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Dear Adam and Matt:

You will be happy to know that your unique brand of Christian witness is now able to reach a much wider audience.  To see it for yourself, just visit http://www.shields-research.org/ and look either in the "Authors Index" or the "New Items."

I would imagine that tens of thousands, encountering your persuasive arguments and feeling the warmth of your discipleship, will wish to join hands with you in your cause.  Congratulations!

Daniel Peterson

Dear Daniel,

I would just like to appologize for the way I insulted you and your fellow mormons.  I still however will continue to disagree with your beliefs.  I also will remain active in the Anti-mormon crusade.  I hope that in the future our correspondance will be more friendly and more constructive.

Sincerely,
     Adam Scott

Mr. Scott:

Thank you for your apology.  I see no reason why religious disagreements need to be nasty and insulting.  You are certainly free to continue to disagree with my religious beliefs; I wonder, though, if you have a very accurate idea as to what my religious beliefs ARE.  Your apparent associate, Joel Miller, eventually acknowledged that he did not.

Remember, if you are interested in understanding the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even if your eventual goal is to assault it, you would do very well to read the writings of believers as well as those of hostile critics.  (In fact -- and I would set this out as a general rule for approaching ANY faith -- you would be best served by reading the works of believers BEFORE you turn to those who hate their beliefs.  Get a solid handle on a faith before you set out to destroy it.  As I recall, you seem to be some sort of conservative Protestant.  I would imagine that you would instantly see the problem if I told you that I had decided to learn more about conservative Protestantism, and, therefore, was going to read everything published on that subject by American Atheists, Inc.)

If we do correspond in the future, I too, hope that it will be friendly and constructive.

Daniel Peterson

Adam Scott's response to the above letter, which he forwarded to Dr. Peterson follows:

Subject: Who's That?
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 12:57:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Adam Scott <aksrocks@yahoo.com>
To: Daniel_Peterson@byu.edu CC: the_jam16@yahoo.com

Dear Dr. Peterson,

I think the person who wrote that letter to Gary Novak is just an idiot who is trying to join our mission.  I can assure you that he is not one of us.

Thanks for your understanding and I apologize for the mistake.

Sincerely,
Adam Scott
President of The Anti-mormon Crusade

Dear Adam:

I THOUGHT he might be a fake, and he evidently was.  So I won't hold him against you.

Daniel Peterson

Dear Dr. Peterson,

I was reading the Book of Revelation and came across this verse.  

Rev.22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.  

The Book of Mormon is an addition to the Bible.  I think this verse is pretty clear and proves that The Book of Mormon is false.  I will look forward to your responce.

Sincerely,
Adam Scott

Dear Adam:

You write, "I was reading the Book of Revelation and came across this verse.  Rev.22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.  The Book of Mormon is an addition to the Bible.  I think this verse is pretty clear and proves that The Book of Mormon is false.  I will look forward to your responce."

Revelation 22:18 does not prove the Book of Mormon false, and is, in fact, irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the Book of Mormon for several reasons.  I shall sketch a few of them very briefly.

(a) Neither the Bible in general nor the New Testament in particular circulated, originally, as a book bound in leather.  The various books -- such as the letters of Paul -- were separate, and circulated separately.  Thus, the author of the book of Revelation could not have intended his comment at the end of his own "book" to refer to adding to the entire Bible, since the Bible did not yet exist.  It is only rather late that the book of Revelation comes to sit at the end of a volume called the "Bible," and thus, it is only rather late that Revelation 22:18 begins to appear to refer to all the hundreds of pages that NOW precede it.  For the first centuries of the existence of the verse, nobody could have misinterpreted it in that way.  It is infinitely more likely that the prohibition of tampering with the text refers to the book of Revelation itself, and no more.  Such warnings are not uncommon in ancient texts, where -- in the absence of mass circulation and printed editions -- it was very easy for a scribe to tamper with the text he was copying.

(b) The prohibition in Revelation 22:18 is against HUMANS tampering with or adding to the word of God.  But, of course, God can do anything he darn well pleases.  And it was God, not man, who gave us the Book of Mormon.

(c) A very similar warning occurs in Deuteronomy 4:2.  If you were to take that verse as prohibiting additional scripture, you would have to surrender not merely the New Testament but the majority of the Old Testament as well.  You would cease to be a Christian, and could not even be a mainstream Jew -- though you could continue as a Sadducee or perhaps a Samaritan.

(d) Some scholars believe that John himself may have composed his gospel AFTER the book of Revelation, which, if true, would suggest either that he did not interpret Revelation 22:18 as applying to anything other than the book of Revelation (which is almost certainly correct) or that he had condemned himself to Hell (which seems unlikely).

Cordially,

Daniel Peterson