Understanding History Backwards

so we're doing something completely different this year usually this is like the big shocker um we're doing a couple things different to this conference you'll notice not all the talks are the same length we'll have some some shorter talks some longer talks but also this year in in the last 20 years 21 years Dan Peterson has always been the final speaker at our conference and to really shock people and to change things up Dan Peter since our first Speaker this year so Dan Peterson is the president of interpreter Foundation which publishes the online periodical interpreter a journal of Latter-day Saint faith and scholarship produces books and convenes conferences and sponsors a weekly radio program he and his wife are executive producers of the 2021 theatrical film witness and have served in the same capacity for its 2022 docudrama Sequel and daunted Witnesses of the Book of Mormon there's a lot more on his bio you can read on the website fairlatterdaysaints.org and with that I'm going to turn the time over to Daniel C Peterson foreign well it's it's good to be here it's a little weird to be here at this time uh I'm usually not awake before about noon um so uh despite the appearance of the title slide I'm not going to be giving this parowski um so we'll just move ahead it's already been mentioned that I was involved with this so there's a little bit of lag that's good to know with this film Project Witnesses which is not quite finished but almost um I hope that many of you saw the theatrical film Witnesses I hope that many of you if you have not will see the uh the docudrama undaunted we originally intended to do the docudrama the theatrical film was a was a an afterthought in a way um so it was really designed to build up to the documentary or the docudrama which involves Talking Heads and and additional footage and covers the uh the eight Witnesses and The Unofficial witnesses as well as the three and then I hope that some of you have seen that the rest of you will see the little short features that we've put up in various places online including The Interpreter website we call them insights videos and they're short things 7 to 12 minutes long typically they're available totally for free and and so on but asking questions about the witnesses and uh and responding to issues raised by them my theme today though is for something very different it's related to another film project but uh um the theme is this is a little sensitive I discover it's not moving there we go that'll probably move too many it's a theme that I take from the Danish philosophers I I understand he should be found something like but I won't do that um and he said life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards and I think that's commonly true it's often in retrospect it's one of the reasons why we're encouraged to write autobiographies journals and so on to look back and try to make out the significance of our life we see that the things that seem small of the time were big turns in our lives they made a huge difference the way things turned out and and so that's a little bit of what I want to talk about today in connection with this new film project I love to look at at how we got to where we are today this is going to be interesting um I like to look at the origin stories of things that we have so for example I'll just give some four quick examples and try to be quick area but usually not on the west side I remember one day noticing and I noticed several days in a row and like commute up to the campus of UCLA that there were a group of day laborers that were gathering in a really kind of Posh area of West L.A um in among skyscrapers and I remember thinking to myself probably a little bit negatively shouldn't confess this my online critics will have a field day with this one but but uh I thought well the area is kind of going downhill a little bit you've got all these people gathered out there hiding themselves out for day labor shortly thereafter I I learned something really interesting which was they had been Gathering there since a century before when that area that is now West Los Angeles was Bean fields and they were agricultural laborers laborers who would meet on that very spot and they just kept meeting there as the skyscrapers went up around them so now the nature of their day labor had changed they were working in houses and Gardens and Lawns and so on but and not in Bean fields or another one that I was told will we stay there yeah was and I don't know if this is true was that growing up in in Southern California I noticed there were a lot of places where there were tall palm trees lined up in double rows you know or a row on each side of a street and they'd go down for a block or two and someone told me you know what those are in many cases those were once the entryways to haciendas the carriageway is no longer there the Hacienda is long forgotten it's a suburban area but those palm trees outdate all of that and that was to me very interesting or there's a question now we've got all four up there I guess uh the width of railroads why are railroads the width they are it's purely arbitrary Carriage makers made carriages of a certain width when they began making railroad carriages then they began to make the rails that distance apart because that was the the length of the axles that they normally did or the one that interests me as an arabist is the origin of of the letter X as a symbol for unknown quantities you know solve for x or x marks the spot or Brand X or whatever it is it turns out that's an artifact artifact of translation from Arabic to Spanish in the Middle Ages the uh the letter X used to represent these the sound sha in Spanish and that represents the Arabic word shait which means thing a thing or something now nobody remembers that today for the most part but there is a story behind X you know why isn't it Z why isn't it B why not a or alpha or something like that so you can often understand things in retrospect when you look back think Ah that's how we got here now a really good example of understanding uh life backwards is Joseph of Egypt and uh okay a word to Future presenters this does not go immediately Joseph had a really rough life and I'm sure there are times when he wondered God why why is this happening to me why is I tried to live a good life but why is this happening to me all sorts of things happen to him and and so he must have asked that question from time to time but it was only in retrospect that he could understand it my okay now we'll see if we go to slides in advance let's just get directly to this one if we can this is what he says I am Joseph your brother remember introducing himself to his brothers who don't know who he is he's a ruler of Egypt right whom ye sold into Egypt now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither for God did send me before you to preserve life and God sent me before you to preserve your posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great Deliverance so now it was not you that sent me hither but God it's a very ironic very uh very kind way of putting it because they did not mean to serve the purposes of God in selling Joseph into slavery but nevertheless that was the impact and we can often see that either God is the Great Master chess player makes things work out to our benefit or he actually plans them in advance you think of the Joseph Smith Senior family being moved by disaster after disaster after disaster to get them close to what we now know is the repository of the plates have they been in Pennsylvania still or Vermont or who knows where the story might have looks very very different than it did okay now I'm saying this to sort of introduce the thought process processes that for me are going into our next film project this won't be about the film project but but sort of outlying some of the ideas that I have for it we're calling it six days in August this refers to the time in um in Nauvoo when you have a confrontation between Sydney Rigdon and the twelve about the future leadership of the church they'd just gone through this terrible crisis of the assassination of Joseph Smith now there are people today and I'm I'm hearing them even members of the church and this disturbs me um it disturbs me a great deal members of the church have come to me and said you know my wife and I have concluded I'm thinking of a return Mission president in this case that Brigham Young was not the Lord's choice to lead the church that it was a kind of apostolic coup that the the twelve took over the church but it shouldn't have been them and I'm wondering so who do you think it should have been um do you think it should have been James Strang um some of you know that that my hope in the movie was to have Pee-wee Herman play James Strang my hopes have now been dashed um so I'm not a big James Strang fan but the idea is that the 12 were legitimate now I've asked some of those people think about the implications do you know what you're saying here you're saying the leadership the church ever since the death of Joseph Smith has been illegitimate I don't know what candidate you favor but the ones that that took over the church you say were not legitimate you might like Russell M Nelson I hope you do but do you not realize you've just cut off the branch upon which he he sits every president of the church has been illegitimate since 1844 every Temple presidency every Temple ordinance every Apostle called the zolven illegitimate done under Authority it was not divinely approved now I've gotten to talk with some of them and I think okay now I understand a little bit more for some of them at least this is not a bug it's a feature they don't like the current leadership of the church and they want to get rid of them they don't like Brigham Young things that he said things that he did now just Chuck him he was the wrong guy anyway and I say well okay so what about President Nelson well he's a communist he is involved with the United Nations and he got the shot so so you know so he's not the legitimate president of the church he is the prophet who tells lies that Isaiah foretold he's a real Prophet some of them say basically he tells lies um well so I began to think this is a really serious issue so here's the thought process that I'm going through in a project that for me at least is designed not only to entertain and tell a story which is a really important story and help people to understand it better but to outline a case implicitly and in the docudrama more explicitly for the legitimacy of the succession of the twelve and I start off by trying to show how the 12 were prepared for the role that they would play so for example one of the first places that we see this coming into and as a factor is in Zion's Camp which was originally not called Zion's camp but the camp of Israel it served as a Proving Ground a testing ground for a future church leaders here again life can only be understood backwards so Quorum of The Twelve were chosen by the three Witnesses after Zion's camp here's a way of linking the two film projects too by the way the three Witnesses chose the twelve all right um the uh when the Quorum the 12 12 Apostles was formed in February of 1835 eight of the original 12 had marched with the camp of Israel all of the people who were called to the 70 in February of 1835 were members of the camp I don't think that that is coincidental um another place where the preparation of The Twelve comes into play I think is in the evacuation of the Saints from Missouri to Illinois in the winter of 1838-39 now up to this point the Quorum of The Twelve had been a fairly unstable body if you read the history of it men had been called they'd Fallen away it just it hadn't come together as a quorum yet in fact crucially Thomas Marsh withdrew from his involvement in the core of the twelve and the church in October of 1838 a very crucial time when the church needs leadership so what happened well this I think is significant on January 16 1839 in the depth of Winter the first presidency who were in Liberty Jail sent instructions to Hebrew C Kimball and Brigham Young that read in as much as we are in prison the management of the Affairs of the church devolves on you that is the twelve appoint the oldest of those of The Twelve who were first appointed to be the president of your Quorum this is how Brigham Young ends up as the president after Thomas Marsh's departure now this doesn't seem like a big thing maybe but it is when the Quorum the twelve was first established it was a traveling High Council a missionary High Council with its focus outside the church there was a high Council and only one inside the church that ran the domestic Internal Affairs of the church here you have the twelve stepping into a role to manage the emigration of the Saints from Missouri to uh to Illinois that I think is crucial and uh boy now it's really sensitive I didn't even mean to change um but I think that's crucial you see the 12 beginning to change their function and we'll see that more as we move on then another crucial thing is he would see Kimball's mission to England and the subsequent mission of the entire 12 to England uh he went in 1837 arrived at the Port of Liverpool but his first successes were in Preston some of you have been there it's a spectacularly important Church site the area around Preston and the Market Square where they preached and where by the way president Hinckley also preached is still intact there but one of the most interesting things that's still intact in Preston is a house this lodging house on the corner of Fox Street and Saint Wilfred street it's amazing that it's still there it's there in 1837 I don't know how old it was then and it's kind of derelict now and it's been up for sale on various occasions I am one of those who really wish that somebody would buy this house and preserve it I don't want it to be destroyed but you'll see why the church is reluctant to to buy this house I'll read from you or read to you the account of what happened there which I'm spending more time on it than than I probably should but I like it I'm using a collation of materials by a British Latter-Day Saint guide and historian by the name of Peter fagg um whom I really really like this is UBC Kimball Sunday July 30th about Daybreak Elder Isaac Russell came up to the third story where Elder Hyde and myself were sleeping and called out brother Kimball I want you to get up and pray for me that I may be delivered from the evil spirits that are tormenting me to such a degree that I feel I cannot live long unless I attain relief I had been sleeping on the back of the bed I immediately Rose slipped off at the foot of the bed and passed around to where he was Elder Hyde threw his feet out and sat up in the bed and we laid hands on him I being mouth and prayed that the Lord would have mercy on him and rebuke the devil while thus engaged I was struck with great force by some invisible power and fell senseless on the floor okay Orson Hyde says Hebrews voice faltered and his mouth was shut and he began to tremble and reel to and fro and fell on the floor like a dead man and added a deep groan I immediately seized him by the shoulder and lifted him up being satisfied that the Devils were exceedingly angry because we attempted to cast them out of brother Russell and they made a powerful attempt upon Elder Kimball as if to dispatch him at once they struck him senseless and he fell to the floor so back to Hebrew C Kimball and his account to me this is interesting because you have multiple witnesses to this event the first thing I recollected was being supported by Elders Hyde and Richards who were praying for me Elder Richards having followed Russell up to my room Elder Hyde and Richards then assisted me to get on the bed but my Agony was so great I could not endure it and I Rose bowed my knees and prayed I then arose and sat up on the bed when a vision was open to our minds our minds by the way and we could distinctly see the evil spirits who foam the gnashed their teeth at us nearly two decades later Hebrew tells the congregation in Salt Lake and the Tabernacle I saw their hands their eyes and every feature of their faces the hair on their heads and their ears in short they had full formed bodies he continues his account we gazed upon them about an hour and a half by Willard's watch so this is not a slight fleeting thing we were not looking towards the window but towards the wall space appeared before us and we saw the Devils coming in Legions with their leaders who came within a few feet of us that came towards us like armies rushing to battle they appeared to be men of full stature possessing every form and feature of Men In the Flesh who were angry and desperate and I that is Hebrew C Kimball shall never forget the vindictive malignity depicted on their countenances as they looked me in the eye and any attempt to paint the scene which then presented itself or portray their malice and enmity would be vain I perspired exceedingly my clothes becoming as wet as if I had been taken out of the river I felt excessive pain and was in the greatest distress for some time okay immediately Hebrew recovered his strength in parts so as to get up the sweat began to roll from him most powerfully and it was almost as wet as if he had been taken out of the river whoops we went to okay we distinctly heard those Spirits talk and express their wrath and hellish designs against us we could very sensibly hear the evil spirits rage and foam out their shame and then Joseph Fielding who was not there but heard the story right thereafter said they could hear a sound from them that is the evil spirits like the grating of teeth quite plainly Morrison Hyde addressing Hebrew C Kimball I'm going on at length on this because I find this a very interesting story because it is it's not a theophany or an angelophony it's a diabolophony or a satanophony or something like that but that has implications if there is an Unseen World with these sorts of beings then there's evidence there for something else it seems to me it's much more positive after you were overcome by them and had fallen they're awful Rush upon me with knives threats imprecations hellish grins amply convinced me that they were no friends of mine well you were apparently senseless and lifeless on the floor and upon the bed after we had laid you there I Orson stood between you Hebrew and the devils and fought them and contended with them face to face until they began to diminishing number and to retreat from the room the last imp that left turned around to me as he was going out and said as if to apologize and appease my determined opposition to them I never said anything against you I replied to him thus it matters not to me whether you have enough or have not you're a liar from the beginning in the name of Jesus Christ depart he immediately left and the room was clear that closed the scene of devils for the time um Joseph healing comments on that they however kept their distances but turned their heads toward brother Hyde one looking at him said distinctly but with a murmuring tone slowly demure I never spoke against you he said there seemed to be a legion of them he was alone very much disgusted he could scarcely bear to speak of them however the Lord delivered us from them and blessed exceedingly that day think control of my screen has been taken over from the back of the room so the one of the very first to hear about it so there is contemporary witness for this was villain Kimball Heber wrote a few words to his wife about the matter and Brother Joseph called upon her for the letter and said it was a choice Jewel this is Joseph Smith's reaction and a testimony if the gospel was planted in a Strange Land back to Joseph Fielding it wasn't as I say present but he wrote in his journal upon the whole we got considerable instruction from the maneuvers of the devil the spirit of the devil produces confusion disorder and misery the spirit of God produces calmness order and happiness if we never before knew that there were evil spirits we did now uh and I think that's a really important thing for them to know C.S Lewis said at one point that the devil welcomes an agnostic and a magician with equal enthusiasm someone who doesn't believe there's a devil someone who's unhealthily obsessed with the devil either one can be turned to his purposes uh later on um Joseph Smith responded to this but first I want to make a little side commentary about uh Gallup poll that was recently recently taken it turns out that Faith or belief in the devil is very tightly linked with belief in God people who cease to believe in God obviously begin to disbelieve in the devil and vice versa these are related ideas if you know there's a devil you have good reason to believe there's a God okay if you once grant that there is a kind of Supernatural or Beyond natural realm Beyond this world then then that opens it all up okay now when Joseph Smith heard about the missionaries experiences he was surprisingly positive about it at that time he said you are nigh unto the Lord there was only a veil between you and him but you could not see him when I heard of him it gave me great joy for I then knew that the work of God had taken root in that land it was this that caused the devil to make a struggle to kill you and I would say that that really is is true think about the opening of every dispensation Adam in the garden Adam and Eve in the garden uh Joseph Smith and the sacred grove Jesus being tempted in the wilderness Moses in the book of Moses when a dispensation starts when something big is about to happen the devil shows up either in person or by his emissaries so um all right so nearby near that house is Avenue Park which is a really beautiful area of green trees and so on the borders the river Ribble where the very first Latter-Day Saint baptisms were performed in England this is a really important place and people like William Clayton and so on come out of this George watt other really important early early Latter-Day Saints and there are plaques and monuments around the area dedicated to those early Latter-Day Saints it's it's recognized by the city Administration there up the river valley are several towns that are important chat room and and Downham shown here which is this is the best picture we could find there are better pictures from up by the church some of you have been there looked down the road and it's a beautiful Village that looks much the same way it must have looked in the days of Hebrew C Kimball who was told by the way by the people in Preston don't bother going there they're all Godless he baptized almost everybody in the town they're regardless in the sense they did not like the Church of England and they weren't going to the other churches they weren't Satisfied by them but they loved the gospel as preached by by Brother Kimball and in the background there you can see Pendle Hill uh just a little bit of it there we'll see that in the next slide I want to tell the story a little bit in the docudrama portion of the six days in August project for now though I want to concentrate on a particular aspect of this of this episode in Downham and it'll be the sort of good counterpart to the satanic thing I've already told you in April 1838 when he's about to leave and go home to America brother Kimball went back for a farewell visit to Donovan chatburn now this hill looms over Downham it's it's just outside the town and the response of the people there moved him deeply he said when I left them my feelings were such as I cannot describe as I walked down the street I was followed by numbers the doors were crowded by the inmates of the houses to bid me for farewell who can only give vent to their grief in sobs and broken accents while contemplating the scene I was constrained to take off my hat for I felt as if the place was Holy Ground the spirit of the Lord rested down upon me and I was constrained to bless that whole region of country he had tremendous success in that area Joseph Fielding was also there with elder Kimball and he said it was very affecting to witness our parting with them the streets are almost lined with them weeping and looking after us brother Kimball left his Blessing on them the whole place walking with his hat off they all followed us with their eyes as far as they could see many of those even that had not been baptized and Orson Hyde talks about this in 1853 in general conference what were our feelings we fell to the ground upon which we stood was most sacred and brother Kimball took off his hat and walked the streets and blessed the country and the people and let his peace come upon it why because the people were ready to receive the word of Our Testimony and us for Christ's sake in 1857 Elder Kimball remembered that visit and said this I went through the streets of that town feeling as I never before felt in my life my hair would rise on my head this image was obviously taken after that as I walked through the streets and I did not then know what was the matter with me I felt as if my whole system was alive I felt quickened by some unseen power and when he came back to America in 1838 he related his experience in Downham and Chapman to the Prophet Joseph Smith his response was again intriguing did you not understand it the prophet asked that is a place where some of the old prophets traveled and dedicated that land and their blessing fell upon you now so I want to come back to Pendle Hill one day I think in 1652 as far as I can tell George Fox the founder of the Quaker movement the Society of Friends climbed up Pendle Hill and he saw what seems to have been a vision he said of people of people in white Raymond coming to the Lord a great people to be gathered this event and his reaction to it led to the founding of the quaco movement and then John Wesley in the 18th century came to the area founder of methodism which he never intended to be a distinct denomination and he said he visited Pendle Hill and he felt himself exceptionally moved spiritually there was something different about this as he worked in the Villages and among the people at its base I'll give you a couple of other examples there actually is a witch story associated with the Pendle witches from earlier than fox or uh or Wesley there's something uncanny about this hill and I'll say something else I was told on one visit there that that when elder Holland was the area president he would there was no temple in Preston yet he would go to Downham when he had a particularly difficult issue to wrestle with and he would pray in the woods there near down him at the base of Pendle Hill because he felt that was a temple-like place and once he was there praying about something heard a Russell in the bushes a little bit away and there was the local stake president who was also there praying about a very difficult issue it was a place they felt was very different and when elder Holland was asked to choose the site for the Preston Temple that's where he went to receive confirmation from the Lord that was the place for it to be so it's a really interesting place so he would see Kimball may not have been wrong in really imagining things when he thought that there was that this was Holy Ground there's something about it um and I I want to draw on a on a famous song for that William Blake's Jerusalem William Blake wrote this in 1808 it was set to music in 1916 but sir he would Perry I was actually going to try to include music here for you but I thought it might mess up the uh the online version might run into copyright issues then I thought of singing it but I'm not going to but this song Jerusalem is like The Unofficial national anthem of England George the sixth actually said at one point and he had an interest in this question that he preferred Jerusalem as a national anthem to God Save the King kind of interesting for a king to say that this is a song you may be familiar with I I hope you are if you're not look it up and listen to its really beautiful song and everybody in England knows this song but it has to do with Elijah and his Chariots of Fire in fact it shows up and is sung at the end of the film Chariots of Fire if you've ever seen that watch it again see that and here are the lyrics and they're about something about Christianity having been in England in ancient times and did those feet in ancient time it's talking about Jesus walk upon England's Mountain Green and was the Holy Lamb of God on England's Pleasant pastures scene and did the countenance Divine shine forth upon our clouded Hills and it was Jerusalem builded here among these dark satanic Mills bring me my bow of Burning Gold bring me my arrows of Desire bring me my spear oh clouds unfold bring me my Chariot of fire I will not cease from mental fight nor shall my sword sleep in my hand till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land well that was heresy Kimball's first mission to England the first arrival of the Saints in England now I want to talk about the second mission and there's a wonderful book written about these two missions I recommend to you called men with a mission um by Jim Allen and uh Ron esplan and David Whitaker um really wonderfully done and this is a really important thing and it's crucial again to my argument that the 12 were being prepared for their role eight members of The Twelve went to England to the British Isles rather on their mission and Orson Hyde spent some time there in route to and from Jerusalem uh and it's during that time there's a book by Eugene England that I also recommend called um brother Brigham which is a very sympathetic portrayal of Brigham Young and he's he notices reading the journals of the Brethren who served there that they gradually Brigham had become president simply because he was the oldest Thomas Marsh was excommunicated Brigham Young succeeds because he's the oldest but gradually in England they begin to refer to him as the president he becomes the president he already was in fact he now you know in by rule De Jour I guess I should say and de facto he really becomes the president they recognize his unique leadership qualities and that I think is important so they had a great deal of success there I have a scene here coming up from the John Benbow Farm some of you know that story about the remarkable success of Wilford Woodruff there converting the United Brethren if we go to the gadfield elm Chapel the next this is one of the oldest buildings in the church not built by us it belonged to the United Brethren and was taken over at by the Latter-Day Saints and is still owned by Latter-Day Saints to get in there's no one there but you have to work a little combination the clues are all questions from scripture and LDS history if you haven't kept up on your scriptures in your LDS history you won't get into that building um so um and then there's this statue on the Royal Albert docks in Liverpool dedicated to the memory of the Latter-Day Saint emigrants who went through that Port not only from England but from Scandinavia and the rest of Europe now crucially there's a change in the status of the twelve thereafter at a conference it was held on the 16th of August 1841 in Nauvoo the prophet said the time has come when the 12 should be called upon to stand in their place next to the first presidency and attend to the settling of immigrants and The Business of the church at the stakes that is within the church and to assist to Bear off the kingdom victoriously to the Nations this is crucial Joseph has recognized I think that there's something different now about the Quorum of The Twelve they really are ready to take their position as the Quorum second in authority to the Quorum of the first presidency and interestingly enough Smith and swedal in their commentary on the doctrine covenants say that Brigham Young was a missionary he had been he went on a mission to Canada traveled as a missionary twice to the eastern states he was among those who labored in Great Britain but in section 126 the next Slide the Lord commends him for his labors and the firms it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past for your offering is acceptable to me his role is changing he will be at church headquarters now as the leader of the twelve and that's his role thereafter I think you see a really distinct thing going on here we do understand that Brigham Young began to be asked by the Prophet The Prophet was unavailable to lead meetings preside over Gatherings and so on he had never done that before as far as I know then a really important moment is the conferral of the keys and I think a really valuable contribution on this issue has been the book that has recently been produced by Jeffrey Bradshaw which is about Emma Harris the brother of Martin Harris and Dennis and lot Harris and one of the important things about that is the Denison lot Harris remembered the day when the Prophet Joseph Smith conferred the keys on the twelve and he gives it a probable date the 26th of March 1844. it's interesting because the other testimonials have all come from the men who were in that meeting members of The Twelve but they could be accused of being self-interested right Prophet gave us the authority to leave the church well if you believe it was an Apostolic coup of course they would say that right but Denison Harris and I was there and he remembered Joseph saying this day I'm going to roll this Kingdom off my shoulders onto the shoulders of these my brethren for them to preach the gospel and gather Israel and build up the kingdom upon the foundation which I have laid and then at that important meeting Wilfred Woodruff says later this is what he said I Wilfred wonder if being the last man living in the flesh who was present upon that occasion feel it a duty I owe to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the house of Israel and to the whole world to bear this my last testimony to All Nations that in the winter of 1843-44 in fact the spring of 1844 I think Joseph Smith the prophet of God called The Twelve Apostles together in the city of Nauvoo and spent many days with us in giving our endowments so he's talking about a lengthier period and teaching us these those glorious principles which God had revealed to him and upon one occasion he stood upon his feet in our midst for nearly three hours declaring unto us the great and last dispensation which God had set his hand to perform upon the Earth in these last days the room was filled as with consuming fire the prophet was clothed upon with much of the power of God and his face Shone and was transparently clear and he closed that speech never to be forgotten in time or in eternity with the fall following language remember Wilfred was a great Journal keeper brother and I have had great sorrow of heart for fear that I might be taken from the earth with the Keys of the Kingdom of God upon me without sealing and upon the heads of other men God has sealed upon my head all of the Keys of the Kingdom of God necessary for organizing and building up of the church Zion and the kingdom of God upon the Earth and to prepare the Saints for the coming of the son of man now Brethren I thank God I have lived to see the day that I've been able to give you your endowments and I have now sealed upon your heads all the powers of the aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods and apostleship with all the keys and Powers thereof which God has sealed upon me and I now roll off the labor burden and care of this Church and Kingdom of God upon your shoulders and I now commend you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to round up your shoulders and bear off this Church and Kingdom of God before Heaven and Earth and before God angels and men and if you don't do it you will be damned The Same Spirit that filled the room at that time burns my bosom while I record this testimony president Woodruff says and the prophet of God appointed no one else but the 12 apostles to stand the head of the church and direct its affairs Richard holtzoff will comments on this there is another important Source about this Monumental Gathering we're not yet to Leonard Arrington which may be the earliest written document describing the meeting although it is unknown exactly when it was composed it could have been written as early as September 1844. speaking of that meeting the twelve recalled Joseph Smith seemed somewhat depressed in spirit and took the liberty to open his heart to us concerning his presentiments of the future the document then records uh what the prophet said on that occasion Joseph told the twelve the Lord bids me hasten the work in which we are engaged the prophet did not want the keys and powers to be lost upon the Earth so he placed them upon the heads of The Twelve upon the shoulders of The Twelve must the responsibility of leading this church henceforth rest until you shall appoint others to succeed you your enemies cannot kill you all at once and should any of you be killed you can lay your hands upon others and fill up the Quorum thus can this power on these Keys be perpetuated on the earth and then Leonard Arrington had this to say as if he had a foreboding of his impending death Smith gave them a dramatic charge to Bear off the kingdom as they recounted the moving experience the prophet seemed pressed and opened his heart about his presentiments of the future he explained that some important scene is near to take place that perhaps he would be killed and that is a precaution the twelve had received all the keys and powers that he held then if God Wills I can go with all pleasure and satisfaction knowing that my work is done and the foundation laid on which the kingdom of God is to be reared he counseled them about what lay ahead then continued saying while he walked about the floor threw back the collar was coat upon his shoulders I rolled a burden responsibility of leading this church off from my shoulders onto yours now round up your shoulders and stand under it like men for the Lord is going to let me rest a while after he Thus Spoke and he continued to walk the floor saying since I've rolled the burden off from my shoulders I feel as light as a crook I feel that I'm free I thank my God for this Deliverance three months later Joseph Smith and Hiram Smith were killed at Carthage Jail two of the three members of the first presidency in response to this the twelve returned to Nauvoo Sydney Rigdon who'd been off in Pittsburgh returned to Nauvoo and there is the famous meeting of the Saints in Nauvoo where Sydney Rigdon gives his case for himself as the guardian to the church and then the twelve represented by Brigham Young give their case and you know many of you about the miraculous event that many reported later seeing there by which they knew that Brigham Young was the successor now I want to close just a couple of quick comments because I'm actually in negative 56 seconds um I have one person that I know and had some have had some encounters with online who is a a kind of strang-eyed I think very very vocal and he is convinced that that six days in August is going to be an anti-strang film well it isn't going to be Strang won't even show up in it because he doesn't he's not important in those six days in August he shows up later so he's not a factor so no Pee-wee Herman there um in the docudrama we probably will have to talk about him but it's not going to be an overtly anti-strang film I'll let you in on a secret I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints I believe that the twelve were the legitimate successes of Joseph Smith I'm not going to hide that when I say the proper sum of two plus two is four and you have five I'm not against you I'm just saying it actually is four okay so um so I believe that the 12 were the proper successes of Joseph Smith and we're going to try to illustrate that without being propagandistic about it just by telling the story as it as it happened it's not going to be an anti-emma film either I want that to be clear I grew up maybe some of you did too hearing Emma really bad mouth I don't think it's fair Emma went through a lot and she did what she did I think she was wrong but but she was trying to serve her family and so on and so forth and I don't and she was tired she was just tired so we're not going to attack Emma Smith we're not going to attack the reorganized church or the Community of Christ either but yes I do think they're wrong I don't hide that we're not I'm not neutral on this none of the people I'm working with are neutral on this question is it anti-rlds only in the most trivial sense that we think they got the sum wrong okay but but that's all but I do believe that Brigham Young was the divinely chosen leader the twelve were the divinely chosen leaders it took about three years for Brigham to actually be sustained for a new first presidency to be organized in the old days prior to Lorenzo Snow um they they didn't do it immediately they always waited for a while but Brigham Young eventually did become president and I think the question to be asked in in this case looking back understanding history backwards is the question that uh that is asked at Esther 414 about Esther who's shown up in the in the Royal Court of Persia at a time when the Jews are under threat and she is Jewish and the question is put to her who knoweth whether thou it come to the kingdom for such a time as this and I think Brigham Young was put in the Kingdom for such a time as the one he found himself in and that's the story we're going to try to tell so thank you very much here's your brownie for speaker so this is so I am a paid mercenary I got a brownie yeah so this is the time we do questions and answers questions you can send into 801 801-4959 however any questions you send in at this time we'll just hold for Dan and let Dan see them later so he can respond on his own if he desires because at this time we're going to do two things for Dan one we're going to give him an award for Lifetime Achievement Award defender of the faith presented Daniel C Peterson that's from Fair [Applause] I did not expect this and we're gonna have Steven Ricks come forward [Applause] I appreciate all you're doing and Stephen has something he wants to do as well here I first became acquainted with Daniel Peterson over 50 years ago as a missionary in Switzerland we were missionaries while we were missionary companions he was my last companion who lived in cloton near the Zurich International Airport and worked there when our duties did not take us further afield well doing missionary work together we shared our dreams for the future Daniel said that he was considering specializing in Byzantine studies well I had dreams of becoming a classicist although I also had an interest in the near and Middle East our academic Destinies turned out somewhat differently than our dreams however you know he's from Switzerland have focused their professional attention on the near Middle East three including Daniel becoming professors of Arabic well I have specialized in Hebrew and the ancient near East interestingly Daniel's mission called it Switzerland included an additional assignment to Beirut Lebanon something that didn't come to pass at that time but but that was perhaps indicative that his professional Destiny lay in the study of Arabic and the Middle East during our Graduate Studies while my wife and I were residing in Jerusalem and Daniel and his wife Debbie were living in Cairo we traded off visiting each other Daniel has made significant contributions to the understanding of Arabic the Quran and Islamic philosophy but its most important work has in my estimation been made in this in defense of faith in his honor I was wished to announce a volume of the publication of a volume of assays entitled steadfast in defense of Faith reflecting Daniel's unquestioned loyalty to the kingdom I would like to thank those contributors whose essays comprise the contents of this volume and reflect the great breadth of Daniel's interests apologetics The Book of Mormon Latter-Day Saint Church Latter-Day Saint Church History biblical studies and scripture as literature many of the speakers at this conference have contributed to the volume and Daniels honor listed alphabetically by last name they are Michael Ash Steve dansley jungi Ralph Hancock George Mitten Neil rapidly and Jack Welch his wife Debbie has been of great help in completing this volume of essays in his honor as well as an assisting Daniel and his work I also wish to thank my co-editors Shirley Rex and Lou matley whose efforts have made the completion of this book possible I should say too by another observation that the bibliography is by Jeff Bradshaw is merely selective it's the actual production literary production of Daniel has been utterly massive and continues we wish to express our thanks to Daniel for his work in defense of Faith look forward to ongoing contributions by him to understanding the strength of our tradition Daniel thank you thank you foreign now I realize that my wife is more of a sneak than I suggest suspected so I knew nothing of this so thank you I just learned something new I was in cloton as well probably was in the same apartment these guys were in thank you so we have many speakers throughout the next three days will be ones who contributed to dance Fest Thrift and so their their talks will be along the lines of you know won't be the full their full talk but portions of what they they did there in many cases and the fesh lift will be available the book will be available here it's not here yet so you can pre-order it from Delena and we're hoping to have it here by Friday the latest Thursday maybe and we'll we'll see what happens with that and if not uh you know anyway we'll you can pre-order it and you can listen to the talks as they go along and you'll see what's what's in the book Thank you very much thank you thank you for all you do thanks so am I done you're done yes

Channel: FAIR - Faithful Answers, Informed Response

Views: 5,167

Keywords: book of mormon, maya, mormonism, joseph smith, brigham young, evidence, proof, prove, horses, aztec, olmec, mesoamerica, heartland, archaeology, science, dna, nephite, lamanite, temple, cumorah, abraham, scripture, fair, farms, byu, scholar, geography, Gospel, Doctrine, covenants, church, class, manual, lesson, institute, prophet, gold, plates, urim

Id: yOHwcPsXTYI

Length: 48min 46sec (2926 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2023