1055: Joseph Smith's Treasure Digging - Dan Vogel Pt. 2
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2019
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After exploring historian Dan Vogel’s motivations behind his studies of the life of Joseph Smith in our first segments, we now delve deeper into Joseph’s treasure digging activities.
Dan devoted a portion of his book Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet to understanding not only the financial motivations for Joseph’s treasure digging practice, but also to explain how this practice possibly became the start of a chain of events leading to the creation of the LDS Church, best explained by a portion of the abstract in Dan’s book:
“Over time, Joseph became aware that people trusted him and that he could be an influence for good or ill, that even through nefarious means, God worked through him when his heart was right. He realized this when he led groups in search of Spanish treasure in New York and Pennsylvania. Although no treasure was found, the men sincerely believed that Smith had a spiritual gift and could see where casks of gold were hidden in the earth. This training ground in spiritual leadership was invaluable because the prophet learned how to create an environment for belief—one in which people could exercise faith and be converted to Christ through the sensible influence of the Spirit, all prior to the overarching work of restoring primitive Christianity.”
Transcript
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| 0:47.1 | Okay so then Alvin dies. Alvin's final words to go well yeah so Joseph goes once to the hill to |
| 0:53.6 | get the plates from the Guardian Spirit. And it was in Spirit in 1823. Yes okay. |
| 1:00.3 | 1823. He says he's going to the hill to get the plates but he has to not come home with the |
| 1:05.5 | plates because he has no plates. So just like not finding any of the treasures right he doesn't |
| 1:12.7 | bring the plates home but there are more. Joseph misceneers likely to believe his sons excuse |
| 1:21.5 | Joseph when the treasure guardian prevented him. Shocked him through him back when he touched the |
| 1:27.6 | plates. Through him back just like a treasure guardian would. His father is likely to believe that |
| 1:33.1 | because he believes all these other things about treasures sinking, slipping into the earth already. |
| 1:41.2 | Okay so this is important because a lot of people want to know who's an accomplice and who's |
| 1:45.6 | a sincere believer. And you're telling me Joseph, senior and Alvin believed in spirits, |
| 1:51.3 | believed that there was a golden plates, an ancient record and believed that Joseph had power. |
| 1:56.4 | Not a bunch of family members all in on a conspiracy at that point. Correct. Right no conspiracy ever. |
| 2:03.6 | Okay okay. So so Alvin dies. Lucy joins the Presbyterian Shures Joseph Flurch with Methodism. |
| 2:11.0 | Joseph gives the stone back to the Chases. Right. Joseph tries to make good. He apologizes |
| 2:16.3 | or repents for his fraudulent acts or whatever. But what he found out was he tried to use the same |
| 2:26.4 | ploys on Methodist or ministers. It says he was in the company of a one of the ministers and he |
... |
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