Monthly Archives: January 2025

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When you dig into the real history you'll find that what the Church teaches is not how it all went. Joseph Smith was a con artist who claimed to be able to find hidden treasures and (illegally) charged people for it. You find that there is no evidence of the Nephites and Lamanites. That the book of Abraham came from a papyrus containing the Book of Breathings which has nothing to do with Abraham (the word Abraham doesn't even appear on it) It became obvious that Joseph Smith made it all up. - Exmodad's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/exmodad/
When you dig into the real history you'll find that what the Church teaches is not how it all went. Joseph Smith was a con artist who claimed to be able to find hidden treasures and (illegally) charged people for it. You find that there is no evidence of the Nephites and Lamanites. That the book of Abraham came from a papyrus containing the Book of Breathings which has nothing to do with Abraham (the word Abraham doesn't even appear on it) It became obvious that Joseph Smith made it all up. - Exmodad's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/exmodad/
It was all about the truth claims for me. The Church claims to be "the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole Earth" led by Jesus himself. They teach that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus after an earnest prayer. They teach that the Book of Mormon is a real history of the American Indians, who came from a family in Jerusalem. They teach that the book of Abraham is a real scripture... - Exmodad's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/exmodad/
It was all about the truth claims for me. The Church claims to be "the only true and living Church upon the face of the whole Earth" led by Jesus himself. They teach that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus after an earnest prayer. They teach that the Book of Mormon is a real history of the American Indians, who came from a family in Jerusalem. They teach that the book of Abraham is a real scripture... - Exmodad's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/exmodad/
I joined the Church in Italy at the age of 9. My mom was a single mom of 3 children. Myself and 2 sisters. I was a firm believer till I learned about the "problems" with the Church and its history on my mission in England. I was a Mormon. - Exmodad's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/exmodad/
I joined the Church in Italy at the age of 9. My mom was a single mom of 3 children. Myself and 2 sisters. I was a firm believer till I learned about the "problems" with the Church and its history on my mission in England. I was a Mormon. - Exmodad's "I was a Mormon" story. Read more at https://wasmormon.org/profile/exmodad/
The CES letter says, "How could it have been expected of me and any other member to know about and to embrace the rock in the hat translation when even two faithful full-time professors of religion at BYU rejected it as a fictitious lie meant to undermine Joseph Smith and the truth claims of the restoration." How can it be expected of people when they do feel that they were taught something opposite of what the truth seems to be? “What he says is true. But, to complain that people taught him the truth, taught him error, when they believed it is the truth, what else should they teach him? They believed it was true, so they did their best to tell, teach him that. As it turned out, they were wrong. So as a mature person, you just have to be willing to change your views on things as new information comes along.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast | wasmormon.org
The CES letter says, "How could it have been expected of me and any other member to know about and to embrace the rock in the hat translation when even two faithful full-time professors of religion at BYU rejected it as a fictitious lie meant to undermine Joseph Smith and the truth claims of the restoration." How can it be expected of people when they do feel that they were taught something opposite of what the truth seems to be? “What he says is true. But, to complain that people taught him the truth, taught him error, when they believed it is the truth, what else should they teach him? They believed it was true, so they did their best to tell, teach him that. As it turned out, they were wrong. So as a mature person, you just have to be willing to change your views on things as new information comes along.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast
The whole [seer stone translation] scene is made to appear ludicrous. The CES letter says these are crazy things, and you're saying they're not as ludicrous as they may seem. Why is that? “This is an old Mormon embarrassment, that the seer stone was something that had to be obscured, because it was degrading to think of Joseph Smith as a treasure seeker. That, I think, is a mistaken historical outlook... In 1834, E. D. Howe published a book in which he trotted out all the evidence he could find from the neighbors that the Smiths were practicing money digging. And this was to discredit them. And I think that's the first time that the smiths began to feel like this is something to be embarrassed about. And they began to change the story... And so ever since then, we've been embarrassed by something, and for the Smiths, it was part of everyday life. It wasn't embarrassing at all. In fact, it probably played a large part in their ability to accept the gold plates as legitimate.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast | wasmormon.org
The whole [seer stone translation] scene is made to appear ludicrous. The CES letter says these are crazy things, and you're saying they're not as ludicrous as they may seem. Why is that? “This is an old Mormon embarrassment, that the seer stone was something that had to be obscured, because it was degrading to think of Joseph Smith as a treasure seeker. That, I think, is a mistaken historical outlook... In 1834, E. D. Howe published a book in which he trotted out all the evidence he could find from the neighbors that the Smiths were practicing money digging. And this was to discredit them. And I think that's the first time that the smiths began to feel like this is something to be embarrassed about. And they began to change the story... And so ever since then, we've been embarrassed by something, and for the Smiths, it was part of everyday life. It wasn't embarrassing at all. In fact, it probably played a large part in their ability to accept the gold plates as legitimate.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast
What was the purpose of the plates if they lay covered on the table while the translation commenced and proceeded? “We don't really have an answer, but they are important... their presence is significant. The problem is we don't know the technology of revealed translation. It's like the Book of Abraham manuscripts. That scholarship seems to show that what was on the scrolls we actually have is not what's in the Book of Abraham. And so the scrolls are like the plates. They're present, but they are not really containing the message. So there's some kind of stimulus or provocation or something that starts the revelatory process... I think it's an error for us to try to figure out how that really works. It's a couple of centuries ahead of us in engineering knowledge.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast | wasmormon.org
What was the purpose of the plates if they lay covered on the table while the translation commenced and proceeded? “We don't really have an answer, but they are important... their presence is significant. The problem is we don't know the technology of revealed translation. It's like the Book of Abraham manuscripts. That scholarship seems to show that what was on the scrolls we actually have is not what's in the Book of Abraham. And so the scrolls are like the plates. They're present, but they are not really containing the message. So there's some kind of stimulus or provocation or something that starts the revelatory process... I think it's an error for us to try to figure out how that really works. It's a couple of centuries ahead of us in engineering knowledge.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast
I think that may make some people nervous, that the church is trying to cover up the truth. How would you help them through something that might cause dissonance like that? “You just have to accept the fact that they didn't want to be made to look silly. Who wants to be made to look silly? So, if Joseph's associated with the wrong class of people, you do your best to make him look better. It wasn't a real lie. It was just subordinating, or retelling the story. Who doesn't retell the stories of their lives to make them look better?” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast | wasmormon.org
I think that may make some people nervous, that the church is trying to cover up the truth. How would you help them through something that might cause dissonance like that? “You just have to accept the fact that they didn't want to be made to look silly. Who wants to be made to look silly? So, if Joseph's associated with the wrong class of people, you do your best to make him look better. It wasn't a real lie. It was just subordinating, or retelling the story. Who doesn't retell the stories of their lives to make them look better?” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast
Some people may have concerns that the history was changed or that the narrative was changed a little bit. How would you help those people recognize the history and what is actually true and how to determine what is changed of the narrative or what is the actual truth of it? “It was changed. The Smiths immediately began trying to bury the fact. Joseph Smith played down his treasure seeking background as just a little episode which Josiah Stowell, just dismissed as something; Lucy Mack did the same. And what's significant is from the Book of Commandments to the Doctrine and Covenants, they changed one of the revelations to insert the word Urim and Thummim. See that's acceptable, desirable, versus seer stone. The church was trying to cover up, in that case, Joseph Smith's involvement with treasure seeking.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast | wasmormon.org
Some people may have concerns that the history was changed or that the narrative was changed a little bit. How would you help those people recognize the history and what is actually true and how to determine what is changed of the narrative or what is the actual truth of it? “It was changed. The Smiths immediately began trying to bury the fact. Joseph Smith played down his treasure seeking background as just a little episode which Josiah Stowell, just dismissed as something; Lucy Mack did the same. And what's significant is from the Book of Commandments to the Doctrine and Covenants, they changed one of the revelations to insert the word Urim and Thummim. See that's acceptable, desirable, versus seer stone. The church was trying to cover up, in that case, Joseph Smith's involvement with treasure seeking.” - Richard Bushman, LDS Historian | Interview on CES Letters (Study & Faith) Podcast

Richard Bushman, Mormon Historian, Concedes to CES Letter Truths on CES Letters Podcast

Richard Bushman concedes to many points Jeremy Runnells brought up in the CES Letter in a discussion on the CES Letters podcast. CES Letters has no affiliation with the CES Letter, but is the latest attempt to debunk it. Richard Bushman is asked a series of questions stemming from the CES Letter, and responds to …

Continue reading “Richard Bushman, Mormon Historian, Concedes to CES Letter Truths on CES Letters Podcast”

"No fair-minded person can deny that the massacre was the result of the teachings of Brigham Young, and that the Mormons in church council decided that the emigrants should be killed as they were afterwards killed." - William W. Bishop, Confidential Attorney of John D. Lee. Mormonism Unveiled; The life and confessions of the late Mormon bishop, John D. Lee. Introduction, Page 19 | wasmormon.org
"No fair-minded person can deny that the massacre was the result of the teachings of Brigham Young, and that the Mormons in church council decided that the emigrants should be killed as they were afterwards killed." - William W. Bishop, Confidential Attorney of John D. Lee. Mormonism Unveiled; The life and confessions of the late Mormon bishop, John D. Lee. Introduction, Page 19
"I claim that Brigham Young is the real criminal, and that John D. Lee was an instrument in his hands. That Brigham Young used John D. Lee, as the assassin uses the dagger, to strike down his unsuspecting victim; and as the assassin throws away the dagger, to avoid its bloody blade leading to his detection, so Brigham Young used John D. Lee to do his horrid work; and when discovery becomes unavoidable, he hurls Lee from him, cuts him away from the Church, and casts him far out into the whirlpool of destruction. The assassin has no further use for his weapon. I also claim that if religious fanaticism can clear a man from crime, that John D. Lee was guiltless, for he was one of the most intensely fanatical Mormons that infested Utah in 1857. But I do not claim that the fact of his being a fanatic and blinded believer of Brigham Young's so-called revelations excused him — far from it." - William W. Bishop, Confidential Attorney of John D. Lee. Mormonism Unveiled; The life and confessions of the late Mormon bishop, John D. Lee. Introduction, Page 19 | wasmormon.org
"I claim that Brigham Young is the real criminal, and that John D. Lee was an instrument in his hands. That Brigham Young used John D. Lee, as the assassin uses the dagger, to strike down his unsuspecting victim; and as the assassin throws away the dagger, to avoid its bloody blade leading to his detection, so Brigham Young used John D. Lee to do his horrid work; and when discovery becomes unavoidable, he hurls Lee from him, cuts him away from the Church, and casts him far out into the whirlpool of destruction. The assassin has no further use for his weapon. I also claim that if religious fanaticism can clear a man from crime, that John D. Lee was guiltless, for he was one of the most intensely fanatical Mormons that infested Utah in 1857. But I do not claim that the fact of his being a fanatic and blinded believer of Brigham Young's so-called revelations excused him — far from it." - William W. Bishop, Confidential Attorney of John D. Lee. Mormonism Unveiled; The life and confessions of the late Mormon bishop, John D. Lee. Introduction, Page 19
“I am told there are some of the brethren who are willing to swear against those who were engaged in that affair. I hope there is no truth in this report. I hope there is no such person here, under the sound of my voice. But if there is, I will tell him my opinion of him, and the fact so far as his fate is concerned. Unless he repent at once of that unholy intention, and keep the secret, he will die a dog's death, and go to hell. I must not hear of any treachery among my people.” - Brigham Young, Cedar City, Speaking of the Mountain Meadows Massacre | wasmormon.org
“I am told there are some of the brethren who are willing to swear against those who were engaged in that affair. I hope there is no truth in this report. I hope there is no such person here, under the sound of my voice. But if there is, I will tell him my opinion of him, and the fact so far as his fate is concerned. Unless he repent at once of that unholy intention, and keep the secret, he will die a dog's death, and go to hell. I must not hear of any treachery among my people.” - Brigham Young, Cedar City, Speaking of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
"The Mormons courageously performed their part of the blood bath, after which they took binding oaths to stand by each other, and to always swear that the massacre was committed by Indians alone. This was the advice of Brigham." - John D. Lee, Participant in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Excommunicated by Brigham Young & Executed by US Marshalls | wasmormon.org
"The Mormons courageously performed their part of the blood bath, after which they took binding oaths to stand by each other, and to always swear that the massacre was committed by Indians alone. This was the advice of Brigham." - John D. Lee, Participant in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Excommunicated by Brigham Young & Executed by US Marshalls
"Read the Book of Mormon with an open mind and heart. As you pray to your Father in Heaven and diligently seek Him within the pages of the Book of Mormon, He will reveal the truth to you in His time and His way. He directed the creation and preservation of this record to fulfill His holy purpose, and you are an important part of that purpose. May you find God on these pages and discover His messages to you." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 5 | wasmormon.org
"Read the Book of Mormon with an open mind and heart. As you pray to your Father in Heaven and diligently seek Him within the pages of the Book of Mormon, He will reveal the truth to you in His time and His way. He directed the creation and preservation of this record to fulfill His holy purpose, and you are an important part of that purpose. May you find God on these pages and discover His messages to you." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 5
"In this book, you will learn of faithful, courageous people who received light and knowledge from heaven. They believed in God. They had faith in Jesus Christ, even centuries before He was born. They made great sacrifices for their faith. They also made mistakes. But they obtained redemption from their sins. And they risked their lives to share the true doctrine of Jesus Christ with others and then preserve His teachings for future generations, including you." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 4 | wasmormon.org
"In this book, you will learn of faithful, courageous people who received light and knowledge from heaven. They believed in God. They had faith in Jesus Christ, even centuries before He was born. They made great sacrifices for their faith. They also made mistakes. But they obtained redemption from their sins. And they risked their lives to share the true doctrine of Jesus Christ with others and then preserve His teachings for future generations, including you." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 4
"It’s called the Book of Mormon because an ancient prophet named Mormon compiled centuries of writings from other prophets into one book. It is subtitled ‘Another Testament of Jesus Christ’ because it bears powerful witness that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who came to earth to suffer and die for the sins of the world—including yours. He wants to heal you of your sins, make you whole again, and prepare you for eternal life with your Heavenly Father." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 3 | wasmormon.org
"It’s called the Book of Mormon because an ancient prophet named Mormon compiled centuries of writings from other prophets into one book. It is subtitled ‘Another Testament of Jesus Christ’ because it bears powerful witness that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who came to earth to suffer and die for the sins of the world—including yours. He wants to heal you of your sins, make you whole again, and prepare you for eternal life with your Heavenly Father." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 3
"Since the beginning of time, God has spoken to His children all over the world. Often they have recorded their experiences and God’s messages to inspire future generations to choose good instead of evil and come to know their Father in Heaven. Some of these records are lost to time. Others may yet be found. One such record was buried in a hillside in around A.D. 400 on the North American continent. Its location was revealed by an angel in 1823. It was translated into modern language by the gift and power of God. That record is the Book of Mormon." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 2 | wasmormon.org
"Since the beginning of time, God has spoken to His children all over the world. Often they have recorded their experiences and God’s messages to inspire future generations to choose good instead of evil and come to know their Father in Heaven. Some of these records are lost to time. Others may yet be found. One such record was buried in a hillside in around A.D. 400 on the North American continent. Its location was revealed by an angel in 1823. It was translated into modern language by the gift and power of God. That record is the Book of Mormon." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 2
"God is your Heavenly Father. He loves you, and there is so much He wants to teach you. He wants you to understand the purpose of your life. He wants to guide you back to His presence. Part of His plan for doing all that was to make this book available to you." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 1 | wasmormon.org
"God is your Heavenly Father. He loves you, and there is so much He wants to teach you. He wants you to understand the purpose of your life. He wants to guide you back to His presence. Part of His plan for doing all that was to make this book available to you." - New Book of Mormon App Introduction, Paragraph 1
"Mr. Cowdery expressed a desire to associate himself with a Methodist Protestant Church of this city. Rev. John Souder and myself were appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Cowdery and confer with him respecting his connection with Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. We accordingly waited on Mr. Cowdery at his residence in Tiffin, and there learned his connection, from him, with that order, and his full and final renunciation thereof... He arose and addressed the audience present, admitted his error and implored forgiveness, and said he was sorry and ashamed of his connection with Mormonism." - Oliver Cowdery, Witness of The Gold Plates | wasmormon.org
"Mr. Cowdery expressed a desire to associate himself with a Methodist Protestant Church of this city. Rev. John Souder and myself were appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Cowdery and confer with him respecting his connection with Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. We accordingly waited on Mr. Cowdery at his residence in Tiffin, and there learned his connection, from him, with that order, and his full and final renunciation thereof... He arose and addressed the audience present, admitted his error and implored forgiveness, and said he was sorry and ashamed of his connection with Mormonism." - Oliver Cowdery, Witness of The Gold Plates
“If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints.” - David Whitmer, Witness of The Golden Plates | wasmormon.org
“If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints.” - David Whitmer, Witness of The Golden Plates