Mike Reed Drops Bomb on Metal Plates

[_why me]

I read an early draft of Mike's paper and it was stellar research. Mike even identified books known to be owned by Joseph Smith which discuss writing on metal plates.

Joseph owned these books at the age of 19 or 20? Where did he purchase these books and with whose money? I doubt that Joseph Smith owned these books at the time of writing the Book of Mormon. But...who knows...maybe he had a stellar library in the one room hut of his parents.

[_why me]

Wow, Kishkumen. I see that Dr. Peterson is insisting on having the last word. He was really laying it on thick in his last couple of posts. And it's quite clear what he's up to. He began by using gross distortion and hyperbole and now that he feels confident that he's duped the more gullible TBMs into thinking that the reports were somehow inaccurate, he's now circled back around to portray you as someone with an axe to grind. Quite a performance.

Are you joking? Here is dan's point: he can not say anything about John Gee's question because he wasn't there. He can't say much about mike reed's presentation because he wasn't there.

I think that this is a good position to take and one which the critics who were not at presentation should also take up.

[Guest]

I read an early draft of Mike's paper and it was stellar research. Mike even identified books known to be owned by Joseph Smith which discuss writing on metal plates.

Joseph owned these books at the age of 19 or 20? Where did he purchase these books and with whose money? I doubt that Joseph Smith owned these books at the time of writing the Book of Mormon. But...who knows...maybe he had a stellar library in the one room hut of his parents.

I think this would have been my only complain about Mike's presentation. He repeatedly referenced a Bible dictionary that referenced ancient metal records, and went on to imply that Joseph Smith had to be aware of it because he donated the Bible dictionary to the Nauvoo library in 1844.

The obvious problem is that we're talking about Joseph Smith pre-1828, and I think it's extremely unlikely that Joseph Smith had that same book in his possession in the 1820s. That Joseph Smith possessed the Bible dictionary in 1844 seemed almost completely inconsequential, yet the way that Mike presented it made it seem (to me, at least) like he thought it was a home run.

I think Mike's overall thesis is certainly correct, but I think the ideas would have circulated to Joseph and his neighbors through oral means rather than through Joseph Smith's copious adolescent book reading or that of his family members.

[_Nevo]

Hi there, Nevo.

Actually, the phrase Bagley used to describe Welch was "dark, menacing presence." And that's a real bummer that he criticized your work. Hopefully he was nicer to you than Gee apparently was with Mike Reed.

Well, I was there the year after Bagley's terrifying ordeal in the bowels of the Knight Mangum Building, in 1999. At Richard Bushman's invitation, John Welch stopped by and addressed the seminar. I thought he had a kind of gravitas or solemnity about him, but I wouldn't say he was "menacing." He seemed genuinely interested in what we were working on and made a point of coming out to the symposium (which, in those days at least, was a rather small, obscure affair).

I wasn't surprised that Welch singled out my paper for comment because it more or less endorsed Dan Vogel's conclusions regarding the presence of anti-Universalist rhetoric in the Book of Mormon. Welch said he found my conclusion unpersuasive and pointed out that one of Vogel's proof-texts was embedded in a complex chiasm (something I had acknowledged in a footnote but not in the paper itself). I didn't mind the criticism. If anything, I was a bit awe-struck by the exchange (Welch was then and still is one of my favorite scholars in the Church). At the conclusion of the seminar, Welch arranged to have all of the fellows receive a free year's subscription to BYU Studies. So, yes, he was pretty nice to me.

[_The Dude]

In the Q&A, John Gee basically asked Michael if he knew if he was unknowingly using Hoffman forgeries for all of his sources, implying both that Mike was a terrible scholar who was simply ripping off someone else's work (who supposedly used some Hoffman forgeries) and that Hoffman somehow actually managed to go back in time and forge dozens of whole books that became popular back then.

Well, at least Gee has finally explained the real origin of the Book of Mormon.

KA

LOL!

[_Socrates]

I'm not so much interested in what he found but in how he interpreted and presented his findings.

Are you sure that you were not subconsciously referring here to Don Bradley's presentation on the character match between the Kinderhook Plates and the GAEL?

[_Doctor Scratch]

Hi there, Nevo.

Actually, the phrase Bagley used to describe Welch was "dark, menacing presence." And that's a real bummer that he criticized your work. Hopefully he was nicer to you than Gee apparently was with Mike Reed.

Well, I was there the year after Bagley's terrifying ordeal in the bowels of the Knight Mangum Building, in 1999. At Richard Bushman's invitation, John Welch stopped by and addressed the seminar. I thought he had a kind of gravitas or solemnity about him, but I wouldn't say he was "menacing." He seemed genuinely interested in what we were working on and made a point of coming out to the symposium (which, in those days at least, was a rather small, obscure affair).

I wasn't surprised that Welch singled out my paper for comment because it more or less endorsed Dan Vogel's conclusions regarding the presence of anti-Universalist rhetoric in the Book of Mormon. Welch said he found my conclusion unpersuasive and pointed out that one of Vogel's proof-texts was embedded in a complex chiasm (something I had acknowledged in a footnote but not in the paper itself). I didn't mind the criticism. If anything, I was a bit awe-struck by the exchange (Welch was then and still is one of my favorite scholars in the Church). At the conclusion of the seminar, Welch arranged to have all of the fellows receive a free year's subscription to BYU Studies. So, yes, he was pretty nice to me.

That's really interesting, Nevo--thanks for sharing. As I'm sure you know, I love stories about the apologists. And I think your account here has quite a lot in common with Will Bagley's description of Welch. You describe Welch as having "a kind of gravitas or solemnity about him" and you said that you were "awe-struck" by him, which meshes perfectly with the way Bagley described the deference that was paid to Welch. Further, it's extremely interesting that you received a dressing-down from Welch on account of your "endorsement" of work by Dan Vogel. *That* is striking.

Dr. Peterson is over on MDD trying very hard to convince everyone that the attack on Mike Reed was in no way a coordinated effort on the part of the Maxwell Institute, which in and of itself is intriguing. (He tends to only put in this level of effort when something's at stake. Think of his denials/exaggerations, etc. w/r/t the 2nd Watson Letter.) So my question here is this: Did Jack Welch "order" the harassment of Mike Reed? We already know the following:

--Jack Welch was a founder of FARMS.
--Quite a bit of negative prose has been devoted to attacking Dan Vogel in the pages of the FARMS Review.
--Nevo relied on Vogel and was criticized by Welch such that he was left "awe-struck."
--Mike Reed was personally criticized by Jack Welch.
--Mike Reed used some of Vogel's scholarship for his presentation, and--lo and behold--he's criticized on precisely those grounds.
--Both Roper and Gee exhibited odd behavior in the wake of their aggressive questions.

Sure: it's possible that all of this is pure coincidence. Nevertheless, I'll go ahead and borrow from Dr. Gee in suggesting that, perhaps unknowingly, the apologists coordinated an effort to sandbag Mike Reed's presentation.

[_Socrates]

I read an early draft of Mike's paper and it was stellar research. Mike even identified books known to be owned by Joseph Smith which discuss writing on metal plates.

Joseph owned these books at the age of 19 or 20? Where did he purchase these books and with whose money? I doubt that Joseph Smith owned these books at the time of writing the Book of Mormon. But...who knows...maybe he had a stellar library in the one room hut of his parents.

I think this would have been my only complain about Mike's presentation. He repeatedly referenced a Bible dictionary that referenced ancient metal records, and went on to imply that Joseph Smith had to be aware of it because he donated the Bible dictionary to the Nauvoo library in 1844.

The obvious problem is that we're talking about Joseph Smith pre-1828, and I think it's extremely unlikely that Joseph Smith had that same book in his possession in the 1820s. That Joseph Smith possessed the Bible dictionary in 1844 seemed almost completely inconsequential, yet the way that Mike presented it made it seem (to me, at least) like he thought it was a home run.

I think Mike's overall thesis is certainly correct, but I think the ideas would have circulated to Joseph and his neighbors through oral means rather than through Joseph Smith's copious adolescent book reading or that of his family members.

What was the publication date on that Bible dictionary?

[Guest]

I read an early draft of Mike's paper and it was stellar research. Mike even identified books known to be owned by Joseph Smith which discuss writing on metal plates.

Joseph owned these books at the age of 19 or 20? Where did he purchase these books and with whose money? I doubt that Joseph Smith owned these books at the time of writing the Book of Mormon. But...who knows...maybe he had a stellar library in the one room hut of his parents.

I think this would have been my only complain about Mike's presentation. He repeatedly referenced a Bible dictionary that referenced ancient metal records, and went on to imply that Joseph Smith had to be aware of it because he donated the Bible dictionary to the Nauvoo library in 1844.

The obvious problem is that we're talking about Joseph Smith pre-1828, and I think it's extremely unlikely that Joseph Smith had that same book in his possession in the 1820s. That Joseph Smith possessed the Bible dictionary in 1844 seemed almost completely inconsequential, yet the way that Mike presented it made it seem (to me, at least) like he thought it was a home run.

I think Mike's overall thesis is certainly correct, but I think the ideas would have circulated to Joseph and his neighbors through oral means rather than through Joseph Smith's copious adolescent book reading or that of his family members.

What was the publication date on that Bible dictionary?

It appears the only two publications of John Brown's Dictionary of the Holy Bible prior to January 31, 1844 (http://www.xmission.com/~research/about/books.htm) were 1816 and 1824 (http://books.google.com/books/about/A_d ... 1AAAAAIAAJ). Both before 1828. That does not prove Mike Reed correct, but it helps him. It would be much different if the first publication was after 1830.

EDITED TO CORRECT GRAMMAR.

[_Kishkumen]

Wow, Kishkumen. I see that Dr. Peterson is insisting on having the last word. He was really laying it on thick in his last couple of posts. And it's quite clear what he's up to. He began by using gross distortion and hyperbole and now that he feels confident that he's duped the more gullible TBMs into thinking that the reports were somehow inaccurate, he's now circled back around to portray you as someone with an axe to grind. Quite a performance.

Yes, it was a real tour de force performance on Dr. Peterson's part. Listen, the whole thing is the usual exercise of misdirection and mutual CYA on the part of the apologists. Gee throws out some smoke to keep the uninformed from reaching the wrong conclusions as he usually does, and his allies make sure that the shameless display is passed off as some kind of innocent gaffe.

All that said, I think he's most upset at the notion that an preemptive "attack" was actually coordinated by some of these Maxwell Institute apologists. Yes: the "whispering" does seem somewhat suspicious. Also, the fact that so many of the more vicious Mopologists were gathered there in one room is noteworthy. Finally, I seem to recall Jack Welch being somewhat harsh in his criticism of Mike's early work on this project. (Didn't M. Reed mention something along those lines in the Celestial Forum?) I halfway wonder if Welch ordered these apologists to go in and rattle Mike Reed. And based on Will Bagley's description of Welch, I think you can chalk up their failure to produce "refuting" documentation to the fact that--per Bagley--they would have had to go and get permission to do so from Welch.

I doubt that there was some planned attack. It was just the usual Mickey Mouse BS. All this is about preventing the plebes from reaching the wrong conclusions. Whatever it takes to put people on the wrong trail, from reaching the wrong conclusion, that is the thing that will be said or written. Anyone who really knows the parties involved can see through it. It takes the ignorant, stupid, or incredibly partisan to fail to grasp it.