The Other Isaiah Problem in the Book of Mormon

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I am one of your hosts for today, John Delin. It's December 5th, 2025. This is an LDS discussions Mormon Stories episode, which means it's part of a long 60 plus episode series where we attempt to review or research or discuss Mormon church or LDS church truth claims based on evidence with as an objective of an analysis as possible. This series is best consumed in sequence. So what we recommend you do is pause, go back to the beginning of the series and watch from the beginning and all these subsequent episodes will mean a lot more. You can find the LDS discussions series on the Mormon Stories podcast YouTube channel under the LDS discussions playlist. You can just search on YouTube LDS discussions, find the playlist, start from the beginning. You can also find uh the LDS discussions podcast on Spotify or Apple podcast and it's obviously integrated into the Mormon Stories podcast feed as well. This episode, this series started with a man named Mike, or at least he went by Mike and he has a website called LDS discussions.com where as a convert to the church in a mixed or mixed faith marriage, he began investigating LDSurch truth claims and did like 50 or 60 episodes with us and then he retired. And now we have an amazing panel to carry on the analysis. And the panel, as it is currently constituted, includes Idaho attorney Colby Reddish. Hey, Colby. >> Good morning, John. How are you? >> Uh, great. Uh, you prepared you did the re the primary research for today's episode. Is that right? >> That's right. >> And then, uh, an LDS discussions episode wouldn't be complete without Nemo the Mormon. Hey, Nemo. >> Hi. This is the panel as presently constituted. That was a very Mormon way of phrasing that, John. >> And Julia, everyone loves Julia. Welcome, Julia. Thanks for joining us. >> And Julia helps out with slides and pre and postprouction as well. So, we've got the we've got the band together. And the topic for today is uh the other Isaiah problem. And I I'll just say that my role is to kind of come into this series blind. Colobby and and Nemo and Julie have all reviewed the slides. I'm going to represent viewers and listeners that may have no idea what we're talking about to try and make sure this is accessible to the common viewer or listener and especially someone who's new because my, you know, my memory is so bad. It's as if I'm looking at all this stuff for the very first time even though I've been doing this stuff for 30 40 years. So that's uh that's my value ad is having no memory. So um so uh really quickly Nemo, do you want to introduce yourself other than what I've already said? >> Not particularly. >> Okay. >> No. Uh I'm Nemo. That's what you'll know me by on the internet. And yeah, I do factchecking of church leaders quite often and analysis of the church. >> And you have a YouTube channel. Uh so subscribe to Mormon Stories, subscribe to LDS Discussions, subscribe to Nemo the Mormon. Is that all right? >> Yeah. Uh that's about right. >> And it's giving week, so maybe donate to Nemo the Mormon. >> Giving week. Is that a thing? Okay. >> In the United States, it's kind of giving week. So, >> right. donate to Nether. >> That would explain a lot. >> What? You got some You got some more donations. >> Donations come through this week. I was like, "Okay, this is not normal. What's going on here?" So, >> well, that's good. >> Yeah. Kind of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Year's, uh, when people are shopping, uh, they're also encouraged to not not forget nonprofits and other worthy causes. So, >> feel free to donate to Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation if you want. Also, support Nemo. Julia, how do people support you? What's your channel and how do people support you? >> Um, so I I'm analyzing Mormonism on Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok. Um, also I run the shorts for Mormon Stories and I just want to plug. So we're almost at 300,000 followers on Tik Tok and then almost 100,000 on Instagram. So if you guys haven't followed us on our for our shorts, go ahead and subscribe there so we can like hit those goals. So >> let's break 100,000. >> Yes, that'd be so nice. >> Abs. Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> My podcast, John. What? >> Ask me about my podcast. Trump >> Colby, you're a wealthy attorney, so you don't even need support. >> I I am a public sector attorney, so I am not a wealthy attorney, but an attorney nonetheless. >> All right. Well, Colby, why don't you uh do you want to introduce today's episode and and tell us what it's all about? >> Yep. Let me give us kind of a high level overview of what we're going to look at today. So, great. Viewers who are familiar with the Book of Mormon know that the Book of Mormon is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormon Church's foundational book of scripture. And one of the things um that I've been working on and we've kind of done uh a previous entry in the LDS discussion series looking at this is looking at ways we can test the Book of Mormon's claims about the world that it comes from and about the world that it's written in. Basically looking at the Book of Mormon like a text that we're trying to falsify. When I say falsify, I don't mean that we're going, you know, a field from the the objective tone that we try and do here on the LDS discussion series. I mean we're thinking about it like a testable hypothesis and we're trying to see if the evidence matches for the test that we're running. So, if you'll pull up the first slide, I'll explain what we're going to look at today in the context of the other Isaiah problem. So, I called this uh presentation the other Isaiah problem because what we're going to look at is we're going to look at Isaiah verses that are captured in the Book of Mormon. And we're going to examine whether um basically we're going to examine whether the evidence we find is the evidence we would expect if the Book of Mormon's claims about itself were true. So, let me do kind of my disclaimer and my meta point. Um when I'm talking about the Book of Mormon in this context, I'm only talking about the question of historicity. And the reason that I say that is because I recognize that the Book of Mormon has a lot of value, utility, depth to people. There's I'm not speaking to any of those questions. I I'm really trying to examine whether the Book of Mormon's historical claims hold up. Um, one reason I called this the other Isaiah problem is because folks that are familiar with Mormon studies and studies of the Book of Mormon are going to know that there is a problem with Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. Um, meaning the dudero Isaiah problem. So basically biblical scholarship indicates that there were not just one there was not just one author of Isaiah there were actually three authors of Isaiah. Um so there was dudero Isaiah written by the second author of Isaiah and Trido Isaiah written by the third author of Isaiah. The >> was Isaiah any of those authors by the way? >> Well we don't really know Isaiah was written by three authors none of them named Isaiah. That's very likely the case. Um the issue for the Book of Mormon containing Dutero Isaiah in a very brief snapshot is that Duter Isaiah would not have been written at the time that the Book of Mormon takes place. And so it it after Lehi and his family left Jerusalem. Right. >> Correct. Because it was written after the exile in 587. And so it should not exist in the Book of Mormon because they left before the exile. That's >> it wouldn't have gone on the brass plates that Nei got from Lebanon. >> Exactly. The other thing I'm not going to address is um aside from just mention that it kind of inspired me to look at this further is Kobe Townsen recently the much better KBY did a uh did a piece recently on looking at the use of Adam Clark's Bible commentary in the Book of Mormon. So he was expanding on work done by Tom Wement looking at the use of the Adam Clark Bible commentary in the Joseph Smith translation. And so I'm only just saying that's basically looking at that piece that Kobe Townsen wrote um earlier this year is basically what inspired me to look at this issue a little bit further. But as far as I know, no one's actually looked at this this particular issue. So luckily, John, I don't know that your memory even if even if you had heard this before, I don't think you would have had an opportunity to hear this before, I guess, is what I'm saying. And so here's really the overall claim we'll look at today. If the Book of Mormon were historical, we would expect to see certain pieces of evidence. So, this is an attempt to analyze whether the Book of Mormon matches by examining whether its claims about its world are likely historically true. And so, while it is true that absence of evidence is not conclusive evidence of absence, the absence of evidence where it's expected, where we're expecting to find evidence can be strong evidence that we need to consider. Um, I have this snapshot from an episode I did with Radio Free Mormon on his channel. Um, do linguist linguistics prove the Book of Mormon true? That's kind of what started my fascination with looking at the Book of Mormon in this way and really trying to measure whether its historical claims hold up. So, if people want a Lord of the Rings extended version length podcast, uh, they can go listen to that, I guess. >> Wait, wait, RFM's doing longer episodes of the Mormon stories these days. >> Only when he invites me. I guess that's the problem. Am I the only one whose episodes are getting shorter as I go? >> Yes. >> My last few have been like four or five minutes. >> Yes, you are. You are. >> Julia, if you'll move to the next slide. I think we've got our our timeline. So, we'll come back to this timeline a few times because there's a lot of information here. But here's basically what we're going to look at. So, I'm going to start on the right hand side of this timeline. We're going to be looking at the Book of Mormon, right? So, in 1829 is when the Book of Mormon is translated. In 1611 is when the King James version of the Bible is translated and assembled. And the King James version draws from several different um predecessor texts. One of those is the Maseratic text. The Maseratic text was put together in 1009 CE. And the the most um complete copy of that was the Lengrab codeex. And so what we're going to look at is we're going to look at the versions of Isaiah that are in the Book of Mormon and compare them to the the King James version of the Bible, the Maseratic text, and then we're going to look at a text that predates either of those, an early version of Isaiah called the Great Isaiah Scroll that was found as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And the reason we're going to look at that people can see the the next step to the left is because in 600 BC when the Book of Mormon records that Lei Lehi and Nephi leave Jerusalem with the brass plates, there are certain things on those brass plates. And we'll we'll talk about that in more detail in just a moment. But the idea here is that if the Book of Mormon is containing versions of Isaiah that were supposedly contained on the brass plates, what would we expect these brass plates to most resemble? I'm not going to claim that it should be an exact match, but we should expect that the brass plates version of Isaiah should more closely match this 125 BC version of the >> earlier the the earlier the better. >> Exactly. And so that's what we're going to examine basically in detail is as we look at the Book of Mormon's Isaiah chapters, which do they most carefully match or most closely match? Do they match the Great Isaiah scroll, which is what we would expect if the Book of Mormon's historical claims were true? Do they match the Maseratic text version from a thousand years later or do they most closely match the King James version of the Bible from 500 years after that >> which Joseph had in his possession at the time? >> Exactly. >> Um, really quickly, do we know when the great Isaiah scroll was found? >> 1947. >> Okay. >> Mhm. All right. >> And we we'll cover that in more depth also. >> Okay. Cool. Cool. >> Okay. If we can move to the next one. Before we talk about the details of all of these pieces, it's important to remind people, especially for the Never Mormon audience, um, a brief explanation about the Book of Mormon. Basically, what the Book of Mormon is. So, this actually is in current Book of this comes from the church itself in current Book of Mormon's books of Mormon. I know there's a joke there. Um, and this this is titled a brief explanation about the Book of Mormon. So, this is right in Book of Mormons today. Um, it says, "The Book of Mormon is a sacred record of peoples in ancient America and was engraved upon metal plates. Sources from which this record were compiled include the following." And then it's got the plates of Nephi with a longer explanation, the plates of Mormon with a longer explanation, the plates of ether, and then the plates of brass. These are the brass plates that were on the previous slide. Nemo, would you mind reading that description of the brass plates? >> The plates of brass brought by the people of Lehi from Jerusalem in 600 BC. These contain the five books of Moses and also a record of the Jews from the beginning down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, and also the prophecies of the holy prophets. Many quotations from these plates citing Isaiah and other biblical and non-biblical prophets appear in the Book of Mormon. Okay, thanks Nemo. And I think what that helps show is basically there were different plates involved in the Book of Mormon. We've got the plates of Nephi that basically um contain the books of first and second Nephi in Book of in the Book of Mormon today. The plates of Mormon where he basically abridged the rest of the record and tells the rest of the story aside from the story of the Geredites which is in the Book of Ether. The plates of brass then as it says here at the bottom have quotations that are used um mostly through first and second Nephi, but they come supposedly from these plates of brass that existed in 600 BC. And I think we've got more detail on this in the next couple slides as well. So this comes again from the scriptures today. There's a guide to the scriptures that the church puts out um that gives another description of the brass plates. Julia, do you want to read this one? >> Yes. And this you said comes from the church itself. >> Correct. >> Okay. A record of the Jews from the beginning to 600 BC containing many writings of the prophets. This record was kept by Laban, one of the Jewish elders in Jerusalem. While Lehi and his family were in the wilderness, Lehi sent his sons back to Jerusalem to obtain this record. >> Mhm. And it's got a quotation there that I wanted to look at. So, in 1 Nephi 5, this is where it actually talks about it in the Book of Mormon. So, this is right from the Book of Mormon. 1 Nephi 5:1 and13 it says and after they had given thanks unto the God of Israel my father Lehi took the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass and he did search them from the beginning and he beheld that they did contain the five books of Moses which gave an account of the creation of the world and also of Adam and Eve who were our first parents and also the prophecies of the holy prophets from the beginning even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah and also many prophecies have which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah. Jeremiah is a book that comes after Isaiah. So what this is really clearly showing here is two things. The first is that the brass plates or at least in the Book of Mormon's view, the brass plates are like a literal thing that existed that contained the books of basically starting at the Book of Genesis until the the uh Book of Jeremiah, parts of the Book of Jeremiah. The first obvious problem there is that this idea that like a protobible like this existed um it just simply didn't. And we'll look at the church itself actually says this in its Bible dictionary here in just a minute. The second thing is that it's telling us it's telling us very directly in the Book of Mormon what the brass plates contained. And so we know that when we're looking at these comparisons later that this is the claim that the Book of Mormon makes about itself that it contained this early version of Isaiah that would have existed in 600 BC. Colobby, if I could just jump in and Nemo and Julia, please also uh add one of the reasons why we encourage people to start the LDS discussion series from the beginning is because e even at this five six slides in, we've already mentioned some things that we have entire episodes addressing. So, for example, um we're going to be talking about the problem with this idea of brass plates and a proto Bible and Isaiah, but past episodes talk about the fact that the earth isn't 6,000 years old, as the Doctrine of Covenants says, that Adam and Eve weren't the first humans, as you know, LDS church leaders have taught, that the Tower of Babel never happened, that the global flood never happened. Um, and so we've already addressed several problems that uh, in addition to the fact that this whole narrative in the Book of Mormon about large plates and small plates and religious records and war records is an outgrowth, if I remember right, of Martin Harris losing the 116 pages, Joseph Smith having to like pivot and replace the 116 pages, but then explain why what he ends up ends up producing in the 116 pages. is was maybe not consistent with what he ends up writing from what Mo Mosiah on and um and and why it turns religious versus a secular history like we've covered many many episodes that address many of the problems that we've just kind of gleaned over is is that and Nemo and and others please feel free to be more articulate about what I just said. >> Yeah. No, that's great. like when as you're reading this Colby I was thinking if if I was going to write a book and trying to fill it up quickly it's easiest to do that by basing off of something else and so at the beginning of the Book of Mormon he's just quoting a lot from the Bible and then at the end he you have the the character of Christ coming in and he's saying a lot of things that he says in the New Testament and so it's just easy content for Joseph to just kind of fill in to fill up the space of of the what 500 pages of the Book of Mormon. So I was just thinking like this is very convenient for Joseph to have this be here in the text >> and also from his perspective this book is a book that he's creating to kind of draw people in to this religious movement. What's going to make it sound more authoritative is one the use of King James language and two appeals to the Old Testament appeals to biblically authoritative text at the time. Right? So saying that okay these records that the people in my book had access to means that they were they were drinking from the right water. Right? they were they were drawing from the Old Testament just like Christ did, just like later uh biblical participants did. It places them within the Christian world by having the five books of Moses and things like that in >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And it also legitimizes the claim that they were ancient Jews as right is this idea as well that you know, okay, they've got the books of the Torah in their records and that's again trying to lend more authority there. >> Right. I think the other um earlier LDS discussions um episode that comes to mind for me too, John, is tight versus loose translation. I know Mike did a really good examination of that. And I think this goes hand inhand with that in the sense that you can look at the fact that the Book of like while apologists today want to claim that the Book of Mormon can still be true while being a looser conceptual translation. If you look at what the Book of Mormon is actually saying about itself and what its author is saying, it is very clearly only contemplating this as like literal records that are being engraved upon brass plates. And I think that part is very important because we're going to analyze that claim basically in depth like is that what we see when we look at these earlier versions of Isaiah compared to what's in the Book of Mormon. So I think that literality of the translation project or transcription project, whatever you want to call it, I think that's another important thing here to understand that this was always contemplated by Joseph and the scribes as a tight translation. Um, and I think that's really important to keep in mind also. >> Yeah. Yeah, because a lot of the arguments against this that we'll come to later on are rebutted by the fact that the tight translation model is the one that Joseph professed to and all the other witnesses did too. >> Right? So this this next slide just shows that in the LDS Bible dictionary. So the in your your quad or in your your set of scriptures um set of Mormon scriptures, there's a a part of it known as the LDS Bible dictionary which has a lot of good informative notes. You can look up by word and just understand more about the world of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. And when you look up the word codeex, which is what basically they're offering here is this protoible, what it's claiming that the uh brass plates would have been. I think it's very interesting to note that in the LDS Bible dictionary today, you have this. Julia, do you want to read this about codeex's? >> The whole thing or just the just the one part? >> I think the whole thing actually. >> Sure. A manuscript volume of ancient biblical text. A codex form of manuscript is somewhat like our present book style with the pages piled on one another and joined on one side generally with stitching. This is contrasted to a scroll in which the the sheets are joined side by side in a series making one long and continuous piece that is rolled from one end one or both ends. The codeex is much easier to use than it is a long scroll. The general conclusion among scholars is that the Hebrews did not use cotices until the second or third century AD. Thus, Old Testament thus Old Testament documents are scrolls although many New Testament documents are cotices. The gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated were in codeex form joined with three rings on one side. >> Yeah. Uh, and the point here I think is pretty obvious is we're talking about these brass plates that supposedly existed in 600 BC. And in the LDS Bible dictionary, you can see right there that the basic idea is that cotes like the technology of having a book in this form didn't exist until several hundred years after we would have needed it for the brass plate story to be true. And you can kind of see that they almost almost acknowledge this by talking about the gold plates from the which the Book of Mormon was translated um because those would also be a problem because the the gold plates started you know with Nephi and then with Mormon and Moroni um continued but they're also a problem for for not having this technology in the right time period. Isn't that interesting? Because the famous piece of church art that shows the gold plates being compiled shows a bunch of scrolls and then things being engraved. So they're taking this narrative and going right he would have gone from scrolls to this new codeex technology. But then in that all they have to do is saying the general consensus among scholars. That's the only wiggle room they're able to give themselves here is just say well not all scholars it's general consensus. It's the same to do with Egyptologists. They'll say most Egyptologists agree that to leave room for Kerry Mulestein who right is church broken so therefore not acting as an impartial Egyptologist in that matter. >> Um so yeah they tried to give themselves a little bit legal room but they've essentially admitted there that the technology of the brass plates wouldn't have existed at the time of the brass plates. >> Well and the gold plates too right. So is aren't aren't they just saying here that it's the brass plates and the gold plates are inacronistic? Is that what they're saying? >> That's exactly right. >> Church has admitted that. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. So the the very first problem basically we could we could actually end the episode here in the sense that the technology that is required for the story to be historical the church acknowledges did not exist in the time period it needed to exist for the story to be historical period. And and let's and let's put that in plain language like what I what I am wondering just to summarize is there any evidence that Jews in Israel in 600 BC were engraving on blast pl brass plates biblical books or passages? I I think the answer is no. Correct. Well, there were forms of decorative plates, and this is where apologists get really clever by arguing about things like the plates of Darius, but what you see in those types of plates isn't what we're talking about here. They weren't recordeping engravings on plates. They were like decorative almost like something like a knick-knack or something that we would put on >> poetry or something visual like the equivalent of what you'd hang on a wall, a quote or or something or or images. this idea of like books and then chapters and then verses. There's no record of that ever happening on brass plates by Israelis 600 years before Jesus is born. Is that right? And I I do think Mike I do think Mike has done episodes on this with you where he talks about these silver scrolls or the Darius scrolls or things like that. And he talks about the amount of text that was on them versus the amount of text that would have had to existed on the gold plates and how that's it doesn't fit. >> And the Darius plates weren't a codeex. They were a set of plates with inscriptions on them. But they weren't bound like a book like a codeex. >> Right. So >> decorative plates. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, the idea of books with chapters and verses, that wasn't a thing. >> Binding down the spine. It's it's that idea of binding things down the spine and having leaves that you turn. That's a technology that wasn't being done. >> Exactly. >> And we're calling that a technology, but it's not like AI. I mean, we're talking about ancient, >> you know, the wheel is technology, right? >> Right. Yeah. Books with with B books with pages with with some type of spine or or binding did not exist 600 years before Christ. Certainly not in brass plate form. >> Right. Right. So this so this next slide that we have is actually a clip that I pulled from David Bakavoy where he's discussing the same exact thing and I felt it was worth sharing here because he is a Bible scholar and he studied this and so if we we can just show that clip to you. All right, let's do it. >> So, Isaiah is a book. Well, let's let's talk about what that means for a second. Isaiah isn't a book. Isaiah is a scroll, right? There was no such thing as a book in the ancient near east. Um, at the time of Isaiah, uh, sacred text or others were put were put on scrolls. And I think that's kind of important. It actually ties into one of the anacronisms in the Book of Mormon. the idea that there would have been brass plates that existed as a type of book where all of these scrolls would have been brought together like the contemporary Bible. um >> like that layman would have these brass blades with the words of Isaiah and the words of >> Yeah. not only a book but then brought together and organized into that fashion and translated from Hebrew into or into an Egyptian script um is just it just it it just doesn't work. >> The idea of brass plates is anacronistic. Well, the idea of a compilation of all these books like starting with Moses and then ending with Isaiah, >> the idea of several books compiled into a central text on plates >> in book form. That idea in and of itself is just totally >> books are a medieval creation >> meaning 1500 what 1300. >> Yeah. So it well I I don't know exactly what we should off the top of my head but it is mediev they're medieval creation but it's >> and for those who don't know what that means that's what 1200 >> yeah somewhere along yeah it's very late now in Joseph Smith's day the Bible is viewed as a book in fact the word Bible itself means you know books it is a book where we've taken and brought everything together and in fact many readers today look at the Bible as if it's one unified source but it is a compilation of diverse material written over a long period of time. So, for example, the books of the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament were written over a thousand-year period. So, the earliest parts the earliest sections of text in the Hebrew Bible date to about oh, you know, 1,200 B.CE or so. And then the most recent parts of that about 200. So, more or less a thousand-year period that that material had been developed for the Old Testament. >> And I just wanted to add with that. So I think you said the Isaiah scroll was 125 BC. >> Correct. >> Right. Okay. I I wasn't sure if he was including that in there. I don't when he said about 200. So So even later. >> And I just want to tell viewers and listeners my episodes of David Bakavoy are for sure some of the most important episodes I've ever done on Mormon Stories. Uh so please check check those out if you're looking for really important uh Mormon stories classic interviews. All right. Go ahead, Colobby. Yeah, I think that was a great inclusion, Julia. I like that clip a lot because it helps really drive a point on this anac this original anacronistic problem. But we're going to just set that aside for a second and continue saying, okay, we're going to pretend like that's not an anacronism. Let's continue on with what the book claims about itself. So in second Nephi 11, so the second book of the Book of Mormon, we have Nephi talking about this. This is again to make the point that he is incorporating this brass plates um part into his narrative as a literal thing where he's writing the literal words of Isaiah from the brass plates into the Book of Mormon. And he even gives the reason why. John, do you want to read this from 2 Nephi 11? Quote, "And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah, for my soul delightth in his words, for I will liken his words unto my people, and I will send them forth unto all my children, for he verily saw my redeemer, even as I have seen him." >> Yeah. And so you can see with him talking about writing the words of Isaiah. Again, the point here is that if apologists want to shift to this looser conceptual translation, you really can't do that with these chapters that we're looking at with the Book of Mormon having these Isaiah quotes in it because Nephi is talking about writing these words directly. Right? So these this is all contemplating literal literally him what's depicted in this adorable claimation to the right. him literally sitting there and recording the the words from one one set of plates to the other set of plates because he sees so much value in the words of Isaiah. >> Yeah. So you have Nephi saying these are exact and then you have Joseph and all the all the witnesses saying this is exact. And so there shouldn't be any variation or very little variation between all the texts. >> Exactly. And so the vers the verses of Isaiah that are in the Book of Mormon um to do my analysis, I borrowed from this um table of direct quotations of the Book of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon that were compiled by I think he's now deceased, but LDS apologist Jack Welch. And so this just shows the verses that I looked at and analyzed. You can see basically it starts at Isaiah chapter 2. That's the first chapter that we'll look at. And then it skips down to Isaiah chapter 11 and incorporates um quotes from um Isaiah 52, 53, 54. We'll show the entire table of what we we looked at here in just a minute. >> So I want to ask though too cuz I think Deuter is is it 45 to 55 or something like that. It's in the 40s. >> I think it starts at 41. Yeah, >> 41. So you can see a lot of them on the side, this little picture, this little chart. You can see that a lot of this is due to Isaiah, but I think the examples that you're about to show don't come from Deuteria. Is that correct? >> Um, some of them do cuz I have some quotes from 48 and some from 53. So, >> Okay. Okay. >> Yep. So, this is an introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Great Isaiah Scroll in uh particular because that's the scroll we're going to look at. So, this information comes directly from the digital Dead Sea Scrolls Museum um in Jerusalem. So this this comes from their landing page where they talk about the great Isaiah scroll that they have in their possession today. So the great Isaiah scroll which is known as 1 Q Isaiah A is one of the original seven dead sea scrolls that was discovered in Kuman in 1947. It is the largest and best preserved of all the biblical scrolls and the only one that is almost complete. It's 24 ft long just for context for people to understand. That's how long this scroll is. So, it has 54 columns that contain all 66 chapters of the Hebrew version of the biblical book of Isaiah. And it dates back to 125 BC. Julia, you asked about that a second ago. What that means is that that is one of the oldest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And it advanced our knowledge of what Isaiah um looked like back a thousand years. So, it's set it it's earlier than the previous earliest manuscript by a thousand years. And so um it helped us understand what this earlier version of Isaiah would have looked like. And I think this continues onto the next slide. Julia, if you'll advance says, "So at the same time, the 2,000-year-old scroll contains alternative spellings, scribal errors, corrections, and most fundamentally many variant readings. Strictly speaking, the number of textual variants." So when it's talking about textual variance here, it's saying if we look at that that version from 109 in the Leningrad CEX, the Maseratic text version, and then we look at this earlier version, there are 2600 variants between the two. Okay? Sometimes those variants range from a single letter, sometimes one or more words to complete variant verse or verses. And so those variants are what we're looking at today. Because if there's differences between this early version of Isaiah and a later version of Isaiah, again, if we keep our timeline slide in mind, what we should see is that the verses in the Book of Mormon that are quoting from Isaiah should more closely match this early version of Isaiah than it should the later version of Isaiah. And that's what I have here in red. Um, because of that, this great Isaiah scroll discovery in 1947 gives us a rare example to make a falsifiable prediction about Book of Mormon historicity. And I really sum it up this way. If the Book of Mormon's brass plates story were true, we would expect to see the Book of Mormon's Isaiah verses agree more with the Great Isaiah scroll than the Maseratic text version or the King James version when we have these variants between the two. >> Yeah. Because can I can I just drill into something there real quick? >> Of course. >> Is that languages are a living thing and they change and they evolve over time. Look at the way the English language has changed just in the past, you know, hundred years or so. The way we speak is different now. And what you've got here is a difference between the writings of of Isaiah over a thousand years. So there's going to be differences. What they give us a glimpse into is something far more contemporary. Even though they're a couple of hundred years away from the time at which the Isaiah that was written onto the brass plates was written, it's far more contemporary than a thousand years away. >> I think that's really key is how close they actually are because of the way language changes. So there would be key indicators there, >> right? And especially when we're looking at religious narratives. So everything you said is absolutely accurate, Nemo. We do see natural evolution in language. But the other thing we see with religious narratives in particular is we see the narratives get added to and changed over time by scribes, maybe potentially unintentionally. Um, but the the bottom line is um when we're looking at these uh two different versions of this text, we should expect to see, especially when we're dealing with like the variant verse or verses, right? Like later added verses that we know shouldn't exist. They shouldn't be in the Book of Mormon's version if they were added after the Book of Mormon supposedly drew from this grass plates narrative. So, those are our most most compelling examples and are kind of separate from the natural evolution of language, although that's interesting also. Yep. So, this is just again introducing people to the Maseretic text if they're not familiar with what the Maseretic text is. It was an authoritative and Aramaic uh authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible. And the oldest known copy the Leningrad codex dates to a 109 B I'm sorry CE. And so what we're looking at is the Maseratic text most often but not always is what then makes it into the King James version of the Bible. So sometimes the Mazer Maseretic text version was relied on, sometimes the Septuagant was. That's a little bit more complicated kind of like history of where the Bible comes from. But the bottom line is here when we're doing our comparison, I was doing the comparison to the great Isaiah scroll and then to the Maseratic text version also >> because that's what the KJV draws from. >> Correct. At least in part, not not entirely, but I'll I'll note when the two diverge. Maseratic text versus King James version. And so the Maseretic text comes from a group of of Jews known as the Maserites. And that's basically why it comes out of this this time period much later in about a th00and AD. >> Can we move to the next? >> Yeah, this is important to to note as well that 1440 was the invention of the printing press. So up until this point, religious texts were copied by scholars >> and and and still in some traditions of Islam today um and traditions of Judaism, I think handcopied scripture is still in use. There were people that will handcopy the Torah out. >> There are people that will handcopy the Quran out >> uh as a traditional thing. >> Wow. >> Interesting. >> That's how these texts were then reproduced and passed along because the printed press hadn't been invented. >> H So this timeline again is just for people to keep in mind as we move through these examples, right? We have Isaiah actually doing his ministry supposedly in 740 BC if a real person named Isaiah existed to go back to John's question about different version or different potential authors for Isaiah. But in 740 BC is when Isaiah's ministry begins. Then we've got the brass plates. So we should have the most close version in the in the Book of Mormon. That's what we should find is that version should be the closest to what Isaiah actually wrote. Right after that, then we have the Great Isaiah scroll. But again, that's what we're looking at. Should do we see that the brass plates version of Isaiah matches the great Isaiah scroll or do we see it matching the versions that Joseph Smith would have had available to him in the King James version and the Maseratic text? >> Yeah. >> So, with all of that framing, now I think we're ready to look at our highle conclusions. Um, I think that framing is important though to help people contextualize cuz I know there's a lot of different moving pieces to this. But we're going to look at this analysis in a second, but I want to share the highle conclusions first. So I compared all of the Book of Mormons Isaiah passages against these comparisons that we've talked about, the King James version, the Maseratic text version, and the great Isaiah scroll version of Isaiah. And what we see is that almost always the Book of Mormon aligns word for word with the King James version of the Bible which would have been available to Joseph Smith or the Maseratic text version of Isaiah which was again from a th000 AD including late medieval editions, translation quirks and even Latin loan words. That's important because a Jew in 600 BC would not have had access to Latin at all. And so these Book of Mormon's Isaiah passages show no substantive agreement with any unique reading from the great Isaiah scroll. There are five very very small examples that we'll look at from an LDS apologist um that they claim those and we'll just see how compelling people think those few examples are versus the rest of what we'll look at. What this demonstrates is that the Book of Mormon reflects a 17th century English Bible, not a pre-exelic Hebrew source of Isaiah, which contradicts its claim to preserve Isaiah as it existed around 600 BC. So those are the highle conclusions. If anyone has any thoughts or questions before we move to the methodology, um those that's basically the takeaway. So, I've illustrated Nephi here kind of disappearing because this is one of the interesting things about looking at the Book of Mormon this way is and and this is where I want to keep going with this series is as we look at things like this in the Book of Mormon where the Book of Mormon makes claims about itself. The reason I have Nephi disappearing like he just got Thanos snapped is because if the Book of Mormon's claims about the way the Book of Mormon was written and compiled are not literally historically true, the Book of Mormon cannot exist. It's it's almost like the Back to the Future problem, right? If the books recording things about itself and its own existence that aren't true, aren't literally historically accurate, the book itself can't exist. And that's why this is, I think, the way I'm looking at the book going forward. So, as I said, methodology, I compared each Isaiah chapter that's quoted in the Book of Mormon, starting at Isaiah 2 and moving through with some uh with some exceptions to verse or chapter 54 against the Great Isaiah scroll version, the Maseratic text version, and the King James version. And I noted every single variant with uh the same type of notation. And then I compared this version against the 1830s Book of Mormon text. So that's another I think important part of this is I used the original version of the Book of Mormon, not the um the current version of the Book of Mormon because they have been thousands and thousands of changes to the Book of Mormon. Many of them very small. Apologists are right when they say that, but there have been many many changes to the Book of Mormon over time. So the idea here again is we're seeing whether the Book of Mormon reflects any of these unique Great Isaiah scroll variants. Then new to our version of this, looking at this idea, I also reviewed whether Joseph Smith introduced changes to these same chapters of Isaiah in his Joseph Smith translation of the Bible. And this comes from an introduction to what the Joseph Smith translation is uh from I believe I pulled this from the Joseph Smith papers. Julia, would you mind reading this introduction and I'll I'll probably remember where I pulled it from. >> Um, so the very bottom where it says in June. >> Yep. Just that bottom paragraph. >> Sure. In June of 1830, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cry began recording a revelation related to Moses and other prominent Old Testament figures. Over the next 3 years, this work expanded into what is now designated the Book of Moses and a complete revelatory rereading of the Bible and an endeavor that came to be known as the Joseph Smith's New Translation or Bible Revision. >> Yeah. And I did pull this from the actual manuscript of those changes being made from the Joseph Smith papers. Now that I see that JS, that's the way they always designate Joseph Smith at the Joseph Smith papers. Um, so the important part here is again The reason Joseph Smith is doing the Joseph Smith translation is supposedly to restore these lost plain and precious parts to revert the Bible back to its original state. And so now we're adding that comparison as well as we look at each of these >> variants >> because what's the article of faith? We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. So the idea is that the Bible is right so far as it's been translated correctly. So that gives Joseph Smith an in to say, well, I need to do some new translation or a revision of it. And that puts paid to an apologetic that I kind of raised with you when we were going over these slides the other day. I don't know whether it's a good time to bring it up now, >> but the idea that okay, >> Nephi did preserve the words of Isaiah, but the reason that they more closely match the King James version is because God chose to reveal to Joseph Smith in the hat on the stone words that resemble the King James version choices for the quotations of Isaiah because that's more familiar or that's a more correct translation because that's God's preferred translation. The problem with that idea is that then why is Joseph Smith going through the Bible and going, "No, this isn't right. We need to get revelatory uh insight to make the Bible more correct. That wouldn't then match up. >> I also have a question. >> Wait, so so Joseph >> So Joseph Smith is using to translate the gold plates. He's using the stone in the hat, this brown um eggshaped sear stone. >> Um here in 1830, I still think he has this brown sear stone. Um I think his mom has it in the 1840s um according to other viewers um or people in contemporaneous to Joseph. But is Joseph using how is Joseph translating the Bible? Is he just is it just coming into his head? Is he using the stone? Do we know? Like I don't even know if I know that process fully. >> I don't I don't know that I know fully whether the sear stones were involved in the Joseph Smith translation. I actually would have to look at that Julia. It's a great question. I think no matter what mechanism he used, the bottom line is that Joseph Smith claimed this was a revelatory experience where he's restoring the Bible back to its original state. So to to Nemo's um apologetic kind of argument, I think the problem with that apologetic argument, the reason I just think that's kind of ridiculous is what that would require is basically that God is tell God God is somehow giving Joseph Smith the idea that he's restoring the Bible back to its original version. But that's not actually what he's doing. He's basically adding to it, expanding upon it, using it as a catalyst, whatever you want to say with those kind of looser conceptual translation ideas. So the real question is like why is God punking Joseph Smith? Like why is he making >> a more correct version in the older great Isaiah scroll? >> Why is he making him think that he's restoring it back to its original state when that's not what God is doing? That that to me is why I would say that apologetic is doesn't work is >> and that's because JST stuff doesn't align with the great Isaiah scroll. Right. >> Exactly. And nor does the Book of Mormon version. So those are what we're going to compare to. We're going to look at this great Isaiah scroll version. Treat that as our earliest text. Uh because it is. And so we'll basically see does the Book of Mormons Isaiah version most closely match Great Isaiah scroll, Maseratic text version, King James version, or the Joseph Smith translation. So we've got a lot of different comparisons here where Joseph can vindicate himself. And I've got unfortunate news for you. It doesn't go very well for for uh Brother Joseph. >> But shouldn't we be giving Brother Joseph a break? Is that not >> I really tried. >> Let's see. Let's see the evidence. >> I really try. >> I'm skeptical, Colobby. I'm skeptical. Well, I want to see the evidence. >> Perfect. Well, you you're just I've got just the collection for you here. So, as far as methodology goes, here's where I pulled the different versions of the translation of Isaiah. I pulled this again from our digital Dead Sea Scrolls um exhibit at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. You can see here this page where you can do this exact same analysis yourself by pulling these English translations of the book of Isaiah. On the left, you can see the great Isaiah scroll version. And on the right, you can see the Maseretic text version. So, that's what I pulled to start this analysis, then adding in the Book of Mormon, the King James version, and the Joseph Smith translation as I continued on through the project. >> And I just want to point out because this Isaiah scroll, it can be translated by others. This one is translated by Professor Peter W. Flint and Professor Eugene Olrich. And so, I just wanted to point that too because I guess there's there's probably other ones, too. But, yeah. >> Yep. >> The listeners. Yeah. >> So, in every single one of these slides, the great Isaiah scroll version is going to be on the left. The Maseratic text version is going to be on the right. And then we're going to basically point out the differences between the two. Actually, if you'll go to the next slide, Julia, then it's got the arrows that kind of show the differences here on this one. So, the first variant that I came across was in Isaiah chapter 2. And this one was very interesting, exciting for me. John, to your point of we need to see the evidence, one of the things I saw in this one when I started looking at it is this was the first one I said, "Oh my gosh, I found one where Joseph Smith got it right." Now, is it a very small variant? One that's just basically a synonym. Yep. And then this is why I added the King James version because you can't only compare to the Maseratic text version because sometimes the King James version and the Maseratic text version disagree. So in Isaiah 2:1, the great Isaiah scroll version um recapitulates that or has that translated as the word that Isaiah son of Amos saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In the Maseretic text version, that word saw is changed to prophesied. So in my view, that's very small. Those are more or less synonyms, right? We're dealing with saw versus prophesied. However, the King James version and the Book of Mormon both have it translated as saw rather than prophesied. And so, this is one I was super excited like, "Wow, I found a hit for Joseph Smith until I went and looked at the the King James version and saw, oh wait, the King James version has Saw." Well, he just followed the King James version. >> And then again, if there's any um Joseph Smith translation changes, those will be indicated on the slides as well. >> Correct. So there was no okay so that was the >> there are there are um versions of or there are changes that Jose Smith makes to chapter 2 but I'll because this is also in chapter 2 I'll talk about it kind of at the end of chapter 2. So now that example very small, right? We've got a saw versus a prophesied. This is one of the most interesting ones. In Isaiah chapter 2, the great Isaiah scroll version. There is a back half of verse 9 that's included in the Maseratic text version and the King James version that isn't present in the great Isaiah scroll version. So Isaiah 2:9 in the great Isaiah scroll version reads, "But humanity will be humbled and a mortal brought low. Then there is no verse 10." And then it continues with verse 11, what what we would know as verse 11 in Isaiah chapter 2. The Maseratic text version adds another sentence onto verse 9 saying, "Oh, do not forgive them." And then has an entire verse that's that's missing from the great Isaiah scroll version. Go deep into the rock, bury yourselves in the ground before the terror of the Lord and his dread majesty. So, what we're seeing here is that the Maseratic text version adds half of verse 9 that doesn't exist in the great Isaiah scroll version, meaning that it's almost certainly a later scribal edition because it's not present in an earlier version. Adds all of verse 10. And so, what this gives us is an incredible piece of evidence to test this hypothesis, right? Because if this verse, this verse and a half is absent from our earlier version, we should expect it to be absent from the version that's captured in the Book of Mormon because of the way time works again, right? And so the experts who helped translate this explain why they believe um this this verse in particular was a later scribal creation, a feel advanced forward one, Julia. So they note many of the variants um that show the development of the book of Isaiah over time and represent scribal errors unique to this particular scroll. Again, great Isaiah scrolls 1 Q Isaiah A. So these professors argue the absence of the second half of verse 9 and all of verse 10 in chapter 2 of 1Q Isaiah A indicates that these are slightly later additions. Now, aside from just by operation of the way time works, the other reason these professors are convinced of this is because the same scroll in Kuman where they found the great Isaiah scroll had other versions of Isaiah 1 Q Isaiah B that did have the second half of verse 9 and all of verse 10 but from a much later time period. And so what they're seeing is well whoever compiled this library of scrolls in that original cave, they were able to see the differences between those versions and allow both of them to live. Basically, they looked at the Bible or they looked at these records, I guess, different than many contemporary Christians look at the Bible today, like it's the un infallible perfect word of God. They were able to live in this tension between these two different versions and get value out of both of them. And then I think on the next slide, we actually look at the Joseph Smith translation. Before we did though, I had a more of an introduction on the uh Joseph Smith translation and I pulled this directly from um Scripture Central and I think this is really interesting and kind of goes back to our comments earlier, Nemo, about you know heading off that potential apologetic argument. Do you want to read this summary of what the great Isaiah or I'm sorry what the Joseph Smith translation is? >> Yeah, I'll read that. Um Scripture Central Essentials was our friend Jasmine, right? Or it was >> was recently I think she left it. Yeah. Okay. While the Book of Mormon was being printed, Joseph Smith and his associates began plans to complete a translation of the Bible intended to correct many of the errors that had crept into the text and restore many of the plain and precious truths lost. On October the 8th, 1829, Oliver Couch purchased a large King James Bible from the Grand Press, the same press where the Book of Mormon was printed. Intensive study of this Bible led to the creation of the Joseph Smith translation, parts of which are found in scripture as the Book of Moses, as Joseph Smith Matthew, and in hundreds of JST footnotes in Latterday Saints editions of the Bible. The Joseph Smith translation is not a translation in the traditional sense, cuz they love to change what translation means, don't they? Um, one very well-informed scholar, Kent Jackson, described the translation as recasting the text into a new form by means of inspiration from the Holy Spirit. Although Joseph Smith did eventually study a little Hebrew and owned and used a Greek dictionary. Um, have we ever talked about the Greeks? Because we should, um, his translation did not consist of taking ancient Hebrew or Greek texts and rendering them into modern English. Instead, >> which is what we call translation >> indeed. That's what translation looks like. Instead, his special version of trans. No, his translation resulted from receiving inspiration while conducting an intensive and wordby word study of the Bible. Its teachers perspective laws, ordinances, personalities, and eternal potentialities. Exactly, John. It's not translation with changes implemented to restore the original intent of the writers to make the text more understandable to modern readers. H. And again, they were citing Kent Jackson for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. >> Don't don't don't tell me was is Kent Jackson a BYU employee by chance? >> Oh, no. John John, he's very well informed is what he is. I don't know exactly what those credentials are, but he's very well informed. >> Yeah, he's a professor at BYU. >> He's a professor. >> Surprise. >> Surprise. >> Yep. You nailed it. So, so here's the really interesting thing with that framing then of what uh believing people say about the Joseph Smith translation. The real interesting thing is when you look at the actual Joseph Smith um papers manuscript of the Joseph Smith translation, what do we find? We find Joseph Smith making changes to this verse 10, which again didn't exist in the earliest version of Isaiah. Right? So, here's a huge problem because Jose Smith is supposedly receiving this revelatory experience to correct this back to the intent of the original authors. This verse, this verse doesn't exist in the mouth of the original author at all. And yet, Joseph Smith is making modifications to it in his Joseph Smith translation. So, what he would have been >> without providing attribution without providing attribution to Adam Clark, by the way, >> without providing attribution. That's absolutely right. So, He he he captures it and adds the words, "And his majesty shall smite thee." A sentence which isn't there at all. And like you said, John, as we look at the Adam Clark's Bible commentary, you can see this right here in that same verse. He adds, "When he ariseth to strike the earth with terror on the authority of the Septuagant, confirmed by the Arabic and an ancient manuscript, I have added here to the text a line which in the 19th and 21st verses is repeated together with the preceding line and has, I think, evidently been omitted by mistake in this place." Now, is it an exact match saying exactly to strike the earth with terror? No. But you can see that Joseph Smith adds this idea that again, this entire verse shouldn't exist in the original. Right? If Joseph Smith is capturing the original, what he should have done is said verse 10 should not exist. But he didn't. Instead, he added this idea of smiting, which we see reflected in Adam Clark's Bible commentary, which we know that Joseph Smith had access to. The other thing I think is a really interesting note is that as Joseph Smith, >> yeah, as he continues from verse 10 to verse 11 in the handwriting, he adds, "And it shall come to pass to the beginning of verse 11." Now, I'm not sure if people have read the Book of Mormon very uh very much, but there's a phrase that occurs more in the Book of Mormon than it does any other book I've ever read in my life, and it's the phrase, "And it shall come to pass." So, it's just interesting to note that Joseph Smith adds this unnecessary, extraneous, not in the earliest manuscripts, and it shall come to pass to verse 11 that also shouldn't be added if he's doing what he says he's doing. >> So, Adam Clark made an assumption. Joseph built on that assumption and added his own to a verse that didn't exist. >> Yes. Yeah. And that's a real >> providing attribution, >> right? Providing attribution. >> So, this this particular example to me is the very best one because we've got a missing verse. We've got Joseph Smith making changes to the missing verse rather than just deleting it in his supposedly inspired translation of the Bible. This is a real problem, I think, for for testing the historical claim of what Joseph Smith is doing. So, in the same way as about >> Go ahead, Nemo. John. >> No, go ahead. >> Okay. I was just going to say in the same way as about half an hour into this episode, we said we could end it here because the brass plates are anacronistic because they were a codeex and codeexes weren't a technology that was being used. We can now end this at about an hour in saying, "Right, so Joseph Smith in trying to restore the original intent of the authors of Isaiah didn't remove the verse that wasn't there in the earliest version of Isaiah that we have. And then not only that, he added to it without attributing the person from whom he was drawing the ideas. And we could just end it there and say, right, so not only should the breastplates have not existed, but the version of Isaiah that's in them wasn't properly restored by Joseph Smith and doesn't properly reflect the earliest version of Isaiah that we have that is contemporary to it. Is that about summing up where we are so far? >> That's perfect. Mhm. >> And another important tell uh that we've already kind of addressed is who does the church card out to explain this all away? Their own BYU professor Kent Jackson who's on the payroll who gets degrees in, you know, masters and PhDs, degrees in Neareastern studies. But clearly what his role and what BYU quote scholars role is to use their degrees to use their fancy language to make excuses um unscolarly noncredible non-consensusbased uh excuses to explain away problems as if to say these are not the droids you're looking for because I have a PhD and I come from a pretty good school and you don't need to worry about that stuff because translation doesn't really mean translation. Even though Joseph Smith thought he was translating, Joseph Smith didn't actually know what he was doing and instead you should trust Kent Jackson, a BYU professor on the church's payroll. Can >> I ask a question there, John? >> Yes. Has Has Joseph Smith ever actually undergone what we would call traditional translation in the JST, in the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, in the Kinderhook plates, in the Book of Abraham, any of those translation >> cuz he sure thought he was. >> No, I mean, he tried. There are times where he tried I I think the uh language for >> I think the Egyptian grammar and alphabet he's trying to do uh some translation. He tried to learn Hebrew in the school of the prophets. >> But it seems like any genuine attempt at translation gets scuttled and aborted. And that's why we we've covered a lot of this in past LDS discussions episodes. And by the way, in my multi- 20 plus series with John Turner, we've also covered this as well. Joseph was given by the Doctrine of Covenants by God allegedly the power to translate. It was prophet seere revelator and translator according to scripture according to Jesus's own mouth. Jesus could have used any word Jesus wanted to use. Jesus chose the word translator. And yet we have, I think to your point, Nemo, zero instances of Joseph ever correctly translating pretty much anything. >> Anything. >> Yes. Zero examples of him correctly doing it. And I think it's really important to also say, but that's what he thought he was doing. So the the classic example is when the Kinderhook plates fiasco happens, Joseph Smith runs and grabs the Egyptian alphabet and grammar or the grammar and alphabet of the Egyptian language and translates a single character using what he had established in the grammar and alphabet of the Egyptian language. So Joseph Smith very much thought he was doing actual translation. Like did he also think there was revelation involved? Yes. Uh I think that's that's also true. But he did absolutely think he was restoring these things back to their original state. And that's the reason I think it's important and I know it's kind of sarcastic, but that's why my question is if you believe if you believe that Joseph Smith was mistaken about what he was doing, yet you're still going to take what comes out the end of that process that he was mistaken about as scripture. My question is just like why is God punking Joseph Smith? Like why is he making him think that he's doing something that he's not doing? Couldn't God have just told like if God can tell Joseph Smith how many shares someone's entitled to for what amount of money in the Doctrine and Covenants and what dimensions temple need temples need to be. How in the world am I supposed to believe that he cannot communicate to Joseph Smith? Hey, hey, by the way, bro, you think you're doing translation, but you're not doing translation. I'm using this as a catalyst and a jumping off point for you to expand and build your own theology. That's what's really going on. But that's not what Joseph Smith thought he was doing. >> And by the way, >> claimed if people if people What's that emo >> I said or claimed to do. >> Yeah. And if people don't get why Joseph would make claims to translation over just claims to reveal stuff, it's because nobody's less people are going to be impressed in the early 19th century that you can just make stuff up. They're going to be a lot less impressed by just making stuff up than they're going to be impressed if you can claim to translate foreign, you know, ancient languages that no one else in the world can translate. Because if you could do the latter, if you actually have the power to translate things uh that no one else in the world can translate, well, then you've got godly power. Anybody can make stuff up. You know, only special people with godly power can translate multiple languages that are even unknown to the to anyone on earth allegedly. And so again, just like he claimed to have the power with the searstone of the hat to see underground to find buried treasure, he claimed to be able to translate ancient languages that no one else could translate. And that was part of what made him appealing or impressive to people. Right. The other piece I think that's really important too, I'm sorry, Julia, but the other part I think is really important is that like we were all we all grew up as Mormons, right? And so we're not told or we don't understand how Mormonism fits into that early American history because Mormonism is not the only sect of Christianity that was like a restorationist movement trying to restore Christianity to what it was originally. Right? The Campbellites were part of restorationism also and they predated Mormonism. And so, not only was it, like you just said, John, a claim to special authority, it's also special authority restoring back to this original version of Christianity or protoChristianity in the case of the pre-Christian Jews. Um, and so that's the other piece of this is it's also hooking into this religious narrative of restorationist movements generally. Julia, >> I just wanted to say like um even the early saints understood what John had said about like um people aren't just going to listen to you if you say you speak for God. They're going to listen more if you translate or if you have ancient records. You have James String who left the Mormon church, started his own church by claiming that he had plates and he had witnesses and I think even Martin Harris was one of them and he was able to like build up his own church because he understood that this is what will get people to follow him. So, if Joseph Smith had just said, "I'm just receiving revelation from my head, or God's just putting it in my in my heart, and my mind, and I'm writing it down." People aren't going to listen to that as much as they'll listen to his claims of translation. >> Mhm. Because anybody can just make stuff up, >> right? >> Yeah. Very good. Very good >> to the slides. Great. So, we'll continue on with a few more examples. This one comes from uh chapter 54, 2 Nephi 22 or I'm sorry, Third Nephi 22. So this one is interesting to me because for people who understand the overall narrative of the Book of Mormon in Third Nephi, which is much later than 1 and 2 Nephi, Third Nephi is actually where Jesus himself comes to the temple in Bountiful and gives a sermon including quoting directly from um verses of Isaiah as well as Malachi and telling the people that he wants them to have these records and that's why he's bringing them to them. So, this one is interesting to me because it's Isaiah 543 Nephi 22 supposedly the the words of Mormon Jesus requ. So, this is in 54 uh verse 17. The original the great Isaiah scroll version reads, "No weapon that is forged against you will be effective." This is the heritage of the Lord's servants and their righteousness from me, says the Lord. The Maseretic text version and then the King James version adds this uh sentence in the middle. And every tongue that contends with you at law you shall defeat. King James version is slightly different. And every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. But more or less synonyms, right? The the meaning isn't that different. Then I've got the Book of Mormon version here. It reads, "And every tongue that shall revile against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn." So again, that entire sentence missing from the great Isaiah scroll version. It's a later edition. So the Book of Mormon contains the sentence that's in the King James version of Isaiah, which is missing from our earlier manuscript. Julia, to your question earlier about dudero Isaiah. This is actually in dudero Isaiah, too. So we've got an additional problem. And the interesting thing about this one is that Joseph Smith also makes edits to the same chapter of Isaiah verses 10 and 15, but doesn't make any edits to this particular verse. But again, if he's supposedly studying this and receiving revelation while he's going through this verse byvere study of the Bible, it's interesting that God didn't tell Joseph Smith to strike out that sentence that shouldn't have been in the original >> because to be very clear, God would have known it wasn't in the original because he's omnisient. That's just, you know, just to be clear that yeah, >> one would presume. And and it just just to go back, it it just seems really clear that he's he's ripping this this sentence out from the King James Bible that he's got sitting on his table. Maybe he changes a word just like the high school student that plagiarizes something and maybe moves some words around or changes a word or maybe he just said the word wrong or misread the word and the scribe wrote the wrong word. But either way, it's just very clear he's he's plagiarizing from his King James Bible. And this is a this is a smoking gun like the previous one. There's if if if he is if he if he is reading from some Book of Mormon prophets, you know, transcribing of Laban's brass plates that had Isaiah's writings. They should not be reflecting the version of the King James Bible that Joseph conveniently has on his table. >> Yeah. And this this one is actually word for word with the King James version. So it's directly you're you're right. There are times where he modifies it by a word or two here or there. This one's word for word. And then >> well there's there's revile versus right. Right. >> Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. Yes. >> But I mean it's again he could have just mis said the word but otherwise >> it's the exact same sentiment. Yeah, exactly the same synonyms, right? It's the same concept, same concept. Um, >> but then we give Joseph Smith another chance, right? When he's finished with the Book of Mormon and then he's doing his Book of Mormon or his uh Joseph Smith translation of the Bible and has another chance, a same bite at the or a second bite at the same apple to get it right. Supposedly receiving Revelation the entire time, he misses it again. And I think that >> even though that revelation took him to this chapter. Exactly. And to make edits in this chapter and yet he doesn't receive revelation that he needs to edit this verse in alignment with what it should be if he's doing what he claims to be doing. >> So I just want to ask so I if I can understand it clearly. So you have the great Isaiah scroll which he's not even reflecting because he that's not even there. Then you have the messeratic text which it's so different from the Book of Mormon. So is is everything is most of what you have found from the Book of Mormon using the King James as the base text, not the Maseretic >> or the clear of the great skull. Okay. So So he is using the King James as the base of the of these Bible verses and not any of these other ones. >> Correct. Yep. So the reason I have all of them is because the great Isaiah scroll is closest to what the brass plate should reflect. But then Maseratic text version should be a you would imagine a little bit closer because it comes in a th00and AD, right? >> King James version comes in 1611. >> And so yes, that's the reason that we have all of these comparisons. And the King James version again sometimes draws from the Maseratic text tradition, sometimes it draws from the Septuagant. So this is probably one where if it's not just a variant in how you translate it because translation is an art, not a science, right? But none of that can solve the problem of Joseph Smith having words, whole sentences, whole verses in the Book of Mormon and in continuing them in his uh translation of the Bible that shouldn't be there. There's no amount of vagueness or differing opinion amongst translators that can solve that problem of there being entirely missing >> or sentences that should be missing that are then included. Right. >> Right. >> Mhm. Yeah. So, continuing on with another example. This is in chapter 7 of Isaiah. Many people know this because it's a messianic prophecy. It's captured in Second Nephi 17. This is one that the original um reads, "Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman has conceived and is bearing a son, and his name will be Emanuel." That young woman is also the phrase that's used or the way that that word is translated in the Maseretic text version. But then when we get to the King James version, that word young woman is translated as virgin. So this is this is where the idea of Jesus being an immaculate conception, being born of a virgin comes from. this prophecy in Isaiah 7. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Emanuel. The Book of Mormon captures again virgin. So, it matches exactly with the King James version of Isaiah, which just is not justified by the earliest manuscripts. So basically as the language evolved over time, this word that's translated as virgin in earlier days could have meant just a young woman, just a young maiden, not someone who was necessarily a virgin. And so this is one again where the King or the Joseph Smith translation during the Joseph Smith translation, Joseph Smith does make edits to the same chapter and including to this same verse, but not to change the word virgin back to its original young woman, >> which to me that changes the story so much to have this this young woman rather than virgin. I feel like that's a big change to me. >> The word virgin should not be there. >> Yeah, >> I see. as or young woman. Right? So, there's footnotes on the KJV, >> right? >> Saying that it's or young woman, but that's completely ignored. I've just checked LDS scripture. The footnote for 2 Nephi 17 uh 14A isn't or young woman. The footnote it leads you to Isaiah and you look at Isaiah and it isn't or young woman. It just takes you to the topical guide, >> right? >> It's gone. >> This is a more upto-date translation of a King James version. And modern Bibles will have a footnote because of what we learned from the great Isaiah scroll. Basically teaching us what this original would have looked at. That's where that footnote in the King James version I have uh pictured on the screen comes from is basically this is current Bible scholars acknowledging this should have been translated as young woman. But because it's a King James version, they keep the original language and add it in a footnote. But like an NRSV would just have the young woman will conceive. They would just change it. Mhm. >> So, the church, I'm assuming the church knows about the the great Isaiah scrolls. They have an opportunity to put this in as a as a footnote and they're just not going to cuz I pretty sure it's because it hurts their their arguments. >> The church will never be able to pivot from the King James version because the Book of Mormon is so tied to the King James version of the Bible. They can never advance. I I don't think they'll ever ever be able to advance to a more modern translation of the Bible because of that. But that's a great point, Julia. That's why though they can't do it because it's so in inextricably linked >> because it is not an ancient translation or a translation of an ancient text, >> right? is that's the bottom line is that's anyway this is why >> didn't we establish that just the way that Joseph Smith dealt with the italices in the King James version of the Bible he had as reflected in what he writes into the Book of Mormon kind of proves that he was using >> the the King James Bible to plagiarize from it to inject text into the Book of Mormon just the >> very specific very specific 1700s edition of the KGB >> 1769. So yes, and to to that point, John, one one uh academic paper I read in preparation for today's presentation is actually David P. Wright, who I think was a mentor to David Bakavoy that we listened to earlier. He wrote >> the church excommunicated because they didn't like his scholarship. >> Correct. He wrote an essay in Dan Vogel and Brent Metaf's American Apocrypha where he deals with italics specific to Isaiah because he wasn't dealing with the same analysis I'm looking at. I just kind of read it for background information, but I would point people to that if they have um a greater desire to learn about the italics in the Book of Mormon specific to Isaiah at least. >> Okay. And I'll have to put that in the show notes because that's really good. That's really good read. >> Okay. >> Okay. Okay, continuing on with our next example. Again, another um another example. This is one where we've got a Latin loan word. So, in chapter 14 of Isaiah, and that's at 2 Nephi 24. We have in the great Isaiah scroll version, we have how are you fallen from heaven, oh day star, son of the morning. How have you been cut down to the ground, you who laid low the nation? The Maseratic text version keeps that um consistent. So there's no difference between the Maseratic text version and the great Isaiah scroll version here. But the King James version um uses this Latin loan word and translates O day star to O Lucifer son of the morning. Um the Book of Mormon again has the O Lucifer son of Morning tracks exactly with the King James version. Um, in new updated Bibles, the New Revised Standard Version, they track with the great Isaiah scroll translation because the word Lucifer wouldn't have existed in 600 BC and definitely Latin would not have been available to ancient Jews in 600 BC. Again, in chapter 14 of Isaiah, Joseph Smith translates in the Joseph Smith translation, he edits many of the verses in this chapter, but doesn't make any edits to this chapter, changing that Lucifer back to Dayar to reflect the original version. >> And fun fact, from memory, I think in Latin, Lucifer is something like bringer of light or or >> correct light or something like that. >> Yeah. And is this am I correct in saying this is the only place in the Bible where Lucifer occurs? I thought it was only once. >> Is that correct? >> I believe that's correct, Julia. Yeah, >> because if that's true, then it doesn't exist at all in the or it shouldn't exist at all in the the great Isaiah scroll because if this is the only one spot and it's not there, >> that's just super interesting to me that he really is using the the the King James as the base text. Like there's no way around that. >> And just to fact check you, I I searched Google when and where did the word Lucifer originate? And Google says the word Lucifer originated in Latin meaning lightbringer um from lux and meaning light and fur to carry used by St. Jerome in his fourth century Bulgate Bible. That'd be a thousand years after Lehi allegedly would have left Jerusalem with Laban's brass plates. Um yeah, so that that that that word came a thousand years after uh Joseph Smith would need it to have emerged. >> Mhm. And you can even see there, right, which originally described the fallen king of Babylon. So it's not even really talking about what this is one of the problems with the way Christians read the Old Testament is Christians backfit Christianity into the Old Testament when it really didn't exist. And that's what this is highlighting. And it's also highlighting later mythologically linked to Satan. So I think that goes to your question, Julia. There really is no relationship between these two figures except for it's been retrofitted by Christians back into the Old Testament. >> I feel like that's the case with a lot of the the the um prophecies that Joseph Smith pulls from Isaiah to the Book of Mormon though that originally those are not even about Christ or about whatever he's trying to purport that they are about. Um I I don't know if I could like point specifically to those, but that's what I've heard is that um like listening to David Bakavoy, those are not actually most of them I don't think any maybe even any are about Christ. >> Yeah, that's fascinating to me. >> Yeah. So that's one example. This is another fun one from the same chapter of Isaiah. So Isaiah chapter 14, which is 2 Nephi 24. Um, verse 23 is translated in the great Isaiah scroll as saying, "I will also make it a possession for the hedgehog, pools of water, and I will and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says the Lord of Hosts." >> Now, when we get to the Maseratic text version, it's worth noting this Maseratic text version on the right hand side of the screen is actually a 1980s version of the Maseratic text. It's a translation in the 1980s of the Maseratic text. So, they render that word hedgehog as bit. And people might be wondering, what is a bit? So I have it there at the bottom. A bit is a heron-like bird that is native, I think, to Europe. And that word itself was wasn't invented until 1300 AD. So that's why I'm explaining this is a 1980s translation because that word wouldn't have existed in the original uh Maseratic text version either because >> 109. Right. >> Correct. Correct. So, the Book of Mormon um keeps and follows exactly with the Maseretic text version and with the King James version of the Bible. I think if we'll go to the next slide, I've got more uh more >> Can I just wax lyrical about hedgehogs for a moment? How wonderful they are. Sorry. In in the UK, we love hedgehogs. In fact, we love them so much um that if viewers were to go and look up a British politician called Rory Stewart, he gave a 10-minute speech in the British Parliament about hedgehogs, he spoke verbose about how wonderful hedgehogs are. >> Is that because of a video game or some other reason? >> Oh, we just love hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are great. Um they're one of our Yeah, they're an icon here. Um I don't know how else to explain it. They're just within the zeitgeist, hedgehogs are brilliant. >> That's funny. Um, >> anyway, sorry. >> It's kind of like honey badgers in the honey badger phase in the United States a few years ago. I don't know if people remember the honey badger. >> People got really excited about honey badges. >> Colby, where I didn't see a Book of Mormon text that had hedgehog or or Bern or Lucifer? Can you tell us? >> It has Bern. So, if you see it right here, >> right here, it just says it follows the King James version. So, it has >> Okay. So the Book of Mormon uses a word that's 1900 years too uh too late basically. >> Correct. Correct. Yep. So if you go forward to the next slide Julia we can kind of elaborate on that. So the word bit which comes from middle English bour and old French bhau refers to a large marsh bird which is a kind of heron. The term entered English around 1300s to 1400s AD, centuries after this maseratic text version was copied. When the early English translators, so White Cliffe and his cadra, when they encountered the Hebrew word kypod, a creature that they didn't recognize, they rendered it bit, probably because the bird was associated with desolate marshes and made eerie nighttime sounds. So this word bitern is a renaissance era English guess meant to evoke the same mood that they were finding in that verse. It's not a translation of known zoology. And I think if you'll go forward one more slide, Julia. >> So so they changed hedgehog to this bird because of the mood. >> Yeah. The mood that >> the word that's later been translated as hedgehog they didn't recognize at the time. >> Correct. Right. And I want I want to remind people why Nephi tells us that he was putting these verses from Isaiah or these chapters from Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. He says that he's doing it to liken his words unto his people. So my adorable claimation image to the right there. How in the world are you going to liken if you're an ancient if sometimes it's so hard for me to even get these sentences out. If you're an ancient American Jew living in ancient America in around uh 500 BC, how are you going to liken the word bit or something translated as the word bitern, a word that wouldn't exist like John said for almost 2,000 years to yourself? How is that going to be useful to you to understand a a a bird that doesn't exist in that region or in that time period? >> The same way we liken horses, Colby. >> The same way we liken horses. I almost want I almost want viewers to create uh some sort of meme with like second or third Isaiah wearing a French beret, sipping a a cappuccino, eating a eating a croissant, playing Sonicish the Sonic the Hedgehog, producing the word. >> I want to make hedgehogs great again is what I want to do. I want to restore hedgehogs to their proper place in biblical texts. >> Oh my gosh. Make hedgehogs great again. That's hilarious. >> Make hedgehogs great again. >> Oh my god. >> Like videos. >> Are we saying the word is as much of an anacronism almost as is playing Sonic the Hedgehog? Do Do we basically have second or third Isaiah playing Sonic the Hedgehog using the word bitern? Is that basically >> right >> with a French beret? With a French beret. >> Well, where are bits native to just for a start? Are they Eurasian? Are they >> They're European. >> Yeah, >> they're European. So, >> they have no analog for them at all. They're a creature that just doesn't exist either where they came from or where they ended up. >> Mhm. Exactly. >> Nothing in. It's not even like where they at least had one point of reference. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> What a mess. What a mess. >> Okay, so this next one is is my showing. So, I did my own comparison with the KGV. I didn't bring in the uh how do you say it? Meso um >> maseratic. >> Maseratic. I always say that right. Maseratic. So, this is just my comparison. And I just wanted to point out a little bit of sexism in the verse before that. So, one thing that I've noticed with these older ones, and I've had scholars even say that even reference early references of the Holy Ghost are usually female and they have been changed to male. But in the great Isaiah scroll in in Isaiah 14:22, he says,"I will rise up against them, says the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant and offspring and posterity, says the Lord." But the word offspring and posterity were changed to the masculine. So it says, "Now a son and nephew." And then in the in the Book of Mormon, that's it reflects the same thing. And so I just think that was interesting where most of the great Isaiah scroll, I've noticed, is is very like non-gendered. It's just it's just kind of general. But then as you move forward, they they gender them to the masculine usually. So I just thought that was really interesting. >> And then another >> Yeah. Um another thing that I noticed and I um Kobe I I wonder if you noticed this too. This is one of my other another comparison where you have the KJV on one side, the great scroll on the opposite, and then the Book of Mormon in the center. And Joseph Smith is just sort of adding in whatever he kind of wants. Whereas the KJV and the Great Isaiah scroll kind of match similarly. There's some words that are different. Um he's just got a huge chunk where um I guess I'll just read it. This is 1 Nephi 21:1 where he says, "And again, hearken, oh ye house of Israel, all ye that are broken off and are driven out because of the wickedness of the pastors of my people. Ya, all ye that are broken off that are scattered abroad, who are of my people, oh house of Israel, listen, oh is unto me, and hearken ye people from far. The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the boughs of my mother hath he made n mention of my name. And here it seems like he's adding this this whole thing because he's trying to to me it looks like he's trying to show that these churches are corrupt, that these pastors are corrupt and they're wicked and they're teaching things that shouldn't be taught. Kind of giving him credibility to restore again this church. Anyway, I just he does that a lot where he's just adding these chunks that don't even need to be in there. >> Um and it would be interesting to see if he changes this in the JST >> if he I didn't look at Isaiah 49. And I I we could double check. The thing that really strikes me, yes, this goes handinhand with like Joseph Smith's overall narrative about religion, right? That he needs to restore the original because the professors are all corrupt. That's what he puts into the mouth of Jesus Christ in his 1838 first vision account. But the other thing that's really interesting to note about this is the word pastor. >> Like the word pastor didn't exist. Like that's that's again a middle English term that is a combination of English and old French. So just like bit, this is a good good follow on to the bitturn slide because again we've got this problem of the Book of Mormon containing words that if we're looking at this like a legitimate ancient record would have had these people would have had no context for what this word is because the word didn't exist at that time. >> So it's like what would that word have been that he's rendering as pastors? That's the problem. We have no idea because of the way the Book of Mormon was translated because the strongest >> even if there was cuz I'm looking at the Wikipedia article for the American bit. So there is a species of animal that lives in America that is now described as a bit but that word for it would not have been in the Americas >> at the time of the writing. >> Yeah. That word for it comes from Europe. that word for it would not have been interacting with the authors of the Book of Mormon or the writers of the words of Isaiah. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Exactly. >> Just to make that pretty clear. Sorry. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> This one is in this is one of my favorite examples. Also, this one comes from uh Isaiah chapter 48, which is in First Nephi 20. And the reason this one's really fun is remember we talked about how some of these variants are like translation errors. And that's this is one of those examples. So in 48:1 it's originally translated as hear this house of Jacob who are called by the name of Israel and have come forth from the loins of Judah who swear by the name of the Lord and invoke the God of Israel but not in truth nor in righteousness. The Maseretic text version then changes this from loins of Judah to fountain of Judah. That's how it's rendered in the Maseretic text version. The King James version then deviates even further from that original intent. You can kind of see the connection between loins and fountain, right? Like that. >> You can see how someone could get there, how they're kind of similar. But the uh King James version then is rendered as waters of Judah. So it goes from loins to fountain to waters. And then this one's very interesting because in most instances in the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith is just pulling directly from the King James version. But like you said, Julia, there are times where he makes additions and kind of just adds adds his own kind of unique narrative spin on things. And this is one example where he then uses the waters of Judah but adds this phrase that isn't in the original or out of the waters of baptism. And this particular example is very funny to me because Joseph Smith basically sees this translation error right this waters of Judah which originally should be loins of Judah and then he sees waters of Judah and says like oh well I know like bapt baptism and water are connected. The hilarious thing about that is that baptism wasn't a concept that existed in 600 BC. So again, would have no relevance to these people as they would have actually existed in 600 BC as ancient Hebrews. This this chapter had no edits in the Joseph Smith translation. And I only note that to say I'm not only pointing out the instances where the Joseph Smith translation makes our case stronger. This is one where Joseph Smith saw no need to make any edits. Even though I guess you could say he should have seen the need to change the waters of Judah back to loins of Judah >> because you can see like to to really push home that connection there like the loins of Judah and the fountain of of Judah. The fountain I mean you look at it in German. >> Yeah. Uh the fountain of something can be the source of something and the place come and so you can see the connection there. But then it's the the English translators, the KJV, have gone down the very literal water route and taken it to waters of Judah. >> Here is something else, though. We've done episodes on uh the way in which the text of the Book of Mormon indicates that it was a orally dictated text, >> right? >> Uh and evidences for Joseph Smith backtracking or adding and going and and correcting himself. This here is reminding me of that where he says the waters of Judah or out of the waters of baptism. or to say another way this that is to say that he did a lot of that throughout the Book of Mormon and this is an example of that where he's like >> why would they I guess my question is why would they waste so much space precious space engraving such things for him then just to in the next phrase go or out of the water why wouldn't they just make it clear the first time why wouldn't they say come forth out is the waters of baptism >> so I hope this isn't a tangent but when I when we were kids we would read these verses out loud as a family and we would kind of tease because it's like oh he would sometimes say something and then immediately go, "Well, this is what I mean." And we're like, "Well, the reason we jumped is because not because it was an oral translation or dictation, but because like you're just you're just scratching this into gold and now you've just scratched it, but you now you have to add or fix it. So, you have to scratch more." So, like that was what we how we understood that. But whereas like I don't know how else because like it is Joseph Smith it's also an evidence of Joseph Smith saying this out loud and having this be written >> and you the narrative the church wants to show you is when the gold plates are being compiled when the abridments being made that would have been a very deliberate process. So those scratchings out those writing downs are well thought out and he's drawing from a source text. This isn't the the writing on the gold plates should never have been thought of. I shouldn't say should never have been thought of. This is the way your family were thinking of it. But it wouldn't be correct to think of it as a stream of consciousness writing upon gold plates. That's not how those plates were written. It was very deliberately drawn from source. So there shouldn't be any of this, oh, I've just written that. Whoops. >> Right? He would just completely stamp out a character and then continue with the source text >> if a character was engraved wrong or whatever. >> Right? So I've always called those kind of those aside phrases. Um maybe this is just a legal writing term, but we call them a positives because it's like adding more explanation or sometimes slightly changing the meaning, saying, "Oh, whoops. This is what I meant to say." Sometimes it's just adding clarity. But yeah, I I think that is one of the clearest examples of the the oral composition or like the oral dictation of the Book of Mormon is so many of these phrases where Joseph Smith the ones where he's adding additional detail like this, you can see this in writing because people do this all of the time, right? That where they're emphasizing a point. What you don't see in writing, especially like you're saying Nemo, when there's an abridgement being made or someone's copying from another source, is where they say X and then they turn around and say the exact opposite, not X. So, the example I think of off the top of my head, and I don't remember where it is in the Book of Mormon, but is the time that it says like they laid down their weapons of peace or their weapons of war for peace. Like, that's that's not just adding additional detail. That's completely changing what was previously said. >> That's a man catching himself. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Is peace. I mean, uh, weapons of war for peace. Yeah. >> Yeah. That this one is in Messiah chapter 14 and this is Isaiah 53. Probably the the biggest messianic prophecy that people see in the Old Testament. The original. This is one where we actually do have a lost plain and precious part that Joseph Smith just leaves on the table. So the great Isaiah scroll in verse 11 of this messianic prophecy says out of the suffering of his soul he will see light and find satisfaction and through his knowledge his servant the righteous one will make many righteous and he will bear their iniquities. The Maseratic text version then misses this he will see light. It just says out of anguish he will see it. So it's it's less it's less descriptive. It's adding less detail. Um the King James version has the same thing. He will or more or less the same meaning. I mean he shall see out of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied by his knowledge shall my servant my righteous servant justify many for he shall buy I'm sorry bear their iniquities. The Book of Mormon version then right below that tracks with the King James version. And so what we have is this he will see the light phrase is omitted after all of these except for the great Isaiah scroll. And so imagine this is the way I want people to think about this. Imagine how impressive it would have been if when the Book of Mormon was published, Joseph Smith had added this phrase to the uh Book of Mormon's capturing of these Isaiah verses. This would have been Joseph Smith like a hit for Joseph Smith demonstrating that he was able to do what he claimed he was doing which was restoring these lost plain and precious parts of the Old Testament back originally. And apologists would not be shutting up about it. They would be talking about this constantly. When the great Isaiah scroll was discovered, they were going, "Look what Joseph Smith did. Look how this points to his ability to to do what he was saying he was doing to translate, to correct, to restore the plain and precious truths." Exactly. >> Wait, so what is a way to frame this? >> What is a way to frame this for a person who still wants to believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Is there any way to frame this and still hold on to that? Cuz like I don't see one unless Nemo you I think you kind of argued that like God is putting in Joseph's head the KJV. I just don't understand how people can >> The problem with that argument that I put forward is if God is putting the KJV in Joseph's head, then why is Joseph correcting the KJV? >> Why is he then going around and correcting it under God's influence with the Joseph Smith translation? There's that's the issue there with that. Um, >> so he's not So already we know he's not >> the ultimate the ultimate fallback is that God just chose not to give Joseph this part back. We don't know why. We don't know for what purpose, but God just chose not to give it to him. Does it God get the why the text? >> Why didn't God get the Bible right from the start? >> Why didn't he just produce a good Bible by the way? >> Well, and I think that's basically what I was going to say to your question, Julia. How do you reconcile this if you want to maintain faith? I don't think you can maintain maintain that the Book of Mormon is historical in the view of this evidence unless you're willing to basically say basically to John's comment, well script all forms of scripture are humans trying to clothe the words of the divine. And so it's always kind of an approximation basically that God can't communicate with humans in um this level of specificity that they're always kind of clothing it in human language and so we always expect some kind of imperfection. That's I mean that's the only argument I can think of. I mean, I guess I guess people can say that he stopped translating and then would just like kind of pulled the Bible to him and then was writing down the verses because he's like, "Oh, this is easier on my eyes if I write it from the KJV or something." I don't know if >> I don't think there's any evidence for that. But >> the pro Yeah, that's what I was going to say. The problem with that is there's no evidence for it and that Emma explicitly denied that he used any book or manuscript. So, that's another problem for that view. The last one would be >> and revelators are saying that it was a tight translation. Sorry, go and copy. >> Well, I was going to say the the last problem would be like in our previous example from Isaiah chapter 48, Joseph Smith is adding words. He's not just copying from the King James version. There are times where he's adding words to make the Old Testament more Christian, right? Adding that phrase out of the waters of baptism. He's he's claiming by doing that that that was what was in the original because he's trying to Christianize the original Old Testament language. And so I don't know how a believer would make sense of this. It's really difficult from my view to see how you would maintain a historical Book of Mormon, not just based on this, but based on many many many things, right? >> I think you retreating back to that place of does it even matter? Does any of this matter? Is this all like this? This will get called nitpicking by those who want to maintain their belief in the Book of Mormon. That's that's what it will be called. It'll be nitpicking. >> I don't think that's what this is. I think this is problematic for the Book of Mormon's claims about its own world. But um yeah, for those of people will always find a way to maintain the narrative they want to maintain if they're not open to changing it. We are very good at as human beings at convincing ourselves of the narratives that we hold on to if we're not willing to change them. Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, I said there were a few examples that apologists have claimed vindicate Joseph Smith. I want to give all five of them to you right now. So, this is a 2011 piece um that was published by Don Perry and Steven Ricks. But what they're doing is they're restating research in this very short article. It's like two pages. We'll show the entirety of it here in just a second so people can see actually how short it is. All they're doing is they're restating research that was done by John Fetnis in the 1980s. There are five examples where he claims the great Isaiah scroll and the Book of Mormon match. Let me give you those five examples. John, hang on to your hat cuz I know you're going to be blown away by the significance of these examples. Uh the first is there's the first is there's one time that Joseph Smith adds an and that was in the great Isaiah scroll but wasn't in the King James version. Whoa. >> I know. I know you're falling over dumbfounded. I know. Uh the second example is there's a time when Joseph Smith uses a plural verb with an incorrect noun just like the great Isaiah. The third time is he changes the use of I to my or vice versa. I can't remember which it is, but yep, I know. Very important. Um example number five. He uses a plural noun when that plural noun was required by the context in English, but it's also in the great Isaiah scroll. And then the fourth example that they give in this piece is actually very funny to me. It's in Isaiah >> substantive though. >> Well, wait till we get into it. Isaiah 50:2 has this phrase. Here's the Book of Mormon's version. I make their rivers a wilderness and their fish to stink because the waters are dried up and they die because of their thirst. Now, the King James version has, I make the rivers a wilderness, their fish stink because there is no water. So, there's nothing necessarily about the waters drying up, but the water there is no water. Presumably, there's no water because it's dried up. Seems more or less the same. Right now, in the great Isaiah scroll version, it says, "Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst." Um the apologists incorrectly write in this piece that the great Isaiah scroll reads their fish dry up because there is no water. It's slightly translated differently. Not a huge huge difference, but it's worth noting that is in the Adam Clark Bible commentary on this same verse. Adam Clark reads this way. Their fish stinkketh their fish is dried up. Stinkketh is dried up. So it stands in the uh boto manuscript and it is confirmed by the septuagant they shall be dried up. So this similarity seems to me to be inspired by the Adam Clark's Bible commentary. But it's interesting to note that the big difference they see between the great Isaiah scroll version or I'm sorry the huge similarity they see be between the great Isaiah scroll version and the uh Book of Mormon version. I don't even see it when we look at the the different translation based on what they were looking at. >> It just seems it's been consistently translated throughout. To my eye, >> the the meaning of the text is very similar throughout. Some slight word change choice changes, but >> Exactly. >> There's nothing substantively changed. I withdraw that it looks substantive. There was just lots of words. >> Exactly. A lot of words to demonstrate there's no substance. That was my purpose here. >> Yeah. That's awesome. >> Yeah. So, when we compare like these examples of these five hits that the apologists have claimed, but then you're looking at the flip side of the coin and we've got verses where Joseph Smith is adding things that aren't in the original. He's making changes to things that are Christianizing the original. He's not eliminating verses that shouldn't exist if he's actually relying on the original. Really, what I'm pointing out here is a huge methodology difference. These apologists are looking at the tiniest tiniest little hits that as we look at them really are not substantive or compelling in any way. >> Meanwhile, ignoring these huge misses where Joseph Smith keeps verses that shouldn't be there if he's actually somehow capturing the great Isaiah scroll. It it honestly it's just ridiculous that they're pointing to these when they would have known if they're doing legitimate scholarly research that these huge misses exist between the great Isaiah scroll and the Book of Mormon that they are silent about. >> This feels so disingenuous. Do we know if the church Can I can I jump forward? This is this is the full thing, right? >> This is the Well, this is the abstract. >> The full article is one. >> Oh, gotcha. I just want to know who who commissioned them who wrote this. Was it the church publication? Was did the church pay for this research to get done? Do we know? >> Well, Perry and Rick, I think, were both BYU professors. If you go forward, it'll tell us. So, it was published in Oh, go back one. I'm sorry. >> Oh, sorry. >> So, it was published at BYU by Neil Maxwell Institute. So yes, >> that's just what that just feels really disingenuous for them to pull out these tiny little what they're calling hits when if you step back you're like, "Oh, this is really messy. This is nothing like the the great Isaiah scroll. I this just feels like deceptive. I don't know if that's fair." And that goes back the the point I made previously, which is that the church >> pays and hires pseudo scholars to buttress LDS church truth claims and they're biased from the start and then they they manipulate scholarship to deceive people. Can I push back on that one tiny little way, which is having worked having worked as a research assistant in BYU's ancient scripture department when I was there, and again, this was over a decade ago. I would say that there are a lot of legitimate scholars that work at BYU. So, I wouldn't necessarily say all they're doing is like pseudoscientific nonsense. But here's where it does line up with that. I would agree, John, is that they cannot deviate from the conclusion. So they will always be making whatever argument they need to be or need to make to keep the conclusion that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, that the Book of Mormon is historical in an ancient text, that it's inspired of God. They'll make whatever argument they need to to make that conclusion fit. So in some sense, it's almost worse because a lot of pseudocience is a result of just like Dunning Krueger, people don't know what they're talking about. These people know what they're talking about. So I actually think it's a little bit worse than you're saying because it's not just pseudocience. It's conclusion first thinking and leaving on the table the obvious hits from this theory. Like if you look at what they they're saying here, go forward to the abstract, Julia, they say numerous differences exist between the Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon and the corresponding passages in the King James version of the Bible. The Great Isaiah scroll supports several of the differences found in the Book of Mormon. Five parallel passages in the Isaiah scroll. I gave them all to you from this entire piece. The Book of Mormon and the King James version of the Bible are compared to illustrate the Book of Mormon's agreement with the Isaiah scroll. What they're leaving unsaid is these huge differences that indicate these hits are completely meaningless. Because if you're going to call an inclusion of an unnecessary and a hit, but then you're not going to tell your readers about the fact that Joseph Smith left verses in there that shouldn't be in there. If the if the Book of Mormon is capturing this version of the the Isaiah scroll, that to me is conclusion first thinking. I think it's actually a little worse than pseudo scholarship. It's extremely misleading and dishonest scholarship. Well, Karen Mulestein said as much publicly, didn't he, when he said, "I start with the conclusion that the Book of Abraham or the Book of Mormon is true, and then I fit what I need to into that paradigm to make it work." >> Mhm. >> That's conclusion first thinking. >> That's a that's ridiculous to me. I want to I want to share a little story that I've shared before, but um so Fawn Brady wrote, "No man knows my history." And then Hugh Nibbi wrote, "No, ma'am, that's not history." And I was talking to my dad about this and he was like, "Oh, he wrote this pamphlet rebutting her." So therefore, her book isn't true. And I was like, "Oh, Dad, have you read Hugh Nibbli's pamphlet?" And he was like, "Well, no, but but it exists." So to him, its existence was enough that he didn't need to worry about Fon Brody anymore. To me, this is them handwaving and saying, "We've answered the question. There are similarities. Don't worry about it anymore because the the the great Isaiah scroll to me disproves." I think that's what we're showing that the Book of Mormon is not his historical. It proves that it is not historical. But them making this paper, this two this huge paper with all their research, this is saying they're like, "Don't worry about it. It's it's totally fine." I I don't know. This just feels It just feels like that hand wavy thing that you were talking about, John. Like, don't worry about it. >> Anyway, >> yeah. So, that's that's my one bit of push back, John, is I actually think it's worse than you're saying. I think it is incredibly deceptive. Um, if you look at this from the editor too, it's interesting that this is the entirety of this this piece from 2011. But the editor, the note from the editor here to me is also very interesting. It says, "Since the discovery of the Isaiah scrolls among the Kuman text, the scholarly world has made extensive studies of the various Isaiah textual families, that is groups of ancient Isaiah texts that seem to come from a common source. The Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon on numerous occasions do not line up with the Hebrew text behind the King James version of Isaiah. So that's the Maserata text we've been talking about, right? As the article by Don Perry and Steven Ricks demonstrates on a small scale, contrary to gainsers of the Book of Mormon who claim Joseph Smith simply copied from the King James Bible, the Book of Mormon version of Isaiah belongs to a different textual family than the Maseratic text of Isaiah behind the King James version. So, the thing that's interesting to me is you can see what they're doing here. They're trying to say the the argument they're trying to counter with this piece to your question, Julie, of like what are they doing is they're trying to say for people who say Joseph Smith just copied directly from the King James version, when we look at this great Isaiah scroll and do this comparison, it's actually more complicated than that. And I agree. The problem is the when you get into the actual complication and you get into the actual details, it proves that Joseph Smith was not doing what he said he was doing. That the Book of Mormon does not reflect what we would expect to see by reflecting these changes in the great Isaiah scroll version. And that's and that's what this whole series is about is really it's I mean it's about the truth claims and it's about apologists attempts church funded apologist attempts to deceive. >> Mhm. >> So >> yep exactly. So, if you'll move forward just recapitulating the summary as we've looked at these examples in depth and we could have done more because I did every single comparison and I know Julia you did too. But across every Isaiah chapter quoted in the Book of Mormon there is no verse that substantively aligns with the great Isaiah scrolls older readings except for those five examples we talked about right which I don't consider them substantive at all. a pattern that directly contradicts the claim of the Book of Mormon that it is a translation from 6th century Hebrew records, 6th century BC Hebrew records. And so you can see the brass plates narrative is a huge problem for the Book of Mormon from a historicistic perspective because it doesn't reflect what we would expect to see. >> But yeah, but like the book is anacronistic. The brass plates itself, there's dudero Isaiah and it doesn't even reflect what we have in the great Isaiah scroll. So that's It's a real problem. There's about four or five different problems. >> Yeah. >> There's like there's no there's no Adam and Eve. There never was an Adam and Eve. There was no global flood. There was no Tower of Babel, which the Book of Mormon relies upon. There's no evidence that Abraham or Moses ever really existed. There's multiple Isaiah authors, not just one. But but certainly uh the Book of Mormon is depicting text that would have uh been produced by second or third Isaiah after Lehi leaves Jerusalem with the brass plates. There were no booklike metal plates written in 600 BC. We know that Joseph needed to replace the 115 pages that he lost with Martin Harris. So, we know that he injected Isaiah as just a way to kind of crib text to come up with the 115 pages that he needed to replace. So, we kind of have the motive there. And then what Joseph produces as Isaiah suggests direct plagiarism um of the version of the King James version Bible that we know he had in his possession along with unattributed Adam Clark commentary that he plagiarizes. And then what we know the text should resemble, the Isaiah text should resemble, if he was truly producing the the most accurate uh text possible, he would have been producing texts that would be more similar to the earliest versions or scrolls or cotices that we have from Isaiah that inconveniently were discovered after Joseph Smith died. and that the biblical passages that Joseph Smith does um edit or produce or create in the Book of Mormon often conflict with his own Joseph Smith translation that he ends up producing later. that is also uh you know borrowed from andor plagiarized from in many instances the Adam Clark commentary. Not to mention the fact that it makes no sense that Native Americans were speaking in king speaking and writing in King James English or practicing Protestant Christianity before Jesus was even born in America. Not to mention Native American DNA being a problem and there's no geography to fit the text in the Book of Mormon. >> But aside from all of those problems, >> yeah, aside from all that, >> and I think what what your last point there, John, points to something really interesting, which is that in defending the Book of Borman, often what you have to do is broaden the net. So when it comes to things like geography, all of a sudden we've gone from what was the understanding of Joseph Smith and his contemporaries that the hill Kamora was that very hill to now all of a sudden ah it could be in Central America. We don't know. Uh the events of the Book of Mormon, all these archaeological hits they've been finding. Every time Jasmine Rapley comes up on screen saying, "Oh, they've just found this in Central America." Immediately I go, "Well, then it doesn't help, does it?" >> Mhm. because we have to default to what Joseph Smith actually believed at the time about where the events of the Book of Mormon took place. And in order to get around the problems with that, with it being an archaeologically clean hill, they broaden the net. They widen it out. They say, "Well, actually, it could be any number of these things." Um, that's why translation all of a sudden has gone from being tight translation to, well, we're going to have to loosen it. We're going to have to broaden it out to try and fix the problems. We don't care that all the witnesses to the translation said it was tight. No, we're going to have to broaden these things out again. Um, and this is another example of that. >> And what you call broadening the net, I would say like the more the modern Mormon apologetic movement is taking everything that Joseph said, Joseph Smith said, and his early contemporaries said, everything the Book of Mormon says, everything the Bible says that's testable. And by testable, I mean like falsifiable. We can look like we did today and say, does this does the evidence help show that this is historical or does it show the opposite? Right? If >> the book was historical, we would expect to see certain evidence. Do we see that evidence? >> What I see the modern Mormon apologetic movement doing is just finding every way to make the Book of Mormon and what Joseph Smith said unfalsifiable. That's all it does. So, when the Book of Mormon talks about skin, it doesn't really mean skin. when it's when Joseph Smith talks about doing a translation, he's not really doing a translation. He's doing something else. And every single one of those, it's so weird to me from this from this side of the aisle now, seeing how desperately the church and these apologists are running from what Joseph Smith actually said and what Joseph Smith actually thought he was doing. Um, it's so weird that to preserve their image of Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet, they have to run desperately from so many things the guy actually said that we know that he said that you can pull up on the Joseph Smith papers. Um, like you said, Nemo, everything Joseph Smith ever said about the Book of Mormon, including pointing to specific archaeological finds, reproducing them in the times and seasons and saying, "Look, this is prophecy fulfilled. This is the promises of the Book of Mormon being fulfilled. Look, these are the ruins of the Nephites. They run away from all of that stuff because it's such a problem because we can test those things today. And they never vindicate Joseph Smith. Not once that I've ever found. And to go back to my disclaimer at the beginning of this episode, I understand the Book of Mormon gives a separate test for whether it's true, which is whether it's good and inspires people to do good. And I want to acknowledge that the Book of Mormon can inspire people to do good. The Book of Mormon can bring meaning and utility to people's lives. That's why in my mind when we're talking about historicity, we're not talking about faithbased questions. And I think it's important that if people want to continue believing the Book of Mormon as being inspired, as being scripture, whatever they want to believe it to be, that's fine. Like it would be the heights of arrogance for me to presume that people need to weigh those things the same way that I do. But people need to be honest about the things that they believe based on faith and the things they believe based on evidence. And my problem with apologists is that they're constantly arguing that these things are believable based on the evidence. When when you actually look at the evidence, that is just ridiculous. They're the only people who believe these things are believable based on evidence. >> Yeah. I I have a question either for the panel or for any viewer listener that um is paying attention. If Joseph Smith just made up this idea of brass plates, uh, Laben Laben's brass plates existing 600 BC containing the words of Isaiah. Why didn't he just make up that Laban had a scroll, a paper scroll, and that Nephi had to go chop off Laban's head to get a scroll instead of brass plates? I have an answer, >> Nemo. >> Joseph Smith likes to draw himself in the Book of Mormon or write himself into the Book of Mormon in by way of analogous stories such as a man having to go and retrieve some plates that other people wanted to try and keep from him that contain a very important record that needs to be preserved. Hm. I wonder what story he's also telling contemporary about some other plates that he's found that he needs to get hold of. It's a way of writing in that story as something that happened anciently to prophets and is now happening also today to prophets. He gets to write himself into the narrative there. That's >> because he had told because he had told people that an angel gave him golden plates. >> Yeah. >> Then he's just putting that into, >> you know, 600 BC Jerusalem with Laban as well. >> Plates are the format that prophets get these important words through. And if you don't >> where did he get do we know where he got that idea? Do where would someone in 1823 get the idea that ancient Jewish prophets wrote on plates? >> I know Denog question I don't know >> versus scrolls. >> Um I know Den Vogle in his I think it's the Book of Mormon origins book he talks about some of the references that people understood as having written on plates but again they were just like the decorative they're not like full texts. And so I wonder if that's where Joseph's getting at. But he's also a treasure hunter. So he's looking for gold anyway. And like he's he's wanting to answer these religious questions in his family. Like and he also needs something to have lasted for a really long time so that he can't I don't know like um but I know that there is there is a precedent for um having this this idea of plates in general. And you can I think Danville lists off different sources in Joseph Smith's era or time where they have plates. >> All right. Well, if our viewers or listeners um have Dan Vogle, maybe Brett Mechaf, others um you know, if if any of y'all can help us identify where Joseph would have gotten the idea that Jews wrote on wrote books on plates basically, I would love to hear where he borrowed that idea from versus just paper scrolls. >> Yeah. >> H yeah. >> Yeah. I don't know. I'll have to look into that more. >> I mean, I do know that you can't bury paper scrolls for, you know, 2,000 years or 1500 years and expect them to be in good condition. I >> mean, the great Isaiah scroll survived for a good sort of >> but in a cave, not in the ground. Right. >> Right. >> In a cave in a arid environment. Right. >> Versus not in dam upstate New York. >> Yeah. Completely different climate. Yeah. Yeah. >> Climate. >> Yeah. I think I had just to kind of conclude, Julia, I think I had the um the timeline slide one more time. >> Oh, yes. Did you want to say anything about this? Cuz you bring it up again. Did you just want to re-emphasize? >> I wanted to emphasize just the literal nature of what Nephi claims he's doing just to remind people about that cuz I know there's so much detail, right? And now I, Nephi, write more of the words of Isaiah. Like just for people who wanted to respond to this and try and argue like, oh, it doesn't have to be one for one. Well, that's not what Nephi is saying here. He's saying exactly what we have depicted here, which is like he's quoting directly from the words of Isaiah. And I think the next slide also has a problem for these looser conceptual translations which is you've brought up a few times John the difference between the pre loss of the lost 116 pages and the post lost 116 pages. Th this is where Joseph then builds this idea of two different sets of plates. Right? And it's important that Mormon was doing the abridgement of the post first and second Nephi plates. Most of the quotes we've looked at today come from first and second Nephi. So in words of Mormon where he's talking about this abridgement, he says, "And now I speak somewhat concerning that which I have written. For after I had made an abridgement from the plates of Nephi down to the reign of this King Benjamin of whom Amalachi spake, which that's begins the book of Messiah, I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands. And I found these plates, meaning the plates of first and second Nephi, which contain this small account of the prophets from Jacob down to the reign of this King Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi. But behold, I shall take these plates, which contain these prophesyings and revelations, and put them into the remainder of my record, for they are choice unto me, and I know they will be choice unto my brethren. What I'm doing here is illustrating the clear chain of custody of the this literal text of the translation from what's supposed to be closest to this great Isaiah scroll, right? That the brass plates literally copied down by Nephi. Mormon doesn't change any of Nephi's first and second Nephi plates. He literally says, "I shall take these plates and put them with the remainder of the record." So what Joseph Smith had access to should be directly what was on those brass plates when Nephi is quoting from Isaiah. That's what this serves to do. So then our last concluding slide just helps bring this back. Right? We've got our timeline. The question is imagine how significant of evidence for Book of Mormon historicity it would be if the Book of Mormon's version of Isaiah captured the version of Isaiah that we see in the Great Isaiah scroll. Instead, we don't see that. We see that the King James version is what is the the source text for the Isaiah verses in the Book of Mormon or the King James version plus Joseph Smith's own theological interpretation, sometimes borrowing from the Adam Clark Bible commentary. So, while we should see our blue line if the Book of Mormon were historical, instead we see this purple line where the Book of Mormon is drawing from texts that it should not be drawing from. Yep. About sums it up. >> Yeah. Case closed. >> And uh I I think we should not just trust on this search, but I'm reading from just an initial search that like uh John Wesley in Letter to a Roman Catholic in 1749 described Christians writing on gold plates. I haven't confirmed this, so maybe we should do an episode on this is a follow-up LDS discussions. >> Sure. >> series, >> but there's the philosophical transactions of the Royal Society, >> which which claims to have articles about lead plates and gold plates and ancient engraved records. And here's one. James Joyce's The Wonders of Nature and Art claims to reference ancient inscriptions on plates of gold and brass. And then um an 1820 article mentions discoveries of ancient brass plates in Italy. And then it's saying that the Wayne Sentinel in 1825 has an article describing brass plates found with with ancient ruins. >> H >> So the Wayne Sentinel was in Joseph Smith's hometown. So I haven't confirmed any of those, but maybe we write this down, Colby and Julia. >> Yeah. >> As something either maybe Dan Bogle's already done this research or maybe we can do our own search if he hasn't >> to see where this idea may have come from. Yeah, sounds good. But Colobby, I think I think this work that you've done to me is almost as significant as the book of Abraham in the sense that it's this that you know this old Isaiah scroll is something where believers would get really excited because as as you've said it would if if if Joseph Smith were truly a prophet truly translating ancient Isaiah you know they would be excited because the earlier scroll scrolls would only validate or verify Joseph's divine calling or special power. But but then and you should be able to create a theory learning that an ancient Isaiah scroll was discovered. You should be able to create a theory of if Joseph Smith was really translating ancient Isaiah. You know, would his text more closely resemble the King James version of the Bible that he had or the thousand 2000 earlier year discovered scroll? you could create that theory and then test it. And it seems like you've tested that theory and unfortunately it it it uh it it doesn't speak well for Joseph Smith's abilities. >> Mhm. Yeah. Imagine the the real simple way I guess I'd sum this up is imagine how impressive it would have been if when Joseph Smith published the the Book of Mormon in 1830 and when it's capturing Isaiah chapter 2 and we know that there's a missing verse and a half from this original that's been added to over time. Imagine if when Joseph Smith published his version of Isaiah that's in the Book of Mormon that those verses would have been missing. People in his day would have been so troubled by that, right? they would have been like, "Why did he take this stuff out? He's he's modifying the King James version." But then in 1947, when the Dead Sea Scrolls are discovered and this scroll is discovered, it would have vindicated Joseph Smith for his claim to be translating actual historical records. That would have been really compelling, strong evidence of Joseph Smith's calling as a prophet and that he was doing what he claimed to do. Instead, we see the exact opposite. we see Joseph Smith tracking exactly what the Bible that he had available to him. So again, whatever people want to um believe the Book of Mormon is meaning um value his um meaning value and utility to their lives like I have no qualms about that. But when we're looking at the question of historicity there there's a really clear example in the discovery of this great Isaiah scroll for Joseph Smith to have been vindicated and instead we find the exact opposite. And that's a real problem for Book of Mormon's theory of historicity. It's almost like if there were an apologist that were willing to debate me on Book of Mormon historicity, this would be a a prime thing that I would offer as evidence for why the Book of Mormon cannot be viewed as historical. >> It's just a shame you're a rando with no podcast of your own, isn't it? Really? >> Well, Colby, thank you so much for uh making today possible. Julia and Nemo, thanks for your support and thanks for helping us continue this LDS discussion series. Many, many of my viewers and listeners say it's the most important single thing Mormon Stories has ever done, this LDS discussion series. And every time we create a new one, it helps promote the, you know, the entire series, which I think is really important and it's helped a lot of people figure out what's true and what's not true. So, thank you. >> Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And I would be interested to know from the listeners what type of stuff they would like to see added to this series in the future cuz my recent area of study has been doing these types of analysis on the Book of Mormon. Um looking at it like a like trying to test the hypothesis of the Book of Mormon being historical and doing that according to the best way I can make sense of the evidence. So if that's exciting to people, I have more ideas to keep digging on that. Do we have any episodes in the works, Julia or Colby? Um, >> oh, go ahead. >> Oh, no, no, you you go. >> I was going to say I would love to do the episode dealing with the Book of Mormon's claims about the information density of Egyptian and Hebrew. I just have to find a way to really make that understandable. It can get kind of technical. So, >> I'm happy to work on you with that one because we've covered that a little bit together before. So, I think we can we can make that happen. >> And if there's still interest in the CES letter, because for a while we were doing some episodes just like kind of reiterating the CES letters chapters and if people still have interest in that, we can still obviously do those. Um, I think those are those are good. And then, um, some of the ones about like the the historical claims of sealing and what Joseph was thinking and how those have all evolved. That's in the works as well. But yeah, this one >> Hey, when are you gonna finish that one, Julia? >> Yeah, it's almost done. >> All right. All right. Fun. Well, all that is to say more LDS discussions episodes coming up in the future. We it is giving uh season uh we lose donors every month here on the Open Stories Foundation. We do pay Colby, Nemo, and Julia for their work and we need your support to do that. So, please, if you value the LDS discussion series and you want to see it continue and you're not currently a donor, please become a monthly donor at mormontories.org/donate. /donate. If you are are already a donor, uh thank you so much for making this possible. Please like and subscribe this episode. Uh share it, comment on it. We want your feedback. Email us at Mormonstories@gmail.com. And while you're at it, subscribe to Nemo the Mormon on YouTube. Donate to him and uh subscribe and like Analyzing Mormonism. And donate to Julia as well. and Colby because he's a rich attorney in Idaho. Don't donate anything to Colby. >> Send him potatoes. That's what I got. I've got enough of those. Yeah, I'm good though. Right. >> Kobe doesn't need anything. He's got it all. >> Don't send potatoes. He wants for nothing. >> Maybe hedgehogs. >> Yeah, cute pictures of hedgehogs. Send him those. >> What have you done? We need a We really do need a meme of like Isaiah playing Sonic the Hedgehog with a French beret, eating croissants, drinking a latte. >> Yeah. Writing a GPT away. >> Writing a picture away. >> It's it's it's a chat GPT entrance away, right? You just type that into chat GPT. You'll have it in but a moment. >> That's the end now. >> All right. Thanks, Colobe. Thanks, Nemo. Thanks, Julia. Thanks for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. Be bridgebuilders and peacemakers. We'll see you all again soon. Uh, take care everybody.