A facelift for FARMS

[_Gadianton]

I suppose this is an area with some uncomfortable tension. On the one hand, you have apologists who are also serious researchers in their own narrow fields who would like their apologetics to be presented as research with equal seriousness to their specialization. On the other, you have wealthy LDS businessmen who have been roped in by the eerie methods of a paid *fundraiser*, and they are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the institute because they think they are helping the church defend itself. They likely have little interest in arabic medical texts written a thousand years ago.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Iroped in by the eerie methods of a paid *fundraiser*

"Roped in"? "Eerie methods"? Eerie?

they are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the institute because they think they are helping the church defend itself. They likely have little interest in arabic medical texts written a thousand years ago.

Which would, I suppose, why several of them have given substantial donations specifically earmarked for the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative?

And I guess that their specific gifts to support publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls -- not only in our electronic database but in the official Oxford University Press series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (see the sponsors listed in some of the recent volumes) -- were given because, very stupidly, they thought they were supporting Mormon apologetics?

[_Gadianton]

Dr. Peterson,

Like I said "uncomfortable tension", not "unresolvable". I think you might eventually win out and get that mission statement changed. Because as I've pointed out before, the plausible deniability fostered by routine translating and so on is a master stroke. I do believe as the donars are slowly massaged and brought into understanding, they will accept the long-term strategy as well as immediate tax benefits of the tier 1 and tier 2 work.

[_Daniel Peterson]

the plausible deniability fostered by routine translating and so on is a master stroke.

LOL.

What nonsense.

[_John Larsen]

Actually, even in that statement, the first thing mentioned is description of the Restoration, which is not apologetics. At best, apologetics, in the statement you cite, is 50% of the first cited purpose of the Maxwell Institute, and is mentioned second.

Why is a university sponsoring anything that has any percentage of apologetics? Apologetics is junk science and no reputable institution would touch it with a 10 foot pole.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Why is a university sponsoring anything that has any percentage of apologetics? Apologetics is junk science and no reputable institution would touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Universities routinely "touch" people like al-Ghazali, Origen, G. K. Chesterton, Augustine, Qadi ‘Abd al-Jabbar, John Locke, Thomas Aquinas, C. S. Lewis, Theodore Abu Qurrah, Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Peter Kreeft, Richard Swinburne, Moses Maimonides, William Lane Craig, and N. T. Wright -- apologists all.

[_Gadianton]

Darn it John, don't you know that the origin of "apologetics" comes from within academic philosophy? And that Mormon apologists are allowed to freely equivocate this sense of the term "apologetics" that describes Thomas Aquinas in some places and though less reputably Swinburne with the sense of "apologetics" that describes psuedoscientific "prove the tomb" archeology? The long-standing tradition of a certain subset of theology which is a subset of philosophy which very few LDS apologists have anything to do with is the exact same thing as digging for horse bones to prove the Book of Mormon or the science of creationism.

FARMS concentrates on junk science, most of the apologist theologins Dr. Peterson notes are either historical figures who were revolutionary thinkers before science was invented, or modern figures who keep within the small nitch somewhere between metaphyisics, ethics, and epistemology where they can come close to maintaining credibility.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You're emitting nonsense again, Gadianton.

[_Gadianton]

Sorry, I mean, FARMS first is polemics, then junk science, then there might be one or two articles that are theological. Not that even those have been peer reviewed.

Oh, and which one of the modern figures you listed are not theologins? Which ones have peer-reviewed archaeological articles attempting to prove that Joshua made the sun stand still or Moses himself wrote the five books of Moses?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Sorry

True.

FARMS first is polemics

False.

then junk science

False.

then there might be one or two articles that are theological.

True. Maybe one or two.

Not that even those have been peer reviewed.

False.

No matter how many times Master Scartch repeats it.

And no matter how thoroughly his small handful of disciples swallow it.

Oh, and which one of the modern figures you listed are not theologins?

G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, and Peter Kreeft are not theologians. (And I should have added Stephen Davis to the list, as well as several others.) Richard Swinburne and William Lane Craig might or might not be considered theologians as well as philosophers.

Which ones have peer-reviewed archaeological articles attempting to prove that Joshua made the sun stand still or Moses himself wrote the five books of Moses?

Which ones have peer-reviewed books arguing for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus? Stephen Davis, N. T. Wright, and William Lane Craig, as well as Gary Habermas. Among others.