Hebrew Voices #183 – Early Mormonism Revealed: Part 1

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Dan Vogel: Joseph Smith put out to the people that he’s just dictating God’s words, or that he’s dictating the words on the stone. Privately, he has a different definition of revelation that is more liberal, more nuanced, than what he let out.

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Nehemia: So, I’m back with Dan Vogel, who I consider to be the greatest living historian on early Mormonism, if not one of the greatest. I don’t think it’s exaggeration to say you’re the greatest living historian on early Mormonism, and that’s for this reason, Dan. The way I look at it is, in scholarship, in academia, there are consumers and producers. And most people, I think, who write on early Mormonism, I could be wrong, I think they are consumers of the documents. And you’re actually a producer of the documents. Not in the sense of that forger Hofman, but in the sense of, you go, and you hunt them down and you edit them and then publish them. So that now I don’t have to go and look in some newspaper from 1830 that, if I’m lucky… today I can find it online, but back then, good luck. You actually have now made it available, so now I can find out, okay, what are the sources?

Now, somebody could argue that you didn’t do a correct job of… they could always argue that, and I’m sure you would say there’s mistakes you made. Everybody has that. But you’ve made these sources available, and then your conclusions are based on the sources, rather than going to dig up sources to back up what you want to argue or what you believe or something. Which is what, frankly, some people do in every field, let’s be honest.

So, all right, so, we talked about the first vision. And before we go on, I want to bring up this and I want to get your thoughts on it. So, I am now convinced, after the research I’ve done, which I admit is relatively limited in scope, mainly preparing for this interview… I’ve been doing research for the past year. Actually, first I did the research, and I’m like, “Okay, I got to talk to this guy.” This is the guy I’ve got to talk to. And hopefully, I’ll do an interview with Royal Skousen one day because he’s another guy… I’m really fascinated in his work.

I’m convinced that everybody in Old Testament and New Testament studies, and probably Islamic studies, but I don’t know enough about that, should be forced to take a class on early Mormonism and study it, because there are things that we can learn from early Mormonism that we can apply to these other fields. And I’ll give you an example, and I want your thoughts on it. So, there’s a big… not even a debate; there’s a big discussion about Paul in the New Testament, which letters he wrote. And they’ll say, “Well, Paul wrote this letter, but that letter is either a forgery or it was written by one of his disciples, depending on your perspective.” And the reason is, he uses the same energy as Paul, but in a completely different way.  And so, that’s not Paul’s terminology; his student heard that term and he’s using it in a different way.

And I look at early Mormonism, and look, I’m not a Mormon, I don’t believe in Mormonism. So, from my perspective, I accept the critical approach that says, Joseph Smith just pretty much made it all up. And if Joseph Smith made it all up, and he’s saying about the First Vision, “It was the Lord.” And then it’s the father and the son, and those are very different things… I think they are. And then in the Book of Mormon he’s anti-Masonic, but later he joins the Masons. I mean, this is textbook stuff that you would say, “Well, no, that was written by Joseph Smith.” If you were coming from a New Testament studies or Old Testament studies, “Joseph Smith wrote that, but Oliver Cowdery must have written that,” or some other guy, right? Who knows? “Because they have different approaches to Freemasonry, or they have different approaches to what the First Vision was.”

A great example is something I wrote to you in messages before this interview, which to me is an incredible example, is this idea of what happens when you die. So, in the Book of Mormon, there is eternal damnation, eternal punishment. And then in the Doctrine and Covenants… tell us about that one, because that’s incredible! You would have to say in medieval studies or Old Testament / New Testament studies, that there’s two different authors. But we know there’s not two different authors, or at least we think so, right?

So, tell us about that, about the eternal damnation, or punishment, in the Book of Mormon, versus in the Doctrine and Covenants or Book of Commandments.

Dan: Right. Well, Joseph Smith had to deal with… What a lot of early charismatic groups end up having to deal with is non-fulfillment of prophecy. Recovering from mistakes, trying to change or spin certain things. I liken it to just about like, if you study psychics; psychics who foretell the future, who read people’s fortunes and things. They’re not always right and they don’t always expect themselves to be right either. But neither did Joseph Smith. Plus, you start right away with the failure of certain things. He would give out, “God’s decrees are unalterable,” one of the statements. And then he would give a decree, and this decree said, “So-and-so will go with so-and-so on a mission,” and it would give a list of…

And in the beginning, his revelations had to do with minute details of everyday life almost, like administrative things. Every little administrative decision is a revelation because that’s what they bragged about, being different than everybody else. “We have revelation, and they don’t!” That’s why they don’t have authority, they don’t have revelation.

Well, when he assigned so-and-so to go with so-and-so on a mission, and then that person apostatized before the mission, well, didn’t God know that? So, he would try to get out of those things by saying that God can alter what he says. Joseph Smith himself would say, “Well, God would say, do this, do this,” but then certain things would change and then God would change what he would do. So, he would try to spin it that way. And a lot of his early followers noticed that and quit!

Nehemia: So, this is not unique in the history of religion.

Dan: No.

Nehemia: In Islam, famously, Muhammad… the original revelation was that they should pray in the direction of Jerusalem, and then at some point, Allah changed his mind. And here I want to be careful because I’m not an expert in early Islam, but basically there was a new revelation that says, “No, the qibla is now towards Mecca.” And this actually is a major focus of Islamic jurisprudence and study, what are the earlier parts of the Quran? Because it’s not in chronological order, and what are the latest parts? Because they have what’s called the doctrine of abrogation; Allah absolutely gives new revelation, and only the latest revelation is what’s binding today. So, if in one verse he says, cut the throats of the unbelievers or something, and I’m sure I’m misquoting that, I apologize. And another one he says, “There’s no compulsion in matters of religion.” It’s fundamental which is later, and which is earlier, because that determines what you do in the 21st century. And there are huge debates about this in Islam, if I understand correctly.

So, you’re saying there’s a similar thing in Joseph Smith’s career, where his revelations would… God would change his mind, basically? And maybe in your terminology, would you say that? How would he describe it?

Dan: Okay. So, he had different ways of getting out of these problems…

Nehemia: Yeah.

Dan: …or recovering from failure. So, another example would be the main revelation or reason for Joseph Smith. His mission was to establish a new Jerusalem in America, a “Zion” in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. And that never happened.

Nehemia: Well, originally it wasn’t even in Missouri. Wasn’t it across the Mississippi River in Indian territory? Am I wrong about that?

Dan: Originally it was in Indian territory, but as the missionaries went there to find a spot, they were kicked out of the Indian territory. And so, Joseph had to even come to Missouri to find the place. Why didn’t he just look in his stone or whatever and find it when he was over there in Ohio? No. Joseph Smith had to come all the way to Missouri and look around, and then he gets a revelation. “Oh, it’s by the courthouse in Independence, Missouri.” And that’s where it was established, within the territory, United States territory, at the time. And, yeah, it was supposed to be among the Lamanites, and…

Nehemia: Which are what we would call the Native Americans, or in my generation, they called them the American Indians.

Dan: Yeah. The American Indians, now, Native Americans. They were in the Book of Mormon “Lamanites”. There were Nephites and Lamanites, and the Lamanites destroyed the Nephites. And then the Lamanites became the Native Americans. And they believed, the more early Mormons, part of Joseph Smith’s mission was to convert the Native Americans, who were Israelites. And fulfill Old Testament prophecy by converting… and New Testament, converting them to Jesus and causing them to repent and learning their true heritage. And that was all part of the latter days. The signs of the latter days was the restoration of Israel, which this was his version of it.

So, that didn’t happen. They got kicked out of Missouri. They got persecuted and kicked out of Missouri, and they were never able to fulfill that revelation, and it caused a lot of anxiety about unfulfilled revelation. So, how do you handle that? And Joseph Smith gets another revelation, when he’s in Illinois, that says it was a commandment to build the temple in this new Jerusalem. But you were hindered, but when you go to do everything you can to fulfill God’s commandments, and you can’t, God accepts the offering. And so, it was kind of “revoked.” The commandment to build the temple in this generation was revoked because they had been obedient in trying to do it, but were hindered from doing it, so God more or less excused them from the commandment. It’s still a prophecy. The prophecy’s still in effect, but the commandment to build it in this generation has been suspended.

Nehemia: Was there something where they said, “Well, no, he’s saying I accept the offering.” So, he’s not saying, “Well, you didn’t get to do this because you were sinners,” which would be like an Old Testament sort of explanation. You’re saying it’s because some outside force hindered them, and you did the best you could, basically is…

Dan: Yeah, that was part of it. But at the time… at the time when you get really down into the weeds of it all, you’ll find out that Joseph Smith at first had no explanation for why they couldn’t establish Zion, and how they got kicked out of the Holy Land. So, early Mormons, they lost their Holy Land, similar to the Israelites losing their holy Land. And how do you explain this loss? God said David’s supposed to sit on the throne forever and ever, and that didn’t happen. How do you explain that? And so, they have their own crisis that they worked out with prophets. But then you have, just as the early Mormons did, the same thing, but in a compressed amount of time.

Nehemia: So, this is an important… and we’re going to gloss over this, I apologize to the LDS folks listening. There was one of the most shameful events, from my perspective, in American history, where the early Mormons settled Missouri and they were violently dispossessed of the land that they legally purchased. And the response of the governor was to issue an order; it was called the order of extermination, right?

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: And I’ve heard you explain this: “Well, they were terrified, the people there.” Okay, that doesn’t justify… I don’t think that justifies violently dispossessing people of their land. You could say the people in Cicero, Illinois, who violently drove out African Americans, were terrified, and I believe they were actually. Not legitimately, because it wasn’t legitimate, but they were actually terrified of African Americans, so they violently drove them out of Cicero, Illinois, in the 50’s. They tore one house apart, brick by brick, or something like that. My dad told me that. I grew up in Chicago, and he told me that happened in the 50’s. So, violently dispossessing the Mormons of their land, even if they had concerns, well, they should have used the law, in my perspective. But this is something that happened in US history that I was never taught. This is, I think, one of the great injustices of US history. Tell us about that. Let’s talk about that, because that’s…

Dan: From what you’ve heard, it seems like these Missourians just out of nowhere starting persecuting these Mormons and cast them out… called out an extermination order. The governor, Boggs, did, and kicked them out of their state, and it doesn’t make any sense.

Nehemia: No, I’m saying I acknowledge… well, you tell us what happened. Let’s do it that way.

Dan: That’s the story you usually hear, but there’s more…

Nehemia: Okay, you’re saying that’s what the average… Let’s be honest, most of my audience has never heard of it, so…

Dan: There’s more to it. What if I told you the Mormons were the first ones to call out an extermination order against the Missourians?

Nehemia: Okay, I didn’t know that.

Dan: Does that change some things?

Nehemia: I didn’t know that. Tell us more about that.

Dan: So… the Mormons. They were kicked out of Jackson County, Missouri, and it was mostly because of the people living there were slaveholders, and they perceived the Mormon immigrants as non-slaveholders. And the Mormons that moved there were zealous extremist religionists. They weren’t just believers in some kind of different doctrine. Their beliefs included this world. They’re coming into your community, where you’ve raised your family and you have a lot of investment, and they’re coming in and they’re saying, “God has given us this land, you might as well leave. And you can’t stop the predictions. God’s predicted that we will own all of this land, so you might as well sell it to us. Now.” And then they have this book, the Book of Mormon, that predicts that these Indians across the line, just across the line, are going to rise up and destroy the Gentiles.

Nehemia: And Gentile in this context means the non-Mormons.

Dan: Which means the non-Mormons. And those who don’t convert will be destroyed. So, the Mormons scared the non-Mormons; they were frightened. Now, the Mormons were trying to get them out, trying to get them to sell, trying to… all sorts of things… and getting up and in their sermons talking about all of this prediction in the Book of Mormon about what the Indians, or the Native Americans, will do. And in conjunction, the believing Gentiles and converted Native Americans will join into an army and cleanse America, basically. But until then, they will build a new Jerusalem, and it will be a place of refuge while America is going through a lot of tribulations and wars and things.

So, you’re predicting all of that, and then… the tipping point was when they were publishing a newspaper right there in Independence. It was the only newspaper, and it was Mormon. And in there, W.W. Phelps, the guy that was the editor of that, published an article called “Free People of Color.” And, more or less, he was talking about migrating converted black Mormons into Missouri, and they would be free, although Missourian’s have slaves. And they knew that the mixture of bringing free blacks in with the enslaved blacks would cause a lot of social commotion and problems and rebellion. And the United States had just gone through some slave rebellions of its own, and they were afraid of that as well. And then they saw the Mormons as stirring up this possibility of being wiped out by the Native Americans, or the blacks rising up, because they see all these free blacks running around their community all of a sudden…

Well, the thing is, there were no black Mormons to come into that area. That was all, what I interpret, as a way of making them want to leave. Bringing free blacks into their community would be one motivation, perhaps, for them to leave. But this strategy backfired on them, and the Missourians went and destroyed their press and kicked the Mormons out of there, out of that county. And they were welcomed into Clay County, the neighboring county, and they went there for a time before they went to their own county, where they were supposed to stay, in their own county, Caldwell County, and they didn’t stay within that county, they started spreading into other counties.

And then the Missourian’s had enough, and they started organizing a vigilante militia. But the Mormons, Sidney Rigdon, the guy that was next in line to Joseph Smith, more or less, got up… he was a big public speaker type orator, and got up and said, “We’re not going to put up with this persecution anymore. If you persecute us, we will take this battle to you, and it will be a bloody war of extermination.” And he was the first one to use that term.

Nehemia: I guess that was a bad choice of words on his part in retrospect, but that doesn’t justify ethnically cleansing, or religiously cleansing… because it’s not ethnic… religiously cleansing Missouri of its Mormons, which is what happened. But I guess we’re arguing… I look at this as like, if you were a Catholic in 14th century Germany and you saw people dying left and right from the Black Plague, and your priest in your church was telling you, “It’s because the Jews are poisoning the well.” So, I understand why they wiped out the Jews in all these different cities all over Germany in the 1340’s, because they genuinely believed the Jews are poisoning the well.

And on top of that, you have Jews who have prophecies that say, “Well, one day our Messiah is going to come, and we’ll rule the world.” Now that’s kind of hypothetical and more like… no Jew thinks that’s going to actually happen. We pray it might, but it’s not going to probably happen in our lifetime. And so, I want to draw an analogy there to… I understand you’re saying there’s a difference, that there were all kinds of social upheavals, and the Mormons were maybe more “this-worldly”, as far as the fulfillment of prophecy. Whereas for Jews it’s some hypothetical thing in the future, but from the perspective of the Catholics, what they think is, “Well, yeah, the Jews are going to bring in the Antichrist, and he’ll try to take over the world. And they’re in league with Satan, and we better kill them now before they kill us.” It’s hard for me not to see an analogy between the persecution of the Mormons, even though they might not have handled things right in Missouri, and the persecution of Jews in the Middle Ages. And obviously there’s a million differences, but it seems to me to be an analogy there.

Dan: It wasn’t just abstract. The Mormons actually formed their own “Army of Israel” and armed them…

Nehemia: It was like 500 guys and very few guns. I mean…

Dan: They armed themselves, and they went to the neighboring county of Davies, and they actually burned three cities. And then they had a skirmish in the southern Caldwell County, called the Battle of Crooked River, and several people on both sides got killed. They actually attacked a state militia. They attacked the state militia. Then they went around burning people’s houses. So, it was an insurrection, more or less, that had to be put down. And they didn’t just put it down, they decided to settle the whole thing. They arrested Joseph Smith, and several other leaders, and put them in Liberty Jail, and held them for six months.

Nehemia: What year is all this taking place? Or what span of years?

Dan: 1838 through 1839.

Nehemia: So, the first settlements in Missouri were in what year? Or the first expedition to Missouri by the Mormons; what year was that?

Dan: 1831.

Nehemia: So, 1831 they arrive there trying to convert what they call the Lamanites. They get kicked out of Indian territory. They end up in Missouri itself…

Dan: In Jackson County. In1831 they choose the location. This is Joseph Smith’s fatal mistake… was to choose an exact location by revelation that he could hang on to, and where people had already lived. It would have been better if he chose some place where no one else was living. But he didn’t. He chose this spot, and he did it by revelation, which was a mistake. This is the fatal mistake of his career, right here.

By 1833, till 1833, they’re being kicked out of Jackson County, and they go to Clay County. Then they settle Caldwell County. Joseph Smith makes a few trips, only about two, maybe three, later. By 1838, Kirtland, Ohio is not conducive to staying in for Joseph Smith, so he moves permanently in 1838 to Missouri to escape creditors.

Nehemia: So, they started out in upstate New York. They end up having their headquarters in a place called Kirtland, Ohio, and then their headquarters becomes Missouri. It eventually becomes southwestern Illinois, Nauvoo, where he eventually is murdered there, or in that area.

Dan: Right.

Nehemia: So, I want to draw an analogy here. And I’m not an historian, I’m a philologist, so I use history to understand ancient texts. I think you use text to understand history. So, we’re kind of opposite in what we do. In around roughly the same time, because you called it an insurrection, that’s really interesting. Roughly around the same time, within a few decades, in China you have something called the Taiping Rebellion. And it’s founded by this person who has a revelation, just like Joseph Smith, except in his revelation, he finds out he’s the brother of Jesus. He rebels against the Qing emperor, and he establishes what is essentially an empire in central southern China that lasts for over ten years.

So, he does what I think you suspect Joseph Smith wanted to do; he creates a religious empire. And it takes foreign powers from Europe to defeat him. The Qing can’t defeat him. They bring in Chinese Gordon, who is a general who was eventually killed at Khartoum. There’s an international force, General Tso, from General Tso’s Chicken, who is from Changsha, or a suburb of Changsha, where I lived for a year, he was the Chinese general who led the Chinese forces. But by himself, they couldn’t defeat the Taiping. It was called the Heavenly Kingdom.

That could have happened in the United States. We could have had… and I think I’ve heard you say, I think, correct me if I’m wrong, that one of his objectives was to create a theocracy in the western part of the United States, in the Mississippi Valley, and that actually could have happened if history had gone slightly differently. So, talk about that. Like, that’s unbelievable. Like, like we don’t… today, I don’t know…

Here’s my impression of Mormons as a non-Mormon. Like, we even make jokes, right?  We make jokes that, at the airport, when they’re frisking the Muslim in the hijab, well, they’re not doing that to Mormons, because the Mormons are these docile, friendly people. That’s not your experience, because you grew up Mormon, right? And you know the history. But I think that’s the impression of the average American, is, we have no security concerns from Mormons. But history could have gone way different. I want you to talk about that for a little bit.

Dan: Well, there is a militant strain in Mormonism. It’s in the Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon is a revolutionary document. It predicts the founding of a theocracy. What I call the New Jerusalem government, in the wilderness of America. But this wasn’t a foreign idea. I mean, you had the Burr conspiracy. Aaron Burr…

Nehemia: So, tell us what the Burr conspiracy is.

Dan: Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

Nehemia: Right. Well, okay.

Dan: He was trying to start a Western coup, what they call Western coup; a government independent of the United States.

Nehemia: Really?

Dan: Yeah. It never came to fruition.

Nehemia: All right, we’ve got to stop here a second. Who is Aaron Burr? And what was this Burr conspiracy? You can’t just gloss over that.

Dan: Okay, so, this is around… He was running for president and failed at that attempt, but… it’s a Jefferson’s Revolution of 1800, that Aaron Burr was trying to formulate a coup, and a Western Empire in the unchartered territories of the United States, basically. And, in the early days, it was believed that… or accused, Andrew Jackson was accused of conspiring with Aaron Burr, but not so sure about that…

Nehemia: Really? And at this point, “western” means what? Across the Appalachian Mountains? Where is “western” at this point?

Dan: Yeah, okay. In Indian territory, past the Mississippi.

Nehemia: Oh, okay. Across the Mississippi.

Dan: Before the Indians were driven there.

Nehemia: Okay, so, this is before the Trail of Tears and the…

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: But they are still Indians in, or Native Americans, across the Mississippi, just not the tribes that later were expelled to there. Okay, so, across the…

Dan: It was a short-lived kind of “adventure,” you might call it, that totally failed. It didn’t go anywhere. They used the Royal Arch cipher, it is said, to write messages dealing with this conspiracy to establish a government in United States territorial areas.

Nehemia: Okay so, there’s precedent for a rival…

Dan: Government.

Nehemia: Government in the west. That’s interesting. I didn’t know about that. Okay.

Dan: So, Joseph Smith, though, according to the Book of Mormon and the prophecies… these are prophecies that he was trying to fulfill… was going to establish a New Jerusalem government with Native Americans. It would be mostly their government, with the aid of believing Gentiles and “non-Israelites,” let’s put it that way.

Nehemia: So, believing Gentiles is another way of saying white Mormons. Is that…

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: All right. So, I think this brings us back to a bigger question, which is why did Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon? And…

Dan: That’s why! A lot of people don’t know that nowadays. They all see that as prophecy in the future. It’s a very nebulous idea. You know, when Jesus comes again, maybe, when the world is changed anyway. They don’t realize that Joseph Smith was trying to do it!

Nehemia: So, you believe one of the reasons he wrote the Book of Mormon was in order to lay the foundation for this theocracy in the western part of what at the time was the US territory…

Dan: Well, he had no location.

Nehemia: Okay. Somewhere he wanted… this would give him authority to rule this theocracy, basically, is your contention.

Dan: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay. So, that…

Dan: The prophet of this theocracy that would have a perfect community, they would be one in love and heart, their hearts would be knit together, and they will have this perfect utopian society. Not unlike Quakers, Shakers… The Oneida commune is another secular kind of experiment in communalism. And so, Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, it was all about communalism. It was all about the ideal of that Acts passage where it talks about the early Christians had all things in common.

Nehemia: That’s really interesting, because the Taiping rebels focused on those verses as well, in Acts. And then later Mao sort of retconned the Taiping Rebellion as an early worker’s revolt, and as a proto form of communism. Because actually, I think it was before Marx, or at least before his publication of the Communist Manifesto, that, at least the initial Taiping… I could be wrong about that.

But the initial Heavenly Kingdom, I think, might have… it certainly didn’t… even if Marx had written his works at that point, they wouldn’t have been aware of it in south central China at that point. But they experimented in some form of communal pooling of property, which early Mormons did as well. And I find that that was really surprising. I mean, some of the things that got them in trouble was experimenting with redistribution of wealth, and it failed, essentially, from an economic perspective, right? That was the whole bank in Ohio that failed, because they’re trying to print money and then give it to people, and they have no way to back it up.

Dan: The bank was a different kind of thing, but it failed. But before Joseph Smith even arrived in northern Ohio, in that Geauga County, there were already Christians practicing a form of communalism… they were kind of a group associated with Alexander Campbell’s Church of Christ, or Disciples of Christ. They were called the family, Morrelli family, and Joseph Smith tried to correct or change the way they did things in this communal group. But it was essentially… he established a bishop, the Bishop Edward Partridge, who was a former Campbellite, and Sidney Rigdon, who was also a former Campbellite, who had been a bishop in the Campbellite group. But the bishop just meant ‘leader of a congregation’ to them.

Here, Joseph Smith changed bishops to have authority over worldly affairs, like economic and land and things like that. And the plan was that when you join this, and you gave everything up to Jesus, you gave the bishop all your property, and then he decided what you needed and gave that portion back. And he would save the other portion for the poor. So, that was the plan to begin with.

Nehemia: Do you think this has something to do with Joseph Smith growing up in abject poverty, that he has this ideal? “Well, nobody should have to have that poverty. Some people have too much, and so we should share it with the people who don’t have.” Do you think that has anything to do with it?

Dan: Yeah. It has to do somewhat with that, that he thought these religious people that didn’t share enough with the poor were hypocrites, basically, and he said, “If you’re not equal in wealth, you’re not equal in the kingdom of God in heaven.” He demanded… it’s a high demand religion from the start. Giving up your all. Eventually it doesn’t work, and they replace it with tithing 10% of your…

Nehemia: So, you’re saying the Mormons today are getting off easy with 10% compared to what it was in the early days?

Dan: No, it’s harder now.

Nehemia: Oh, how so?

Dan: In the beginning, the 10% was just of your increase, of your interest for that year. Not on everything, of the interest. So, it wasn’t like a 10% of your gross income.

Nehemia: But in the Kirtland days, it was 100%. And then you get back what the bishop thinks you need.

Dan: Well, yeah, it’s a lesser law. It was the lesser law.

Nehemia: I don’t know means, the lesser law.

Dan: Meaning easier. It was an easier law. Tithing was an Old Testament practice…

Nehemia: For sure.

Dan: And that’s a lot easier than the law of consecration. The law of consecration is where you consecrate everything.

Nehemia: Right. So, compared to, though, the Kirtland days, they’re getting off easy, is the point.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay. And even the Missouri days. Well, okay, there’s a lot where… I want to go back to why he wrote the Book of Mormon.

Dan: Okay.

Nehemia: Because now we have almost a contradiction in what you’re saying, and I’m sure you can explain it, but my mind’s all over the place. So, you’ve talked about how… so, the doctrines and covenant. Let’s talk about that for a few minutes. What is that? And what was it originally?

Dan: Well,Joseph Smith, he was dictating his revelations through that same stone to begin with.

Nehemia: And we’re going to go back, because we didn’t really talk about the stone and the magic. I want to spend some time talking about that, but we’ll hopefully do that later.

Dan: Write a note or something.

Nehemia: Yeah, I have notes here. Yeah.

Dan: So, he was dictating revelations beginning with that translation crisis, so that opened up a whole thing. And people would come to him, “Well, what do we do in this case? What do we do in that case?” And he would get a revelation and answer that question or this question. “What does it mean in this passage of Scripture?” And he would get a revelation, and he would give an interpretation of that passage of Scripture directly from God. So, they started accumulating these revelations, and one of the important ones was called “The Law”.

Nehemia: What do you mean, The Law? There was a publication called The Law?

Dan: Well, it was a two-parter, but now it’s combined into one. Now it’s Doctrine and Covenants section 42.

Nehemia: So, it was originally called “The Law”. Wow.

Dan: The Law, which was, “What do you do in this circumstance? That circumstance? What is adultery? What is fornication? What is murder? What is…”

Nehemia: By the way, we’ve been speaking for over two hours, and we haven’t spoken about polygamy. We probably won’t even get to that. But that’s what probably people are waiting for. “When is he going to talk about polygamy?” That, to me, is the least interesting part of this whole thing. To me.

Dan: It’s all wrapped up all together. It’s all intertwined. That’s why it’s so hard to unravel. So, he’s getting these revelations, and then he wants to publish them, and some people resist publishing the revelations. They’re not so sure that they should, mostly because they know it’s a different quality than the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon, the stone, and it’s a translation of Prophets, but is Joseph Smith a prophet?

Nehemia: So, that’s actually a question in the early days.

Dan: Yeah. Is he on the same level? He’s a translator! Right?

Nehemia: Wow.

Dan: Remember that one revelation? One of the early revelations given in March of 1829, says that “He should pretend to no other gift than to translate the Book of Mormon.”

Nehemia: I want to open that up and show that to the audience, but I want to first understand what are all these revelations, right? So, I think that’s really fascinating, that… So, they’re writing these things down as he’s revealing them. How did they get published? Like, are they originally published in the newspaper or something?

Dan: No. So, they’re going to publish it in a book form. And they are publishing some of them in the newspaper, in a Mormon periodical called The Evening and the Morning Star, published in Independence, Missouri.

Nehemia: Wow. Wow.

Dan: In 1831. Well, and they’re trying to fulfill, “The word of the Lord shall come out of Zion, out of Judah.”

Nehemia: Ah, and the new Zion is Independence, Missouri.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: Wow. Okay.

Dan: That’s what they’re trying to do. And so, they publish some of these revelations, and now they decide they need a rule to judge people by. They’re having problems with people not obeying the commandments, not listening to the revelations. And so, they need to have a rule, a way of judging people, and they need to publish this so there’s an expectation on everybody to… this is what is expected. And some balk at that; they’re not so sure that should be done. They resist. But Joseph Smith overcomes it by challenging them to produce a revelation equal to what they consider the least of these revelations.

Nehemia: Wow.

Dan: If you can’t do it, you’ve got to endorse it.

Nehemia: Okay, we have to stop there for a second. So, in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, there were people who tried to disparage him by comparing him to Muhammad.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: I want to make a comparison to Muhammad, but not to disparage him, just as two phenomena of history. The Quran itself has a doctrine called inimitability, which I’m sure I’m mispronouncing, which is this idea that you are not capable of producing a single surah. In Islam, the miracle of Islam… they say Jesus and Moses perform miracles, healing, and Jesus… and Moses splitting the sea… the miracle of Muhammad is the Quran itself. And the proof that it’s a miracle is you can’t produce even a single chapter of the Quran. And that’s in the Quran itself; it’s the doctrine of inimitability. They have this idea that it’s the greatest of all poetry ever written. I’m not a judge of poetry, so I don’t know.

And of course, the response to that by non-Muslims is to say, “Well, I can’t produce a single sonnet of Shakespeare either, because Shakespeare wrote those. I can’t write a single play of Shakespeare. It doesn’t mean Shakespeare had revelations from God.” But it’s incredible to me that early Mormonism… and Mormonism, maybe, even today, has the same doctrine.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: “Let’s see you produce a single revelation the way that Joseph Smith has.” And then, here’s the other analogy to Muhammad. So, in Islam there’s this doctrine that Muhammad was illiterate, and therefore you can’t say he was imitating something he read somewhere because he actually couldn’t even read. And he had no education, so, how did he write such amazing poetry? That’s part of the miracle, and it’s almost verbatim in some cases. I’m exaggerating, not verbatim, but it’s uncanny, the parallels where they describe Joseph Smith, I think rightfully so, as uneducated and crass. Or as his wife or his mother says, he couldn’t even… I think it’s his wife. After he dies, she says, “He couldn’t even dictate a letter! How could he have dictated the Book of Mormon? He couldn’t even dictate a personal letter.” Am I right about that? Is there something there?

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay, so, talk to me about these parallels. And I know you’re not an expert on Islam, but am I wrong? There’s something here like in the parallels as different phenomena and completely different periods of history, and I can’t believe for a second that somebody in Joseph Smith’s time was sitting down and reading Islamic theology and saying, “Hey, we should steal that one. We should claim inimitability.” No, but I think they’re two independent outgrowths of different situations. That’s my view. Talk to me about that.

Dan: Yeah. How do you respond to the challenge, and why? They’re challenging him because they listen to him every day. They know the revelations sound like him, but in an imitation-biblical style.

Nehemia: Would you say that the revelations he had… Sorry, go ahead.

Dan: So, they knew what he sounded like, and they knew that the revelations, even though there are some moments where they’re very… the language is very eloquent. You could still hear Joseph’s voice. So, that’s the question; do the prophets speak and just dictate God’s words? Or does God use them to speak through, and their different personalities show up? So, they saw the weakness, and one of his revelations says that God speaks to man in his own weakness…

Nehemia: What does that mean?

Dan: Through his own understanding. So, these revelations are saying that God is speaking through Joseph Smith. Not Joseph Smith dictating God’s words that he perceives or hears, and he’s just repeating them. So, it’s not literal. Joseph Smith is right away. So, I’ve always contended that Joseph Smith put out to the people that he’s just dictating God’s words, or that he’s dictating the words on the stone. Privately, he has a different definition of revelation that is more liberal, more nuanced than what he let out, that is less faith-promoting.

So, when he challenges his followers to imitate God’s words, he knows they’re not going to be able to do that, even if… They all can write better than him. The people challenging him are more learned than he is and can use language, written languages…

Nehemia: Particularly Sidney Rigdon is truly a talented orator, right? And writer.

Dan: Yeah. In the style that people would expect in the 19th century. Nowadays, we’d probably be all rolling our eyes.

Nehemia: In contrast to Joseph Smith, who famously, in the Book of Mormon, instead of, “in those days”, he’s dictating, “in them days”.

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: Right. So, that’s clearly his… and I shouldn’t say clearly because Royal Skousen might disagree with me. But to me, it’s clear that this is him expressing things in the dialect of English that he knows. I mean, I guess you can make a bunch of arguments about it, but it seems to me that’s the case. And it seems to, I think, most people that’s the case… most non-Mormons.

Dan: Yeah. So, I would argue that when he’s in the spirit, he probably feels that he dictates better than he normally can talk. And he gets into a mode of speech that he doesn’t write in his letters. Writing a letter, that Emma mentions, is totally different than speaking. So, Joseph Smith is very good at language, spoken language. Even in the Book of Mormon, the writers in the Book of Mormon complain that they’re not good writers, that they’re better… if they were there in person speaking, you would feel the spirit. It would be much better.

Nehemia: I see.

Dan: So, he’s letting his own weakness show, but he’s a charismatic leader. He already has confidence that he can get people to do what he needs to be done, and he knows that he can speak. He knows he can’t write that well, right?

Nehemia: So, he’s having these revelations. They’re collecting them, and then when do they first… and they’re initially publishing them in the periodical, the newspaper. But then they have something called the Book of Commandments, right?

Dan: Okay, so, just to finish my earlier thought before we move on, he knows that these guys are not going to pretend to speak in God’s voice. It’s too frightening for them to even attempt it.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: He knows they’re not going to do it. And he has confidence that he can dictate things like the Book of Mormon, like his revelations, and pseudepigraphal writing. He can imitate pseudepigraphical writing, writing by pretending to be a prophet. He can do that. He has confidence. That’s why he’s doing it. And he’s not the only one, there are lots of people in his environment writing revelations. There are Mormons that later go on, like Sidney Rigdon himself, to dictate revelations. There’s a 16-year-old boy in Kirtland, Ohio, that dictates a whole book that sounds a lot like Isaiah wrote it.

Nehemia: So, you say on the one hand, he knows… like, here’s what it sounds to me like you’re saying. He knows he’s willing to pretend to be God’s voice, but he knows they’re not willing to do that.

Dan: No. In my interpretation, he believes he is inspired.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

Dan: He is inspired. But it’s coming through him. He knows it’s coming through him.

Nehemia: So, this is what you call the pious fraud…

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: And I hope we can talk about that. That was the initial thing that got me interested in wanting to talk to you. I was fascinated by that.

Dan: In my view, he believes he is a prophet.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: But not the kind he projects to everybody else to promote their faith in his revelations. That’s the trick he learned as a money digger; how to build confidence in other people, how to get other people to believe what he’s seeing in his stone. Anybody can go up and say, “I see,” whatever. Right? “I am looking in this crystal ball and I see this and that.” How do you get other people to believe that you are? And that’s the talent that he developed before he became the Mormon prophet.

Nehemia: So, we’re going to circle back to money digger. I hope we’ll have time and energy because that’s a fascinating thing in and of itself. You kind of alluded to it in an earlier section where you talked about… they were visionary, and they were untraditional, and if we don’t get to it, guys, go to Dan Vogel’s YouTube page. He has long videos about the seer stone, and folk magic, and all of that, and I think that’s one of the most interesting things about the whole story. All of it’s interesting, but we’re talking about these revelations he’s having. He knows they’re not going to imitate him, but there are people who are doing it. Like Hiram Page has a seer stone, and they’re writing down what he says, and Joseph Smith goes ballistic.

Dan: Well, that’s one of the problems with charismatic religions; that charisma spreads to everybody. You’re attracting people so they’ll have charismatic experiences, but then they start getting revelations that can compete with yours. And there’s a chance that the whole thing could splinter into a thousand pieces, with different groups going off here and there, liking that person’s revelation or that person’s over yours. And, to hold it together is the trick Joseph Smith is trying to negotiate from day one. Hiram Page is like right there in the first year.

Nehemia: So, tell us about Hiram Page. Pretend the audience never heard of him. Tell us what happens there. That’s incredible to me.

Dan: Well, Hiram Page was a brother-in-law to… had married one of David Whitmer’s sisters, and he’s right there where the Book of Mormon is being translated.

Nehemia: And in fact, some of the Whitmers are some of the scribes who are transcribing Joseph Smith’s words. So, these aren’t just some random people; they’re at the epicenter of the revelation of the Book of Mormon.

Dan: Yeah. Sometimes they give Oliver Cowdery a rest. And John Whitmer, his handwriting has been found in the original dictated manuscript of the part that the… less than 40%…

Nehemia: I think it’s 28% survives, according to…

Dan: 28%, that sounds right… that has survived. So, we know that that part was done at that time, during the month of June.

Nehemia: I want to point out something which blows my mind. So, I think some people who first become acquainted with the story of Joseph Smith will say, “Well, the whole thing is made up. He didn’t sit there dictating a book to people.” But we actually have the manuscript in which they copied down his words, and it’s very clear it was a dictation.

Dan: Yes. And it’s oral, and there are mistakes in it that are not visual.

Nehemia: Right, exactly. That’s incredible, that we would have 28%, or maybe it’s a little bit more now with multispectral imaging, being able to read 28% of the original manuscript. Like, I wish we had 28% of the original copy… I wish we had 1% of the original copy of the Book of Jeremiah, which, by the way, is described as the same thing. They said to Baruch, the son of Neriah, “How was this written?” He said, “Jeremiah would speak, and I would write.” So, we have an interesting parallel there. So, Jeremiah wasn’t looking into a hat, presumably, but that’s a whole separate story. It’s a dictation. All right. Hiram Page… he’s at the epicenter.

Dan: Yeah. Well, they’re not so sure Joseph Smith is the one and only prophet, the leader; there’s no such thing yet. He’s just a translator. And he’s gotten some revelations, but aren’t we all supposed to get revelations?

Nehemia: And didn’t Joseph Smith himself say that? That everyone is supposed to have the holy spirit or something? Was there something like that?

Dan: Well, yeah. It’s supposed to be a restoration of the spiritual gifts: tongues, prophecy… in their meetings, they stand up and prophesy, or speak in tongues, and see visions. They are a very charismatic group. Not so much like the Mormons are today. It’s all been institutionalized. And that’s part of my next book, that’s coming out in a few months…

Nehemia: Oh, wow. What’s the book called? Do we have a preview?

Dan: It’s the middle years. It’s Joseph Smith: Charisma Under Pressure.

Nehemia: Wow!

Dan: Charisma Under Pressure. And it’s working off of Max Weber’s From Charisma to Institution, is one of his studies. He’s a sociologist from the 19th into the 20th century, and he wrote about how charismatic groups… and it’s not only religious charismatic groups, it’s any kind of group that has a leader that’s based on personality, the draw, the personality kind of a thing. It could be a business, even…

But all groups, these charismatic groups, have this instability built into it, and it tries to seek this homeostasis, an equilibrium. And how does it do that? And also, be dealing with the problem of unfulfilled prophecy. How do you overcome that? Like the early Christians. And it eventually becomes institutionalized, where charisma doesn’t rest in the personality of the leader, it rests in the office. Anybody who inherits the office has the charisma of the office. And it has this tendency to balance itself.

So, Joseph Smith, one of his genius parts is that he was able to build an institution that was self-preserving. And, by the time the unfulfilled prophecy came around, the institution was strong enough to survive it. That’s it in a nutshell.

Nehemia: That’s really interesting. So, charisma… and by charisma, what you mean here, I think, and what I definitely mean, is that they believe that they were actually having these spiritual revelations, experiences. You know, I wondered, before I studied this, why would anybody believe something as outlandish as the Book of Mormon? And the answer from speaking to Mormons is, “Well, I prayed about it, and it was revealed to me that it’s true. And why don’t you pray about it, Nehemia, and see if God, or Jesus, or whatever, gives you a testimony that it’s true?” So, that’s a charismatic experience.

Dan: Yes.

Nehemia: Right? So, the very thing that makes Mormons such devout believers, and certainly in the early days, is a danger, because now you have competing voices. Maybe the spirit doesn’t just tell me that the Book of Mormon is true, maybe it tells me that, “Hey, it’s not supposed to be Independence, Missouri, it’s supposed to be Nauvoo, Illinois, or Utah, or someplace like that.”

So, that brings us to Hiram Page. Hiram Page is in the home of the Whitmer’s, and what happens?

Dan: Well, he starts getting revelations. People want to know, where is this Zion? Is it here in…

Nehemia: Oh, it’s that exact thing.

Dan: Is it here in Fayette? Are we in the Holy Land? Is this part of the Promised Land right here? And Hiram Page starts getting these revelations through a stone. And he gets a reem of them, basic choir, you know, they called it a reem, a lot.

Nehemia: So, people are writing down what he says; he’s not just getting revelations.

Dan: Yeah! Just like Joseph Smith.

Nehemia: Wow.

Dan: And he locates Zion. It appears from the descriptions, anyway, that it’s right there. And so, Joseph Smith gets a counter-revelation, labeling Hiram Page’s revelations as satanic. “These are false revelations, and they are not to follow these, and it has not been revealed where Zion shall be.” At this point that’s what it declared; nobody knew where Zion was. And it would be shortly.

So, I interpret that as they had this anxiety, this need for the mysteries… they wanted the mysteries solved. They wanted somebody to get revelations about these things, and just wasn’t delivering fast enough, and this was his cue. This was his cue to step it up a little bit.

Nehemia: So, this is important. I think this is one of the pivotal events in the history of the early church, because it’s not just, “Okay, Hiram Page is having Satan reveal stuff to him,” or whatever the terminology is, but then they have an outcome from this. Tell us about that, where they establish that there’s only one person who’s allowed to be a revelator. Isn’t that something that comes out of this?

Dan: Yeah, yeah. So, they take Hiram Page’s stone, and they grind it up, according to tradition. They ground it up and destroyed it and destroyed his revelations.

Nehemia: And Hiram Page isn’t resisting this. He accepts this, right?

Dan: No. He was having a lot of influence on the Whitmer’s and Oliver Cowdery. So, they’re all not clear on, “Well, what is going on here? Is Joseph Smith… we’re supposed to follow Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith only?” Well, Joseph Smith gets a revelation more or less saying ‘yes’. If there’s to be any revelations given, it will be given through Joseph Smith.

Nehemia: Wow. That’s convenient… for him.

Dan: That’s what they do. They call it a revelation of convenience, yeah.

Nehemia: Who calls it that?

Dan: It’s just a term that they throw around.

Nehemia: Not the Mormons though, right? They would say it’s a true revelation, right? I’m asking.

Dan: Yeah. Right.

Nehemia: Okay. So, the result of this is, not only does this silence Hiram Page, it prevents anybody else from challenging his authority, right?

Dan: Not exactly.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

Dan: So, not exactly. Another, let’s say, challenger, came about when he moved to Ohio the next year, a woman we know as Hubbell.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: This woman started getting revelations, and they had to get another revelation saying basically the same thing, that only Joseph Smith is to get revelations for the church.

Nehemia: Okay. Does Hiram Page accept Joseph Smith’s revelation and say, “Okay, I was wrong. It was Satan”?

Dan: Mm-hmm.

Nehemia: Do we know if Hubbell accepted it?

Dan: Not much is known about her. Just her name and the story. Some scholars think they know her identity, but I don’t think she had a very long history with Joseph Smith or the church.

Nehemia: Okay. Isn’t there something where David Whitmer… like, at some point in the beginning Joseph Smith is looking into a hat at a stone, and he’s claiming there’s revelation coming to him through the stone, right?

Dan: Mm-hmm.

Nehemia: And at some point, he stops using the stone. And I read somewhere, or heard somewhere, that David Whitmer becomes convinced, I think, that that’s where Joseph Smith went off the path, because he stopped using the stone. Tell us about that.

Dan: Yeah. So, true. So, he’s using the stone, he’s getting revelations through the stone, and at what point he gives the stone up and starts just using revelation, inspiration, through his mind, is uncertain. But it’s early. He gives the stone to Oliver Cowdery. And Oliver Cowdery… his family had it after he died in 1850, gave it to Brigham Young’s brother, Phineas Young, who took it to Utah, and we got the picture of it.

Nehemia: So, we have the stone to this day.

Dan: It’s a stone that they published a picture of. You can see it on the internet.

Nehemia: And to be clear, the church, the LDS Church in Utah, they’re the ones who published the photo, and they say this is the stone that Joseph Smith used to reveal the Book of Mormon, right?

Dan: Yeah, and it has a little leather bag.

Nehemia: Okay.

Dan: Which is probably an amulet bag.

Nehemia: Oh, interesting. So, this isn’t Dan Vogel, the ex-bitter Mormon who’s trying to bad-mouth Joseph Smith and saying that he used the stone… the LDS Church itself says that, right?

Dan: That’s right.

Nehemia: Wow.

Dan: Way back before we had any sources and things, and it was just David Whitmer talking about this stone that he saw Joe Smith using, there was a time when everybody knew it during the 19th century. Then there was a time when nobody seemed to know about it, and it was, “Oh, David Whitmer, he’s an anti-Mormon. He was a non-Mormon at the time he’s saying this. He’s just trying to hurt Joseph Smith.” Actually, he’s trying to help Joseph Smith. He believes in the stone, so he wouldn’t make up the stone to hurt Joseph Smith if he’s trying to say Joseph Smith made a mistake by giving the stone up. You know what I’m saying?

Nehemia: Right. For sure.

Dan: And that’s where a lot of real conservative apologists on the internet… the internet’s kind of a good thing and kind of a bad thing… you have to be careful…

Nehemia: Ain’t that the truth.

Dan: It’s a place where smart people learn faster, and where dumb people learn faster also. But misinformation is spread, and people that are not very critical, or just casual learners, pick up the wrong information. It’s a good thing and it’s a bad thing. So, be careful out there, everybody.

Nehemia: Well, there’s this one apologist… I saw a video where this apologist says, “Well, who are you going to believe? David Whitmer talking about a stone? Or Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who… the prophet who revealed the Book of Mormon and the scribe who transcribed certainly most of it… Who are you going to believe? Them? Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who say it was the spectacles? Or David Whitmer, who became an apostate, who ended up leaving the church? 

Dan: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay, that’s not for me to decide.

Dan: Oliver Cowdrey and Joseph Smith, in their official accounts, talked about Urim and Thummim, the interpreters, or Joseph Smith used the term “spectacles” in 1832. That was the official line. And the reason why was because they were downplaying the folk magic origins of early Mormonism. They were for the mainstream and trying to convert people. And this is the official accounts. Now, you should be wary of any official account, not just Mormons.

Nehemia: But if you believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and Joseph Smith says this is how it happened, and you talked about the curtain… whether there was a curtain or not, I guess that’s a matter of debate, or maybe sometimes there was a curtain. I understand their perspective. If you have this burning feeling in your heart, and literally they talk about a burning feeling, I think, that says this is true, and Joseph Smith is a true prophet, and Joseph Smith writes that it was these spectacles… I understand why they believe what they believe. But what you’re looking at is all of the evidence from different sources. Some of them are anti-Mormon and some of them are pro-Mormon, right? Like, David Whitmer is a believer until the day he dies, right? They just did a movie about it. The LDS, I think, made a movie about how, although he left the church, to the day he died he’s testifying the Book of Mormon is true, and he really saw it; that has to do with the witnesses. Did you see that movie that came out recently?

Dan: No.

Nehemia: Do you know what I’m talking about, though?

Dan: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay, I think it’s called The Witnesses, or The Witness, or something like that. It was a good movie. Well, I don’t know if it was a good movie. I found it entertaining. I don’t know if it was correct or not. Okay. So, Hiram Page has these revelations, this woman has other revelations. At the end of the day, the conclusion is there’s only one prophet who’s allowed to have revelations for people to follow in practice, right? Meaning, isn’t there some idea that you can have a revelation, but you can’t be teaching that this is what you should do? Something like that.

Dan: Yeah, you can have personal revelation, but you can’t give… the revelation that Joseph Smith dictated said Oliver Cowdery can have revelations, but he could not write them.

Nehemia: Hmm. Okay.

Dan: You can have revelations, but you are not to write them. Because he knows that it gets codified in the book, and the book becomes the law, and that’s the one reason why he wants them published. So, these revelations answer and keep the people from straying too far away from Joseph Smith’s central authority. There are other problems that crop up, and he’s constantly doing maintenance on his primary sole position. He’s like the translator of the Book of Mormon, then he becomes one of the high priests, then he becomes the president of the High priests, then he becomes the president of the church. So, his control of the organization develops over time. There are people resisting all the way, David Whitmer being one of them. Resisting his sole command of the church.

On the stone thing we have… so, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith are the only ones talking about this Urim and Thummim and translating with the Urim and Thummim, and… because it’s the party line; they are trying to move the church away from the folk magic origins.

Nehemia: Anyway, thanks so much for all your time.

Dan: Thanks for having me.

Nehemia: I hope we are able to broadcast all of this. We’ve been recording at this point, guys… I think this is a personal record for me. We’ve been recording for, I want to say, almost like 7.5 hours or something like that. So, thank you so much.

Dan: Alright.

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