Who Is The Real Joseph Smith - New Docuseries Built On Facts

Jacob Hansen of Thoughtful Faith  @thoughtfulfaith2020  and Austin Falter have put together a new docuseries on Joseph Smith called For Good Or Evil: The Real Story Of Joseph Smith. The two creators talk about their approach to the history of Joseph Smith and how Joseph Smith is viewed today from different perspectives.

Be sure to go to the docuseries here - https://yout5itcWCFO6YIu.be/

 Raw Transcript

okay so Austin based on this how accurate is Jacob's real story of Joseph
Smith as compared to what the I mean look obviously if you go out into the anti-exmo world and critical critical
world against Joseph Smith there's so much that's just so regurgitated it's just the same things are thrown out
there over and over and over again even things that have been completely disproven within the church there's a
certain LDS perspective a a a social consciousness within the church
of an idea of who Joseph Smith is do you see that as something consistent with
what you put together here with these series sure uh I think we're going to
get more into that as the episodes go on too uh because right now it's it's the
part of his life the translation that's been covered everybody's heard every angle of that story and so it does seem
familiar u but the the further you go on I think the more complicated it will be
and so far if there's a controversial topic uh Jacob doesn't shy away from it he's going to talk about the treasure
digging and talk about what people might think about it and and both angles i
think the the part that I resonate with the most though is that the telling that we get in the scriptures and in Joseph
Smith history and what we know as missionaries sometimes it's just like he's this historic figure this
heroic figure this prophet and we forget about the human side and so far to me
the what the documentary has done is given me stories in context that that help me remember like he he lost a
baby during the translation process and he was filled with grief and then when
he lost the manuscript uh with the whole Martin Harris scene like he was in hell
and he was he was wrestling with these feelings and his mom's commenting on and his wife's comment and all of these
stories to me It's not that heroic figure anymore now
it's like oh he had flaws he was humans he when when he was wrestling with God he was wrestling with himself and and
some of his own flaws as well and I think that's the side that the documentary so far has given me that I
appreciate as far as the controversy I think there's a lot more to come in the future episodes and in knowing uh can we
unpack Jacob's bias and see what he's being truthful about here but right now what I'm feeling is that you know it
provides context it provides so much context you know it's it's interesting because you know you go back and you look at prophets right and you say okay
well here's Moses and we've got the story of Moses but there's no transparency to any of this we don't
have the critics that were against Moses other other than you know some griping from the from the children of Israel and
a couple comments from his brother and sister you know it's like there you don't know the real Moses you just know
the miracles you know you know what his it's the heroic Moses even with Nephi right i mean and sometimes I think that
you know we try to put these individuals on such a pedestal you know it's it's
you look at Nephi and it's like everything's great about him he's amazing he's the most amazing person ever and and that's just not the case
right he's going to have So I appreciate you saying talking about the human element of that because the only place
you can get that is in something more modern right i it's it's funny
because I don't like stories that are these kind of epic heroic stories where
the person is just so great i I often tell people I don't feel like I identify
with Nephi as much as I identify with Peter you know Nephi is like just I will go and do where Peter's like you know uh
I'm going to fall in the water and I'll save you i won't deny you and then he denies him and I'm going to chop off this guy's ear and then Jesus like a you
idiot like I got to fix this guy's ear now it's like like I'm more like a Peter than like a Nephi and and the reality is
is that when we tell stories that of people that kind of seem too good to be true they in my mind it's like this
story is just focusing on the thing so when you now for some people when they hear this the real story it kind of
deflates them in the sense of like they had this sort of heroic image and now he
seems much more like a real person what's funny is I'm the exact opposite
when I see all of the messiness of early church history and then I look at my own ward I'm like "Hey we're doing all
right." Like you know this is normal this is all and and it's more that this
is why I think the real story is so much better because when it's all done it's still an incredible story and
it's all real and that's when you're like whoa you know I think it's you know you've got
the uh what is it ether 12 bring me your weaknesses and I'll make them strengths right i think that has that's that is
like that is church history right it's like yeah everything's there so there's
so much to critique and that is the first thing that happens and there's a narrative that begins to be created from
from all of the critiquing and and breaking down and etc but in the end as
these things kind of fall off the edges with new historical understanding you know it's it's like to
me it's like the Book of Mormon it it's just over and over again that just like gets built up and built up it becomes stronger than it could have ever
been as as the as the arguments against it get turned on their head and they
actually become strengths and I think that's what what we can look forward to with church history i think it's as as
someone really delves into it and you get a little let's say somebody reads Rough Stone Rolling and they're like "Oh my gosh I've got cognitive dissonance
here uh my my testimonies rocked a little bit because it's not just this primary and I mean primary like kids
right it's going to primary type of an understanding of Joseph Smith in the end for me I look at that and and
I'm like I am closer to this guy than I've ever been yep i understand him better than I've ever understood him and
and and I think that that's kind of the way things work is truth is there and if it is true the these attacks and this
weakness that we have because of the because it's so recent and we have
so much on Joseph Smith that it it just you know it just starts to turn and all
of a sudden it becomes this incredible strength little by little as as you study through it did you experience that
have both of you experienced that yeah you go first uh Austin your thoughts on that yeah I I Well here before the
documentary I uh you know before my mission I I read about Joseph Smith i even read the Truman Mad was it Truman
Madson
bookm faith promoting book but it's also obscure like you hear all these stories it's like whoa that's awesome you know
uh so I I had studied a lot about Joseph but I actually served my mission in Palmyra New York in in the Rochester
mission and so that's when I really started to hear the stories about again his his life his family what they went
through um their relationship to Christ and spirituality and that's when I I
think I started to relate so much more and it's the same thing with this documentary when you put it into context
when you understand the full story um when you understand Oliver Calary's story and Martin Harris and how they
relationally how they got along with Joseph and just all these stories it starts to paint this picture of these
people cared about Christ they were trying to figure it out they had so many stresses and flaws that I relate to as a
father as a as a guy in the 21st century i relate to all this stuff uh and when
you put it all into context you see the bigger picture and absolutely I relate way more to Joseph Smith now uh because
of that understanding that and that bigger picture really is the thing that
I want to get across in this more than anything it's very easy to find episodes
to critique in anyone's life but when you step back and look at the whole picture you go whoa and I had one of the
things I think that maybe partly inspired me to do this so I went to for
the first time ever been to any the back east church sites and when I went to do that debate with Trent Horn I was only
two hours away from Kirtland and I had like a day before the debate and I was like "Hey was with Luke Hans like let's
go let's go check out Kirtland." And so we drove two hours uh to Kirtland Ohio
and I remember when we were there was seeing some of the different sites saw the temple it was super cool
was like these like the rooms where Joseph is like receiving Doctrine and Covenant sections it was just it was
crazy stuff and but the part that really got me so we went to uh Joseph and
Emma's house there right next to it there's a cemetery and I was like I wonder if there's any like interesting
names there or something like that so we had a little bit of time to kill so I was like let's run over check out the cemetery real quick and they had a
directory in it to show like the names of all the graves where we can find them so I was like immediately let's go to the S's see who we can find and I go
there and there's the Smith plots and we run over to where they are and right there are the twins
that Joseph and Emma lost and I was and I have twins and it it hit me it was
like like this was real you know these are real people and then I learned the
story of um Joseph and Emma after they had lost their twins adopting the Murdoch twins like literally the the
same day that Emma had hers and her twins died the Murdoch family um had twins and then the mom died and then
this grieving both grieving and and the Murdoch husband uh had I think like five
other kids or something and he loses his wife and I mean I was thinking I
couldn't imagine living in the 1800s having like five children and then losing my wife and having two infants i
mean can you imagine that situation and then Joseph and Emma come over and are like "We'll take your babies." And then
learning that one of those twins died of exposure when Joseph was attacked by a
mob just about you know 30 miles away from that area and I I was just like I I was it was one of those things it's like
you know it's all just in your head it's all that but when you actually are standing in front of the grave of these babies and oh right next to it Parley P
pratt's wife huh um and on the wife or on the sorry on the gravestone is this
absolutely beautiful um eulogy like poem that Parley Pratt wrote about his wife
and I just couldn't help but be like these are good people you know these are
like they're real people and they were good people and the story is complicated and there's a lot of stuff but there was
something about it that made it real and so if there's anything that again the title in the in this thing is like the
real story of Joseph Smith like that's my whole point if you tell the real story you're going to find in it a real
human being having all sorts of real human emotions and also having
experiences that are just wild stories but if
true show that God is has effectuated a
biblical level story in the modern era
and if we can tell that story like let's tell it you know and I I and I don't
even have to fluff it up like just tell the real thing and I want to leave it for people like you make of it what you
want but I think when people see it one thing you won't come away from this with you won't come away bored thinking like
like it's a story that will impact you whether you're a non-believer or not you're going to go "That's a gnarly
story." Yeah so no it's again it's very well done all the way through i love the way I love the approach i love the
images i love the tone you guys have done a really good job on this uh Jacob let me ask you this you do a lot of
debates what do you find is the again the status of a debate on
Joseph Smith right if you've got somebody let's say you've got another Christian who
is you know Yeah but you know who's who's who's you know they're believer they're they're Christian they're good
people but they're just going to hammer Joseph Smith where are we at with that is that moving is that changing at this
point uh yes but the thing with the debate is it's all about contrast right
because can you find reasons to doubt Joseph Smith sure you can find reasons
to doubt Jesus Christ uh you can find reasons to doubt you can also find reasons to believe and in a debate type
setting if we're going to you know what I want to debate like is Joseph Smith a prophet that's a really bad debate to do
the reason why is because you're you just have to basically try and defend him and the other person doesn't have
anything to prove right um I think with
the Joseph Smith story I don't think it's a story that I want to debate with like an atheist or something it's a
story that I want to tell and let people make up what they think of it if this guy was telling the truth or not
themsself and you can get to know all the facts but know all the facts not just what most people know is the
antagonistic remember the vast majority of people in the world and in our society do not believe this guy was a
prophet of God and so what are they going to tell you about his life all the things to make you think that but
they're not going to tell you the whole story i want people to watch the whole story
because when you watch the whole story I think you get a different picture
so are we it now I do think the debate has changed in this sense there is more
information and research out there to be able to tell the real story and I'm not afraid of telling the real story because
I think the real story at the end of the day is very very faithpromoting despite any of the
challenges what it shows is a real person having real experiences in a
complex set of circumstances who in the end of it all built something
incredible and if for nothing else people should try and understand that
story from beginning to end and not just the anecdotes that are thrown around about it now we may have gone over this
a little bit already but uh as as as a last question on this Austin what what
is it that you've learned about Joseph Smith by going through this process so far what what what is is there anything
that you've learned or what what is the most significant thing you've learned about Joseph Smith right
two things in episode three when we cover the translation it is helpful to
to see the bigger picture again we often times zoom in and say "Oh this primary source said he did it this way and this
primary source says when you zoom out and just say okay regardless of how it was translated or any of the specific
details we go into regardless of all of that look at what happened and and how quickly he translated look at what he
was able to translate and look at what it's done in the world." and you kind of zoom out and see that full story that is
just so impactful and then in the same episode I believe is when we have the witnesses and just that whole segment
there that's my I'm biased but that is my favorite uh episode so far because we we're able to zoom out and hear it all
in one kind of session one story uh and I love that the other element of it is
is his his early life there are some stories and sources that I had never heard and I think that was a big
takeaway for me to hear some of his mother's journals again I've heard a lot of stories served in Palmy i heard a lot
of amazing stories about the Smith family but to hear some of their their early uh core kind of family moments
with God with deity with prayer with trials um that that's changed me and and
to to consider where they were coming from has definitely changed me yeah jacob how about you
um I think one thing that actually on that same thing in kind of the translation process was to see why
people around Joseph believed him and the there's a very consistent pattern
that I didn't realize was there until I dug into the was actually listening to these people everyone around that
translation period were like blown away by it there
was a they like Emma for example emma her thing where she's like
I know my husband couldn't have produced this book that was sort of the reason that everyone believed because they knew
Joseph and then once he produced the book I mean just imagine it imagine
you're there you have some guy that you know who's kind of a you know nothing special about him all of a sudden he
starts dictating day after day like eight pages a day for two and a half
months i don't care who you are that's weird and it's it's wild and they all
looked at that and they were "This is this is incredible." Now what's really wild is all of us in hindsight we can go
read the book really analyze it way more than they ever could at that time and realize just what came out of that
stream of consciousness dictation with a head and a hat people again it's like again missing the bigger picture here
his head was in a hat that's weird no what's weird is that your head was in a hat and you produced Elma 36
that's weird like it's I almost want to lean into like it's weirder than you
think sure but not in the way you think it's it's it seems almost miraculous and
that's read the text oh go ahead even with the book of Abraham I came to tell people look just read the text and
understand what's there where did it come from yes right very much and I
would say now there's one other aspect to this that um this is actually part of
a bigger project too i've kind of expanded it because I want to tell the Joseph Smith story but I actually want to tell our
story um I think telling stories is incredibly important you can tell a lot
about people by what the way they view history in fact you can almost immediately tell their politics by the way they view history um you can also
tell what people think about the church a lot of times by the way they view church history the reality is is that we all
have a sense of identity based on where we came from and what we think we're a part of your identity is where you fit
in some bigger scheme right some big bigger game that's going on let's say
and so if your identity as a Latter-day Saint like what does that mean to be a Latter-day Saint well when you
understand what the Latter-day Saint story is as a people and as a movement
and you realize you're a part of that that means something to you now
Joseph Smith's story is actually the part of the story that most of us already sort of know at least to a certain extent i after we finish this
series my next goal is to actually produce one on the Brigham era because what's it's it's interesting
when Joseph Smith dies the church is in Illinois and in a lot of ways seems
different than you know the Utah church of you know with the Utah Salt Lake
Temple and it just seems kind of foreign still a little bit and one of the
biggest actually reading Ruststone rolling was cool but the one that actually really changed my mind was when
I started studying the Brigham Y Young and I read American Moses and then I read Turner's book i'm going to read the
new one when it comes out and I'm going to rely on some other sources as well and I'm going to put I'm going to do the same thing with Brigham Young young's
story because I want to have both stories because what happens in the Brigham Young era is all of a sudden it
starts to become familiar like we all know that Latter-day Saints kind of are like musically inclined like a lot of us
play instruments or like in choruses and all that kind of stuff and I never realized why and I realized it was
because of Brigham Young brigham Young um his parents by the way didn't allow
dancing it was like wicked and he hated that he resented the fact that he was raised that way and so he loved to dance
and he loved music and one of the first things they built in the Salt Lake Valley was a a playhouse can you hold on
imagine going in the 1850s into Utah you just like starved going across the plane you arrive in Salt Lake City and they're
putting on Shakespeare plays like like what and but he believed in that and it
became part of the Latter-day Saint culture um because of that there and that the
locations they're talking about I mean they they talk about I live in Reno Nevada and just up above us is is Donner Lake when the Mormon battalion comes
back there's a journal entry that they talk about whether at the top of Donner Lake looking down and he describes
exactly what I have seen with my own eyes and I'm reading someone from the mid 1800s talking about that and it's it
and so All of a sudden the story becomes way more familiar and then and then it's like now
I feel like there's the bridge because my family kind of joined the church and we have stories that go back to sort of that era all of a sudden now I see where
I came from and now it's sort of like I have this identity of
oh I'm the next chapter of this incredible story legacy all of a sudden
you feel like you're a part of something you have an identity and you realize that there's something in this world
bigger than you and your own selfish desires and it's super cool to be a part of something and it's crucial you know
this is you look at the Jews and you understand how they have survived without a home as a people and an
ethnicity and an identity it is the stories it is the tying that it's the
rituals it's the festivals it's all of this that they have had in this culture that is in fact most of them I mean
honestly most of them aren't even religious anymore but they have the culture weird and they they survive on
the culture we have the same thing you have people who leave the church but they they still they can't give up this
and this is what I'm saying when I tell this story from beginning to end when you go through this whole thing you're
going to understand why you're going to understand that this is such a powerful
story even if you go John Delin's route you're still he still wants to identify with this cultural ethnic whatever you
will call it sociological group because the story is so powerful it's of real
people having real struggles seeking something bigger and better and it again
we need to tell the story and so that's my whole goal with this i just want to
tell the story austin so we've got a few of these out or a few of these coming
out what What are we looking forward to here for the whole series being done what is it for that so the first three
episodes which will get us all the way through the translation period those will all come out within the month um
we're going to do it once a week so by the time this episode airs I I imagine the preface will be on Jacob's channel
uh and then and then episode one shortly after two and three shortly after from then on we're going to take a little bit
of our time throughout the year as we're doing kind of the come follow me and eventually it'll start to line up which
will be cool to see you're reading this and come follow me but what's the story going on uh and that's kind of our our
goal is to hopefully at some point map it out with with that to give us better context and then as soon as we finish
this one maybe even before we're going to start on this Brigham Young uh project so if you support the Joseph
Smith documentary watch it like it share it uh that's just going to help us uh
get the word out about about the next series which I think is more needed in that a lot of us haven't heard that
story and it's a longer story to tell and uh so I'm really looking forward to
to this project all right so for for the docu series then they're going to be going to YouTube and Thoughtful Faith is
that right yeah yeah so I'm going to there'll be we'll have a playlist on my channel for for these stories but then
I'll also have on my um I haven't built it in yet but I'm going to have it built on the website where there'll be a website uh link i'll probably put
something like our story or something up at the top and you'll be able to click it it'll open up and you'll have all of the episodes in a row so you can just
binge watch each one and share it with other people okay i have seen large swaths of this it is fabulous it's very
very well done from the script to the images everything put together the mood it's it's a great way to do this i'll
put the links in the description box so make sure you guys go there and check it out jacob and Austin thanks so much for
your time and really appreciate that you guys have put this all together thank you thank you