CES Letter vs Book of Mormon | LDS Discussions 63 | Ep. 2035

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2025

⏱️ 130 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, we dive deep into the attacks on the CES Letter and its author, Jeremy Runnells, unpacking why apologetic responses—no matter how weak—are often accepted by believing members. This is the first in a multi-part series analyzing the LDS Discussions CES Letter project.We tackle critical questions about the Book of Mormon, including:-Why does it contain errors from the 1769 King James Bible?-What about the italicized words from the KJV showing up in the text?-Why doesn’t the Book of Mormon match Joseph Smith’s own translation of the Bible?-What does DNA evidence say about the Book of Mormon narrative?-And how do apologists handle the serious anachronisms in the text?Along the way, we explore FAIR Mormon’s increasingly irrelevant defenses, the hidden Gospel Topics Essays, and shifting church narratives.This is an essential deep-dive for anyone curious about Mormonism’s truth claims, historical issues, and the apologetics surrounding them.Join the conversation and subscribe for future episodes in this CES Letter series.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast, LDS Discussions Edition.
0:06.2	I'm your host, Dr. John DeLinn. It's Monday, January 2nd, 2025. And today, we are doing a new LDS discussions episode called The Book of Mormon as depicted in the CES letter. Really quickly, let me just explain
0:25.3	what the LDS discussion series is. Forgive us, those of you who know what it is, but one of
0:30.3	the reasons why we're continuing to add to the LDS discussion series is because we're getting
0:35.1	new viewers and listeners all the time.
0:37.9	So for those who don't know, the background several years ago, a really brilliant
0:42.3	Mormon questioning Mormon named Mike, that's a pseudonym, started a website called
0:48.6	LDS Discussions.
0:50.3	He is a convert to the church.
0:52.3	And after he converted to the church, married his Mormon wife and had kids.
0:56.4	He learned a bunch of stuff about Mormon church truth claims that he really wished he had been told before he joined the church.
1:04.0	And so he put up this website called Eldius Discussions where he dug deep into 30, 40 topics that people who cared about the truth would want to learn about.
1:16.5	And we're talking, you know, Golden Plates, Book of Mormon translation, Book of Abraham,
1:22.1	the Witnesses, all this stuff.
1:24.2	Put it in a website called Eldiest Discussions.com.
1:27.2	And then we cut a deal with
1:29.3	him to bring him on Mormon stories and to do, I don't know, a 40 or 50 episode series. And so that's
1:34.7	what we did. It's basically me and Mike and Nemo and Julia and sometimes the special guests
1:40.9	exploring LDS Church Truth Claims, evidence-based, and as objectively as we're
1:47.7	able to be. It's definitely the most important, one of the most important things Mormon stories
1:52.1	has ever done. It's consistently listed as the most important influencer for people trying to
1:58.8	figure out whether the Mormon Church's truth claims are true or not.
	...

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