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 190 pages are in this category, out of 595 total.
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- 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"
- Sorenson: "The Miami Indians, for example, were unfamiliar with the buffalo and simply called them 'wild cows'"
- Sorenson: "There is an animal which they call chic, wonderfully active, as large as a small dog, with a snout like a sucking pig. The Indian women raise them"
- Sorenson: Horse bones in Yucatan "considered to be pre-Columbian on the basis of depth of burial and degree of mineralization"
- Sorenson: Linen and silk textiles in ancient America
- Sorenson: The grain "Amaranth" in Mexico
- Source: David Whitmer literal experience quotes
- Source: Hyrum Smith's character
- Source: Martin Harris literal experience quotes
- Source: Oliver Cowdery literal experience quotes
- Source: Testimony of Eight Witnesses
- Source: Testimony of Three Witnesses
- Source:David Whitmer Three Witness statements
- Source:Hiram Page Eight Witnesses statements
- Source:Hyrum Smith Eight Witnesses statements
- Source:Jacob Whitmer Eight Witnesses statements
- Source:John Whitmer Eight Witnesses statements
- Source:Joint Eight Witnesses statements
- Source:Martin Harris Three Witness statements
- Source:Samuel Smith Eight Witnesses statements
- Southerton (2008/2014): "It's true that if a small group (say 10 people) entered a massive population (say 1 million), that it would be hard to detect their mitochondrial or Y chromosome DNA"
- Statement by The Council of the First Presidency and The Quorum of the Twelve on Church Discipline
- Stephen Burnett on Martin Harris: "But he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain"
- Stephen E. Robinson: "Yet another way in which anti-Mormon critics often misrepresent LDS doctrine is in the presentation of anomalies as though they were the doctrine of the Church"
T
- The Apocalypse of Abraham: "Go out from thy father Terah, and get thee out from the house, that thou also be not slain"
- The Joseph Smith Papers: "Several later documents suggest that several women who were already married to other men were, like Marinda Hyde, married or sealed to Joseph Smith"
- The Joseph Smith Papers: "The historical preamble to the 1830 'articles and covenants,'...appears to reference JS’s vision in speaking of a moment when 'it truly was manifested unto this first elder, that he had received a remission of his sins'"
- The Palmyra Reflector (1831): "Jo Smith had now received a commission from God...Cowdery and his friends had frequent interviews with angels"
- The witness of Christian Whitmer
- The witness of Joseph Smith Sr.
- The witness of Peter Whitmer Jr.
- Truman Madsen: "Among readers who came to the Book of Mormon with hard, skeptical assumptions, B.H. Roberts is notable"
W
- W.W. Phelps (1833): "through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles—(known, perhaps, in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim)"
- Wikipedia: Amaranth and the Aztecs
- Wikipedia: Bighorn sheep "crossed to North America over the Bering land bridge"
- Wikipedia: Mammoths "were members of the family Elephantidae"
- Wilford Woodruff (1869): "We had the privilege of beholding the face of the prophet...and seeing the workings of the Spirit of God with him, and the revelations of Jesus Christ unto him and the fulfilment of those revelations"
- William Smith (1883): "he escaped to the house and brought the plates with him, wrapped up in a tow frock. He could not permit us to see them, because he said the angel told him not to do so"
- William Smith (1884): "When the plates were brought in they were wrapped up in a tow frock. My father then put them into a pillow case. Father said, 'What, Joseph, can we not see them?'"
- William Smith (1893): "I did not see them uncovered, but I handled them and hefted them while wrapped in a tow frock and judged them to have weighed about sixty pounds"
- Woodruff (1842): "The Lord is Blessing Joseph with Power to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom of God; to translate through the urim & Thummim Ancient records & Hyeroglyphics as old as Abraham or Adam"