In recent months, several people have asked me about Jonah Barnes, a rising voice in the world of Latter-day Saint apologetics and frequent guest of LDS podcasts. Barnes has gained attention through his punchy books and combative rhetoric. He represents a cultural shift that Kyle Beshears calls “Gig Mormonism,” a phenomenon where authority is crowdsourced and accountability is optional.¹ This comes with an increasingly dismissive attitude toward the LDS Church’s own prophetic tradition, moral standards of online conduct, and community of trust.

Jonah’s work has been recommended by LDS apologist Jacob Hansen² and millionaire Russell Brunson.³ But his obdurate pattern of factual errors has not gone unnoticed. Increasingly, other Latter-day Saints are voicing concern about his credibility.

“Key to the Keystone” and the Apocrypha Project

Barnes’s rise began with, The Key to the Keystone: How Apocryphal Texts Unlock the Book of Mormon’s Brass Plates (2024).⁴ In Key to the Keystone, he claims that the discovery of various apocryphal Adam, Enoch, and other Second Temple traditions now allows us to reconstruct, in effect, the contents of Lehi’s brass plates. He further argues that those plates underlie both the Book of Mormon and later Latter-day Saint temple liturgy.

Promotional copy describes the book as using paleography and philology to identify which books were on the brass plates, who corrupted the Old Testament canon, and how apocryphal sources answer questions about Lucifer, Eve, Abinadi, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the “too Messianic” character of the Book of Mormon.⁵

The sharpest criticism of Barnes’s work has come from other Latter-day Saints. In an influential Facebook group for Latter-day Saints called “The Cavalry,” one member asked in September 2024 for opinions on Ward Radio and on Key to the Keystone. In response, LDS scholar Benjamin Spackman described Ward Radio and its regulars as “the definition of amateur, ‘zeal without knowledge,’ and fool’s gold.” He concluded: “So yeah, I am not a fan, and wish people would not give them any attention.”⁶

In the same thread, Spencer Kraus points to an example from Barnes’s work. Barnes had claimed that the Book of Jasher depicts Satan disguising himself as God in order to trick Abraham into sacrificing Isaac. Kraus notes that Jasher in fact portrays Isaac as eager to be sacrificed, God as approving, and Satan as appearing repeatedly to stop the sacrifice. On Kraus’s reading, “every other text Barnes cites likewise says the opposite of what he thinks,” leading him to warn fellow Latter-day Saints, “do not trust Barnes with a 100 foot pole.”

Robert Boylan, a popular but oft profane Irish LDS apologist, also appears in the Cavalry discussion. Having seen a draft of Key to the Keystone, Boylan’s verdict was pointed: “I read a draft of Barnes’s book; it is s*it.”

Benjamin L. McGuire, a Latter-day Saint contributor to apologetic forums and journals such as Interpreter, critiqued the basic thesis behind The Key to the Keystone. He writes, “Barnes, from my perspective, doesn’t know what he is talking about.”⁷ He grants that one can talk in a general way about overlap between the Book of Mormon and the brass plates, and that books like Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Exodus, Genesis, and Psalms were likely present. But he stresses the distance between any apocryphal parallel and Lehi’s library. The Book of Mormon frequently reproduces King James wording, including material from Malachi and the New Testament that could not have been on the brass plates, which means those chapters function as Joseph Smith’s translation choices, not as a transparent window onto the ancient record. Because the brass plates were themselves a Hebrew text translated into “reformed Egyptian,” which was then summarized on Nephite plates and only then translated into nineteenth century English, McGuire argues that attempts to “reconstruct” the brass plates from modern apocrypha rest on “a long chain of speculations.” At most, one can speak of shared traditions or general likelihoods, not textual reconstruction.

McGuire also pushes back on the apologetic sales pitch itself. In his view, Mormon parallel hunting has a long history of “parallelomania,” and Barnes is not the first to claim a “key to the keystone.” He mentions Avraham Gileadi’s earlier essay “Isaiah: Key to the Book of Mormon” as precedent.⁸

Barnes knows that trained Latter-day Saint scholars disregard his work, but wears their disapproval as a badge of honor:

“They won’t even — they literally will not even open it. They say, ‘Don’t even bother. I won’t even countenance this book.’ … Every [LDS] academic who’s come across my book thinks this way. They won’t touch it with a 10 ft pole.”⁹

He also recounts how a reader sent Key to the Keystone to BYU professor Taylor Halverson and received the reply,

“I’m highly skeptical that Jonah has said anything new or meaningfully accurate. I doubt that Jonah has helped people truly understand the Apocrypha. I love that members of the church are enthusiastic about the Book of Mormon. But if we make claims from scholarship that are shown to be sloppy, then we do damage to our cause and worse.”

Rather than taking that as a constructive warning, Barnes and Ward Radio host Cardon Ellis then mock Halverson and the broader world of LDS academia.

On John 4:24: “You’ve been lied to.”

On October 18, 2025, Barnes announced on X that creedal Christians had been lied to about the meaning of John 4:24. He argued that the Greek text does not say “God is Spirit,” but “Spirit the God,” insisting that there is “no verb” in the oldest manuscripts and that the traditional translation is therefore a Trinitarian deception. His post attracted almost a quarter million views:

“Creedal Christians, another lie you’ve been told is that John 4:24 says ‘God is Spirit.’ It does not. The oldest manuscripts read (abbreviated) πνεῦμα ὁ θεός or ‘pneuma ho Theos’ or ‘Spirit The God.’ There is no verb. You’ve been lied to. God is our Father, not some Trinity.”¹⁰

First semester students of Koine Greek can see the problem. Greek, like many languages, regularly omits “to be” when the context makes it obvious. Grammarians call this the “zero copula.”¹¹ When two nominatives appear together in this way, the verb “is” is implied.

Within hours, pastors and scholars corrected Barnes publicly. Pastor Griffin Gulledge responded:

“You could’ve saved us a lot of reading by just saying that you don’t know how to read Greek.”¹²

Pastor Matt Shown offered an explanation:

“Actually, Greek grammar explains this clearly: John 4:24 uses a nominative-nominative construction where the verb ‘is’ is implied. ‘Πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός’ literally reads ‘God is Spirit.’ No manuscripts are lying; this is just how Greek works.”¹³

Barnes’s charge of deception hinged on a failure to recognize a basic feature of Koine Greek. Rather than uncovering a conspiracy of creeds, he had stumbled over a first-year grammar rule.

Christian apologist James White made the problem even more embarrassing. White pointed out that Thomas A. Wayment, a Latter-day Saint who is Professor of Classics at Brigham Young University and who produced a New Testament translation specifically for Latter-day Saints, also renders John 4:24 as “God is spirit.”

“Wayment is a full professor at BYU. He translated the entire New Testament. I can assure you, you could not translate a single sentence since, of course, you are not trained to do so. But you have the temerity to accuse all those who have studied, and have learned, and have read, of ‘lying’ based upon your own abject ignorance. Your proposed ‘Spirit The God’ is, of course, absurd, and is not, in fact, a translation at all. You would fail Greek 101 in my class, to be sure, and, evidently, at BYU as well, thankfully.”¹⁴

If Barnes’s accusation of “lying” sticks, it hits his own community’s respected scholar as well. Barnes did not respond with humility. Instead he replied to White with a sneer:

“Lol. Sure bro. Sure. I can’t imagine learning greek from anyone with thicker bias than you.”¹⁵

Barnes also ignored the response of Peter J. Gurry, a respected New Testament textual critic. Gurry, who has taught at Phoenix Seminary and now serves as Associate Professor of New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has specialized in Greek, textual criticism, and canon formation. He has also coauthored works such as Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism and Scribes and Scripture.⁷ Gurry wrote:

“I think it’s the first month of beginning Greek that we learn why this tweet is wrong.”¹⁶

A Community Note was attached to Barnes’s post, with references to works on the zero copula in Greek and other languages. The note cites H. W. Smyth’s Greek Grammar and linguistic discussions of the unexpressed copula in Ancient Greek and elsewhere.¹⁷ Barnes’s “Spirit the God” reading is not a suppressed truth, but a grammatical blunder.

Adam-God: “Brigham never taught this.”

Latter-day Saint Scott Adams, a former LDS bishop and outspoken online defender of the Church, gave a recent Ward Radio show with Jonah Barnes a glowing endorsement:

“What do you get when you take Hugh Nibley, add some rock and roll and baker’s yeast, allow to proof, and bake at 350? You get Jonah Barnes. If you only ever watch one episode of Ward Radio, watch this one. Here’s the context to bury the Adam-God theory as an attack against the church, and to drive a stake through its heart forever. So good. Don’t sleep on this one.”¹⁸

According to Adams, this single episode “buries” the Adam-God problem. In the program Barnes says he is “a little skeptical that the Adam God theory ever actually really happened.”¹⁹ He grants that critics claim Brigham Young taught “that Adam, the first man, was also God the Father,” but insists the whole thing is a confusion. In his telling, “Adam-God” is a tangle of scribal errors, misunderstood titles, bad punctuation, and unreliable copies of sermons, which later missionaries and anti-Mormons spun into a doctrine that Brigham himself never held.

Barnes’ argument:

1. “Adam” as a title, not a name. Barnes claims that early manuscripts of Abraham 1:3 read “Adam or first father,” not “Adam, our first father,” and that “Adam” simply means “first father” as a title.
2. Misreadings in D&C 137. He then appeals to an early manuscript of Doctrine and Covenants 137 that reads “I saw Father Adam and Abraham and Michael,” and argues that later editors mistakenly dropped “Michael” because they did not understand that “Father Adam” was a separate heavenly figure.
3. Repunctuating Brigham Young. Barnes further re-punctuates one of Brigham Young’s sermons, allowing him to deny that Brigham equated Adam or Michael with the God and Father of Jesus.
4. Dismissing the Journal of Discourses. Barnes assures viewers that the Journal of Discourses is so unreliable that it should not be trusted on something as controversial as Adam-God, and attributes the standard reading of Brigham’s statements to bad shorthand and errant historians.

Barnes concludes, “Brigham never taught this.” The classic Adam-God teaching “never actually really happened,” critics have “lied” about Brigham Young, and modern prophets like Spencer W. Kimball were only denouncing a distorted, anti-Mormon caricature when they rejected “the Adam-God theory” in 1976.

LDS apologist Robert Boylan responded to Barnes’s claims. He wrote:

“I am not a fan of lousy arguments against the Church. I am also opposed to poorly researched and argued ‘apologetic’ arguments. This post is aimed at a recent lousy apologic concerning Brigham Young and his ‘Adam-God’ theology.”²⁰

Boylan then lists six points:

1. Multiple independent accounts. “We have multiple accounts from others, not just Brigham, that he, on occasion, identified ‘Adam’ with the ‘Ancient of Days’ and the ‘Archangel Michael’ in his ‘Adam-God’ discourses.”
2. Contemporary interpretation. “We have Wilford Woodruff and others, in their journals, interpret Brigham Young as identifying Michael/Adam/AofD with the God and Father of Jesus.”
3. LaJean Carruth’s work cuts the other way. Barnes leans heavily on the idea that the Journal of Discourses is unreliable, but Boylan calls this use of LaJean Carruth’s research “not intellectually honest.” Carruth has transcribed the original Pitman shorthand of many Brigham Young sermons for the Church History Library. Boylan notes that “Adam-God is taught in her transcriptions,” and further reports that he asked her personally, twice, whether Brigham taught Adam-God. “She said he did, though, as with me, is scratching their head as to what exactly he meant.”
4. The Orson Pratt debates. To deny that Brigham taught Adam-God, Boylan says, “makes nonsense of the 4-5 April 1860 debates between Orson Pratt and Brigham Young et al.”
5. The 1877 Lecture at the Veil. Boylan adds that Barnes’s denial “makes no sense of the 1877 Lecture at the Veil,” an endowment text that historians agree contained Adam-God elements and that was still in use decades after Brigham’s death.
6. Titles do not rescue Barnes. Boylan grants that “Adam” can function as a title and notes that Brigham taught this on 28 December 1845. He observes that “no advocate of AG (including Fundamentalists who believe in it as doctrine) deny that ‘Adam’ (and ‘Eve,’ too) is a title. Did BY often distinguish Adam/Michael/AofD and the God and Father of Jesus? He did, both pre- and post-1852.”

Boylan, a Latter-day Saint apologist, formerly worked with the B. H. Roberts Foundation and helped assemble a substantial Mormonr research page on Adam-God.²¹

Sarah Allen, a senior researcher for the Latter-day Saint apologetics organization FAIR, also pushes back against the dismissive posture against the text of the Journal of Discourses. In a discussion of Barnes’s episode in the “Thoughtful Saints” Facebook group she writes:

“And no, quotes from the Journal of Discourses should not be ‘thrown in the trash.’ They should be checked against the original shorthand transcripts in the parallel column transcriptions here.”²²

She then links directly to the Church History Catalog where some of the transcriptions can be examined. The shorthand serves to refine our understanding of Brigham, not to pretend he never taught Adam-God.

Plea to My Latter-day Saint Friends

My hope for both evangelicals and Latter-day Saints is that we would police our own communities when we see the worst actors. “Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease” (Proverbs 22:10).

But there is a spirit that sneers and refuses correction. “Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you” (Proverbs 9:8). Some want to promote a common faith and build on the work of spiritual forebears. Others delight in standing apart and in unlocking supposed “new knowledge.”

Latter-day Saints often turn to James 1:5, but we would all do well to also hear James 3:17–18:

“The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

The ultimate solution to pride in apologetics is the gospel of unmerited grace (Romans 4:4-8, Titus 3:5). When grace has melted our hearts with free forgiveness, scoffing personalities lose their power.

Friends, turn away from proud apologetic voices and listen to the Good Shepherd himself in his word. When the heart is satisfied with the word of God, it no longer craves novel teachers who unlock “new knowledge.” “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Psalm 19:10).

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References

1. Kyle Beshears, “On Gig Mormonism”, accessed November 9, 2025. Link. ↩︎
2. Jacob Hansen (@ThoughtfulSaint), “Post 1984081385523703932,” X (formerly Twitter), October 30, 2024, Link; see also The Remarkable Connections Between the Book of Mormon and Newly Discovered Ancient Documents, YouTube video, October 3, 2024, Link. Jacob commends the book: “I really enjoyed it… it’s a fantastic book.” ↩︎
3. Russell Brunson in “Jonah Barnes Book Announcement for 2026,” YouTube video, streamed live November 5, 2025, Link. “I get the book and then a week later… I’m just sucked into the story and what’s happening and it shifted my whole like mindset on so many things.” ↩︎
4. Jonah R. Barnes, The Key to the Keystone: How Apocryphal Texts Unlock the Book of Mormon’s Brass Plates (Springville, UT: Plain and Precious Publishing LLC, 2024), 262 pp. ↩︎
5. “The Key to the Keystone: How Apocryphal Texts Unlock the Book of Mormon’s Brass Plates,” Cedar Fort Publishing & Media, accessed November 9, 2025, Link. ↩︎
6. Timothy Grigg, post in The Cavalry (Facebook group), September 2024, comment by Benjamin Spackman, accessed November 9, 2025. Link. ↩︎
7. Benjamin L. McGuire, comment posted April 4, 2024, on “Key to the Keystone” thread, MormonDialogue.org (Latter-day Saints forum), accessed November 9, 2025, Link. ↩︎
8. Gileadi, Avraham. “Isaiah—Key to the Book of Mormon.” In Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, edited by John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne, 197–206. Provo, UT: FARMS, 1991. ↩︎
9. “Adam and Eve’s Epic Rap Battle … & Calling Out BYU Scholars…” (YouTube video), published October 17 2025, Link (accessed November 9 2025). ↩︎
10. Jonah Barnes (@JonahBa96958909), tweet, October 18, 2025, X, accessed November 9, 2025, Link. ↩︎
11. “Zero Copula,” Wikipedia, accessed November 9, 2025, Link. ↩︎
12. Griffin Gulledge (@griffingulledge), X (reply), October 18, 2025. Link. ↩︎
13. Matt Shown (@matt_shown), X (reply), October 18, 2025, Link. ↩︎
14. James White (@HwsEleutheroi), X (reply), October 18, 2025, Link. ↩︎
15. Jonah Barnes (@JonahBa96958909), X (reply), October 18, 2025. Link. ↩︎
16. Peter J. Gurry (@pjgurry), X (reply), October 18, 2025, Link. ↩︎
17. “Zero Copula,” Wikipedia, accessed November 9, 2025, Link. See also H. W. Smyth, Greek Grammar § 83 (Perseus Digital Library), Link. ↩︎
18. Scott Adams (@PTSPentax), X (post), November 8, 2025, Link. ↩︎
19. “BOMBSHELL: Adam-God Theory NEVER Happened!” YouTube video, 52:23. Posted by Ward Radio, November 8, 2025, Link. Accessed November 9, 2025. ↩︎
20. Robert Boylan, Facebook post, November 8, 2025, Link.. ↩︎
21. “Adam-God Theory,” MormonR research page, Link. ↩︎
22. Sarah Allen, comment in “Thoughtful Saints” Facebook group, November 9, 2025, Link. ↩︎