Response to CES Letter, part 1i: The Late War

Here I am sharing the sixth response I made to the CES letter. Here I address the issue of the book titled “The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain” and any possible relation it has to the Book of Mormon.

Response to CES Letter, part 1h: View of the Hebrews

Here I am sharing the sixth response I made to the CES letter. Here I address the issue of the book titled “View of the Hebrews” and any possible relation it has to the Book of Mormon.

Response to CES Letter, part 1g: Geography

Here I am sharing the seventh response I made to the CES letter. Here I address the issue of Book of Mormon Geography that are raised in the letter. This turned out to be a longer response and so I separated it into three different videos.

This first video discusses the geographic places names in the Book of Mormon as compared to modern names in the Great Lake region.

This second video discusses the names of Moroni and Cumorah and the location of that hill.

This third video discusses some writings and statements of contemporaries of Joseph Smith about the Book of Mormon and other topics.

Response to CES Letter, part 1F: Archeology

Here I am sharing the sixth response I made to the CES letter. Here I address the issue of archeology as it relates to the Book of Mormon and how it is a trap used to shut down a conversation.

Here is a supplemental video I made on the subject of Archeology and the Book of Mormon.

Response to CES Letter, part 1E: Anachronisms

I am here sharing the fifth response I made to the CES letter. Here I address the issue of supposed anachronisms in the text of the Book of Mormon and why they don’t matter.

Response to CES Letter, part 1D: DNA and the Book of Mormon

I am here sharing the fourth response I made to the CES letter. In this video I discuss DNA, how it relates to the Book of Mormon, and why it cannot be used to prove anything regarding the authenticity of that work of scripture.

Response to CES Letter, part 1C: BofM vs. JST

I am here sharing the third response I made to the CES letter. This video addresses some of the differences between the Book of Mormon, the KJV of the Bible, and the Joseph Smith Translation, and discusses why they are not always identical.

 

 

Response to CES Letter, part 1B: KJ Italics

I am here sharing the second response I made to the CES letter. This response ended up being very long, so I have separated it into two videos.

These videos deal with the use of the Italicized words of the King James Bible in the Book of Mormon.

This first video deals exclusively with the issue of the italicized words.

 

The second part deals briefly with the italicized words, but speaks more specifically regarding the addition of the word “Red Sea” in Isaiah 9: 1. It also deals more specifically with the question of the Book of Mormon being taken from an ancient source.

Let me know what you think.

Response to CES Letter, part 1A: KJV Errors

It has been a while since I wrote any new content here, so I thought I would post this. This is not a written blog, but I am leaving a link to two videos that recently made and uploaded to youtube. I recently made a new channel on that platform, titled “Reflections: A Disciple Discusses Gospel Doctrine.” I will be uploading videos regarding the LDS church, its doctrine and its history.

This first video is to introduce the channel and explain what I am doing. It also introduces the first series of videos that I will be posting.

 

As it says in this introduction, I will be doing a series of videos responding to the issues and questions raised in the CES Letter. Many of these issues and questions have been addressed in some of my previous articles, but I will still be addressing them again in this series.

This second video is my response to the first question raised, regarding errors in the King James bible.

 

Please watch the videos before you make any comments on them or what I am doing.

9 Ways Anti-Mormons Want You to Mistrust the LDS Church (1-3)

A while ago I came across this video that purports to reveal to the public Nine things about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that the church doesn’t want people to know. I have seen many such lists, and this, like all the others, is largely inaccurate or fails to support what they claim to be doing.

At the time I had considered doing a response to the video, but things got away from me and it never happened. But this video has recently been put up in another blog post and thus was brought back to my attention. So, I have decided to make a few comments on it.

 

To be clear, I am addressing the claim that the church doesn’t want you to know what the video portrays. I will not be addressing the accuracy of any point except briefly, unless doing so is necessary to the main claim of the video. Also, since I don’t like my posts to be too long, I will be separating this into three posts, each addressing three points from the video.

 

Joseph Smith was a Mason.

Far from not wanting people to know that Joseph Smith was a mason, this little fact was included in the Institute manual for college students. The title of the manual is Church History in the Fullness of Times. In chapter 21 of this manual is the following quote:

As early as October 1841 some Masons who were members of the Church obtained permission to initiate a Masonic lodge in Nauvoo. Joseph Smith could see advantages in belonging to this fraternal order. Presumably it was felt that other Masons in the state and nation, many of whom held prominent positions, would look more kindly upon the Church. Joseph Smith and many others in Nauvoo were formally introduced into the order in March 1842.

It is also true that in 1938 the church published a book called Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith which is a collection of quotes from Joseph Smith. On page 255 there is a brief mention of him and other church members attending the formation of the Montrose, Iowa lodge.

As to the similarities, in 1991 the Encyclopedia of Mormonism was published. It was a joint venture initiated by MacMillan Publishing in New York, but was approved of by the First Presidency of the Church. The Encyclopedia contains an article titled Freemasonry and the Temple. It makes a thorough comparison between the two from a scholarly perspective.

 

The Book of Mormon is completely unreliable.

I think the author of the video does not quite understand the meaning of the word reliable. It means to consistently give the same result over several trials or tests. So it doesn’t matter if the result is wrong, as long as you get the same result over and over it is reliable.

So, is the Book of Mormon unreliable? To determine this you have to show that over a period of time it has given varying results rather than consistent results. The test of reliability would be different for different aspects of the books.

Now the author of the video claims it is unreliable for two reasons. First, the translation cannot be verified; second it is inconsistent with historical knowledge. But neither of these actually tests reliability, but rather accuracy. The real truth is that the Book of Mormon reliably conveys the same story and message no matter how many times you read it, and whether that story is accurate or not has no effect on its reliability.

Of course, the church actually offers a test of reliability regarding the Book of Mormon, which is found in Moroni 10: 4-5. This is a spiritual test that, if followed, will reliably render the same result each time.

 

Racism against Blacks.

Actually, the church has always been fairly open about its policies regarding the African race. And please note that it was African and not black that the policy affected. Other black races, notably the aborigine of Australia, were unaffected by it. About 3 months after this video was put up on YouTube the church published an essay that gives all the details about the churches policy and the various theories surrounding it. Note that they were theories and not doctrine, and the church does not, nor has it ever actually subscribed to any of them. We simply don’t know the details regarding it.

Now, there are many quotes from earlier church leaders that many members are not familiar with. But there is no evidence that the church is trying to hide them. Far from it, they have continued to make them available to those who seek them. The Journal of Discourses, the Discourses of Brigham Young, the Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, among other collections, have been published by the church for some time. More recently they have started the project called “The Joseph Smith Papers” as well as other initiatives to uncover as much as they can about the early church and its leaders.  While they have not paraded these things through the news, they have made no effort to conceal them either.