Excommunicated for THIS? : RFM: 411

Mormon Discussions Podcasts – Full Lineup

Bill Reel

Religion & Spirituality

4.3 • 618 Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

RFM covered the excommunication of Brandeis Hebrew scholar David P. Wright a few weeks ago. Now we cover the paper written by David P. Wright that got him excommunicated! The paper shows how Joseph Smith used the Epistle to the Hebrews from the Bible in his creation of the Book of Mormon. Professor Wright’s paper… Read More »Excommunicated for THIS? : RFM: 411

The post Excommunicated for THIS? : RFM: 411 appeared first on Mormon Discussions Podcasts - Full Lineup.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everybody. This is Radio Free Mormon coming at you from behind enemy lines.
0:05.6	Tonight's episode is the Bible versus the Book of Mormon. Now, that title could take in a lot of
0:11.4	ground, but specifically what I'll be talking about tonight is the epistle to the Hebrews in the
0:18.4	book of Mormon. What is it doing there? And how is the Book of Mormon using it in order to make the points the Book of Mormon. What is it doing there? And how is the Book of Mormon using it
0:22.7	in order to make the points the Book of Mormon wants to make as opposed to the points that the author
0:27.8	of the epistle to the Hebrews wants to make? Now, a number of weeks ago, I did an episode about
0:33.3	David P. Wright and how he was a professor at B.Y.U. who got fired in 1988 for his unorthodox views,
0:42.1	then landed on his feet with a very prestigious job at Brandeis University as a professor there.
0:49.1	Then he published a paper, this paper, about the relationship between Hebrews and the Book of Mormon. And that's the
0:57.5	paper that got him excommunicated. I completed the episode about his excommunication. I put out
1:03.4	a question as to whether anybody wanted to hear the details about the paper that caused his
1:07.8	excommunication because I did not get into the details of that paper there. Simply a general description. There was a large number of listeners who wanted to hear
1:16.4	the details about the paper, so that's what I'm going to be going into tonight. Now, in order to do
1:21.6	this, I took the paper, I found it on the internet, I printed it out, it's just shy of 60 pages,
1:27.3	all told it's a rather lengthy paper, it's very in depth, I printed it out. It's just shy of 60 pages. All told it's a rather lengthy paper.
1:29.1	It's very in depth. I printed it out. I put it in this binder. And then I read through it once
1:35.0	with a marker and pen. Then I went through it again. And the second time I went through it, I think I
1:39.9	understood it a lot better. I also read chapters in the scriptures that this relates to,
1:46.0	particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews, which I read, and also Alma chapters 12 and 13,
1:53.6	which are the main points that get the relationship going between the Book of Mormon and the
1:59.6	book of Hebrews. Sometimes I'll call it the book of Hebrews. Sometimes I'll call it the Epistle to the Hebrews. Sometimes I'll call it the book of
2:01.9	Hebrews. Sometimes I'll call it the epistle to the Hebrews. Sometimes I'll just call it Hebrews.
	...

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