Source: Misunderstanding and Misinformation: Why Joe Rogan Needs To Interview A Mormon Channel: Thoughtful Faith Published: January 10, 2025 | Archived: June 2, 2026

Video: Misunderstanding and Misinformation: Why Joe Rogan Needs To Interview A Mormon
Channel: Thoughtful Faith
Published: January 10, 2025
Duration: 17:33
Views: 98,418
Category: People & Blogs
Video ID: RbXb7k_rDKA

Description

In a recent episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, a discussion unfolded between Rogan and biblical scholar Wes Huff. Huff, who identifies as a Christian, shared his experiences engaging with individuals from various faith backgrounds, including Mormons. The conversation highlighted differing views on scriptural reliability and interpretation between traditional Christians and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Highlights 🤼‍♂️ Joe Rogan’s Curiosity: Rogan is acknowledged as a curious and approachable interviewer, setting the stage for in-depth discussions on complex topics. 📚 Interfaith Dialogue: Wes Huff shares his experiences discussing faith with a variety of groups including Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and atheists, highlighting the diversity of belief systems. 📖 Scriptural Reliability: The conversation centers around the differing beliefs of the LDS Church regarding the Bible and the Book of Mormon, focusing on their views on translation and inherent truth. ⚖️ Joseph Smith’s Legacy: A critical examination of Joseph Smith’s life reveals misconceptions about his character and the legal challenges he faced, emphasizing that he was acquitted of all charges against him. 💡 Intellectual Tradition: The transcript argues against the stereotype of Mormons as merely nice but uninformed, asserting that Latter-Day Saints often have higher education levels and a strong understanding of the Bible. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family Values: The importance of family in the LDS faith is discussed, linking it to a broader pursuit of joy and meaning in life, grounded in spiritual teachings. 🤝 Invitation for Dialogue: The speaker extends an invitation to Rogan for a conversation about the LDS faith, hoping to clarify common misconceptions and promote understanding.

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DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this video are entirely the opinion of the creator and do not necessarily reflect any officially endorsed positions of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or channel sponsors.

Tags

jacob hansen jacobhansen thoughtful faith thougtfulfaith mormon exmormon antimormon fairmormon ldsapologetics scripturecentral wardradio ldsconf Joe Rogan Mormonism Wes Huff Bible Scripture

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 \[Music\] hey guys before we get started you might be noticing my black eye little jiujitsu battle scar from the other day but anyway so Joe Rogan is known as the king of the podcast world and frankly he deserves that title I love his show as a genuinely curious down-to-earth guy he makes the perfect interviewer recently he had on a Christian biblical scholar named Wes Huff and during the interview Wes began talking about his Interfaith interactions around the subject of the Bible and the subject of the restored gospel colloquially known as Mormonism came up where I was talking to Muslims and Mormons Jehovah’s Witnesses and atheists you know run the gamut and I was having these conversations and I was expressing kind of my perspective on what I believed and they would say things like well that sounds great Wes but you know that’s all the Bible you can’t trust that hold up no Wes the Bible is literally part of the Canon scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints why would we put a

1:10 set of books that can’t be trusted in our Canon of scripture we trust the Bible however what we reject is the radical notion of Protestants like Wes that the Bible is Free From Any Human errors or contradictions in other words while we believe the Bible is highly reliable we don’t hold to the indefensible position of the inherency of the 66 books of the Protestant Canon well no they did in the sense that um The Book of Mormon uh trumps the the Bible so they would believe I think it’s the 10th article of the Mormon church is that they believe the Bible in so far as it is translated actually it’s the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints and it’s the eth Article of Faith which says we believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly ly we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God but we also reject the book of Mormon’s inherency literally on the book’s title page is this and now if there are faults they are the mistakes

2:13 of men wherefore condemn not the things of God so while it’s true we believe the Book of Mormon to be more reliable than say A Book Like Deuteronomy which gives instructions on how to take slaves or how to genocide Canaanites we do not believe that any work made by man’s hand is infallible the bottom line is that we believe that scripture including the Bible is the most reliable source for knowing the mind and will of God but we do not think it’s inherent and we do not judge each book as equally reliable and this is a far more reasonable and defensible position than Wes’s position of biblical incy that they believe the Bible in so far as it is translated and so they they have this perspective that there’s been things that have been affected I mean uh okay for a Biblical scholar to imply that there are not serious things that have been affected during the transmission of the biblical text either means you are not a Biblical scholar or that you are being

3:16 disingenuous Joseph Smith made his own translation of the Bible and it’s rough and when he was 14 no Joe he was not 14 Joseph began his clarifications of certain biblical passages in the summer of 1830 when he was 24 I don’t even know if the official like LDS church ascribes to the Joseph Smith translation because I think they even see like uh like this is we know what the Greek and the Hebrew looks like and this is not even yeah yeah again Wes is assuming that the Joseph Smith translation or jst is Joseph’s rendering of an underlying Hebrew or Greek text it’s not the church has never claimed Joseph was giving what was in the original Greek or Hebrew manuscripts a simple visit to the church’s website shows that Wes is wrong while working on his revision of the Bible Joseph did not employ Greek and Hebrew sources lexicons or a knowledge of biblical language to render a new English text rather he used a copy of the King James Bible as a starting

4:21 point for his translation dictating inspired changes and additions to scribes in other words Joseph was making in inspired revisions to clarify meaning correct points of doctrines allevia inconsistencies or even expand the text for Latter-Day Saints the jst is akin to an inspired biblical commentary and so that’s where I started to take the the Mormon say that to you well that’s kind of crazy yeah yeah well in the sense that so um the Mormon was is the craziest one because we know who wrote it you know and he’s a shady dude he’s a shady dude um this is pretty classic people who could not give you a basic outline of Joseph Smith’s life between 1820 and 1844 will insinuate without specifics all sorts of things about him based on rumors and half-truths that they have heard on popular media Joseph Smith was called a prophet he started the Mormon religion okay okay I’ll admit while inaccurate that was was a funny episode but come on you really think we have not

5:34 heard all of this sort of stuff like a thousand times before well he was a you know legitimate con man yeah which is fascinating that it’s people have such a a deep search for meaning and truth that if you are confident and if which is what a con man is you know confidence man if you are really good at expressing yourself and really like you show confidence in your convictions you can you can persuade a lot of people first off a con man or confidence man is not called that because he is so confident he’s called a confidence or con man because he gains the confidence or trust of the people that he’s trying to deceive so was Joseph a known con man notice that they did not provide any specifics but that’s probably because they are just paring tropes and rumors so let me give the detail in the fall of 1825 when Joseph was 19 he was hired by an older man named Josiah Stow to help him look for an

6:37 abandoned silver mine on his property when nothing was found a relative of Josiah pressed charges against Joseph in March of 1826 claiming that Joseph had conned his uncle into the whole thing however Joseph was acquitted after Josiah came to Joseph’s defense in front of the judge and then again in 1830 people brought the same charges against Joseph for being a con man and a fraud and four different judges acquitted him and in the last case the sheriff who arrested Joseph even apologized to him so sure Joseph had people who thought he was a con man but when brought before five different judges who actually heard both sides of the story he was acquitted in fact between 1830 and 1844 when he was killed Joseph was taken to court well well over a dozen times and guess how many times he was convicted zero now look I don’t think Joe knows that and I don’t think he’s doing this intentionally but he is

7:42 spreading bad information to millions of people you know what’s interesting about that is I have less of a problem with the objective truth claims and more of a problem with them saying but don’t look into it like don’t test it like what I say goes and you’re not allowed to explore it are you serious we are literally taught in scripture to study these things out in our minds behold you have not understood you have supposed that I would give it unto you when you took no thought save it was to ask me but behold I say unto you that you must study it out in your mind and then you must ask me if it be right and we have been taught by our leaders that we are to seek truth from wherever it may come it is our duty and calling to gather every item of Truth and reject every error from The Sciences to philosophy wherever it may be found whether a truth be found with professed infidels or with the universalists or with the Church of Rome or the methodists or any other of

8:46 the different sects and parties like talking about the Mormon Church they recently did this thing where they’re like you don’t need to go on the internet and you don’t need to and it’s like watch The Book of Mormon yeah guys you I don’t think you realize what you’re sounding like when when you come across in that way what bro what are you talking about man well the church never said that so in front of millions of people Wes is misrepresenting the church what they did say was that we must be careful as we search for truth because online there is a lot of misinformation and is that really crazy advice to give I mean has there been any misinformation or misunderstanding in this interview we know why they’re family oriented right why is because in in the in what Joseph Smith wrote there’s an idea that everybody’s soul pre-exists and you were born as a spirit child in a previous life oh wow what a crazy idea I mean it’s not like the

9:47 Bible talks about God knowing Jeremiah before he was conceived then the word of the Lord came unto me saying before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee and before thou camest forth out of the womb I Sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet unto the Nations and the reason you need to have children is you need to bring those people’s Souls into existence and so there’s like because you have a heavenly father and a heavenly mother hold up as a Biblical scholar is he unfamiliar with the fact that the ancient Hebrews believed that God had a wife named Ashera and many ancient Hebrews worshiped her along with God literally the notion of God having a wife is found in the oldest Hebrew traditions and um you’re all children of God in the actual like physical sense no in a physical sense I am the son of my mom and dad in a spiritual sense I am what the Bible says I am the spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children now if

10:56 we are children then we are heirs HS of God and co-s with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory and that the pursuit is exaltation where you will be a God on your own Planet if you’ve done everything right you get your own Planet which is pretty do Planet so when speaking about the afterlife Christians often talk about playing Harps forever or wearing special crowns and some Christians have taken that pretty literal Latter-Day Saints talk about inheriting Worlds Without End and becoming co-participants with God in his work and glory and LDS people have had a variety of different interpretations about what that means however when people caricature views of the afterlife I often think of what the great Christian CS Lewis said there is no need to be worried by factious people who try to make the Christian Hope Of Heaven Ridiculous by saying they do not want to spend eternity playing Harps all the

12:00 scriptural imagery Harps crowns gold Etc is of course a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible the answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups they should not talk about \[Applause\] them and and this is so Joseph Smith in uh in the F the king’s Fallout funeral discourse this is what he wrote this is where he like formulated this idea where God the father has a body as tangible as ours of Flesh and Blood you mean like the body that Jesus had and still has according to Christian teachings I really find it strange when Christians can be fully on board with the sun to this day having a glorified body but just can’t imagine that perhaps the father also does it really is not that strange to think that the father like the son inhabits a glorified embodiment so you got to encourage people to have kids cuz you’re pulling those Spirit babies out of the out of the spiritual realm you really think that is why I

13:11 decided to have a family let me tell you why I decided to have a family and I’m sure my LDS listeners will feel similar I have a family because my faith teaches me that a relationship with God and other people is what will bring the greatest measure of joy to a person’s soul and there is no human relationship that has a higher potential for deep meaningful Joy than family relationships I go through all the struggle and challenge of having and raising a family because my faith teaches that nothing in this world is more important than the people in my own home and that’s true and I think most people know that that’s true and we as Latter-Day Saints Proclaim it’s true and our faith centers around that vitally important truth about human relationships and family but you’re right they are they’re incredibly nice people the nicest the nicest yeah it’s it’s a really great cult classic Mormons are nice wonderful ignoramuses I get it I’ve gotten it my

14:18 whole life but at a certain point in my life I had to dig in for myself and as a seeker of Jesus Christ take it seriously and when I did what I found shocked me there is a deep and rigorous intellectual tradition amongst latterday Saints and we are not just a bunch of nice fools does Joe realize that studies show Latter-Day Saints are higher educated than your average Christian and that we know the Bible better than your average Christian or does he realize that we are disproportionately represented at the highest levels of business politics Sports and other fields of endeavor or that we have the highest levels of of Life satisfaction when compared to essentially any group in America maybe this super nice group of people are not just a bunch of kindly morons now in the next part they say something I agree with about competency yeah com confidence is not competency yes and unfortunately those things get confused a lot like well he covers up

15:21 for competency sometimes yeah yeah in in religion and politics and like all sorts of things right in everything I couldn’t help but find that a little ironic to like it’s very difficult to be an expert in a subject and I think people want to believe that they are and they don’t want to do the work so Joe from time to time you do talk about Mormons publicly but are you willing to do the work of talking to one of us publicly please know Joe that I am a big fan of yours and I hope that you know that I’m not trying to be disrespectful but there are millions of latterday in America and I don’t think you have talked to even one of us though from time to time you have talked about us and just so you know I have spoken on several large platforms including Jubilee and Pints with ainus about our faith and I would happily let you ask me whatever you want about our faith if you had me on your program now I’m also sure that there are still things that you will find crazy but I think we could bring some clarity to points that people

16:24 often misunderstand about Latter-Day Saints so if you are willing my email is thoughtful faai 2020@gmail.com and if any of you watching this would like to see this conversation between Joe and I happen just remember Joe regularly uses X and Instagram so drop this video on X and tag atj Rogan or shoot him a direct message on Instagram and as always let me know what you think in the comments hey guys if you enjoyed this video be sure to hit that subscribe button so my future videos show up on your feed also if you or someone that you know has benefited from the content here on thoughtful Faith please consider becoming a channel donor or volunteer by visiting my new website thoughtful faith.org and clicking on the get involved page