A humble farmer walks into the study of one of the most respected scholars in America,

carrying a slip of paper covered in strange, ancient-looking symbols.

He claims they were copied from gold plates, delivered by an angel.

The scholar examines it, gives his verdict, and sends the farmer on his way. What happens in that room

becomes one of the most debated moments in Mormon history, and the story only gets stranger from

there. Tonight, we're not just going to tell the story of a document. We're digging into a linguistic

illusion, a prophetic claim, and a credibility

play that helped launch a religion. Was it a revelation? Or was it manipulation? Next, on Mormonism

Live. Mr. Radio Free Mormon, how are you doing this fine evening?

I'm doing great tonight. Bill, how are you?

I'm doing so good. Life is good.

That was a great, that was a great cold open you just did.

Look at that. Yeah, yeah. I was enthralled.

You should have been, my friend. It's going to be a

great episode tonight. Anything you want to add to the front end here before we dive into it?

We have got what may end up being somewhat of a long episode, but I've got to tell everybody

that first off, I don't want to steal your thunder, which is, please. Okay, it's just this,

that this show got started on last week's just this, that this, this show got

started on last week's show. A week ago, we were doing the, what were we doing a week ago?

It was something very important. The Adam Clark Commentary. That was a test. I was just seeing

if you remembered. I did. And, um. And I brought up this idea about what we'll be covering tonight, sort of as an incidental thing

to what we were talking about last week.

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