Editing Openai/691a45a6-8ed0-8010-a7d9-24657a41a9aa (section)

=== Heschmeyer’s instincts—and background—push him toward datapoints from the first two centuries, because that is where the LDS model is weakest and the continuity model is strongest. ===

Here are the specific arguments he would hammer:

===== Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107 AD) is the big weapon here. =====

Ignatius talks constantly about:

• a single bishop in each city
• presbyters (elders) and deacons
• Eucharistic unity under the bishop
• obedience to the bishop as obedience to God
• schism as a break from legitimate authority

This is devastating to the LDS rupture model because it shows a structured hierarchy while the apostles were still alive or just died.
No sign of a collapse.
No sign of fragmentation into “apostasy mode.”

Ignatius is the anti-apostasy witness.

===== Heschmeyer would cite: =====

• Clement of Rome
• Irenaeus (who explicitly names the bishops of Rome from Peter → his own day)
• Eusebius’ early church histories
• Lists of bishops from Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, Rome, North Africa

This undercuts the idea of a leadership collapse or disappearance of ordained authority.

If the LDS model requires a break, Heschmeyer will show an uninterrupted record.

===== This is a killer line of attack: =====

If the Great Apostasy occurred by 100–120 AD:

• Who preserved the New Testament?
• Who transmitted the Gospels?
• Who decided which books were inspired?
• Who preserved the manuscripts Joseph Smith said were divinely translated?

If the “apostate church” curated the scriptures faithfully, why assume it lost authority but kept revelation intact?

That tension is extremely hard for an LDS apologist to dissolve.

===== He’ll push this point relentlessly: =====

“Show me in the historical record where the keys disappear.
Show me the change, the event, the document, the evidence.”

No LDS apologist can meet that demand with hard data, because the claim is supernatural.

This creates a scoring advantage for Heschmeyer, because debates tend to favor demonstrable claims over metaphysical ones.