldier, by the name of Cydrus from the Iberian Peninsula, which is now modern-day Spain, and Portugal, he feels that this wall doesn’t look right. There’s something, “My treasures are behind there. My spoils of war are there. Let’s break down this wall.” They break down the wall. Lo and behold, there’s a rabbi with a bunch of manuscripts. He sees dollar signs, whatever that means back then. He says, “I know that the Jews are fleeing to the Iberian Peninsula.” A lot of the rabbis were reading the scriptures. They knew that it was going to be destroyed. So, they’re fleeing, and they go there. So, he says, “I’m going to take the scholar, along with the manuscripts and go to Iberia with them. “And he did. He did it. And, eventually, that gets parsed out, these manuscripts, and they finally get printed here and there.
David 47:35 This Sefer haYashar gets published in Italy in 1625. It’s in Hebrew, without points, meaning that it’s predates the Masoretic text that we get in the King James version that was done in 1611. So, what does that mean? It’s without points means the Masoretes are the ones that said, “We need to standardize how the rabbi’s read the Torah. Because there’s no vowels. We’re going to put the vowels in by these points. And there’s got to be a way you say the words or how you teach the words. So, we’re going to put in,” what they call diacritical marks above the lettering. So, all the works that are done that we get, have those marks in it. But this Book of Jasher didn’t. So now this gets published in 1840 in England. I mean, it gets translated in 1839 in England, and gets published in 1840 in New York, by Mordecai Noah. So that’s, again, in 1840, the same year that the Book of Jasher is being read by Parley P. Pratt. And guess what? Chapters three and four in the Book of Jasher is about Enoch, fulfilling the prophecy that the Lord gave to Joseph. So, I’ll talk about that later in another episode or whatever. But I then find, within the Book of Mormon, passages from the Book of Jasher. And so how does that…
GT 48:59 Jasher that was…
David 49:00 That got translated, meaning that it helps validate that what they found in Jerusalem is authentic. Because it’s showing up in the Book of Mormon? And how does that show up and why does it show up? Because Nephi had to go get the plates of brass. Why? Because we have to keep the commandments. And the only way we can keep the commandments is to live the law of Moses. So, we’re going to have to get these plates. But now we’ve got the plates. So, there’s breadcrumbs interspersed throughout the Book of Mormon, that show you that they did have the plates of brass. And so, when I see passages from Jasher, when I see passages from Enoch…
GT 49:41 In the Book of Mormon.
David 49:42 In the Book of Mormon, those are the breadcrumbs and then it dispels the idea that he has just–so where is he going to get plagiarism from?
GT 49:52 Do you have a–could you just reference–that might be hard to do?
David 49:57 Yeah, I’ll give you a reference.
GT 49:59 [Could you reference] where something in the Book of Mormon references the Book of Jasher.
David 50:02 I’ll do it right now.
GT 50:03 Okay.
David 50:03 The Book of Jasher. I give it the title, The Annal of the Early Hebrews. Let me explain right now, this is the Hebrew This is Sefer. And it’s Ha Yashar. It’s HA, then YASHAR. Whoever did the thing, became Jasher. There isn’t anything called The Abraham or The Isaac or The Jacob. Ha Yashar is not a proper noun, or a proper name. Yashar means upright. So, it’s the book of the uprights. Who are the uprights? It’s the people who are of the house of Israel. It’s the patriarchs. The Book of Jasher is an Old-Testament style, history. It starts with Adam and Eve, and it goes into Abraham. And then it goes into Isaac and Jacob. And then it goes to Joseph of Egypt, and then Moses, and then Joshua. So, I look at here. I’m going to give you an example of where the peace comes in. And peace would be in page 123. And this is about Joseph of Egypt, and the brothers when they put them in a pit, and so forth. And they’re going to say, “What are we going to do? What are we going to do with him and what are going to tell our father?” So in the, in the Old Testament, you learn, the elements is that Joseph had a coat of many colors. The other element is they put him in a pit and now they’re going to take a goat, and they’re going to kill a goat, and they’re going to put the blood on the coat of many colors, and they’re going to give it to [their father,] “Oh, here’s what happened. He got killed by an animal.”
GT 52:03 Right.
David 52:03 Okay, so that’s all you hear. But now listen to Moroni. This is Captain Moroni. And this is in Alma. Moroni said unto them, “Behold, we are a remnant of the seed of Jacob, yay, we are a remnant of the seed of Joseph, whose coat was rent by his brethren into many pieces. Yea, and now behold, let us remember to keep the commandments of God, or our garments shall be rent by our brethren, or we be cast into prison or be sold or be slain. Yea, let us preserve our liberty as a remnant of Joseph. Yea, let us remember the words of Jacob before his death. He saw that a part of the remnant of the coat was preserved and had not decayed. And he even said, even as this remnant of the garment of my son hath been preserved, so shall a remnant of the seed of my son be preserved.” And then he took the coat, and so forth. So now we’ve got the idea that his coat was torn, and that we don’t want to be trodden down by our brethren.
David 52:10 So, we’ve got the tearing of the coat, the renting of the coat. You call it that, in that language, and the trodding of our brethren. So, where did he get that from? He didn’t get it from a Masoretic text, because there is no mentioning of his coat being torn or being trodden. Let’s read in the Book of Jasher. “Issachar said unto his brothers, here is an advice for you. If it seem be good in your eyes to do this thing. Let’s take the coat, which belongs to Joseph, and tear it and kill a kid of the goats, dip it in his blood and send it to our father. And they hastened and took Joseph’s coat and tore it. And they killed a kid of the goats and dipped the coat in the blood of the kid and then trampled it in the dust. And then they sent the coat to their father.” That’s a breadcrumb that’s huge. So where did Joseph Smith come up with it, if he came up with this, those elements?
GT 53:14 Because Book of Jasher wasn’t published until what year?
David 53:25 [It was published in] 1840, 10 years after the Book of Mormon.
GT 53:44 Right.
David 53:44 So, then, rhetorically, it seems to me, that the Book of Jasher plagiarized the Book of Mormon.
GT 54:05 (Chuckling)
David 54:08 But, that’s one of many. And I have multiple things in here to show that.
GT 54:22 And so Book of Jasher was your second book.
David 54:25 That was my second book.
GT 54:26 Now, by the way, I was going to mention, well, I think I mentioned this to you. Because Christ’s Church had a booth there at the conference. They’ve canonized the Book of Jasher as their scripture.
David 54:42 Is that right?
GT 54:43 And I was telling them, I said, “You know, you guys should get a copy of that for your library.”
Self-Financing Scriptures
David 54:50 Yeah, and the other nice thing about this edition and, again, my intent to do all of this, by the way, is it’s not for my benefit, per se. Because in reality I’ve spent [a lot of money.] I had to remortgage my house to get this stuff. It’s similar, I’m almost like a Martin Harris. I’ve taken my life savings, basically, and put money into doing these things and hoping that people buy them. Now, the Book of Mormon has been successful. But my contract with Rod, and that group is that I just get a little bit of a royalty. In other words, I’m just pittance.
GT 55:28 Right.
David 55:28 But I chose to do that. And I did that because I felt, since I’m a covenanted person, not to say they’re not. I’m also a temple ordinance worker. So, I’m reminded of it every week, the covenants that I take upon myself. But the Book of Mormon was never made to be for gain. The Lord told Joseph over and over again that it’s not the gold; the eyes, oh, look, how much money you get. That’s why he was always under the eye of the Lord to say you’re going to do it for the benefit to bring the restoration. So, I felt that, yes, I had put a lot of time and effort. It’s my money, my time, my effort, and so forth. So, all I’m asking for is just a little bit of a royalty. And it’s a little bit. I mean, it’s tiny, when you look at the total purchase price, and what the percentages, it’s tiny.
GT 55:41 Yeah.
David 55:46 But, the subsequent books, I paid for them all. I did all the work. I did the designing. I’m a solo person. So, I’m self-taught. The money is coming from my own savings. So right now, I’m in the hole big time. I have not made a lot of money on this. So, when I’m talking about these things, it’s not to promote me, and to make me get some money for a good living. I’m 71 years old, going on 72. I’m in retirement. So, I don’t really need the money per se, in the sense that I’m looking for this as extra income. I’m doing this because I want to get the word out that Joseph Smith is a revealer of ancient texts. The Book of Mormon is an ancient text. I am showing you enough breadcrumbs from these other works, that the book contains other fragments of these other [works.] So, another way to look at this is that the Book of Mormon is a collection of fragments. And what do I mean by that? Well, it’s a long history of a long people over 1000 years. So, Mormon, the editor, is going through the records and selecting this thing from Zenith. And I’m going to take this from Amulek. And I’m going to take these epistles that are– and these are fragments. And these fragments are being interspersed throughout his narrative. And then he’ll make commentary, thus we see. So, it’s obvious that Mormon, the editor, is going through a whole bunch of material. And it’s obvious to me that this is a collection of fragments.
David 58:08 The Book of Abraham is a fragment. Joseph Smith receives a vision called the vision of Moses, the writing, Those are fragments. We’ve got the Book of Abraham on parchments. That’s a fragment. So, these fragments in general, are not complete books. Yet these fragments contribute to the volume of material that we have and the other books that would come forth that Nephi saw that would testify of the prophets, and the apostles. And these fragments are so sufficiently interspersed with these other records coming forth later that get translated from other languages into English, that support the fragments that Joseph Smith provided to us with his revelations. And when you put them all together, it’s almost impossible that he would say that you could fake this. And so, I am bringing that forth with my works. And it’s all to elevate Joseph Smith as being a true revealer of texts. And so, from my perspective, I see Joseph Smith as the control. In other words, I’m bringing forth information that no one has ever seen, because there’s no way you can go see it. You can’t go to any library and find it.
GT 59:33 Right.
David 59:34 So, now later in life, this Ethiopic text and this Church Slavonic text and this Hebrew text and this Aramaic text, let’s compare it to this control that Joseph Smith said, that came from him from God. Let’s go ahead and analyze that. It holds up beautifully. So, now Joseph Smith has been validated as a revealer of ancient texts.
GT 1:00:02 Very interesting.
Are Book of Mormon Maps Porn
GT 1:00:03 I kind of want jump back to that conversation you had with the Church, or was it BYU? I’m not sure which.
David 1:00:11 It was the Church History Department, or [I mean] the Scripture Department.
GT 1:00:14 The Scripture Department, so it was what the Church, okay.
David 1:00:16 Yeah.
GT 1:00:18 So, the two things that they hated were the red letters.
David 1:00:22 Yeah, and the map.
GT 1:00:22 And the map. So, my question is, because you’ve got a lot of Heartland-type maps in there. Is that right?
David 1:00:30 Yeah, there’s some Heartland maps in there. Now, those maps, and I state it right [there,] in that this is just suggested. But in the back in the appendix, I do have what I call a real, authentic map. And it’s based on the Joseph Smith Papers. And I refer to it as, how do I put it? I put it on as a–let me go find it here. I’ve got enough pages in here. Here we go. I’m getting there. Connections between the Book of Mormon and Church History. So, this is the page I start with. And from this book, or from different elements of the Joseph Smith Papers, I then highlight in this gold lettering, specific locations that relate to Church history, that have something to do with the Book of Mormon. So based on that, what I then do in the back here, is I take a map, and I overlay specifics that relate to Church history. So, the big example is Joseph Smith is on his Zion’s camp or the camp of Israel. So, they’re roving over the plains of the Nephites, and that’s his language. That’s what Joseph Smith is saying. So, now we have the phrase, ‘the plains of Nephites,’ that’s being said by Joseph Smith, that’s in the Book of Mormon. That’s a Book of Mormon phrase, and it’s in the Joseph Smith Papers, coming from Joseph Smith. So, therefore, if that’s the area that he is moving through, and he’s calling it the plains of the Nephites. Well, the Nephites must have been here, because he says the plains of the Nephites.
GT 1:02:24 Which in very well to the Heartland model, right?
David 1:02:27 Exactly. And then if he says, :This is where Adam-Ondi-Ahmon, the altar is,” no, you don’t see that in the Book of Mormon, but at least that is part of Church history, and it has to do with a location. And then he’ll say, “This is where the ancient city of Manti is. It was in Randolph County, and it’s here. And so now we have a Book of Mormon [reference,] the city of Manti, or in Section 125, I think. It says, “Now, let the name Zarahemla be named upon it.” That’s land across from Nauvoo. Now, we don’t know, precisely, that is exactly where Zarahemla is. But we do know that there’s a Jerusalem and a new Jerusalem. Is this something that could be a new Zarahemla? But he doesn’t refer to it that way. But at least there’s the idea that it could be something to do with Zarahemla, so I put that on the map. And then I have these things here. So, this particular map here is really the most precise map I have, because these are things related to Church history that are in the Joseph Smith Papers. Now, where is the River Sidon? This is inference. Everything is inference, based on a pin in the map, meaning that Joseph Smith and others, over and over again, Oliver Cowdery in his letters, the Hill Cumorah is in New York.
David 1:03:49 And then we have statements by many Church leaders that say, “Don’t get confused. The Hill Cumorah is in New York.” So, I put all of this as a pin, as Jonathan Neville, that’s his contribution.
David 1:04:01 He would say, “At least we know where one thing is. And that’s where the Hill Cumorah is.”
David 1:04:06 Now, a lot of professors and people in academics say, “Well, no, not really.” That’s where we get the two Cumorah theory, you know?
GT 1:04:12 Well, I’m sure there are people here that may admire the work you’ve done, but they’re going to be turned off with the Heartland theory stuff.
David 1:04:21 Yeah.
GT 1:04:21 Because, you know, there’s South American model. There’s Baja. There’s other models.
David 1:04:26 Exactly.
GT 1:04:26 I guess my question is, and especially 1922, there were those–I don’t know if you saw my Shannon Caldwell Montez interview.
David 1:04:35 Yes.
GT 1:04:35 But, she had said that the Church, back in about 1920 had decided, “We need to get away from this geography model stuff, because it’s too problematic.” My question is, would you consider creating an edition that was more geography…
David 1:04:54 Neutral.
GT 1:04:55 Neutral, yeah.
David 1:04:57 Yeah. And actually, the Church should be doing that, but they’re not. Everything that they talk about, they have never been neutral.
GT 1:05:04 Because they don’t like the red letters? That’s so weird about the red letters.
David 1:05:05 Yeah, they want us to be neutral, but they’re not.
GT 1:05:08 Yeah.
David 1:05:08 They have never shown anything in North America. They always show it as in Mesoamerica. All of the background has mountains in it. It’s got palm trees. It’s got Chichen Itza-type style temples that have nothing to do with the law of Moses. But that’s their choice, all the artwork. Now I’m going to be very bold here. People are going to hear this from Dave Hocking. We hear a lot about pornography in the Church. You know, we have a problem with pornography. And what is pornography?
David 1:05:38 By it’s very definition, it’s a visual image that you can’t get out of your brain, and it’s desecrates the human body. These images of the temple that are in our Church buildings, that’s in our Church material, to me is visual pornography. Why? Because those are not temples after the order of Solomon. You don’t do the law of Moses types of sacrifices in these models that they show as images. You can’t get it out of your mind and desecrates the law of Moses. So, for me, that’s visual pornography.
GT 1:06:13 Wow, that’s pretty bold.
David 1:06:14 It is very bold. But to me, that’s what it is. Because you cannot get that out of your brain. And if they attempt to do that, there’s going to be a huge backlash. Like, you’ve been given this all this time, image after image after image, iterations after iterations. And now we’ve got new videos that we’re going to show you and it’s going to be the same image. And I think that’s not right. If they’re going to be truly neutral, they need to remove that kind of image, and make it more Hebrew, not some other weird religion that has stone steps with a little square box. I’ve never been to a Mormon temple, or go to a Hebrew [temple,] when you go to the temple after the manner of Solomon that has multiple steps with a little square box at the top. They’re all rectangular, and they have different compartments, and you go through these different–and you’ll never see that as part of the depiction of where the Savior came. You see them in a Chichen Itza-style temple with these stone [steps.] You read the Book of Mormon. They never built out of stone.
David 1:07:25 All I’m saying is that I’m trying to be authentic, when I present material that’s related to what the Joseph Smith Papers are showing, with how Joseph Smith taught his people. When he said, “I’m picking up a bone of a Nephite.” He’s not doing that, “Ha, ha ha.” No, he’s saying, you’ve got a spiritual testimony, the Book of Mormon. You’ve got your spiritual witness, just like you have a pre-mortal spirit. But you had to get your body here, you had to be a physical entity in order to have a complete person.
David 1:07:58 And then when you’re resurrected, like the Savior was, the Savior said, “I want you to come forward and touch me. I want you to handle me. I want you to thrust your hand in my side. I want you to feel the prints in my finger, because I am a human being, and resurrected, in a body of flesh and bones, as you see me have. You are now getting physical evidence that I’m real.”
David 1:08:23 So with the spiritual and the physical, you get a perfect knowledge and a pure knowledge. So, when Joseph Smith was picking up a bone of a white Lamanite called Zelph, he, in essence, to those 200 plus people [he was] saying, “I’m giving you physical evidence that we’re roving over the mounds of these once, great people, the Nephites, as evidence that they were here.” Now, if that’s blasphemy, then I’m proud to say that, because that’s what Joseph Smith [said.] And who is Joseph Smith? He’s the one that translated the Book of Mormon. He is the one that saw Moroni. He has a perfect knowledge of what he’s talking about. He’s not an academic. He’s not doing research. He’s giving you pure knowledge.
GT 1:09:11 Okay, so you’re not interested in doing a geography neutral version?
David 1:09:16 I could, in the future, if there’s any interest in it. I could do that.
GT 1:09:20 Yeah, because I think what you’ve done is amazing.
David 1:09:23 It just has caught a great deal of interest. Now, the Book of Mormon, this edition has been well sold. I don’t know what the total number is. I don’t know all the different things, even though I should know, because I’m not the one putting the money up for it. But I think it’s close to 30,000 books have been sold.
GT 1:09:44 Wow.
David 1:09:44 So that’s not bad for a first time edition of something.
GT 1:09:48 So Duke Divinity School is going to be Heartland model and you’ve got BYU which is Meso. Is that right?
David 1:09:52 Yeah. Well, you know, and yet they say there’s no map, but then what has BYU [done?] They’ve created a fantasy map that has no reality of any place on the Earth. So, I mean, who’s right? At least I’m showing the Joseph Smith Papers and what Joseph Smith said, or others have said or where things are, and it’s something you can read that has a location versus something that is made up. So, who’s going to believe who? So that’s what I’m getting at.
GT 1:10:19 Yeah. Well, cool.
{End of Part 1}
Copyright © 2022
Gospel Tangents
All Rights Reserved
Except for book reviews, no content may be reproduced without written permission.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:11:34 — 65.7MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Email | | More
