Q&R! Tough Polygamy Questions with Dr. Brian Hales

How Do 2nd and 3rd Hand Accounts Add to Our Understanding of the First Vision?: Thousands of people heard Joseph Smith’s testimony first hand. Some of those testimonies included him telling about his First Vision experience. Some of those people who heard his witness wrote down the details of what they heard. Luckily, a few of t... by Church History Matters

47 min listen

Joseph Smith’s Creative Efforts to Outsource the Book of Mormon Translation: After four years of waiting, learning, and personal refinement, 21 year old Joseph Smith was finally entrusted by the angel Moroni with the ancient record that for centuries had lain in waiting in a stone box embedded in a hill near his home. Recalli... by Church History Matters

49 min listen

What is the Best External Evidence for the Book of Mormon?: Aside from the text of the Book of Mormon itself and a personal witness from God’s Spirit, what is the best evidence for the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon? Different people might answer this question in different ways, but in today’s episode of ... by Church History Matters

52 min listen

Q&R! What About Others Who Claimed Similar Visions in Joseph Smith’s Day? Etc.: The more carefully one studies Joseph Smith’s First Vision and the context of his world at that time, the more interesting the questions become. For example, if Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ in a vision, does that mean he didn’t ac... by Church History Matters

53 min listen

Why Are There Different Accounts of the First Vision?: Joseph Smith’s First Vision is foundational to our narrative of the Restoration today, but it was not always so from the Church’s beginning. So how did the First Vision go from what began as a very personal experience of Joseph’s, to growing ... by Church History Matters

53 min listen

How Did Orson Pratt Influence Joseph Smith’s 1842 First Vision Narrative?: Did you know that the first time the story of Joseph Smith’s First Vision was ever printed was in a pamphlet written by apostle Orson Pratt and published in Scotland while Pratt was on a mission there in 1840? Intriguingly, Pratt's language from this... by Church History Matters

45 min listen

Joseph Smith’s ”Second Vision” and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: About three and a half years after his “first vision,” Joseph Smith experienced his “second vision.” It occurred on the evening of the 21st of September 1823 in Palmyra, New York, when Joseph was only seventeen years old. In this vision he met a stun... by Church History Matters

48 min listen

The Racist American Context the Church was Born Into: There was a season in our Church’s history when members with black African ancestry were unevenly barred from both priesthood and temple privileges. This overtly discriminatory practice is one of the most challenging aspects of our history and, for m... by Church History Matters

49 min listen

Q&R! Tough Polygamy Questions with Dr. Brian Hales!: Did Joseph Smith have any regrets about plural marriage? Like, with full hindsight, if he could go back and change anything about the way he implemented plural marriage, what might he do differently? Also, more and more people are denying that Joseph... by Church History Matters

59 min listen

Why Did Plural Marriage Begin in the Church?: Plural marriage—a form of religious polygamy (or polygyny to be technical)—is one of the most controversial and faith-challenging aspects of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was difficult when it was first introduced... by Church History Matters

42 min listen

Are Criticisms of the Book of Mormon Witnesses Defensible?: How can we confidently discern the difference between a reliable historical claim and an unreliable one? This is what Casey and I discussed in our last episode where we introduced five source critical questions we can all ask to carefully assess the ... by Church History Matters

67 min listen

What’s Unique About Joseph Smith’s 1835 and 1838 Accounts of His First Vision?: In 1835, Joseph Smith shared his second recorded account of his First Vision with an eccentric visitor to Kirtland, Ohio who claimed to be a Jewish minister. How did this fact that Joseph believed he was speaking with a Jewish man shape and influence... by Church History Matters

62 min listen

If Not a Supernatural Translation, Then What? Examining the Other BM Translation Theories: What would you say if somebody told you that a 23 year old farm boy dictated to a scribe a sacred text of 531 pages while looking down at stones placed in the bottom of his hat? And what would you think if they then told you that this book was dictat... by Church History Matters

53 min listen

Plural Marriage Troubles (part 2): Emma’s Fury and Joseph’s Martyrdom: In June and July of 1843 tensions ran high in the marriage of Joseph and Emma Smith. After she had tried but failed to embrace the principle of plural marriage earlier that May, and after Hyrum Smith had tried but failed to convince her of the rightn... by Church History Matters

43 min listen

Translating the Book of Mormon with Stones in a Hat?: If we had video footage of the translation process of the Book of Mormon, what would we see? What would we actually watch Joseph Smith “do” during a translation session? Now of course we don’t have video footage, but we do have perhaps the next best ... by Church History Matters

52 min listen

What Do We ACTUALLY Know About the JST?: Aside from his Book of Mormon translation project, Joseph Smith engaged in at least three other scripture production projects that we know of. The first was his ambitious Bible translation project we now know as the Joseph Smith Translation, the seco... by Church History Matters

58 min listen

Was the Racial Ban Church Policy or Doctrine? Setting the Stage for a Revelation (from 1908-1978): In 1907, the First Presidency codified the Church’s official policy about black African participation in both priesthood and temple declaring that, “No one known to have in his veins negro blood, (it matters not how remote a degree) can either have t... by Church History Matters

43 min listen

Joseph Smith’s Trial and Error Approach to Plural Marriage: Did you know that Joseph Smith’s first attempt to obey the Lord’s command to him to practice plural marriage ended quite badly and ended up straining his relationships both with his first wife Emma and with his close friend Oliver Cowdery? And have y... by Church History Matters

59 min listen

Plural Marriage Troubles (part 1): John C. Bennett, Hyrum Smith, & Emma: As Joseph Smith quietly practiced plural marriage in Nauvoo in 1842 and 43, all was not well. Three people in particular complicated things for Joseph. The first was John C. Bennett, a highly gifted convert who’s meteoric rise to civic and church lea... by Church History Matters

48 min listen

How the Priesthood-Temple Ban Became Fully Entrenched Policy in the Church: Once people come to terms with the uncomfortable idea that Brigham Young committed an error in endorsing a priesthood ban on church members with black African ancestry, a puzzling question naturally follows: “If the ban was an error, then why didn’t ... by Church History Matters

52 min listen

The 1978 Revelation of Reversion and Repair: Paul Reeve recently wrote: In June 1978, President Spencer W. Kimball received a revelation which returned the Church to its universal roots and restored what was lost, priesthood and temple admission to people of African descent. This … did not mar... by Church History Matters

57 min listen

Q&R! Tackling Tough Book of Mormon Translation Questions: The more carefully one studies the production process of the Book of Mormon, the more interesting the questions become. For example, since Joseph Smith never could read the original base language engraven on the plates, what did he mean when he said ... by Church History Matters

51 min listen

What Do You Know? And How Do You Know It?: What is truth? What does it mean to really “know” something? And what are the best methods and tools to come to know a thing? In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we begin our new series on Good Thinking where we explore the important role ... by Church History Matters

55 min listen

1852 and The Beginnings of the Priesthood-Temple Ban in the Church: The historical record shows that Joseph Smith did not implement or endorse any practices or policies which specifically prevented Church members with black African ancestry from fully participating in priesthood offices or temple worship. But in 1847... by Church History Matters

63 min listen

The Rocky End to Plural Marriage in the Church: In 1852, only eight years after Joseph Smith’s death, Church leaders in Utah publicly announced to the astonished world what some had suspected—that Latter-day Saints did indeed practice the principle of plural marriage. But now that it was out there... by Church History Matters

61 min listen

Q&R! Tough Questions with Paul Reeve: Some people see a connection between the Church’s past restrictive policy towared blacks in the Church and the Church’s current restrictive policy toward gays in the Church—specifically prohibiting gay temple marriage. In what ways are these two issu... by Church History Matters

74 min listen

Beyond Book of Abraham Controversies: So, the Book of Abraham is the touchpoint of some serious controversies—and we’ve talked about some of those in our last two episodes and we’ll probably talk about them more next week as well. But, to be clear, the Book of Abraham is also the source ... by Church History Matters

64 min listen

How Has Canonizing/De-Canonizing Happened in the Doctrine & Covenants?: Because of our location in time and good record keeping, we are privileged to have an up close and personal view of the production of modern scriptural canon. And it’s a bit of a rollercoaster! From its first publication in 1835 to its current versio... by Church History Matters

62 min listen

Joseph Smith and Black Africans: In the broader American culture in which Joseph Smith lived and led the growing Church of Jesus Christ, white attitudes and beliefs about the inferiority of black Africans dominated the scene. In this pre-Civil War context, exactly half of the states... by Church History Matters

48 min listen

Why Evidence-Based Faith Matters: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for,” Hebrews 11:1 reads, “the evidence of things not seen.” Hmm. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. Does this mean faith is the evidence we have of things not seen? Or could we say it this way: faith is... by Church History Matters

60 min listen

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Q&R! Tough Polygamy Questions with Dr. Brian Hales

Q&R! Tough Polygamy Questions with Dr. Brian Hales

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