https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900031172/elder-cook-historians-tackle-tough-questions-about-latter-day-saint-history.html

Looks like it was just a rehash of previous apologetic arguments.

Some quotes:

- Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles assured young adults that the church is not hiding aspects of its 188-year-old history.

- Church history can be a significant source of faith,” Elder Cook said. But for some, church history “has been misunderstood or overlooked” or “crowded out by larger concerns of the world.”
Some people “have even purposely misrepresented stories of the past to sow doubt,” he said.

- “The church did not hide information from me, but the historical information was not emphasized to me,” she said. In Sunday school and seminary she learned “the main work of the church” — to repent, to bring her life in harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how to establish a relationship with God. “These are the things in my life that I hold most dear.”

- She acknowledged it is painful for a person to learn of an aspect of church history they thought they should have known, but did not.
The Church History Department is not trying to hide or censor history, but instead trying to make church history “accessible, available and understandable,” said Grow.

- She said Joseph Smith was reluctant to practice plural marriage, but eventually instituted it because he wanted to obey God’s commandment to him.
While scholars do not know the exact number who practiced plural marriage, those who did were in the minority, she said.
Grow said one purpose of polygamy was to raise up “seed or a righteous posterity.” The extensive family history records of the church reveal that “20 percent of living church members descend from those who practiced plural marriage,” he said. “We know that throughout time those families have been a strength to the church.”

- Grow compared the differing version of Joseph Smith's first vision to a story one might tell of meeting their spouse. A person might emphasize different details of the account in the journal entry the day it took place, than he or she does in wedding video, or in a letter written to a 12-year-old daughter, or in a recount told at a 50th wedding anniversary party. So it is with the First Vision accounts, he said.

There seems to be nothing new despite TSCC's claim that they are going to tell the real history in their new book.

In closing, let us turn to hymn 272 "Oh Say, What is Truth" because it won't be found elsewhere in this broadcast.

OH my goodness how the stories change with each telling.
The fish gets larger every time it gets away.

Did he explain how the BoM and BoA being completely made up using 19th century sources is not a problem?

I testify that if you will go to https://www.mormon.org, click on the "Chat" link, start a chat session, can copy-paste the following into your Chat Session (along with any questions you may have) then you can gain a knowledge for yourself on whether or not Elder Cook and the Church are really true (i.e. honest/transparent) or not.

On September 9, 2018 the following was published in the Deseret News regarding comments made by Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve in a worldwide “Face to Face” broadcast.
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900031172/elder-cook-historians-tackle-tough-questions-about-latter-day-saint-history.html

Elder Cook said in the 22-plus years he has been a General Authority, the desire of church leaders “is to be as transparent as possible in terms of church history and doctrine.”

To my horror the website wasn't working for Chat so I haven't been able to ask any questions. In the meantime Satan will probably take advantage of this website malfunction to ferment doubts in the minds of people so that they'll commit some sin of Doubting and thus put themselves on a path to be lovingly thrown into a lake of fire/brimstone for eternity by our loving Heavenly Father at Judgment Day.

I'm hoping to quickly get a good summary of the church's global financial statements for the past 5 calendar years showing at a summary level all the assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, and cash flow. That way all the naysayers can eat their words :) Having a True Church is an awesome thing to have. Being able to say boldly/truthfully that the Church is more transparent/honest than any organization on earth is so refreshing :)

I'm not holding my breath but

I'm waiting for transparency about financial assets.

Follow the money....

I am a resigned Mormon......or whatever they're called now.

The answers are NOT available …. this is all fluff.

KJ

"Grow compared the differing version of Joseph Smith's first vision to a story one might tell of meeting their spouse."

Well, except for the version where your spouse wasn't actually there, or the version where you tried to marry someone else.

Quentin “it’s not a cat turd, it’s a chocolate nut roll” Cook.

What they don't get is that even if Joseph Smith did talk to some super powerful dude who made Book of Mormon words appear in his head it doesn't make the words true.

Even if everything Joseph ever said was true and not one thing was wrong it doesn't make the "gospel" that was revealed to Joseph true. It just means that there is some super poserful being somewhere out there in the universe who is having a hell of a practical joke.

Maybe all the womanizing was part of the divination process. He would pull out holey writings like slips of paper out of a fortune cookie.

The story of how I met my spouse NEVER changed, especially in regards to substantial details. This is perhaps the most disingenuous lie of the whole body of apologetics.
I can NOT believe people fall for that explanation.

Joseph Smith had over 30 versions of "how I met my spouse" but that's only because there were over 30 spouses.

And re polygamy: a classic “the ends justify the means” argument.