49 Theses - A Faith Discussion on Restoration Claims

I am not looking for an argument. I am looking for a faith discussion. And if these questions cannot be discussed, ask yourself why.

Keep your faith. Read the questions.

1. Twelve men witnessed gold plates. This witnessing did not extend to the translation, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, or the priesthood. Twelve signatures cover a stack of metal — nothing more.

2. Matthew 18:16 — In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. That is Christ's standard, and it is the standard for every claim disputed here, including those related to Mormon theology.

3. The Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price have one witness — the man who wrote them and benefited from them.

4. The Book of Mormon does not establish the restoration claims, the priesthood, or the keys. Its own title page states its purpose — to convince Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ.

5. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 — Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose the third day. That is the gospel. Complete.

6. 3 Nephi 27:13-14 — Christ defines his own gospel to the Nephites identically. The cross. Nothing more.

7. Mosiah 3:17. Alma 11:40. No other name, no other way, no other means — salvation cometh to none else. The Book of Mormon agrees with Paul.

8. Galatians 1:8 — Anything new, preached by a man or an angel from heaven, is accursed. Their own canon names its covenant new and everlasting.

9. Hebrews 1:1-2 — God spoke in time past by the prophets, and in these last days by his Son. A living prophet after the Son contradicts the verse.

10. D&C 1:38 says the servant's voice is God's voice. 1 Nephi 11:25 says the iron rod is the word of God. Aaron built the calf. David killed for a wife. Samson served himself. Their own canon — pick one.

11. The rock is not Peter. Petros is a small stone; petra is bedrock. 1 Corinthians 10:4 — that Rock was Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11 — no other foundation can be laid.

12. In all of scripture, a key never once means priesthood and never once passes from man to man. Keys are access. The phrase priesthood keys exists only in the book with one witness.

13. Matthew 18:18 — Whatever binding Peter received, Christ gave to all the disciples, in the same breath as where two or three are gathered.

14. Hebrews 7:24 and Matthew 18:20 together — The eternal high priest personally presides over every gathering in his name. A church cannot lose a priesthood its holder brings to every meeting.

15. Matthew 16:18 — The gates of hell shall not prevail. Hebrews 12:28 — A kingdom which cannot be moved. Matthew 28:20 — I am with you alway. Ephesians 3:21 — Glory in the church throughout all ages. Matthew 13 — The wheat stays in the field until the harvest. Daniel 2:44 — Never destroyed. A total apostasy contradicts all six.

16. 1 Nephi 14:12 — The church of the Lamb, few in number, upon all the face of the earth. Their own book describes the church as small gatherings everywhere — never as gone.

17. John 19:30 — It is finished. Matthew 27:51 — The veil torn from top to bottom. A restoration claims Christ did not finish.

18. Exodus 33:20 — No man sees God's face and lives. Every man in scripture who encountered God's glory was marked — Moses shone, Isaiah was undone, Daniel's strength left him, John fell as dead, Saul was blinded — and every one was humbled. The First Vision claims more than Moses received, with no mark, no humility, and one witness.

19. The First Vision was not recorded until 1832 — twelve years after the event — and the accounts changed with each telling. Matthew 24:35 — My words shall not pass away. Everlasting does not change.

20. Exodus 28:30 puts the Urim and Thummim on the high priest. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 calls divination an abomination. In 1827 he held no priesthood, and the church's own papers document a seer stone in a hat. Either road fails scripture.

21. By the church's own records, the high priesthood was first conferred in June 1831, John the Baptist was first published in 1834, Peter, James, and John entered D&C 27 in 1835, and D&C 13 was written in 1838. The restoration was documented backward.

22. D&C 132 arrived after the plural wives. Scripture records polygamy — it never once records God sanctioning it. Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5 — Two become one flesh.

23. D&C 132:52, 54, and 64 threaten a named woman with destruction for holding the position of Genesis 2:24. No such instrument exists anywhere in scripture.

24. The Doctrine and Covenants testifies of the restoration claims, and the restoration authorizes the Doctrine and Covenants. No scripture outside that circle testifies of it. A claim that can only cite itself has zero witnesses.

25. Paul's teaching agreed with the prophets, the Gospels, and the apostles — one mouth among many, tested at Jerusalem and confirmed. Everything Joseph revealed was new to everybody — one mouth, witnessing to itself.

26. D&C 135:3 ranks Joseph Smith second only to Jesus for the salvation of men. No man in scripture is ever ranked second to Christ — and the greatest born of women said he must decrease.

27. Numbers 18 — The Aaronic priesthood was a bloodline inheritance. It was never conferred by hands and cannot be given to men outside the line, by an angel or anybody.

28. Hebrews 7:24 — aparabatos. Non-transferable. All priesthood passed to Christ at the fulfillment of the law and cannot pass again.

29. Their own authorities concede no Aaronic priesthood existed among the Nephites — and the Nephites baptized, and Christ authorized it in person. 3 Nephi 11. Baptism never required what John supposedly restored.

30. Matthew 3:11 — John's own baptism was preparatory, pointing at a Christ not yet come. There was nothing left to prepare in 1829.

31. Colossians 2:11-12 — Baptism replaced circumcision. A mark of belonging, received, not administered. The power was never in the hands performing it.

32. 3 Nephi 11:21 — Christ gave authority, not priesthood. Authority is a living person answering for another's actions — and Christ lives, and extends it directly. It was never an office to pass.

33. Hebrews 7:11 and 8:13 — The old priesthood was ready to vanish away. Fulfilled means completed. You do not restore what Christ completed.

34. Numbers 18:21 — Tithing was subsistence for Levites who had no land. Malachi 3:10 — The storehouse was for meat in mine house. Provision, fulfilled with the law it served.

35. Exodus 36:5-7 — When the giving exceeded the need, Moses commanded the people to stop. In God's economy, provision has a ceiling.

36. The New Testament contains no tithing command. Christ's one mention is a rebuke — Matthew 23:23. Paul's teaching is 2 Corinthians 9:7 — Not grudgingly, or of necessity.

37. Mark 12:40 — Christ condemned men who devour widows' houses — in the verse immediately before the widow's mite.

2 Nephi 26:29 — Priestcraft is preaching for gain. 

38. Nephi 28:13 — They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries. Alma 1 condemns a man for teaching that priests should be supported by the people. Mosiah 18 — Their own priests labored for their own support.

39. John 2:13-16 — God gives; he has never sold. Christ overturned the tables of anyone selling in his Father's house.

40. 1 Corinthians 15:40 — Paul wrote two glories. The third word was added to Paul's letter by the man who needed a third kingdom.

41. Matthew 22:23-30 — The Sadducees brought Christ a marriage commanded by Moses, and Christ answered: In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage. Romans 7:2 — Death dissolves the bond. God's law, both testaments.

42. The only eternal marriage in all of scripture is God and his people — Isaiah 54:5, Hosea 2:19, and the marriage supper of the Lamb.

43. Matthew 19 — Christ honored the choice not to marry. 1 Corinthians 7:38 — Paul said it is better. D&C 132 sentences the unmarried to eternal servanthood.

44. Isaiah 43:10 — Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. D&C 132 promises the sealed they shall be gods.

45. Exodus 20:3 — Thou shalt have no other gods before me. A system that makes men into gods, with other souls ministering to them, collides with the first commandment.

46. The endowment ceremony appears in no scripture at all — not the Bible, not the Book of Mormon, not even the Doctrine and Covenants.

47. 1 Timothy 2:5 — There is one God and one mediator between God and men. Any structure standing between a soul and God adds a second mediator scripture does not allow.

48. Matthew 18:20 — Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I. That is Christ's own definition of his church, and it requires no organization to exist.

49. John 14:6 — I am the truth. The title is already claimed, by the only one who can hold it. It was never given to a man, a prophet, or an organization. Drop the claim. Keep the faith.