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The Book of Mormon

First Edition · 1830
Why it matters to Mormonism

The 1830 edition preserves the wording and structure of the Book of Mormon as its first readers encountered it, making it the baseline for studying later textual changes and the book's earliest reception.

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John Corrill followed Joseph Smith for six years. This was his conclusion.

  John Corrill’s 1839 history is easy to quote as an anti-Mormon source. That misses what makes it useful. Corrill did not spend the early years of Joseph Smith’s movement standing outside it. He joined after trying to disprove it, defended the Saints against accusations he thought were false, served in church leadership, and eventually decided that the movement was a false religion. [1] [2] What changed his mind was a pattern which he had watched develop from the inside: failed plans, financial collapse, pressure against dissenters, escalating militancy, and promises of divine protection that always ended in disaster. [1] That makes Corrill’s story more useful than a simple hostile exposé. It records both why an intelligent early convert believed and why he later stopped believing. The complete 1839 text is available in the Lucifer’s Lantern Full Text Library, including Corrill’s own account of his conversion, church service, the Missouri conflict, and his final remarks to the S...
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No. The Mormon Church is Not Suddenly Opposed to Gambling

Almost immediately after President D. Todd Christofferson said, “Gambling is morally wrong,” during the October 2026 General Conference, the LDS apologetic account @allthoseinfavor reacted as though the Church had just drawn a new moral line on gambling. Which personally is a bit concerning, seeing as the account runs a podcast discussing all aspects of Mormonism, including the history of the church. So I find it hard to believe that they haven't ever encountered the anti-gambling position of the church in their studies. Christofferson’s talk was certainly timely. He described a world in which smartphones have made sports betting, casino-style games, and prediction markets available almost anywhere, and he warned against treating an occasional wager as harmless entertainment.[1] But the moral judgment itself was not new. In fact, the Church had used almost the same words more than a century earlier. In August 1908, Church President Joseph F. Smith addressed speculation and gambling...
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Mormonism's Complicated History With Caffeine

Ask whether Latter-day Saints can drink caffeine and the current answer is yes. The Church’s own historical summary says caffeine has been “left to the judgment of individual Saints” and is not prohibited as a condition for receiving a temple recommend. [3] That answer is clearer today than it was for much of the twentieth century. Church leaders and publications repeatedly discussed caffeine as a drug, a poison, a potentially habit-forming substance, and at times as the apparent reason coffee and tea were objectionable. Some leaders extended that reasoning directly to cola drinks. In 1965, the First Presidency even told a bishop that decaffeinated coffee did not violate the Word of Wisdom and should not disqualify an otherwise worthy member from a temple recommend.[5] The result was a long period in which formal policy, medical explanation, and everyday Mormon culture did not always point in exactly the same direction. That history helps explain why older and younger Latter-day Saints...
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Visualization of the LDS Canon

Around the 1230s, Hugh of Saint-Cher and a team of Dominican scholars produced the first Bible concordance, working through the Latin Vulgate and recording where its words appeared. Because modern verse numbers did not yet exist, the compilers divided chapters into smaller lettered sections so readers could locate an occurrence. Printing made the method far more useful. John Marbeck published the first complete concordance to the English Bible in 1550 . Alexander Cruden's Complete Concordance followed in 1737 and became one of the best-known English Bible reference works. The basic structure remained familiar for centuries: choose a word, then receive a list of passages where it occurs. Latter-day Saints soon adopted the same approach for their own scriptures. In 1900, George Reynolds published A Complete Concordance to the Book of Mormon in Salt Lake City. The 852-page volume was the product of roughly twenty years of work and classified the words of the Book of Mormon so reade...
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Everything You Need to Know About the Salt Lake Temple

  The Salt Lake Temple will open to the public from April 5 through October 1, 2027, before it is rededicated and again restricted to Latter-day Saints with temple recommends. [2] Reservations opened on September 1, 2026, and one million tour spaces were claimed in less than 24 hours. [1] The Church describes the event as only the second public open house in the temple’s 134-year history. [2] The building visitors will enter is both old and substantially new. [12] [13] Construction began in 1853 and ended with the temple’s dedication in April 1893, but the interior has been altered repeatedly since then. [3] [20] The current renovation adds about 100,000 square feet of underground space, two baptistries instead of one, five instruction rooms, and 22 sealing rooms instead of 13. [12] The temple now rests on 98 base isolators about 20 feet below the structure, part of a seismic system designed to allow substantial horizontal movement during a major earthquake. [14] [24] The chan...
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Mormon Blood and the Esther Cohen-Tizer-Epstein Letter

With the recent release of nearly 3.5 million pages of the Epstein files, there have been several connections made regarding Jeffery Epstein paying tuition for several students at BYU. The most notable of which is presented in what is known as the Esther Cohen-Tizer-Epstien Letter.    Some are questioning the authenticity of the letter, but some clues seem to point us to a woman named   Esther Cohen .  Lets look at a few connections. Note that these connections are not an attempt at making any accusations and are simply connections made through publicly available information. I will be updating this page as I find more information. EFTA00129111  Reference to the Seven Bowls School of Nutrition From Esther's website: alchemyofnourishment.com (Update March 04, 2026: The site seems to have been taken down) She began studying nutrition as a teenager: Which also seems to align with her site. Alchemy of Nourishment Along with the claim of residing in Colorado Alc...
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Candon Dahle to Marry After Child Abuse Conviction

Former BYU baseball player Candon Dahle is expected to marry this week, less than a year after receiving a plea deal that allowed him to avoid sex offender registration despite admitting guilt to two felony counts involving the abuse of a child. News of the wedding has reignited criticism online, where many argue Dahle's return to ordinary life has come far too quickly in light of the allegations against him.  The topic was recently discussed on Instagram by  @justinthenickofcrime View this post on Instagram A post shared by Justin (@justinthenickofcrime) Dahle first made headlines in February 2025 when he was charged in Fremont County, Idaho, with felony lewd conduct with a child under the age of 16. According to the probable cause affidavit summarized by East Idaho News , prosecutors alleged Dahle sexually abused an 11-year-old girl and covered her mouth during one of the assaults. Authorities also filed a separate juvenile case in neighboring Bing...
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Visualization of the LDS Canon

Around the 1230s, Hugh of Saint-Cher and a team of Dominican scholars produced the first Bible concordance, working through the Latin Vulgate and recording where its words appeared. Because modern verse numbers did not yet exist, the compilers divided chapters into smaller lettered sections so readers could locate an occurrence. Printing made the method far more useful. John Marbeck published the first complete concordance to the English Bible in 1550 . Alexander Cruden's Complete Concordance followed in 1737 and became one of the best-known English Bible reference works. The basic structure remained familiar for centuries: choose a word, then receive a list of passages where it occurs. Latter-day Saints soon adopted the same approach for their own scriptures. In 1900, George Reynolds published A Complete Concordance to the Book of Mormon in Salt Lake City. The 852-page volume was the product of roughly twenty years of work and classified the words of the Book of Mormon so reade...
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The "Mormon" Trademark is About to Expire

 The request for Mormon Stories to rebrand has spread quickly through Mormon spaces. Followers learned that om November 14th 2025, the LDS Church had reached out with claims that the podcast was infringing on the “Mormon” trademark. The demand leaned on the legal idea that the Church owns the word.  The request was shared on social media by @mormstories, but those posts seem to have been removed. Fortunately, copies of the email were  shared on reddit. But there is a significant detail sitting behind this entire dispute. The Church will have to renew the "Mormon" trademark in the 2026 to 2027 window.  Source: USPTO database When that time comes, they must prove that they still use the word “Mormon” in active commerce. USPTO rules are clear on this point. A trademark only survives if the owner can show that it is still printed on actual goods or services that are still being sold or distributed. The official guidelines spell it out at uspto.gov under “ Keeping your r...
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Are You Temple Worthy?

Temple worthiness isn’t just about "good behavior" in Mormon teaching. It’s a gate that determines who qualifies for the highest blessings the religion offers. The church teaches that only people judged worthy can enter the temple, make covenants, and receive the ordinances that lead to exaltation, which is the belief that humans can become like God and live forever with their families in the celestial kingdom.  This makes worthiness interviews a spiritual checkpoint that can shape someone’s identity, their standing in the community, and even their hope for eternity.    Are You Worthy to Enter a Mormon Temple? Are You Worthy of the Mormon Temple? Yes No Restart Enter the Temple
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The Church is Changing the Sunday Schedule... Again

On September 6, 2026, Latter-day Saints will arrive at church to find the second hour rearranged. Sacrament meeting will remain no longer than 60 minutes. Adults and youth will then attend 25 minutes of Sunday School every week, followed by 25 minutes of Relief Society, elders quorum, Young Women, or Aaronic Priesthood quorum instruction. Primary will meet for 55 minutes. The alternating schedule introduced with two-hour church in 2019 will be gone.¹ The First Presidency's March announcement put the change plainly: In the new schedule, sacrament meeting will continue to be no longer than 60 minutes. After a 5‑minute transition, youth and adults will attend a 25‑minute Sunday School class each week. Following another 5‑minute transition, they will attend a 25‑minute priesthood quorum, Relief Society, or Young Women meeting. Primary will continue to meet weekly and will now last 55 minutes.¹ The schedule is a modest administrative revision. The institution capable of making it, thoug...
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Everything You Need to Know About the Salt Lake Temple

  The Salt Lake Temple will open to the public from April 5 through October 1, 2027, before it is rededicated and again restricted to Latter-day Saints with temple recommends. [2] Reservations opened on September 1, 2026, and one million tour spaces were claimed in less than 24 hours. [1] The Church describes the event as only the second public open house in the temple’s 134-year history. [2] The building visitors will enter is both old and substantially new. [12] [13] Construction began in 1853 and ended with the temple’s dedication in April 1893, but the interior has been altered repeatedly since then. [3] [20] The current renovation adds about 100,000 square feet of underground space, two baptistries instead of one, five instruction rooms, and 22 sealing rooms instead of 13. [12] The temple now rests on 98 base isolators about 20 feet below the structure, part of a seismic system designed to allow substantial horizontal movement during a major earthquake. [14] [24] The chan...
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A Girl's Letters from Nauvoo.

On January 3, 1843, Charlotte Haven sat down in a small cottage overlooking the Mississippi and wrote to her parents in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She had arrived in Nauvoo only days earlier to spend the winter with her brother Henderson and his wife, Elizabeth. Haven was not a Latter-day Saint. Her skepticism appears in the opening lines: [1] As I write Nauvoo, I look at the word with perfect amazement, and almost doubt my own senses when I find myself an inhabitant of this city of fanatics, for never did I expect to see the place, far less to indite letters to my dear parents from it. [1] Haven's letters appeared nearly forty-eight years later in the Overland Monthly under the title "A Girl's Letters from Nauvoo." They are openly critical and should be read as one outsider's testimony, not as a neutral transcript. Still, she recorded small details that official histories often leave out: the bitter cold, muddy streets, unfinished homes, crowded worship services,...
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The 1911 Salt Lake Temple Photographs

In September 1911, President Joseph F. Smith received eight unauthorized photographs of the Salt Lake Temple interior and a letter from Salt Lake theater promoter Max Florence. Florence said his associates controlled sixty-eight negatives and suggested that, unless the Church bought them, the images could be sold to magazines, postcard makers, or lecture bureaus. Smith refused. “I will make no bargain with thieves or traffickers in stolen goods,” he replied. Within days, the Church published seven of the photographs itself. What had begun as a secret photography project inside the temple had become a public contest over who would control the images and what the public would be allowed to see. [1] , [3] , [4] How Bossard got inside Bossard was twenty-one years old when his name became public in September 1911. He had emigrated to Utah after converting to Mormonism, had been baptized in 1907, and had received an Aaronic Priesthood ordination in 1908. By 1911, however, he had b...
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What Would It Take to Show Christianity Is False?

If Christianity's central claims are correct, then the universe has a creator who became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, died for the sins of the world, rose bodily from the dead, and continues to offer eternal life to those who trust in him. If these claims are true, they deserve not merely admiration but allegiance. They would represent the defining events of human history. If they are false, however, the implications are equally profound. Christianity has shaped civilizations, inspired art, influenced governments, comforted the dying, motivated charity, justified wars, and guided the lives of billions of people. A religion with that kind of influence should not simply be accepted because it is ancient or widely believed. It should be examined with the same seriousness its claims demand. C. S. Lewis understood this point perhaps better than anyone. Although remembered as one of Christianity's most influential defenders, he famously observed in God in the Dock: Essays on Theol...
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