FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Category:Letter to a CES Director
The following wiki pages are included in the response to "Letter to a CES Director."
Pages in category "Letter to a CES Director"
The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 595 total.
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- Question: Was Apostle Orson Hyde sent on a mission to dedicate Israel so that Joseph Smith could secretly marry his wife, Marinda Hyde, while he was away?
- Question: Was Captain Kidd "hanged for crimes allegedly committed in the vicinity of Moroni on Grand Comoro?"
- Question: Was Emma aware of the possibility that Joseph could take additional wives even without her consent?
- Question: Was Helen Mar Kimball's marriage to Joseph Smith ever consummated?
- Question: Was Joseph Smith ever charged with adultery under Illinois law?
- Question: Was Joseph Smith married or sealed to women who were already married to other living men?
- Question: Was Joseph Smith sealed or married to other men's wives without the knowledge or consent of their husband?
- Question: Was Martin Harris a gullible witness who would simply believe anything he was told?
- Question: Was Oliver Cowdery aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy in 1835 at the time he authored the "Article on Marriage"?
- Question: Was President Hinckley suspicious that the Salamander letter might not be authentic?
- Question: Was the ''History of the Church'' falsified when "first visitation of Angels" was changed to "my first vision"?
- Question: Was the ''View of the Hebrews'' theory of Book of Mormon origin advanced during the lifetime of Joseph Smith?
- Question: Was the beginning of the Book of Mormon derived from ''The First Book of Napoleon''?
- Question: Was the Book of Mormon description of a cataclysm at the time of Christ's death derived from a similar description in Gilbert Hunt's ''The Late War''?
- Question: Was the Book of Mormon description of the Liahona derived from Gilbert Hunt's ''The Late War''?
- Question: Was the Book of Mormon phrase "it came to pass" derived from Gilbert Hunt's ''The Late War''?
- Question: Was the Church forthright in identifying the rediscovered papyri prior to their examination by non-LDS Egyptologists?
- Question: Was the Limited Geography model created in response to DNA claims?
- Question: Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?
- Question: Was the original head of the priest in Book of Abraham Facsimile 1 actually the jackal head of Anubis?
- Question: Was the practice of polygamy general knowledge among Latter-day Saints in 1835 when the "Article on Marriage" was published?
- Question: Was the priest depicted in Book of Abraham Facsimile 1 holding a knife or was it some other object?
- Question: Was the priesthood ban lifted as the result of social or government pressure?
- Question: Was the revelation comprising the current Doctrine and Covenants 27 altered to include mention of the priesthood restoration?
- Question: Was there no death on the entire earth before the Fall?
- Question: Was Thomas Stuart Ferguson an archaeologist?
- Question: Were any of the changes to the Book of Mormon made in reaction to sectarian criticism?
- Question: Were plural wives forced into the marriage?
- Question: Were the changes to the revelations hidden from the Church members?
- Question: Were the Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon simply plagiarized from the King James Bible?
- Question: Were the names "Moroni" and "Cumorah" available on maps accessible to Joseph Smith?
- Question: Were the Three Nephites of the Book of Mormon based upon three of the "lying prophets among the savages" in Gilbert Hunt's ''The Late War''?
- Question: Were there any similar cases under Illinois adultery statute which demonstrate that Joseph was not breaking the law?
- Question: Were women put under "tremendous pressure" to accept a proposal of plural marriage?
- Question: What about those who pray and don't receive a confirmation the Book of Mormon is true?
- Question: What archaeological evidence might be considered the minimal irrefutable proof needed to convince a non-believing world of the authenticity of the Nephite scripture?
- Question: What are the criticisms regarding Joseph's interpretation of specific textual elements of Facsimile 3?
- Question: What are the criticisms related to Book of Abraham Facsimile 1?
- Question: What are the criticisms related to Facsimile 3?
- Question: What are the criticisms related to Joseph Smith's accounts of the First Vision?
- Question: What are the differences between the Strangite witness statements and those of the Three and Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon?
- Question: What are the Hofmann forgeries and the Salamander Letter?
- Question: What are the Kinderhook Plates?
- Question: What are the Nephite interpreters?
- Question: What are the reasons for the changes to the Doctrine and Covenants?
- Question: What are the similarities and differences between ''View of the Hebrews'' and the Book of Mormon?
- Question: What are the two 1835 First Vision accounts that refer to angels?
- Question: What changes have been made to the ''Gospel Principles'' manual regarding the question of death on the earth before the Fall of Adam?
- Question: What changes were made to the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon?
- Question: What changes were made to the Doctrine and Covenants?
- Question: What Church sources discuss either the use of the seer stone or the stone and the hat as part of the Book of Mormon translation process?
- Question: What criticisms are associated with the temple ritual and its relationship to Freemasonry?
- Question: What criticisms are put forth regarding the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood?
- Question: What did B.H. Roberts say about ''View of the Hebrews'' and the Book of Mormon?
- Question: What did Church leaders after Brigham Young think of the priesthood ban?
- Question: What did contemporary witnesses have to say about the Book of Mormon translation process?
- Question: What did critics of the Church during Joseph Smith's lifetime think of the 1826 court hearing?
- Question: What did David Whitmer's associates say about his character?
- Question: What did James Henry Moyle say about his visit to David Whitmer?
- Question: What did Martin Harris's non-Mormon associates say about his character?
- Question: What did Oliver Cowdery say about his witness experience after Joseph died?
- Question: What did Oliver Cowdery's associates say about his character?
- Question: What did Orson Hyde, the husband of Marinda Nancy Johnson, know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the Book of Mormon witnesses mean when they used the word "supernatural" to describe their experiences?
- Question: What did the Church announce in 1968 when the Joseph Smith papyri fragments were discovered?
- Question: What did the husband of Elizabeth Davis know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Elvira Annie Cowles know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Esther Dutcher know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Mary Elizabeth Rollins know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Mary Heron know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Patty Bartlett know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Presendia L. Huntington know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Ruth Vose Sayers know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Sarah Ann Whitney know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Sarah Kingsley know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the husband of Zina D. Huntington know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?
- Question: What did the other witnesses say regarding "spiritual" versus "natural" viewing of the plates?
- Question: What do the italicized words in the Bible represent, and why is it relevant to the Book of Mormon?
- Question: What do the Joseph Smith papyri fragments consist of?
- Question: What do we find in Mesoamerican archaeology with respect to place names, such as city names?
- Question: What do we find when we turn to the records of the ancient (i.e. before A.D. 400) Americas?
- Question: What do we know about the origin of the priesthood ban on Church members of African descent?
- Question: What does ''The Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young'' say about Brigham's wives?
- Question: What does Joseph's attempt to translate the Kinderhook Plates tell us about his "gift of translation?"
- Question: What does the Church teach on the subject of death before the Fall of Adam?
- Question: What does the lion couch scene in Book of Abraham Facsimile 1 normally represent?
- Question: What events resulted in Joseph Smith's 1826 court appearance in South Bainbridge?
- Question: What happened to Josiah Stowell? Did he conclude he had been defrauded after the court hearing?
- Question: What happened to the original Book of Mormon manuscript?
- Question: What happened to the papyri after Joseph's death?
- Question: What have been the responses to Joseph's interpretations of Facsimile 3?
- Question: What if the "rod of nature" was indeed a physical object such as a divining rod?
- Question: What is "empirical evidence"?
- Question: What is "loan-shifting"?
- Question: What is "Polyandry?"
- Question: What is Joseph Smith's 1826 South Bainbridge "trial" for "glasslooking"?
- Question: What is Lorenzo Snow claimed to have said about plural marriages being adultery prior to 1843?
- Question: What is Moroni's promise?
- Question: What is the Adam-God Theory?
- Question: What is the Book of Mormon "printer's manuscript" and why is it entirely in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery?
- Question: What is the Church's position on Adam and Eve?
- Question: What is the correct interpretation of Facsimile 3?
- Question: What is the date of the restoration of the Melchizedek Priesthood?
- Question: What is the difference between the "curse" and the "mark" of the Lamanites?
- Question: What is the history of name changes of the Church?
- Question: What is the light which comes from the presence of God?
- Question: What is the Limited Geography Theory and model?
- Question: What is the origin of the modern horse in the New World?
- Question: What is the relationship between Captain Kidd and the Comoro archipelago?
- Question: What is the relationship of the Joseph Smith Papyri to the Book of Abraham?
- Question: What is the Strengthening Church Members Committee?
- Question: What is the value of a ritual presentation?
- Question: What message does the Book of Mormon translation painting convey?
- Question: What names did the Church go by prior to the revelation which established the correct one?
- Question: What references to the First Vision exist in published documents from the 1830s?
- Question: What religious excitement was occurring in Palmyra in 1820?
- Question: What role do horses ''not'' play in the Book of Mormon?
- Question: What statements did Joseph Smith make about religious excitement in the area of Palmyra?
- Question: What was Joseph Smith's motivation for going to the grove to pray in 1820?
- Question: What was known about steel in ancient America?
- Question: What was the Lamanite curse?
- Question: What was the nature of Joseph Smith's "polyandrous" marriages?
- Question: What was the state of things on the Earth prior to the placement of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?
- Question: What were Helen Mar Kimball's views on plural marriage?
- Question: When did God tell David Whitmer to separate himself from the Latter-day Saints?
- Question: When did Joseph Smith demonstrate knowledge of the elements of the endowment ritual?
- Question: When was Lucy Mack Smith baptized?
- Question: When was the "Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language" produced?
- Question: Where did 19th-Century Latter-day Saints believe that Freemasonry came from?
- Question: Where was the Melchizedek Priesthood restored?
- Question: Which method of translation was more "believable": seer stone or Nephite interpreters?
- Question: Who are the "September Six"?
- Question: Who is this Egyptian god "Min"?
- Question: Who made the changes to the Doctrine and Covenants?
- Question: Who was Paul H. Dunn and what happened to him?
- Question: Why are horses considered an anachronism in the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Why are many of the quotes from Isaiah in the Book of Mormon identical to those in the King James Bible?
- Question: Why are Old Testament penalties for disobedience so harsh?
- Question: Why are people concerned about Church artwork?
- Question: Why are revelations no longer published on an ongoing basis?
- Question: Why did Brigham Young initiate the priesthood ban?
- Question: Why did Elder Boyd K. Packer state that "Some things that are true are not very useful"?
- Question: Why did Elder Dunn exaggerate elements of these stories?
- Question: Why did Joseph keep the doctrine of plural marriage private?
- Question: Why did Joseph Smith make changes to the Book of Mormon such as modifying "God" to read "the Son of God"?
- Question: Why did Joseph Smith say "I had not been married scarcely five minutes...before it was reported that I had seven wives"?
- Question: Why did Joseph Smith state the he was visited by two personages and then just five days later say that he was visited by angels?
- Question: Why did President Tanner say: "When the prophet speaks the debate is over"?
- Question: Why did several years pass before Oliver Cowdery talked about the priesthood restoration?
- Question: Why did the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants include a statement of marriage that denied the practice of polygamy at a time when some were actually practicing it?
- Question: Why did the Church modify the introduction to the Book of Mormon from "principal ancestors" to "among the ancestors?"
- Question: Why did the Nauvoo City Council feel it was necessary to destroy the ''Nauvoo Expositor''?
- Question: Why did the Prophet construct the 1832 narrative in a manner such as to exclude explicit mention of the Father's appearance?
- Question: Why didn't God simply preserve Nephi's life using divine power instead of requiring him to kill Laban?
- Question: Why didn't the newspapers in Palmyra take notice of Joseph Smith's First Vision?
- Question: Why do critics of Mormonism who belong to other religions discount spiritual experiences?
- Question: Why do we continue to use such a participatory style of teaching in the 21st century?
- Question: Why does "Nahom" constitute archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Why does ''History of the Church'' say that Joseph Smith said "I have translated a portion of them..."?
- Question: Why does 2 Nephi 19:1 change the word "sea" in Isaiah 9 to "Red Sea"?
- Question: Why does Isaiah in the Book of Mormon not match the Dead Sea Scrolls?
- Question: Why does Joseph Smith state in his 1832 First Vision account that he was in his "16th year" of age?
- Question: Why does Joseph Smith's 1832 account of the First Vision not mention two personages?
- Question: Why does Joseph Smith's 9 November 1835 account of the First Vision mention "many angels?"
- Question: Why does the Book of Abraham state that it was written by Abraham's "own hand upon papyrus" if the papyri date to after the Abrahamic period?
- Question: Why does the Church teach that the flood was a global event?
- Question: Why does the non-Mormon eyewitness say that the "Egyptian Alphabet" was "from the plates which the Book of Mormon was translated"?
- Question: Why doesn't the art match details which have been repeatedly spelled out in Church publications?
- Question: Why don't potential pre-Columbian horse remains in the New World receive greater attention from scientists?
- Question: Why have Church leaders taught a hemispheric geography for the Book of Mormon rather than a limited one?
- Question: Why is the statement of William Clayton regarding the Kinderhook Plates in ''History of the Church'' written as if Joseph Smith himself said it?
- Question: Why isn't the temple ceremony based upon an earlier version of Freemasonry rather than what existed in Joseph Smith's time?
- Question: Why should the poor and destitute pay tithing?
- Question: Why was Joseph fined if he wasn't found guilty of anything?
- Question: Why was the name "Cumorah" originally spelled "Camorah" in the 1830 Book of Mormon?
- Question: Why were the gold plates needed at all if they weren't used directly during the translation process?
- Question: Why would a loving God kill the firstborn of Egypt?
- Question: Why would a loving God would kill innocent children in the flood of Noah's day?
- Question: Why would God send poisonous serpents to kill the Children of Israel?
- Question: Why would Joseph be sealed to the wife of someone who was not only married to someone else, but pregnant with her husband's child?
- Question: Why would Joseph Smith incorporate Masonic elements into the temple ritual?
- Question: Why would Joseph Smith use a non-religious vehicle for presenting a temple ordinance?
- Question: Why would Joseph Smith use the same stone for translating the Book of Mormon that he used for "money digging"?
- Question: Why would Martin Harris use the phrases "eye of faith" or "spiritual eye" to describe his visionary experience?
- Question: Why would the Church remove or alter elements of the temple ceremony if these ceremonies were revealed by God?
- Question: Will God really deny us eternal salvation simply because we do not practice a set of, as some critics put it, "archaic medieval Masonic rituals" in Mormon temples?
- Question:Did the Jaredites bring swarms of bees across the ocean in their barges
R
- Revelations in Context on history.lds.org: "Cowdery was among those who believed in and used a divining rod"
- Reverend Taggart (1833): "Joe Smith...told them he had seen Jesus Christ and the Apostles and conversed with them, and that he could perform miracles"
- Robert D. Hales (2013): "Gaining a testimony and becoming converted begins with study and prayer, then living the gospel with patience and persistence"
- Roper: "archaeologists have discovered a carburized iron sword near Jericho"
- Roper: "Critics of the Book of Mormon have claimed that the limited geography is only a late, desperate attempt to defend the Book of Mormon"
- Roper: "For example, an iron knife was found in an eleventh century Philistine tomb showed evidence of deliberate carburization"
S
- Seminary Manual (2013): "Joseph Smith emphasized different aspects of his vision in his multiple accounts"
- Seminary Teacher Resource Manual: "We have no knowledge that plural marriage will be a requirement for exaltation"
- Sorenson: "By 1400 BC, smiths in Armenia had discovered how to carburize iron by prolonged heating in contact with carbon"
- Sorenson: "Iron use was documented in the statements of early Spaniards, who told of the Aztecs using iron-studded clubs"
- Sorenson: "Lumps of hematite, magnetite, and ilmenite were brought into Valley of Oaxaca"