CES Letter Answers

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Translator Claims ​

The claim:

"Joseph Smith claimed to have translated three ancient records. The Book of Abraham: proven a fraud. The Kinderhook Plates: found to be a hoax. The Book of Mormon: the only one of the three for which we do not have the original. I'm sure he was only wrong on two out of three."[1]

The CES Letter caps this with its most quotable line: "After all, wouldn't you buy a third car from a man who had already sold you two clunkers?"[2]

Three translations. Two failures. One unverifiable claim. Case closed.

But are the three "cars" actually the same kind of product?

The false equivalence at the center of the argument ​

The rhetorical power of "two out of three" depends on treating the Kinderhook Plates, the Book of Abraham, and the Book of Mormon as interchangeable data points -- three attempts at the same task, scored pass/fail.

They aren't.

ProjectMethodDurationOutput
Kinderhook PlatesHebrew lexicon + GAEL comparison~5 daysNothing
Book of AbrahamRevelation connected to papyri1835-1842Published scripture with ancient content
Book of MormonSeer stone / Urim and Thummim~60 working days269,510 words

The Kinderhook Plates were a five-day character comparison using secular tools. No seer stone. No Urim and Thummim. No claim of revelation. One sentence from a clerk's journal, then silence. The full story is in the Kinderhook Plates article -- but the short version is that Joseph never produced a translation. One "clunker" was never sold.[3]

The Book of Abraham is a genuine scripture containing ancient content. The Book of Mormon is 269,510 words dictated in sixty days with no notes and no revisions.

Bundling a non-event, a disputed scripture, and an extraordinary literary production into "two clunkers and a third car" is a rhetorical trick. It works because it's memorable. It doesn't work because it's accurate.

What "translate" actually meant ​

The CES Letter scores Joseph Smith against a standard he never claimed -- conventional scholarly translation, the kind where you sit down with a source text, apply linguistic training, and render it in another language.

The Joseph Smith Papers project states this directly: "Translation" in Joseph's usage "does not refer to conventional translations, such as Smith's exercises in the study of Hebrew." It refers to works produced "by the gift and power of God."[4]

Joseph's translation projects spanned a range of methods:

  • Book of Mormon -- seer stone and Urim and Thummim, producing words that appeared to him by revelation.[5]
  • D&C 7 -- a revelation about a parchment Joseph never physically possessed.[6]
  • Joseph Smith Translation -- inspired revision of the King James Bible, producing the Book of Moses and ~3,400 modified verses.[7]
  • Book of Abraham -- revelation connected to Egyptian papyri, with the physical artifacts serving as "an occasion for meditation, reflection, and revelation."[8]
  • Kinderhook Plates -- secular tools (Hebrew lexicon, GAEL). No revelation claimed. Nothing produced.

When Joseph claimed divine assistance, the output was substantial. When he used conventional methods -- the Kinderhook Plates -- nothing happened.

The CES Letter calls this a failed test. It looks more like a controlled experiment.

The Book of Abraham is not "proven a fraud" ​

The CES Letter's strongest claim in this section: the Book of Abraham is a "proven fraud" because Egyptologists identified the recovered papyrus fragments as standard funerary texts.[1:1]

The fragments are a fraction of what Joseph possessed. Eyewitnesses described "a long roll" of papyri. The recovered fragments represent approximately 2.5% of the original collection. The Church's Gospel Topics Essay presents both the missing-scroll theory and the catalyst theory as legitimate possibilities.[8:1][9]

The text contains ancient content Joseph couldn't have known. Olishem -- an Akkadian toponym matching the right region, phonology, and time period -- wasn't discovered until the twentieth century.[10] Divine council theology -- plural gods deliberating before creation -- matches ancient Near Eastern patterns scholars wouldn't reconstruct for another hundred years.[11] The Apocalypse of Abraham, an ancient text with striking parallels to the Book of Abraham's account of idolatry, cosmic vision, and celestial hierarchy, wasn't translated into English until 1898.[12]

"Not one single non-LDS Egyptologist supports" the Book of Abraham is a rigged standard. Non-LDS Egyptologists have examined the surviving papyrus fragments. They haven't investigated whether the text of the Book of Abraham itself contains authentic ancient material -- that's a different question, and it's one where the evidence is genuinely interesting.[13]

Worth Acknowledging

The mismatch between the surviving papyri and Joseph's claimed translation is a real difficulty. The catalyst theory -- that the papyri prompted revelation without being the direct source text -- is viable but was not Joseph's own stated understanding. This is a genuinely hard question. The full response spans three articles: The Joseph Smith Papyri, Facsimiles, and Anachronisms & Source Texts.

A "clunker" doesn't contain engineering the manufacturer shouldn't have been able to produce.

Sixty days, no blueprints ​

The CES Letter treats the Book of Mormon as the weakest link in the chain -- the one "for which we do not have the original."[1:2]

It's actually the strongest evidence for Joseph's translation claims.

The English text was dictated between April 7 and June 30, 1829. With known interruptions -- a move from Harmony to Fayette, priesthood restorations, baptisms, thirteen sections of the Doctrine and Covenants -- John Welch calculated "not many more than the equivalent of about 60 actual working days."[14]

269,510 words. Sixty days. No outline, no notes, no reference materials.

Emma Smith, who served as scribe and sat in the same room:

"He had neither manuscript nor book to read from... If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me."[15]

Royal Skousen's Critical Text Project -- decades of manuscript analysis -- concluded the Book of Mormon was essentially a clean first draft. Joseph dictated forward without going back to revise earlier sections.[16]

Then he never produced anything remotely like it again. Not a novel. Not a sequel. Not an epic poem. Fifteen more years of life and nothing comparable.

Features a nineteenth-century author shouldn't have included ​

The production speed is one thing. What the text contains is another.

FeatureEvidenceWhy it matters
ChiasmusAlma 36: 17-element chiasm spanning an entire chapterHebrew literary form unknown in 1829 America[17]
HebraismsIf/and conditionals, cognate accusatives, construct-state phrasesRead awkwardly in English but naturally in Hebrew[18]
Ancient namesAlma (Bar Kokhba documents), Sariah (Elephantine papyri), Nahom (Yemen burial site)None available to Joseph Smith[19]
Internal geographyConsistent directional references and travel times across 531 pagesDictated without maps or notes[20]
Distinct authorial voicesWordprint studies identify statistically distinct styles for Nephi, Alma, Mormon, MoroniConsistent with multiple ancient authors, not one modern one[21]

A twenty-three-year-old with limited formal education dictated this in sixty working days. The CES Letter asks you to evaluate the translator by his track record. The track record includes a text that, by any measurable standard, should not exist if Joseph Smith was a fraud.

"We don't have the original" ​

The CES Letter says the Book of Mormon is "the only one of the three for which we do not have the original."[1:3]

We do have the original. The Original Manuscript and the Printer's Manuscript are both preserved and digitized by the Joseph Smith Papers project.[22] Scholars have studied them for decades. You can read them yourself.

What we don't have is the gold plates. That's a different claim -- and it ignores the eleven witnesses who signed formal testimony of handling, seeing, and in some cases lifting those plates. Three of those witnesses left the Church. None ever recanted their testimony.[23]

The actual track record ​

ProjectWhat Joseph claimedWhat he usedWhat he producedResult
Book of MormonTranslation by gift and power of GodSeer stone / Urim and Thummim269,510 words in ~60 daysUnexplained by fraud
JSTInspired revision by prophetic callingKJV Bible + revelation3,400+ revised verses, Book of MosesConsistent with prophetic role
Book of AbrahamTranslation connected to papyriRevelation (catalyst or missing scroll)Published scripture with ancient contentContains material Joseph couldn't have known
D&C 7Revelation about John's parchmentRevelation onlyOne section of D&CNo physical source text involved
Kinderhook PlatesNo revelatory claim madeHebrew lexicon + GAELNothingJoseph didn't translate

The CES Letter reads this as "two failures and one unverifiable claim."

The evidence reads differently. One extraordinary production that shouldn't exist. One scripture with demonstrable ancient content. One inspired biblical revision. And two non-events -- the Kinderhook Plates (no translation produced) and the Book of Abraham papyri fragments (representing 2.5% of the original collection, with the text itself containing material that resists nineteenth-century explanation).

The car lot, revisited ​

"Wouldn't you buy a third car from a man who had already sold you two clunkers?"

One of those "clunkers" was never sold. Joseph kicked the tires, checked his notebook, and walked away.

The other contains engineering the manufacturer shouldn't have been able to produce.

And the car the CES Letter wants you to doubt -- the Book of Mormon -- is a vehicle that by every measurable standard shouldn't run. 269,510 words. Sixty days. No blueprints. Ancient features the builder didn't know existed. Internal consistency across hundreds of pages.

If you're evaluating the dealer by his track record, look at the car.

Bottom line: The CES Letter bundles a non-event (Kinderhook Plates -- no translation produced), a genuine difficulty (Book of Abraham -- disputed papyri but demonstrably ancient content), and the most extraordinary dictated text of the nineteenth century (Book of Mormon -- 269,510 words in sixty days with features no forger could have included) into "two clunkers and a third car." The track record doesn't undermine Joseph Smith's translation claims. It's the strongest argument for them.

  1. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Kinderhook Plates & Translator Claims," pp. 72-73. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Kinderhook Plates & Translator Claims," p. 73. ↩︎

  3. Don Bradley, "'President Joseph Has Translated a Portion': Solving the Mystery of the Kinderhook Plates," Proceedings of the 2011 FAIR Conference (August 2011). Bradley demonstrated that the single character match came from comparing the plates to the GAEL using secular tools, not revelation. ↩︎

  4. "Revelations and Translations Series Introduction," Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/revelations-and-translations-series-introduction ↩︎

  5. "Book of Mormon Translation," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation ↩︎

  6. Doctrine and Covenants 7 was received as a revelation about a parchment "written and hid up" by the Apostle John. Joseph never possessed the physical document. ↩︎

  7. "Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible," Gospel Topics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/joseph-smith-translation-of-the-bible ↩︎

  8. "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," Gospel Topics Essays, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham ↩︎ ↩︎

  9. Kerry Muhlestein, "Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham," in No Weapon Shall Prosper, ed. Robert L. Millet (Provo, UT: BYU RSC; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011). Muhlestein estimates the surviving fragments represent approximately 2.5% of Joseph Smith's original papyri collection. https://rsc.byu.edu/no-weapon-shall-prosper/egyptian-papyri-book-abraham ↩︎

  10. The place name Ulisum appears in an Akkadian inscription of Naram-Sin (~2250 BC). See John M. Lundquist, "Was Abraham at Ebla?" in Robert L. Millet, ed., Studies in Scripture, Vol. 2: The Pearl of Great Price (Salt Lake City: Randall Book, 1985). ↩︎

  11. Stephen O. Smoot, "Council, Chaos, and Creation in the Book of Abraham," Journal of Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 2 (2013): 28-39. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol22/iss2/4/ ↩︎

  12. The Apocalypse of Abraham was first translated into English in 1898 by George H. Box. It contains striking parallels to the Book of Abraham -- Abraham's conflict with idolatry, cosmic vision, and celestial hierarchy -- none of which were available in Joseph Smith's environment. ↩︎

  13. Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Kinderhook Plates & Translator Claims," p. 72. "There is not one single non-LDS Egyptologist who supports Joseph's Book of Abraham, its claims, or Joseph's translations." ↩︎

  14. John W. Welch, "Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: 'Days [and Hours] Never to Be Forgotten,'" BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2018): 10-50. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/timing-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-days-and-hours-never-to-be-forgotten/ ↩︎

  15. Emma Smith, interview by Joseph Smith III, February 1879. Published in Saints' Herald 26 (October 1, 1879): 289-290. ↩︎

  16. Royal Skousen, The Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon: Typographical Facsimile of the Extant Text (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2001). See also Skousen, "How Joseph Smith Translated the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 (1998): 22-31. ↩︎

  17. John W. Welch, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies 10, no. 1 (1969): 69-84. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/chiasmus-in-the-book-of-mormon/ ↩︎

  18. Donald W. Parry, "Hebraisms and Other Ancient Peculiarities in the Book of Mormon," in Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch, eds., Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2002), 155-189. ↩︎

  19. Neal Rappleye and Allen Hansen, "More Evidence for Alma as a Semitic Name," Interpreter 62 (2024): 415-428. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, "Sariah in the Elephantine Papyri," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 2 (1993): 196-200. S. Kent Brown, "'The Place That Was Called Nahom': New Light from Ancient Yemen," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8, no. 1 (1999): 66-68. ↩︎

  20. John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Map (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000). ↩︎

  21. John L. Hilton, "On Verifying Wordprint Studies: Book of Mormon Authorship," BYU Studies 30, no. 3 (1990): 89-108. ↩︎

  22. "Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon" and "Printer's Manuscript of the Book of Mormon," Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/ ↩︎

  23. Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981). See also "Book of Mormon Witnesses," Gospel Topics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/book-of-mormon-witnesses ↩︎

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