# Mormonism Spread the Same Way Objection Defeater ## Intro The objection goes like this: *"Christians say their faith grew fast because Jesus really rose. But Mormonism went viral too. One man, Joseph Smith, said an angel gave him gold plates. He got eleven men to sign statements that they saw them. Six members in 1830 became more than 17 million today. If fast growth and sincere witnesses do not prove Mormonism, they do not prove Christianity either."* Part of this is right, and it is worth saying so. Fast growth does not prove a religion true. A well-known sociologist, Rodney Stark, even pointed out that the early church grew at about the same rate the Mormon church has. But the resurrection case was never "it grew fast, so it is true." It is about what started the growth. Put the two side by side and they come apart at every step. **What was claimed.** The apostles said Jesus died in public, was buried, and was seen alive again by groups of people, in the same city, weeks later. Anyone could check the tomb or ask the people named. Joseph Smith's plates were kept hidden. He said he gave them back to an angel, so no one outside his circle could ever examine them. **Who saw it.** All eleven Book of Mormon witnesses came from Smith's family or the Whitmer family and their close friends. Three of them said an angel showed them the plates in a vision. Jesus' appearances included his own brother James, who had not believed in him, and Paul, who had been hunting Christians down. **What it cost.** Smith gained leadership, many wives, a city to run and a run for President. The apostles gained beatings, prison and, for several of them, death. **What can be checked.** One of Smith's translations can be checked against the papyrus it came from, and the church's own essay admits the writing does not match. The New Testament names real places, rulers and customs that historians and archaeologists have confirmed. So yes, both grew. Only one of them grew from public events that people who had been there could have denied. ## In full Defeater for the objection that Mormonism is a counterexample to the Christian argument from origins, in three connected forms. **(A) The growth form:** *"Mormonism grew from a handful to millions, about as fast as early Christianity, so rapid growth is no evidence that anything supernatural happened."* **(B) The witness form:** *"The Book of Mormon has eleven signed witnesses who never recanted, so sincere witness testimony is no evidence either."* **(C) The martyr form:** *"Joseph Smith died for his claims too, so dying for a belief proves nothing."* The page grants the core of form (A) outright. Stark computed early Christian growth at about 40% per decade and called it "exceedingly close" to the 43% per decade the Mormon church had kept up over a century, concluding that "the rise of Christianity required no miraculous rates of conversion" (*The Rise of Christianity*, 1996, ch. 1). Growth rate is not the argument. The argument, set out in [Argument from the Resurrection](/codex/argument-from-the-resurrection/), [Minimal Facts Argument](/codex/minimal-facts-argument/) and [Resurrection-Centric Growth Argument](/codex/resurrection-centric-growth-argument/), rests on what the first witnesses were in a position to know, what they said they saw, and what saying it cost them. So the objection succeeds only against a "growth equals truth" argument that the codex does not make, and the real comparison is between the two founding events. That comparison runs on five tests: whether the founding claim was public or private, whether the witnesses were independent or drawn from one circle, whether the experience reported was physical or visionary, whether the claimants gained or lost by it, and whether the movement's checkable claims have held up. On each test the two cases differ. The page uses the Latter-day Saint church's own Gospel Topics essays and its scholars' published responses wherever possible, and states the Latter-day Saint answer to each point. **What the page does not claim.** It does not claim that Latter-day Saints are insincere, that early Mormons were never persecuted (they were, severely), or that growth proves Christianity. For the Christian assessment of Smith as a prophet see [Joseph Smith](/codex/joseph-smith/); for the doctrine of God see [Mormonism vs the Christian God](/codex/mormonism-vs-the-christian-god/); for the Book of Mormon's historical claims see [Book of Mormon](/codex/book-of-mormon/). ## Argument structure | # | Premise | |---|---| | **P1** | The growth rate of a movement is not evidence of its truth, and the resurrection argument does not claim it is; Stark himself found early Christian growth (about 40% per decade) close to Mormon growth (43%), and a church's membership rolls also overstate its believers (in Mexico in 2010, 1,234,545 on the rolls against 314,932 who told the census they were Latter-day Saints). | | **P2** | The apostolic claim was public and physical: a public execution, a known burial and bodily appearances in the same city within weeks, fixed in a creed Paul received within about three to five years; Smith's founding claim rested on plates no outsider examined, which he said he returned to an angel. | | **P3** | The resurrection witnesses included groups, a skeptic (James) and an enemy (Paul); all eleven Book of Mormon witnesses came from Smith's family, the Whitmer family and their close associates, the Three described a vision shown by an angel, and contemporaries report Martin Harris saying he saw the plates with a "spiritual eye." | | **P4** | Smith gained authority, wives, civic and military office and a presidential candidacy; the apostles gained persecution, and several were killed. None of the eleven witnesses was killed for his testimony, and Smith died in a jail attack after the destruction of a newspaper press, not as the price of refusing to retract an observation. | | **P5** | Where Smith's claims can be checked they have failed by the church's own account (the Book of Abraham papyri, the DNA of Native Americans), while the New Testament's checkable claims about places, rulers and customs have repeatedly been confirmed. | | **P6** | Mormonism grew among people who already accepted Jesus, the Bible, prophets and angels; early Christianity had to persuade Jews to accept a crucified Messiah, "accursed of God" by the Law, and Gentiles to accept a bodily resurrection they mocked. | | **C** | **Therefore Mormonism's growth is not a counterexample to the Christian argument. It defeats "growth proves truth," which no serious Christian argument claims, and it differs from Christian origins at every point the resurrection argument actually rests on.** | ## Form **Defensive (a defeater).** P1 is a **concession and scope test**: it grants what is true in the objection and fixes what it can and cannot touch. P2 to P5 are **disanalogy tests**, each comparing the same feature of the two founding events from documented sources. P6 is a **host-culture comparison** drawn partly from Stark's own sociology of conversion. Soundness is **contemporary**: it rests on the published Latter-day Saint witness statements and Gospel Topics essays, census data, and the mainstream historical-critical consensus on the early resurrection creed. ## Cheatsheet **The 30-second reply (read aloud).** You're right that growth alone proves nothing, and I'm not arguing that. A sociologist named Rodney Stark found early Christianity grew about as fast as Mormonism. So let's compare what started each one. The apostles said Jesus was executed in public and seen alive by groups of people, in the same city, weeks later. Joseph Smith's plates were never shown to anyone outside his own circle, and he said he gave them back to an angel. Jesus appeared to his skeptical brother and to a man who was killing Christians. Every one of Smith's eleven witnesses came from two families and their friends. Smith gained power and dozens of wives. The apostles got prison and execution. And the one translation of Smith's we can check, his own church admits, doesn't match. So which founding would you rather test? **The 5 fast facts:** 1. **Same growth rate, conceded.** Stark: early Christianity grew about 40% per decade, "exceedingly close" to the 43% per decade the Mormon church kept over the past century (*The Rise of Christianity*, 1996, ch. 1). 2. **Six to 17.5 million.** The church was organized on April 6, 1830, with six official members; it reported 17,509,781 members at the end of 2024. 3. **Rolls are not believers.** Mexico, 2010: 1,234,545 on church rolls, 314,932 in the census, about one quarter (Ronald Lawson, 2013). 4. **Eleven witnesses, two families.** The Eight were four Whitmers, Hiram Page (married to a Whitmer), and Smith's father and two brothers. The Three were Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, and their statement says an angel "laid before our eyes" the plates. 5. **The checkable test failed.** The church's essay on the Book of Abraham: Egyptologists, Latter-day Saint and not, "agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation." **The 3 strongest counter-moves:** - *"Who could check?"* Ask who outside Smith's circle ever examined the plates. Then ask who in Jerusalem could have checked the tomb and asked Peter, James and the five hundred. - *"Where are the skeptics and enemies?"* The resurrection list has James, who thought his brother was out of his mind, and Paul, who persecuted the church. Ask for the Book of Mormon witness who began as an opponent. - *"What did they gain?"* Put Smith's gains (mayor, lieutenant general, thirty to forty wives by his church's estimate, a presidential run) beside Paul's list of beatings and shipwrecks in [2 Corinthians 11](/codex/2-corinthians-11/). **Reciprocal concessions (grant the small point, then collect a bigger one):** - *Grant:* growth is no proof, and Mormon growth rivals the early church's. *Now collect:* then the objection refutes only "it grew, so it is true," which is not the resurrection argument. The resurrection case rests on the witnesses and the event, and those are what you have to compare. - *Grant:* none of the Three Witnesses ever formally denied his testimony, even after breaking with Smith. *Now collect:* then their persistence shows that they sincerely believed in a visionary experience, which is what their own statement describes. Sincere visions are not in dispute; the apostles claimed a body that ate, was touched and was seen by groups. - *Grant:* early Mormons were persecuted, expelled from Missouri under an order of extermination, and killed at Haun's Mill. *Now collect:* then persecution of followers is not the distinctive point. The distinctive point is that the people who claimed to have seen the risen Jesus with their own eyes were the ones who suffered for saying so, and they had nothing to gain. **The closing line.** Mormonism shows that a movement can grow fast. It cannot show a skeptic, an enemy and five hundred people seeing the same thing in public, and the founders paying for it with their lives. ## P1, Growth rate proves nothing, and the argument never said it did ### Affirmative case 1. **The comparison is Stark's own.** Projecting early Christian growth at 40% per decade, Rodney Stark wrote that the figure "is exceedingly close to the average growth rate of 43 percent per decade that the Mormon church has maintained over the past century," and that "the rise of Christianity required no miraculous rates of conversion" (*The Rise of Christianity*, 1996, ch. 1). He also noted that the Mormons began, like other movements, with the founder's family and friends: Joseph Smith, his brothers Hyrum and Samuel, Oliver Cowdery and David and Peter Whitmer. 2. **Mormon growth is real.** The church was organized at Fayette, New York, on April 6, 1830, with six official members. Its 2024 statistical report gave 17,509,781 members. In 1984 Stark projected, at 50% per decade, about 265 million members by 2080, with a low estimate of over 60 million at 30% ("The Rise of a New World Faith," *Review of Religious Research* 26, no. 1, 1984). 3. **Reported membership is not the same as belief.** Membership rolls count everyone baptized who has not resigned or been removed, including the inactive. In Mexico in 2010 the church reported 1,234,545 members, while the national census counted 314,932 people who identified with it, about one quarter (Ronald Lawson, "Comparing Mormons, Adventists, and Witnesses in Mexico, 2000-2010," 2013). Lawson notes that part of the gap is that the church counts young children of members. 4. **So the growth argument, if anyone made it, is already defeated.** Islam, Buddhism and many other faiths also grew fast. A religion's spread is a sociological fact, and judging truth by numbers is the [Appeal to Popularity](/codex/appeal-to-popularity/). 5. **The codex's argument is not a growth argument.** [Resurrection-Centric Growth Argument](/codex/resurrection-centric-growth-argument/) runs from the named witnesses' firsthand position and their willingness to suffer to their sincerity, and from sincere firsthand belief to the event. [Minimal Facts Argument](/codex/minimal-facts-argument/) runs from widely accepted historical facts about the death, the appearances and the conversions of James and Paul. The rate of growth appears in neither as a premise. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Christians do argue from growth. Apologists say the early church's explosion needs a miracle."* 2. *"If the growth argument is dropped, the resurrection case loses one of its legs."* ### Rebuttals 1. **Some do, and the stronger form is about the start, not the rate.** The strongest version asks how a movement *began* among Jews in Jerusalem, proclaiming a crucified man as Messiah and Lord, weeks after his execution, among people who could check. That is a question about the origin, which is where Mormonism must be compared (P2 to P6). Stark's point concerns the rate after the start, and it is conceded. 2. **It loses nothing it needed.** The resurrection case never rested on numbers. A movement of eleven frightened disciples that turned into public proclaimers in Jerusalem would need explaining even if it had stayed small. ## P2, A public event against a private object ### Affirmative case 1. **The apostles named a public event.** Jesus was crucified by the Roman governor at a festival in Jerusalem. The earliest summary of the claim is the creed Paul "received" and handed on: "that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures; and that he appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep; then he appeared to James; then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to the child untimely born, he appeared to me also" ([1 Corinthians 15:3-8](/codex/1-corinthians-15-3-8/), ASV). 2. **The claim is early.** Paul most likely received the creed on his visit to Peter and James in Jerusalem about three years after his conversion ([Galatians 1:18-19](/codex/galatians-1-18-19/)), which places its content within about three to five years of the crucifixion. See [Pre-Pauline Creeds](/codex/pre-pauline-creeds/). 3. **It invited checking.** Paul says most of the five hundred were still alive, and he told a king that "this hath not been done in a corner" ([Acts 26:26](/codex/acts-26-26/), ASV). The proclamation began in the city where the tomb was, so the authorities could have ended it by producing the body. See [Jesus Was Not Buried in a Tomb Objection Defeater](/codex/jesus-was-not-buried-in-a-tomb-objection-defeater/). 4. **Smith's founding object was never public.** He said he received the plates in 1827, kept them hidden, dictated the translation largely by looking at a seer stone placed in a hat, often without the plates in view (the church's essay "Book of Mormon Translation"), and returned them to the angel Moroni. No one outside his circle examined them, and they cannot be examined now. 5. **The difference is structural.** A private object shown by the founder to chosen associates can be believed or doubted, but it cannot be publicly refuted. A public execution and a public proclamation of resurrection in the same city could have been refuted, and were not. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"The Gospels are not public records either. Christians only have the believers' word."* 2. *"The empty tomb story could be a later legend."* ### Rebuttals 1. **The claim was public even if the reports are Christian.** The execution is attested by Tacitus and Josephus. The proclamation of resurrection in Jerusalem is admitted by critical scholars such as [Bart Ehrman](/codex/bart-ehrman/), who accept that the disciples believed they had seen Jesus alive. What matters is that the claim was made where it could be checked by opponents, not merely that it was reported by friends. 2. **The creed is not a late legend.** It is dated by its content and by Paul's own visits to the people it names, within a few years of the event, and it already includes the burial and the third day. A legend needs time, and the creed leaves none. See [Pre-Pauline Creeds](/codex/pre-pauline-creeds/). ## P3, Independent witnesses against one circle ### Affirmative case 1. **The resurrection witnesses were not one family or one faction.** The list in [1 Corinthians 15](/codex/1-corinthians-15/) includes Peter, the Twelve, a group of more than five hundred at once, James, and Paul. 2. **It includes a skeptic.** Jesus' family once "went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself" ([Mark 3:21](/codex/mark-3-21/), ASV), and "even his brethren did not believe on him" ([John 7:5](/codex/john-7-5/), ASV). Yet [James](/codex/james-the-brother-of-jesus/) became a leader of the Jerusalem church and was executed in 62. See [Minimal Facts Argument](/codex/minimal-facts-argument/). 3. **It includes an enemy.** Paul says he "persecuted the church of God" ([1 Corinthians 15:9](/codex/1-corinthians-15-9/), ASV), and the churches of Judea heard that "He that once persecuted us now preacheth the faith of which he once made havoc" ([Galatians 1:23](/codex/galatians-1-23/), ASV). See [Paul the Apostle](/codex/paul-the-apostle/). 4. **The appearances are described as bodily.** The risen Jesus is said to have been touched, to have eaten, and to have been seen by groups over a period of weeks ([Luke 24:39](/codex/luke-24-39/); [John 20:27](/codex/john-20-27/); [Acts 1:3](/codex/acts-1-3/); [Acts 10:41](/codex/acts-10-41/)). 5. **All eleven Book of Mormon witnesses came from one circle.** The Eight were Christian, Jacob, Peter Jr. and John Whitmer, Hiram Page (married to a Whitmer daughter), and Joseph Smith Sr., Hyrum Smith and Samuel H. Smith. The Three were Oliver Cowdery (who married a Whitmer daughter in 1832), David Whitmer and Martin Harris, the farmer who paid for the printing. Every one was already a family member, friend or backer of the movement. 6. **The Three describe a vision.** Their statement, printed in every edition, says that an angel "came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes" the plates, and that the voice of God declared the translation true. That is an account of a heavenly manifestation, not of an inspection. 7. **Contemporaries report Harris calling it spiritual sight.** The typesetter John H. Gilbert recalled asking Harris whether he saw the plates with his naked eyes and being told, "No, I saw them with a spiritual eye" (memorandum, 1892). In a letter of April 15, 1838, the dissenter Stephen Burnett reported Harris saying publicly that he "never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination" (preserved in Joseph Smith's letterbook). Other Palmyra and Kirtland neighbours gave similar reports, collected in Dan Vogel's *Early Mormon Documents*. 8. **The witnesses scattered among rival prophets.** All three of the Three broke with Smith in 1837-1838; Cowdery and David Whitmer were excommunicated in April 1838. Cowdery was rebaptized late in life and Harris in 1870, but Whitmer never returned and later led his own Church of Christ. After Smith's death, Harris accepted James Strang as prophet, then followed Whitmer, then Gladden Bishop, and in 1855 backed William Smith. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"The Eight Witnesses said they handled the plates with their hands. That is physical, not visionary."* 2. *"The 'spiritual eye' reports are hostile, late or secondhand. Harris himself denied Burnett's version."* 3. *"None of the Three ever denied his testimony. That is remarkable."* 4. *"The apostles were a single circle too: Jesus' own followers."* ### Rebuttals 1. **That is the strongest Latter-day Saint point, and it should be granted as their testimony.** The Eight do say that Smith showed them plates "which have the appearance of gold" and that they handled them. But they were Smith's father, two brothers and the Whitmer family, the object was shown by Smith himself, it was never exposed to anyone outside, and it was then said to be taken away by an angel. The apostles' claim was not that Jesus' friends had handled an object he showed them; it was that a man everyone knew had been executed was seen alive by people who included his opponents. 2. **Granted, they are contested, and the page states them as reports.** BYU scholars Neal Rappleye and Stephen Smoot argue that Burnett is a biased, thirdhand source who misunderstood Harris (*Religious Educator* 25, no. 2, 2024), and Harris did strongly deny making the 1838 statement. But the Three's own published statement already describes a visionary manifestation, and several independent reporters remember the same "spiritual" language from Harris. The point does not depend on any one report. 3. **It is, and it fits sincere belief in a vision.** Harris's later acceptance of Strang, Whitmer, Bishop and William Smith shows a man readily persuaded by visionary claims. Persistence in describing a vision shows that a witness believed it, which no one denies. It does not turn a vision into a public, physical event. 4. **Not James and Paul.** The point is not that every resurrection witness was an outsider, but that the list includes people who had every reason to reject the claim. The Book of Mormon list contains no skeptic, no opponent and no outsider. ## P4, Gain against loss ### Affirmative case 1. **Smith gained authority and office.** He was the church's prophet, seer and revelator; in Nauvoo he served as mayor and as lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, and in 1844 he announced a campaign for President of the United States. See [Joseph Smith](/codex/joseph-smith/). 2. **Smith gained wives.** The church's essay "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo" states that he married many women, estimated at between thirty and forty, some already married to other men and one several months before her fifteenth birthday. The practice was kept secret and publicly denied in his lifetime. 3. **The apostles gained persecution.** Paul lists beatings, imprisonments, stoning and shipwreck ([2 Corinthians 11:23-27](/codex/2-corinthians-11-23-27/)) and says he worked with his own hands ([Acts 20:34](/codex/acts-20-34/)). Stephen and James the son of Zebedee were killed early ([Acts 7](/codex/acts-7/); [Acts 12:2](/codex/acts-12-2/)), James the brother of Jesus in 62, and early sources report the deaths of Peter and Paul under Nero. Sean McDowell's review of the evidence (*The Fate of the Apostles*, 2015) grades these cases as the best attested. See [Historical Evidence for the Martyrs](/codex/historical-evidence-for-the-martyrs/). 4. **None of the eleven witnesses died for his testimony.** Several lived for decades outside the church. Whitmer died in 1888 and Harris in 1875, both in old age. 5. **Smith's death was not the death of a witness refusing to recant.** He was held at Carthage on charges that followed the city council's destruction of the *Nauvoo Expositor* press, and he was killed when an armed mob stormed the jail on June 27, 1844, after he had fired a pistol smuggled in to him. Latter-day Saints honour him as a martyr (Doctrine and Covenants 135), and his courage in that hour is real. But he was not offered his life in exchange for denying that he had seen the plates. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"The apostles gained something too: leadership of a growing movement."* 2. *"Smith suffered as well: arrests, tar and feathers, Liberty Jail."* 3. *"People die for false religions all the time. Martyrdom proves nothing."* ### Rebuttals 1. **Leadership of a persecuted sect with no money, no land and no protection.** The apostles held no office, owned no city and commanded no militia. Paul gave up a rising career in Judaism to become what he had persecuted. 2. **Granted, and it shows his conviction.** Smith did suffer: he was tarred and feathered in Ohio in 1832 and imprisoned in Liberty Jail in 1838-1839. That establishes his sincerity, which this page does not dispute. The test is not whether a founder believed, but whether the founding witnesses were in a position to know and had a motive to invent. The Christian witnesses were in a position to know and had none. 3. **Agreed, which is why the argument is narrower.** A follower who dies for a belief received from others shows only sincerity. The apostles were not followers of a report; they were the source of it, and they claimed to have seen something with their own eyes. See [Resurrection-Centric Growth Argument](/codex/resurrection-centric-growth-argument/), P3. ## P5, Checkable claims: failed against confirmed ### Affirmative case 1. **The Book of Abraham can be checked, and it fails.** Smith said papyri bought in 1835 contained writings of Abraham. Fragments rediscovered in 1966 are, by the church's own essay, ordinary funerary texts that "date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived," and Egyptologists, Latter-day Saint and not, "agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation" (Gospel Topics, "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham"). 2. **The Book of Mormon's peoples are missing from the record.** The church's essay "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies" states that "the evidence assembled to date suggests that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA." It answers with the founder effect and a limited geography, arguing that the DNA of Book of Mormon peoples "likely represented only a fraction of all DNA in ancient America." Its cities, horses, steel and named civilizations have not been found. See [Book of Mormon](/codex/book-of-mormon/). 3. **The New Testament's checkable claims keep being confirmed.** Luke names officials with the correct titles, and the Gospels and Acts place events in real towns, pools and roads, many confirmed by later excavation. See [Acts as History (Ramsay's Verification)](/codex/acts-as-history-ramsays-verification/) and [NT Geographical Reliability](/codex/nt-geographical-reliability/). 4. **This is the test Scripture itself sets.** Paul put Christianity's whole case on a historical event: "if Christ hath not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your faith also is vain" ([1 Corinthians 15:14](/codex/1-corinthians-15-14/), ASV). The Book of Mormon closes instead with an inward test, asking God in prayer (Moroni 10:4-5). See [Falsifiability Across Worldviews](/codex/falsifiability-across-worldviews/) and [Witness of the Holy Spirit](/codex/witness-of-the-holy-spirit/). ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The Bible's history had gaps too, until archaeology filled them."* 2. *"The catalyst theory answers the Book of Abraham: the papyri prompted a revelation."* ### Rebuttals 1. **True for small gaps, not for whole civilizations.** Archaeology often lags behind particular names and places. It does not usually miss entire literate civilizations with millions of people, cities and metalwork across a thousand years, and the genetic data point elsewhere. The limited-geography model is a real answer, but it is a retreat from how the book was read for well over a century. 2. **The catalyst theory concedes the point at issue.** Smith presented the Book of Abraham as a translation of the papyri, with facsimiles from them. If the text was revealed rather than translated, then the one place where his translation could be checked against its source shows that it was not a translation. ## P6, A ready audience against a scandal ### Affirmative case 1. **Mormonism grew among people who already believed most of its premises.** Its first converts in 1830s New York and Ohio already accepted the Bible, Jesus as Lord, prophets and angels. Smith added a new book and new revelations to a faith they held. Stark's own research finds that new religious movements recruit mainly through existing networks of family and friends, and from "the religiously inactive and discontented, and those affiliated with the most accommodated (worldly) religious communities" (*The Rise of Christianity*, ch. 1). 2. **Christianity began with its founder's disgrace.** The Law says "he that is hanged is accursed of God" ([Deuteronomy 21:23](/codex/deuteronomy-21-23/), ASV). Paul admits the problem: "we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness" ([1 Corinthians 1:23](/codex/1-corinthians-1-23/), ASV). See [Cursed Messiah Objection Defeater](/codex/cursed-messiah-objection-defeater/). 3. **Its central claim was mocked by the educated.** At Athens, "when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked" ([Acts 17:32](/codex/acts-17-32/), ASV). 4. **It had no state and no army.** Before 312 the sword belonged to Rome, which used it against Christians. See [Christianity Spread Only by the Sword Objection Defeater](/codex/christianity-spread-only-by-the-sword-objection-defeater/). 5. **So the starting problem was harder.** Mormonism asked Bible-believing Americans to accept more revelation about a Jesus they already worshipped. The apostles asked Jews to worship a man the Law called cursed and Romans had executed as a criminal, and asked pagans to believe that a dead body had been raised. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Early Mormons were persecuted too: driven from Missouri under an extermination order, massacred at Haun's Mill."* 2. *"Early Christianity also grew from a ready audience: Jews already expecting a Messiah."* ### Rebuttals 1. **They were, and that should be acknowledged plainly.** Governor Boggs's order of October 27, 1838, and the killings at Haun's Mill three days later were real crimes against Latter-day Saints. The comparison here is not about whether followers suffered but about what they were asked to believe, and among whom. 2. **They expected a Messiah who would win, not one who would be crucified.** The expectation made a crucified Messiah harder to accept, not easier, which is why Paul calls it a stumbling block. The Jewish leadership in Jerusalem largely rejected it, and within a generation the church was mostly Gentile. ## Cross-examination Short questions for a live exchange. Each one fixes a point before moving to the next. ### Round 1, Is the argument about growth? 1. Do you agree that a religion's growth does not, by itself, prove it true? 2. Then if a Christian argued "it grew, so it is true," you would reject that argument? 3. So would I. Is that the argument you think I am making, or do you want to look at what started each movement? ### Round 2, Public or private? 1. Where was Jesus executed, and where did the apostles first proclaim that he was raised? 2. Could the authorities in Jerusalem have checked the tomb and questioned the people named? 3. Who outside Joseph Smith's circle ever examined the gold plates? 4. Where are the plates now, by Smith's own account? ### Round 3, Who saw it? 1. Who are the eleven Book of Mormon witnesses, and how were they related to Smith or to one another? 2. Which of them began as a skeptic or an opponent of Smith? 3. What does the Testimony of the Three Witnesses say showed them the plates? 4. Now compare James, who thought Jesus was out of his mind, and Paul, who persecuted Christians. Why did they change? ### Round 4, What did it cost? 1. What did Smith hold in Nauvoo in 1844? 2. How many wives does his own church's essay say he married? 3. What did Paul hold? 4. Which of the eleven witnesses was killed for refusing to deny what he saw? ### Round 5, What can be checked? 1. What does the church's own essay say about whether the Book of Abraham papyri match the translation? 2. Can you name a place or ruler in Acts that archaeology has shown to be wrong? 3. Which founding would you rather test? ### Dodge table | Dodge | Reply | |---|---| | "Both are just stories believers tell." | Then compare the stories as claims. One is about a public event in a named city with named opponents; the other is about a private object shown to a family circle. They are not the same kind of claim. | | "You're just attacking Mormons." | I'm comparing two founding claims on the same tests, using the Latter-day Saint church's own essays. Latter-day Saints are welcome to make the same comparison. | | "Smith died for it too." | He died bravely in a jail attack after the destruction of a press. He was not killed for refusing to deny what he saw, and none of his eleven witnesses was. | | "Witnesses who never recanted are just as good as the apostles." | Sincerity is not in dispute on either side. What differs is what the witnesses claimed to see, who they were, and what it cost them. | | "Islam grew too, and so did Buddhism." | Agreed. Growth proves nothing on its own, for any faith. That is why the argument is about the founding event, not the numbers. | | "Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence." | For a single city or name, often true. For whole civilizations with cities, metals and horses over a thousand years, the silence is evidence. | ## Live-cite kit **Scripture (ASV):** - [1 Corinthians 15:3-8](/codex/1-corinthians-15-3-8/), the early creed naming Peter, the Twelve, the five hundred, James and Paul. - [Acts 26:26](/codex/acts-26-26/), "this hath not been done in a corner." - [Mark 3:21](/codex/mark-3-21/) and [John 7:5](/codex/john-7-5/), Jesus' family did not believe. - [1 Corinthians 15:9](/codex/1-corinthians-15-9/) and [Galatians 1:23](/codex/galatians-1-23/), Paul the persecutor. - [1 Corinthians 15:14](/codex/1-corinthians-15-14/), the faith stands or falls on a historical event. - [Deuteronomy 21:23](/codex/deuteronomy-21-23/) and [1 Corinthians 1:23](/codex/1-corinthians-1-23/), the scandal of a crucified Messiah. **Primary and official (Latter-day Saint):** - Testimony of Three Witnesses and Testimony of Eight Witnesses, printed in every edition of the Book of Mormon. - Gospel Topics essays: "Book of Mormon Translation," "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," "Book of Mormon and DNA Studies," "Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo." - 2024 statistical report: 17,509,781 members. - Doctrine and Covenants 135, the Latter-day Saint account of Smith's death. **Statistical:** - Stark (1996): early Christianity about 40% per decade, Mormons 43% per decade over a century. - Stark (1984): 265 million projected by 2080 at 50% per decade; over 60 million at 30%. - Lawson (2013): Mexico 2010, 1,234,545 on rolls, 314,932 in the census. **Scholarly:** Rodney Stark, *The Rise of Christianity* (1996), ch. 1; Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, *The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus* (2004); Sean McDowell, *The Fate of the Apostles* (2015); Richard Bushman, *Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling* (2005); Dan Vogel, ed., *Early Mormon Documents* (1996-2003); Neal Rappleye and Stephen O. Smoot, "Stephen Burnett versus the Eight Witnesses" (*Religious Educator*, 2024), the Latter-day Saint reply. **Aphorism:** "Both grew. Only one grew from a public event that its enemies could have disproved." **Aphorism:** "Smith's witnesses were his family. Jesus' witnesses included his doubting brother and his worst enemy." ## Connection to Scripture - [1 Corinthians 15:3-8](/codex/1-corinthians-15-3-8/), the public list of witnesses, most still alive. - [Acts 26:26](/codex/acts-26-26/), not done in a corner. - [Acts 5:38-39](/codex/acts-5-38-39/), Gamaliel's test: a work of men will be overthrown. - [1 Corinthians 15:14](/codex/1-corinthians-15-14/), faith tied to a checkable event. - [Galatians 1:8](/codex/galatians-1-8/), even an angel bringing another gospel is to be rejected. - [1 Thessalonians 5:21](/codex/1-thessalonians-5-21/), prove all things. ## Scholarship Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record. - Gary R. Habermas, *Case for the Resurrection of Jesus* (2004). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1984532W) - Sean McDowell, *The Fate of the Apostles* (Routledge, 2016). [doi:10.4324/9781315558196](https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315558196) - Reid Larkin Neilson, *Global Mormonism in the 21st century* (2008). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24107271W) - Rodney Stark, "The Rise of a New World Faith," *Review of Religious Research* 26 (1984). [doi:10.2307/3511039](https://doi.org/10.2307/3511039) - Rodney Stark, *The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History* (Princeton University Press, 1996). [doi:10.1515/9780691214290](https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691214290) - Dan Vogel, *Early Mormon documents* (Signature Books, 1996). [Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL18945820W) ## See also - [Joseph Smith](/codex/joseph-smith/), his life, the witnesses, the papyri and the Christian assessment. - [Mormonism](/codex/mormonism/), the movement and its doctrines. - [Book of Mormon](/codex/book-of-mormon/), its claims, its witnesses and its historicity. - [Mormonism vs the Christian God](/codex/mormonism-vs-the-christian-god/), the two doctrines of God side by side. - [Resurrection-Centric Growth Argument](/codex/resurrection-centric-growth-argument/), the argument this objection is aimed at. - [Argument from the Resurrection](/codex/argument-from-the-resurrection/) and [Minimal Facts Argument](/codex/minimal-facts-argument/), the positive case. - [Pre-Pauline Creeds](/codex/pre-pauline-creeds/), why the [1 Corinthians 15](/codex/1-corinthians-15/) creed is early. - [Historical Evidence for the Martyrs](/codex/historical-evidence-for-the-martyrs/), what is known of the apostles' deaths. - [Christianity Spread Only by the Sword Objection Defeater](/codex/christianity-spread-only-by-the-sword-objection-defeater/), the companion objection about how Christianity spread. - [Cursed Messiah Objection Defeater](/codex/cursed-messiah-objection-defeater/), why a crucified Messiah was a scandal. - [Christ vs Other Religion-Founders](/codex/christ-vs-other-religion-founders/), Jesus compared with Smith, Muhammad, the Buddha and others. - [Falsifiability Across Worldviews](/codex/falsifiability-across-worldviews/), which faiths' claims can be tested. - [Appeal to Popularity](/codex/appeal-to-popularity/), why numbers do not settle truth. - [Religious Pluralism Objection Defeater](/codex/religious-pluralism-objection-defeater/), the broader "every religion has its stories" charge. - [Atheism](/codex/atheism/), the master hub. ## Common questions this page answers **Q: Didn't Mormonism grow just as fast as early Christianity?** Yes, roughly. The sociologist Rodney Stark estimated early Christian growth at about 40% per decade and noted that the Mormon church kept up about 43% per decade for a century. That shows growth alone proves nothing, which is why the case for Christianity rests on the resurrection evidence that started the growth, not on the rate. **Q: If Mormonism grew fast and is false, doesn't that disprove the argument from Christianity's growth?** It disproves the claim that growth equals truth, which serious Christian arguments do not make. The resurrection argument rests on what the first witnesses were in a position to know, who they were, and what it cost them. On those points Mormonism and early Christianity differ sharply. **Q: The Book of Mormon had eleven witnesses. Why aren't they as good as the apostles?** All eleven came from Joseph Smith's family, the Whitmer family and their close friends, and the plates were shown only by Smith and then, he said, returned to an angel. The Three Witnesses describe an angel showing them the plates in a vision. The resurrection witnesses included groups, Jesus' skeptical brother James and the persecutor Paul, and they claimed a public event in the city where it happened. **Q: Did the Book of Mormon witnesses ever deny their testimony?** None of the Three Witnesses formally denied his testimony, even though all three broke with Smith in 1837-1838. Several people reported Martin Harris saying he saw the plates with a "spiritual eye," which Harris denied in at least one case. Their persistence shows sincere belief in a visionary experience, which is different from a public, physical event. **Q: Wasn't Joseph Smith a martyr too?** Latter-day Saints regard him as one. He was killed in 1844 when a mob stormed the jail at Carthage, Illinois, where he was held after his city council destroyed a critical newspaper's press. His courage was real, but he was not killed for refusing to deny what he had seen, and none of his eleven witnesses died for his testimony. **Q: How many Latter-day Saints are there really?** The church reported 17,509,781 members at the end of 2024. Membership rolls include inactive members and young children of members; in Mexico in 2010 the census counted 314,932 Latter-day Saints against 1,234,545 on the church's rolls, about one quarter. **Q: Can any of Joseph Smith's claims be checked?** Yes. The papyri he said contained the Book of Abraham survive in part, and the church's own essay says Egyptologists agree the characters do not match his translation. The church's essay on DNA also says most Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA. By contrast, the New Testament's names, places and officials have repeatedly been confirmed.