Non-LDS Defense of Book of Mormon (Josh Gehly 2 of 6)

Josh Gehly gives a non-LDS Defense of the Book of Mormon. He is an Evangelist (what LDS would call a Seventy) of the Church of Jesus Christ based in Monongahela, PA, and shares his book, "Witnessing Miracles" which deals with a defense of the Book of Mormon. He even takes on Dan Vogel! We'll talk more about his church, and find out of this "non-Mormon" gets discriminated against just like Mormons. Check out our conversation...



https://youtu.be/c2TefZ01AZE



Don’t miss our other conversations with Josh: https://gospeltangents.com/people/josh-gehly



 



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GT  00:36  Well, let's dive into your book, "Witnessing Miracles," because this is, I would argue, any LDS person would have no problems with this book at all. 



Josh  00:48  Thank you. 



GT  00:48  Because it's really very LDS Orthodox, I would say, except for the Hugh Hefner part. 



Josh  00:57  (Chuckling) Well, there's no there's no turf within the Book of Mormon. Right? The Book of Mormon doesn't belong to a church. So when we're looking at them. 



GT  01:04  Well, we think it belongs to us. 



Josh  01:06  Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, maybe you need a few of our translations, then and vice versa. We'll take Portuguese. We'll give you a Chichewa.1 How does that sound? 



GT  01:14  There you go. 



Josh  01:17  But for us, the Book of Mormon doesn't belong to one church. It's a gift for the world. It's a gift for all mankind. It's a gift for Israel. So, for us, the reason why I think the book applies to any Book of Mormon believer is because--I'm not going to mince anything. I'm not going to hide anything that happened in the early history, even stuff that may make me uncomfortable, the excommunication, some of that different stuff that happened. But in regarding the relevance to the question of: what is the best explanation for the existence of the Book of Mormon? A critic and a scholar and a believer can all get in the room and say, "The Book of Mormon exists." So, what are the core facts that we're all going to agree on in the room? And then we can build our arguments of how this book came into existence. What was the method? What was the mode? What was the means? I use the historical method of inference to the best explanation to boil down all the background, all the data and all the Restoration history, down to a set of core facts that Dan Vogel and I would sit at a table and agree with. Okay? 



GT  02:28  Have you spoken to Dan? 



Josh  02:30  Well, I've read his books. Okay. I know he and I both agree on all of the core facts that are in my book. Then it's a question on what's the best explanation of the facts. That's what Gary Habermas does with the resurrection. That's what William Lane Craig does with the resurrection. They boil down the historical evidence to a set of core facts, and then they infer the best explanation of the facts. And those are core facts that maybe Bart Ehrman agrees with, maybe other critics might agree with. So, I'm taking the same approach and overlaying that together. And that's why, whether you're a Latter-day Saint, whether you're a part of some of the independent branches, whether your Community of Christ, or whether you're a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, when it comes to the historical grounds of were there really golden plates in a hill in New York? We can address that together. That's something we all have in common. 



GT  03:23  Now, one of the things that I thought was really interesting,