meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Mormon Stories Podcast

048: Richard Bushman Part 2 - The Art of History, Joseph Smith's First Vision Stories, and Joseph's Participation in Folk Magic and Treasure Digging

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.55.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2007

⏱️ 62 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode we tackle 4 main topics. First, brother Bushman provides a high level review of the major Joseph Smith biographies that preceded Rough Stone Rolling, including Fawn Brodie's"No man knows my history." Next, brother Bushman discusses the art of writing history, and the challenges involved in trying to arrive at"the facts" and"the truth" for both historians, and readers of history. Finally, we discuss in depth the first 2 of our top 10 tough Joseph Smith issues: 1) The multiple and somewhat varying accounts of Joseph Smith's first vision story, and 2) Joseph Smith's involvement in folk magic and treasure digging.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Mormon Stories podcast depends entirely upon the voluntary contributions of you, its listeners.

0:06.5

To keep Mormon Stories alive, please consider donating today at MormonStories.org.

0:12.1

To make a contribution to Mormon Stories, just click on the Make a Donation button at the top

0:16.7

right of the MormonStories.org website.

0:19.6

For all this and more, please check out MormonStories.org.

0:23.6

And thank you for listening.

0:30.0

Welcome to Part 2 of our multi-part interview with Dr. Richard Bushman, author of Joseph

0:48.3

Smith, Rough Stone Rolling.

0:50.4

I want to begin with a bit of a disclaimer.

0:53.4

Some of you will notice that the audio quality on these two interviews have not quite been

0:57.8

up to par, and I wanted to briefly explain why.

1:01.2

Brother Bushman was a real gem to conduct this interview while fighting a cold.

1:04.9

But because his voice was a bit weakened, I had to turn his volume up very high to make

1:09.0

sure his points were heard.

1:11.0

As a result, you will hear a continual buzz throughout the interview, although it's

1:14.4

somewhat slight, and some heavy static for the first two minutes or so of the interview.

1:19.2

Please forgive the annoyance, but I felt that his points were so important that I could not

1:23.0

bear to edit them out.

1:24.6

After the first two minutes or so, it becomes much more bearable.

1:28.4

Now to the content.

1:30.1

In this episode, we tackle four main topics.

1:33.3

First, Brother Bushman provides a high-level review of the major Joseph Smith biographies

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dr. John Dehlin, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dr. John Dehlin and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.