The Book of Mormon repeatedly uses a rare, outdated grammatical structure hundreds of times, yet that same pattern does not appear in Joseph Smith’s other writings. Why would a made-up text contain a consistent translation-like system he never used again? If the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century production, then it should sound like one…
If Book of Mormon names were just invented in 1829, why do so many of them match ancient Hebrew and Egyptian patterns and then appear in the text with meanings that fit the story around them? One of the easiest ways to dismiss the Book of Mormon is to treat its names as fantasy. Critics…
If the Book of Mormon was copied from View of the Hebrews, why are the story, structure, doctrines, migration story, and central message completely different? The CES Letter and similar arguments claim Joseph Smith used Ethan Smith’s 1823 book View of the Hebrews as a source for the Book of Mormon. At first glance the…
How did the Book of Mormon describe an ancient covenant-curse ritual and a lost tradition about Joseph’s coat that are absent from the Bible but match ancient Near Eastern practices discovered long after Joseph Smith’s time? Alma 46 describes one of the most dramatic moments in the Book of Mormon. Captain Moroni tears his garment,…
Do you really think Joseph Smith stole the name “Cumorah” by studying a tiny island near Mozambique on an obscure 1808 map? Unlike most people in the world, I know where Mozambique is. I’ve actually been there. Do you know how long the flight was and how hard it was to get to that country?…
If the Vernal Holley geography map is evidence that Joseph Smith copied Book of Mormon names from Eastern U.S. towns, why did you ask your Reddit audience whether you should remove it? In 2015, you went to Reddit and asked the exmormon community whether you should remove the Vernal Holley geography section from the CES…
If Joseph Smith’s explanation of translation kept “changing,” why do the earliest witnesses consistently describe the same revelatory process? The CES Letter claims that explanations of the Book of Mormon translation have changed over time. But what exactly changed? And compared to what? Where is the early source that claims Joseph Smith sat studying the…
How did Joseph Smith dictate the Book of Mormon at such speed and scale without drafts, notes, or revision? Dear CES Letter, This is the point where I expected things to be simplest. If the Book of Mormon can be explained as an ordinary human production, then everything else becomes easier to dismiss. If its…