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Introduction
This site is a point-by-point look at CES Letter claims—what’s accurate, what’s missing, and what the sources show.
What Is the CES Letter?
The CES Letter is a 100+ page compilation of criticisms of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, first published online in 2013. It spans topics like Book of Mormon historicity and translation, temple practices, and church history.
The criticisms are framed as sincere questions from a truth-seeker. For background on its origin, see CES Letter Background.
What you’ll find on this website:
- what a claim is actually saying (and what it’s merely implying),
- what the cited sources actually say in full context,
- and how to separate strong objections from weak ones.
Many CES Letter claims feel concerning because key context is left unstated—so your mind fills in the worst-case version.
Below are two examples of criticisms found in the CES Letter.
Example #1: "100,000 Changes" to the Book of Mormon
The claim:
"As part of the over 100,000 changes to the Book of Mormon, there were major changes made to reflect Joseph's evolved view of the Godhead."[1]
That number — "over 100,000 changes" — is meant to do something specific. It's meant to make you assume these were major doctrinal rewrites or hidden revisions.
So here's the key question: What counts as a "change"?
What the "100,000" is mostly counting
A large share of these "changes" are things like:
- added punctuation,
- standardized spelling,
- corrected grammar,
- and minor wording cleanup.[2]
That isn't a trick. It's what happens when you take a dictated text with almost no punctuation and prepare it for repeated publication.
The Original Manuscript looks like what you'd expect from oral dictation: long streams of words, minimal punctuation, and non-standard spellings. See it for yourself in the Joseph Smith Papers.[3]
A representative example
Below are the 17 "changes" between 1 Nephi 1:1 in the Printer's Manuscript and the modern edition. Notice what kind of edits they are:
| Printer's Manuscript | Modern Edition |
|---|---|
| "I Nephi haveing been born of goodly parents therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father & haveing seen many afflictions in the cours of my days nevertheless haveing been highly favored of the Lord in all my days yea haveing had a great knowledg of the goodness & the mysteries of God therefore I make a record of my procedings in my days" | I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. |
This is the pattern again and again.
Yes, there are wording changes
There are also phrase and wording changes, like these:
| Verse | Original | Modern Edition |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Nephi 2:6 | "in a valley beside a river of water" | "in a valley by the side of a river of water" |
| Omni 1:28 | "a strong and a mighty man" | "a strong and mighty man" |
| 3 Nephi 13:9 | "our Father which art in heaven" | "our Father who art in heaven" |
And there are a handful of more significant edits that matter to readers:
| Verse | Original | Modern Edition |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Nephi 11:18 | "the mother of God" | "the mother of the Son of God" |
| 2 Nephi 30:6 | "a white and a delightsome people" | "a pure and a delightsome people" |
| Alma 5:48 | "the Son of the Only Begotten of the Father" | "the Son, the Only Begotten of the Father" |
No storyline shifts. No secret revisions. No coverups. Anyone can inspect the Original Manuscript and Printer's Manuscript directly.[3:1]
A clean first draft
The Book of Mormon is roughly 270,000 words, produced in around 60 working days with no outline, no notes, and no evidence of revision to earlier sections as later ones were dictated.[4] Setting aside punctuation and spelling, it was a clean first draft.[2:1][5]
That's the real story the "100,000 changes" number obscures. The vast majority are formatting edits any publisher would make to an unpunctuated dictation. The actual content of a 270,000-word book — dictated without going back to rework earlier chapters — has remained remarkably stable across nearly two centuries of publication.
Bottom line: "100,000 changes" sounds like "100,000 rewrites." In practice, it's mostly "100,000 editing marks" — punctuation, spelling, and readability improvements — plus a small set of meaningful changes that are openly trackable.[2:2]
Example #2: Book of Mormon Place Names "Copied" from a Local Map
The claim:
"Many Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar to many local names and places of the region where Joseph Smith lived."[6]
Runnells himself has debated removing this claim, recognizing it may undermine his broader case.
The common exhibit is a map by Vernal Holley that overlays similar-sounding names onto parts of the northeastern United States and Canada.
Similarity is easy to find when you go looking for it
The Book of Mormon contains hundreds of proper names.
North America contains thousands of place names.
If you search a large dataset for partial matches, you will find some — whether or not there's a real relationship. That's the basic logic behind a pattern-finding fallacy.[7]
Specific issues with the map argument
- Selective matching. The map highlights a small set of "hits" and ignores the much larger set of "misses."[7:1]
- Geography doesn't map. The internal geography described in the Book of Mormon is not meaningfully preserved by the overlay. Morianton should be near the "eastern seashore" (Alma 50:25), but Holley's map places it nowhere near one.
- Timing problems. Some of the proposed matches depend on names that weren't established, weren't known by that name, or don't fit the "nearby 1820s New York" framing.[7:2]
- Biblical names aren't evidence. Names like Jerusalem, Jordan, and Shiloh already exist in the Bible. Finding them on a North American map proves nothing.[7:3]
- No documentary trail. The CES Letter does not provide evidence that Joseph Smith relied on a map or gazetteer as a source.
Names Joseph Smith couldn't have known
Meanwhile, some Book of Mormon names have plausible ancient linguistic connections that are hard to reduce to "local borrowing":
- Alma: attested as a male Hebrew name in the Bar Kokhba documents (c. AD 130) — something Joseph Smith couldn't have known.[8]
- Mulek: resembles the Hebrew melek ("king").[9]
- Sariah: a female Hebrew name absent from the Bible but found in ancient Jewish texts from Elephantine in Upper Egypt.[10]
Bottom line: the "map" case is built on loose sound-alikes and selective matching. It's an argument that looks weaker the more you examine how it was constructed.[7:4]
What This Site Covers
Those were two examples of a broader pattern.
In one, a real number — "100,000 changes" — is presented without explaining what it's counting. In the other, a handful of name similarities are arranged on a map as though the visual alone proves borrowing. Both claims work the same way: state something true-sounding, leave out the context that would reframe it, and let the reader's imagination close the gap.
That pattern runs through the entire CES Letter. A fact is presented. Key context is missing. And the implication feels stronger than what the evidence actually supports.
This site goes topic by topic, supplies the missing context, and lets you judge for yourself:
- Book of Mormon — historicity, DNA, anachronisms, and geography
- Book of Mormon Translation — seer stones, Urim and Thummim, and the dictation process
- First Vision — multiple accounts, contradictions, and late appearance
- Book of Abraham — papyri, facsimiles, and source texts
- Polygamy & Polyandry — Joseph Smith's marriages and D&C 132
- Prophets — Adam-God, blood atonement, and the priesthood ban
- Kinderhook Plates — translator claims
- Testimony & Spiritual Witnesses — competing claims and reliability
- Priesthood Restoration — late appearance and backdating
- Witnesses — credibility, second sight, and James Strang
- Temples & Freemasonry — Masonic connections and temple changes
- Science — evolution, the Fall, and discredited claims
- Other Concerns — transparency, finances, and anti-intellectualism
A Note from the Author
My name is Landon.
I’m an active, faithful Latter-day Saint—and I’m analytical by nature. I don’t think questions are a failure of faith. They’re part of it.
This site exists because I’ve seen how easily doubt can be manufactured by vague claims, missing context, and sourced-looking citations that most readers won’t have time to verify.
I've never met the author of the CES Letter, Jeremy Runnells. I've watched interviews with him, and he comes across as a sincere person following his convictions. It's easy to forget people's humanity when all you see is text on a screen. I would genuinely like to see him return to the Church someday — he has the passion and ability to do a lot of good.
If you’re here because the CES Letter shook you, you’re not alone. I hope this helps you think clearly, ask better questions, and keep moving forward with honesty.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Mormon," no. 11, p. 25. The same "over 100,000 changes" figure also appears in the "Conclusion," p. 128. In both instances, the number links to an external source but is never explained or substantiated within the letter itself. ↩︎
Royal Skousen, "Changes in the Book of Mormon," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 161–176. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/changes-in-the-book-of-mormon/ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon" and "Printer's Manuscript of the Book of Mormon," Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/ ↩︎ ↩︎
"Why Is the Timing of the Book of Mormon's Translation So Marvelous?" Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-is-the-timing-of-the-book-of-mormons-translation-so-marvelous ↩︎
"No Revisions," Scripture Central. https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-no-substantive-revisions ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Mormon," no. 7, p. 13. ↩︎
"Theory of Book of Mormon place names from area around Joseph Smith's home," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Theory_of_Book_of_Mormon_place_names_from_area_around_Joseph_Smith's_home ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Neal Rappleye & Allen Hansen, "More Evidence for Alma as a Semitic Name," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 62 (2024): 415–428. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/more-evidence-for-alma-as-a-semitic-name/ ↩︎
Strong's Hebrew 4428: melek (king). https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h4428/kjv/wlc/0-1/ ↩︎
Jeffrey R. Chadwick, "Sariah in the Elephantine Papyri," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 2 (1993): 196–200. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol2/iss2/13/ ↩︎