Appearance
Mark Hofmann
The claim:
The Church "paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in expensive and valuable antiquities and cash" to Mark Hofmann — "a con man and soon-to-be serial killer — to purchase and suppress bizarre and embarrassing documents into the Church vaults that undermined and threatened the Church's story of its origins." Elder Oaks "defended and rationalized" the forged Salamander Letter. Hinckley was "significantly dishonest" about his dealings with Hofmann. And the Tanners — "considered some of the biggest critics of the Church — actually came out and said that the Salamander Letter was a fake," demonstrating "better discernment than the Brethren did."[1]
The CES Letter uses the Hofmann affair to land a specific punch: if prophets, seers, and revelators can be conned by a document forger, they can't actually see or reveal anything.
But who else did Hofmann fool — and what does "prophetic discernment" actually mean?
Further Reading
The Church's official history topic "Hofmann Forgeries" provides a detailed account of the affair, including the documents involved, the bombings, and the investigation that followed.
The most skilled forger in American history
Mark William Hofmann was born in 1954 in Salt Lake City to a faithful Latter-day Saint family. He served a mission, married in the temple, and later said he lost his faith around age fourteen. By his early thirties, he had become what the Southwestern Association of Forensic Document Examiners voted "the best forger — or at least the best forger who was caught — in the past 1,200 years."[2]
Between 1980 and 1985, Hofmann forged hundreds of documents. He stole period-appropriate paper from archives, manufactured his own iron gallotannate ink, artificially aged documents with chemical processes, and meticulously studied the handwriting of his targets. He didn't just fake Mormon documents. He forged signatures and documents attributed to George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Emily Dickinson, Daniel Boone, Betsy Ross, Nathan Hale, Mark Twain, and dozens of others.[3]
In 1988, a list found in Hofmann's prison cell named documents and signatures he had forged — including at least 56 Mormon historical figures and 23 famous Americans — that he hadn't disclosed during plea negotiations.[4]
This wasn't a clumsy fraud targeting a single institution. This was a career criminal who operated across the entire American rare-documents market for half a decade.
Two people are dead
By late 1985, Hofmann's web of debt and deception was unraveling. He had promised documents he couldn't deliver. Investors were pressing for returns. To cover his tracks, he built pipe bombs.
On October 15, 1985, the first bomb killed Steven F. Christensen, a 31-year-old bishop, businessman, and document collector who had purchased the Salamander Letter. The second bomb killed Kathy Sheets, the wife of Christensen's business associate J. Gary Sheets — a misdirection intended to make the killings look business-related rather than document-related. The next day, a third bomb detonated in Hofmann's own car, severely injuring him and leading police to the evidence that cracked the case.[5]
Two innocent people died. The CES Letter mentions the bombings in passing. They deserve more than passing mention. This isn't just a story about forgery. It's a story about murder.
Everyone was fooled
The CES Letter frames this as a story about Church leaders being uniquely deceived. The actual list of people Hofmann fooled reads like a who's who of American document expertise.
| Institution / Expert | Role | Deceived? |
|---|---|---|
| FBI | Forensic document analysis | Yes — authenticated the Oath of a Freeman |
| Library of Congress | Conservation Office scientific analysis | Yes — found "no evidence" against a 17th-century date |
| American Antiquarian Society | Two-month study of the Oath of a Freeman | Yes — "found no flaws in the document" |
| Kenneth Rendell | One of the world's foremost handwriting experts | Yes — authenticated the Salamander Letter[6] |
| Charles Hamilton | Legendary autograph dealer and authentication expert | Yes — purchased Hofmann forgeries for years without suspicion[7] |
| Independent labs (Dallas, Kansas City) | Scientific testing | Yes — confirmed document authenticity |
| Collectors and investors nationwide | Document market | Yes — for years |
Dallin H. Oaks summarized it plainly in 1987: "Hofmann succeeded in deceiving many: experienced Church historians, sophisticated collectors, businessmen-investors, national experts... and professional document examiners, including the expert credited with breaking the Hitler diary forgery."[8]
Gordon B. Hinckley acknowledged it directly: "I frankly admit that Hofmann tricked us. He also tricked experts from New York to Utah, however. We bought those documents only after the assurance that they were genuine."[9]
The Oath of a Freeman
Hofmann's most ambitious forgery had nothing to do with Mormonism. In March 1985, he printed a fake copy of the Oath of a Freeman — the first document printed in British North America (1639) — in his basement using a plate from a Salt Lake City engraving company.[10]
The original Oath has never been found. It would be worth millions. Hofmann tried to sell his forgery to the Library of Congress for $1.5 million.
The Library of Congress's Conservation Office subjected it to scientific analysis and concluded its studies "revealed no evidence that would contravene a mid-seventeenth century date for the broadside."[11] The American Antiquarian Society studied it for two months and "found no flaws in the document."[12] The FBI authenticated it. Independent labs in Dallas and Kansas City confirmed it.
The sale fell through only because the Library couldn't verify the document's provenance — not because anyone detected it was fake. Hofmann's forgery defeated every scientific test the United States government could throw at it.
If the FBI, the Library of Congress, and the American Antiquarian Society couldn't identify a Hofmann forgery with two months of dedicated scientific analysis, the CES Letter's demand that Church leaders should have detected his fakes borders on the absurd.
The Church didn't buy the Salamander Letter
Hofmann's most notorious Mormon-related forgery was the so-called Salamander Letter — a purported 1830 letter from Martin Harris to W.W. Phelps describing Joseph Smith's encounter with a "white salamander" that transformed into a spirit, rather than the angel Moroni. The intent was to recast the founding story of Mormonism as folk magic rather than divine revelation.[13]
The CES Letter claims the Church rushed to buy it. The record shows the opposite.
January 1984: Hofmann offered the letter to the Church. President Hinckley, Elder G. Homer Durham, and Church archivist Don Schmidt all declined to purchase it.[14]
January 6, 1984: Collector Steven F. Christensen privately purchased the letter for $40,000.
April 12, 1985: Christensen donated it to the Church.
April 28, 1985: The Church News published the letter's full text along with a First Presidency statement noting that its authenticity was uncertain.[15]
The Church didn't buy the Salamander Letter. A private collector did. When it was donated to the Church, the Church published it — in its own newspaper — with a note that authenticity was unverified.
That is not suppression.
What Oaks actually said in 1985
The CES Letter claims Elder Oaks "defended and rationalized a completely fake and made up document." Here is what Oaks actually did.
On August 16, 1985, at a CES Symposium, Oaks addressed the Salamander Letter and the media frenzy surrounding it. His key points:
He urged skepticism. Oaks counseled listeners to "apply the discount of skepticism to media stories about developments in Church history" and to question the authenticity of newly discovered documents given "scientific uncertainties."[16]
He analyzed the word "salamander." Oaks noted that the 1820s meaning of "salamander" included "a spirit supposed to live in fire" — a meaning consistent with how early Saints described the angel Moroni's appearance. He was offering a textual reading, not a doctrinal endorsement.[17]
He distinguished carefully. Oaks said the letter "purports only to be Martin Harris's interpretation" of events — language that signals caution, not endorsement.[18]
Read the actual talk, and it looks like a lawyer-turned-apostle applying careful analytical reasoning to an unverified document while telling his audience to be more critical of sensational claims. That is exactly the opposite of what the CES Letter accuses him of doing.
The "meeting after the bombings" claim
The CES Letter makes a dramatic point: on October 15, 1985 — the day Hofmann's pipe bombs killed Steven Christensen and Kathy Sheets — Hofmann met with Elder Oaks at the Church Office Building. The CES Letter quotes The Poet and the Murderer calling it "the ultimate spoof against God" that Oaks "doesn't intuit a thing."[19]
This framing assumes prophetic discernment works like a metal detector — that an apostle should be able to scan someone walking through the door and detect guilt.
Hofmann hadn't been publicly linked to the bombings at that point. Police were investigating multiple theories. Oaks met with a man the world still considered a document dealer, not a murder suspect.
And Latter-day Saint scripture explicitly states that mortals — including prophets — cannot always detect wickedness. D&C 10:37: "As you cannot always judge the righteous, or as you cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous, therefore I say unto you, hold your peace."[20]
That verse was given to Joseph Smith himself. The founding prophet of the Restoration was told, in revelation, that he could not always tell the wicked from the righteous. The CES Letter demands a standard that the scriptures explicitly disclaim.
Hinckley's "significant dishonesty"
The CES Letter alleges Hinckley was "significantly dishonest" about his relationship with Hofmann and which documents the Church possessed.
The context: Hinckley was serving as a counselor in the First Presidency during President Kimball's declining health, effectively running the Church. Between 1981 and 1985, he traveled internationally twenty-six times while managing the First Presidency's responsibilities.[21] Hofmann was one of many people passing through his office during an extraordinarily demanding period.
When later asked about specific meetings with Hofmann, Hinckley couldn't recall every detail of interactions with a peripheral contact. Hofmann, meanwhile, exaggerated his closeness to Church leaders to enhance his credibility with buyers.[22]
The CES Letter treats imprecise recollection as deliberate deception. Hinckley's later public statement — "I frankly admit that Hofmann tricked us" — is not the language of a man trying to hide something.
The McLellin Collection
The CES Letter claims the Church "was forced to admit it had, in the First Presidency Vault, documents (McLellin Collection) that the Church previously denied it had."
What actually happened: Hofmann spread anonymous rumors that the Church possessed a secret "Oliver Cowdery History" that would be devastating if revealed. No such document existed — Hofmann invented the rumor to create demand for forgeries he planned to sell. The Church publicly denied possessing the document because it genuinely didn't have it.[23]
When McLellin collection materials were later located in the archives, they were made available. The Church's earlier denial wasn't about the McLellin papers — it was about a fictional "Oliver Cowdery History" that Hofmann fabricated as part of his con.[24]
The Tanners were analytically impressive — not "more discerning"
The CES Letter's most pointed argument: Jerald and Sandra Tanner — prominent critics of the Church — publicly questioned the Salamander Letter's authenticity before Church leaders did. Therefore the Tanners had "better discernment than the Brethren."
This is a fair observation on the surface. Jerald Tanner published his doubts about the Salamander Letter by early 1984, surprising many because the letter seemed to support his own anti-Mormon arguments.[25]
But the comparison is misleading for two reasons.
The Tanners had a different analytical lens. They were lifelong researchers of early Mormon documents. Jerald noticed phrases in the Salamander Letter that appeared lifted from E.D. Howe's Mormonism Unvailed (1834) — a critical text published four years after the letter's purported 1830 date. He also identified parallels with Joseph Knight's account, which had been locked in the LDS Historical Department. His skepticism was textual criticism, not spiritual discernment. Church leaders, by contrast, were relying on the same external authentication experts who gave the letter a clean bill of health.
The Church faced a media trap. If the Church had publicly rejected the letter without forensic proof, critics would have accused it of suppressing evidence. By publishing the letter and flagging its uncertain authenticity — which is exactly what the Church did — leaders took the only responsible path available. The Tanners had no such institutional constraints.[26]
The Tanners' skepticism was analytically impressive. It doesn't follow that Church leaders lacked divine gifts because they relied on professional document experts rather than making public declarations about a letter's authenticity without forensic backing.
The real price tag
The CES Letter claims the Church spent "hundreds of thousands of dollars" on Hofmann's forgeries. Elder Oaks' 1987 address put the actual cash payments at $57,100, with total costs including traded documents at roughly $100,000 — a figure confirmed by Church historian Richard Turley Jr. and documented in detail by Sarah Allen.[27]
That is significantly less than "hundreds of thousands." The inflated figure is part of the CES Letter's pattern of presenting facts in the most damaging possible light.
Han van Meegeren: the forger who fooled Goering
The Hofmann case isn't unique. History's most instructive parallel is Han van Meegeren, a Dutch artist who forged Vermeer paintings so convincingly that he fooled the entire European art establishment — including Hermann Goering, who traded 200 original Dutch paintings for a single fake.[28]
Edward L. Kimball's 1987 BYU Studies article documents the striking parallels:[29]
| Feature | Han van Meegeren | Mark Hofmann |
|---|---|---|
| Target | Vermeer paintings | Historical documents |
| Experts deceived | Art historians, museum curators, Goering | FBI, Library of Congress, Church historians |
| Method | Anticipated testing methods, used period materials | Anticipated paper/ink tests, stole period materials |
| Legitimacy shield | Mixed fakes with genuine art dealings | Mixed forgeries with authentic document trades |
| Discovery | Confessed to avoid treason charges | Exposed by bombing investigation |
| Recognition | Greatest art forger in history | Greatest document forger in American history |
Van Meegeren's deception of Nazi art experts doesn't prove those experts were uniquely incompetent. It proves that a sufficiently skilled forger, working within a system of trust, can defeat authentication processes. The same is true of Hofmann.
No one argues that the FBI lacked expertise because Hofmann fooled them. No one claims the Library of Congress was negligent because their Conservation Office cleared his Oath of a Freeman. The CES Letter applies that standard only to Church leaders — because the argument requires a double standard to work.
What "prophetic discernment" actually means
The CES Letter's argument rests on an unstated assumption: prophets should function as human lie detectors. If they can't immediately identify a forger walking into their office, they aren't real prophets.
Latter-day Saint theology has never made this claim.
| Source | What it teaches |
|---|---|
| D&C 10:37 | "But as you cannot always judge the righteous, or as you cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous, therefore I say unto you, hold your peace" — spoken to Joseph Smith |
| D&C 1:24 | The Lord gives commandments to his servants "in their weakness, after the manner of their language" |
| Joseph Smith | "A prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such"[30] |
| Dallin H. Oaks (1987) | "Ministers of the gospel function best in an atmosphere of trust and love. In that kind of atmosphere, they fail to detect a few deceivers, but that is the price they pay to increase their effectiveness in counseling, comforting, and blessing the hundreds of honest and sincere people they see."[31] |
Oaks made the key theological point directly. Church leaders function in a pastoral mode — extending trust, offering counsel, serving people who come to them. That posture occasionally leaves them vulnerable to deception. The alternative — approaching every interaction with suspicion — would destroy the pastoral function entirely.
Jesus chose Judas as one of the Twelve, dined with him, washed his feet, and handed him bread at the Last Supper. Either Jesus lacked discernment, or divine knowledge doesn't always manifest as immediate detection of betrayal. The New Testament record supports the latter.
Key Point
The CES Letter's argument requires prophets to function as omniscient lie detectors. Latter-day Saint scripture explicitly rejects this expectation. D&C 10:37 was given to Joseph Smith — the founding prophet — telling him that he "cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous."
As covered in the Adam-God, blood atonement, and priesthood and temple ban articles, the CES Letter's recurring argument depends on a premise the Church has never endorsed: prophets must be infallible — or omniscient — to be authoritative. The Hofmann case is simply another application of the same false binary.
The system learned from it
The CES Letter stops the story at the scandal. What followed matters.
1986: Hofmann was arrested. Police discovered forgery materials in his basement.
1987: Hofmann pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, theft by deception, and fraud. The judge recommended he never be released. He remains incarcerated in Utah.[32]
1987: Oaks delivered his BYU address analyzing the affair, acknowledging the Church was deceived and urging greater sophistication in evaluating historical claims.[33]
1987: The Church issued an official statement and released a list of documents involved in the case.[34]
2008: The Joseph Smith Papers Project launched online, eventually making thousands of primary documents freely available — part of a broader institutional shift toward historical transparency that the Hofmann affair helped catalyze.[35]
2021: Netflix released Murder Among the Mormons, a three-part documentary covering the Hofmann case. The Church did not attempt to suppress it or discourage members from watching.[36]
The Hofmann affair accelerated the Church's move toward radical historical transparency. The Joseph Smith Papers, the Gospel Topics Essays, the Saints history series — these all emerged from an institutional recognition that open access to primary documents is the best defense against fraud and misrepresentation.
The system didn't just survive the Hofmann affair. It learned from it.
What the Hofmann affair actually reveals
The CES Letter sees the Hofmann episode as evidence against the Church. Turn the lens slightly, and a different picture emerges.
The Church published documents it thought might be damaging. When the Salamander Letter arrived, the Church didn't lock it in a vault. It published the full text in the Church News with a note about uncertain authenticity. That is the behavior of an institution confident in its truth claims, not one trying to hide evidence.
Church leaders deferred to professional expertise. Rather than making pronouncements about document authenticity — which was not their field — they relied on forensic experts. That is responsible institutional behavior, not a sign of spiritual failure.
The truth came out. Hofmann's scheme collapsed. His forgeries were identified. The historical record was corrected. Every significant document he created has been flagged and catalogued. The system of scholarship, investigation, and accountability worked.
The Church responded with greater openness. The Hofmann affair catalyzed a generational shift in how the Church engages its own history — toward transparency, digitization, and public access. The Joseph Smith Papers Project, which has made virtually every significant historical document available online, is the institutional descendant of the lessons learned from Hofmann.
The CES Letter's question answers itself
The CES Letter asks: "What does this say about the discernment of the Brethren when they can't discern a murderer and con man, hell-bent on destroying Mormonism, right under their noses?"[1:1]
The honest answer: it says the same thing about prophetic discernment that the FBI, the Library of Congress, Charles Hamilton, Kenneth Rendell, and every other expert Hofmann fooled can tell you — that a sufficiently skilled forger, operating within a system of trust, can deceive anyone. Including prophets. Including forensic scientists. Including the United States government.
The CES Letter's question only works if you believe prophets should possess abilities that no human being — religious or secular — actually demonstrated in this case.
D&C 10:37 says they can't always tell. The Hofmann affair proves the scripture was telling the truth.
Bottom line: Mark Hofmann was the most accomplished document forger in American history. He fooled the FBI, the Library of Congress, the American Antiquarian Society, the world's leading handwriting experts, and Church leaders. The CES Letter presents this as a unique indictment of prophetic discernment — but applies a standard to Church leaders that it doesn't apply to any of the secular experts Hofmann equally deceived. Latter-day Saint scripture explicitly states that prophets "cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous" (D&C 10:37). The Hofmann affair isn't evidence that prophets lack divine gifts. It's evidence that divine gifts don't include omniscience — something the scriptures have always taught.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," no. 5, pp. 66-68. ↩︎ ↩︎
The Southwestern Association of Forensic Document Examiners voted Hofmann "the best forger — or at least the best forger who was caught — in the past 1,200 years." See "Tales of Hofmann," Deseret News, October 15, 2005. https://www.deseret.com/2005/10/15/19917491/tales-of-hofmann-forgeries-deceit-continue-to-intrigue-20-years-later/ ↩︎
"Hofmann Forgeries," Church History Topics, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/hofmann-forgeries?lang=eng. See also "Genuine Fakes: Mark Hoffman," Independent Online Booksellers Association. https://www.ioba.org/post/genuine-fakes-mark-hoffman ↩︎
In 1988, a list found in Hofmann's prison cell named documents and signatures he had forged that were not disclosed during his 1987 plea negotiations. Various accounts report the list included approximately 56 Mormon historical figures and 23 famous Americans. See "Tales of Hofmann," Deseret News, October 15, 2005. https://www.deseret.com/2005/10/15/19917491/tales-of-hofmann-forgeries-deceit-continue-to-intrigue-20-years-later/ ↩︎
On October 15, 1985, Hofmann's first pipe bomb killed Steven F. Christensen at his office in the Judge Building in downtown Salt Lake City. The second bomb killed Kathleen "Kathy" Sheets at her home in Holladay. On October 16, a third bomb detonated in Hofmann's car near 200 North and Main Street. See Turley, Victims; "Hofmann Forgeries," Church History Topics. ↩︎
Kenneth Rendell authenticated the Salamander Letter for purchaser Steven Christensen. Rendell later acknowledged he was deceived. See Turley, Victims. ↩︎
Charles Hamilton — one of New York's leading autograph dealers and author of Great Fakes and Famous Forgers — purchased Hofmann forgeries for years without suspicion. Hofmann studied Hamilton's book to learn how to fool experts, including Hamilton himself. See "Tales of Hofmann," Deseret News, October 15, 2005. ↩︎
Dallin H. Oaks, "Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents," address at Brigham Young University, August 6, 1987. Published in Ensign, October 1987. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Forgeries/Mark_Hofmann/Church_reaction_to_forgeries/Dallin_H._Oaks_6_August_1987_remarks_on_Hofmann ↩︎
Gordon B. Hinckley, statement following Hofmann's 1987 guilty plea: "I frankly admit that Hofmann tricked us. He also tricked experts from New York to Utah, however. We bought those documents only after the assurance that they were genuine." ↩︎
Hofmann printed the forgery on the evening of March 25, 1985, from a plate produced by the DeBouzek Engraving Company in Salt Lake City. He attempted to sell it to the Library of Congress for $1.5 million. See "Oath of a Freeman," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_a_Freeman ↩︎
Library of Congress Conservation Office report, May 1985. The report stated that scientific studies "revealed no evidence that would contravene a mid-seventeenth century date for the broadside." Cited in "Famous Forgery, The Oath of a Freeman, Heads to Auction in June," Fine Books & Collections. https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-news/famous-forgery-oath-freeman-heads-auction-june ↩︎
The American Antiquarian Society studied the Oath of a Freeman for two months and "found no flaws in the document." Cited in Fine Books & Collections. ↩︎
The "Salamander Letter" purported to be an 1830 letter from Martin Harris to W.W. Phelps describing Joseph Smith's encounter with a "white salamander" that transformed into a spirit. It was forged by Mark Hofmann and purchased by collector Steven Christensen for $40,000 in January 1984. See "Salamander letter," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander_letter ↩︎
"Church reaction to the Hofmann forgeries," FAIR. President Hinckley, Elder G. Homer Durham, and Don Schmidt all declined Hofmann's offers to sell the Salamander Letter in January 1984. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Church_reaction_to_the_Hofmann_forgeries ↩︎
The full text of the Salamander Letter was published in the Church News on April 28, 1985, with a First Presidency statement noting uncertainty about its authenticity. ↩︎
Dallin H. Oaks, "Reading Church History," CES Symposium address, August 16, 1985. Oaks counseled listeners to "apply the discount of skepticism to media stories about developments in Church history." ↩︎
Oaks noted that "salamander" in 1820s usage could mean "a spirit supposed to live in fire" — a meaning consistent with descriptions of Moroni's appearance in fire and light. See Joseph Smith—History 1:32. ↩︎
Oaks stated the letter "purports only to be Martin Harris's interpretation" of events — hedging language indicating uncertainty, not endorsement. ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," no. 5, p. 67, quoting Simon Worrall, The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery (New York: Dutton, 2002), 232. ↩︎
Doctrine and Covenants 10:37. Given to Joseph Smith at Harmony, Pennsylvania, likely around April 1829. ↩︎
Sarah Allen, "The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 34," FAIR Blog, December 15, 2021. Allen documents Hinckley's extraordinary schedule during this period, including 26 international trips in five years. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2021/12/15/29961 ↩︎
Hofmann routinely exaggerated his closeness to Church leaders to enhance his credibility with buyers and investors. See Turley, Victims. ↩︎
Hofmann spread anonymous rumors about a nonexistent "Oliver Cowdery History" in Church archives. The Church denied possessing the document on October 16, 1986 — because no such document existed. See Oaks, 1987 address. ↩︎
The McLellin collection materials later located in Church archives were distinct from the fictional "Oliver Cowdery History" Hofmann invented. See FAIR, "Church reaction to the Hofmann forgeries." ↩︎
Jerald Tanner published doubts about the Salamander Letter by early 1984, surprising scholars because the letter appeared to support his own arguments against the Church. His skepticism was based on textual analysis — he identified phrases that appeared lifted from E.D. Howe's Mormonism Unvailed (1834) and parallels with Joseph Knight's unpublished account. See Sandra Tanner interview, Gospel Tangents, 2018. https://gospeltangents.com/2018/07/how-jerald-tanner-identified-fake-salamander-letter/ ↩︎
If the Church had publicly rejected the Salamander Letter without forensic proof, critics would have accused it of suppressing inconvenient evidence. By publishing the letter and flagging uncertain authenticity, Church leaders took the responsible institutional path. ↩︎
Sarah Allen, "The CES Letter Rebuttal — Part 34," FAIR Blog, December 15, 2021. Allen cites Elder Oaks' 1987 address stating the Church paid $57,100 in cash, plus traded documents of "undetermined value." Richard Turley Jr. estimates total costs at approximately $100,000. The CES Letter's "hundreds of thousands" figure is inflated. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2021/12/15/29961 ↩︎
Han van Meegeren (1889-1947) forged Vermeer paintings so convincingly that he fooled the European art establishment, including selling a fake to Hermann Goering for 200 original Dutch paintings. He confessed in 1945 to avoid charges of collaboration with the Nazis. See Edward L. Kimball, "The Artist and the Forger: Han van Meegeren and Mark Hofmann," BYU Studies 27, no. 4 (1987): 1-14. ↩︎
Edward L. Kimball, "The Artist and the Forger: Han van Meegeren and Mark Hofmann," BYU Studies 27, no. 4 (1987): 1-14. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-artist-and-the-forger-han-van-meegeren-and-mark-hofmann ↩︎
Joseph Smith, quoted in History of the Church 5:265. See also Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 278. ↩︎
Dallin H. Oaks, "Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents," August 6, 1987. Oaks explained that Church leaders operate "in an atmosphere of trust and love" — a pastoral posture that occasionally allows deception but is essential to effective ministry. ↩︎
Hofmann pleaded guilty in January 1987 to two counts of second-degree murder, one count of theft by deception, and one count of fraud. The judge sentenced him to five years to life and recommended he never be released. He remains incarcerated in Utah. ↩︎
Dallin H. Oaks, "Recent Events Involving Church History and Forged Documents," August 6, 1987. Published in Ensign, October 1987. ↩︎
The Church issued an official statement on July 31, 1987, and released a list of Hofmann-related documents. See FAIR, "Church statement 31 July 1987." https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Forgeries/Mark_Hofmann/Church_reaction_to_forgeries/Church_statement_31_July_1987 ↩︎
The Joseph Smith Papers Project launched online in 2008, making thousands of primary documents freely available. The project's emphasis on transparency reflects lessons learned from the Hofmann era. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/ ↩︎
Murder Among the Mormons, directed by Jared Hess and Tyler Measom, Netflix, 2021. A three-part documentary covering the Hofmann forgeries and bombings. ↩︎