Meghan is joined for this impactful conversation by author David (Dave) Butler, as the two discuss what happened anciently to Mother in Heaven. Topics include:

- Temple worship in the Book of Mormon
- Identifying the Tree of Life
- Removing Heavenly Mother from the ancient temple
- Counterfeit Goddesses, vs. the true Goddess
- The Allegory of the Vineyard in Jacob 5 as a type for Her

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Dave Butler is not an academic. He has been a lawyer, a consultant, a corporate trainer, and a registered investment banking representative. He is now a Consulting Editor for Baen Books and part-owner of a business that designs bespoke elearning.

Dave also writes fiction, principally science fiction and fantasy and principally for adults. His eighteenth novel was published in January 2024. His books have won the Dragon Award, the Whitney Award, and the Association for Mormon Letters Award for Novel. In early 2021, Dave co-curated “A Desolating Sickness,” a literary response to the Covid pandemic that was displayed in BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library. This semester (Winter 2024) for the second time, his novel The Cunning Man (co-written with Aaron Michael Ritchey), which in July 2022 made the AML’s list of 100 Works of Significant Mormon Literature, is being taught in a Mormon Lit class on BYU campus.

Dave takes the position that the Book of Mormon is an ancient document, and also that the Book of Mormon is a work of temple literature. The Nephite prophets were members of an esoteric lineage that wrote for an audience that they expected to possess eyes to see and ears to hear, and the intended way to understand the meaning of their writings is to read through the lens of our own temple experience. He embodied his early thoughts in this vein in a pair of short books, Plain and Precious Things and The Goodness and the Mysteries, both self-published under the pen name D. John Butler.

Dave is currently hard at work on his third book on this subject, entitled In the Language of Adam. He hopes to bring this book out in Spring 2024.

Dave plays guitar and banjo whenever he can, and hangs out in Utah with his wife, their children, and the family dog.

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Until next time—walk in truth, walk with Christ, and remember who you are.