MILLIONS spent by LDS Inc on new MMM book

[_Ray A]

Blixa, that was a fantastic summary.

[_Blixa]

Blixa, that was a fantastic summary.

I like Juanita Brooks.

[_Ray A]

Blixa, that was a fantastic summary.

I like Juanita Brooks.

I've always admired her too, and read the Dale Morgan correspondence years ago.

I wish I had a link or citation to the Tribune article which related the bizarre story about Brooks. I don't have it handy. There were letters-to-the-editor disputing it afterward, and I've heard the reporter was taken to task by his editor (he clearly knew nothing of Brooks or Utah history if he didn't immediately do a spit take upon hearing such an improbable tale).

If you can give me some more leads, I might be able to find this on the Net. Do you know roughly when the Tribune article was published?

[_Blixa]

Blixa, that was a fantastic summary.

I like Juanita Brooks.

I've always admired her too, and read the Dale Morgan correspondence years ago.

I wish I had a link or citation to the Tribune article which related the bizarre story about Brooks. I don't have it handy. There were letters-to-the-editor disputing it afterward, and I've heard the reporter was taken to task by his editor (he clearly knew nothing of Brooks or Utah history if he didn't immediately do a spit take upon hearing such an improbable tale).

If you can give me some more leads, I might be able to find this on the Net. Do you know roughly when the Tribune article was published?

I have the citation somewhere here, but I'm too beat to look tonight. My tired head tells me it must have been around 1999 when the new monument ground was dug, turning up the bones and putting everything back in the headlines again.

If you really like Brooks, I recommend Levi Peterson's biography. Its very good. Her book of memoirs is worth a read as well.

[_harmony]

I'm prettty sure that's who harmony was thinking of since I've brought the story up here before. Anyway, here's the background on Carter vs. Brooks. I'm drawing on several sources here, Juanita Brooks' book of memoirs, Quicksand and Cactus, the Dale Morgan letters and Levi Peterson's Brooks bio, Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian.

Yes... Carter, the DUP dragon lady. Not Brooks. It just seemed so despicable to rip pages out of someone else's journal, just because you don't like what the pages say.

But if all of the available material was subjected to someone like Carter prior to the opening of the vaults, then it's no wonder Turley and the others found only what they found. And is there any way to verify that such destruction did not take place? How?

[_Ray A]

I have the citation somewhere here, but I'm too beat to look tonight. My tired head tells me it must have been around 1999 when the new monument ground was dug, turning up the bones and putting everything back in the headlines again.

I think I may already be getting close to it, but I'll keep searching.

If you really like Brooks, I recommend Levi Peterson's biography. Its very good. Her book of memoirs is worth a read as well.

Thanks for the tips. Brooks stands out, for me, as the kind of historian that could bring the Church some credibility today. The awful hagiographies of people like Francis Gibbons are just apostasy-igniters.

[_Daniel Peterson]

But if all of the available material was subjected to someone like Carter prior to the opening of the vaults, then it's no wonder Turley and the others found only what they found. And is there any way to verify that such destruction did not take place? How?

And if it can't be proven that it didn't happen, then it probably did.

And, for that matter, who's to say that all of the sources on which Turley and Leonard and Walker depend for their crucial points were not forged by Hamblin and Peterson and/or the host of highly trained and entirely loyal slaves of the Morg to whom millions and millions of dollars were shelled out during the preparation of this so-called "book"?

[_harmony]

It's impossible for the book (or FARMS/MI) to give an accurate unbiased viewpoint, when and because the church pays for it.

Sigh. Of course, the Church doesn't "pay for it." But pointing that out a thousand times more isn't likely to make much difference. (The first thousand times certainly haven't.)

And there's really nothing to be gained by going around and around and around and around some more with people who judge books they haven't read on the basis of things extraneous to the books.

The movie I just returned from was a much, much more satisfying use of my time.

Daniel... you know as long as FARMS/MI is part of BYU, you're funded by the church. You may split that hair as many times as you want, but until you distance yourself from the institution, following the dots will always lead to the same conclusion: tithing pays FARMS/MI's rent. And everything you do... from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the FROB.... can be traced back to your funding from the widow's mite, because that's what ultimately pays the bills. I don't mind the DSSs or many of your other projects being funded from tithing, but it makes me uncomfortable to know that FARMS'MI's apologetic activities are funded from the widow's mite. The defense of the church should not be funded by tithing; there are other sources than tithing to pay for that. That's simply my opinion on this matter, and like yours, it's not likely to change.

As for the bias charge... there can never be an unbiased project funded by the church whose purpose is to defend the church. By it's nature, defense of the funder is the norm. There would be no reason for the church to spend millions (or even $10) to fund a project that would turn out to be against them. Assuming an unbiased book would be foolish; I'm just hoping for the occasional crust of bread thrown to the starving critics.

[_harmony]

But if all of the available material was subjected to someone like Carter prior to the opening of the vaults, then it's no wonder Turley and the others found only what they found. And is there any way to verify that such destruction did not take place? How?

And if it can't be proven that it didn't happen, then it probably did.

And, for that matter, who's to say that all of the sources on which Turley and Leonard and Walker depend for their crucial points were not forged by Hamblin and Peterson and/or the host of highly trained and entirely loyal slaves of the Morg to whom millions and millions of dollars were shelled out during the preparation of this so-called "book"?

I don't recall anyone mentioning your name, Daniel. Probably because it's not Carter. It's not necessary to insert yourself into every post. We all know, thanks to Blixa, the name of the person I was referring to.

We know journals were vandalized, for the sake of "protecting" the church. Who are you to say she was the only one doing that? How much other information was destroyed, by her or others like her, in order to sanitize church history?

Make all the fun you want, you can't dispute that at least one deliberate attempt to destroy information took place long before Bro Turley and the others were given access to the artifacts. I'm not saying they didn't do a good job of analyzing the information available; I'm just not sure what they had available was all there was, in the beginning or even 50 years ago.

[Guest]

That's precisely what I had in mind.

Then, to quote, "you chose poorly."

No, I didn't.

It simply isn't the case that all, or most, or even a significant minority of the apologetic works published by the Maxwell Institute merely come to the conclusion "Mormonism is true!"

Ok, you've piqued my curiosity. Which of the MI's publications that have investigated different aspects of Mormonism's truth claims have concluded that "Mormonism is not true?" Or have concluded that a particular truth claim may not be true, or is problematic?

In a similar vein, what are the odds that at any time in the foreseeable or distant future that the MI will publish a book, monograph, document, etc. that concludes that Mormonism is not true, is doubtful, problematic, and so forth?

Enquiring minds want to know.