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Our dear old Mopologist friend Mike "Tuffy" Parker has posted a rather nasty smear of Richard Packham on the FAIR blog:

http://www.fairblog.org/2012/05/01/okay ... his-again/

I'm sure that some readers here will recall that Parker was one of the irate Mopologists who posted early on in the TIME Lightbox fiasco. Though he generally tends to avoid the limelight, Parker actually has quite a vicious reputation for engaging in frivolous and mean-spirited attacks. In this entry, he accuses Packham of being "intellectually dishonest," among other things, and at one point, he is joined in the comments section by Dr. Greg Smith, who takes a swipe at Packham's academic background.

Of course, Parker's argument itself is a case study in sloppy thinking and unimaginitive apologetics. What seems as clear as ever, though, is the penchant of the FAIR volunteers to engage in ad hominem attack and smear campaigns, which is quite interesting given the fact that they just erased their smear of John Dehlin on the FAIR Wiki. Perhaps they were so enraged over having to take that down that they needed to vent steam some other way--e.g., going over the rather kindly and mild-mannered Richard Packham?

Mike Parker (emphasis added) wrote:An inquiry came to FAIR’s “Ask the Apologist” service this morning, asking for help with the following claim on the Wikipedia article “Linguistics and the Book of Mormon”:

Richard Packham has pointed out that several Biblical Hebrew names, including Aaron, Ephraim, and Levi are listed as Jaredites in the Book of Ether. He argues that these are anachronisms, since the Jaredites are supposed to have originated from the time of the Tower of Babel, and did not speak Hebrew.

Perennial ex-Mormon gadfly Richard Packham apparently fails to understand that the Book of Mormon is a translation, and translations render ancient words — including names — into modern forms that didn’t exist at the time.

Of course, the fact that Joseph Smith was inconsistent, as purportedly the only "translator" involved, in using phonetic approximations of foreign names (e.g., "Nephi" or "Laman") vs. proper English names (e.g., "Sam" or "Jacob") raises questions about his decision making process (if any) in the "translation" exercise.

Beyond that, I actually have to agree with Mike Parker on this one. The names used in the Book of Mormon are clearly not anachronistic at all. They all make perfect sense within a book of religious frontier fiction written in the late 1820s.

With the Dehlin thing and now this as two immediate examples, why would anybody find fault with a critic of the Church choosing anonymity?

-JV

I love it. The big gaping hole in the logic....

nasty blog wrote:An inquiry came to FAIR’s “Ask the Apologist” service this morning, asking for help with the following claim on the Wikipedia article “Linguistics and the Book of Mormon”:

Richard Packham has pointed out that several Biblical Hebrew names, including Aaron, Ephraim, and Levi are listed as Jaredites in the Book of Ether. He argues that these are anachronisms, since the Jaredites are supposed to have originated from the time of the Tower of Babel, and did not speak Hebrew.

Perennial ex-Mormon gadfly Richard Packham apparently fails to understand that the Book of Mormon is a translation, and translations render ancient words — including names — into modern forms that didn’t exist at the time.

The names are translated, from ancient names into modern.... Except when they weren't. Why do we then have any hebrew. greek, or "nephite" names at all...... instead of Tom, Dick and Harry?

Dang, Juggler beat me to the punch.

The thing is, guys like Parker and Smith are essentially emmisaries for Mormonism itself. There can really be no doubt that they are "juiced in" with Mormon Voices, which means, further, that they are acting as "faces" of Mormonism to the rest of the world, and this is what they are up to: picking fights with ex-Mormons and engaging in smear tactics. This is yet another case where they ought to reconsider, like they did with the FAIR Wiki smear of John Dehlin. The problem this time around, though, is that this was officially "signed off on" by both Wiki Wonka and Scott Gordon, as it was announced in the "FAIR Newsletter" thing that Wonka posted to MDD. So, evidently FAIR as an organization approves of swipes at people's educational backgrounds and so forth. In this "Mormon Moment" of intense media scrutiny, this could wind up being very problematic indeed.

One other thing: the apologists have always been very hestitant to say who's been answering the "Ask an Apologist" feature, so I suppose we owe Parker a debt of thanks for spilling the beans.

The reason Mormon apologists make me laugh is they don't think very hard before they answer something. Moses and Aaron did NOT speak Hebrew and the names are not Hebrew in origin. They are Afro-Asiatic in origin and the Afro-Asiatic languages have very old root origins that lead to a large array of languages including Hebrew and Coptic (which is likely what Moses spoke). The Jaredites also had Afro-Asiatic origins so finding these names among them is unremarkable.

Tobin wrote:The Jaredites also had Afro-Asiatic origins so finding these names among them is unremarkable.

CFR

Packham introduced his turgid article ...

The only explanation I can come up with that his desire to tear down his former faith has taken precedence over his intellectual honesty.

Wow. Mormons don't look like cultists at all...

- VRDRC

His Facebook profile picture is of him holding an Uzi. He might be the friend who is holding Dr. Peterson's assault rifle.

Bond James Bond wrote:His Facebook profile picture is of him holding an Uzi. He might be the friend who is holding Dr. Peterson's assault rifle.

Wow, really? That's interesting that he's a gun enthusiast. I wonder if he ever shoots up pictures of Church critics like Richard Packham.

Do you have a link to the image, by the way, Mr. Bond?