{"id":54734,"date":"2026-10-27T03:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T09:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=54734"},"modified":"2026-10-27T06:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T12:43:17","slug":"latter-day-saints-apologetics-tier-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2026\/10\/latter-day-saints-apologetics-tier-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Latter-day Saint Apologetics Tier List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tier lists are a fashionable\/fun way to rank order things, ranging from F to S (super, above A). <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/07\/my-ranked-tier-list-of-arguments-for-the-existence-of-god\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I already did one<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for arguments for the existence of God, so I thought I\u2019d be a little more Latter-day Saint specific and do one for apologetics arguments for LDS truth claims.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are two kinds of apologetics arguments (roughly): \u201coffensive\u201d and \u201cdefensive.\u201d The former being giving positive arguments for the faith, and the latter defending against attacks against the faith, so this list will focus on the former. Basically, from a logic-based perspective, what are some of the best arguments for accepting the Church\u2019s truth claims?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The obligatory throat-clearing: none of these are slam dunk. As originally stated by Carl Sagan and quoted by Richard Bushman, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so none of these are enough to compel belief in something as big as your religion. Nor are they meant to. Unlike other faith traditions, we don\u2019t think you can reach the top of the mountain through intellect. Still, some arguments are better than others and, contrary to some sentiment in some corners of the internet, the top tier ones can\u2019t be simply waved away either. Also, I cover a lot of this ground in <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fairlatterdaysaints.org\/testimonies\/scholars\/stephen-cranney\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">my Latter-day Saint Scholars Testify testimony<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-54735\" src=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/LDS-apologetics-tier-list-533x800.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"533\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/LDS-apologetics-tier-list-533x800.png 533w, https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/LDS-apologetics-tier-list.png 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 533px) 100vw, 533px\" \/><\/p>\n<h1><b>F<\/b><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Friend-of-a-friend, urban legend, faith-promoting rumors. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Literally no value. Here I\u2019ll put.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Missionaries missing their Zone meeting at the top of the twin towers on September 11th (as an aside, my brother served in the New York, New York North mission on September 11th, and he thinks it\u2019s cute that people think the mission was wealthy enough to have a Zone conference on the top of the World Trade Center).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Del Parsons fireside where that kid exclaimed that the red robe Jesus was the person who saved his parents.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That \u201c12 signs of the true Church\u201d story that circulated in missions in my day where a bunch of people all decided to find a Church that has the 12 characteristics outlined in the Bible, and they all ended up joining the Church.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The temple elevator shafts in the Salt Lake Temple.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And on and on, I\u2019m sure you can name some.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>D<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Appeal to the Bible. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are a number of biblical scriptures we\u2019ve sort of see as potentially confirming the restorationist angle. Still, to paraphrase Joseph Smith, the Bible can be interpreted by so many people in so many different ways so as to destroy all confidence by appealing to the Bible. Still, not absolute nothing, so the D.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>C-<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Faith-promoting rumors that may be a little better sourced.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Pacific Islander prophecies about the missionaries (and yes, I know they were also interpreted as supporting the Protestant missionaries), David O. McKay\u2019s healing handkerchief (or maybe that isn\u2019t quite so supported? Don\u2019t know), the handcart stories in \u201c17 Miracles.\u201d The kind of miraculous historical stories that most faith traditions have, except instead of being healed by a holy relic they are healed by a priesthood blessing, etc. but the difference with the above being that they can actually be traced to a solid primary source and eyewitness testimony. Again, not nothing, and some of them more compelling than others historiography-wise but the fact that these sorts of stories are found in a lot of faith traditions argues against putting too much weight on them vis-a-vis the particulars of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>The Church\u2019s growth and survival. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Church has been on the tipping point of destruction many, many times, but it always seems to survive and even, at times, thrive. That being said, this can also be explained using a sort of Darwinian logic. Thousands of new religions have been born, and out of those thousands the vast majority die, and a small handful will survive a number of close calls and thrive. Early Christianity went through a similar process where it almost got snuffed out at birth, as did Islam, Judaism (I always thought it was ironic <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Merneptah_Stele\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that the first historical reference <\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to Israel was proclaiming its destruction [\u201cIsrael<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is laid waste\u2014its seed is no more\u201d<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">], sort of a theme of people always thinking they\u2019ve finally done in the Jews), and now the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>C+<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On that note, I will actually put the <\/span><b>prophecies about the Jewish gathering, and Orson Hyde\u2019s dedication of the Holy Land for the return of the Jews, combined with Israel\u2019s miraculous continued existence<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as higher than the C-category. No, it doesn\u2019t mean that I agree with every policy of the Netanyahu regime, but yes, the Jews returning to Judea is in fact prophesied fairly clearly in our Latter-day scriptures, and I think their presence in the Middle East today is a fulfillment of that prophecy, regardless of the political particulars.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Book of Abraham facsimiles. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yes, I know the Robert Ritner fans are plucking out their hair at this one. In terms of translation he simply got much of the facsimiles wrong, but he also got some of the symbols right, and in the aggregate I think the accuracy was better than guessing, so, in full recognizance of the missed shots, once we step away from assuming infallibility on the part of the facsimiles, in the end he got more right than I think he would have by just making things up (Kolob, four corners of the earth, Sobke the crocodile God of Pharoah, etc.), so in light of the pluses and minuses I\u2019ll put this at a C+ level.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Joseph Smith\u2019s seer stones<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Once again, this is usually seen as a criticism, but stay with me here. His treasure-hunting is seen as a sign of fraudulent behavior, but it\u2019s clear from his keeping of stones and usage of them throughout his life that he himself believed in it. So a point for him having sincere supernatural beliefs even if he knew they probably wouldn\u2019t go over well with traditional Christians wary of the occult, but sincerity only goes part way in defending LDS truth claims, hence the C+.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>B-<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At \u00a0around the B- level we start to get into arguments I wouldn\u2019t feel skittish bringing with a hypothetical skeptical interlocutor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Hebraisms outside of chiasmus.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Admittedly I\u2019m not terribly familiar with these arguments, but I remember reading them and thinking they were interesting, but could also be chalked up to the happenstance of the KJV style that BoM imitated lining up with Hebrew. Plus the final Nephite language was probably far removed from paleo-Hebrew or whatever. So it\u2019s interesting and there might be something there, I guess.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Deification\/Divine Council\/Concentric Circles of Holiness.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Joseph Smith had a knack for tapping into deep religious themes that were long since lost to the kind of low-Church Protestant upbringing that he was raised in, but are found in earlier texts and iterations of the faith, as well as across faiths worldwide, such as deification, the divine council, and the sort of concentric circles of holiness that undergird temple worship. Again, maybe he was simply bold enough to tap into a sort of Jungian archetypes regardless of how heretical they were to Nicene Christianity, but still, it is intriguing that in the restored Church you do get practices and beliefs that were, well, restored.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Family testimony. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I mentioned in my <a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2026\/09\/joseph-smith-as-a-19th-century-l-ron-hubbard\/\">Joseph Smith\/L. Ron Hubbard<\/a> post, it is a significant point in Smith\u2019s favor that the people that knew him best, his family, basically saw him as sincere and loving, and accepted his calling as a prophet, even if polygamy caused legitimate stresses. Doesn\u2019t prove anything per se, but it would make any chicanery on his part as being much deeper and more subtle than your run-of-the-mill conman psychopath that leaves a trail of destruction in his wake.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Latter-day Saint Cosmology.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> While <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Giordano_Bruno\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">there are heretical exceptions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that met their end at the stake, the idea that there are numberless stars with planetary systems and worlds was bizarre in Joseph Smith\u2019s day, and I think we sometimes don\u2019t appreciate just how revolutionary and weird that belief was that later turned out to be correct.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>B<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Chiasmus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. TBH, I\u2019m kind of agnostic on this one. It seems like some of this could just be happenstance, but then there are the statistical studies that purport to show that they aren\u2019t happenstance, but I haven\u2019t done a deep enough dive on them to know if there\u2019s any merit there. Alma 36 seems kind of compelling. I\u2019d have to spend more time on this to really be able to gauge its apologetic value. I could be convinced either way.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Wordprint studies. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ditto. It\u2019s neat that we have these studies and that it shows different authors for the Book of Mormon, but again I\u2019d have to dive deeper than I have into this literature to really be able to adjudicate it.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>B+<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Word of Wisdom. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s not flawless (the reason for hot drinks is still not clear health-wise), and my understanding is there was some speculation about alcohol\/tobacco being unhealthy even then, but in general the LDS health code being more or less right is a point for the Church.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Nahom, Bountiful, and Arabian itinerary.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Getting geographic details right is impressive. Of course, could still be a coincidence but still a solid hit.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Book of Mormon incorporating other ancient texts. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A number of places in the Book of Mormon incorporate other ancient texts that strongly argue against Joseph Smith just making it all up on the fly, whether \u201call the ships of the Sea\u201d in the Isaiah passages or Josephus\/Book of Mormon both contradicting the Torah in saying that Moses was translated. At least clearly argues for something along the lines of Joseph Smith \u201cstudying it out in his mind\u201d (and yes, I know a standard apologetic line is that there are no evidence that Joseph Smith ever consulted other books during the translation process, but I have a hard time seeing how both the Textus Receptus errors made it into the BoM along with the older, pre-KJV readings).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>A<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Book of Mormon Narrative Complexity.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> As somebody who got a B in Book of Mormon at BYU, I can attest to its narrative complexity. It\u2019s the kind of thing that the Mark Twains of this world can just blow past when they\u2019re skimming the Book of Mormon just to say that they \u201cread\u201d it, but when your grade is on the line you all the sudden realize how mind-numbingly complex all the parallel storylines and casts of characters can be. Hard to see this as being written extemporaneously., it would have required some savant-like ability to keep names, locations, and storylines straight.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Shared visions. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While we make a big deal about the Book of Mormon Witnesses never renouncing their testimonies, we sometimes forget that Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon both has mutual revelatory experiences with Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery in D&amp;C 110 and Sidney Rigdon in D&amp;C 76. If he was a conscious fraudster it\u2019s highly doubtful he would have exposed himself to that level of risk by involving others. Oliver Cowdery could have easily come out and simply said \u201cactually, we didn\u2019t see Jesus in the Kirtland temple,\u201d and likewise Rigdon could have disclaimed experiencing the revelation about heaven. The fact that they were both involved strongly suggests something happened or at least that there was some sort of collective hallucination, but not so much intentional deceit.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>A+<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Civil War Prophecy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Yes, South Carolina was in a tariff crisis when the revelation was first received, but even putting aside the fact that dispute over federalist principles does not necessarily equal a full blown north versus south, intra-country violent war, the fact is that Smith doubled down on the prophecy with more detail in D&amp;C 130 in 1843, long after the secession crisis was resolved but meaningfully before the Civil War. So yes, this is a very specific \u201chit.\u201d <\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Book of Mormon Witnesses. <\/b>I don\u2019t know if I have much more to add to my take on the witnesses than I\u2019ve already discussed <a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2026\/04\/the-book-of-mormon-witnesses-the-miracle-of-the-sun-and-other-historically-plausible-miracles\/\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/01\/the-curious-role-of-the-book-of-mormon-witnesses-in-evangelical-debates-about-the-resurrection\/\">here<\/a>.Again, does is force you into a corner? No, but it\u2019s not as easily hand-waved away as some think.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>S<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Kinderhook Plates.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Wait, what? How is this S-tier <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the Church? Stay with me here. Don Bradley\u2019s presentation at FAIR on this pretty clearly demonstrated that Joseph Smith used the Book of Abraham as a crib sheet to try to translate the characters the forgers transcribed on the Kinderhook plates\u2026which means that he sincerely believed in his translations. He literally tried to use them to help with other translations, and was unclear enough about his modus operandi that it wasn\u2019t for another century and a half before scholars realized fully what he was doing. This puts an arrow in the heart of the idea that he didn\u2019t believe in what he was doing, and it\u2019s one reason for why, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">even if I were to take a naturalist view of the restoration, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I would think that Joseph Smith eventually, at least by 1840s, believed in his own prophetic ability.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><br style=\"font-weight: 400;\" \/><br style=\"font-weight: 400;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tier lists are a fashionable\/fun way to rank order things, ranging from F to S (super, above A). I already did one for arguments for the existence of God, so I thought I\u2019d be a little more Latter-day Saint specific and do one for apologetics arguments for LDS truth claims.\u00a0 There are two kinds of apologetics arguments (roughly): \u201coffensive\u201d and \u201cdefensive.\u201d The former being giving positive arguments for the faith, and the latter defending against attacks against the faith, so this list will focus on the former. Basically, from a logic-based perspective, what are some of the best arguments for accepting the Church\u2019s truth claims?\u00a0 The obligatory throat-clearing: none of these are slam dunk. As originally stated by Carl Sagan and quoted by Richard Bushman, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so none of these are enough to compel belief in something as big as your religion. Nor are they meant to. Unlike other faith traditions, we don\u2019t think you can reach the top of the mountain through intellect. Still, some arguments are better than others and, contrary to some sentiment in some corners of the internet, the top tier ones can\u2019t be simply waved away either. Also, I cover a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":54735,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latter-day-saint-thought"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/LDS-apologetics-tier-list.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54734"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54999,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54734\/revisions\/54999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}