038 How Can We Think Like Historians?

Episode Transcript
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Scott Woodward (00:05):
How can we know what actually happened in the past?
Whose stories are true?
Piecing together accuratehistory can be tricky business.
People in the past, likepeople today, were diverse.
Some were honest; some were not.
Some were straight-shooting truthtellers who gave honest, though
subjective, accounts of what happened.

(00:26):
Others emphasized or omittedspecific details in ways that would
serve their particular agenda.
And others just lied.
So how should we think about andevaluate the reliability of historical
claims and assertions to discernwhat is historically accurate from
what is mistaken or misleading?

(00:46):
In today's episode of Church HistoryMatters, we dig into the basic
toolbox that trained historians use intheir efforts to be source critical.
And being source critical essentiallymeans caring about where our information
is coming from and being honest about whatthat information can and cannot tell us.
It means we recognize that not allhistorical claims are created equal, and

(01:09):
so we aim to use only the best data toinform our understanding of the past.
And while we cannot alwaysprotect ourselves from deception,
developing the skill of beingsource critical will greatly reduce
the odds that we will be misled.
So, in short, today is ourcrash course in learning how to
think like a trained historian.

(01:29):
I'm Scott Woodward, and my co-hostis Casey Griffiths, and today we
dive into our fourth episode of thisseries dealing with truth seeking and
good thinking Now, let's get into it.
Casey, Casey, Casey.

Casey Paul Griffiths (01:50):
Hey, Scott.
How's it going?

Good, man.
How are you?

Good!
I have been taking some ofthe things we've been talking
about out for a test drive.

Oh.

Using some of those models that you came up
with and really enjoying them, so.

Well, I want to know how you're taking these out for a test drive.
That's exciting.
What have you been doing?

Presenting.

Oh, okay.

Arguing with people.

Ha ha ha.

Most of the principles I knew, but you have a
great way of simplifying and makingthings a little bit more approachable.

I am a simple man.

And I as well.

Ha ha.
Well, good.

What are we going to talk about today?
What's today's subject?

Let's recap what we're up to.
This is our epistemology series, right?
We haven't decided exactly what to callit, but it's a series about epistemology.
What do we know?
How do we know it?
In fact, our burning question of thisseries has been, “What are some of the
mental moves that are made by intelligent,critically thinking Latter-day Saints
whose faith is strengthened ratherthan damaged by diving deeply into our

(02:52):
church's history and doctrine?” Right?
What frameworks of thinking do they usewhen approaching scripture and history?
And we set up a lot of key terms in ourfirst episode, and then in our second
episode we introduced a three-lensparadigm about how to evaluate
theological or doctrinal claims.
Those three lenses are Scripture,Modern Prophets, and the Spirit.

(03:16):
Our questions were, “Is itconsistently taught in scriptures?”
That's the most important questionwhen it comes to doctrine.
“Is it consistently taught by modernprophets?” And “Does the Spirit confirm
its truthfulness?” And then in ourthird episode, last time, we took
some time to drill on this doctrinalmethod by actually evaluating several
specific doctrinal claims together.

(03:36):
And that was fun.
Had a good time.
What did we call it?

Casey Paul Griffiths: Doctrinal Pickleball. (03:38):
undefined

That's right.
Doctrinal Pickleball.

Casey Paul Griffiths: And I don't know who won. (03:41):
undefined
I think it was actually doubles tennis.
It was you and I playing againstthe world or something like that.
Because we weren't in opposition.

That's true.

I remember you serving me some good serves
and hitting them back and forth.

It was a collaborative, friendly back-and-forth, that's right.

Yeah, we're running out of metaphors to describe
what we did, but you get the idea.

Yeah.
So that's good.
So that was our efforts to talk aboutdoctrine and how to approach scripture
and how to try to come to a high level ofconfidence relative to doctrinal claims.

Mm-hmm.

Now, today , transition from doctrine toward history, right?
So today's question is going to be inthat same vein, but this time about
history, is, “How can we recognizereliable historical claims from less
reliable historical claims?” Casey,I think we are blessed to have you.
You actually have a degreein history, correct?

Correct, yes.
I like history, and I learn a lot fromhistory, and as a Latter-day Saint,
I feel like one of the skills youshould have in your toolbox of truth is
knowing good history from bad history.
And let me just add, when I say this,too, there is bad history that is
opposed to the church, that's criticalto the church, and there is bad history

(04:58):
that is favorable to the church.

Right.
Right.

There's some bad history out there that's
very faith-promoting, but it'ssort of a sandy foundation to
build on if it's not done soundly.
So the most responsible historians Iknow, if they're people of faith, also
are willing to call out a story that's badhistory, even if it is faith-promoting.
And we're going to try and help youfigure out how to do that today.

Excellent.

Just a couple things about, hey, here's some questions
historians ask when they're determiningthe reliability of a historical account.

Let me start with a little quiz question for our listeners, okay?
Casey, you can't answer this.
Alright, here's the question.
Who would be the best sourcefor learning reliable history?
A.
Your smart uncle, B.
Prophets and apostles, C.
A guy with a blog, or D.
Trained historians.

I mean, I'm going to do what I think any college
freshman would do, and immediatelyeliminate your smart uncle.
Because I have a very smart uncle—hey,Uncle Kevin, shout out to you—but
I think he's wise enough to sayhe's not a trained historian.
He is a trained chemist.
I go to him for my chemistry questions.

Oh, interesting.

I'd also eliminate a guy with a blog, because one of the
wonderful things about the internetis anybody, anywhere can say anything
on any subject they want to, and oneof the bad things about the internet
is anybody, anywhere can say anythingabout any subject they want to, and
it's not always great information.

Right.

The internet has opened up this flood.
It's not always good information,but it's there, and so we've
got to be better consumers.
So I'm going to eliminatethose two right off the bat.
And, and pitch it back to you,Scott, because now your only
options are prophets or apostles.

Oh.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Or trained historians. (06:45):
undefined

Ah, shoot.

What do you think is the most reliable
source when it comes to history?

Well, yeah, this is fun.
I'm reminded of a statementfrom Elder Ballard.
This was actually in a devotionalhe gave at BYU where he let
students ask him questions.
It was a Q&A, kind of unique formatwith Elder Ballard—he doesn't typically
do that—but he was kind of setting itup and trying to manage expectations
of the audience when he said, I'm ageneral authority, but that doesn't make

(07:14):
me an authority in general, he said.
He said, sometimes church membershave unrealistic expectations of
prophets and apostles, expecting usto be experts in all fields, history,
theology, science, everything.
And then he said this.
Let me quote him directly.
He said, “If you have a questionthat requires an expert, please
take the time to find a thoughtfuland qualified expert to help you.

(07:37):
There are many on this campus,” referringto BYU, “and elsewhere, who have the
degrees and expertise to respond andgive some insight to most of these
types of questions.” And then he says,“This is exactly what I do when I need
an answer to my own questions that Icannot answer myself.” And so this was
a, I think, a humble and perfect movefrom Elder Ballard and instructive
for all of us to say, listen, if it'sa kind of a question that requires an

(08:00):
expert, let's reach out to an expert.
So who would be the best sourcefor finding reliable history?
With Elder Ballard's backing there,that would be a trained historian.

Correct.

Trained historians are the best.

Some of our prophets and apostles have been trained historians.

Ah, yes.

Casey Paul Griffiths: And they were awesome. (08:17):
undefined
Wilford Woodruff, excellent historian.
B.
H.
Roberts, who is kind of thepatron saint of Latter-day Saint
historians and intellectuals.
Excellent historian.
He was also a member of theFirst Council of the Seventy.
But most of the prophets and apostlescome from varying backgrounds.
We walk down the First Presidency andthe Twelve: You've got a heart surgeon,

(08:38):
a Utah Supreme Court justice, anda commissioner of education, that's
the First Presidency right there.
Most of them would say,we're not trained historians.
And sometimes they do.
I have heard tell of apostlescalling BYU and saying, hey,
I've got a historical question.
Tell me what you think.
Or relying on the church historydepartment, which has a number

(08:58):
of excellent trained historians.
Jed Woodworth.
Matt Groh, Reed Nilsson—good, good,solid scholars that have done some
good work in a number of differentvenues, and are the kind of experts
I think Elder Ballard's talking abouthere that you should reach out to.

Yeah, excellent.
And we're blessed to have with uson this show today Casey Griffiths,
who is also a trained historian.
And so—

Casey Paul Griffiths: You're making me blush. (09:19):
undefined

And, and I'll say this: Scott's pretty good also. (09:20):
undefined
What's your degree in?
Instructional Design?

You can't say my degree and then laugh, Casey.

Sorry.

Jeez.
Instructional psychologyand technology, yes.
It's all about the science of learning,and I think it's a broad umbrella, which
includes learning history, but, yeah,we weren't specifically trained in my
PhD on historical questions, however.
So I try to hang out with as many reliablehistorians as I can and read their

(09:51):
stuff and glean from folks like you, butyeah, that's not my degree, actually.

The point is though behind Scott Woodward's name

There are three little letters (09:57):
PhD.

Oh, my word.
So what we want to ask today, Casey,is how do trained historians think?

OK.

Like, not all members of the church can become trained historians,
but maybe you could share with us todaysome of the basic thought patterns or
some basic historical questions thathistorians ask to evaluate historical
claims that maybe we could all useand even put to use, like, right away.

Yeah.
This is kind of a do-it-yourselfhistorical methodology, right?

Yeah, at least a good place to start if, like, you
come across something online that'smaking a historical claim, typically
about some church history issue.
So what's a church member to do?
What are some questionsthey can start to ask?
What are some mental moves they canmake in order to start evaluating
immediately those historical claims?

Very good.
Yeah.
And I bring up that DIY mindsetbecause the other day my wife and
I changed our garbage disposal.
Neither one of us are plumbers,but we found a good video—

See?

—explaining it.
Likewise, if you're dealing witha historical question, these tools
are going to be really useful.
But if it's a really difficulthistorical question, and I think we've
tackled some of those on this program,consult with a trained historian.
Go to somebody that knows the sources,knows them well, and knows these
tools of historical methodology.
But this is kind of your survivalguide when it comes to understanding

(11:33):
and knowing good history.
Okay.
A couple questions that we wouldask about a historical account:

Number one (11:40):
How close is the source?
How close is the source?
So, in historical methodology, wewould say a primary source is the best.
Most of you are probably familiarwith what this means, but a primary
source is someone that's there,someone that participated in the
event itself and saw it happen.

And they're the ones actually telling the story.

Yeah.

They're the ones claiming the thing.
Okay.

Yeah, they're the ones that are there.
July 9th, 1840, Joseph Smith rose from hissickbed and healed several dozen people
on the banks of the Mississippi River.
Wilford Woodruff was there.
He saw it.
He wrote it down in his journal.
We're going to take Wilford's word oversomebody who heard it from somebody
else because Wilford was actually there.

(12:25):
If that makes sense.

Yeah.

In Carthage Jail, we're going to listen to Willard Richards
and John Taylor, because they were there.

Right.

And that doesn't mean that if it's not
firsthand, it's not accurate.
It can be.
It's just it tends to get lessreliable the more people it
has to be filtered through.

Like that telephone game, right, where you whisper
something into somebody's ear, it goesfrom person to person, and at the end
it usually comes out kind of funny,like, uh, Benedict Cumberpatch—no.
Cumberbatch?
What's his name?

Benedict Cumberbatch, yeah, Sherlock.

Benedict Cumberbatch.
And then the next person hearsBenadryl Cabbagepatch, you know?
And then it's Bandicoot Thundersnatch, andthen it's Brenderdirk Crumblescrunch, and
then it finally ends up being PeppermintScooby Snack or something, right?

Yeah.

It can go from Benedict Cumberbatch to Peppermint Scooby
Snacks real quick if we're not careful.

And we've got to be careful, because some history that
really circulates a lot goes throughthis whole process where it gets
filtered through person after personafter person, and it's very jarbled and
sometimes doesn't come out the right way.
Like, let me cite an example.
We always tell the story aboutSymonds Ryder, who apparently left the

(13:34):
church because his name was spelledwrong on his ordination certificate.

Yeah.

Now, the story about Symonds Ryder leaving the church is true.
He did leave the church.

That's the fact.

But did he leave because his name was spelled wrong?
Well, when we go back and look atdocuments, we find out that Symonds
Ryder spelled his name differentways on different documents.
He didn't seem like he hadthe spelling pinned down.
We found his headstone.
His headstone—

So funny.

—if it's accurate, means that his name is still spelled
wrong in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Totally.

And that actual source comes from the
funeral of Symonds Ryder that waspreached by a priest that knew him.
It doesn't come fromSymonds Ryder, itself.
And the priest didn't even say, oh,I heard Symonds tell me this once.
He just kind of declared the story.
And so how reliable is it?
I don't know.
And when we go back and look at whatSymonds Ryder did, because he's one

(14:26):
of the people that led the mob thatattacked Joseph Smith at the Johnson
farm, there were other, more clear,more well-certified motivations for
why he didn't like Joseph Smith.
He didn't like consecration.
He openly says this.
His wife was planning on movingto Missouri to build Zion.
He doesn't like that.
It's a good story to say hisname was spelled wrong, and
it really makes him look like

(14:48):
. . . Scott Woodward: A doofus.
Yeah.

Faithless doofus.

Yeah.
But it might not be fair to him,and it might not be accurate to us.
It's a at least thirdhand story.
And so we're not going to say it'snot true, we're just going to consider
it for what it is and put it down thechain of reliability a little bit.

Got it.

So, first thing

Okay.

Casey Paul Griffiths: Was the person there? (15:08):
undefined
Did they see it?
If it's secondhand, thirdhand,so on and so forth, we'll start
to doubt it a little bit more.

It just becomes less reliable, but not absolutely false.
It's just less and lessreliable, basically.

Yeah.

That's question number one.

Question number two
by before they wrote it down?
How much time went bybefore they wrote it down?
Again, the gold standardhere is Wilford Woodruff.
July 9, 1840, he wrote down thatnight what he saw Joseph Smith do.
And so this isn't a questionof a person's integrity.
Sometimes it's about thereliability of memory.

Yeah.

The greater the distance from the events that took
place, the more likely it is that littlemistakes will creep in here or there.
Now, this isn't a slam dunk, either.
The first account of the FirstVision, we noted on our podcast,
was written down twelve yearsafter Joseph Smith experienced it.

Yeah.

And most people honestly don't accord their lives
much significance and don't writedown stuff right away when it happens.
But something that is closer to thetime of the event is probably going to
be more accurate, if that makes sense.

Based on human memory, right?

Human memory.

The details are going to be more crisp because of the recency.
Okay.

So if we're going back to Carthage Jail, Willard
Richards writes down his account,“Two Minutes in Jail,” within a couple
weeks of the attack on Carthage Jail.
So that's going to be ourfirst—it's very contemporary.
John Taylor, later on, writes an accountthat is very long and has incredibly
long conversations between Joseph Smithand Governor Ford, and because that

(16:42):
was written, I believe, around 1856or so, twelve years after, I'm going
to assume that John Taylor's fillingin the gaps a little bit, but he's
not precisely quoting Governor Ford.
He's giving us the gistof the conversation.
Some of the witnesses of the Bookof Mormon recorded experiences very
close to the time of the event.
Like, Oliver Cowderywrites a history in 1834.

(17:02):
Others are intervieweddecades and decades after.
We're not saying they're lying oranything, we're just saying you have to
take into account there had been severaldecades that intervened between the time.

It helps when several decades go by and they're
still saying the same thing thatthey said early on in 1830, right?

Yeah.

Like, in their united witness.
Like, if it stays consistentover time, then, boy, that's
something else as well, isn't it?

Yeah.
That's the thing, is you comparedifferent accounts, and, I mean, the
accounts don't have to exactly agree.
We noted that the FirstVision accounts record varying
details of the First Vision.
That doesn't invalidate thestory of the First Vision.

Right.

But you can see consistency over time.
And again, ideally, it's somethingthat was written down at or near the
time of the event, but not everybodyhas the kind of historical sense that
Wilford Woodruff had, so if they waiteda little while to write it down, it's
okay, it's just we're going to put onour historian hat and say, I'm going
to be cautious with that, because itwas written down—one of the accounts of
the First Vision we shared was CharlesWalker's, which was written down in 1893.

(18:00):
And it wasn't even Charles Walker.
It was John Alger.
Charles Walker heard John Algersaying that he heard the story.
It's a thirdhand account 73years after the First Vision.
So we're not going to say it'snot true because it has some cool
stuff in it, but we're going to bea little bit more cautious with it.
We're not going to totallybuild our foundation on it,
because it's a little shaky.

Is that one of the other questions historians ask
is does it have cool stuff in it?
Is that one of them?

Definitely.
Yeah, historians are allabout, hey, this is cool stuff.
Yeah.

I just wanted to double check.

Can I tell a story really fast?

Yeah.

There is a story that's been told for decades and decades
about Pearl Harbor and the Hawaii temple.
Because the Laie temple'son the north end of Oahu.
The Japanese planes that are attackingPearl Harbor fly over the north part
of the island and attack Pearl Harbor.
And one of the stories that alwaysgets told is that some Japanese plane

(18:53):
tried to strafe the Hawaii temple.

Wait.
Define “strafe.”

Like, the way the story's told is that the pilot was coming
back and saw a big white building, andhe didn't know what it was, and so he
turned to, like, fire his machine gunsat the temple, and his guns jammed, and
he turned to drop a bomb on the temple,and his bomb jammed, and so he decided,
I'm running out of fuel, I‘ve got tofly back, and when he got out over open

(19:19):
water, he pulled the trigger on hisguns and they fired, and he pulled the
lever on his bomb, and his bomb dropped.
And the way the story is told is thatthis pilot was telling a missionary
serving in Japan that story, and themissionaries showed him a picture of
the Hawaii temple in the course of theirdiscussion, and the guy said, that's

(19:40):
the building that I tried to strafe.
Cool story, right?

Cool story, bro.

Awesome story.
But we’ve got a couple ofquestions we've got to ask.

Number one (19:48):
It's a secondhand account.
It's being told by the missionary thatsaid this guy told them the story.
We don't know where the guyis, where he comes from.
Most Japanese pilotsdid not survive the war.
Why did this Pearl Harbor pilotmake it all the way through?
But can I throw in a little wrinkle?

Throw it.

The guy who was the missionary was a guy who
worked for seminaries and institutes.
I was working on the historyof seminaries and institutes.
I went and talked to his family.
He just passed away.

Mm.

And I asked them about that story, and I was
expecting them to say, oh man, thatwas all blown out of proportion.
We don't know what was going on there.
Instead, the first thing his wife saidwas, I don't know why Satan doesn't
want people to know that story.
And I go, What?!

Oh.
Oh.

And she brought out his journal and showed me in
his missionary journal where he hadwritten down the experience the day
that that guy shared it with them.

Oh.

And so, I mean, as a historian, I look at it now and
go, oh, my—what do I do with this?
I mean, it's a secondhand account.

Yeah.

And it doesn't seem to fit a lot of the established
facts, but hey, it's there.

I mean, I can't completely invalidate it, but—

It's more reliable if it has cool stuff.

Yeah.
That's how complicated someof these things can be.

This is good.
This is helpful.
Okay.
So we have two tools now.

Yeah.
So we have source.
How close was it to the actual event?
Or was that person themselves there?
Are they hearing this secondhand?
And then how long did ittake them to write it down?
And so John Taylor was there atthe martyrdom, but he didn't write
down his experience until 1856, atleast that full-blown experience
that you were referring to.

Yeah.

And so you need to just kind of weigh both of
those factors together as you'retrying to assess reliability.

Yeah.
And none of this would be questioningJohn Taylor's integrity or his sincerity.
It's just that the conversationhe has—that Joseph Smith has
with Governor Ford, as JohnTaylor records it—is so specific.

Very specific, yeah.

I've got to assume that unless John Taylor has
the world's most amazing memory,and he never claimed to, he was
filling in the gaps a little bit.
And that's another thing is sometimeshistorians from different eras
felt a little bit more free tomassage a narrative to fill in the
gaps in conversations as they go.
Which might be a good lead to pointthree, which is what is the motive
of the person telling the account?

Okay.

In other words, why are they doing this, and do they
have a potential agenda or an ulteriormotive behind what they're saying?
Do they have an axe to grind that mayinfluence what or how it was written?
Who's the audience thatthey're writing to?
Is their tone neutral orbalanced or candid or open?
Is it attacking?
One-sided?
Defensive?
All that kind of stuff.

Wow.

Sometimes, yeah, a person has an axe to grind, and we
might need to take that into account.
Or a person could bepropagandizing for the church.
For instance, just going back to CarthageJail again, there are several accounts
of—one of them from a former mob memberwho joined the church, who said that
after Joseph Smith was killed, a memberof the mob—and in some versions of the

(23:00):
story, it is not just a member of themob: It's the son of Lilburn Boggs,
the governor of Missouri—stepped out ofthe crowd with a large Bowie knife and
walked up to decapitate Joseph Smith.
The individual was struck by aray of light and frozen in place,
and the mob had to drag himaway because he could not move.
And that is awesome, right?

(23:22):
That's totally faith-promoting.

Cool story.

Cool story, right?
But when B.
H.
Roberts, who's acting as churchhistorian, looks at that, he says,
Well, Willard Richards, who I trust,said it all took place in two minutes.
And no other member ofthe mob tells that story.
And so it's a cool story, but I mightnot trust it very much, because it

(23:46):
does seem like the person tellingthe story has an ulterior motive.
This individual hadconverted to the church.
He believes Joseph Smith's a prophet.
Even if it's, you know, a winfor my team, if it's not good
history, it's not good history.

So it wasn't reliable because that event would have taken
longer than two minutes to have unfolded.

Yeah.

And the motive of the person telling it was to—okay.
First of all, I have aquestion: Who is this guy?
The fact that he was in the mob,does that mean he was complicit
in the murder of Joseph Smith?
And what problems did that introduce ashe tried to join the church as one who
was in the mob that murdered the prophet?
What do we know about this guy?

Well, he was just in the mob, you know?
He was part of the Warsaw Militia.
He actually testifiedat Joseph Smith's trial.
There was a murder trial.

Yeah.

Six people were indicted for the murder of Joseph
and Hyrum Smith, and this guy wasone of the witnesses on the stand.
So he was willing to do this under oath.
But when you put it up againstthe established facts surrounding
the murder of Joseph and Hyrum,it raises a lot of questions.
It raises a lot of questions.
Especially because the mob wasaround 100 to 150 people, and

(24:55):
nobody else says that this happened.
That's question number one.
Number two, Willard Richards givesa time frame that doesn't seem like
it's allowable for this to happen.
And so, taking that together, we'dhave to take even a faith-promoting
story like that with a grain of salt.

Interesting.

On the other hand, there are some people that are
antagonistic towards the church, andwe have to look at their motives, too.
William McClellan writes a bunch ofreally negative stuff about Joseph Smith.
He's upset.
He's angry.
He's been excommunicated from the church.
How does that affect his motives andwhen he's telling stories and when
he's relating historical narrative?

Often to smear the name of Joseph.

Yeah.
Or John C.
Bennett.
John C.
Bennett writes a history of the church,later on says he was a double agent
the whole time, but his actions whenhe was in the church don't seem to
indicate any kind of double agent motive.
John C.
Bennett, and I'm opening up a canof worms that maybe we can't fully
dump out here, is accused of adulterybecause he's seducing women under
the doctrine of spiritual wifery.

Yeah.

He's excommunicated from the church.
He tries to commit suicide.
The members of the churchnurse him back to health.
None of that seems to suggest that hewas some kind of double agent intended
on exposing the church the entire time.
So his motives are highly questionablewhen they're measured against his
actions and against other sourcesthat cover the same time period.

It seems like he—instead, he actually got angry
because he was excommunicated andso publicly basically shamed out of
Nauvoo for his flagrant adultery.
Serial adultery, we called it, I think,in our episode when we talked about this.
And then he had an axe to grind.
He wrote a book.
What was his book called?

History of the Saints, isn't it?

History of the Saints, yeah, where he's really just trying
to smear the saints’ name, josephSmith and the whole institution of
Mormonism and everybody in Nauvoo.
And he just makes up a bunch ofjunk that's, like, so not true.
I was just reading yesterday aboutsome of the stuff he said about the
Relief Society, how it was divided intothree different orders of ladies, and

(26:55):
how there's secret harems and stuff.
Like, he's just making upjunk to try to make it look as
saucy and awful as possible.

Yeah.
You measure that againstthe rest of John C.
Bennett's life, where he wasconstantly making up stories
and jumping from place to place.

Yeah.

It seems like he has an ulterior motive.
And everybody has a motive.

Yeah.

I mean, if a historian tells you they're
totally objective, they're lying.
You and I have motives, right?

Yes.

We're transparent about that.

Yes.

But you should take that into account when
you listen to what we have to say.

Yeah.
We're trying to—what's the tagline?
We're trying to help churchhistory be accessible,
comprehensible, and defensible.
We state it every episode.
That's what we're trying to do.

Yeah.

So with motive, how do you evaluate that?
So would it be, I guess on aspectrum, if it's more neutral?
If it's more balanced?
If it's more candid, is thatmore reliable than to say it's
more axe-grindy, more accusative,more attacking, more one-sided?
Is that kind of what you're saying?

(27:55):
So there's kind of a spectrum tokind of think about the tone there?

I like the word “axe-grindy,” and that is going to enter
into my historical lexicon as we go.
But let me refer back to somethingwe actually quoted on this podcast
when we did the First Vision—

Okay.

—which was an English professor named Arthur Henry
King who converted to the church,later on wrote an essay called “Joseph
Smith as a Writer.” And he mentions theobjectivity of the First Vision account.
This is what Arthur Henry Kingwrote: he said, “When I was first
brought to read Joseph Smith'sstory, I was deeply impressed.
I wasn't inclined to be impressed.

(28:31):
As a stylistician, I've spent my lifebeing disinclined to be impressed.
So when I read his story, I thought tomyself, this is an extraordinary thing.
This is an astonishinglymatter-of-fact and cool account.
This man is not trying topersuade me of anything.
He doesn't feel the need to.
He's stating what happened to him, andhe's stating it not enthusiastically,
but in quite a matter-of-fact way.

(28:51):
He's not trying to makeme cry or feel ecstatic.
That struck me, and that began to build mytestimony, for I could see that this man
was telling the truth.” So to this Englishwriter who's a stylistician, he's saying,
the way Joseph Smith wrote this historycaught my attention because he does
try to take on at least a neutral tone.
Joseph Smith doesn't make himselfsound like he's the most righteous

(29:12):
kid in the neighborhood or theworst sinner that's out there.
He tries greatly to be neutral inwhat he's saying, and that helped
the guy basically trust his account.
You can read something when it'sreally polemical, or when it's really
extreme, and sort of understandand know that the person is, you
know, writing a screed, basically.

(29:32):
So, do they have an agendabehind it, would be one question.
And that leads to maybe the next question,which is, how opinionated is this?

(29:53):
So how much of this is opinion, andhow much of it is them reporting fact?
We did this already on oneof our podcasts, but let's
walk through these again.
A fact is based on verifiable evidence,no matter what your perspective is.

Right.

An inference is a snap conclusion and meaning we give facts
based on our pre-existing assumptions.
So there's a difference between saying,“I live in Provo,” which is a fact, and
an inference saying, “He used the word‘pop’ instead of ‘soda,’ so he must be
from Provo,” or something like that.

Based on people that you know who say soda or pop.

Yeah.
Yeah, basically.

Okay.

Assumptions are beliefs we suppose to be true and
that we used to interpret our world.
So we make assumptionsabout how things work.
We base our life around assumptions.
They're not always bad, but sometimes wemake assumptions based on bad information.

Yeah.

An opinion is an inferential conclusion that
goes beyond the facts of the matter.
So a responsible person usuallysays, I don't know this for
sure, but here's my opinion.
Here's my judgment.
Here's my feeling on the matter.
And an innuendo is an indirectsuggestion meant to lead one to
a certain opinion about a fact.
So when you read a historical account,it can be sometimes, well, I infer

(31:09):
that this happened, or let's assumethis, or because I saw this, this was
what was probably going on, when wecould be completely wrong based on our
assumptions, based on our innuendos.

And an example we used—back to the First Vision—was the
fact is that the first account of theFirst Vision that Joseph Smith wrote was
twelve years after he said it happened.
This is 1832.
That's fact.
Inference would be, okay, now—some peoplelike Fawn Brodie and others would say
the reason—they're going to now bringsome inference here: a snap conclusion.

(31:42):
They're going to give meaning to thatby saying the reason he didn't write
it until twelve years later was becausehe had to make up something in order
to bolster his prophetic authorityas it was being questioned in 1832.
Holy cow.

Casey Paul Griffiths: That's a leap, right? (31:55):
undefined

That's a leap.
That's not factual.
That's an inference basedon her own assumptions.
One of her major assumptionswas that Joseph was a fraud.

Mm-hmm.

And so from that assumption, that hermeneutic of suspicion,
you‘ve got to infer what the fact means.

Yeah.

And so she gives her opinion or makes innuendo,
indirectly suggesting that thatshould be the only conclusion that
really is intelligent to make, right?
And we, through our First Vision series,went into some detail about why that
assumption does not hold up and what elseactually helps make better sense out of
why he didn't write it until 1832, butthat's not the purpose of this episode.

(32:32):
We're basically just saying that wedo this all the time, and people who
look at the history of the churchdo this all the time, and we just
need to first be aware of it, right?
Let's be aware of the difference betweena fact, an inference, an assumption,
an opinion, and when someone's doinginnuendo so that we can now think
about how we might want to thinkabout that: so that we can evaluate,

(32:52):
you know, how reliable is this?

Yeah.

Can I restate it like this?
Tell me what you think about this.
So the more factual a source is, themore reliable it likely is, and the
more inference or opinion, innuendo areinvolved, the less reliable the source
or the conclusion the source is making.
Is that fair?

Yeah.
So Fawn Brodie, who you brought up, forexample, has sections in her biography of
Joseph Smith where she basically claimsto know what he was thinking, you know?
There's one section where shegoes, while Joseph was saying this,
he must have been thinking abouthow he could keep the lie going.
And that's all an assumption.
I mean, how does she knowwhat Joseph Smith was thinking

(33:33):
at this particular point?
That's a model of irresponsiblehistorical scholarship.
A responsible historian would say, here'swhat Joseph Smith said, and here's the
context in which it was said and not makeinferences or assumptions based on that.
Or if they do, at least be cautiouswith their language and not openly
claim to know what was going oninside a person's head, because there

(33:56):
could be all kinds of motivationsor factors that we don't understand.
So we don't over-claim, basically.
Bad historians tend to say, well,because this person said this, they
were thinking this, or they were actingfor this reason, when, if we don't have
the information, the most responsiblething to say is, we don't really know.

So if something like that is said, we can kind
of catch that in our mind.
Oh, that's an opinion, right?
That's an inferential conclusion that'sgoing beyond the facts of the matter.
Just being able to recognize that helpsyou know how to evaluate it, right?

Yeah.

That's, that's so helpful.
What's the differencebetween innuendo and spin?

I mean, spin is propaganda, right?
That's when we're outright justsaying anything we can to try and
convince people of our opinion.
And, I mean, I guess it dependson how you define propaganda.
We used propaganda in World War II toconvince Americans that they needed to
go fight the Germans and the Japanese.
But some of that, even though it waswell-intentioned, is dangerous, too.

(34:58):
Propaganda can cause us to seeor dehumanize someone else.
It can cause us to have thewrong assumptions about things.
But it's primarily meant to motivate,to produce an emotional response.
That is how a lot ofchurch critics go off.
They'll throw a bomb out there that'smeant to generate a huge emotional
response and get you out of this rationalmode of thinking, where you are kind of

(35:20):
sitting down and evaluating the sources.
They'll say stuff like, “JosephSmith was married to a 14-year-old,”
and immediately, you know, yourmoral center goes off, and you don't
take the time to investigate andsay, what does that actually mean?

Yeah.

What are the facts behind that?

What are the facts of the matter?

Yeah.

Yeah, and innuendo seems to often happen
with Joseph Smith's polygamy.
I've seen that a lot.
Like, Joseph Smithmarried other men's wives.
Why would he do that?
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, right?
It's like, just trying to make you feellike, oh, this guy is this—he's this
lustful, like, sexually motivated guy.
He's abusing hisecclesiastical position, right?

(35:58):
Like, that’s what they want you to think.
He married a 14-year-old girl.

Yeah.

Oh, the innuendo there is there was something
sexual going on, right?
Is that the facts of the matter?
Do we know that?
Well, as we talked about in our episodeabout this, that 14-year-old girl has
actually written two books about thisand you might want to investigate
what she had to say before you cometo any certain conclusion about
this, because it's actually wildlydifferent than the spin masters or the

(36:24):
innuendoizers would want you to think.
So nothing sexual going on thereat all, but that's the innuendo,
always and forever, with JosephSmith's polygamy, in those two cases

especially (36:34):
married other men's wives, and married a 14-year-old girl.
Like, the innuendo is justalways laid on by the critics.

Yeah.

And back to this topic of spin, I want to give
my favorite example of this.
I think I saw.
. . maybe Tony Sweat shared thisonce, and I really liked it, so
I share this with my students.
It's the example of aguy named Remus Starr.
Remus Starr, there's this pictureof him with a noose around his neck
where he's on this scaffolding, thisplatform, and he's about to be hanged,

(37:14):
and on the back of that picture itsays, “Remus Starr—horse thief, sent
to Montana Territorial Prison 1885.
Escaped 1887.
Robbed a Montana flyer six times.
Caught by Pinkerton detectives.
Convicted and hanged 1889.” That'sthe caption on the back of the photo.

(37:36):
So this guy's a horse thief, right?
Executed 1889.
But here's a classicexample of historical spin.
One of his descendants wrotethis about Remus Starr.
They said—now, listen to thiscarefully, because none of what you're
about to hear is inaccurate, butjust look at the spin of the facts.
Okay?

(37:57):
It says this, “Remus Starr was afamous cowboy in the Montana territory.
His business empire grew to includethe acquisition of valuable equestrian
assets and included intimatedealings with the Montana Railroad.
Beginning in 1885, he devoted severalyears of his life to service at a
government facility, finally taking arole in a vital investigation run by

(38:19):
the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency.
In 1889, Ramos passed away duringan important civic function held
in his honor when the platform uponwhich he was standing collapsed.”

Casey Paul Griffiths: That is some good spin. (38:30):
undefined
That is some good spin, yeah.

You walk away from that thinking Remus Starr is just an ace.
What a guy.
What a cool guy.

Fine, upstanding citizen, right?
Good guy.

Upstanding man.
Yeah, poor guy.
He died when the platform hewas standing on collapsed.
What a tragedy.
I don't know if this is aphrase historians use, but I
call that narrative cropping.
Selectively telling events insuch a way as to achieve a certain
effect with the audience, right?
To try to drive them towarda certain conclusion.
It's kind of like innuendo, exceptit's, like, all spoken out loud,

(39:04):
but framed in just such a wayas to try to make it sound good.
If you took the picture of Remus Starr,where he's standing on the platform
with the noose around his neck, right?
Before his execution,you just crop it, right?
Just bring it in, just crop it real tightso all you kind of see is his, his face.
He's got this mustache.
He’s, yeah, wearing a suit, andyou can't really tell there's a
noose around his neck, kind ofblack and white, kind of fuzzy.

(39:27):
That's the story, right?
You're kind of narrative cropping.
You're cropping the story in such a wayas to kind of cut out all the bad parts,
or to make it sound better than it was.
Or the opposite can happen too.
Try to make something that's kindof benign sound horrible, right?
Sound just, like, the worst.
So we do this on both sides, don't we?
Sometimes members of the church willwant to crop out anything that kind

(39:48):
of sounds bad, and critics will tryto amplify anything that is even
remotely potentially problematic andmake a mountain out of a molehill.

Yeah.

So we both have to watch ourselves not to play loose with
the facts, not to play loose with thehistory, and not to crop in such a
way that it only favors our narrative.

I've heard people describe Joseph Smith's death
in an antagonistic source by sayingJoseph Smith died in a gunfight with
the authorities in Carthage Jail.
And I mean, okay, yeah, Iguess technically that's true.
The people he was shootingat weren't authorities.
They were a mob, an assassination group.

(40:27):
And I've also noticed that, you know,sometimes when people tell the story
of Carthage Jail, they don't wantto say that Joseph Smith fired back.
The truth is Joseph Smith hada pistol that was smuggled into
him by Cyrus Wheelock, and JosephSmith did fire back at the mob.
But if 200 people are coming tokill me—and they've already killed

(40:47):
one person, because he fires backafter Hyrum is shot in the face—and
you have a gun, it's reasonableto use the gun to defend yourself.
And so.
. . Spin both directions and, like youso adequately called it, historical
cropping can really make it dangerous.
The full version of the story is amob attacked Carthage Jail, Joseph
Smith had a gun, and he fired back.

(41:09):
That doesn't make it a gunfight with theauthorities, and it also isn't necessary
for us to try and defend Joseph's statusas a martyr by saying he didn't resist
the people that were trying to kill him.
There were three other people in the room.
He was trying to defend their lives, too.
One of them had already been killed.
So.

Yeah.

Yeah.
Good history and bad history onboth sides of the aisle here.

Yeah.

Last question is how does it compare with other sources?
So when you're talking about a historicalaccount, you usually have, if it's
a big deal, more than one source.
You can compare and contrast theaccount with other primary and secondary
sources dealing with the same event.
Are the dates, the facts, and theclaims consistent with other sources,

(42:01):
and what are the major similarities anddifferences, and why do those exist?
So let me cite an example here.
It is a story commonly told in thechurch that when Brigham Young spoke to
the crowd after Joseph Smith's death,he was transfigured before the crowd.

8th of August, 1844.

Casey Paul Griffiths: 8th of August 1844, yeah. (42:19):
undefined
Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon areboth making claims to lead the church.
Sidney Rigdon speaks,then Brigham Young speaks.
The story is commonly told thatBrigham Young is transfigured.
Now, here's how complicated thisgets: Most of those accounts are from
around twenty years later, when theRLDS church was making its claim.
Brigham Young and the leadership ofthe church asked anybody that was

(42:41):
there to come into the historian'soffice and tell their story.
And so most of the accounts—not allof them: there is one or two that's
contemporary—are from 20 years laterwhen the church historian's office made
an effort to record those accounts.
So, as historians, we look atthat and say, that's not very
contemporary, but 150 people showed up.
150 people.

(43:02):
All these are printed ina BYU Studies article.

Great article.

But they're also not totally consistent across the board.
George Q.
Cannon thought Joseph Smith hadbeen resurrected, like, he thought
Joseph Smith was up on the stand.
Other people said that they feltthat the mantle of the prophet
had fallen on Brigham Young.
It’s an established fact that when thechurch voted that day, they chose Brigham
Young as the leader of the church.
So you take all those together, and youstill have this really wonderful story,

(43:28):
but if you just tell it as Brigham Youngwas transfigured and you imply that
everybody saw the same thing, you'rerobbing it of some of its complexity and
some of its authenticity, which actuallymakes it more faith strengthening than
if you kind of spin it and try and smoothover the rough parts of the narrative.

Yeah.
Because I've read through all ofthose accounts, and some people
say that they looked up andsaw Brigham but heard Joseph.
Others say they saw Josephin the place of Brigham.
Some say that it lookedlike Joseph resurrected.
Some say they heard Joseph's voice witheven, like, the little whistle that
he had when he would say S's becausehis—one of his teeth was chipped

(44:06):
when a mob tried to force poisoninto his mouth and chipped his tooth,
and he always had a little bit of awhistle when he said his S's, I guess.
Some people said thatthey even heard that.
Others didn't see it at all.

Uh-huh.

Some people were there and didn't see anything spectacular.

Yeah.
One of the reasons why church criticstackle that one is because Wilford
Woodruff didn't write anything down.
Wilford Woodruff kept a pretty goodjournal, and he was there, and he didn't
record anything special happening.
Neither did Brigham Young.
Brigham Young's journal for theday just said, “I arose and spoke.
My heart was moved with compassiontowards the saints, and I laid
before them the course and willof the Lord.” But 150 people.

(44:42):
. . That gives you higher confidenceto say, okay, something happened.
It wasn't uniform.

Something happened.

And they didn't write it down until later on when
there was a need to record that, butalso the fact that they chose Brigham
Young as their leader seems to suggestthere were compelling reasons to do so.
So we take something that's absolutelyamazing like that, and we need to, again,
maybe bring it down to earth a littlebit and introduce complexity, which

(45:08):
is totally okay when it comes to this.
In fact, understanding the complexitymight make it a little bit more
compelling and understandable.

So you're saying on this particular example, it does
seem, based on the historical evidenceand the overwhelming number of
sources, that something significanthappened that day that convinced the
majority of saints to follow BrighamYoung, and the other Twelve, West.
Like, something significant occurred.

Yeah.
And that's the storythey told 20 years later.

Yeah.

And so we should take that seriously.
Is that what I'm hearing you say?
We should take that source serious.

Yes, let's take this particular incident and run

it through the five questions: Number one, how close is the source? (45:44):
undefined
150 primary sourceparticipants that were there.

That's pretty good.

And claim something happened.
So on question numberone, it really excels.
How much time passedbefore it was recorded?
There's one or two contemporary accounts.
They're very vague.
Most of them just say something like,it was clear that the mantle of the
prophet had passed to Brigham Young.
Most of the accounts were writtendown 20 years later, when the
RLDS church was challenging us.
So it's not a slam dunk on question two.

(46:12):
It's not a slam dunk, butit's not out of the question.
It's still reasonable.
What's the motive of theperson telling the account?
These were active church members whobelieve Brigham Young was a prophet.
That's their motive.

And they're pushing against the claim of
the RLDS church at that point.

Yeah.
The RLDS church is claiming thatBrigham Young is not the prophet, that
Joseph Smith's son Joseph Smith III is.
These people have a motive for doing that.
And so that might temper ourexpectations a little bit.
How factual or opinionated is it?
We have some verified facts.
There was a meeting.
There was a sustaining vote.
This was an actual vote as to whoshould be the leader of the church.

(46:49):
That's not disputed by anybody,including Sidney Rigdon, including
people that were antagonistictowards Brigham Young or didn't
want him to be leader of the church.
That that meeting happened seemsto be a verifiable historical fact.
And number five, how does itcompare to other accounts?
Well, when we compare the accounts,we find there was a wide variety
of experience, from people thatjust had a prompting, that felt

(47:10):
spiritually that Brigham Young wasthe right person, to people that saw
a full spiritual manifestation, thatthought Joseph Smith was resurrected.
You put all that together,and you can see that this one
has some really strong points.
It has some points where it could bestronger, but enough evidence is there to
say, yeah, something significant happenedwhen Brigham Young got up to speak, and

(47:34):
nobody's disputing that what happened,or at least the events of that day, were
powerful enough to convince the majorityof the people there that Brigham Young
should be the leader of the church.

Yeah, that's good.
And then they show that sincerity bybeing willing to walk across the plains.

Yeah, their subsequent actions afterwards demonstrate they
sincerely believed what they were doing.
And that's a factor too, right?

Yeah.

Sincerity.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good.
So, Casey, those are, I think,five super helpful questions.
And I'm wondering if we could justdo one example of a historical
claim, and we can kind of run itthrough all five questions at once.
Can we do one more?
Would that be all right?

Let's do one more.
What do you want to do?

Let's do something that kind of comes up often enough to, I think,
be a problem, is a letter that William E.
McClellan wrote in 1872 to JosephSmith III, Joseph Smith's son.
And McClellan, in that letter, he recalleddetails of an 1847 conversation with Emma
Smith that he had, where Emma acknowledgedto William McClellan that in the spring

(48:52):
of 1836 she, “missed Joseph and FannyAlger.” Wasn't sure where they went, and
so she went to the barn and saw him andFanny in the barn together alone, and “She
looked through a crack.” I'm quoting nowfrom the McClellan letter, “and saw the
transaction!!!” Three exclamation point.
“She told me this story, too,was verily true,” he says.

(49:15):
Close quote.
And then, by the way, in another letterthree years later, he clarified that Emma
said that she saw the sealing take place.
That's what he meant by thetransaction, in the barn, on the
hay, through the crack in the door.
So can we just kind ofanalyze this for a second?
So this is all about Joseph's firstplural wife and this idea that
maybe it was something scandalous,and this William McClellan letter

(49:37):
just kind of crops up about this.
So it's an 1872 letter, recalling thedetails of an 1847 conversation McClellan
had with Emma about something that shesaw in 1836 and told McClellan that
he's now conveying to Joseph Smith III.
What do you make of thatas a trained historian?
Walk us through what yourbrain does with that account.

I'm glad you brought this up, because it gets
brought up all the time, and it feelslike it's never quoted with accuracy.
First of all, it's statedlike it's just plain fact.
Like, I had a person come up to me ata presentation and say, you know, my
friend left the church because JosephSmith was seducing girls in barns.

Oh, that's too bad.

And I was like, okay, the barn thing is
something I've never heard mentionedin any account except for this
one, so it must come from this.
But let's ask the questions,Scott, and you can answer them.
How close is this to the actual source?
Does this come from Joseph Smithor Fanny Alger, or even Emma Smith?
Like, number one, it's William McClellanrecalling an 1846 conversation of Emma

(50:42):
Smith talking about an 1836 incident.
And then it's secondhand at best.

A secondhand account of a 25-year-old conversation about an
event that happened 36 years earlier.

Yep.
You've just stumbled across questionnumber two, which is how much time
was passed before it was recorded.

Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths: That's a long time, right? (51:03):
undefined

Yeah.
So what's his motive?
What do we know about WilliamMcClellan that would help us
answer the motive question?

William McClellan's excommunicated from the church.
He's one of those people that doesn'tjust leave the church—that goes full
anti-Mormon, challenges Joseph Smithto a fight, turns out to be very
antagonistic towards the church,tries to start his own church, fails.

Yeah.

A complicated individual here.
So does he have a motive?
Yeah.
The fact that he had to clarify lateron and say that, “Oh, I believe it
was a sealing ceremony.” The languagein that letter strongly suggests that
McClellan is trying to imply that Emmacaught Joseph and Fanny Alger, you know.
. . Scott Woodward: Engaging in, he called it, “the transaction.”

(51:50):
Engaging in the transaction, which again
is language meant to infer thatshe's seeing them commit adultery.

Yeah.
Later on, he's pushed about that,and he says, no, I meant the sealing.
I meant that they werejust getting married.

Yeah.

It's like, okay, buddy.
That doesn't seem like that's whatyou meant when you said “transaction.”

Yeah.
He's got a ton of motivesto try and discredit Joseph
Smith or make him look bad.

Yeah.

How factual or opinionated is it?
Pretty opinionated, right?

Yeah.

Joseph Smith, according to other sources,
and some of them very reliable,was sealed to Fanny Alger.
Number five, how does itcompare to other accounts?

There are no other accounts, right?

There's no other accounts of this particular incident.
There are other sources that sayFanny Alger was sealed to Joseph
Smith and was his first plural wife.
There's several people—

Okay, yeah.

—that say that.
Most important one, Eliza R.
Snow.
When the church historian AndrewJensen was trying to compile a list of
Joseph Smith's plural wives, Eliza R.
Snow approached him and said FannyAlger was actually the first person.
Eliza was also sealedto Joseph Smith as well.
She was one of his plural wives.

But she's a good source because she was living
with them at the time, correct?

Yeah.
Yeah.
She was Fanny's roommate, basically.
And so she was there.
She was contemporary.

That's a pretty good source.

Casey Paul Griffiths: That's a good source. (53:06):
undefined
She doesn't mention anythingabout this barn incident.

Other sources (53:11):
Fanny Alger comes up when Oliver Cowdery is
excommunicated, when he's put on trial.
Joseph Smith himselftestifies and says, yes.
President Cowdery accused me of something.
He and I spoke about the businesswith Fanny Alger, and we resolved it.
At least verifies something wenton with Fanny Alger, but again,
nothing about this Emma caught himdoing things or anything like that.

(53:31):
So what's your trustworthinessof this source?
Where do you think?

My trustworthy-ometer says that this account stinks to high heaven.
It doesn't pass.
It doesn't pass, Casey.
Yeah, Oliver Cowdery, in hisexcommunication trial, which
we've talked about, one of theaccusations brought against him was
that he insinuated that Joseph hadcommitted adultery with Fanny Alger.

(53:56):
And as you just mentioned, that was, itappears, resolved between the two men.
Oliver Cowdery will come back to thechurch and will continue to testify
that Joseph was a true prophet.
Mm-hmm.
It doesn't seem like he comes tothe same conclusion as McClellan.
But, yeah, nothing about a barn,nothing about Emma discovering
them as I've ever found.
I've tried to read a lot aboutthis stuff, but I've never found

(54:18):
anything that would corroborate this.
No other sources.
So, yeah, just checking through allyour questions, this account stinks.

Yeah.

I think he's got an axe to grind, and he's trying to stir the pot.
And the fact that he's telling this toJoseph Smith III sounds like he's trying
to shake him up a little bit on this.
So, yeah, I don't like it, Casey.

Mm-hmm.

And by the way, another point is that he says
that Emma Smith told him that.
Right there my alarm bells are going off.
We know that Emma did not talk withpeople about Joseph's plural marriages.
Ever.
And she did not like William.
Like, he stole from them in 1838.
Like, he went into their housewhen the Saints were being driven

(54:58):
out of Missouri, and he, like,stole, I think—what did he steal?
Bedsheets and stuff?
I can't remember the account exactly,but to say that Emma, like, trusted
William McClellan with somethingthat we know just, like, was such a
difficult subject for ,her and whenshe's asked about it later on in life,
like, she'll deny that it even happened.
Like, to think that Emma would confidein William McClellan who had been

(55:20):
antagonistic toward their familyabout a topic like that—to me, like,
one thing stacks on top of anotherthing on top of another thing to
tell me that is not trustworthy.

Yeah.
That's our example.
So maybe in our next episode, we needto do a couple examples and run through
this just so you can start to get a feel.
Because as you use this, as time goeson, it'll become more and more automatic.
By the end of the semester, Iusually have students saying,
hey, was that guy even there?
Is he a primary source?
Or, wait, when was that written down?

(55:50):
And the skills become useful.
And by the way, these aren'tjust good skills for history.
This is good skills when you'rereading the news, basically,
to be a little bit discerning.
Say, what are the sources?
Where does it come from?
Does it corroborate with other sources?

Yeah.
Excellent.
This is just good, sound thinking.

Yep.

Well, thanks Casey.
That was fun.
Next time, let's practice.

Next time, historical pickleball.
Is that what we're going to call it?

Sounds good.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Church History Matters.
In our next episode, Casey and I put onsomething of an informal, historical,
source criticism workshop by spendingthe episode evaluating the reliability
of various historical statements by usingthe five questions we discussed today.

(56:36):
It should be a good time.
If you're enjoying Church HistoryMatters, we'd appreciate it if you
could take a moment to subscribe, rate,review, and comment on the podcast.
That makes us easier to find.
Today's episode was produced byScott Woodward and edited by Nick
Galieti and Scott Woodward, with shownotes and transcript by Gabe Davis.
Church History Matters is a podcastof Scripture Central, a nonprofit

(56:59):
which exists to help build enduringfaith in Jesus Christ by making
Latter-day Saint scripture and churchhistory accessible, comprehensible,
and defensible to people everywhere.
For more resources to enhance yourgospel study, go to scripturecentral.org,
where everything is availablefor free because of the generous
donations of people like you.

(57:19):
And while we try very hard to behistorically and doctrinally accurate
in what we say on this podcast, pleaseremember that all views expressed in
this and every episode are our viewsalone and do not necessarily reflect the
views of Scripture Central or The Churchof Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Thank you so much for beinga part of this with us.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}038 How Can We Think Like Historians?

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038 How Can We Think Like Historians?

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