Informed Saints

The podcast where you can learn about everything from polygamy to gold plates. Hosted by Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, and Jasmin Rappleye.

Informed Saints is a religion podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 47 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Informed Saints, a religion show with 47 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #46

  Song of Solomon: Can Uninspired Writing Be Scripture?

  Aug 9, 202626 minS1

  There's a book in your scriptures that Joseph Smith flagged as "not inspired," that Elder Bruce R. McConkie once called "biblical trash," and that the Come Follow Me manual skipped over entirely. It's also quoted three times in the Doctrine and Covenants — including in the Kirtland Temple dedicatory prayer. So what exactly is the Song of Solomon doing in our canon? Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot work through Dana Pike's chapter on the Song of Solomon in From Wilderness to Monarchy: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration , published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU — a volume of essays walking through the Old Testament from a Latter-day Saint perspective. ===Informed Saints Credits=== Produced by The Ancient America Foundation Producer: Spencer Clark Hosts: Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye In this episode: What Shir Hashirim asher lishlomo actually means, and why the lamed preposition ( le ) makes the authorship question harder than it looks Why biblical scholars date the Hebrew — including its Persian loanwords — well after Solomon's reign How the book traveled into the canon: the Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, and Rabbi Akiva's insistence that it is the holy of holies Why the Song of Solomon is one of the few Old Testament books the New Testament never quotes, alongside Judges, Esther, and Ecclesiastes The striking parallels with New Kingdom Egyptian love poetry — including calling the beloved "my sister" Dana Pike's three-point case that the song didn't originate as inspired scripture Tremper Longman III's alternative: that its place in the Bible testifies that God cares about our most intimate relationships Joseph Smith's JST notation, what it tells us about the nature of the Joseph Smith Translation, and what "not inspired" most likely meant Song of Solomon 6:10 in D&C 109:73, "Rose of Sharon" as a title for Christ in Elder Holland's teaching, and the little foxes in the Nauvoo Relief Society The bigger question: what do we do with uninspired writing inside an inspired canon — and why Leviticus raises the very same problem Read Dana Pike's chapter in From Wilderness to Monarchy: The Old Testament through the Lens of the Restoration from the BYU Religious Studies Center: https://rsc.byu.edu/book/wilderness-monarchy Joseph Smith Papers Source: www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/old-testament-revision-2/104 Subscribe for more faithful scholarship on scripture, history, and the ancient world. Study deeply, believe boldly. ===Discover=== If any of our thoughts resonated with you, consider learning more about the single most influential book in our lives. https://www.discoverbookofmormon.org/ ===Content Disclaimer=== The views expressed represent ours alone and do not necessarily reflect the official position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. #SongOfSolomon #SongOfSongs #OldTestament #ComeFollowMe #LDS #LatterDaySaints #BibleStudy #ScriptureStudy #JosephSmith #JST #DanaPike #HebrewBible #BiblicalScholarship #DeadSeaScrolls #Septuagint #RabbiAkiva #Solomon #DoctrineAndCovenants #InformedSaints Chapters (00:00:00) - The Song of Solomon (00:01:55) - The Song of Solomon (00:06:59) - Song of Solomon (00:08:21) - Song of Songs and Egyptian Love Poetry (00:09:28) - The Song of Solomon (00:15:52) - The Song of Solomon: Not Inspired Literature (00:20:03) - The Song of Solomon and its relevance (00:23:15) - Is the Song of Solomon Less Inspired Than Leviticus?

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #45

  The Hebrew Grammar Joseph Smith Tried to Delete from the Book of Mormon

  Aug 2, 202643 minS1

  The Book of Mormon will not stop telling you where the record is. Who's holding it. Who handed it off. What they did with it and why. A retired trial attorney read that and recognized something from thirty years in courtrooms: a chain of custody. Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot sit down with Stephen Lundwall: retired IP and business attorney and former BYU religion faculty, to talk about Authentic: The Book of Mormon, Evidences of a Miracle, written with his wife Rebecca Lundwall and published by Deseret Book. Lundwall makes the case the way he'd make it to a jury: witnesses, exhibits, cross-examination, and a closing argument. ===Informed Saints Credits=== Produced by The Ancient America Foundation Producer: Spencer Clark Hosts: Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye In this episode: • What "provenance" means, and why archaeologists and attorneys care about the same thing • Why Moroni being the final author of the record changes everything about the handoff • Isaac Taylor's 1827 argument that ancient literature, history, and religion all rest on secure transmission — published the same year Moroni delivered the plates • What the original and printer's manuscripts actually show, and why the translation itself is evidence • Elizabeth Whitmer and Emma Smith on what they watched happen day after day • The interruptions Joseph never needed read back to him • The 28 words in Joseph Smith's own handwriting — the only ones in the entire manuscript • How Oliver Cowdery learned to spell Coriantumr • The Hebraic "if–and" conditional in Moroni 10:4 that Joseph edited out of later editions • Bernard DeVoto, internal consistency, and translating a 500-page book inside out • The "legal truth test" for a witness who says he saw an angel: honest, competent, biased, reasonable • David Whitmer's 1881 Richmond affidavit — and why Alexander Doniphan's signature on it matters Get Authentic: The Book of Mormon, Evidences of a Miracle by Stephen and Rebecca Lundwall: https://amzn.to/4ww8YrH Further Readings: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-12-april-1828-circa-1-july-1829/194 https://archive.org/details/addresstoallbeli00whit/page/9/mode/1up https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book-chapter/-gift-and-power-god-0 https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/1 https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/printers-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-august-1829-circa-january-1830/1 https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/original-manuscript-of-the-book-of-mormon-circa-12-april-1828-circa-1-july-1829/1 https://www.deseret.com/faith/2026/06/05/church-of-jesus-christ-acquires-daguerreotype-some-say-is-the-only-photo-of-joseph-smith/ Subscribe for more faithful scholarship on the Book of Mormon, Church hi... Chapters (00:00:00) - How Authentic Is the Book of Mormon? (00:00:41) - The Book of Mormon: Its Provenance (00:06:14) - The Book of Mormon's Historical Antiquity (00:12:31) - Exhibit A (00:17:41) - The Book of Mormon Case (00:23:25) - If Then, If Then in the Book of Mormon (00:26:08) - What about internal consistency in the Book of Mormon? (00:32:44) - Joseph Smith vs the Missouri Juror (00:38:29) - Sam Lundwall makes closing statement for the case for authenticity of the Book of Mormon

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #44

  Did Brigham Young Order the Mountain Meadows Massacre?

  Jul 26, 20261 hourS1

  On September 11, 1857, Latter-day Saints, assisted by a group of Paiutes, killed between 100 and 140 men, women, and children of an Arkansas wagon train at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah. There is no way to soften that. So this episode asks the harder questions head-on: how did a people who had been driven from their own homes commit the worst atrocity in their history; and did Brigham Young order it? Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot sit down with Dr. Casey Griffiths — assistant professor of Church history and doctrine at BYU, co-host of the Church History Matters podcast, and former president of the John Whitmer Historical Association — to walk through the definitive primary-source research: Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Ronald Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen Leonard) and Vengeance Is Mine (Richard E. Turley Jr. and Barbara Jones Brown), both from Oxford University Press, along with Casey's What You Don't Know About the 100 Most Important Events in Church History. ===Informed Saints Credits=== Produced by The Ancient America Foundation Producer: Spencer Clark Hosts: Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye In this episode: • The Utah War of 1857: why President James Buchanan sent roughly a third of the U.S. Army (~2,500 troops) toward Utah — and why the press branded it "Buchanan's Blunder" • The Nauvoo Legion's Sebastopol strategy, Lot Smith's famously polite wagon-burnings, and the army's miserable winter at Fort Bridger • Thomas L. Kane's dash via Panama to broker peace — arriving in Salt Lake on Christmas Day • The Baker–Fancher party from Arkansas: denied provisions town by town, and the anthrax outbreak near Fillmore that fed poisoning rumors • What (maybe) happened in Cedar City — and why stake president Isaac Haight sought retribution after the wagon train had already left • The plan to blame the Paiutes, John D. Lee's role as on-site commander, and William Dame's fateful approval • James Haslam's ride to Salt Lake and Brigham Young's letter — "let them go in peace" — arriving two days too late • September 11: the false flag of truce, the "do your duty" signal, and the 17 young children who survived • The Haight–Dame blow-up at the site, the original letterbook, and why the evidence points away from Brigham Young ordering the massacre • Trials, a deliberately hung jury, the Pittman-shorthand transcripts, and John D. Lee's execution at Mountain Meadows • Mormonism Unveiled, Mark Hofmann forgeries, and how the "Brigham Young ordered it" myth persists from Under the Banner of Heaven to American Primeval • President Henry B. Eyring's 2007 statement at the 150th anniversary — and what facing this history honestly asks of all of us Go deeper: Massacre at Mountain Meadows — Walker, Turley & Leonard (Oxford University Press): https://amzn.to/4fsHtYU Vengeance Is Mine — Turley & Jones Brown (Oxford University Press): https://amzn.to/4yLAQKf What You Don't Know About the 100 Most Important Events in Church History — Casey Griffiths, Mary Jane Woodger, and Susan Easton Black: https://amzn.to/4fDL7PX Trial transcripts online (Turley & Jones Brown): https://mountainmeadowsmassacre.com Church Resources: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/09/the-mountain-meadows-massacre?lang=eng https://history.byu.edu/mountainmeadowsmassacre Subscribe for more faithful scholarship on Latter-day... Chapters (00:00:00) - Informed Saints: The Mountain Meadows Massacre (00:00:50) - The History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre (00:04:33) - The Utah War (00:10:57) - The History of the Utah War (00:20:04) - The Massacre of the Wagons (00:20:56) - John D. Lee at the Mountain Meadows Massacre (00:25:57) - Iron County Militia members lie about the Wagon Train attack (00:32:53) - The Massacre at Mountain Meadows (00:36:29) - Isaac Haight on the Mountain Meadows Massacre (00:40:20) - Vengeance is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre (00:44:31) - John D. Lee: The Story of His Confessions (00:50:27) - Vengeance is Mine: The Mormon Massacre (00:58:28) - The History of The Church of Jesus Christ

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #43

  What Most Latter-day Saints Miss About Facsimile 2

  Jul 19, 202634 minS1

  The facsimiles are the only pictures in Latter-day Saint scripture — and Facsimile 2 is the strangest of them. Critics say Egyptologists translated it long ago and "disproved" the Book of Abraham. Some Saints treat it as secret temple code waiting to be cracked. So what can we actually know about this mysterious circle? Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot sit down with Egyptologist Dr. John Gee (MA, Berkeley; PhD, Yale) — one of the few scholars published on hypocephali in mainstream, peer-reviewed Egyptological venues — and draw on A Guide to the Book of Abraham (BYU Studies), co-authored by Gee, Smoot, Kerry Muhlstein, and John Thompson. ===Informed Saints Credits=== Produced by The Ancient America Foundation Producer: Spencer Clark Hosts: Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye In this episode: What a hypocephalus is — and why the Greek "under the head" mistranslates the Egyptian kher-tep , "at the head" The owner's name on Facsimile 2 — Sheshonq — and why it belonged to a different mummy than Facsimiles 1 and 3 Book of the Dead 162: the "great and secret book" that turns a hypocephalus into a passport through the gates of the next life The 100+ known hypocephali (Tamás Mekis's catalog) — papyrus, linen, lead, copper, ceramic, and one lost gold disc Why modern Egyptologists' readings aren't the same as ancient Egyptian interpretations — and Gee's peer-reviewed study of mismatched figure identifications The one block of text scholars can read — the very figures Joseph Smith said are "to be had in the holy temple of God" — and its parallels on the Ptolemaic temple gate at Karnak The rim inscription's references to the temple of the Benu bird (the phoenix) at Heliopolis The missing head and missing quadrant — and whether the published solar bark and two-headed central figure fall within the ancient range "The great cow who gave birth to the sun": Hathor, Esna, and why identifications shift from city to city Figure 6, the earth in its four quarters, and the four winds on a Cairo Museum sarcophagus Why Joseph Smith's journals call this "the astronomical cut" — and the Kolob connection to Abraham 3 How much the facsimiles actually matter: "not the keystone of our religion" Further Readings: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5293&context=byusq https://byustudies.byu.edu/issue/61-4 https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781789693331 https://www.magicgatebg.com/Books/Joseph%20Smith%20Hypocephalus.pdf https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol17/iss3/2/ https://www.deseretbook.com/product/5033745.html?srsltid=AfmBOorIWyDxSEgPvDjozuGpTfW85jWOEiYsTguXkryo8GKAMTQfBCEt https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/temple-themes-in-the-book-of-abraham ===Discover=== If any of our thoughts resonated with you, consider learning more about the single most influential book in our lives. https://www.discoverbookofmormon.org/ ===Content Disclaimer=== The views expressed represent ours alone and do not nec... Chapters (00:00:00) - De decoding the Book of Abraham's Facsimile 2 (00:00:35) - John Gee on Hypocephaly (00:01:51) - Hypocephalus 1, facsimile 2 (00:04:42) - How many hypocephali are there in Egypt? The (00:06:14) - Book of the Dead 162: Hypocephalus (00:08:56) - Does Joseph Smith's Interpretation Match the Ancient Egyptian Interpretations? (00:11:18) - Joseph Smith Papyrus 1, Facsimile 2 (00:13:14) - Joseph Smith's hieroglyphs in the Temple (00:17:45) - Another temple connection in the Pearl of Africa Papyri (00:21:49) - Joseph Smith: The Cow and the Sun (00:28:18) - Hypocephaly and Astronomy

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #42

  What Most Readers Miss About the Sword of Laban

  Jul 12, 202644 minS1

  Critics once called the Book of Mormon's weapons a fatal flaw — steel swords in 600 BC? Scimitars a thousand years before Muhammad? Bows and arrows in ancient America? Then archaeology started coming into play. In this episode, Jasmin Rappleye, Neal Rappleye, and Stephen Smoot dig into Matthew Roper's Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence for the Book of Mormon , published through the Interpreter Foundation — an exhaustive documentation of weapons critics once claimed couldn't have existed. ===Informed Saints Credits=== Produced by The Ancient America Foundation Producer: Spencer Clark Hosts: Stephen Smoot, Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye In this episode: Roper's scorecard: 12 of 15 allegedly anachronistic weapons now confirmed, 2 partially confirmed The sword of Laban (1 Nephi 4) and the critics — Clark Braden (1884), a 1964 Notre Dame Press book, Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults (1997) — who insisted steel didn't exist in Nephi's day The meter-long steel sword discovered by Avraham Eitan at a fortress near Jericho, dated to the late 7th century BC King Tut's meteoric-iron, gold-hilted dagger and other gold-hilted weapons of the ancient Near East Why "steel" in the Book of Ether may reflect layers of translation — and why the King James Bible renders Hebrew bronze as "steel" The macuahuitl: the obsidian-edged Mesoamerican sword conquistadors said cut better than Spanish steel (Ross Hassig, Michael Coe) — going back to Olmec San Lorenzo Scimitars from Enos to the Egyptian khopesh, the Hebrew kidon , Goliath's weapons in 1 Samuel 17, and curved blades on the Lachish reliefs Curved blades in the New World: Tonina, Teotihuacan, and San Lorenzo Nephi's steel bow, the "bow of steel" of 2 Samuel 22:35 / Psalm 18, and composite bows with metal fittings Bows, arrows, and atlatls in ancient Mesoamerica — and what a 2005 Copán study changed Further Readings: Read the primary source: Matthew Roper, Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence for the Book of Mormon https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-bow-and-arrow https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ancient-mesoamerica/article/classic-maya-warfare-and-weapons-spear-dart-and-arrow-points-of-aguateca-and-copan/8E310349816CEA249F7A7A6095A90B4C https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book-chapter/bow-and-arrow-book-mormon https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/arts-and-entertainment/atlatl https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278416522000794 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1205&context=jbms https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-cimeters https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-does-the-book-of-mormon-mention-cimeters https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol5/iss1/7/ Chapters (00:00:00) - Swords and Weapons in the Book of Mormon (00:00:53) - Wounds in the Book of Mormon (00:03:15) - Was Nephi's Sword Made of Steel? (00:07:50) - The Book of Mormon Sword (00:14:02) - What is Steel in the Book of Mormon? (00:15:40) - No Steel Swords in the Book of Mormon (00:17:09) - Mukweit and Aztec Swords (00:23:55) - Scimitars and Bows in the Old Testament (00:27:42) - Do we have scimitars in the New World? (00:30:52) - Nephi's Bow and Arrow (00:35:23) - The Bow and Arrow in the Book of Mormon (00:41:10) - What Evidence Do We Have for Bows and Arrows in the Book of

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Informed Saints. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.