The Great Falling Away
Apostasy & Restoration
The biblical and historical case for apostasy, restoration, priesthood authority, and modern revelation.
Completed responses
27 claims
Open the claim as it is normally framed, use the short answer when time is tight, and move into the full case when the conversation deserves it.
What do Latter-day Saints mean by the Great Apostasy?
The "gates of Hades" in Matthew 16:18 are the power of death, not a guarantee that every later church office would continue without interruption. Christ broke those gates through His Resurrection. The verse promises death will not hold His people; it does not settle the separate historical question of apostolic authority.
How could Nephi quote Isaiah 48 and 49?
Most critical scholars date Isaiah 40 through 55 to the Babylonian exile, which creates a real chronological question for the Book of Mormon. That conclusion is a historical reconstruction, not a manuscript labeled "Deutero-Isaiah." Latter-day Saint responses include earlier Isaianic material, later editorial development, and revelatory translation. None should be presented as settled proof.
Did B. H. Roberts disprove the Book of Mormon?
B. H. Roberts investigated difficult Book of Mormon questions and presented them forcefully to Church leaders. That is not evidence he secretly disproved the book. His later public sermons continued to affirm the Book of Mormon as an ancient witness of Christ. His work shows that a believer can press hard questions without pretending they are harmless.
Did Joseph Smith borrow the Book of Mormon from nineteenth-century sources?
Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews shares a theory of Israelite ancestry in the Americas. Gilbert Hunt’s The Late War and Alma 53 both describe two thousand volunteers. Read the passages side by side to see what matches and what differs. The evidence here establishes resemblance and leaves direct borrowing unresolved.
What does archaeology tell us about the Book of Mormon?
Archaeology establishes that ancient Americans built cities, wrote records, and fought wars. Identifying a Book of Mormon city or people calls for more specific evidence. A missing find weighs against a proposed geography when the model predicts a trace that researchers could reasonably have found.
What did the Book of Mormon witnesses say?
The witnesses are not a substitute for faith, but they are historical evidence. The Three described an angelic encounter, while the Eight described handling a physical object. Several later broke with Joseph Smith, yet none is known to have withdrawn the published testimony.
Can wordprints identify who wrote the Book of Mormon?
Wordprints can detect differences in writing style. One study matched chapters to Rigdon or Spalding from a fixed list that left out Joseph Smith. A reanalysis let chapters match none of the named candidates, and 175 of 239 did. A style shift during dictation merits testing, but identifying its author takes comparable writing samples and independent historical evidence.
Did early Christian creeds change apostolic teaching?
The creeds matter in Christian history, but their technical language is later than the New Testament. A Latter-day Saint asks whether a creedal formula is the only possible reading of the biblical text, not whether thoughtful Christians had reasons for adopting it.
Did David Whitmer walk back his testimony to John Murphy?
Murphy reported that Whitmer compared his experience to a spiritual impression. Whitmer’s 1881 proclamation reaffirmed the published testimony and left the reported dialogue about the angel’s appearance unanswered. A separate 1881 interview records Whitmer describing plates and a voice in detail. His 1887 Address reprints the proclamation while answering claims in two encyclopedias.
Does the Anthon episode date 2 Nephi 27?
Isaiah uses a sealed book to picture a vision people cannot understand. Second Nephi develops that image into a scene involving a physical record. The sources support Harris’s 1828 visit. They disagree over what Anthon said and leave the origin of the parallel open.
What is the evidence for horses in Book of Mormon times?
The Book of Mormon names horses in settings dated to its narrative period. The strongest objection is that horses native to the Americas are generally understood to have disappeared near the end of the Pleistocene, thousands of years before the Book of Mormon’s earliest setting, while modern domestic horses returned with Spanish colonization. That is a genuine historical difficulty. The picture is more nuanced than “horses were never in the Americas.” Horses evolved in North America and lived here during the Ice Age. A 2022 study from Rancho Carabanchel in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, argues that extinct horse species may have survived locally into the Holocene, including contexts with dates that overlap Book of Mormon times. But the relevant older horse bones were not directly radiocarbon dated: they lacked enough collagen, so researchers dated nearby charcoal, wood, or other material. The authors argue the layers were not mixed; the dates still do not prove that an individual horse lived at those precise dates. Nor do they show that such horses were domesticated or used as the Book of Mormon describes. Keep that finding separate from Loltún Cave in Yucatán. A 2026 study directly dated four Loltún horse remains to about 16,400–23,000 years ago and concluded that earlier horse-bone/Maya-artifact associations resulted from later cave disturbance. Those dates are Pleistocene, not Maya-era.
When did Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery report the priesthood restoration?
The 1835 revelation added the names of Peter, James, and John. Joseph Smith had already mentioned receiving priesthood through angels in 1832. In 1834 Oliver Cowdery described both a vision and receiving baptismal authority under an angel’s hand. Those records show how the accounts became more specific. They leave the date of the visit by Peter, James, and John open.
What does Zelph tell us about Book of Mormon geography?
Joseph Smith connected burial mounds along Zion’s Camp’s route in Illinois with the Book of Mormon. Companions also report that he identified remains as a Lamanite named Zelph. Taking those accounts seriously gives an Illinois connection to explain. Locating the final battle or the main setting of the Book of Mormon requires more evidence.
Did Michael Coe disprove the Book of Mormon with archaeology?
Michael Coe praised the archaeological work in Chiapas and concluded that excavations had not corroborated Book of Mormon history. Later LiDAR surveys mapped Maya settlements. Connecting them to the text still requires evidence for the people, place, and dates a proposed geography predicts.
Do early bishops disprove the Great Apostasy?
Early Christians did have successors in ministry. First Clement defends approved replacements for ministers, and Irenaeus uses succession lists to show how apostolic teaching was preserved. That is substantial evidence of continuity. The disputed question is whether Christ permanently entrusted the apostles’ authority to govern the whole Church to that succession. Latter-day Saints believe Christ restored that authority and make a separate historical and revelatory case for it.
Do the 17 Points of the True Church prove the Restoration?
The 17 Points circulates in different versions, and the documented dates of Einstein’s Caltech visits complicate the origin story. Read the biblical claims in context. Ephesians describes Christ’s leadership and the work of apostles and prophets. Identifying who holds that authority today requires a historical and revelatory case of its own.
Does 2 Nephi 25 borrow its theology from Paul?
Nephi and Paul both connect the law of Moses with faith and life in Christ. They address different audiences on opposite sides of Christ’s coming. The resemblance is real. Its value as evidence for modern authorship depends on which features need explaining and whether they distinguish composition from translation.
Does the Joseph Smith Translation contradict the Sermon in 3 Nephi?
The texts differ. In the CES Letter’s example, 3 Nephi names the Twelve, and the JST adds instructions for traveling disciples. The JST manuscript then keeps the familiar teaching about food, clothing, birds, and the cubit, with some changes. The Church’s appendix prints only the added instructions there. The wording still raises a real question about King James influence, but the excerpt leaves out much of the comparison.
Why does Mormon 9 echo the longer ending of Mark?
Mormon 9 closely matches four verses in the King James ending of Mark, a passage many editors judge secondary. The manuscripts tell us about the history of Mark. The English match raises a separate question about the translation and composition of the Book of Mormon.
Why did King Benjamin become King Mosiah in two Book of Mormon verses?
The 1830 edition reads Benjamin in Mosiah 21:28 and Ether 4:1. Mosiah 21:28 changed in 1837 and Ether 4:1 in 1849. The edits fit the story’s chronology more easily, but the dates in the story leave some room for overlap and the editors’ exact reasons remain uncertain.
Is Jesus’s visit in 3 Nephi just the Sermon on the Mount again?
Third Nephi follows Matthew’s sermon closely. The visit also describes the risen Jesus showing His wounds, healing people, blessing children, giving the sacrament, and explaining how He fulfilled the law of Moses. The distinct content and the source of the shared English wording are separate questions.
Is steel an anachronism in the Book of Mormon?
Steelworking fits the Iron Age setting of Laban’s sword near Jerusalem. Nephi’s bow raises a translation question, since the King James Bible uses “bow of steel” where a modern translation has “bow of bronze.” Ether and early Nephite passages describe working steel in the Americas. The artifacts studied here leave that technology unverified in the setting those passages describe.
What does DNA evidence say about Book of Mormon ancestry?
Genetic studies trace the deep ancestry of Indigenous American populations mainly to ancient migrations from northeast Asia. That weighs against a large Israelite founding population. A small migration that left little detectable ancestry is a different hypothesis. The available DNA gives us no direct evidence for Lehi’s group.
Where is the Hebrew writing the Book of Mormon leads us to expect?
The Book of Mormon describes extensive recordkeeping and correspondence. Moroni describes the script of his own record and says he could have used Hebrew. Ancient Maya inscriptions establish writing in Mesoamerica, while the specific writing described by Moroni remains uncorroborated. How much that absence counts depends on where the people lived, what they wrote on, and how much we should expect to survive.
Why does the Book of Mormon use King James Bible wording?
The English Book of Mormon closely follows the King James Bible in some passages, including words the King James translators supplied. That is evidence about the English wording. To decide what it tells us about the underlying record, compare the case for modern composition with the case for a revelatory translation using familiar Bible language.
Where is Zarahemla from the Book of Mormon?
The Book of Mormon gives Zarahemla a relative setting among Nephite lands and the Sidon River, but it does not identify a modern site. The Church takes no position on specific locations. An Iowa settlement was named Zarahemla in 1841 under D&C 125; that namesake does not establish the ancient city was in Iowa. Mesoamerican and Heartland maps remain proposals with different strengths and unresolved identification evidence.
Who are the other sheep in John 10:16?
John 10 says Jesus has other sheep who will hear His voice and join one flock under one shepherd, but it does not name them. A Gentile reading fits the New Testament’s wider mission. In 3 Nephi, Jesus identifies the Nephites and describes other scattered groups who would hear Him directly. The passage does not say Gentiles can never join His flock. The Greek distinguishes an enclosure from a flock, though that wording alone does not identify the sheep.