Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Joseph Smith History 1:27-65 : Dr. Michael MacKay: Part II

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

Why were Joseph and others searching for treasure? How did the Smith family's financial straits play into Joseph not receiving the plates for years, and how was marriage essential for Joseph? In Episode 3, Part II, we discuss how crucial it was for a woman to be a part of founding the Church, the effect of Alvin's death on the Smith Family, and the evidence of a stone box on the Hill Cumorah. 

Welcome to part two of this week's podcast. So yeah, walk me through this. The third visit he ascends to heaven is before I ponder and then I hear it's morning. Okay, my interviews have occupied the entire night. Great. So then he goes out to work. I think it's the idea of somebody looks at him and says, you're no use today, right? Like angel hangover. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder if this happens

sometimes with them, you know, it's happens with my kids. It's your turn to do the dishes and is, oh, I'm so tired. Right. Go, go. You're no, you're no use today. He's open offense and hits the ground, looks up and low on the hold, Moroni's back. Now, is it this point where he says, why didn't you tell your father? And he says, I feared he would not believe me. Yes, but he ends up telling him. He then related me, all that he related me the previous night and commanded me to go to my father and tell him of the vision and commandments, which I had received. night, and commanded me to go to my father and tell him of the vision and commandments which I had received, I obeyed. I've returned to my father, told him the whole thing.

He said it was of God, told me to go. He gets a second wind, and he heads over to the hill, the hill Camora, right? Now, how far away is this from his house? It's about three miles. So he's exhausted. Now go on a three mile hike. What's going through his mind?

There's going to take 45 minutes to walk over. What's he thinking? He's been told about these gold plates. But you can imagine like the kind of practical things that he may have been burdened with. Like how do we pay for the farm? His father is struggling to provide, but also trying to provide. And so what's happening contextually in their life is economic struggle. The angel warns

him even before it happens. You're going to want to steal those plates. He tells him before you're going to want to sell him. You're going to want to sell him. You're going to want to be able to have that money to provide for your family, but also maybe get some extra money. We want him to be perfect. He's like, this is the probationary period. He's not very good at this yet. And so he's finding boundaries like, think about how relevant this boundary is. You have a set of plates that clearly could represent income and money.

But he's got his turning those plates into a sacred item by saying, this isn't for money, this is religious. You need to see this as a sacred item. And until you see it as a sacred item, they'll stay in the ground. To me, this is also a very human thing. Do you care more about God? Or do you care more about money? Well, even though the motive was to help his family maybe, you know, we're struggling with poverty, we're digging up stumps, you know. So the first visit he goes and he sees them and Moroni's like, no, I'll see you in a year. It has to do with age and maturity. It has to do with

experiences that push forward change. Yeah, he's still working and they're still struggling to pay rent. Alvin dies, which is excruciating. It's a major event for the family, right? Alvin dies, which is a security of Joseph and the rest of the family. Alvin is one of the main breadwinners within the family, which is fairly normal when you have like the idea of an apprentice and a journeyman, and Alvin is very productive here.

And so there's this deep struggle, absolute deep struggle that happens right after he has the first visit. What a fascinating idea, you know, we think the dark times come before the visitation, right? And here we learn another pattern that you have these incredible, incredible spiritual experiences,

and then man, they can go dark. Publicly too, people are calling foul. And so the family too is having this public struggle with Alvin's death, and a very personal struggle with Alvin's death. And you can't underestimate the death of Alvin. On January 21st of 1836, Joseph Smith has this vision and Alvin's in it.

He's still struggling with that Alvin was never baptized, right? And Alvin, you know, in this vision, he realizes he's in the celestial kingdom anyways. And there's this representation of inclusiveness, which goes back to the same stuff we've been talking about with Maroni. And you see that Alvin is gonna make it. Like he's thinking about Alvin until the day he dies.

This is one of the most traumatic and important events of Joseph Smith's religious life, not just family life, religious life. Yeah, Steve Harper said he worships his older brother. Okay, what do we know about that second visit to the hill? He's now 19. The second annual visit, he comes and then near after that. So you have these times like November, right after September,

there's always something that happens because there's another shift. 1823 is the first visit and then the first annual visit. It's 1824. This is that point, you know, in Joseph Smith history, it says, and the angel added a caution to me, telling me that Satan would try to tempt me in consequence of the indigent circumstances of my father's family to get the plates for the purpose of getting rich. So you have the death of Alvin, which is an economic problem. You have the next year where the angel adds to

what he was saying to him and says, you're gonna want to steal the plates and he actually does try to steal the plates. And his dad is putting a lot of pressure on him on this first anniversary, right? You gotta get him this year. You gotta get him this time. Yes, so you have pressures all around.

And he comes home without him. You can imagine some disappointment. Like we don't know a ton about all of these years. We just, some of these things were estimating when they happen. But in the next year, 1825, this is the year that he goes south with Josiah Stolen his father. And they're going to try to find silver in Pennsylvania. It's like a hundred miles away,

so he goes down there to work for him, and he says he basically tells the man Josiah Stoll, this is not gonna work. And who knows how much digging they do, but they're looking for that buried silver. They're looking for silver to make money. And what it looks like is kind of a joint stock agreement, so they have diggers and they have Joseph who's supposed to find it in Josiah Stoll, silver to make money. And what it looks like is kind of a joint stock agreement. So they

have diggers and they have Joseph who's supposed to find it and Josiah Stoll who's going to fund it. And you get this little agreement between them. But essentially you get Joseph Smith senior who is pushing Joseph to do this saying he's using his gifts for the wrong purpose. And so you get Joseph Smith's senior saying, this seems to be a notion and a point at which Joseph gets another one of those steps of maturity and boundary making where he sees what positive boundaries are and negative boundaries are.

And he separates his religious gifts from that which may be secular economic gifts and he is closer to becoming a profit than he was before. He's closer to what Moroni's hoping for. Yeah, and I think it's part because of this misstep. It's clearly a misstep. His dad ends up going home, right? But he ends up staying down with the Stoles

because he's met another family there by the name of the Hales and he's also met the Knights. Yeah. This is all in that area. Yeah. So Joseph Knight hires him to do some work, disassociated with the stalework, but just some manual labor. Josiah Stoll sets him up to stay at the hails house in harmony. So he's staying with the hails and three months later, he meets Emma and they feel like their soulmates. The hills are very religious, these are very good Methodist people. Now the issue you have here though is Isaac Hell doesn't want them to get married.

He sees Joseph as a problem and so he says you can't get married and they just, they alope. They go off, they get married and they move back up to Paul Myra. This is just so real to me. This is so human. The father in law, who doesn't like this, the boyfriend, right? And you've got Josiah Stoll and the Knights who are kind of helping him court Emma, right? They're saying, yeah, you can borrow my wagon. Yeah, I'll support you in the Joseph Knight. Senior is highly supportive from the beginning. He sees in Joseph something that's remarkable. Now, Joseph Knight Senior is one of these people like,

like Steve Harper wrote this article about those who joined the church, and he published it in a very high academic journal. But it's essentially asking what kind of people were interested in Joseph's misreligion, and he looks at all of the different people who join. Those early, early joiners? Yeah. And so you look at people like Joseph Knight Senior who is educated, has money, is very responsible,

very religious. Martin Harris is a similar kind of person. You think about the whitmers? The whitmers are these Lutherans, right? They're reformed Lutherans and their parents like David Whitmer senior is his first language is German They are they're highly educated. They're smart. They're determined. They're a major part of society W. W. Phelps is one of the most famous newspapermen and so get these people, who these aren't doops who are seeing the prophetic nature of this young man, Joseph Smith.

These are people who are smart, who know the Bible, who understand the concept of restorationism, and they see Joseph Smith, not because of, he's just charismatic, but because of the outcome, revelatory outcome, the outcome of the Book of Mormon. These are people who are willing to put their own social status on the line and participate in this early church. Thank you for saying that. I love that I did. These weren't a gullible, uneducated fools. These people that joined and the way you put it, they must have seen the fruits.

It was, look at what has this is produced. And that helps my testimony. These were not idiots. They were smart people. David Whitmer meets Joseph and he's like, whatever, this guy's crazy. Right? And then David Whitmer meets the money diggers, Joseph Smith knows. And they take him to the hill. David Whitmer writes this in his own book. They took me to the hill, Kamora. And they showed me the stone box that the plates were placed within. Like these are people who are making extra effort. They're not just being duped. Like he actually went to the hill. He's like, he found it on the hill. There must be a hole. He goes up to the hill and he finds these, this stone box that's cut out. And he's like, what? And that's his first notion of, okay, I'm going to take this seriously. Because before he did not take it seriously. And so you

have him associating himself with a teacher, Oliver her Caldary and you get this notion of this boy profit with no confidence in what he's doing, exuding something that draws the attention of people who love God and are educated, good outstanding citizens. And that's where you get the Lord is raising up friends. So in 1826, he goes back, he's already met Emma, but he comes back from Pennsylvania just for the visit. Is this where he's told, this is it. This is your last year.

If you're not ready by 1827, next year, we'll go find someone else. Yeah, this is sort of the Mendoza line. That line in the sand that says, it's either this or that. Like you're gonna walk away or you're gonna do it, right? What's remarkable about that is he's had all of these experiences and he is pretty ready,

but the last sort of straw was to marry Emma. Even the association with the hell family, which was really positive, they're good people. And the association with Joseph Knight, they are very good people. Back to the hill in September of 1827. Does he know he's going to get him? I mean, he's had this young men's president, basically,

in the angel, this bishop, who's interviewing him every year. He was supposed to not tell to tell anyone, but his family clearly knows. Josiah stole clearly knows. Josiah knows of night clearly knows, and they show up, right? And so the other thing is that tells you that the whole town knows is he doesn't bring them home

that night. He receives them and hides them. He thinks a marauder in the night is gonna take them from him. And so he doesn't bring them home. He actually just hides them in a log. Is he been changed, Mike? I mean, in this four years, he's changed. He's been working hard. Just the hard work that he's done would have changed him. He gets the idea of having to step up because his brother died. So Alvin matures him pretty well there. He gets the idea of having to step up because his brother died. So Alvin

matures him pretty well there. He gets the notion that his neighbors aren't trying to help him. He learns about good friends, Josiah Stoll. That's interesting. He had his group of friends before. He gets a new group of friends and I think he realizes, man, those weren't the greatest influences. And so he's he's had the the maturity of working with his father-in-law His father-in-law is a good man He does go to church more during this period. That's clear. We have Record of him being at a church. He's been told not to join any of them But he sees the value of them. He's meeting with this angel who's sitting there going. No, not yet

right meeting with this angel who's sitting there going, no, not yet, right? Just the rejection each year of the angel probably matured him. There's a huge change after 1826 when he realizes we're not just joking around. The gifts that he has, he realizes they are gifts to bring forth the restoration and follow God, the religious and not secular. And then of course, Emma is his rock and always will be his rock. We can't underestimate the foundation of the church under Emma. Emma is always there.

By the first months of when the church has established DNC 25, she feels like she's like, I don't get to see angels, but I'm doing all the work. That's her notion, right? 1827, she's still doing all the work. She's still the educated side. Even when he starts translating, she invests all of her time to writing. She's the first scribe. You can't underestimate how the church was founded by a woman. Like, if you don't understand that, you don't understand how this shared responsibility is on the shoulders of men and women from the beginning. I'm glad you pointed that out. And I'm also trying to think of how in their courtship,

he told Emma, well, this is what's been happening to me. I had a hard enough time convincing my wife, but I didn't have a story like that either. They're so human and it's so real. I mean, just the fact that they alope and move to New York, that's got to break her dad's heart. Isaac L. shows absolute poise through all of this. We throw him under the bus, but they eventually go back down there and he gives them a farm,

a well-developed house that is other sun used to live in. He's a very good man. It's clear that he's struggling with this and unfortunately it doesn't work out. If they had joined the church and we would have tied the bonaud of that story. But I would argue that Isaac Hale helps shape Joseph as a good person, not as bad person. I really like that. I really like that, Mike. One of the things I love to tell my college students is because they're such procrastinators, the day before he's looking for a box to put him in. And it always makes me laugh because it's like, you had four years and it's the day before they're like, oh no, I better have something to put them in. And my college students always relate.

They're like, I've had all semester and it's the day before where I'm like, I gotta do this, he's so real and so human. So he takes Emma to the hill that night, right? Yeah, he takes Joseph Knight, seniors wagon and they go, which tells you their intentions were to take the plates home. Well, if you look at the historical record, the most secular palm iron steel thought the plates were real. They thought they were so real, they were going to steal them. But this is one of those investments.

Like, like, you don't just take the wagon. You don't like borrow your friend's wagon without telling him, right? Especially a mature gentleman like, right and let's, there's real plates to pick up. You're going to risk a consequence. We estimate the plates. What is it? 67, 70 pounds. What have I heard? Given the accounts anywhere from 40 to 60 pounds is the estimate. They go up to that hill and he gets them and he likely hears something. And so he hides them. He doesn't bring them back down to Emma, but he does have to move this stone and the stone and like this is an archaeological piece of evidence that the actual box that's there and it's it's almost 40 years after this that there's still evidence of that box that came from the hill. So Stevenson who is a Salt Lake City newspaperman, he comes back to Palmyra and he goes to the

owner of the hill and he says, well, we have all this record of people seeing the box in the past decades. Can I see the box? And at that time, all of the trees have been taken down and he had gone over with a machine and there's this, you could plant crocs on the hill. Yeah, he totally plowed it over and he's like hill. He totally plowed it over. And he's like, sorry, I plowed it over. So he ends up staying with the guy

and becomes friend with the guy. And the owner of the hill says, well, the box is still there. And he's like, it's washed out. I'll show you it. And he takes him over to the box. And there's these slates, which Joseph described as a kind of cement that brought them together. But there's these five slates that they put to the box and there's these slates, which Joseph described as a kind of cement that brought

them together, but there's these five slates that they put to the box together and then there's two stones in the bottom. So it doesn't get water logged in it. And he takes it home and he writes this big article in the desert news about the archeological reality of the of the stone box. Something that Tony's talked about quite a bit, I know, is he says, you know, the idea of Joseph having plates today, kind of people kind of mock the idea, but Joseph's initial problems with anyone in the first couple of years is people are absolutely sure he has them, and they want them, right? And so I think Joseph Smith would be kind of shocked today going, oh, what? they don't think I had him.

I wish those guys back then didn't think I had him because they caused me that like notion was this huge light for Garrett Durkma, you probably give credit to Garrett for that idea. It is an important notion, right? This notion of the reality of the plates to these people in Paul Myra. Let's go take something from him that he doesn't really have. Yeah. And I think Martin Harris says he had the plates and I knew he didn't have enough money to buy him.

He must have got him from the angel because he has no money. And there's no record of him being a metal worker and being able to put all this together and the smokes, they saw huge fires coming out of that farm. He must have been welding, right? No, there's nothing. There's no evidence at all of any of that. But at the same time, I notice in my classes at BYU, like, we want to emphasize the materiality of the plates. And if the plates are real, then the Book of Mormon is real. I actually think God was

trying to do something different than that notion. If the plates are real, the Book of Mormon is real. This is a kind of an assumption that isn't actually a good assumption. The Book of Mormon is true if it's true. It doesn't even have to have the plates. You think about this, like the idea of the plates die, they're gone. They aren't evidence to us. But actually, the sacredness that we hold is within the text. Like Joseph was called to return the plates. Return the plates because

they wanted people to know the truthfulness of it because of the text. What is written, and that's Moroni's promise, right? So it was never intended to be demonstrated with the physicality of the plates. So this is more of a historical concept rather than a spiritual theological concept. Yes, there was like 25 witnesses of the plates, their physicality, and from darkness on the light we kind of reveal all these people. But at the same time, I don't want that to be the reason that the Book of Mormon is true. And neither did Maroni. Maroni wasn't like, fill the plates and then pray about them, right? His whole point was, is, why don't you just go ahead and read it and find out that this is the word of God. That's the power. That is the essence of the power of the Book of Mormon.

And Joseph does say, the messenger called for them. I delivered them up to him and he has them in his charge until this day, 1838. I picture Moroni has them on his mantle, right? Like those are mine, give them back. I spent a lot of time with those. And every time Mormon comes over, he's like, why wrote most of it?

Yeah. I think that should be mine. Yeah, there's a little argument between the three of them. You know, the people listening are gonna say, here, this guy, Dr. McKay has given decades of his life. He's read everything, at least from this time period of Joseph Smith's life,

he's read everything there is to read. And yet, he loves the prophet. I consider myself time period of Joseph Smith's life, he's read everything there is to read. And yet, he loves the prophet. I consider myself a scholar of Joseph Smith. But above that, I do care about the details and I care about what we can know. You know, ultimately, I think just like Joseph, he was always trying to turn it over to someone else. He was always trying to give someone else the priesthood,

endow others with the presidency. He wanted people to see visions. He wanted people to read the scriptures. So I've done that. I've read the Book of Mormon and I've seen the change that it causes in people's lives and my own life. And I think the reason I value Joseph Smith so much is he understood his role in the plan of salvation because he believed so deeply. And that role in itself didn't empower him as a man, even though it times it did, but his overall overarching reality was that just like anything,

like the gospel, like the priesthood, like the Book of Mormon, like these are things that you have to offer up to someone else. They are as valuable as they are because they require you to give it to someone. And part of the value of it is that you're giving it over. This represents the atonement, especially. The grace that God offers comes through the fact that Christ offers it up to you. That's the beauty of it, right? This is like the priest that the priest that only functions when you serve someone. This is like the gospel. It really functions when you offer it up to someone else. And so you get this sense of the truth, the greatest part of humanity, like this is the beauty that comes out of Joseph's

misdeaching. It isn't Joseph, particularly that's changed my life. Other than the fact that he did what I hope I can do, he offered it up. And you see the beauty of service, and you see the beauty of God himself. If God isn't offering up all that he has to us, I wonder why he is a God that we worship. What the fact of the matter is is he loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son.

He loved the world so much that he chose to keep talking to us, to offer a plan that would include everyone, to enable us to be a family in the end. I don't know about any of that, except through the teachings and the scripture that's been revealed. And Joseph Smith did a lot of that. So, and he also gave this model for it to continue today. And so this has created stability and hope and love and compassion in my own life. And I imagine that's what has made my life so satisfying.

And it's something that I'll always cherish. Thank you so much, Mike. That was inspiring. And you opened up some new ways of thinking of things that I think will bless a lot of people. Yeah, so do I. I'm just so impressed. We dive deep, and we're getting to know Joseph Smith.

And because of Joseph Smith, like Mike said, he's given us a new view of the Savior and his atonement. So that connection that Mike made there at the end was just so touching to me. Join us for our next episode of Follow Him as we continue on through the Come Follow Me manual and taking a deep dive into these different sections with the Church's experts. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next time.