I thought this would only be a historical account of the restoration, but it goes beyond just the narrative. The analysis of the historical figures involved, the discussion of lack of journals and personal histories, and the background setting of what was happening at the time of the priesthood restoration is well presented and put together. Thank you for this thoughtful podcast! It is a beautiful way to learn about these events.

Truly enjoyed this podcast about the priesthood, as restored by Joseph Smith. I feel like I am very familiar with the stories and documents, but I still learned a lot and was surprisingly entertained, too.

This podcast further reinforces in my mind that he made it all up. He borrowed ideas and used them to consolidate his power. He used his authority to abuse women, some teenage. When he needed power, he used ‘revelations’ to maintain control. He didn’t even use the plates for translating the Book of Mormon, he looked at rocks in a hat. It’s elaborately ridiculous. The church harms families with this promise of eternal salvation. To say that only the Mormon church has the truth is abhorrently false. Joseph Smith was a genius at creating religion. Lamanites and Nephites aren’t real. Joseph made them up too along with the Mormon concept of priesthood. Don’t trust the church to give you the truth, they won’t.

I love the wealth of information in this podcast. One of the difficulties with reading and understanding history is having a clear understanding of context—what was going on in the world in that period, what were the perceptions and perspectives of the time that influence people and movements, and how did the history play out piece by piece and how did that feel in the world they lived in? I love that this podcast really dives into the context and helps us envision the world during the restoration of the priesthood and the Church. It helps us pull back our 20/20 hindsight and try to see the history from the perspective of those who lived it—as it unfolded. I do have one critique. I love the music you chose in this podcast, but the way it is edited is extremely distracting. Especially during the introduction at the beginning, I have trouble focusing on the words Spencer is saying because my attention is so pulled to the music fading in and out, in and out. It’s like a yo-yo as they go loud-soft-loud-soft, and I can’t seem to focus on anything else because it is so irritating to me. And this seems to happen also at transitions throughout the podcast. My suggestion would be to let the music fade and only pull it back to full volume when he’s done speaking. Thank you for putting this podcast together. I would love to see more like it.

The priesthood is one of those topics it seems you can never study enough, so I’m very grateful for this wonderful podcast to enrich my study and my testimony.

Wonderful series. There is a technical issue with the playing order. The episodes were all loaded on the same day ... But the podcast player seems to play them in a random order for whatever was loaded on that day. May I suggest the each episode be loaded one episode per day in proper order until all the episodes are loaded. That way the podcast player will play the episodes in chronological order by date in the proper sequence. Something to consider for future podcast series.

Really appreciate the effort of so many to provide precious information! Episode five is my favorite.

I hope this series continues in similar fashion. Great history and inspiring at the same time. Hard to find both of these combined! Thank you.

This podcast is well done, and a great part to what I hope will be more productions from the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Great history, but devotionally powerful as well.

This is an outstanding material that gives context to the restoration of the priesthood. Every member of the church should use this to deepen their knowledge of the restoration of the gospel.

This is a must listen for anyone who is looking for more info on the LDS religion and for members of the LDS faith. Very informative and well done.

A worthwhile listen, well researched and nicely put together. The host had a voice for podcasts too and can’t wait to listen to his future series (fingers crossed there are more to come!).

This podcast gives important religious context for the world in which Joseph Smith lived. While aimed at a LDS audience, listeners of all faiths can enjoy this earnest yet honest dive into early LDS history. I’m not a member of the LDS Church and I’m grateful for this production.

This podcast was put together so beautifully. Very informative and comprehensive. I learned a lot and really enjoyed it!

I loved the first vision podcast and listened to it all in two days. I can’t wait for this one!