Buckeye wrote:All they can do is publish. It is up to the world to read. So far, most of the world has taken little interest
There is no question that these supposed works of scholarship on Book of Mormon historicity have generated no interest from the professional and academic community. Peterson readily admitted this back in 2004
The obvious question is really "why"?
There are only two possible answers: 1. Awareness (exposure and/or visibility). 2. Quality of scholarship (or lack thereof).
[Some like Peterson, looking for every angle of escape, would like to argue that no one else has the required skill set to evaluate such works.As if either the Book of Mormon was a complex read on either theology or history.Or that no qualified mesoamerican experts had undertook an examination. Michael Coe made that argument void of any commen sense years ago.]
So going back to 1 and 2 above, what is it? If it is quality scholarship, why not pursue publishing it in venues of academic and peer acceptance such as the plethora of professional archealogy publications that would readily eliminate the exposure problem? Obviously such works have gotten zero interest from the folks outside of FARMS, so put the confidence in such "scholarship" to the peer and academic community.
If such works have been submitted to such exposure and there remains zero interest, then what does it say about the quality (or lack thereof) of such supposed scholarship? I think the reality is that the boys at FARMS don't really want to deal with having it exposed outside of Farms.
Under exposed or lack of scholarship. One can be solved very qickly. One cannot. Publishing it in a Farms only venue was a very calculated decision: Low risk, high return for firesides!