Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 13 minutes ago
When Latter-day Saint Historian Don Bradley was out of the church, he spent a lot of time researching the Book of Mormon witnesses from church history.
Who were they? Were they genuine? If not, what ulterior motives could they have?
On his quest to rejoin the church, he discovered a lot of surprising things about early church figures—things that played a part in bringing him back to the restored gospel.
When Latter-day Saint Historian Don Bradley was out of the church, he spent a lot of time researching the Book of Mormon witnesses from church history.
Who were they? Were they genuine? If not, what ulterior motives could they have?
On his quest to rejoin the church, he discovered a lot of surprising things about early church figures—things that played a part in bringing him back to the restored gospel.
![The Moment I Realized I Was Wrong About Joseph Smith, the Temple & Freemasonry | Don Bradley [Clip]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ATrkQZbZCNY/mqdefault.jpg "The Moment I Realized I Was Wrong About Joseph Smith, the Temple & Freemasonry | Don Bradley [Clip]
Sometimes, we leave the camera rolling and ask one more question after an episode is done. This is the result of one of those times.
When Don Bradley left the Church and became an atheist, he was convinced Joseph Smith copied the temple endowment from Freemasonry. But when he actually dug into the timeline, things didn’t add up.
What he discovered about the parallels between masonry and the temple is one of the things that started pulling him back toward faith.
In this clip, we talk about:
- Parallels vs. borrowing
- Freemasonry’s biblical roots
- Temple patterns in the Book of Mormon and First Vision
- Why the 1820s timeline creates a real problem for the “Joseph copied Masonry” claim
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References:
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Freemasonry and the Origins of Latter-day Saint Temple Ordinances
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/interpreter/vol15/iss1/15/")
