What CES Letter Issue to Study First?

There are many issues in the CESLetter: Book of Mormon (translation, witnesses, etc.), First Vision, Polygamy, Priesthood Restoration, The Book of Abraham, Temples & Freemasonry, etc. I wondered where to start to make the best use of my time. Was there an issue that I could study first that would show the LDS church is NOT true?

I looked at the Church website “What Mormons Believe” for the answer. Based on website, I narrowed my choice down to The Book of Mormon or determining if Joseph Smith was a prophet. Then I remembered what Joseph Smith had said about the Book of Mormon to the Twelve Apostles in 1841 and is found in the Introduction of the Book of Mormon:

The Book of Mormon is the “keystone of our religion.”

(History of the Church, 4:461).

I then looked at what other LDS Apostles and Prophets had to say:

Orson Pratt:

"This book must be either true or false. If true, it is one of the most important messages ever sent from God to man, affecting both the temporal and eternal interests of every people under heaven to the same extent and in the same degree that the message of Noah affected the inhabitants of the old world. If false, it is one of the most cunning, wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions ever palmed upon the world, calculated to deceive and ruin millions who will sincerely receive it as the word of God, and will suppose themselves securely built upon the rock of truth until they are plunged with their families into hopeless despair” 
(Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon, p. 1, 1850. Also in A Series of Pamphlets, 1851).

President Ezra Taft Benson:

"Just as the arch crumbles if the keystone is removed, so does all the Church stand or fall with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The enemies of the Church understand this clearly. This is why they go to such great lengths to try to disprove the Book of Mormon, for if it can be discredited, the Prophet Joseph Smith goes with it. So does our claim to priesthood keys, and revelation, and the restored Church. But in like manner, if the Book of Mormon be true—and millions have now testified that they have the witness of the Spirit that it is indeed true—then one must accept the claims of the Restoration and all that accompanies it."

("The Book of Mormon - Keystone ofOur Religion," Ensign, Nov. 1986)

          AND QUOTED IN:

("Teachings of Presidents of theChurch: Ezra Taft Benson," 2014, pg. 128)

Jeffrey R. Holland:

After quoting the above statement from President Ezra Taft Benson, he states:

"To hear someone [President Ezra Taft Benson] so remarkable say something so tremendously bold, so overwhelming in its implications, that everything in the Church—everything—rises or falls on the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and, by implication, the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of how it came forth, can be a little breathtaking. It sounds like a “sudden death” proposition to me. Either the Book of Mormon is what the Prophet Joseph said it is or this Church and its founder are false, fraudulent, a deception from the first instance onward.

Not everything in life is so black and white, but it seems the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and its keystone role in our belief is exactly that. Either Joseph Smith was the prophet he said he was, who, after seeing the Father and the Son, later beheld the angel Moroni, repeatedly heard counsel from his lips, eventually receiving at his hands a set of ancient gold plates which he then translated according to the gift and power of God—or else he did not. And if he did not, in the spirit of President Benson’s comment, he is not entitled to retain even the reputation of New England folk hero or well-meaning young man or writer of remarkable fiction. No, and he is not entitled to be considered a great teacher or a quintessential American prophet or the creator of great wisdom literature. If he lied about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he is certainly none of those."

("True or False," New Era, June 1995. Excerpted from a Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium address given at Brigham Young University on August 9, 1994)

Conclusion:

The Book of Mormon is either the Word of God or it is not. There is no middle ground. Therefore, my review of the CES Letter issues will begin with the Book of Mormon.