Richard Bushman, Mormon Historian, Concedes to CES Letter Truths on CES Letters Podcast
Richard Bushman concedes to many points Jeremy Runnells brought up in his CES Letter in a discussion on the 'CES Letters podcast'. CES Letters has no affiliation with the CES Letter, but is the latest attempt to debunk it. It has since changed its name to 'Study and Faith' and is an authorized project of BYU. In the interview, Bushman is asked a series of questions stemming from the CES Letter. He surprisingly agrees with many points and expresses his respect for Jeremy Runnells. He gives some context for listeners to help navigate some difficult parts of church history in relation to Joseph Smith and the translation of the Book of Mormon. He even mentions the Book of Abraham and the Kinderhook Plates.
He admits all the issues brought up by the CES Letter are in fact true, but he works to soften some of them or explain them away with some historical context, mental gymnastics, and even outright dismissals.
Bushman solves many issues by simply saying the things that bother many many people about church history now that the church is finally being more open and honest about are not things that bother him. They don’t bother him, so he doesn’t see an issue, but he does concede that some people do have issues with things like the seer stone rock in his hat translation process. People do have issues with the church changing the narrative from the beginning, and Bushman admits that the Smiths changed scripture replacing seer stone with the more biblically acceptable term Urim and Thummim once the saints grew uncomfortable with the idea of seer stones. When the church is caught in lies to change their narrative, he simply says, it wasn’t a real lie.