Garbo wrote:Sorry if this is a stupid question. I've done some searching, but I still can't quite make sense of what the whole thing is about.
Who is Rodney Meldrum?
Hi, Garbo.
Rodney Meldrum is the de facto leader of an organization called "FIRM." Meldrum teaches people traditional LDS doctrine and he leads tours through the purported sites of scenes from the Book of Mormon. The FAIR/FARMS apologists absolutely hate him and have targeted him for numerous character assassinations and smear campaigns due to the fact that he disagrees with their theories on the Book of Mormon taking place in meso-America. Meldrum claims to have received spiritual guidance for his endeavors, and that has angered the apologists, too, since they believe that the intellect is greater than the Mantle.
Also, I found and watched William Schryver's presentation (or at least most of it, I got distracted at times). I guess I'll have to learn a lot more about what the issues are in order to get what he was talking about. I do admit that his presentation was impressive in terms of its production, and he speaks really well. But I don't know enough about the controversy to understand the significance of what he had to say. Why does it matter if these Kirtland documents come before or after the Book of Abraham?
The apologists want people to believe that the KEP documents came *after* because they don't want to believe that the KEP are evidence of a (false) translation. The KEP seem to show (to non-TBMs, that is) that Joseph Smith was really, truly, sincerely trying to translate the Egyptian papyri, which would mean that, in this case, he was a false prophet. The apologists really, really don't want to accept that.
And why would they be making some kind of secret code about all of it?
That's a good question.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14