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A FairMormon Analysis of "Debunking FAIR’s Debunking" (also known as "Debunking FairMormon" - from the author of the Letter to a CES Director)
Does FairMormon agree with a large percentage of the claims made in the Letter to the CES Director?
Jeremy Runnells has claimed that FairMormon has agreed with him on a large percentage of various claims he has made, even going so far as to claim agreement on items that FairMormon did not respond to. With regard to historical facts, Mr. Runnells's citations are sometimes incorrect and his interpretations, even of correctly cited historical facts, are unwarranted. In short, FairMormon disagrees entirely with the conclusions reached by Jeremy Runnells.
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Overview
Approximately eight or nine months after we produced our original response to the Letter to a CES Director, the author produced an apologetic called Debunking FAIR's Debunking, later changed to Debunking FairMormon. Much of the material is simply an incorporation of our original summary responses to the individual issues, and the author's reassertion of his original claims. We have updated the original article responses to incorporate new evidence that the author of the CES Letter marshaled to attempt to bolster his original claims. Additionally, we have responded to new claims that appeared from the author that were not included in neither the original CES Letter, our response to it, nor the subsequent editions of the CES Letter. In this page we will highlight only new individual items which were not covered in the original CES Letter response (but as stated before, we have updated other articles to respond to other evidence covering the same claims). For convenience, these responses to Debunking FairMormon are also included in the list of responses to the original, and various updates, of the CES Letter.
Detailed responses to "Debunking FAIR’s Debunking" (also known as "Debunking FairMormon" - from the author of the Letter to a CES Director) by section are found in linked subarticles below
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- Response to claim: "That the witnesses never reported Joseph looking at a 1769 KJV Bible during the translation process actually enhances the likelihood that the Book of Mormon is a fraud"
- Response to claim: "At worst, Joseph waited until the witnesses weren't around to consult and copy from the 1769 KJV Bible"
- Response to claim: "Contrary to FairMormon’s assertion above that God himself revealed the 1769 KJV errors to Joseph, FairMormon is conceding here that Joseph copied KJV text over to the Book of Mormon"
- Response to claim: "If Joseph was trying to make the Bible more correct, he would not change something that was correct according to Isaiah"
- Response to claim: "FairMormon’s strawman that these towns/cities were discovered only through maps may not be...how Holley found some of the towns"
- Response to claim: "The overwhelming consensus from these unbiased experts in pre-Columbian America archaeology/anthropology and Egyptology is that neither the Book of Mormon nor the Book of Abraham is historical, factual, or congruent to the current and existing data and evidence."
- Response to claim: "In addition to the statements made by those professors, here are some more statements made by both LDS and non-LDS archaeologist and anthropologist individuals and organizations...'While some people chose to make claims for the Book of Mormon through archaeological evidences, to me they are made prematurely, and without sufficient knowledge.'"
- Response to claim:"In addition to the statements made by those professors, here are some more statements made by both LDS and non-LDS archaeologist and anthropologist individuals and organizations...'The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists…."
- Response to claim: "There was a book published in 1791 by John Walker entitled, A Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture Proper Names"
- Response to claim: "'They borrowed from early 19th century Methodist evangelical camp meetings and the Second Great Awakening in Joseph's 'burnt over district' backyard"
- Response to claim: "'They borrowed from anti-Masonic sentiments of Joseph's time."
- Response to claim: "FairMormon considers a tapir to satisfy this requirement, I’m sorry but that just won’t work. Tapirs do not pull chariots. Especially chariots without wheels"
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- Response to claim: "he still manages to directly contradict himself by reporting “visitation of Angels” as compared to an actual visitation from Deity"
- Response to claim: "Joseph intended the exact wording to be 'pillar of light' – not 'pillar of fire'"
- Response to claim: "FairMormon is arguing here that Joseph Smith did not in fact see God the Father and his son Jesus Christ, which is an apostate view"
- Response to claim: "the Church altered Joseph's words to instead read "I received my First Vision...” in the History of the Church"
- Response to claim: "FairMormon and apologists have to do everything they can to stretch the 1817-1818 Revival as long as possible - all the way into 1820"
- Response to claim: "Again, Joseph's mother, Lucy, and Joseph's brother, William, both stated that the family joined Presbyterianism after Alvin's death in November 1823"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Fielding Smith, upon discovering the 1832 account, ripped out the pages out of the letter book"
- Response to claim: "Why doesn't FairMormon also include the following accounts in their list showing just how “consistent” all of the First Vision accounts are?"
- Response to claim: "For something that excited the “public mind against me”… where are the records?"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith's theophany, or First Vision account, was not unprecedented or unique."
- Response to claim: "...the following is what LDS historian and member of the Joseph Smith Papers project, Ronald O. Barney, has to say about Fawn Brodie and her book, No Man Knows My History...Richard Bushman extensively used No Man Knows My History as a source in his Rough Stone Rolling biography of Joseph Smith."
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Notes