Source: The CES letter highlights: Mormonism Refuted Channel: It’s Me Jessie Published: March 9, 2019 | Archived: May 24, 2026

Video: The CES letter highlights: Mormonism Refuted
Channel: It’s Me Jessie
Published: March 9, 2019
Duration: 25:50
Views: 249,165
Category: People & Blogs
Video ID: eaw20OmgO4I

Description

Here’s the link to the rest of my channel where I cover many Mormon topics:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwiPYUcQrYaxEdM9VjH4-rA

Here’s the link to the CES Letter so you can read it for yourself. It covers MUCH MORE than I covered in this video:

CESLetter.org

And please leave a comment below or feel free to send me an email so we can talk further! I’d love to share the true Gospel message of the Bible with you and help you come to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior! I’d also love to help you find a good Bible believing church in your area if you don’t already have one. Here’s my email address:

itsmejessieo@outlook.com

Facebook.com/ItsMeJessieYouTube

Thanks for watching and God bless you!

Transcript — YouTube panel (human-authored)

0:00 hey guys today I’m gonna cover a very deep topic within Mormon issues it’s the CES letter have you heard of it and have you visited that site this letter which was written by a Mormon who is no longer a Mormon he basically Dovan and started tearing apart Mormonism because he found so many issues and he went very in-depth with it I know that the CES letter has taken multiple Mormons out of the church because they’ve read it and they are just blown away I’ve heard from multiple Mormons that the gospel topics essays on lds.org that the church posted as well as the CES letters combined and just completely blew them away and force them to leave the church because the evidence was so great against the Book of Mormon and the history and there’s just so much so anyways let’s just jump in I’m gonna cover some of the highlights of the CES letter so buckle your seat belts because this one it covers a lot if you have questions

1:20 about it look it up you can google it you can go to the website you can type in I don’t know if it’s CES letter calm org but either one will take you there because I’ve typed in both okay number one parts of the Book of Mormon contain passages that are word for word the same as passages from the 1769 edition of the King James Bible in this edition of KJV there are italicized words these italicized words were added by the authors to make the passages read more poetically in the 17th century English they were italicized to let the reader know that they were not part of actual translation from the source text Book of Mormon is supposed to be a translation of an ancient text why do these words which were added to the King James Bible in the 17th century appear in the Book of Mormon excellent question huge point number two these 1769 edition of the King James Bible the Edition that Joseph Smith owned contained errors that were

2:21 corrected in later editions of the KJV why are these 1769 errors repeated in the Book of Mormon number 3 Joseph Smith translated the Joseph Smith translation Bible the jst Bible in which he claims to have fixed errors and other translations of the Bible why do Book of Mormon passages match the KJV 1769 rather than the Joseph Smith translation Bible there seems to be a contradiction here again valid point number 4 DNA oh I’m gonna struggle with this word \[Music\] phylogenetic analysis shown conclusively that American Indians are descended from Asians not Middle Easterners or choose number 5 I cover this in one of my videos and I got torn apart by a lot of people because they hate this subject but it’s a valid point and you have to consider this even Mormons who sent me sources trying to refute this topic within a couple of sentences I’m like there’s already problems so okay back to it horses cattle oxen sheep swine goats elephants wheels chariots wheat silk steel and iron did not exist in

3:47 pre-columbian America during Book of Mormon times why are these things mentioned in the Book of Mormon as being made available in the Americas between 2200 BC and 421 ad very valid point I have to ask the same question number 6 Book of Mormon states that there were two battles that took place at the Hill Cumorah and these battles two million people are said to have died yet no bones chariots swords armor or any evidence of such grand scale battle has been found no roads no ruined buildings no art no pottery compare this lack of evidence to all the archaeologic evidence we have about many ancient people including tribes living in the Americas at the time when these battles are claimed to have taken place latter-day Saint Thomas Stuart Ferguson was BYU’s archaeology division new world archaeology archaeological funding founder and WAF was financed by the church and WAF and Ferguson were tasked by BYU and the church in the 1950s and 1960s to find archeological evidence to

4:54 support the Book of Mormon this is what Ferguson wrote after 17 years of trying to dig up evidence for the Book of Mormon and I quote you can’t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt archeology I should say what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book that is a really good point I’m familiar with him and I even have further details of him and his funding by the church so number seven Book of Mormon geography is strikingly similar to the Great Lakes region where Joseph Smith grew up there are dozens of place names in Book of Mormon which correspond to real places around upstate New York these include Alma Boaz Lehi and so on number eight there is an island off the coast of Madagascar called kimura its principle settlement was named Moroni Joseph Smith was a treasure hunter and a huge fan of pirate fiction a contemporary source reports that the

6:05 young Smith was a fan of the Captain William Kidd pirate novels parts of those stories take place on kimura and in Moroni the name kimura appears in the 1830 edition of Book of Mormon but the spelling was changed in later editions see a mor a H just like that island off the coast of Madagascar so that was very interesting to me when I watch the YouTube video in the inner interview of the guy who wrote the CES letter it’s it’s really interesting stuff so anyway number nine a fictional book called view of the Hebrews was published in 1825 in Vermont five years before the first edition of Book of Mormon it tells a story that parallels the Book of Mormon story I’m striking similarity including migrations of Hebrew tribes to America Jewish origin of Indian language similar battle settlements Indian records recorded on gold Leafs and buried in a hill Urim and Thummim messiah visits america quotes

7:15 entire chapters of Isaiah some Patchett some passages from the view of the Hebrews and Book of Mormon are word-for-word identical reverend ethan smith was the author of the view of the hebrews ethan smith was a pastor in pulls me vermont when he wrote and published the book and are you familiar with this this is very interesting Oliver Cowdery also a Poultney Vermont resident was a member of Ethan’s congregation during this time and before he went to New York to join his cousin and Joseph Smith and to become Joseph Smith’s scribe that’s a very huge argument against the Book of Mormon right there number 10 the late war between the United States and Great Britain is a children’s text book published in 1819 it is written in King James style language and contains many phrases and passages which appear in Book of Mormon phrases such as party of brass and I’m sorry partly of brass and partly of iron and we’re cunningly contrived with curious works like unto a

8:27 clock as it were a large ball appear end of quote appear verbatim in both Book of Mormon and a textbook that Smith likely read as a child number 11 the first book of napoleon was published in 1809 compare its opening lines to the beginning of Book of Mormon the first book of napoleon condemned not the writing an account the first book of Napoleon upon the face of the earth it came to pass the land their inheritance their gold and silver and the commandments of the Lord the foolish imaginations of their hearts small in stature Jerusalem because of the perverse wickedness of the people and of quote with that and then moving on to the Book of Mormon condemn not the writing an account the first book of Nephi upon the face of the earth it came to pass the land his inheritance and his gold and his silver and the commandments of the Lord the foolish imaginations of his heart large and stature Jerusalem because of the weakness of the people and so on so that is almost

9:38 word-for-word that’s that’s a really interesting point to make number 12 the first 1830 edition a book of Mormon had a Trinitarian theology this is a big one for me too as a Christian and if I will believe I will believe her many passages that establish identity between father and son were later changed as part of over 100,000 changes made after the first edition for example first Nephi 3 page 32 these last records shall make known to all Kindred’s tongues and people that the Lamb of God is the eternal father and the savior of the world was changed to these last records shall make known to all Kindred’s tongues and people that the Lamb of God is the son of the Eternal Father and the savior of the world however there are still some parts of Book of Mormon which establish identity between father and son for example ether 3 14 through 15 behold I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my

10:42 people behold I am Jesus Christ I am the father and the son in me all mankind have life I wonder if that’s a typo instead of has and that eternally even they who shall believe on my name and they shall become my sons and my daughters so very clear is that I am the father and the son these changes to later edition show an evolving theology of the Godhead away from the traditional Trinitarian view but by leaving some passages like the one in ether above the Book of Mormon now presents a contradictory view on the ontology of the Godhead and I would include in that just from my own studying 2nd Nephi 31 21 which also clearly speaks of a Trinitarian God number thirteen peep stone translation Joseph Smith was not even looking at the gold plates when he translated them he was looking at a rock in his hat at times the plates were not even in the same building but were rather hidden in the woods why has the church been less than forthcoming about the translation

11:51 process that is a huge point number 14 first vision inconsistencies I have an entire video on this so I don’t even need to read this you just need to watch that video because I disproved the first vision through the use of Mormon documents and really nothing else but I’ll just read this anyways there are 4 different versions of the first vision in the sacred grove actually there are more than 4 this is Joseph’s vision that supposedly occurred in 1820 there’s no mention of the first vision anywhere until it appears in Smith’s journal in 1832 12 years after it happened in a few years after the first edition of the Book of Mormon the four accounts differ on how old Smith was why he went out to pray who appeared to him a spirit and Angel two angels Jesus many angels the father and the son they’re all over the place the next point point 15 almost done you guys Book of Abraham I have an entire video on this so please go watch that if you want just kind of a thorough background and story on it here’s

12:56 another overview Smith bought a piece of papyrus from a traveling mummy exhibit that claimed it was a document written by Abraham with his own hand Smith’s translation is now the Book of Abraham you just ologists later determined that the paper had dated to this data to the 1st century AD 2,000 years after a lived that the text was a common funeral item called a breathing permit issue to a man named who was mummified in the first century and as Smith’s translation was completely unrelated to the papyrus I definitely recommend going and watching my video for a much better explanation of the Book of Abraham in its history but yeah The Book of Abraham presents a newtonian cosmology which very closely resembles Thomas Dix 1830 philosophy of a future state of which Smith owned a copy much to the much I’m going to quote much of the book dealt with the infinity of the universe made up of innumerable stars

14:07 spread all over immeasurable distances Dix speculated that many of these stars were peopled by various orders of intelligence and these intelligence intelligence were progressive beings in various stages of evolution toward perfection in the Book of Abraham part of which consists of a treaty treated treatise on astronomy and cosmology eternal beings various orders and stages of development like wait likewise populate numerous stars they too are called intelligences Dyck speculated that the systems of the universe revolved around a common center the throne of God and in the Book of Abraham one star named Kolob was nearest unto the throne of God of course now that we have good telescopes we know this model of the cosmos is just a just as false as the geocentric models which preceded it which I’m just reading from this source but very interesting on the Book of Abraham and I think just the correlation between Book of Abraham and Thomas Dix book philosophy of a future

15:17 state that is really interesting um so this could just go on forever instead of going to huge detail here I’m just going to I’m gonna fly through this okay guys bear with me because it’s important adultery and polygamy Joseph Smith had at least 34 wives 11 of them were married women of other living men among them being apostle Orson Hyde who who was sent on his mission to dedicate Israel when Joseph secretly married his wife Miranda Hyde another one of his wives was a pregnant newlywed are you familiar with this pedophilia seven of Smith’s wives were teenagers as young as 14 I would also include that in pedophilia I think that’s absolutely disturbing and the average age for marriage even in the 1800s was in the 20s it was not in middle school so incestuous relations among the women was a mother-daughter set and three sister sets several of these women included Joseph’s own foster daughters and read the Book of Leviticus in the Bible it

16:31 specifically mentioned some other daughter sets and sister sets being absolutely wrong and Joseph Smith was supposedly a prophet of God who very much owned a Bible and so that’s an interesting point right there doctrine coming in to 1:32 that still it sets out specific rules about how on polygamy can be practiced and it talks about how well anyway I’ll just go here it gives a man a right to destroy his first wife if she does not consent to further plural marriages that she must at least be given an opportunity to consent Smith did not follow the rules set out and talked to Anna Kevin is 132 secretly marrying women behind his first wife’s back and marrying women who are not virgins moreover plural marriages are rooted in the notion of sealing for both time and eternity the sealing power was not restored until April 3rd 1836 when Elijah appeared to Joseph in the Kirtland temple and conferred the sealing keys upon him so Joseph’s

17:33 marriage to Fanny Algar in 1833 was illegal under both the laws of the land and under any theory of defying Authority and Fanny Algar was also a that was a what-do-you-call-it oh I can’t even think of the word Oh scandal look into that story it’s very interesting okay predatory threats and promises Smith promised salvation to a girl’s entire family if she would marry him to another teenage ball he threatened that an angel with a flaming sword would kill him if she did not consent to marriage that is a very interesting story look into it Smith lied about his sexual activity when publicly questioned about it shortly before his death he said what a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery and having seven wives when I can only find one I am the same man and as innocent as I was 14 years ago and I can prove them all perjurers the 1835 edition of DNC bans polygamy but as Smith was receiving and

18:40 teaching these revelations he continued to marry new wives what I just talked about where he denied having but seven wives and said he just had one he actually had more than that at the time and you can find it in history of the church volume six right around it’s chapter 19 right around page 408 or so I know this because it’s an exact same section where Smith boasts who have done greater things than Jesus himself among Paul and other people in the Bible so soliciting perjury in an attempt to abate public rumors of his secret polygamy Joseph got 31 witnesses to sign an affidavit published in the LDS October 1st 1842 times in season stating that Joseph did not practice polygamy we know of no other rule or system of marriage than the one published in the book of Doctrine and Covenants one of the signers of this affidavit was Joseph Smith’s plural wife Joseph and Eliza were married three months earlier on June 29th 1842 the Apostles and future

19:43 prophets John Taylor and Walt Wilford Woodruff were very aware of Joseph’s polygamy behind the scenes when they signed another signer Bishop Whitney had personally married his daughter Sarah Ann Whitney to Joseph as a plural wife a few months earlier on July 27th 1842 he’s wife and Sara’s mother Elizabeth also a signer witnessed the ceremony so that is just a situation that is jam-packed full of lies and yeah soliciting perjury Adam God I have an entire video on this Brigham Young taught that Adam was Heavenly Father descended to earth and human flesh that the Adam God doctrine was condemned by a later prophet watch that video it’s very interesting and how can you deny the teachings of a prophet who said it was direct revelation from God Himself blood atonement I have a video on this as well go watch it Brigham Young taught that Jesus atonement was not sufficient to cover all sins and that some people needed to be killed in order to atone

20:40 for their sins with their own blood and I quote I know when you hear my brethren telling about cutting people off from the earth that you consider it is strong doctrine but it is to save them not to destroy them Brigham Young gave himself the right to kill people under the guise of saving them from their sins watch my video by going way further into detail in regards to blood atonement quotes much stronger than that one and polygamy necessary for salvation Brigham Young said the only men who become God’s even the sons of God are those who enter into polygamy so polygamy was definitely taught as essential I talked in another video about the progression of polygamy teachings within the church and how it started at one thing one point and ended with a totally different teaching I’m really interesting I recommend that as well no blacks allowed Joseph Smith gave the priesthood to black men but Brigham

21:35 Young prohibited it and denied black people access to the temple every prophet from young until the 70s upheld the racist ban on blacks in the temple how can true prophets disagree on a matter such as this the same God who deny a–the none that come unto Him black and white bond and free male and female is the same God who denied blacks from saving ordinances of the temple for 130 years yet he changed his mind again in 1978 about black people these doctrines were later declared false by future prophets and apostles yesterday’s doctrine is today’s false doctrine today’s profit is today’s heretic that is a huge point that I have to absolutely agree with it’s disturbing and the teachings with in regards to blacks are terrible I actually just recorded a video on that so that will be up on my channel as well go check it out all right we’re almost at the end guys thanks for sticking with me falsifiable claims Smith claimed that he could translate ancient texts this is

22:43 a false claim as you can see through even just the Book of Abraham and then the Kinderhook plates this is interesting if you’ve never heard about it Joseph Smith gave partial translation of these plates claiming they were from a descendent of ham the plates were later revealed to be a hoax this and the Book of Abraham mistranslation show that Smith could not translate ancient texts his claim was both fowl and twice falsified I need to do a video on the Kinderhook plates because that is a very interesting subject look it up if you haven’t heard about it look look into it it’s a hoax that Joseph’s friends played on him to test his validity as a prophet and he failed their test so those are highlights from the CES letter I recommend you read it if you are a Mormon read this stuff get into these topics and decipher for yourself whether or not there’s truth to be found within Mormonism I would think after hearing all of that and if you can look it up in your own doctrine and websites and

23:46 scripture and everything else and you can verify this I can’t understand how anyone could go on believing something that is so obviously and honestly so easily proven false I care about you all and I am praying for my subscribers and my commentaries and those of you who do and don’t agree with me I make these videos to expose truth and to expose lies to promote truth and to expose lies and I just wanted to say that if you want to talk further if you are seeking out truth I share my testimony in another one of my videos I’m a born-again Christian I have and absolute hope in my future I have a relationship with Jesus Christ and I have so much joy and peace because of that I would love to talk further I would love to get some excellent research sources into your hands so that you too may come to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and if you’re coming out of false belief system it doesn’t mean that there is no truth to be found I do not want you to end your

24:48 life in atheism or agnosticism or who knows what else I want you to end your life knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and embracing truth this book right here this is my Bible in contradiction to the Book of Mormon and the doctrine of covenants and the pearl of great price and all of the Mormon books this book right here is very a firewall verifiable and it has such precious truth to be found so um I also have a series of videos coming up that I’m actually doing with my dad I can’t wait for you all to meet him over this channel he is fantastic and we’re gonna be talking about Christian apologetics so we’re gonna go beyond Mormonism and we’re gonna talk about Christianity and why it is that Ibis and believe that so anyway thanks for watching sorry this got long but it’s good information you all need to study it up for yourselves and know about it thanks again for watching and I will see you soon