History – Page 2 – The Righteous Cause

When the Dirt Doesn’t Match the Book: A Historical Examination of the Book of Mormon

Posted on April 30, 2026May 1, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

TWO TIMELINES: ONE CONTINENT Comparing the Book of Mormon Narrative to the Documented History and Archaeology of the Ancient Americas Introduction: A Story That Asks to Be Believed Civilizations do not pass quietly into the earth. They leave signatures—layered, stubborn, and unmistakable—pressed into stone, clay, metal, and memory. Time erodes their monuments, but it does…

The Lion Prophet’s Hostess: Harriet Amelia Folsom Young and the Court of Zion

Posted on April 24, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

Image: Brigham Young, circa 1855. L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. File via Wikipedia. Original image by Charles Roscoe Savage (1832–1909). Public domain. She Ruled Brigham Young: The Quiet Power of Wife No. 51 Harriet Amelia Folsom Young (1838–1910): The Cultured Consort Who Ruled a Prophet’s Heart Introduction: A…

James Strang: Fake Mormon Prophet, Self-Crowned King, and Master of the Ultimate Confidence Game

Posted on April 20, 2026April 25, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

Photo: From the diary of James Strang (see attached PDF). Via Archive.org. Publisher: Michigan State University Press. Copyright review: Public domain according to HathiTrust rights database. From Atheist to Angel Whisperer and His Island Empire of Fraud. The Blood of a Prophet and the Ambitions of a Pretender In the spring of 1844, Nauvoo, Illinois,…

The Curse of Oak Island: When the Mystery IS the Treasure

Posted on April 15, 2026April 20, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

THE CURSE OF OAK ISLAND The World’s Most Persistent Treasure Hunt — and the Television Empire Built on the Promise of Finding It How It All Began: America’s Treasure-Hunting Soul Long before the History Channel ever pointed a camera at a muddy Nova Scotian island, treasure was already woven into the American psyche like a…

The Skin of the Text: How the Book of Mormon’s Racial Theology Reveals a 19th-Century American Origin

Posted on April 10, 2026April 11, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

Image: An AI-generated image depicts a corkboard with pinned illustrations and text snippets detailing the complex legacy of the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon. The pinned images visually contrast the narrative’s themes, showing scenes of warfare, hunting, and nomadic life alongside moments of profound spiritual conversion and a utopian period of peace following the…

From Cumorah to Mesoamerica: Why No Geographical Model Can Rescue the Book of Mormon’s Weapon Problem

Posted on April 8, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

Image: An AI-generated photo-realistic image that illustrates the text in 1 Nephi 4:9, where a young man crouches in darkness over a fallen enemy and marvels at his weapon: a sword of the most precious steel, hilted in pure gold. SWORDS, STEEL, AND SILENCE: The Metallurgical Anachronisms of the Book of Mormon A Historical and…

Holy Fire to Social Justice: How Methodism Traded Its Gospel for a Cause

Posted on March 30, 2026March 30, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

Image: An AI-generated, photo-realistic reimagined image depicting John Wesley preaching at an open-air meeting, the Anglican reformer who helped launch a network of small groups known as the Connexion in the early to mid-18th century. These groups emphasized disciplined study, mutual accountability, and an orderly pattern of Christian life. Because of their highly methodical habits,…

The Sealed Verdict: Speculating on the Mysterious Fall of James J. Hamula

Posted on March 10, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

A Shockwave Through the Hierarchy On August 8, 2017, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued a brief, carefully worded statement: James J. Hamula had been “released as a General Authority Seventy… following church disciplinary action by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.” That sentence — understated and clinical —…

Two Million Stones, Twenty Years, One Unanswerable Question: The Engineering Mystery of the Ages

Posted on March 9, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

From Ramps and Sledges to Hydraulic Elevators and Human Counterweights: The Complete Survey of Every Theory, Ancient to Cutting-Edge INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM THAT WILL NOT SLEEP Stand at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza on a late winter morning, when the desert air is still cool, and the plateau stretches toward Cairo in…

THE INVISIBLE CIVILIZATION: How the Book of Mormon Describes a World That Never Left a Trace

Posted on March 8, 2026March 8, 2026 by Dennis Robbins

Illustration: Faith meets the fossil record. This Google Gemini AI illustration captures the introduction to the blog post, highlighting the irony of a modern religious monument standing beside a scientifically verifiable prehistoric excavation site. A Scholarly Examination of Book of Mormon Archaeology in Light of Current Evidence “Biblical archaeologists can barely keep pace with the…

2 Corinthians 11:13-15: For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

Romans 3:20-24: For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

Email: dennis@novus2.com

A Scholarly Examination of the LDS Jaredite Pacific-Landing Thesis
From Babel to Bethlehem—Or to Seattle? A Christian Critique of the Jaredite Ocean Journey I. Introduction: A Voyage in Search of a Map There is a particular pleasure in looking at a map and tracing a story. Children do it with adventure novels; theologians do it with the wanderings of Abraham; […]
The Captain Without a Crew: David Miscavige, Empty Buildings, and the Quiet Collapse of Scientology
Image: An AI-illustrated depiction of Xenu, the alien overlord of Scientology’s secret cosmology. Ruling a Galactic Confederacy seventy-five million years ago, Xenu solved overpopulation by luring billions to Earth, killing them with hydrogen bombs detonated in volcanoes, and subjecting their […]
Sitting in the Pew, Slipping from the Faith: A Sober Reading of the Latter-day Saint Participation Collapse
The Quiet Erosion of LDS Sunday School, Home Study, and Tithing ❦ ❦ ❦ I. A Headline the Church Did Not Want to Write On April 16, 2026, The Salt Lake Tribune ran a sentence that, in any prior year of Latter-day Saint history, would have been unthinkable. Independent demographer Matt Martinich, […]
The Saturday Question: Why Seventh-day Adventists Worship Differently Than the Rest of Us
Image: Portrait of Ellen G. White at age 51 A Traditional Christian Examination of Doctrine, History, and the Prophetic Legacy of Ellen G. White Introduction: A Church That Resists Easy Categorization On any given Saturday morning, more than twenty-four million people in over two hundred countries […]
American Hero, Neil Robbins (1923-2003), 671st Medical Hospital Ship Platoons WWII – 1943-1946
Neil Robbins, one of 11 children to John Emmett Robbins (1877~1951) and Bertha Belle Ernst Robbins (1890~1966), was born September 12, 1923, in Medford, Oregon because they didn’t have a hospital in nearby Jacksonville where his parents lived. One of the oldest communities in Oregon, […]
The LDS Living, Baptized for the Dead: One Verse, a Billion Names, and a Question of Authority
A Traditional Christian Examination of Latter-day Saint Proxy Baptism ✦ ⬩ ✦ Introduction: A Woman in the River On a September day in 1840, a widow named Jane Neyman waded into the muddy current of the Mississippi River near the half-built city of Nauvoo, Illinois. She was not being baptized for […]
Athens, Algorithms, and the “Gift of Possibility”: A Christian Reads an LDS Apostle on Artificial Intelligence
Can a Machine Have a “Moral Compass”? A Mormon Apostle Says Yes — An Orthodox Christian Says Wait ❦ ❧ ❦ Introduction: A Lamb a Day on the Acropolis Elder Gerrit W. Gong opened his Athens address with a parable Henry Kissinger liked to tell. A visitor to a zoo marvels at a lion and a lamb lying […]
EVIC Sunday School: How the Bible Was Made and Preserved
Lesson 1 The Journey of How the Bible Was Made and Preserved The lesson opens a six-week study designed to deepen confidence in the Bible by tracing the remarkable path it traveled to reach modern hands. Pastor Joey reminds the class that Scripture did not fall from the sky, leather-bound and […]
EVIC Sunday School – Lesson 2: How the Bible Was Made and Preserved
Lesson 2 The Journey of How the Bible Was Made and Preserved Lesson 2 of our six-week study is designed to deepen confidence in the Bible by tracing the remarkable path it traveled to reach modern hands. This Bible study traces how the Old Testament was formed through prophetic authority, […]
EVIC Sunday School – Lesson 3: How the Bible Was Made and Preserved
Lesson 3 How We Got the Bible — The Formation of the New Testament Canon Lesson 3 of our six-week study is designed to deepen confidence in how the Bible came together — and can we trust that the right books made it in? This Sunday school lesson tackles one of the most important and most […]
The Ewe Lamb of Nauvoo: Memory, Revision, and the Youngest Wife of Joseph Smith
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — TWENTIETH INSTALLMENT Helen Mar Kimball, the Doll, the Altar, and the Making of a Mormon Memory ❖ ❖ ❖ On a warm afternoon in Nauvoo, Illinois, sometime in 1841, a twelve-year-old girl named Helen Mar Kimball still loved her dolls. She kept a small company of china […]
The Elect Lady and the Burning: Emma Hale Smith and the Cost of Standing Beside the Prophet Joseph
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — NINETEENTH INSTALLMENT Emma Smith, Loyalty, and the Limits of Faith ❦ ⬩ ❦ Introduction: A Woman on the Ice In February of 1839, a woman stepped onto the frozen surface of the Mississippi River with two small children clinging to her skirts, two more carried in her arms […]
The Mother of the Mormon Prophet: Lucy Mack Smith, the Family Faith, and the Gospel She Never Quite Found
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — EIGHTEENTH INSTALLMENT Lucy Mack Smith’s Lifelong Search for Assurance ❝ ❦ ❞ A Voice on the Frozen Shore On a raw morning in early May of 1831, on the wind-scoured bank of Lake Erie, a company of weary religious refugees sat huddled and despairing. The ice had not yet […]
From Cave to Codex: The History of the Qur’an from a Traditional Christian Perspective
A scholarly narrative tracing the Muslim scripture from its first recitation to the present age — its preservation, its transmission, and its place beside the biblical record. ✦ ❖ ✦ Introduction: A Book Born of a Voice On a night that Muslims call Laylat al-Qadr, the “Night of Power,” in or around […]
The Principle and the Prophet: Confronting the Polygamous Past of the Latter-day Saints
AI Colorized Photo: Joseph F. Smith, nephew of the founding prophet, and his family. Original black & white photo courtesy: Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Theological and Historical Examination from a Traditional Christian Perspective ✦ ❧ ✦ I. A Faith […]
The Faithful Scribe to The Mormon Prophet: How One Englishman’s Pen Shaped a Religion
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — SEVENTEENTH INSTALLMENT William Clayton and the Records the Church Tried To Lock Away ❖ ❖ ❖ It was past one o’clock in the morning on Sunday, the twenty-third of June, 1844, when the knock came. William Clayton rose in the dark, dressed quickly, and made his way down to […]
The Trillion-Dollar AI Gamble
Inside the Money Machine Powering the AI Revolution — and the Voices Warning It Could Burst An Investigative Narrative ❖ ❖ ❖ Somewhere in the American desert tonight, electricity is pouring into a building the size of a small town, humming through racks of silicon that are individually worth more […]
Navigating Faith and Doubt: Why Many Are Leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Image: An AI-generated image imagines a group of young people who have encountered a faith crisis and are discouraged about their Church membership. A 2026 Analysis of an Unprecedented Generational Exodus — and a Pastoral Invitation Home Introduction: The Quiet Earthquake For the first time in its […]
Examining LDS Prophetic Claims Against Traditional Biblical Standards
Image: Google Gemini’s Nano Banana imagines the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles meeting with Jesus for some prophetic updates. A Comprehensive Biblical and Theological Analysis Borrowed Names, Vanished Signs ❖ ❖ ❖ Introduction: A Claim That Bears All the Weight The Church of Jesus Christ of […]
The Holy Spirit in Latter-day Saint Theology: A Comparative Perspective To Traditional Christianity
A Critical Analysis from a Comparative Theological Perspective A Scholarly Examination of LDS Pneumatology in Light of Historic Christian Orthodoxy A Comparative Theological Analysis: “Are Mormons Christian?” Series Abstract This article provides a comprehensive scholarly analysis of […]
The Destroying Angel: Orrin Porter Rockwell and the Theology of Loyalty on the Mormon Frontier
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — SIXTEENTH INSTALLMENT Cut Not Thy Hair: The Samson of Mormondom and the Cost of Misplaced Faith ❖ ❖ ❖ A Stranger at the Christmas Door On Christmas night in 1843, a gaunt and filthy stranger pushed his way into the Mansion House at Nauvoo, Illinois, where Joseph Smith […]
Joseph Smith Searched For The Truth: A Theological Examination
First: An Observation. A casual observer who reads Joseph Smith’s “search for truth” as noted at BYU Studies, is met with an obvious question: “Joseph Smith (1805–1844) inhabited a visionary world and belonged to a visionary family. At about age twelve, he began to worry […]
Conviction, Not Convenience: Wes Huff’s Case for Why He Remains Protestant and Not Roman Catholic
The Governing Principle: Sufficiency, Not Mere Necessity A summary and theological reflection Wesley “Wes” Huff is a Christian apologist, speaker, and scholar shaped by a global upbringing spanning Pakistan, the Middle East, and Canada. After overcoming a life-altering neurological condition at age […]
Brigadier of the Daughter of Zion: The Rise and Ruin of Mormonism’s First Danite
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — FIFTEENTH INSTALLMENT Sampson Avard and the Education of a Holy Vengeance Introduction: A Man Looking at the Sky On the last day of October 1838, a tall, restless physician stood near the unfinished temple lot at Far West, Missouri, and turned his face toward heaven. […]
The LDS Counselor Who Said No: William Law, the Conscience of Nauvoo, and the Single Page That Toppled a Prophet
EARLY MORMON PERSONALITIES — FOURTEENTH INSTALLMENT He Proved a Prophet Wrong with the Prophet’s Own Bible. ❦ ❧ ❦ On the warm evening of June 10, 1844, a column of nearly one hundred men marched through the streets of Nauvoo, Illinois, toward a modest brick print shop. They carried a […]