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The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 10

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Part 10: CES Letter Book of Abraham Questions [Section A]

by Sarah Allen

 

The Book of Abraham is perhaps our most controversial book of scripture, maybe even more so than the Book of Mormon though it is less well-known. It is a complicated, messy subject with a lot of different parts to it. This is something I’ve studied a fair bit over the years, and it’s actually one of my favorite things to study. I know enough about the subject to talk about the various theories and viewpoints, but I suspect a lot of people won’t agree with my stance on things and that’s okay. We all need to come to our own opinions about these sorts of things. I’ll try to keep from getting too esoteric in my comments, but please understand that some of the current controversies involve minor details that seem silly to quibble over, but which end up making a rather large difference once you get deeper into the study of this book.

Perhaps even more than the translation method, this subject bothers Jeremy Runnells the most. I believe he even says at one point that the Book of Abraham is what officially broke his testimony, which is unfortunate. He makes a lot of misstatements throughout this section, so I’m not sure if the issue is that he just doesn’t understand the Book of Abraham and its scholarship, or if he’s doing it deliberately. The critics of the Church have been particularly successful in framing the arguments on this topic in such a way that it really hurts a lot of people, so I’m willing to give Jeremy the benefit of the doubt regarding this section and believe that he just doesn’t know enough about the topic. If so, it’s especially sad that he let it destroy his testimony when some further study might have saved it. I may be wrong; maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing when he makes those misstatements and frames things incorrectly. He certainly does that knowingly in other sections of this Letter.

Either way, this is a difficult subject for a lot of people, so I’m going to try to break it all down in such a way that it makes sense, and that it helps you guys see that there are faithful explanations out there. We’ll go slowly and I may have to break some questions into multiple parts because he covers so much ground in a single question. I don’t want to skim over anything too lightly because it is such a controversial subject. If anything isn’t clear as we go along, please let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to clarify. I love the Book of Abraham and I think its doctrine is beautiful, so I hope you guys come away with that feeling, too.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 10

Come, Follow Me Week 39 – Doctrine and Covenants 106–108

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Reading D&C 107 as a Daughter of Eve

by V.H. Cassler

D&C 107 contains many interesting elements. We learn Noah was ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood when he was but age 10, for example. We learn quite a lot about various levels of hierarchy in the Church, differences between the lesser and greater priesthoods, and the mandates of various offices in the priesthood. We also learn about the privileges of those ordained to these priesthoods, such as communing with the Church of the Firstborn or even Heavenly Father and Jesus.

However, on the surface, 107 appears to be a profoundly “womanless” section of the D&C.  Whereas many sections of the D&C seem equally applicable in their exhortations to both women and men, even if women are not explicitly mentioned, it is much harder to say that about section 107. There just seems no place for them at all.

Of course, women are used to being completely overlooked in scripture, and may find this unremarkable. After all, scripture is mostly heavenly men speaking to men on earth about men’s ecclesiastical responsibilities. Perhaps men need more explicit guidance in these things; after all, negotiating hierarchies, which are meant to defuse competition, is tricky business among men. Questions of authority, power, keys, and so forth might need to be settled among men in very clear fashion by God in order for the work of men in the kingdom of God on earth to proceed unhindered.

However, the older I’ve become, the more I see beneath the surface to things implied by womanless scripture that have relevance not only to women, but also to the subject of male-female relations in the family of Adam and Eve. I would like to offer two examples of reading women into D&C 107. After all, if we can read women into this most womanless of sections, that offers hope that we can cease seeing the scriptures as primarily messages from men to men. This would be spiritually helpful for both men and women, as many interpret this not only as suggesting a hierarchy between men and women, but also a separation between church and family. We know from the doctrine of the Church that there is no hierarchy between men and women. We also know that in the hereafter, the family is the form of divine governance, not the church. This suggests that we are likely to suffer from misconceptions if we take seemingly womanless sections such as 107 on a purely superficial level. Let’s look a little deeper, then. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 39 – Doctrine and Covenants 106–108

Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 12: March-July 1843

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Available in the FAIR bookstore

This volume of the Joseph Smith Papers contains 96 representative documents from the period of March – July 1841. During this time period, Joseph continued having legal problems with Missouri, the Kinderhook Plates were found, he led the Nauvoo Legion, construction continued on the Nauvoo House and temple, and he taught about the temple, eternal marriage, and plural marriage. Meanwhile Nauvoo continued to grow, and the church grew outside of Nauvoo and outside of the United States.

One document that I thought showed an interesting side of Joseph Smith’s personality was a response to a letter he had received from Abraham Jonas of Columbus, Illinois, asking to borrow a cannon. He wanted it for use in celebrating the failure of the establishment of a new county. Joseph’s response was to grant permission, along with a note at the end saying “Five hund[r]ed cannons you should have if I had them” (page 112). [Read more…] about Book Review: The Joseph Smith Papers Documents, Volume 12: March-July 1843

The Church Of Jesus Christ and the BSA Bankruptcy Case

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By Cassandra Hedelius

Crossposted from Public Square Magazine

A few days ago, many saw the arresting headlines that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has agreed to pay an enormous amount of money—a quarter of a billion dollars—to survivors of sexual abuse by Boy Scouts of America leaders. It’s a complicated legal situation, and an impossibly sad one, and I’ll do my best to make it clear what’s happening and why. (I’m a lawyer, but not a bankruptcy lawyer, and bankruptcy law is quite complicated, so I’m going to leave out a lot of legal nuances.)

I’m a parent of young children, and I can hardly fathom the horror I’d feel if one of them was abused. I can hardly fathom the pain, despair, and confusion abused children feel. I do know, from some personal experience with loved ones, how the effects of childhood abuse can persist all life long in depression, anxiety, difficulty forming loving relationships, problems in school and employment, and worse. At the end of the world, I expect the Lord will dispense mighty judgment against abusers and also merciful understanding to the many abusers who were themselves abused. [Read more…] about The Church Of Jesus Christ and the BSA Bankruptcy Case

The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 9

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Part 9: CES Letter First Vision Questions

by Sarah Allen

 

Like last week, this is another section with just one main question, the multiple accounts of the First Vision.

There are at least 4 different first vision accounts by Joseph Smith, which the Church admits in its November 2013 First Vision Accounts essay

Yep, and there are also five secondhand accounts written by people who heard the story from Joseph, too. First, though, I have to object to the fact that he’s saying the Church “admits it” in the essay, as if it’s the first time the Church has ever made mention of those other accounts or something. They’ve been published repeatedly in Church magazines and other publications, comparing and contrasting all of them together since at least 1970, and at least a few of them were published many times over apart from that. Add this item to the list of things that Jeremy Runnells could have known, even if I don’t necessarily think he should  have known it.

Here they are, in case you guys want to read them for yourselves and make your own comparisons:

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 9

The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 8

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Part 8: CES Letter Book of Mormon Translation Questions

by Sarah Allen

 

This section really only has one question/point in it. There are maybe a few different parts to it, but it’s all basically one question and it’s one that comes up over and over and over and over again throughout the rest of the CES Letter. Honestly, I think this the first of only two major hang-ups—the other is the Book of Abraham—and everything else was just Jeremy Runnells throwing everything he could find at the wall and hoping something else would stick. He seems to have a very real problem with the translation method for the Book of Mormon. Few other issues in the Letter receive as much call-back attention as this one particular issue. I’m talking about, of course, the infamous “rock in the hat.”

Unlike the story I’ve been taught in Sunday School, Priesthood, General Conferences, Seminary, EFY, Ensigns, Church history tour, Missionary Training Center, and BYU…Joseph Smith used a rock in a hat for translating the Book of Mormon.

First of all, Ensigns absolutely should not be on that list, because guess where I first learned about Joseph putting his seer stone in his hat to block out the light? Yep, the Ensign. More on that later, though.

Jeremy doesn’t actually say what he originally believed the translation method was, and that’s a little problematic because people seem to vary on the exact details when you press them. Was there a curtain between Joseph and his scribes? Were the plates on the table beside him, or kept out of view? Did Joseph wear the spectacles with the Nephite Interpreters and basically “read” the translation from plates themselves? Or did he look in them and see the words without looking at the plates through the Interpreters? Did he attach them to the breastplate, or wear them separately? Did he take the Interpreters out of the spectacles, or did he try to wear them the entire time, despite the widely acknowledged fact that they didn’t fit him properly? If he took them out, what did he do with them? Did he hold them in his hands, or place them on top of the plates, or what? Etc.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 8

Come, Follow Me Week 38 – Doctrine and Covenants 102–105

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by Cassandra Hedelius

I very much love “The Chosen,” the dramatization of the ministry of Jesus and his disciples that just finished its second season. It’s a beautiful portrayal of Jesus’ love, authority, humanity, and divinity.

Recent events made a particular scene come to mind with even greater power and relevance. As Jesus and his disciples leave Capernaum, they discuss which route to take. One disciple points out they need to turn in order to go around Samaria. All the disciples simply assumed they would avoid Samaria in their travels because of the vicious hostility between Samaritans and Jews. Jesus shocked them all by saying that they were going to go right into Samaria. One disciple, thinking Jesus needed reminding, explained that it was safer to go around. Jesus replied: “Did you join me for safety reasons?”

We do indeed follow the Lord because he is the only source of our ultimate safety, spiritual safety from the enemy of our souls. But the history of the church and these sections in particular are stark reminders that the covenant path is not a guarantee of our immediate physical safety. [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 38 – Doctrine and Covenants 102–105

The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 7

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Part 7: CES Letter Book of Mormon Questions [Section F]

By Sarah Allen

 

In this one, we’re going to discuss possible sources for the Book of Mormon that critics love to throw out: View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith, The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain by Gilbert Hunt, and The First Book of Napoleon by Michael Linning. I spoke last week about how these types are arguments are really weak and badly presented, which I hope will come to be obvious by the end of this post. Just to get this out of the way up front, here are PDFs of each of the books in question if you want to compare them for yourselves:

To begin with, back at the 2014 FAIR Conference, Matt Roper and Paul Fields gave a presentation talking about the “pseudo-Biblical” writing style and how the Book of Mormon compares to both the KJV and to other books from the same period, including The Late War. (Stanford Carmack wrote a similar article for the Interpreter here.) They demonstrated pretty aptly that the Book of Mormon and KJV writing styles are very, very similar, and that other attempts at imitating it, such as The Late War and The First Book of Napoleon, are actually not very similar at all. It’s an interesting presentation that is well worth your time if you’re inclined to check it out. (There is also a funny chart showing the extremely high correlation between the divorce rate in Maine and the consumption of margarine in the US over the same time period.)

One of the things they noted in that presentation was that this style of writing was pretty popular from approximately 1750 to approximately 1850, about 100 years, with the Book of Mormon falling toward the later middle of the period. As such, there are a lot of books and newspaper articles imitating this same style of KJV-like writing that are bound to have some turns of phrase in common, particularly those phrases rooted in the Bible.

Going along with this, Jeff Lindsay offers a pretty hilarious parody of this type of argument on his website, where he declares Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass the very best possible inspiration for the Book of Mormon, despite it being first published in 1855. The reason these claims are so easy to parody is because they’re ridiculous reaches in the first place.

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 7

The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 6

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Part 6: CES Letter Book of Mormon Questions [Section E]

by Sarah Allen

 

I was originally hoping to finish all of the remaining Book of Mormon questions in this entry, but when I started compiling it all, it was just way too long. So I’m going to jump around a little bit on this one. I’ll tackle the View of the Hebrews, The Late War, and The First Book of Napoleon stuff in the final entry for this section next week, and talk about the Vernal Holley maps, Comoros/Captain Kidd, and Trinitarianism in this one.

The ones about the Vernal Holley maps and the ones about the supposed sources for the Book of Mormon crack me up. They’re just really, really bad questions, and so very dishonest in their framing.

Book of Mormon Geography: Many Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar to many local names and places of the region where Joseph Smith lived.

Jeremy Runnells fully admits that this is the weakest section of the CES Letter, and at one point, he was almost positive he was going to remove it. However, other members of the Exmormon subreddit convinced him to leave it in because they somehow felt it was effective.

The thing is, he wasn’t wrong. It’s pretty weak.

The first thing he does is post two maps made by Vernal Holley:

The first map is the “proposed map,” constructed from internal comparisons in the Book of Mormon.

Nope. The first map is just the second map with Book of Mormon names scattered around, and they’re in the wrong places they’d need to be in if they were actually “constructed from internal comparisons to the Book of Mormon.”

As Scott Gordon says in “CES Letter: Proof or Propaganda?”: “It isn’t constructed from internal comparisons in the Book of Mormon. Nothing is in the right place from internal directions. This is not a Book of Mormon map. This is a map of upstate New York and Pennsylvania with some Book of Mormon names pasted in on locations that start with the same few letters. It doesn’t even include Zarahemla or Bountiful.”

[Read more…] about The CES Letter Rebuttal, Part 6

Come, Follow Me Week 37 – Doctrine and Covenants 98–101

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A Letter to my Seminary and Institute Students

by Louis Herrey

My dear young friends,

This week I had the chance to meet with several of you. As always, it is a joy to be around you. I deeply appreciate not only your attendance, but also your participation. You might not think your comments matter that much, but believe me, your words are a strength to me and to your classmates. I feel like I want to become a better person because of you.

I see the goodness in your faces; you have an honest desire to come closer to Jesus and grow in truth and light. All I want to say to that is: continue. Continue to walk in the light of your Savior, trusting Him with every step you take, showing gratitude each day for the grace that He gives you.

My heart is full, and there are many things I want to tell you. For starters, even if you might be facing more complex challenges in your live than I did in my youth, I still understand what you’re going through. I know that although you are filled with dreams and ambitions, it’s hard sometimes to know if you’re on the right path to fulfilling those. I know that although you have faith, sometimes you wonder if it’s strong enough – or even there at all. Some of you struggle with finding your identity, fighting off addictions, and suffering injustices caused by others. And on top of it all, you may ask, why is it such a struggle finding true love? [Read more…] about Come, Follow Me Week 37 – Doctrine and Covenants 98–101