Episode 191: D&C 90 – Sections 116 and 117
Please sign Sam Young’s petition to stop bishop interviews of underage children about sexually explicit topics by following this link to ProtectLDSChildren.org.
Pres. Monson’s obituary in the NY Times
Spring Hill is renamed to Adam-ondi-Ahman!!! This is where Christ will return. Then Joseph organizes a group of enforcers and creepily tests some of his followers to make sure they toe the party line.
Drink count – 4
Patron Bonus Episode: Marie is hopping mad at her local bishop.
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Podcastriarchal Blessing: Jacob C.
Podcastriarchal music is Our Happy Life, by Maps and Transit, edited for length
My Book of Mormon 
January 20, 2018 at 7:27 pm
I made a comment on a Facebook post a distant family member did about Monson Obituary. We went back and fourth a bit then a cousin told me they where done with my rants and is unfollowing me. It sad that they don’t see the sexism, or hatred the LDS leadership is promoting. I did get my distance family members to agree to read the gospel topics essay. But that can go either way.
January 20, 2018 at 7:58 pm
“…her local bishop…”
Can you make a claim on a bishop if you are not a member of the congregation? (I have never belonged to a church or religion, so I’m curious.)
January 21, 2018 at 3:20 am
I have no idea. I’ve been using that terminology because I’m not quite sure what else to use!
January 21, 2018 at 8:54 pm
I would say yes, since Mormon bishops’ congregations are formed via specific geographic locations. Mormons don’t decide which congregations to attend, they are told which Ward territory they are in. It’s like public school district zones but harder to obviate. So I’d say your usage is totally fair.
January 21, 2018 at 6:54 am
OK… so… hmmm… let’s just say I’m a little confused as to where you stand on the subject of the Garden of Eden having been in Jackson County, Missouri. It sounds like you don’t want to even know whether or not the D&C will mention it later, and you just want to run into it when you get there, or never run into it if it’s not there, whichever ends up being the case? Is that right? I could always spare you the suspense of wondering if and when the subject is going to come up, if you like…
January 22, 2018 at 7:54 pm
Bryce googled it after we finished recording and sent me some screenshots of the answer! Well, what we think is the answer? Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 30 March 1873, and in the pamphlet “Enoch & His City” by Joseph Young, pg 12.
January 23, 2018 at 6:55 am
Sure, Wilford Woodruff’s journal will do just fine. Brigham Young and Heber C Kimball also attested to hearing it from Joseph Smith.
http://www.mormonthink.com/QUOTES/gardenofeden.htm
So no, D&C doesn’t come out and say explicitly that Independence Missouri used to be Eden, but with the Adam-ondi-Ahman section indirectly backing it up, and all the contemporary apostles teaching it after Joseph’s death, it would be hard to deny they all considered it a revelation. The idea at least has a lot stronger provenance as a doctrine of the church than, say, that business about Quakers on the Moon.
January 21, 2018 at 8:08 am
So you know, William Marks, Newel K Whitney, and Oliver Granger were never members of the council of the twelve apostles, original or otherwise. Wikipedia does mention that Marks and Granger were members of the “high council” in Kirtland, though, if that’s what you read, Marie.
The high council (established in 1834; see D&C 102) was actually a completely separate thing from the twelve apostles (established in 1835). During Joseph Smith’s lifetime, the Twelve were a “Traveling Presiding High Council” (D&C 107:33, with important-seeming capitalization added later, by the way; betcha can’t guess who added it…), which is why they were often abroad on missions, and they only had jurisdiction over branches of the church in places where there was no stake organized. Jurisdiction over the stakes was held by “standing high councils”.
Remember how D&C 107:24 said that the twelve apostles “form a quorum, equal in authority and power” to the First Presidency? Well, D&C 107:36 tells us that “The standing high councils, at the stakes of Zion, form a quorum equal in authority in the affairs of the church, in all their decisions, to the quorum of the presidency, or to the traveling high council.”
Since Brigham’s “coup-de-taut” was alluded to in this episode, it couldn’t hurt to add that, theoretically, the high council of the stake of Nauvoo (the only stake in the church at the time) had an equally good authority claim as the apostles. As for the stake president presiding over that high council, I’ll only say that when we get to him, his name will be familiar…
January 22, 2018 at 7:55 pm
Oh for the love, this early church nonsense was such a cluster. *flips table*
January 21, 2018 at 8:41 pm
I just wanted to shed a little light on the name of Adam-ondi-Ahman. It is believed that this phrase is in the pure Adamic language (in the early church trying to say things in Adamic was all the rage dontcha know). It is thought to mean ‘Adam in the presence of God’. Now that isn’t the most interesting part. Given these two facts, that puts the Adamic word for god being ‘Ahman’. Where would Joseph have gotten that? Bryce suggested he made it up, but that is just not the case – and that’s the best part.
Bryce actually stumbled upon the link that is found here later when he starts talking about Masonry’s connection to the church. Tucked into Masonic lore is the concept of the ‘True Name of God’. This name is too sacred to be spoken by mere mortals and sullied by the unworthy. Now it won’t be found in the core Blue Lodge degrees, however in the higher level appendant bodies of Masonry like the Royal Arch degrees the name is revealed. What is that name?
AHMAN!
Bryce mentioned that Joseph wouldn’t become a Mason for a few years yet, but he was no slouch and came from a long line of Masons. Already he was incorporating these Masonic treasures long before the endowment ceremony ever comes into being, where Joseph is in fact creating his own Masonic appendant body of additional degrees.
I could go on forever about this, but I’ll save it for later.
Thanks!
January 25, 2018 at 1:19 pm
Since the window issue was tagged onto this episode as well, I’d like to report that my local Stake Presidency told me that the issue was already being discussed and while they couldn’t comment on timelines, they are trying to see what can be done. Even the Stake Presidency doesn’t really have final say in this, and need to reach upward in the organization for their policy and procedures. Which, incidentally, really highlights the dishonesty when the higher ups tout any power or influence if local leaders.
January 27, 2018 at 5:13 pm
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia about Section 116. Until 1981 it wasn’t even a full sentence, just a phrase. There is no formatting error on Joel’s website. The phrase “wherein Spring Hill is named by the Lord:” IS part of the introduction of all previous editions, with the rest being considered the actual revelation.
When they made the major revisions for the 1981 edition to try and make the text and introductions as historically accurate as possible — a process taken even further in the 2013 edition in light of discovers made for the Joseph Smith Papers — the decision was also made to fix a couple of confusing parts, putting clarity of meaning ahead of the historical version of the texts.
For example, gone were the code names that were used in the 1835 edition to obscure participants and places related to the United Order, presumably to protect against potential lawsuits. Later editions had included the real names in parentheses, but in 1981 they replaced the code names completely, making them easier to understand, but less fun. (We used to love reading those passages in seminary as kids. Someone even came back from a trip to Kirtland with a “Shinehah” T-shirt!)
Likewise, someone on the committee that oversaw the revision project probably said something to the effect of: “Hey, does anyone think it would be too blasphemous if we just moved these words from the header into the actual text of the revelation? Ya know, just so future generations are a little less confused when they read it than we were?”
The source of Section 116 is a passage from page 35 in volume three of the History of the Church: “In the afternoon I went up the river about half a mile to Wight’s Ferry, accompanied by President Rigdon, and my clerk, George W. Robinson, for the purpose of selecting and laying claim to a city plat near said ferry in Daviess County, township 60, ranges 27 and 28, and sections 25, 36, 31, and 30, which the brethren called ‘Spring Hill,’ but by the mouth of the Lord it was named Adam-ondi-Ahman, because, said He, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet.”
The editors of the 1876 edition wanted the Doctrine and Covenants to be as complete as possible, so they scoured through the documents they had available to try and find every additional revelation that Joseph Smith had given. That’s how various sections were added that weren’t in the earliest editions, such as Sections 2 and 13, which were words of angels that Joseph recorded in his 1838 autobiographical narrative about the origin of the church.
Likewise, the passage in the History of the Church contained apparently either a quote or a paraphrase from what the Lord had revealed about Spring Hill, so the editors wanted to include it, feeling justified to present only material from the source text as the revelation itself, without adding anything to it, even for clarification. “We’ll take care of that in the header,” they probably said, and thus it remained for the next 105 years.
February 10, 2018 at 12:01 am
I just finished binge listening to a bunch of episodes. I can’t remember if this applies to this episode or a previous one, but I thought I’d mention that the LDS church has just released a series of articles and videos about church history at the following URL: https://saints.lds.org . The content, while not completely transparent and upfront, is a step in that direction. The 4th of July Oration is mentioned in this video here: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2017-03-0100-the-kirtland-bank-qa?category=church-history-topics&lang=eng . The church also just published a scanned copy of the 4th of July Oration here http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-3-discourse-circa-4-july-1838/1 and also a scanned copy of the Constitution of the Society of the Daughter of Zion (a.k.a. Danites) here http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-2-constitution-of-the-society-of-the-daughter-of-zion-circa-late-june-1838/1 .
February 10, 2018 at 12:07 am
Regarding windows on doors. The thing about the church that makes this issue extremely difficult is something they call the FM groups. I think it stands for Facilities Management. They are an extremely bureaucratic arm of the church that oversees things like building remodels and maintenance. Getting anything done with them is extremely difficult and frustrating. I served in a bishopric long ago where the bishop tried and tried to get things fixed or renovated and it either took forever or nothing happened. The bishops simply do not have the authority or funds to do their own thing when it comes to physical facilities. This further compounds the problems you mentioned in your bit about doors with windows.