D&C 89 - 92 (2020 repost)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we explore the weekly Come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with my friend and this show's producer, Nate Pifer. [00:00:31] Speaker A: What's up, Nate? [00:00:32] Speaker B: How you doing? [00:00:34] Speaker A: I'm still here. That's how I'm doing, baby. [00:00:36] Speaker B: Rocking. Rocking the Karl Malone jersey. [00:00:39] Speaker A: We went to the splash pad today with the kids. [00:00:42] Speaker B: Nice. [00:00:42] Speaker A: And then I came to work right after and been here ever since, so. [00:00:45] Speaker B: I'm glad you got some time with the kids, though. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it was great. [00:00:49] Speaker B: Sweet. Well, before we dive in, so this week we're Doctrine Covenants 89 through 92. We're going to start right off with word of wisdom as we dive into this. I think we've been waiting for that. [00:01:02] Speaker A: I've been waiting all my life for this. [00:01:04] Speaker B: But before we dive in, there is one thing that is driving me crazy from last week, and that's you'd asked me about Sirius and why it was so bright in the sky. And I believe my response I'd have to go back and listen to it was something along the lines of that it's because it's the closest to us. And yes, it is the closest star to us in the Northern Hemisphere, but technically it's not the closest star to us in the sky. That honor belongs to Proxima Centauri. And it drove me nuts that I said that the wrong way. [00:01:45] Speaker A: I mean, if anybody's going to be upset about that and stop listening because of that, then I don't know if I don't think you should worry too much about it. I don't think that they would have hung around for too much longer anyways. So I think you're probably okay. [00:01:58] Speaker B: I'm not worried about upsetting people as much as I am about giving bad information. If I know I said something that wasn't quite accurate, I want to correct it or make sure that it is accurate. That's more my concern with is Bright because of its proximity to us. It's just not the closest star to us. It's the closest star that we can see in the Northern hemisphere. But it's not the. But it's not because it's the closest star. But anyways, I just wanted to clear that up. [00:02:28] Speaker A: Got it. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Sweet. All right, let's go into it. We do have word of wisdom. We're going to dabble a little bit in the Apocrypha, and then we talk about the United Order. And there's some cool things in doctrine and Covenants 90 that I just want to highlight. [00:02:44] Speaker A: Let's do it. [00:02:45] Speaker B: So one thing about the Word of Wisdom, I think a lot of us kind of grew up hearing about the Word of Wisdom and hearing about how great it was as far as ahead of its time, that the Word of Wisdom would be saying that these things are bad at a time when the people thought that those things were good and it was prophetic in nature that way. At least that is how I understood it growing up. But there has been some research and a lot of things coming to light. I think that kind of changes that narrative and challenges it a little bit that the Word of Wisdom was actually a product of its time, which I think is pretty cool. What do they call it? The American Temperance Society was founded in 1826. So around the same time period, you have this movement of people that felt like alcohol was bad and they would sign a commitment to abstain from alcohol. So they had this temperance society that was rolling at the same time. You had these people that were looking at the tobacco as kind of a dirty habit and talking about the negative impacts that it had in several different ways. So the Word of Wisdom is a product from its time. And I just want to go into that a little bit more for context. In the 1700s, hygiene, cleanliness, and how people lived is very different from the 1900s. In the 1900s, you have this transition. And so in the 1800s is this period of time where it's pushing towards that transition. It's where this is making its way. And to highlight that, for example, Louis XIV only took two baths in his adult life. [00:04:30] Speaker A: Excuse me, two baths. [00:04:32] Speaker B: And the only reason he took those two baths is because they were doctor's orders. [00:04:38] Speaker A: Wait, excuse me. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And the thing is, this is not uncommon. He wasn't the exception. This was a typical. This is how society was in the 1700s. [00:04:52] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [00:04:53] Speaker B: He had headaches, and the doctor said, maybe if you take a bath, it will help you with the headaches. He took the baths on the doctor's recommendations. The headaches didn't go away, so he never took a bath again for the rest of his life. And it might surprise you. Regular bathing did not happen until the 1900s. [00:05:19] Speaker A: The world would have just been the stinkiest place, man. [00:05:22] Speaker B: They believed. At least it seemed like the case was. I mean, maybe it'll give you a little bit of a better look in understanding that at least they changed their clothes. They felt like kind of they felt like if they had clean, especially the high class society, if they had white, that represents this cleanliness, that they were able to always put on clean white clothes, that the clothes would make them clean, that would pull all of the imperfections and the dirt from their skin. So they would change their clothes regularly, but they wouldn't bathe regularly. Just to give you a little bit of context. So in the mid-1800s people started to bathe occasionally and it's not until you hit the 1900s that people start bathing regularly. So just a little bit of context here. [00:06:11] Speaker A: I hate everything about what you just told me. There's not a single piece of what you just told me that I like. [00:06:18] Speaker B: And think about this like we look at. So doctrine and Covenants 89 is revelation when they established a school of the prophets. And Joseph Smith is using this room to instruct people, but not only instruct people but, but to receive revelations and to translate the Scriptures. And in this room he's using to translate, receive revelations from God. As the school of the prophets gathers together, everybody in the room would light up their pipes and the smoke would get so heavy you couldn't even see Joseph anymore. And when their pipes were burned out, then they would take tobacco, put it in their mouths, and then they would spend the rest of the time spitting on the floor. And so Emma would go in afterwards to try to clean up after them. And she's scrubbing the tobacco stains and they're not coming out of the W wood, it's permanently stained. And so she's a little bit concerned about this and asks what do we do? And Joseph Smith is concerned about this and prays and almost instantly receives this revelation, this guidance as far as tobacco, as far as drinking, as far as some other habits that people have. But we look at it at our time period and we see a dirty room filled with tobacco smoke and spit. And especially in light of COVID Right. It just seems like a no brainer. You do that in a room where it's supposed to be representing purity. But you've got to think the mindset is very different. They're working towards that, they're pushing towards change, but the change doesn't happen yet. And to just give you a few more interesting stories in 1849. So this is not long after this revelation is what, 1832? 1833, I think 32. So we're talking about 17 years later, John Snow publishes an article about disease spreading through water. Nobody believes him. They think he's an idiot. Nate, you've Seen this. I know a lot of people have seen this. When you look at pictures of the medical doctors going back at the time of the bubonic plague, and they're wearing these weird. [00:08:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, those bird masks. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Those bird sweet. [00:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:33] Speaker B: The idea is that you don't get sick from the water. You don't get sick from what you eat. You get sick from bad things in the air. And that, to a certain degree, is right. I mean, a lot of COVID is airborne and spreading. There are diseases that are airborne. So they would take this nose, the bird mask, they would shove it full of incense and things to help purify the air or make it smell good so that as they're breathing in, it would pull the air through there, and the incense would disinfect it all, and then it would keep the doctors healthy. Right. So they believed that a lot of this was in the air, not in the water. They thought John snow was not very smart. But in 1854, in Soho, England, he gets kind of an opportunity to redeem himself. There's a huge cholera outbreak. We're talking over 600 people. 654 people, something like that, in this small town, the suburb of London, and they all get sick as john starts to do the work, because they were drinking out of the same well on broad street. And so he was tracking this very carefully, and he's taking careful notes of everybody who gets sick, and he's trying to figure out where they got it from. And they all. The one thing that everyone had in common, common was this well. And so he went to the officials and said, this is what's making everybody sick. We need to shut down the well. And they didn't believe him. They thought he was crazy. But just for the sake of proving him wrong, they take the handle off the well, and the outbreak stops instantly. Like, clears up, goes away. And so he's like, okay, see, I'm right. Right? They still don't believe him. In fact, the board of health issues a report in which they say, see no reason to adopt this belief, even after all of the evidence. And reverend Henry whitehead says, this has nothing to do with the drinking water. This has everything to do with God being mad at his people. And so he wanted to prove John snow wrong. So he went out to do some research. They come to find out, he finds that a mom had been rinsing, cleaning diapers off into the well water where everybody had the cholera outbreak. [00:10:55] Speaker A: Come on, mom. [00:10:57] Speaker B: And there was one person they couldn't connect to the well that had gotten cholera that was like, miles away. And they're like, how did she get it then? Well, come to find out, she grew up in that area. She really liked the well water. So she had somebody bring her jars of that well. And so everything tied in. So the reverend ended up changing his mind and supporting Jon Snow. So it was hard to get people to buy into cleanliness or that water and things that mattered. Louis Pasteur and his idea of germ theory does not happen until 1861. We have already talked about this in regards to the Civil War. More people died from dysentery and sickness because their latrines were upstream from their water supply. This is the mindset of the people. As we look at this, it's very different. It just helps us get some context to this revelation. And I'll just finish maybe two quick stories. So Ignaz Semmelweis. I don't know if I'm saying that right. He's a young Hungarian doctor. He was working in the obstetrical ward of the Vienna General Hospital in the late 1840s, and he noticed a high death rate among his patients. He noticed that nearly 20% of the women under his and his colleagues care in Division 1 of the Ward died shortly after childbirth, and that the phenomenon came known to be known as the childbed fever. And then, alarmingly, he noted that the death rate was four to five times higher than in Division 2, where you had female midwifery students. So he wanted to understand what's going on. How come 20%, or nearly 20% of the women were dying in childbirth with this deathbed fever, this child fever. So one day, him and his colleagues are working, trying to do some autopsies and see what's going on. His colleague cuts his finger on a scalpel, and he thinks, no big deal. But then the colleague gets the childbed fever. And even though he didn't deliver a baby because of the infection of the wound on his finger, and his colleague dies. And so the doctor is a little bit freaked out and says, okay, here's what we're going to start doing. We're going to start washing our hands. Okay. This is the 1840s. Before that, they weren't washing their hands. Yeah. So they said, we're going to start washing our hands regularly. And the mortality rate dropped from 18.3% in the maternity ward to 1.3%. That's crazy. Nearly 20% of women died in childbirth at this time period simply because doctors weren't washing their hands. And our president, James Garfield, Died not from the bullet. In fact, they say that the bullet itself, if they would have just left him alone and not operated and not touched him, he would have survived the shooting. But because you had over 12 doctors that never washed their hands, sticking their fingers in the wound, trying to get the bullet out, it was later blood poisoning and infection that killed him. So when they took the assassin, Charles Guito, he got hung for shooting the president. But in his defense, he said the doctors killed Garfield. I just shot him. [00:14:27] Speaker A: I mean, he's right, I guess. Right? [00:14:30] Speaker B: But isn't that a great line? Doctors killed him. I just shot the man. It's not like I did anything wrong. [00:14:37] Speaker A: Any last words? I got something. It's great. [00:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's. That's kind of the setting. We're going through this transitionary period. We're going from where people didn't wash their hands regularly, they didn't do things to where they started to care. They started to bathe regularly. They're learning about germ theory, they're starting to wash their hands. Hands. But they're also starting to look down on alcohol. You have these abstinent groups. You start to look back at the tobacco use. So it is very much a product of its times. And where I think that is significant and I guess the point I'm trying to drive to this before we dive into the details is you look at a lot of the revelations and prophecies in the Bible and they are about war. You look at the Book of Mormon and how much of that is about war. But you look at Isaiah and he's prophesying what's going to happen with the Assyrians, what's going to happen with the Babylonians. And it's kind of cool when we're talking about some of these other revelations, it's not. We're prophesying that America is going to be destroyed. We're not going to prophesy. I mean, yeah, we do have the war prophecy, but I think we're transitioning into this period of peace where the Lord is saying, okay, people are starting to think more about quality of life. People are starting to think more about is there an afterlife? And you have these revelations like doctrine and Covenant 76, or where people have time to not. They don't have to worry about fighting. Every year. They can start to read the scriptures and ponder and intellectual. This movement, industrial revolution, all these things are going to start coming in. And the revelations are, in a sense, product of their time. And you get revelation based on what you're Thinking about what you're worried about, what you're concerned about, what you have time to think about. And so if you want to know something about the Scriptures, if you want to understand something about God's plan, I guess what I'm saying is take time to ponder about it, take time to think about it. Because the revelations are oftentimes products of the time we put into it, or the thoughts, the concerns, or what's on our mind at the time. All right, sorry, that was a long to do. Let's dive into this. First off, in the Word of Wisdom and how we interpret it today is this idea that we don't drink alcohol, Right? But the Word of Wisdom definitely was not a prohibition against alcohol. And I think that it's a statement I think people might have issues with or maybe might not fully understand. The Word of Wisdom says no strong drinks, but it approves mild drinks. And not only that, but when they talk about grain and they talk about barley specifically, they say that barley is for mild drinks. And what's considered a mild drink, beer is considered a mild drink. And so as I read the Word of Wisdom and I look at this and try to understand it purely from a literal sense of what it is telling us. I understand the Word of Wisdom to be prohibiting liquor in the sense of whiskey, something that's strong alcoholic content, but actually approving of beer, wine, and some things that are more mild in nature. And not only that, if you look at Joseph Smith's journal, he talks about sharing a beer with people. Did you know that? [00:18:11] Speaker A: I did not know that. [00:18:13] Speaker B: So a lot of times the story we hear growing up is about how he was a young boy and he wouldn't drink the alcohol to numb the pain when they were operating on his leg. But truth be told, Joseph Smith would occasionally share a beer he would drink, and in Carthage, gel at the end, when their spirits were dampened, they brought wine in, not as a sacrament, but to lift their spirits, to try to help them feel a little bit better about their situation and where they were. So this was definitely not an abstinence, a complete prohibition against alcohol, and not only against alcohol, but against even tea and coffee. When we talk about strong drinks. And strong drinks is defined as tea and coffee. Even after the Word of Wisdom, Emma Smith was host to a hotel. When people would come and visit, traveling from wherever they were traveling from, and usually weary, she would give them tea. And tea has caffeine in it. It's a stimulant. It's a mild stimulant. So again, we talk about strong drinks versus mild drinks. These mild stimulants are supposed to be used for medicinal purposes. And it's an interesting question because caffeine, according to the World Health Organization, the who. Right. Is defined as an addictive substance, and it is defined as mind altering because of what it does to stimulate and to get our bodies going and reacting. If you're taking it in mild doses because you've been traveling, because you're tired is one thing, but if you're forming an addictive habit where you're drinking it all the time, it becomes a different thing entirely. And I think a lot of the word of wisdom is trying to draw a very fine line between substance abuse versus medicinal purposes. Is the reason why you're drinking wine or alcohol, Is it for occasional purposes, like celebrating weddings? Is it occasional purposes like you're feeling really down, you just need something to lift your spirits, or is it something, you know, mild that way? Versus are you drinking all the time? Are you doing this to numb yourself against? Are you addicted? Is this a destructive thing? And that's kind of the distinction. The word of wisdom has changed over time, but as you read it and you dive into these passages very literally, it is extremely different from what we practice today in the church, if that makes any sense at all. [00:20:52] Speaker A: It totally makes sense. I think that. But I think that the way that we practice it is. I mean, it's hilariously different than what the actual text says it is. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And as you read through it, and if you read through this and you feel like there's a disconnect, I do don't. You're right. It is different from what it is today. And in fact. So people would take this, and you always have. So I guess I'm going to talk about two extremes today. You always have one group of people that try to lash onto everything and take it to the extreme. The overzealous, if you will, the overzealous crowd that say, okay, they said, we shouldn't be doing this. This means that we should never do this. And try to push it on everyone saying, if you really love God, you're not going to do this at all. Okay. And that group of people came to Brigham Young. So in 1860, Brigham Young said this. Some of the brethren are very strenuous upon the word of wisdom and would like to have me preach upon it and urge it upon the brethren and make it a test to fellowship. I do not think I shall do so. I have never done so. And then in 1871. Brigham Young says the observance of the word of wisdom or interpretation of God's requirements on this subject must be left partially with the people. We cannot make laws like the Medes and the Persians. We cannot say, you shall never drink a cup of tea or you shall never taste of this, or you shall never taste of that. That was the mindset of Brigham Young saying, this is not a law dictating that you can't do this, you can't do that. It's left up to individuals and kind of similar, I think, to marriage, right? You will not find in the handbook or anywhere a list of what you can or cannot do with your spous is within the bonds of matrimony. That is left partially up to you to know what you should do, what feels right for you and what feels right and what you're comfortable with for one couple may be different from another. But are you, Are you. I mean, we could, we could go into all detail there, but I think, I think Brigham Young says it really well must be left partially with the people to know what they should do and leave it to the people to make their minds. So that's one extreme, right? You've got the overzealous that are pushing to make everybody follow it here. On the other extreme, I think we have people that say that it's medicinal or try to justify doing it a little, when in actuality it's more for enjoyment, more for something that they're abusing, trying to take it to the opposite extreme where they justify, I'm going to do this just a little for this. When what they really mean is I've got a problem, I'm addicted and I keep going. And this is a. It's a very destructive and how I use this, but I'm under the guise of medicinal or under the guise of I'm just doing it a little bit, they engage in that destructive pattern, that destructive behavior. So that being said, I will say this. In the 1800s, going back to our discussion about cholera in the water, alcohol was very good at killing bacteria and neutralizing viruses. If you would have prohibited any alcoholic drink, it could have potentially been a death sentence for some people at that time, knowing that they're ingesting as much bacteria, cholera, whatever the case may be, that could cause sickness and illness. We live in a different time today than what they live there. And I think we've had this conversation a little bit before, Nate. When we talk about heavy machinery, operating vehicles, we have, you know, driving 2,000 pound vehicles 60 miles an hour down the road where we could potentially take a life with a small mistake is not something that they had to deal with back then. And the impacts of alcohol are impairing your judgment when you're operating machinery in today's world is very different. Also, I think we live a very wealthy lifestyle, and not just wealthy as far as money goes, but wealthy regarding time. We have disposable income that we can buy as much alcohol as we want, where back then, you're taking your grapes, you're fermenting them, or you're making it, or you're buying it, and you don't make a ton of money to blow on alcohol, and you don't have a ton of time between trying to support your family and do everything that you needed to do. Drinking in excess back then, I don't think is near the problem that it is today for our society. [00:25:56] Speaker A: That is a good point. [00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah. When you consider the excess of time, the excess of disposable income, the heavy machinery, and you look at the time period we live in now. I agree with the church in taking this Word of Wisdom and interpreting it differently through modern prophets today in a way that makes sense for us. This revelation might not have started off as a prohibition against alcohol, but again, if we go to the very beginning of it, it talks about the Word of Wisdom not being meant just for its time. It says in verse two, to be sent greeting not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation. And the Word of Wisdom showing forth the order and will of God in the temporal salvation of all saints in the last days, given as a principle. It says in verse four, behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you in consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days. I have warned you and forewarn you. So I think definitely a portion of this is very prophetic in nature and that the Word of Wisdom was designed first as counsel to help people in a time period where they were making these adjustments from a time of different hygiene, different health conditions, to where we're going to be adapting a different standard, a different council. And that's where modern prophets come in to interpret it differently and to take it to a different level. [00:27:40] Speaker A: Doesn't it feel like it just in general needs to be kind of updated, though? [00:27:45] Speaker B: That's a great question. [00:27:47] Speaker A: And I'm just saying, as a general, like the. The first presidency writes a thing saying, hey, this totally like what you just said. This. This is exactly the circumstances in which this was written. And the principle of don't do anything that you're going to sacrifice your agency to still applies. And here is the updated list of. Okay, cool. This is, this is being focused on and this is being neglected or, you know, I mean, the word of wisdom says we're all eating too much meat. [00:28:22] Speaker B: It does. [00:28:22] Speaker A: And we're all eating it in the wrong season. I'm saying there's so many things like that even that you're just like, cool. I mean, if that's the case, like, tell us. Right? Like, maybe, maybe that is true and we need to focus more time on that. Instead we focus on we shouldn't be drinking coffee. But yet all of these synthesized opioids that I'm taking for, you know. Well, I started taking for a pain issue, but now I'm completely reliant on this heroin, basically, the synthesized heroin. Well, a doctor prescribed it, so I guess that works. But this coffee, though, or this green tea, you know, like, be careful, this green tea has caffeine in it. But don't worry, your Adderall and your, you know, whatever that you're now completely addicted to, that's okay because the doctor said it was okay. [00:29:20] Speaker B: Well, in your tea and coffee have like, what, 20, 30, maybe 40 milligrams of caffeine. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker B: And then you start comparing that to your energy drink. [00:29:28] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. [00:29:29] Speaker B: That didn't exist back then. [00:29:31] Speaker A: This is my point. You're, you're, you're saying exactly what I'm saying, which is, and by the way, this is coming from somebody who, I mean, other than I drink a lot of caffeine, but that's just because I like the taste of diet Dr. Pepper and diet Coke. Right. I mean, I, I, I don't have, strangely enough, like the withdrawal stuff when I am just like, on my. I'm drinking water for the next three months. You know how sometimes, like, you can get the headaches and stuff? You know, Luckily, I guess I've never, you know, had that part of it. Whatever. Needless to say, I don't do drugs recreationally. I don't do any of that stuff. I don't do drugs at all. Right. I don't even like taking pain medicine because I have a feeling I would actually like it too much. And I just know myself well enough to not do that. Right. So I'm saying I'm prefacing this with. I have no, I'm personally not like, trying to justify this for my own reasoning. Right, Right. But what I will say is God created certain plants that have certain medicinal properties to them. Certain pain medicine, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? Certain pain numbing properties and things like that. Right. And certain, certain properties that on, in a very natural, non addictive way, do help uplift your mood, do help, you know what I mean? Like do help with depression, do help with anxiety, do help with all those things. Right. It feels weird that it's like those are all of the banned substances. Right. And then you have things that are so much more extreme and created in a lab somewhere that are highly addictive that completely mess with your brain, like completely just scramble it from a chemical standpoint, but because a doctor prescribed it, well, I guess that's okay. That's not getting your temple recommend taken away, you know, it's not on the list. It's not on the list for those, for those questions. Right. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Well, it's crazy because we talk about you and I think have had this conversation before that part of the reason why the blitzkrieg was so incredibly successful in Germany was because it's part of the soldiers rations. [00:31:43] Speaker A: They were hopping them up, right? [00:31:44] Speaker B: They were giving them methamphetamine. [00:31:45] Speaker A: That's exactly right. They were hopping them up. [00:31:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So here you have the government, not just to soldiers, but this was being prescribed or available to the public as a stimulant to help people stay awake or give them energy. And here you are giving it to all these soldiers and they're all hopped up to your point on methamphetamine, one of these terrible substances. So if you can't always rely on current understanding of medical or the opioid crisis, as you've mentioned it today, and where does that come from and where. [00:32:17] Speaker A: Is it most prevalent? You know what I mean? I'm just saying, if we're going to be honest here, what state has a major, major, major issue with prescription drug abuse? Drug abuse, Utah. The state. The state where we judge people if they drink coffee. Just say it. [00:32:37] Speaker B: A little ironic, isn't it? [00:32:38] Speaker A: Well, it's sad because again, I think that you've already said this and I would like to again re. Emphasize. I, I know I. Luckily I avoid all of these things because again, I just have a feeling I would like them all too much. Right. But. But what I will say is that is the principle underlining the whole thing is correct. Which is with. With all commandments, by the way. Right. Which is don't give up your agency to something else. [00:33:04] Speaker B: I love that statement that I think underscores the whole purpose of this, of. [00:33:09] Speaker A: Every commandment, and if we're on the. [00:33:12] Speaker B: Lines of don't give up your agency and we talk about the word of wisdom, maybe something that's not mentioned in the word of wisdom because they had no problem with it back then, that should be mentioned today is exercise. [00:33:27] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. I mean, if we're going to talk about just being healthy, because in the word of wisdom, the whole thing is so that you'll be able to run and not be weary, right? [00:33:36] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Walking, not faint. [00:33:38] Speaker A: Walking, not faint. I mean, I don't do drugs, but guess what? I am addicted to nice meals with friends a lot. What's true and doordash when I'm working. [00:33:48] Speaker B: Late at night and when your life depends on you chopping a cord of wood or clearing out, I mean, the exercise is the last thing you need to tell people to do. And the obesity rate in the early Americans, extremely low. But you look at it today, excess of disposable income, excess of time and the readiness of food. And you look at the society we live in, what are we sacrificing or giving up? What liberties or freedoms are we losing? Because heart failure, cardio problem, we can't do what we used to do. We can't play with our kids. [00:34:24] Speaker A: That's my whole point, is that it's not even the. Well, I'm gonna get sick and I'm gonna get cancer or diabetes and I'm gonna die early. It's like, no, I'm terrified of those things too, don't get me wrong. But what sucks is when I go home to play with the kids and they're like, okay, dad, let's wrestle. And I'm like, well, I got these weird issues with my lower back because I'm quite a bit overweight and I need to, you know. And I haven't been running as much as I used to because my knees all jacked up. It's like. But it's all these things and. And again, like, I'm the most blessed person in the world as far as, like, I get to do what I want for a living. But part of that is I sit down in a chair for 12 to 15 hours a day. The only breaks that we get are to walk over to, you know, so Delicious and grab a beverage or go. You know what I mean? Go grab some tacos at Kiera Moss or order food. It's like. It's like we eat and sit down all day. You look at somebody in my position who I don't drink coffee. I don't, I don't do drugs. I don't do whatever. It's easy then to go, oh, yeah, okay, Yeah, I guess you're living the word of wisdom. Like, yeah, right. Yeah, right, man. It's like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not naive enough to lie to myself about this. But the thing is, like, well, because none of it's explicitly written out in, in, you know, doctrine and covenants 89, from the middle of the 1800s. [00:35:51] Speaker B: And I think that's why the church still hesitates defining it today. Because, I mean, you talk about it, yes, they define tea and they define coffee, and they say, no alcohol. But you see that there is still a lot of ambiguity to it. And even in the temple recommend question, you don't say, do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you drink coffee? Do you occasionally do this? [00:36:13] Speaker A: But don't they ask you if it is the word of wisdom as stated in Doctrine and Covenants? Isn't that, Isn't that. I may be totally wrong about this, but for some reason in my mind, isn't that the question? [00:36:24] Speaker B: That's a good question. [00:36:26] Speaker A: Do you live. Do you practice the word of wisdom as stated in doctrine and Covenants 89? I might be totally wrong. [00:36:34] Speaker B: I think you might be right, actually. That's the thing is how you define it. Because if you live it according to doctrine and covenants 89, if that is the definition, than an occasional beer and. [00:36:46] Speaker A: We eat too much meat and we. [00:36:49] Speaker B: Eat too much meat in the wrong season. In the wrong season. And you can almost balance that a little bit earlier on in Doctrine and Covenants, it does say that the animals are given for man in abundance, but it also says, only in times of scarcity. And it mentions specifically wintertime. You should be. [00:37:10] Speaker A: It just feels like that we're in such a perfect time in history to go, okay, look, missionaries go out there with like cell phones and iPads. One of my, one of my sisters in law was telling me a story about it was like her nephew or somebody that their whole mission went and saw like Toy Story or something in the theaters or something. They went and saw a movie. Like, their whole mission went and saw a movie in the theaters, right? And of course, like, I'm hearing this and I'm just like losing my mind. I'm just like, are you kidding me? I'm like, I thought the whole point of going out there was to, was to not call home every week and to not have a Facebook page and to, you know, What I mean to like disconnect from all those things and hyper focus, but then you have to go, okay, well is the idea we're going, okay, we're going to take away way less of the detailed super hyper specific guidelines. And what we're going to do is now, which in my opinion we should have done forever ago, is we're going to allow people the chance to really, actually truly have to live a higher law. Which is harder by the way, because we're not going to tell you any specifics. Look, if you're addicted to that cup of coffee in the morning, then you should know better. And we're going to ask you, are you addicted to something that is altering your mind? Instead of are you drinking coffee and tea and instead go, what are you addicted to substance wise that you're giving your agency to? Right. Like I'm just saying it's like we're doing this with so many other things. It just feels like now would be such a perfect time to go, we're going to take away the, the stipulations of coffee, tea, meat, whatever those things. And what we're going to say is your body's a temple. Are you treating it as such? What are you doing to be healthier? What are you doing to run and not be weary? [00:39:17] Speaker B: What are you doing to clean up the storehouse so you don't have smoke and tobacco stuff, but rather your body is as a temple. [00:39:25] Speaker A: That's exactly right. It just feels like we're, it would just be. I'm hoping that it happens because I just feel like we're with so many other changes we're making like this now. It's just such a perfect time to go, hey, maybe, maybe that CBD oil is actually way better for you than that synthesized heroin. Yeah, it might make you feel like, okay, cool, I feel a little bit better now. But it's non addictive, unlike that synthesized heroin. It'll help you with your pain. And it's from the earth, it's from a plant that God created. And it's not born in a factory somewhere. I'm just saying there's so many little things. But hey, but if you're using that as a crutch, then you shouldn't be doing it. If you're using it as a, as a, as an escape from your problems, you shouldn't be doing it. Or if you're in extreme amounts of pain and you don't want to be taking method prescribed by your doctor, but you do want to take some of this Some of this extract from a plant that God created and is very natural and very non addictive and doesn't have all those crazy side effects as all those other things. Cool. That makes sense. Man, you've lived a really great life and you died and you go up to heaven and God puts his arm around you and says, man, you live such a great life, but man, you really loved drinking green tea. I'm sorry, I can't let you in. This just doesn't make sense to my brain. [00:40:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it didn't make sense to a lot of people's brain in the early days of the church. Like Brigham Young saying, we are not going to be prescribing this. We're not going to be. [00:41:02] Speaker A: Are we at that place or not? Am I totally off base on this, Jason? [00:41:06] Speaker B: No, I don't think you're off base on this. And we can add to it. I mean, you want to talk about addictive behaviors, and not just addictive, but addictive, destructive behaviors. Look at video games, look at pornography. And I'm not saying that video games are bad and that we should ban all video games. Everything in its time, everything in its season, everything within moderation, everything that you can control. Do you have your freedom or does something else have your freedom? Are you a slave to that game? Does that keep you up till three in the morning to where you're not able to perform your job or function and you're robbing time from whatever organ working in because you can't give it your all? Are you robbing your family of what you could be providing them with because you're addicted to something that keeps you away from them? It doesn't have to be coffee, it doesn't have to be alcohol. There's a lot of different things here. And to your point, the word of wisdom is how do we maintain our freedom and how do we keep ourselves in a state or condition that we can receive revelations, that we can go back to what they were using that upper room for, translating the Scriptures. It's diving into the Scriptures, understanding the Scriptures and receiving inspiration from God. Isn't that what we do? Our responsibility is to study the Scriptures, to learn from the Scriptures and receive revelation. Is there anything in the way we live our life that would be hindering that or slowing that down, that we could clean up and do better at? And to answer your question, so I've got the temple recommend question right here. Do you understand and obey the word of wisdom? And that's a loaded question. That's a loaded question. [00:43:04] Speaker A: No, and maybe I think. [00:43:06] Speaker B: And it's a hard thing to understand. Hard but easy. And why doesn't the church come out and say this is exactly what it is in every case? I think you go right back to what Brigham Young said. I think partial responsibility has to be on the person to understand what that looks like and what that means to them to apply to potentially video games, to potentially pornography, to potentially other addictive behaviors. And, and you know yourself, or at least I hope you do, you should, right? If you, if you are occasionally drinking a beer and yet you're using this as an excuse to be able to continually drinking. I don't know. I don't want to give anyone a free pass. [00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's tough. But here's the thing too. Like, look, I'm on the team, man. I'm part of the team. I'm going to continue to do it as. I'm going to continue to do this as we are instructed to do it. Right. I'm not going to drink any beer. I'm not going whatever. But I will say this. I'm not going to judge anybody. [00:44:12] Speaker B: That's. And that's the point. I want to get to do it. [00:44:15] Speaker A: I'm going to let people live and let live, man. I'm going to do my thing. And the best that I understand. But that. That's so funny. That's. That question is even gnarlier than what I remember. Do you understand the word of wisdom? [00:44:26] Speaker B: Do you understand gosh and obey? And that is remember this for next time. [00:44:33] Speaker A: My answer is going to be like, I do not know, and therefore I do not know. [00:44:39] Speaker B: And I think that is there has to be personal responsibility. Go back to the very beginning. The whole idea of just tell us what we need to do. I will come here and give you all of the commandments and I will save you so many times. We just want it easy. Please tell me, what should I do? What should I not do? And the Lord time and time again says, decide for yourselves. You are agents unto yourselves. And what does that look like? And for me, perhaps that looks like I don't drink anything caffeinated, or I try to make sure I get enough exercise in the day, or I really push to try to get to bed early. Or maybe it looks like that to me, but that doesn't mean that that's the same understanding or how someone else looks at it. And I think I. Right back to you. I think you said it so well. I'm not going to judge anyone because of it. And I think that's part of the deal. We need to not be in the one category where we're so overzealous that we look at somebody and say, oh, does that drink have caffeine in it? What are you doing? Mormons don't drink caffeine. Show me exactly what are you talking about. Or just because you don't, or I don't, or we don't. Let's not be hypercritical of each other and understand that there is a lot of ambiguity here. You bring the point. What do we do about meat when the word of wisdom. I mean, it's good enough. We should probably read this verse. Yea, the flesh also of the beasts and of the fowls of the air. I, the Lord have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving. Nevertheless, they are to be used sparingly. What does sparingly mean? Does sparingly mean I eat meat three meals a day? It is a good question. And I love how he says, even. Back it up. Verse 11. And there are a few keys in verse 11. Every herb in the season thereof and every fruit in the season thereof. All these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving. And I think prudence and thanksgiving is a vital part of the word of wisdom. When we gather to save blessings for our meals. I mean, you think about Native American practices and how they did not waste a single piece of that animal and how grateful they were appreciative that that animal would give its life for them, and they tried not to waste that life. Now when we sit down and eat, we are telling our kids, oh, there are kids starving in Africa that are not eating. So you better clear your plate. It's not about kids starving in Africa. I think. I think we should change our attitude a little bit as we approach the mill and look at it with thanksgiving and prudence. Lord, we are grateful for what we have. We are grateful that wheat is not going to be able to harvest or grow because we are taking that grain and using its life energy to sustain our life instead. An animal died to feed us. There is something significant about that. [00:47:57] Speaker A: There is something that is. I am trying to remember. I was just watching something that was very much like a theme, which is like, we are thankful that this animal gave its life so that we can sustain ours. It definitely makes you at least consider some other things. Consider more things. [00:48:15] Speaker B: I guess it's significant that every meal we eat really does revolve around the atonement. The idea that Christ gave his life to sustain ours. And the only way that we survive is by life, not surviving. Look at your meal and what you're eating and what died, what is not going to live, what plant is not going to be able to grow and be a plant, what animal is not going to continue to live simply to feed you and keep you alive. Maybe that changes our mindset a little bit. And so our prayer at the beginning, our blessing on the food, if you will, isn't just this quick blessing on the prayer, but we really think about it and say, man, I am grateful. And because I am grateful, I'm not going to prepare more than is necessary. I'm going to try to be conservative about this and not eat in excess and not waste as much life and as energy than what I really need for myself or for my family. I'm going to try to be prudent about this and Thanksgiving and grateful and bring a little bit more sincerity to my prayers as I'm sitting around the table. Maybe that's a big part of the word of wisdom that we're not focusing on. And as we're talking about the herbs and verse 16. Not 16, sorry, my page turned verse 11. And again, verily I say unto you all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature and use of man. And I think so many times this verse gets quoted, but we leave out the word wholesome, all herbs versus all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the so if he's making the distinction of wholesome herbs, are there perhaps some herbs that are not wholesome? And he talks about tobacco not being for man, but being for bruises. It's not for the belly, it's for other things. Maybe there's herbs that are for something that we're misusing or not wholesome in the way that we're applying, or not wholesome in the way that we use them. And maybe there is wholesome uses, maybe there are medicinal purposes for some things, but because people are misusing it in a non wholesome way, it finds its way on the unacceptable list of the word of wisdom when really it was created for a positive purpose. But because as you like to say so much knuckleheads, we, we don't get, we don't get a benefit from the benefit of that herb because so many other people have really ruined it for, for the rest. [00:50:54] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot. I mean that's, that's everything though, right? I mean they talk about it in a conference all the time. How so many of the most amazing things can Also be used for terrible things too. So. [00:51:05] Speaker B: Yeah, well, to kind of, for whatever. [00:51:08] Speaker A: It'S worth, I don't, I, I have a lot of friends that partake of various herbs that I don't. But I have zero problem with them because it doesn't make them lose their minds and go out and like, you know, rob somebody or try to kill somebody, you know, just saying there's. Which is funny because again, alcohol, you know, has been the cause of so much heartache and pain and devastation to families and people, you know, yet it's not illegal. And there are certain drugs that are still generally illegal even though they're being made legal in more places that like the worst thing that happens is people chill out and take a nap, you know, or chill out and sound funny when they're trying to talk to you about the mysteries of the universe. I'm just like, oh man, I don't know. And I get that this, a lot of that's just personal opinion, but I'm just like, oh man, I will say I hope sooner than later marijuana is legal in every single state, even if I have nothing to do with it. Because again, even for just medicinal reasons, it would be nice to be able to go, cool, your doctor can prescribe you this instead of some just massive heavy duty, you know, opiate that's gonna, that could potentially destroy your life. [00:52:29] Speaker B: And I hope, I hope it goes through the right channels to get there. Oh, of course. I mean, my one caveat is this. My father in law, amazing guy, loved him, always fun going fishing with him. He died doing what he loved, out on the lake fishing. He had a lot of back problems, or so he thought. And he was putting off surgery, he wanted to get it fixed. And one day he was out on the lake. He used marijuana habitually. Every time I saw him, he always was smoking it or eating a marijuana gummy or that's what he did. And I don't blame him. Sometimes around the family it's a little high strung, you know, he's always out in the barn, mellowed out and you know, just a great guy to be with. But come to find out he had heart problems and he was misdiagnosed. They never caught the heart problems. And the thing about marijuana is it lowers your blood pressure totally. And you're not supposed to be taking it when you have heart issues, right? [00:53:41] Speaker A: Totally. [00:53:41] Speaker B: But because he's taking it and it's masking the heart issues, they missed it, they never diagnosed it. So while he's out on the lake fishing the low blood pressure, the problems that he has with the heart, and then the marijuana lowering it even more prevents his body, his heart, from being able to pump it into his brain, not getting enough blood in his brain, enough oxygen, he just passes out, never wakes up. [00:54:08] Speaker A: It's crazy. [00:54:09] Speaker B: And so if we. [00:54:13] Speaker A: I hear you. [00:54:14] Speaker B: To your point, doctors can't prescribe something that they can't study. They can't understand it. They can't. And I'm not saying we should just open it up and everybody should self medicate. I don't think that's the solution. [00:54:26] Speaker A: I completely agree. We don't disagree on any of this. [00:54:29] Speaker B: Right, right. I'm just saying how, how can we be, it's a complicated, interesting story. When government gets involved. [00:54:37] Speaker A: Oh yeah. When there's money involved with it. To me money seems like a no brainer though, because you go, I mean, unless they're still just making, you know, a gazillion dollars from, you know, the black market, you know, drug trade, which again I'm sure they do. I, I, whatever. I'm always just, I'm always just shocked because you're like, man, even just like the tax revenue from a lot of these things could be so huge. Like, I can't believe government hasn't figured out a way to go, ah, this is actually for the betterment of us too. Right. And, and, and to your point, by the way, we don't prescribe certain drugs to people with low blood or high blood pressure. Right. [00:55:18] Speaker B: There are certain doctors to try to figure out what you're using and what can they blend or what can they mix and not mix. Sure. [00:55:24] Speaker A: I'm even, I'm even just, I'm even just saying too like with anything, whether it be like you said, video games or food or whatever it is, like if we're doing anything to self medicate to like escape reality or to escape our problems or to, you know what I mean, to try to like numb, numb certain things that we need to probably face head on at a certain point. Right. Then anything can be an issue. And so, and that, and so my point is like, look, I'm not by any means suggesting we should all go out and start smoking weed. Like, right. Some people, that's their thing. And, and cool, like, whatever. I don't, I don't think as a society that's, that, that's probably the, the most healthy thing in the entire world. All I'm saying is there's a lot worse things that you could be doing substance wise that, that kind of doesn't get poo pooed by the law, you know, I mean, or the commandments. That's, that's my only point. I, I again, drug free since 1981 and with no, with no future plans. [00:56:35] Speaker B: Yeah, and I say a lot of these things too, coming from the same situation as you. And I hope this kind of shocks people a little bit. Looking at the word of Wisdom and understanding it was different and there's always been a sense of ambiguity to it. And even to this day I feel like the church hesitates putting hard limits and hard definitions on everything because that does step into the bounds of where does agency lie. It is interesting, Joseph Smith and Emma Smith, I think it is amazing you look at some of the examples of what they did and I hope that shocks people a little bit and understand maybe we shouldn't be quite so critical on some people and maybe we should be a little bit critical on ourselves. And look what outside of what we were thinking the word of wisdom entails, are we doing that is actually against that same word of wisdom as you've mentioned and having seen, I guess I'll just wrap it up this way because I feel like we've spent a lot of time on this word of wisdom, which is good. I think we need to spend some time on it. But if I were to wrap it up, I would say 1.1 let's not be so critical. And the word of wisdom might mean different things to people. Live it according to what you feel it means to you. What does the word of Wisdom mean to you? And be honest with yourself. Don't try to lie or deceive the. Well, the word of wisdom means this to me. Just so you can get away with something that you know you shouldn't be doing. Be honest with yourself. And then two as far as two just escaped me, just went right out the window. One is solid, two is this. I am grateful for modern prophets who have set some limits or some boundaries as much as alcohol was allowed back then, having seen two friends nearly drink themselves to death and having go visit one in the er, having seen my younger brother hit by a driver who just had a few mild drinks. I am grateful that in different times, with disposable income, with disposable time, with different situations, with heavy machinery, that some hard limits have been set. And if you're in doubt of what the word of wisdom means to you, don't just interpret it based off of what you're seeing literally in the Doctrine and Covenants, know that we have modern prophets and that if you follow the prophet today, you're not going to go wrong. I guess those are the two points I wanted to make. [00:59:19] Speaker A: Amen, brother. [00:59:21] Speaker B: All right, let's. Let's dive into something a little bit different then. Doctrine covenants, section 90. And in section 90, there's a few. Sorry, just looking at my notes here, there's a few key things I wanted to mention. Okay, first off, doctrine covenant, section 90, as we're going on to the beginning, verse 2. Therefore thou art blessed from henceforth that bear the keys of the kingdom given unto you which kingdom is coming forth for the last time. So I think it is kind of cool. We have heard that, we know that it is in scriptures, this is the last dispensation. The kingdom is coming forth for the last time. And the idea that it will never again leave the earth is reassuring to me. Again, reiterating the idea of following modern prophets today says, verily I say unto you, the keys of this kingdom shall never be taken from you while thou art in the world, neither in the world to come. Nevertheless, through you shall the oracle be given to another. Like, okay, through Joseph Smith, the oracles have been given to another. Who is he going to pass it on to? Yea, even unto the church. So the entire church receives this oracle. And it says, they who receive the oracles of God. And an oracle is kind of like a prophecy, the spirit of prophecy. And I almost kind of think of this as the keys of the kingdom are given, but part of that is the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, through the priesthood is given to all of the church. Like Moses says, oh, that every man were a prophet. And what is the spirit of prophecy but a testimony of Jesus Christ? And having the priesthood authority to give people that gift and to have that is very powerful. But there is a word of warning here in verse 5. And all they who receive the oracles of God, let them beware how they hold them, lest they account as a light thing and are brought under condemnation thereby and stumble and fall when the storms descend and the winds blow and the rains descend to beat upon their house. So don't take the oracles lightly. Don't take having the spirit as something that's not that significant or not that important. I guess is all I'm trying to say. We talked. Skip a little bit through Sidney Rigdon, maybe let me go right to the end as we were talking about the idea of the church never leaving the earth, verse 36 and verse 37 at the end of the section. But verily I say unto you that I, the Lord, will contend with Zion and plead with her strong ones and chasten her until she overcomes and is clean before me. I think it's interesting here. Well, let me read this next verse. For she shall not be removed out of her place. I, the Lord, have spoken it. Amen. Again, this idea. Zion's not going anywhere. It's here to stay. The keys are here. The church will stay. This is the last time the kingdom will be here. It's very comforting, but. Verse 36, who is the Lord contending with? It's not Zion's enemies, but verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, will contend with Zion. Wait, I thought he was supposed to stick up for Zion. I thought he had Zion's back. I thought he was going to go contend with Babylon and go just nuke the enemies. Right. I will contend with Zion. And I think that is a conversation we have had a few times. The idea that sometimes our hardest trials and tribulations aren't from the devil telling us, go kill someone or go steal something or do something we obviously know is wrong. But the Lord humbling us or chastening us or saying, go and do something that maybe you don't want to do. How is that ministering assignment I gave you coming along? How is, you know, I don't know. How's that calling coming for you? The Lord will contend with Zion and get her clean and get her ready. Okay. [01:03:19] Speaker A: I love it. [01:03:21] Speaker B: Next. Sorry, as I'm bouncing around here. Verse 11. For it shall come to pass in that day that every man shall hear the fullness of the Gospel in his own tongue and in his own language, through those who are ordained unto the power by the administration of the comforter shed forth upon them by the spirit of revelation of Jesus Christ. In my mission, we had a 70 come and speak to us. And he quoted this verse, that's why I bring this up. Every man shall hear the fullness of the Gospel in his own tongue and in his own language. And when he said that, he said to me, this means they shall hear the Gospel in their own accent. The idea that missionaries will no longer be foreign missionaries, but you will have enough missionaries in the area that they will be preaching to their own people in their own dialect, in their own tongue. [01:04:17] Speaker A: I love that. [01:04:18] Speaker B: I thought that was an interesting way of interpreting that verse 15 and set in order the churches and study and learn and become acquainted with all good books and with languages, tongues and people. Joseph Smith loved languages. He said if he had enough Time he'd learn all the languages in the world. He studied German, he studied Hebrew, he studied Greek. He studied a lot of different languages. Not something he had enough time for, but something that he liked. Study good books, get educated as best you can. And then verse 18, set in order your houses. Keep slothfulness and uncleanliness far from you. And it's interesting, here you are talking to the leaders of the church and you have got all of these important things that you need them to do. The mercantile, translating the scriptures, the printing press, the organizing of Zion, and everything that you need to do. Oh, and by the way, stay clean and don't be slothful. Make your bed, clean your room. Don't lay around and waste time. [01:05:26] Speaker A: I need to do better about making my bed. [01:05:30] Speaker B: Ever since I've been married, it's been made every morning. [01:05:33] Speaker A: It's funny, my wife makes it every morning and she's always like, cool, man. So you could do this too, you know, I'm like, but can I? Truly, can I? [01:05:42] Speaker B: We have an understanding. Whoever's the last one out of bed usually makes it. [01:05:45] Speaker A: I mean, that's good. I think that's usually me. So, I mean, I'm shirking my responsibility. [01:05:52] Speaker B: But there is something to. I mean, going back to the word of wisdom, I know we left that. There is something to bringing order and cleanliness in order to do what you're doing. And not being lazy. [01:06:03] Speaker A: I love it. [01:06:04] Speaker B: And maybe being lazy should be included in the word of wisdom because how much do we idle away our time, sometimes doing nothing at all. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:06:13] Speaker B: Okay, let's. Oh, I can't get out of this section without mentioning Sister Vienna. Is it Jacques? I don't. [01:06:22] Speaker A: Jacques. [01:06:22] Speaker B: Jacques. I'm sorry. I apologize. My French is terrible. Her gift, she was financially well off. And I don't think she gets enough credit in the church because her financial contributions is what the church leaders were able to use to purchase several parcels of land, including the temple lot where the temple was going to be built. So she had some huge contributions to the early church. I just don't feel like she gets enough attention, enough credit for what she did. We all remember Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. But maybe nobody remembers Vienna, Jacques, who I slaughtered her name. But she was amazing. And she's told that she gets an inheritance later on to follow her life, she moves to Salt Lake Valley. She lives to the age of 96. [01:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah, get it. [01:07:15] Speaker B: Which is pretty phenomenal for that. [01:07:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's bonkers. That would be phenomenal. For now, but. [01:07:20] Speaker B: It's phenomenal for now, but phenomenal for a time period where they didn't bathe or wash their hands. [01:07:26] Speaker A: Go back to that. I still am trying to get that image out of my brain. All right, all right. What are we talking about next week? [01:07:33] Speaker B: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. [01:07:34] Speaker A: Oh, oh. [01:07:35] Speaker B: Do we still have time? Because we got. We got. [01:07:37] Speaker A: We're. No, what do you got? What do you got for us? Give us one last awesome thing. [01:07:43] Speaker B: We've. We've got. Okay, I'll quickly. I'll quickly blow through this. [01:07:49] Speaker A: Okay. [01:07:50] Speaker B: 91. The Apocrypha. [01:07:52] Speaker A: Okay. [01:07:53] Speaker B: I don't know how quick I'm going to be, Nate. We're just going to try. [01:07:56] Speaker A: All right, let's do it. [01:07:57] Speaker B: Okay. A lot of people may or may not know what the Apocrypha is. Joseph mistranslating the scriptures. And that's kind of a question. Is the Apocrypha important? For those of you who don't know, here is your brief history lesson on the Apocrypha. When the Bible. Okay. Back a long time ago, around 323 BC, Alexander the Great stomps all the way across the near east and conquers everything, including Israel, including Egypt, including Babylon, including Persia, just everything. He creates this first common language, Greek. And because everybody speaks Greek in the entire kingdom and all over the place, they decide to translate the Bible into Greek. So you have the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament in Greek. In the Septuagint copy of the Bible that we have today, there are several books that do not show up in the Hebrew Bible. Now, the Septuagint, even though the Old Testament was originally in Hebrew, the Septuagint was older than any of the Hebrew Bibles that we had. The oldest manuscript, complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible dates to around 1100 AD whereas in the oldest, Greek is several hundred years older than that. So the Greek Bible was older than the Hebrew Bible, even though Hebrew was the original language for the Old Testament. So in the Greek Bible, you had a couple books that did not show up in the Hebrew Bible. These books became known as the Apocrypha. So when they looked at it, some churches said, hey, this isn't part of the original Hebrew Bible. This is something that somebody added in after the fact. We are not going to take them serious. We are not going to include it in the Bible. So they didn't get included in a lot of Bibles. The Catholic Church includes it in their Bible. So there are some religions that take it. There are some that don't. Joseph Smith asked what to do and this is the revelation where he gets his answer. Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the Apocrypha, there are many things contained therein that are true and it is mostly translated correctly. There are also many things which therein are not true. Verily, I say unto you, it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be translated. Therefore whoso readeth it, let him understand. For the Spirit manifesteth truth and whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit thereof. And whosoever not by the Spirit cannot be benefited. Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated. So that was kind of his answer on what to do with the Apocrypha, but to kind of bring that one step further. When they found the Dead Sea Scrolls, they predated the Septuagint and it takes it all the way back to almost 200 BC to 200 AD, quite a bit older than the Greek and the Hebrew. And in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Apocrypha books were found. So they said they were included in the original Hebrew Bible. But there's also other Pseudepigrapha books. So there are so many books out there. And I brought here a little show and tell. Even though no one can see, I. [01:11:12] Speaker A: Know no one else can see, but I will bear witness. The stack of books is as high as his chair. [01:11:18] Speaker B: I brought my Pseudepigrapha, my Apocrypha, all of my non biblical biblical books, if you will. And there are, shoot, there are tens of thousands of pages. And just to give you an idea, I'll just read some of these books. I'm not going to read the whole book. Obviously we're out of time here. I'm just giving, I am just going to read some of these titles. You have got the Life of Adam and Eve, the Book of the Covenant, the Apocrypha of Seth, the Book of Noah, the Apocrypha of Eber, the dispute over Abraham, the Inquiry of Abraham. Yeah, the story of Melchizedek with the Melchizedek legend, the Syriac History of Joseph, Aramaic, Levi, the Testament of Job. You have got all of these books and there's just thousands of pages of these. And it's not just the Old Testament. You have the Infant Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas. You got all sorts of hundreds of books in the New Testament that never made it to the New Testament, but they were obviously considered a sacred text. People would cite from them People would quote them. They were part of this discussion back and forth. The Old Testament mentions the Book of Jasher. I have here the Book of Jasher. Jasher is not a name. It is Hebrew for upright. The book of the righteous, the book of the upright. [01:12:51] Speaker A: So when you read a scripture that says you can't add or take away from the books of the Bible, what would you say to that person in response? [01:13:02] Speaker B: Well, it depends because it says that in Deuteronomy. So that means you would throw away everything after the Book of Deuteronomy if you were to take it literally. But I mean, what is the Bible? What are you defining as the Bible? Don't be taking and editing the original word of God when it says thou shalt not kill. To say thou shalt kill all the time, I mean, that's taking away or changing. Don't change what the Word of God is saying. But know this, that the word of God speaks to people in all times and all over the place, and it is everywhere. And for a lot of you out there who say, man, I wish we had the two thirds portion of the Book of Mormon, or I wish we had all of these other writings, know this. I have right here tens and thousands of pages of writings. I just don't think the world today appreciates or realizes out there. And some of it you have to take with a grain of salt. Some of it you just have to take with like, just take the salt bag home and leave the rest of it out. Like it says here in Doctrine and Covenants, there are many things that are true and accurate. There are many things that are not. And if you have the spirit, you will get value out of it. If you don't, it is just going to confuse you and it is not going to be of any benefit. [01:14:21] Speaker A: I think it is just also healthy to remember and to remind everybody, whether they are of our faith or not, that the Bible as we have it has undergone so many changes, so many revisions, so many translations. And the fact that it's just those books that are included in the Bible, it could have been other books included in the Bible instead of those. I'm just saying, like there's, that's the idea that you would ever think, well, this right here is all that we ever would want to have and all that God would ever want us to have is just, it's. You're just ignoring hundreds of thousands of pages of text that that could have been included in the Bible had the decision made at the time that the Bible was being organized or not. I mean, like, it's not up to chance, I don't think completely. But, you know, all I'm saying is, is that, like, some of the books were included because they supported what the understanding of God was at the time, and some were left out because it didn't support kind of what they wanted to push as the narrative. As the narrative, Absolutely. [01:15:41] Speaker B: And there is evidence that some of the books were edited. Of course, you see instances where they wanted to get away from this polytheistic, this very pagan idea, and any kind of reference to God in a way that looked like it was multiple gods, or just let's clear this up and try to change it. And you can see it in different manuscripts. So the cool thing about the Hebrew Bible is, yes, you have the most complete version around 1100 AD at least until the Dead Sea Scrolls came, but you have fragments of the Bible that date back hundreds of years before that. So you might not have the whole Bible, but I do have here the book of Isaiah, or I do have here the Book of Daniel. And so if you read a Hebrew Bible, you know, in our footnotes, we have cross references to different scriptures that say something similar. In the Hebrew Bible footnotes, they have cross references to different manuscripts that say things differently. [01:16:39] Speaker A: Wow. [01:16:40] Speaker B: So you say in this manuscript it said this word, in this manuscript it used that word. So you can see all of these different manuscripts as it was written by hand. Some have variances or little differences. And part of Hebrew Bible study is comparing those differences and seeing, okay, why did they make this change, or what did it go with, or what tradition did this come from, or chasing the genealogy of the Bible. [01:17:06] Speaker A: And there is so much value in trying to work your way through that stuff, I believe. And there is a lot of value. And also just understanding at least how we got the Bible. So when. So when we do have questions or things don't make sense, it's not that it is true or not true or to be taken literally or to not be taken literally. Like, I know we've kind of joked about in the past, it's that there is like, okay, cool. There is so much more on the periphery of this than just this collection of books, which is why I. I will continue to preach if those. Or if you will allow me to, that the Book of Mormon is the most powerful witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that Jesus is the Christ. Because it hasn't gone through the same ringer that so many of those ancient texts have. [01:18:07] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's very straight from the mouth all. [01:18:11] Speaker A: Right, now, what are we talking about next week? Unless I'm cutting you off again, we keep going. If anybody's still with us at this point, they're probably like, I don't know. I'm here. Let's keep going. [01:18:23] Speaker B: Why not? I just wonder, maybe I can share just a few fun stories, short brief stories from these manuscripts, just to. [01:18:36] Speaker A: We should do. We should do it as an. Like an addendum. I mean, we're almost at 80 minutes. [01:18:41] Speaker B: Snap. Yeah. [01:18:43] Speaker A: All right. I'll just say if we keep teasing it. Maybe you should do a midweek. Maybe you should do a midweek surprise pod. You could just do this on your own. You don't even need me there to derail the whole thing. [01:18:55] Speaker B: I'll just say there's cool stories in a lot of these things. Like, you've got. You've got Jesus playing with his buddy when he was a kid, and he falls off the roof and dies, and they accuse Jesus of pushing him off. He's like, I didn't push him off. Resurrects the kid. He's like, tell him. He's like, yeah, no, I fell on my own. He's like, yeah, that's what I thought. [01:19:12] Speaker A: That's a good one. [01:19:13] Speaker B: And you got stories of Abraham describing exactly how hot his wife really was. [01:19:18] Speaker A: Okay. We for sure need a special midweek podcast, Jason. There's a lot of content we're going to get. [01:19:24] Speaker B: There's a lot of cool things out there, if you're curious to know. There's a wealth of information about the biblical world and extra biblical stories. And I'll end with this, Nate. I'll fold it up. We are excited to be getting into Old Testament next year, and part of that excitement is. I mean, that's my degree. A lot of people out there listening to our show. Maybe you wonder, who in the world are these guys and where do they come from? That is my background. I studied Ancient Near Eastern studies. I studied German, Hebrew, Ugaritic, Greek, Latin. That was my degree in school. So that's. That's where we get excited. Can't wait for Old Testament. We're going to wrap a lot of these stories in traditions, Jewish, whatever, and really hopefully give you guys a lot of meat to go on when we dive into the day. [01:20:13] Speaker A: And we're going to be talking about some baguets. Yeah, I will specifically be talking about some baguettes. All right, what are we talking about next week, buddy? [01:20:20] Speaker B: Next week we're diving into Doctrine and Covenants, Section 93. We didn't get to 92 today. Maybe I'll just mention. Mention one thing in a United Order next week when we guy when we go into doctrine covenant section 93. Cool. [01:20:31] Speaker A: Until next week. [01:20:32] Speaker B: See ya.