Question 1

The temple that was never built

Accepted Answer

No temple was ever built on that lot. The Saints were driven from Missouri by 1839, and that generation passed away with the consecrated spot empty — the test of Deuteronomy 18 applied to the words exactly as given.

Question 2

A mission for a man with six months to live

Accepted Answer

Patten was killed at the Battle of Crooked River in October 1838 — six months after the revelation, and before the spring mission it commanded. A revelation that schedules a dead man's mission did not come from the One who knows the end from the beginning.

Question 3

The treasure of Salem

Accepted Answer

No treasure was found and no Salem wealth ever came to the church. A prophecy given to recover a debt, failing on its own terms, answers the question Scripture tells us to ask of every prophet.

Question 4

Fifty-six years to wind up the scene

Accepted Answer

Fifty-six years from 1835 was 1891. The scene did not wind up — and Jesus had already said that of that day and hour knoweth no man, a verse every date-setter has broken against.

Question 5

'God himself was once as we are now'

Accepted Answer

Scripture's God is not an exalted man: 'from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God'; 'God is not a man'; 'I am the LORD, I change not.' A god with a beginning who progressed to godhood is precisely what Isaiah's God says cannot exist.

Question 6

'Then shall they be gods'

Accepted Answer

The first voice in Scripture to promise 'ye shall be as gods' was the serpent's. Yahweh's own word leaves no room: 'before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.' Not one before; not one after; none beside.

Question 7

The plurality of Gods

Accepted Answer

Isaiah's courtroom scenes exist to demolish exactly this: 'I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.' Paul concedes there are many so-called gods — 'but to us there is but one God.'

Question 8

The Adam-God sermon

Accepted Answer

The church later repudiated the doctrine — President Kimball called it false in 1976. The honest conclusion cuts both ways: either a prophet taught false doctrine over the pulpit for years, or the church that disavowed him is wrong. Both options break the claim of prophetic reliability.

Question 9

'All wrong… an abomination'

Accepted Answer

Paul left the church one test for any new message, angelic or apostolic: 'though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.' Jude says the faith was 'once delivered' — not lost for seventeen centuries.

Question 10

A gospel from an angel

Accepted Answer

Paul wrote the warning before Moroni was ever named: 'though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel… let him be accursed,' adding elsewhere that 'Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.' The test is not the messenger's glory but the message's agreement with the gospel already delivered.

Question 11

The papyri speak for themselves

Accepted Answer

When the source text exists and says something else entirely, the translation claim is testable — and tested. The church's own words: the characters 'do not match the translation.' A seer whose one checkable translation fails gives no grounds to trust the uncheckable ones.

Question 12

DNA and the missing Israelites

Accepted Answer

The essay argues the science is 'inconclusive' for the Book's claims — but a record whose central migration left no genetic, linguistic, or archaeological trace asks for faith against evidence, not from it. 'Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.'

Question 13

Four First Visions

Accepted Answer

Histories grow; testimonies harden. The earliest account knows nothing of the two-personage theology the later church built on the event. Scripture's standard for establishing a matter is consistent witness — and here the witnesses are one man, disagreeing with himself.

Question 14

The youngest was fourteen

Accepted Answer

Whatever is argued about the practice, it is not the marriage 'as it was from the beginning' that Jesus taught — one man, one wife, one flesh — nor the standard Paul set for those who lead God's house.

MORMONISM & THE BIBLE

TEST EVERYTHING