If Joseph Smith was simply copying the Bible, why does the Book of Mormon repeatedly quote early Old Testament material, and later Old Testament Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, but completely avoid the historical books scholars now say were compiled after the Babylonian exile? One of the most common criticisms of the Book of Mormon is…
If Joseph Smith never recovered plates from a stone box on the west side of the hill near Palmyra, why do so many early witnesses, including hostile ones, keep pointing to that same spot and describing results of an 1823 excavation and yearly revisits? How Do You Explain the Consistent Collaboration of the Evidence? A…
If Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon in 1829 without knowing Hebrew, why do so many non-biblical names behave like Semitic names in structure, root-building, and narrative wordplay? How Did Joseph Smith Know Hebrew Naming Patterns? The usual explanation is that Joseph Smith invented the Book of Mormon names. That sounds simple until…
Dear CES Letter, You ask the reader to believe that the Book of Mormon is the product of deception, improvisation, or borrowing. You present this as the only reasonable conclusion. But how do you explain the volume of evidence that points in the opposite direction? Not just that the Book of Mormon exists, but that…
Book of Mormon Anachronisms One of the most frequently repeated claims in the CES Letter is that the Book of Mormon contains anachronisms that prove it could not be an ancient record. These items are presented as settled contradictions, as if the list is fixed and immune to revision. As if we now now everything…
The CES Letter presents DNA evidence as if it has already resolved the question of the Book of Mormon’s historicity. The argument is framed as settled science. What the CES Letter does not address are the assumptions required to reach that conclusion, or the limits that geneticists themselves acknowledge when reconstructing ancient population history. DNA…
One thing the CES Letter does not address is the actual state of archaeology in the Americas. The document presents its conclusions with confidence, as if the archaeological record is complete and the verdict has already been rendered. That confidence does not reflect how archaeology actually functions or how limited the current record truly is.…
Dear CES Letter, Another area where I expected clarity but instead found tension was language. Your Letter states, directly or indirectly, that there is no meaningful linguistic evidence supporting the Book of Mormon’s antiquity. That claim sounds definitive. But when I tried to understand what “linguistic evidence” should actually look like in a translated text,…