Book of Mormon Evidence in the Holy Land? w/ The Paul Brothers

hello everybody we are the Paul brothers and welcome to a very special edition of Mormon media reviews this week Steve is going to be interviewing us on our new and upcoming project for the last few months we have been working on a first of its kind multi-part mini-series on the historical and archaeological evidences of the Book of Mormon so far our travels have taken us to the Middle East where we have been digging in to first Nephi to give you a little preview of what it's all about here's a sneak peek at our new teaser for 200 years one book has stood at the center of a rising faith to Believers it stands as another witness of Jesus Christ it has Changed History and influenced Millions yet many respected figures challenge its authenticity doesn't know too much about Joseph Smith we know he was a con man in 1820 when he found golden tablets and translated them into scripture and believed that Jesus visited North America these beliefs are barking man so is the Book of Mormon fact or fiction history or hoax well we want to find out for ourselves we are the Paul Brothers with a mission to find the answer to this question we were LED off of Internet forums and even out of libraries because just as with Lehi our Call to Adventure was to depart Into the Wilderness led by archaeologists and researcher Jim gee we set out to put ourselves and the Book of Mormon to the test [Music] a blade is from field but the handle is from Silver [Music] you will put the claims of the Book of Mormon to the test to find out if it is an obvious fraud or if it truly is the Stick of Joseph welcome to Mormon media reviews or an Evangelical encounters the restoration I'm your host Stephen heinecker more media reviews more in book reviews this is a Mormon media reviews Edition because we're talking to up and coming YouTube channel and you guys just saw the trailer at the beginning of this doesn't this look so freaking awesome I told him I said guys the production values of what you guys do and I thought it was even Jokers that did it [Laughter] I just want to thank you guys this is Jackson and Hayden Paul uh uh two brothers we've got this YouTube channel called The Stick of Joseph welcome to the program thank you we're excited to be here yeah we appreciate it and so I caught Wendy you guys I saw that you were on my homies uh show the quick show with Greg Manson I saw some clips I saw your trailer I was like oh I like what these guys are doing um I think this is really an interesting thing and we're going to talk about this project you guys got going which to me looks really cool and awesome but before we get there um Jackson Hayden I would like for you guys to introduce yourself to the audience and tell us a little bit about your background about your favorite because actually what's interesting part of the reason you guys were doing this project because you read the CES letter and you read did a lot of research so I want us to I want you guys to kind of maybe give us the backstory okay yeah so first off we've been Brothers for 24 years so we've been friends for 24 years he is the younger one even though he's bigger than me okay so I call him my big little brother uh we grew up in Sandy Utah um and then kind of the impetus for this project I'll go into it for me it wasn't until after I got home from admission so I served a mission in Budapest Hungary I get home from my mission it's been about a year and a half or so and I'm just reminded that I never really took seriously the idea that the whole thing could be false I never like let I never let that idea play around in my head and I thought well maybe I should do that maybe I should read all of the what the critics say about the church and then also read about what the church says about the church and and really prayer prayerfully kind of go on my own journey to figure out what what I believe in and so that's what I did and for about six months to a year in between there I would I was praying asking God heavenly father if you if this isn't true please show me I I want to go wherever the truth is please show me and I I had one rule while doing this and I think it's an important rule is I made sure that I spent just as much time reading what the critics say about the church as I did about what the church says about the church and so I try to give both audiences the same amount of time because I I knew that for me especially that what the critics said about the church was more interesting because I already heard what the church has said about the church and so I knew that if I didn't have that sort of balance I wouldn't be clear in my vision because I would just be putting all of my time into what the critics were saying and so I gave an equal amount of time and I I came to some conclusions and I and we can talk about those if you want later but uh it was during that time that I really found a love for researching now only about church history but about the Book of Mormon specifically because in the CES letter you know he goes through all the anachronisms and all that sort of stuff and I started really to to dig into that and I've always had an uh desire to learn about ancient history and it was really cool to do that in through the scope of of the Book of Mormon so that's kind of my my journey on on why this is a subject that I'm interested in yeah and kind of growing up as well like when I would hear about uh opposing ideas to the church or some you know controversial church history it was always and I kind of understand why they do it but they paint it in a really bad light of anti-mormon don't go to it because it's so biased anti-anti and I I see why they kind of do that because if you step into that realm without already having a firm base and being strong in your beliefs it's gonna rock your world okay and so uh kind of similarly like Hayden uh I served a mission in Lisbon Portugal and and one thing that I notice as a missionary is that a lot of times it was very ineffective when receiving questions from people and not fully understanding my beliefs and being like we just have to trust God or it's because God commands us right when a lot of times yeah we don't have a full comprehension of uh the motives behind God's actions and you know one day we will hopefully have that full understanding but there's we can go a long way in this life to understand the Commandments and understand our beliefs if we really take the time and effort to do the research um and so when I got back from my mission I kind of uh had that same thought as I've never really entertained the thought that this is all you know a farce and um I should really be a conscious follower if I I really want to have a good impact on this world if it is something true right and so kind of diving into all that all all of those things I really saw that there's a lot of things in church history that are ugly right and a good analogy that that Hayden talks about and I like a lot is the early years of the restoration is kind of like childbirth okay if you look at it it's something very messy and scary there's a lot of blood screaming crying and it looks like something horrible is happening right but the product from it is something Divine a human being a child of God right and so even though a lot of messy things did happen in the early years of the church and in the restoration I truly believe that the product of it was divine and uh that Joseph Smith was a prophet called of God and and yeah just just going through that whole process it's been really educational and now um we just see the great effort efforts that are being made against the church and against the Book of Mormon that we want to make an effort to use our time and talents to you know really be Valiant followers of Jesus Christ and show that you don't have to be an absolute idiot to believe that these things could have actually happened so you know I just want to talk a little bit more too because I actually want to get into this more thoroughly but I just want to just get a little bit more about your background so you basically are just good old good old Mormon boys raised right right and then you guys actually ended up going into the Marine Corps is that correct yeah so I I joined late I was 24 when I uh got out of uh boot camp in the school of infantry and then Jackson so I I joined on a whim like I never thought I would ever join the military listen I was out on my mission all of a sudden slowly I started getting these emails like he buys a a gun he starts like concealed carry and then he sends pictures of him always wearing like America Flag t-shirts and stuff I'm like what's going on with this kid and then all of a sudden he just sends me a picture of him just like swearing in I'm like what is going on with my brother it was like uh September 2019 and then I got back from Portugal in January of 2020. yeah and so I leave I leave the boot camp uh March so I got married January 24th five weeks later uh I'm leaving to boot camp leaving my wife for six months I didn't know it was going to be six months at a time it was right when covet hit so it was supposed to be three months home for two weeks and then another two months and she can come visit me but instead it was just six months not seeing each other which is you know an interesting way to start a marriage and I'm three weeks into boot camp and before I left I just told I just gave my brother my recruiter's number I was like hey just talk to him see if you're interested in this well Andy was always tripping in my ears like you ever heard that guy Captain Moroni anything you know the cool thing so we uh so three weeks into boot camp I get a letter from my brother and he's like hey I'm going to be joining you in a few weeks and I'm like three weeks into Marine Corps boot camp is like you hate your life more than you've ever hated it before and I'm like I'm the worst brother ever why did I convince him to do this um but since then we're in the same unit we're in a infantry reserve unit here at Camp Williams and uh you know serving in this capacity sucks in a lot of ways but anything worth doing is hard and requires sacrifice and so we're grateful to be able to serve um and we'll just see kind of what it brings in the future and it's kind of interesting because little did he know oh I kind of conveyed it in the letter I wrote to him but the Book of Mormon and a very spiritual experience I had with it uh is actually the reason that propelled me to enlist in the United States Marine Corps and I've had several different uh experiences with the Book of Mormon that have has made it much more than just a religious text you know in a broad sense but a very personal revelatory means of receiving Revelation for me for big decisions in my life and of course uh you have a history Hayden right in doing uh production video production right so maybe talk a little bit about your history with that because that kind of informs this conversation as well yeah so I started doing our father he started in video production he actually he joined the military he's kind of screwed up in high school and he'd be okay with me saying that on here and he uh and so he joined the military as a as a reservist in the Air Force um just because he didn't really have any other options and it was in there that he actually got the he went in there without like choosing what his job was and they just assigned him to combat camera and so he had to learn how to use a camera while he was in the military and he developed that and he eventually got into video production Film Production and so we grew up around it made home videos when we were kids and things like that and in high school I really got into it I have a YouTube channel that I'm not going to tell you what it is on here but it has enough videos ridiculous ridiculous just YouTube videos with my friends in high school middle school and then when I got out of high school and got home from a mission I just started doing video again and I gained uh just a love for travel and so I started to try to find jobs that would allow me to travel around the world and I was luckily able to go to around 18 countries getting paid to do videos and one of those jobs that I had was working for um Jim D who is the expert that you saw on that trailer that is taking us through the Middle East and so I went on safaris with them I went to Petra Israel all through the Middle East with him and I documented that and that's that's like the second part of the puzzle where that was the first time that I like held artifacts that were thousands of years old and it kind of changed my life I I just realized that in the human story we're all connected somehow and it wasn't until I held something that I knew someone held you know 3 000 years ago two thousand years ago that I really felt that I felt that connection to our ancestors to all those who came before us and that's when I started to love Antiquities and history and all that and that really brought up and he so Jim and we can talk about these some of these later but he's uh played a role in some of the bigger discoveries regarding evidences of the Book of Mormon in the Middle East and and that really lit a fire in me and so I came to him about five months ago and I was like Jim we need to share these with the world and I want to help you do that somehow by the grace of God we were able to raise enough money to bring a crew of of six people to three different countries throughout the Middle East on a week-long shoot and and it worked out so we started the journey and we we have a long way to go but that's kind of my background with film so that's the thing I you you there's a lot of sacrifice going on here you actually had kind of like God tell you something to kind of initiate this whole process and you kind of have been walking in faith about where you're going to get funding all this kind of stuff it's kind of you you do believe this is a providential uh exercise I do very much and like one thing about it like from really getting wheels moving and from idea conception to us raising basically forty thousand dollars was about two two and a half weeks it was literally just a miracle like I I and some of it is too sacred for me to just share you know on the internet I'd share with you personally Steve but [Music] um like we had zero safety net going into this I just I walked away from working to do this we had our second kid after we started this project and somehow God has provided I don't I don't look I don't like to look at my bank account really because I feel like I'm going to jinx it if I do for some reason it just keeps working I don't know I don't know what's happening but somehow we're not running out of money and and God Is providing but are you sure you're using the debit card or just like that I don't know so we're just uh we're just making sure that we uh put faith in God we're walking out without person script and we have been taken care of thus far and we're going to continue to do that throughout this project so there's a lot of people in my audience that are nevermos or they're evangelicals that are doing research I never heard that term you never know you never heard so many um Online Reddit but I I want you guys to say because first of all some people might not know what the Stick of Joseph is what is the Stick of Joseph okay and this is a point of controversy all right so you just read the comments in our we have an episode it's the first episode on our Channel explaining uh that Latter-Day Saint understanding of the prophecy in Ezekiel 37 about the Stick of Joseph read through the comments and you can see that it's it's definitely a point of conflict so in the rest of the Christian world the belief about Ezekiel 37 which talks about how the Stick of Joseph will end up in the hand of Ephraim and it will be bound with the Stick of Judah and from doing that uh it will bring forth a gathering of Israel to their Homeland as well as building of a tabernacle uh so the rest of the Christian world just believes that that is a prophecy about the northern tribes and Judah coming back together in the Middle East and that it has to do with things that happened thousands of years ago and has nothing to do with the latter days or the coming forth of Christ or anything like that essentially the prophecy was already fulfilled in that time period in that time period right well for those who take seriously the evidence of the Book of Mormon and what the Book of Mormon says that prophecy takes on a deeper meaning and the idea that we're putting forth and that is put forth in the Book of Mormon itself as well as from Latter-Day prophets Joseph Smith as well is that the Stick of Joseph explained in the in Ezekiel is actually the Book of Mormon and that the Stick of Judah is the Bible and so it's the latter day ending up in the hands of Ephraim of the Stick of Joseph so the stake of Joseph ending up in the hands of Ephraim in the latter days and putting it together with the Bible that brings forth the Gathering of Israel which we have a different idea of what the Gathering of Israel means in the Latter-Day Saint Community as well um which essentially is just bringing people to Christ Israel uh the the most common definition of it is he who wrestles with God and so people who take god seriously and so uh we believe that the Gathering of Israel is just finding those who want to wrestle with God so just bringing people to God and um that is and so we believe that the sick of Joseph kind of kicks off the restoration and the Latter-Day Gathering of Israel so that's that's kind of what we're that's that's what we're talking about when we say the Stick of Joseph so you guys are planning on doing Five Seasons uh so this is going to be an ongoing project folks it's really fascinating and I want to kind of get into that before we do that I wanted to go back a little bit to explore you had said you know the messiness of the early church and then you'd like to be you know there's there's a lot going on the CES letter all the the gospel topics essays all the things that you guys would have been what was it like for you guys to be exposed to that did it was it a challenge to your faith that it caused you to doubt I want to talk a little bit about this also affecting your faith Journey going into this with the research um so for me it's I see a lot of people and I've watched hundreds of hours of YouTube of other people that have come across the same stuff and had a very different result happen in their lives and in a lot of interviews that I've seen as well it seems that a fundamental part of their faith was based on uh good examples in their life of faithful people right so they weren't necessarily rooted solely just in Jesus Christ in their testimony but in maybe general authorities of the church people they respected who had a lot of faith and showed a lot of faith in Jesus Christ and so I knew that it was important going into it is that one of the things that uh that I decided is I love God in Jesus Christ and I need an external thing in my life to be able to um approximate myself with them better and thus far in my life the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been an amazing Catalyst and median in which I can use to grow closer to God in Jesus Christ aside from it uh you know being the the true church of uh Jesus Christ that right there in and of itself is valuable to me because it helps me grow closer to Jesus Christ right and so having that as my root me just having a desire to be rooted in Jesus Christ coming across these things and these um you know fallibilities of men and obviously these messy things that happened I was able to look at it from a perspective of God trying to use these imperfect people to do and bring to pass something great and marvelous for his children for the greater good and having that base going into it um a lot of the things that are very shocking for others um yeah they they were you know very surprising and interesting to find out but I was able to see how the product later on down the line was far more beneficial than you know the messiness that occurred in the time and obviously you know the product was designed Divine and there's a lot of things that weren't So Divine and were some human errors um but that kind of helped me stay grounded in my testimony in Jesus Christ and to kind of go along with that my my thoughts were were this after going through it all and weighing the history and all this stuff I came to the conclusion that I would never base something as important as my faith on history and some people might roll their eyes when they hear that they're like oh that's very convenient but the reason is this there's things happening today that we don't know the truth about that you read about in the media and you can you can look at Fox News and you can look at CNN and you're giving two different stories of events that happened today right and so take that 200 years and you never have unbiased writers of history very very rarely and the reason for that is because they're not interested why if if you're not interested in either side of an argument or either side of a um a controversy you're not going to write about it because it's not interesting to you right and so you know you can read what Brigham Young said about Joseph Smith and that's going to be biased and you can read what Joseph Smith said about Joseph Smith and that's going to be biased and you can read what John C Bennett wrote about Joseph Smith and that's going to be biased and so at the end of the day I would never root something as important as my faith on the history so what is it that I would root and that I would weigh and it's the fundamental doctrines that came from the restoration and so for me some of those large fundamental doctrines are one work for the dead I I don't really understand how in the rest of the Christian World especially those who believe that God uh does have standards that need to be met in order to enter his kingdom I don't understand how and I would love to hear your perspective as well I've talked there's not a ton of evangelicals in our community that we can talk to you know we grew up in and lived in Sandy Utah so I love your thoughts on this but it's always been confusing to me how I understand the rest of the Christian World believes is like yes you have to accept Jesus and you have to be baptized and some people don't say you have to be baptized but you have to accept Jesus in order to in this life in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven well what about and I've I'm someone who's traveled to 18 countries around the world everywhere from India countries in Africa uh Thailand uh just all all around the the world what about that you know six-year-old kid who grew up in India never heard the name of Jesus Christ and died of dysentery when he was six so that kid just gone he didn't accept Christ he wasn't baptized and and there's so many there's billions of people that have had that story and so for me the only way that I can Rectify God being just and merciful is through work for the dead and then the second thing that I'll share there's multiple is the last doctrine that was is I feel like is fundamental and it's the only way that the rest of the Bible and Christianity makes sense in my mind right is um the rest of the Christian World believes in ex nihilo creation that God created everything out of nothing and then you have like the Calvinists who in my opinion are the only ones who take those logical implications to their end that the Calvinists say well that's why we have irresistible Grace and yes God did create people to be saved and he did create people to be damned and there is such thing as determinism God determined all of our actions and that's kind of the calvinist view right and and then the rest of the Christian world is like no God created us out of nothing but then he gave us free will and the problem with that argument is if God is all-powerful and all-knowing he knew when he created us and gave us our uh our personality traits our characteristics and all that he knew exactly how those would play out over time it uh furthermore he knew exactly how we would interact with the other people that he created over time so even if he did create some abstraction called free will he knew exactly how we would use it when he created us with those personality traits so the whole Free Will thing is a mute point now Joseph Smith in the restoration of the Gospel brings for this idea that all matter and all intelligence is co-eternal with God that it has no beginning and no end and you know the most fundamental explanation of that is in the king fall at discourse right and so to me the only way God can be good merciful just all-knowing all-powerful is if he didn't create us out of nothing because if so there is no free will he created evil and I'm someone I worked three years for operation Underground Railroad which rescues kids from sex trafficking and I've seen the worst things that human beings can do and if God created us out of nothing he created those actions simultaneously because of his all-knowingness and his all-powerfulness right and so to me at the end of the day when it came to whether or not I believe that the restoration and the Book of Mormon all that stuff is true it came down to what is the fundamental doctrine that is taught and there's nothing more fundamental than the difference between ex nihilo creation and matter and Intelligence being co-eternal with God so that's my rant I'm sorry if I talk too much that's fine of course I love it when my conversations take unexpected turns and we start talking about uh Mormon Doctrine and yeah I see where you're coming from and I can see why these arguments would really be helpful that's that's the genius of the Restoration in one sense that's the genius of Joseph Smith is that he whether you want to take a naturalistic explanation or a supernatural one he was the ability for him to that's what made it early on so appealing well first of all we have the sense like him being able to kind of like because like the depravity of man and like um the the problem with sin or the problem with evil that's like a a question that's been asked by the Christian world how could God be all-knowing and all good but also create people to be evil right I think the bull the ball starts rolling when that Presbyterian Minister says that Alvin has been is in hell and that would cause would it would be actually you you could feel like he probably got traumatized by that right so I think he's a person who was seeking answers to these these these questions and he was grappling with them and pondering them and I think that that's I mean because that that is so true you know I struggle with a lot of this too I mean I I am you know a Christian next nilo guy I I really I think actually I tell people The Big Bang Theory proves Genesis 1 1 in the beginning and then one of the main reasons why many of your people in that field in astronomy and stuff were very opposed to The Big Bang Theory as a matter of fact they they it would they derisively called it the Big Bang Theory as a joke because they said the reason why they stayed away from it is it sounded too much like the beginning of the Bible and it was a Jesuit who came up with the Big Bang Theory and so it's a Christian it's a thoroughly Christian doctrine that was proven in my mind the Big Bang Theory proves a key core Christian doctrine now what are the implications of that of course right yeah I see your point dude I I and I and I go back and I grapple with this too because in one sense if it's all predetermined if everything is predestined then really there's nothing we can do and that's why I like like when I call the nihilism right like that remarks this nihilism thing like some of the best atheists in the world used to be calvinist man because I basically are they're describing the same God yeah is this the atheists and Calvin it's essentially in some sense believe in the same God now I'm I'm more critical of hypercalves there's some beautiful Calvinists that I know that are more moderate and they're not these yeah these jerks which some of them are big time and some don't like me and that's fine you know Jesus loves you I love you I know you don't love me that's fine Jesus loves you and he'll forgive you but this is the thing I get that because I was I tell people I used to be a calvinist and then I Found Jesus right and and um I I grapple with those questions all the time I think these are important conversations to have because yeah dude I don't know that's the whole key thing and I tell people if you if you want to create bad apologetics or bad theology it is when you are answering a question to something where the right answer is I don't know but you instead give an answer then that's where bad Theology and bad apologetic starts it's the uh the idea of mystery which is big in Catholicism in the Eastern Orthodox church we cannot know because we're it's so incomprehensible God it's it's so incomprehensible so we only have certain tools that we have to deal with that we can that we have to kind of figure this whole thing out right so that's ideal all I can say is I just follow the lead of the Lord I don't question it you know I have had many many spiritual experiences I shared one with you beforehand pretty remarkable you know uh and that happens frequently and so I'm like okay and I always look at it this way either the scientists tell us were either one um you know we have we have the universe is this happen as as it's been described you know Big Bang all this kind of stuff or we live in assimilation there's a lot of it's a 50 50 proposition whether we live in a simulation or not uh or there's a God now I tell people I said either there's a God who's directing this this my life and I and I and he and he he gives me Impressions he he directs me in certain directions or there's somebody in in having a lot of fun uh manipulating the simulation either way I I can't it's too crazy either way whether this is all like random chance or there's a God these are the fact that we're having this conversation in in and of itself is it should not even be possible in one sense right but we are um you shouldn't be here in the natural but we are we exist and and I think that's the important thing and I think I'm so sick of people who don't know who are giving answers to questions where the right answer is I don't know and they give those answers and then they they they that's the hill they're gonna die on yes yeah and it's very off-putting for other people because uh first of all saying I don't know is a huge sign of humility and even in the Book of Mormon like there's a lot of places in which uh like for example Nephi when he's making the the plates and he says for the purpose I do not know but uh the Lord has commanded me right and so you you see even uh in the Bible a lot of instances in which prophets called of God are not even a hundred percent sure at the time of receiving Commandment that they the reason behind it right and it takes a lot of humility to say I don't know and a lot of arrogance to say yes I do know and here's why when they actually don't and so and it's very off-putting to people that aren't uh religious right yeah and I I and I think I think it's a it's also important to to understand as well though because a lot of people so like with that the question of the problem of evil uh or X and Halo creation and and all the implications that come with that uh it started I think it can it always should start off with I don't know and then I always keep in the back of my head this I think this but I could be wrong I always keep that so this whenever I share my thoughts and I sometimes and this bothers my wife a ton is like I'm really good at making things sound matter of fact right but that doesn't mean that I believe that their matter of fact and can never change I just I always steal man what I believe that way people can still man a different perspective and then I can see how it stands up at the end and I can be like oh there's a hole there how do I fill that in right so but one thing like when it comes to you know the problem with evil excellent healer creation all those implications a lot of evangelicals that I have talked to usually say they use the scripture I think it's in Isaiah where he says my ways are not your ways or the gods God's ways are higher than man's right 100 I believe that 100 that said though Jesus also does say ask and ye shall receive knock and it shall be open unto you seek and ye shall find and so I think the recognizing God's ways are higher is a way for us to Humble ourselves but then he invites us to ask those questions and he also promises that we can receive those answers and so that's what I'm saying about um we can say we don't know how God could create everything out of nothing um but then also that these implications can somehow make sense and we just don't know or we can ask the question God how does this happen and to me from what I've found so far and I could be wrong and I and I would change as soon as I find out you know find something better but I have yet to find a better answer than that of Joseph Smith and the restoration what we find in Doctrine and Covenants the Pearl gray price and some of it in the Book of Mormon but most of these deeper doctrines you find in in those writings and like I understand that God's power and knowledge supersedes ours and there are some things that we we don't have the capability potentially of knowing in this life but if we're able to use our logical powers to a certain extent like for example if you ask me how did Jesus make water wine my answer is I don't know I could come up with some sort of theory but I really don't know because it's beyond my logical capacities but this whole idea of God and us being co-eternal with him is within our logical capacities and it makes sense and so because of that like to me I I do believe that it is it's a pretty good answer and so all of these so yeah just to answer your question and we can get more into the Book of Mormon now because we kind of got off track you know we'd love to come on for other other things as well you guys are very engaging and very thoughtful people this is the this is really what I think is important yeah having the conversation we just had for sure because I think so often when I deal with a lot of these apologies and I I will tell you there are LDS apologists that are the same way and I don't like me okay because they can't put me in a box and the Calvinists apologist they cannot put me in a box and they don't like that because you're supposed to be easily I he's anti-mormon no he's not actually he's a friend of the church yeah he's he's not sufficiently Evangelical who actually talks about how Jesus saved Jesus saves and talks about having a personal relationship with Jesus and being born again you can't say I'm either one or the other because I'm not because you're saved that's much yard your Steve I'm Hayden this is Jackson that's right and we believe our own things we're all fellow image bearers we bear his image is that if we don't have these conversations evangelicals I'm talking to atheists I'm talking to you I'm talking to everybody and those those LDS apologists who don't like me and I still can't figure out why they don't like me it's crazy it's weird but this is the thing and mostly by the way 99 of the people comments are positive so this is just a fringy thing so it doesn't I don't even think about it unless I'm talking but I'm like this why if you are a Christian apologist whether LDS Affiliated or those affiliated with apologia and Aaron shaloph James White and all these guys that make a lot of noise a lot of heat a lot of heat not a lot of light and I'm just like none of what you're doing makes sense if you're a calvinist because I'm just doing what God preordained for me to do anyhow predestined for me to do seriously dude exactly and and and this is the thing but what if Aaron and you guys are wrong and your world view is not correct all right and it's not correct and people get so certain and let me just speak from a broader picture here okay because I talked to everybody right yeah and I talked to ex-mormons all the time I have them on my show I have them as my co-host right I I I'm friends with extra Mormons John delin and I are good friends right I mean this is the world I live in and they hate evangelicals with a passion yeah right really because they just feel like we are and look when I first got into this I I got a lot of pushback from ex-mormons they were afraid of me now they love me I've even had atheists say Steve if you ever moved to Utah and start a church I'll I'll go to your church atheists right I have no intention by the way but my point being is that it that's what it's all about is having those conversations but if your worldview is wrong Calvinists and people actually do have free will and you guys are out there with Blair blow horns at General Conference or a temple dedications and you're mapping them by wearing temple garments and stuff like that and you're the people who are walking into those buildings are looking at you and saying if that's what Evangelical Christian is all about I don't have anything to do with them so that now the people who are transitioning out of the church Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a variety of reasons and people you need to talk you need to ask your brother why he left you need to talk to your family members you need to show them love just like President Nelson said you need to have Jesus in your life you don't attack people who leave you need to be understanding on their level but for the these people who are transitioning out of the church they don't even look our way and I just want they're already off put by the the approach that happened earlier did that make sense let's say there's actual Free Will going on and there's actually people have free agency or whatever you want to call it yeah and you are literally your tactics calvinist you're literally if you're in that correct you're literally pushing people out of the Kingdom but if I'm wrong it doesn't matter because I'm predestined to be doing this this is the whole point so I think that's why I would get them I don't get like why do you even get up in the morning why didn't go to church if you're one of God's elect then just you're one of God's elect and this is the other thing calvinist and I don't know why I'm going off but I I feel like I have to say that two things is what is your basic how you I question your basic Humanity if you firmly believe that 99 or 90 of the world's population is predestined for Eternal torture damnation you believe God created them just to stop Satan right so he created he created Satan God created Saiyan right and and like this is the thing that's hard because like in X and Hilo creation you also have to you have to say that as well so the Calvinists I think bring it to you know right well I said are that logical implications but God created Satan just so that he could create other beings to just have them be tortured by Saiyan in hell that's wild it's it's not only that but my big thing is this these people who go after people whether they're lgbtq or their Hindus they're Muslims they're Mormons there are people outside of their group they attack they attack they're nasty they're mean they they they condemn them and and they and they and they want to pass along laws against them they want to do all this stuff to make their lives miserable here on Earth and I'm thinking if I believe what they believed I would feel bad for these people and I would show them love because I know what's predestined for them but instead they're saying no I'm going to make not only is there gonna you're gonna suffer in Hell For Eternity but I'm going to make sure you're gonna make your life that's how I see it so anyway by the way I want to appreciate I'm glad we actually had this conversation there's so much of this stuff I've been wanting to get out there and I don't normally we can talk more about we can talk more but we should come on another time we'll leave the Book of Mormon stuff but but so let's let's plan on you guys coming back on but I do want to get back because oh boy I'm going to get a lot of slack on this one I'll tell you already but uh I I um I want you to talk about this channel you have the Stick of jealous of you know you're planning on doing five seasons and I want you to also give you give us a preview of what season one looks like and then maybe kind of give us a broad outline of what you're intending on doing and also folks in whatever links you guys want to leave uh send them to me so I can make sure that we can link everything in the description for those of you who would like to support the channel and their work as well as well as a link to their channel so talk let's talk about season one tell us a little bit about her cool yeah so season one um we're just kicking it off right where the book starts right uh in the first year the arena King zedekiah and in Jerusalem right and so uh that's where the Book of Mormon begins and so we start with the only definitive archaeological uh or definitive geographical place that it could have started is exactly what's described and uh so we're starting now in Jerusalem um setting the stage of where Lehigh and his family lived all their days and just going through the different archaeological and historical evidences that corroborate happenings in the Book of Mormon and slowly moving down their Trail through the Wilderness eventually ending up in uh Bountiful which is a place described in the Book of Mormon from where they departed to the New World um after building their ship and it's in modern day Salalah We Believe which is in Oman yep and so um yeah we're gonna do five different episodes going through all these different historical and archaeological evidences lead bar led by our infield expert Jim gee who has done about 25 to 30 years of research archaeological digs and he does tours um about for about three months every year out there and it's just continuing to continuing to discover and and uh research these things yeah and so one thing that's super interesting is like Jackson said it's the only definitive geographical place of the Book of Mormon right because the Book of Mormon says it happens here now the rest of the Book of Mormon it's a big question mark but we want to go into all those question marks and so we're going to give as much Credence to the Heartland theory as we do the Mesoamerican Theory as we do to the Peru and Chile Theory we're not going to do the Africa Theory or the Malaysia Theory oh shucks yeah because there's just there's like three people yeah there's like a tweet that says hey the book of happened in Africa and that means pretty much it but um we're gonna go into all these series and we're going to Stillman then and we are going to poke holes in them as well we're going to take experts who believe these things and we're going to bring up to the heartlanders you know questions about uh you know where are these big cities that existed where are these big structures that it seems like it explains and we'll talk to the the meso people about okay well we're still in horses and chariots we'll do the same thing with Heartland but we're going to we're going to ask these hard questions because we're curious I have no idea where the Book of Mormon happened after they leave Bountiful I have no idea but I will say that this first season to me is going to be the most interesting because it has the most definitive archaeological evidences like there are some crazy things yeah that Joseph Smith had to have guessed because they weren't known to the Western World at the time like people don't understand that the Arabian Peninsula was largely unexplored by the Western World until World War One when lots of Arabia goes in there and then later on in the early 20th century you have Wilfred thessinger and uh Bertram Thomas who explore the Arabian Peninsula and kind of the whole geography over there like it really was very much unknown to the Western world and the types of quote-unquote guesses that Joseph Smith would have had to have made in order to have the narrative fit as well as it does in the geography honestly it's more wild to believe that he guessed all those things than to say an angel appeared to him showed him an ancient record and he translated by the power of God you know Hugh Nibley actually said that if we want to find proofs of the Book of Mormon we need to go to the old world so I think that's probably the right place to start your journey of course we didn't have nehem we have all these different things within the context of you know these I always tell you there are some bullseyes that the Book of Mormon had gets right in the Middle East so I think that that's that's a that's a data point that people need to deal with and I hope you guys really get into that because I want to encourage evangelicals to watch their programming to kind of see like the steel man argument in favor of the Book of Mormon they can even tell us for those of you who are doing research you need to hear the best arguments because I I will tell you that most of the stuff that's out there against Mormonism is garbage and it's uninformed and it's it's not very well researched and I don't see like for instance I go to Mormon history Association every year I go to John Whitmer I go to Sunstone I go to all these conferences I'll be giving presentations at conferences okay I've never seen any of these apologetic research Ministries at these conferences engaging the latest scholarship actually engaging the what's out there and uh you know it's it's crazy because we have so much stuff out there I'm just looking for a book here I want to point out well it's not important but I remember in the 19 90s there's this book that came out that was put about by Evangelical Scholars that um basically said it was a series of papers it's really good and they basically said listen there has been so many developed developments within Mormon Theology and apologetics that we need to we need to get caught up they're way ahead of us so they're so for the past 20 30 years the the engagement in the scholarly Community has improved a little bit in our camps so I think that's a good but thus as lay people okay this these guys are making something for laypeople to get a better understanding of of the best arguments in favor of the Book of Mormon and so evangelicals I want you to be uh learning from them the best arguments in favor of the historicity of the Book of Mormon because then you that and then I want you to ponder and think about what this is all about I also want you to realize that there aren't they're not the only group that believes in the Book of Mormon there are some wonderful Christian groups that also believe in the Book of Mormon that also have to be taken to an account for two and I think the biggest thing is I tell people is looking at the fruits you know do you see the fruits of the spirit and Jesus gave us a real simple test you'll know them by their fruits and even David Alexander who was that Evangelical who recently became uh I became uh LDS I zoomed with him for an hour and a half a few weeks ago just off you had this conversation and he just is like Steve I I could ask him what about the history are you familiar with the history of the church he doesn't know anything about the history of Mormonism he just went to me he gave me a real simple answer but really challenged me and that was this he said I used to do work in our Orchards and Agriculture and stuff like that and one day I was in this Grove and these peaches were allowed to ripen like over ripened they hadn't been picked so there was the size of a softball it was beautiful he just touched into it and it was just juice flowing and I bit into and it was the best tasting fruit I ever had he said that was good fruit and he said but Steve I never looked at the roots I didn't really care about the people would say well what about the roots Christians would go to him about Mormonism what about the roots of Mormonism what about the early days the bloody history right if you will the messiness about all he said yeah I don't care because I just look at the fruit I don't look at the roots and I I I I was taken back by that I was like okay I see where you're coming from here because because he was kind of saying the same thing I've been saying and it's like okay I kind of see where you're coming from dude now a lot of evangelicals they don't they're they're kind of concerned about David and I've been in communication with different pastors and stuff like that but again I'm I'm the person who's actually facilitating communication between David and maybe other people as well perhaps in the future and so I think that's important but yeah that that was really fascinating to me that for you guys even said like the early days of the church were kind of messy and they were and but dude honestly like and like kind of where I can't Jackson shared a little bit about that analogy I have about childbirth I came up with analogy after my first kid was born because my wife would always ask me and this might be some people who don't want to get into don't want to see church history or something like that because there's a lot of members of the church are like I just don't even want to look at it right and my wife asked me she's like are you gonna watch our baby be born our son at the time Walker and I was just like yeah like I saw a miracle of life in middle school I'm a family I I'm a little squeamish I don't know if I want to see that like it's in my head it was just gross and I didn't want to see it and then I was in that room with my wife when she was laboring and there was just like the sacred spirit in there and like I knew what was happening I knew that like my first son this this beautiful child that my wife and I made together in love was being brought into the world and I watched the whole thing and guess what it was just as messy and when you just take the facts the quote-unquote facts of childbirth it's gross there's bleeding they're screaming there's tearing there's whatever right there's a million things I won't get into all of them that can happen during your calibers yeah it's bad and if you just take those facts you're like that is a terrible experience I never want to look at that but then when you properly frame it into why is all of that messiness happening well because a divine spark of life is being brought into the world and you do that same thing with the restoration why did all that messiness happen at the beginning of church because Divinity a spark of divinity was being brought into the world that's why it happened and so yeah you can you can look at church history and say that it's messy and I do say that but it doesn't matter because at the end of the day the fruit which is the doctrines that are taught in the church that is what came of it and so because of that the process to me is framed properly and I can just look at it as wow this was a miracle from God that all this happened I think that's a really good way to look at it and I tell people too I said Chris the history of Christianity would look a heck of a lot different if there was somebody that was writing a book during Jesus's Ministry called Christianity unveiled like there was this beautiful organism I I I said we don't really know we only know part of the story what was written by the winners the people who loved Jesus right yeah we don't know what was written there's not a book from the Pharisees point of view there's not a book from the Sadducees point of view right and I guarantee they could have written a very compelling anti-jesus pamphlet that they could have passed around it at all the Christian conferences absolutely and that would be that would then would be I would bog down Christianity for its entire history it would be it like the the Dark Side of Christianity or the other side and and then the historical Narrative of Christianity would be completely different if we did if we had that record that's why I was trying to people I mean John de Lin is is he was the one that came up with this brought this phrase up to me one of my interviews him he says we could all use epistemological humility John delin says that and I think that's a wise word that he said that he imparted to me I took wisdom from that epistemological humility I think that's important that's that's a philosophy we should all integrate in our lives and I think we need to stay humble and stay grounded and stay rooted in reality but also uh just learn to uh love each other and explore these questions together so guys I I have to ask you you go you watch my show so you may or may not know this is coming but I've decided I'm going to do it when we're going to wrap this up but I'm going to ask the three questions are you ready okay let's do it all right question now this is these are the three questions that evangelicals come to me and say what kind of hi how do I dialogue with LDS folk I said ask him these three questions so question number one what is your favorite book of Mormon story my favorite book of Mormon story is probably it's hard I I love I honestly my favorite book of Mormon story is just all of first Nephi and and maybe it's just because it's been brought to life to me but the amount of sacrifice that is in there that isn't read about like you can't you have to read into it right but the amount of sacrifice the amount of Faith um the amount of hardship uh the amount of Miracles like that to me is just Lehi and his family is just a perfect example of just walking with faith in uh trusting in the Lord and so I I love just those first about 16 17 chapters of the Book of Mormon um for me so we we've been meeting with a ton of different self-proclaimed experts and people that have researched all these different evidences uh of the new world geographical theories in mesoamerica specifically and there's one group that they are taking it from the point of view of focusing on evidences of third Nephi chapter 11. the visitation of the resurrected Christ to the new world because if that as it says in the introduction is the crowning moment of the whole record then there ought to be some historical traces of that gosh I look like an idiot nowadays you could pick the best one I'm a little more basic and hidden no it's not basic well it goes without saying it goes without saying okay that's amazing and I love it so much because um it's just it's so beautiful one thing that I did on my mission it was such a good experience is I took the two different uh sermons on the mount right uh compared a sermon that he gave to the Nephites and then the one that he gave to um those in the old world right before he was uh crucified and looking at just the tiny little differences and how he catered that sermon to the Nephites and their situation and their culture and just the situation after being resurrected it was so beautiful to see those tiny little changes and how they made so much sense being that his audience um and the this uh situation was different and so I I just love love that okay great that's great great okay so now question question good question all right question number two what is your favorite Bible story my favorite Bible story is probably um when Christ heals the blind man uh what you know one of the times he healed the blind man but the one I think it's in John where he then goes uh to the Sadducees I think the Sadducees and he's like they're like this man is a sinner who healed you how did this happen you know he's a sinner and he says whether or not he's a sinner I do not know but as I was once blind I now see and I love that because very much like C.S Lewis the reason how C.S Lewis puts it the reason I know or I believe that Christ is the Son of God and it's through him that true Redemption is found is not because C.S Lewis he describes it like this the reason I know Christ is real isn't because I see him the same way I don't see the sun when I'm looking out of my window at noon day but it's because of him that I see everything else so clearly and that's that's so I I feel very much like that guy like I can't explain exactly how someone could resurrect and how he could be the Son of God and all this sort of stuff but what I do know is that his teachings have made me less blind and now I see so much better um my that's a good one um my favorite Bible story is when Jesus is walking with his disciples and the young wealthy man comes to him and he says uh that you know what he must do to gain eternal life right and then Jesus lays out a few of the basic Commandments and he says these I have kept my whole life what lack I yet and asking a question like that to to Christ said I don't think he was expecting the answer that he got was to sell all of his belongings donate to the poor and leave everything and come follow him right and it says he walked away sorrowfully and I love that story because it that question what lack I yet I think if we wake up every morning thinking and asking ourselves what lack I yet we will find a lot of things that we lacked and it will help us to stay humble and stay hungry to to seek after the characteristics of Christ and also one of the interesting phrases that I always hear from the uh I guess you know not so pro-lbs side is the term high demand religion high demand religion if you crack open even the slightest bit of the New Testament and see the things that Jesus was saying to the people how is that not high demand to let the dead bury the dead come and follow me like don't go to your mom and dad's funeral don't do any of that they're dead already come come follow me yeah and you know what it is high demand it's super high demand it's the highest demand out there it's a high standard he says be therefore perfect even as your father in Heaven is perfect can you get a higher demand and so um and we're going on another tangent here giving you a bigger answer than you asked for but I I love the story because it just puts in perspective that there is a big demand but if we there's nothing better to do than to follow the Savior and be on his side and why would you want to be a part of a low demand religion that's that just means nothing you know what I mean so uh you guys are just oh boy I love you guys just full of opinions I love this okay this is the final question the final question I've never done this with two people before so this is interesting to me because you guys are riffing on each other a little bit too which kind of makes it uh so the last question is who is Jesus to you to me Jesus Christ is not only the example of how to act and how to be but he is the power that allows us to continually try over and over again to be that to be him to follow him and uh yeah he's he's the power that allows me to to change and repent and become better Jesus Christ is My Savior my brother and um becoming more and more my best friend every day all right sounds great guys I love it this is good Steve's okay we didn't even talk about the Book of Mormon really we got to do another one I guess whatever we just share our favorite our favorite verses but yeah I mean uh we'll we'll be posting so uh the whole series in and of itself we're raising funds right now to go back in September and finish this first season and we're hoping to have the uh series cut ready and good to go by end of this year beginning of next but on our YouTube channel we're gonna be giving updates and uh you know showing bits and pieces of the discoveries that we found over there and so yeah and you thought hey I have a question I've done the movie screening already in Utah yeah I was thinking of maybe what what would you be interested in maybe doing a movie screening for the first episode oh yeah and I can help promote it yes we're definitely gonna do that and you're gonna get a ticket to the premiere I'll tell you that so well let's do it yeah like hey the the movie screening I did in Utah it was a packed house there was an empty seat in the house yeah and you know what was so cool about it and I'm just really enjoying my conversation with you guys today the thing that was so cool about it was what made it so wonderful was it was the movie The Return of Elder Pingree and he's a guy who's left the church okay but he returns back to his mission in Guatemala 25 years later and films it he's an award-winning documentary guy but it's one of the most Faith promoting videos you'll ever see as as a Latter-Day Saint I encourage Latter-Day Saints to watch this film it's called the return return of Elder Pingree it's available for rent on Amazon okay so we did a movie screening of this because my my co-host Rebecca found this film that was kind of obscure and we gave it an audience and word got around but here in the movie theater okay and we did a q a the director flew in from Ohio to do a q a afterwards which I have the Q a on my channel by the way folks you want to check that out and uh before I said this is already a success and the reason why I was a successful because in that room that packed theater or Evangelical Christians Church employees tbms uh Progressive Mormons atheists polygamists and members of the lgbtq community all under the same roof that was the biggest Miracle awesome it could have happened and to me that's what that's my Audience by the way that's my audience and so I just wanted to say that this this is how we model it this is how we do it this is how we can actually have civil discourse in these very uncivil times Jackson Hayden you guys are so freaking awesome I think this was a fantastic episode one question before we leave I'm new to all the like uh nevermo all these different acronyms what's a TBM a true blue true believing Mormon or true blue Mormon true blue okay yeah okay I'm sorry I'm so time on xmo Reddit um as an atheist I spent a lot of time on Xbox I'll hop on there I I've ventured down there a few times but uh looks like I need to do some more work yeah you know there's a lot of acronyms it's like the Marine Corps there's literally a trillion acronyms knows what that means but they know what it action It's associated with yeah there's a certain Cadence and language that's used in the Mormon podcast world as well as on the message boards they all kind of like blend in together and so I want to welcome you to this world that you're not really a podcast but you're now kind of entering into this Mormon media World um yeah and uh so you guys are gonna have a lot of fun I want to promote this project I'm very excited about it I think that having an Evangelical help promote a book of Mormon affirming series would be a really great thing I know oh man there's gonna be still people going after me but I'm gonna love every minute of it because you know what God placed us here in this conversation in this Zoom he put us here to have this conversation and if church service breaks out now and then that's going to happen too Brothers I love you I'm good thanks Steve we appreciate it brother okay well folks I just want to remind you this month's book uh giveaway is unexpected the backstory of finding Elizabeth Smart and growing up in the culture of an American religion a forward by Elizabeth Smart of course I've had Chris come on he has given me two copies so we're gonna have two copies for the month of May in the description make sure mormonbookreviews at gmail.com and in the subject heading you put in book contest and uh U.S residents only and also make sure you give me your name and address uh also I just want to remind you that for those of you who'd like to financially support the channel we have links for both PayPal as well as patreon and of course we have our merch store mormonbookreviews.com don't forget we got hot chocolate bugs we have ball caps we have T-shirts we have seat covers for your car you name it it's there check out mormonbookreviews.com and I want to thank everybody who is supporting us it's really awesome but this is the most important thing we're remember this folks remember all the voices of the restoration will be heard here uh Mormon book reviews

Channel: Mormon Book Reviews

Views: 11,241

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Id: SOHqVpFYv6E

Length: 67min 55sec (4075 seconds)

Published: Thu May 11 2023