The CES letter was popular because it was a PDF

[sock puppet]

If the Mopes had good arguments to refute the points made in the CES Letter, then a similar style treatise, with similar tone and approach would be an effective rebuttal. But, that is a big "if" as there are not good refutations. That is why the Mopes have been ineffective in countering the CES Letter. That the CES Letter is now being assailed for its digital format, i.e., .pdf, shows just how utterly helpless the Mopes are in the face of the CES Letter.

[Doctor Scratch]

In all seriousness, I do think that the CES Letter's "packaging" was part of what made it successful. It's put together like a well-designed PowerPoint, with easy-to-follow visuals, and that, coupled with its basic premise--i.e., that these were "troubling" questions that were posed to an actual Church Educational System authority figure--is what set it apart from other online iterations of the same basic issue.

The Mopologists aren't wrong when they say that these issues have been around for decades. They're also not wrong when they say that the issues have been "dealt with" before. The problem is that they fail to see that their responses have been completely ineffective. You've got Hales et al. saying, "Gee, if only FARMS had been around!" Well, again, as has been pointed out, all the main FARMS players were still around and active when the CES Letter came out, and they didn't do anything. Not that it would have mattered. While Hales and people like him might have been convinced by the Mopologists, I doubt that the average member would be. A major problem with Mopologetic entities like FARMS, FAIR, and Interpreter is that they have bad reputations. Even if your first introduction to them is positive, and they seem to be supplying could responses to the issues, a few quick Google searches will show you in a hurry that these are not nice people.

And at the end of the day, I don't know that there is *ever* going to be a good answer to some of the issues. I mean, if there is no hard evidence for Book of Mormon historicity, then no amount of spin-doctoring is ever going to "fix" the problem. The Church would be better off backing off from the whole idea that the Book of Mormon is "real" history and instead embracing the idea of "inspired fiction," but they staunchly refuse to do that, and hardcore Mopologists like DCP have said that they would leave the Church if the Brethren ever made such a declaration. So, instead, you get a situation where Church orthodoxy continues to insist that the Book of Mormon is "real history" but any digging is going to show that there is pretty much zero empirical evidence to support that claim. And turning to FAIR/FARMS/Interpreter, etc., is only going to show how much of an elaborate smoke screen these guys have been kicking up for decades (plus their fundamental cruelty and unpleasantness). So, the CES Letter will continue to have traction for the simple reason that it doesn't shrug off the fundamental problem.

You couple that with how *demanding* the Church can be in terms of the time and money commitments it expects, and yeah: people are going to keep leaving, because it still feels like they're being lied to and deceived.

[bill4long]

It's popular because it's concise, hard hitting, and overwhelmingly correct.

[sock puppet]

It's popular because it's concise, hard hitting, and overwhelmingly correct.

Indeed. And for the reasons Dr Scratch has just pointed out two posts above, that the Mopes are grasping at straws like trying to castigate the CES letter for being effective due to its .pdf format instead of its content illustrates just how desperately ineffective their previous attempts to rebut it have been. It signals that the Mopes implicitly acknowledge that they cannot effectively refute the CES Letter, which yet has legs 12 years after the first version came out. In poker playing parlance, DCP, "you're down to ride, pal."

[Marcus]

...And at the end of the day, I don't know that there is *ever* going to be a good answer to some of the issues. I mean, if there is no hard evidence for Book of Mormon historicity, then no amount of spin-doctoring is ever going to "fix" the problem. The Church would be better off backing off from the whole idea that the Book of Mormon is "real" history and instead embracing the idea of "inspired fiction," but they staunchly refuse to do that, and hardcore Mopologists like DCP have said that they would leave the Church if the Brethren ever made such a declaration. So, instead, you get a situation where Church orthodoxy continues to insist that the Book of Mormon is "real history" but any digging is going to show that there is pretty much zero empirical evidence to support that claim. And turning to FAIR/FARMS/Interpreter, etc., is only going to show how much of an elaborate smoke screen these guys have been kicking up for decades (plus their fundamental cruelty and unpleasantness). So, the CES Letter will continue to have traction for the simple reason that it doesn't shrug off the fundamental problem...

Speaking of their elaborate smoke screen, it is extremely off-putting to read their pseudo-academic offerings. You frequently will see that the author is an academic at an LDS university, but even so, their footnotes will be filled with misdirection, inaccuracies, and truncated quotes that change the meaning of their sources. I've seen arguments put forward as fact, when the footnote just indicates they are quoting their OWN opinion from another (non-academically published) piece!

Their pretense at academically sound publishing is laughable and only undermines their case further. I can't believe how many LDS academics have such shoddy research habits. It ultimately comes back to the fact that they cannot reasonably support things for which no such reasonable support exists, but they keep embarrassing themselves by trying.

[Gadianton]

I hope John and Dan are okay with me thanking Tom on behalf of public square mag for the corrections he provided. Feel free, John and Dan, to use Tom's corrections to improve your essay while at the same time claiming the critics from elsewhere just posted laughing faces and pot shots. That's totally honest.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I am reminded of some wise words from Mark Twain: “An anti-Mormon work in PDF can travel halfway around the world before The FARMS Review can publish multiple hit pieces against that PDF.”

A few notes and questions:

What triggered the wide dissemination of the CES Letter? Examining a perfect storm of tech, naïvété, and scholarly silence.

Add church silence and lack of transparency as well as inadequate responses from apologists.

Organized by Dr. John W. Welch in 1979, FARMS consisted of an informal collaboration of academics devoted to Latter-day Saint historical scholarship.

I wasn’t aware that John Welch had a doctorate. Which school awarded it? What was the title of his dissertation?

In 1998, President Gordon B. Hinckley of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints formally invited FARMS to join Brigham Young University.

I’m not sure the date is accurate. The October 1997 issue of Insights reported that FARMS had “received an invitation from President Gordon B. Hinckley and the BYU Board of Trustees to have FARMS become part of Brigham Young University.”

Yet less than a decade afterward, there was a significant change, as the entity was subsumed by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship (NAMI) and effectively disbanded.

Why was FARMS subsumed by the Maxwell Institute and effectively disbanded? Who made the decision to make that change? What impacts did this change have on The FARMS Review?

Prior to this, FARMS’ association with BYU (sponsored and funded by the Church, during the 2000s) gave these advocates of the faith much-needed backing and resources that contributed to an ever more effective defense of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Did “these advocates of the faith” lose BYU’s backing and resources in 2010?

“Those guys were warriors,” remarked one prominent Church defender—a common sentiment.

Who is the unnamed “prominent Church defender”?

The effectiveness of this concentrated defense of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from a strong professional, academic, and faith foundation was powerfully illustrated in the aftermath of Grant Palmer’s 2003 [sic] anti-Latter-day Saint book: An Insiders [sic] View of Mormon Origins.

Palmer’s book was published in 2002.

On June 1, 2004, four separate reviews of Mr. Palmer’s book were simultaneously published in the journal’s “Review of Books.”

The reviews were published in The FARMS Review. I’m not certain about the source of the cited publication date of June 1, 2004.

All of these “heavy hitter” reviewers possessed PhDs, several of them in history.

This sentence is inaccurate. Ashurst-McGee did not possess a PhD when his review was published.

Dr. Stephen [sic] C. Harper’s Trustworthy History? incisively demonstrated the manipulation of data and evidence Mr. Palmer engaged in to support his Church-hostile thesis while highlighting significant scholars, topics, and sources the critic had selectively ignored.

It’s Steven C. Harper.

Six months later, on January 1, 2005, the FARMS Review released a fifth review of Palmer’s book: Asked and Answered: A Response to Grant H. Palmer, by Dr. James B. Allen—focusing on Palmer’s individual criticisms of the Book of Mormon.

Again, I don’t know the source of the cited publication date. It is true that Dr. Allen’s review featured a large section on the Book of Mormon, but Allen also responded to Palmer’s examinations of the priesthood restoration and accounts of the First Vision.

Over subsequent years, Grant Palmer’s book was generally ineffective in persuading others to leave the faith or remain away from it—except among some of the more uninformed or already hardened detractors of the Church. Its faith-draining influence, over time, became a blip.

What hard data are the authors using to measure the impact of Palmer’s book?

Runnells’ letter was released in the spring of 2013. Why didn’t the Interpreter Foundation or FAIR release a comprehensive response in PDF later that year?

Thank you Tom and may God bless you for your efforts in editing this sloppy and ridiculous article.

[Doctor Scratch]

I hope John and Dan are okay with me thanking Tom on behalf of public square mag for the corrections he provided. Feel free, John and Dan, to use Tom's corrections to improve your essay while at the same time claiming the critics from elsewhere just posted laughing faces and pot shots. That's totally honest.

I think that Dan is too busy erupting with rage over the fact that someone would dare criticize his God and Idol, William F. Buckley.

[Physics Guy]

As far as I remember, the CES letter doesn’t overtly push a conclusion that the LDS church is false and horrible. It just presents a set of difficult questions and leaves them there. As a critical approach, I think this is an instance of less being more.

[Markk]

As far as I remember, the CES letter doesn’t overtly push a conclusion that the LDS church is false and horrible. It just presents a set of difficult questions and leaves them there. As a critical approach, I think this is an instance of less being more.

34 or so years ago when I first started questioning the truth claims...."less" was so much "more." learning things like Joseph and men on the Moon, or Brigham teaching folks on the sun, Adieu being in the Book of Mormon, or Joseph drinking wine and smoking before his death. Little things like that were huge to me. At that time me trying to grasp the Book of Abraham, or the deep Vogel and Metcalf stuff was way out of my bandwidth at the time.

The fact that I had never heard of or remotely entertained anything other than what I was taught, was in all reality "shocking." I couldn't sleep for a few days. I believe you are correct in asserting less being more with the letter. I'll add that coming from a humble source, Jeremy, added to it having effect. Reading the "Tanners" stuff 34 years ago, which is all the CES letter stuff is, was like reading a book by Satan, and just reading it was enough to be ex'd.