Origins of the Book of Abraham - John Turner pt. 17 | Ep. 2069
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 ā¢ 5.2K Ratings
šļø 9 October 2025
ā±ļø 146 minutes
šļø Recording | iTunes | RSS
š§¾ļø Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to Part 17 of our Joseph Smith Podcast series covering Dr. John Turnerās new biography on Joseph Smith titled: Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet.
In this episode, we begin part one of our deep dive into the Book of Abraham āa controversial and fascinating text within Latter-day Saint history. Weāll trace its origins in 1835 Kirtland, explore Joseph Smithās acquisition of Egyptian papyri and mummies, and discuss the Egyptomania of the time that fueled public curiosity.
With guest scholar Dr. John Turner, we set the stage for how the Book of Abraham fits into the broader story of Mormonism, how Joseph Smith interpreted the papyri, and why questions of translation, sincerity, and inspiration still matter today. This is just the beginning of our discussion āthe Nauvoo period will follow in later chapters!
Please purchase the book ā hereā .
To support this series please donate ā hereā . One half of all donations will go to Dr. Turner for as long as he is participating in the series.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, Joseph Smith edition. |
| 0:05.8 | I am your host, John DeLinn. It is October 2nd, 2025. |
| 0:11.2 | And today is episode 17 in our series of the Joseph Smith podcast, where for starters, we are reviewing the life of Joseph Smith in detail, following |
| 0:25.3 | along in the, what I'll say, the Mormon story's bestselling book, Joseph Smith, The Rise |
| 0:32.0 | and Fall of an American Prophet by Professor John G. Turner of George Mason University. Again, if you're joining us for the |
| 0:41.9 | first time, we are going pretty much chronologically, having never LDS super reputable, credible, |
| 0:49.9 | good-natured and thoughtful and enjoyable historian call balls and strikes and basically |
| 0:57.8 | just help us learn the story of the founder of the Mormon faith, my faith of origin, |
| 1:06.7 | and of my family and friends. |
| 1:09.0 | Chronologically from the beginning, we're about halfway done with the book. |
| 1:13.7 | I do recommend you start from the beginning. |
| 1:16.4 | You can consume these episodes in the Mormon Stories YouTube feed. |
| 1:21.4 | We have a playlist of the Joseph Smith podcast available on our YouTube channel. |
| 1:27.8 | On the Mormon Stories YouTube channel, you can also find us on Spotify under the Mormon Stories podcast channel. |
| 1:34.7 | Or we've even created a Joseph Smith podcast channel on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, |
| 1:39.8 | if you want to consume them without the clutter of the other Mormon stories episodes. |
| 1:44.7 | But we're loving this series. |
| 1:46.2 | We're grateful to all the Mormon stories donors that make the Mormon stories podcast possible |
| 1:50.9 | and specifically to the donors to the Joseph Smith podcast project with John Turner |
| 1:56.9 | that have helped to fund this series. |
| 2:00.3 | So thank you to everyone who's made this possible. |
| 2:03.2 | And today we're going to be covering chapter 16, or at least most of chapter 16. Chapter 16 is |
... |
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