An Insiders View Of Mormon Origins...

[_Buffalo]

uh...you realize then this excludes pieces produced by critics of the Church? If there is no actual "scholarly" piece as you view it, then why would you require the review to be the subjective classification of scholarly? hmm...this is interesting thinking, Buffalo, and somewhat revealing.

I said there was no scholarly source of reviews. There are scholarly Mormon studies writers, but no scholarly group seems interested enough to read their work.

You seem to be falling back into your old ways here.

[_Buffalo]

Buff,

If you flesh that out a bit for me I can respond more substantively when I return tonight. I meaning how is advocacy and in what forms antithetical to scientific method?

mikwu

Well, let's try to continue on Monday. I don't usually post on the weekends and I'm about out of time for today.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Could you provide something from a serious, scholarly, credible source?

Sorry. I think your response to this is silly.

James Allen's biography is here:

http://mormonscholarstestify.org/1830/james-b-allen

Davis Bitton's biography is here:

http://mormonscholarstestify.org/442/davis-bitton

Louis Midgley's biography is here:

http://mormonscholarstestify.org/432/louis-midgley

Mark Ashurst-McGee's biography is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Ashurst-McGee

Steven Harper's biography is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_C._Harper

These are serious, accomplished scholars. If you're simply going to brush them aside because they published with the Maxwell Institute, I see no particular reason to waste time attempting a conversation with you.

If you're going to rebut something professional like Insider's View, I think using credible, scholarly sources is important.

Your double standard is hilarious.

You summarily dismiss the widely respected scholars to whose reviews I provided links -- two of them are former presidents of the Mormon History Association; all of them hold or have held tenured academic teaching or research positions -- and flatly brush off the Maxwell Institute, yet you describe Insider's View as "professional."

How -- in what way -- is it professional while the Maxwell Institute's reviews are not? Compare Grant Palmer's record of professional accomplishment to that of any of the review authors. Is it superior? Does he have better degrees? A history of more distinguished academic appointments? A better publication record? (Hint: He has a master's degree, and Insider's View was his first publication. So far as I'm aware, he had never even given a presentation at an academic conference.)

In what way is Signature Books a more "professional" publisher than the Maxwell Institute? Better peer review? If you believe that, can you outline their system of peer review? They may well have one, but I haven't heard anything about it, if they do. They are not an academic press.

Remember, stem, an ad hom is an attack against "the man."

Not quite, actually. Here is a good discussion of the ad hominem logical fallacy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

The full name of the fallacy is argumentum ad hominem. This is crucial. Ad hominem, in the classic sense, isn't mere name-calling. It's a fallacious argument. It's a (logical) fallacy of relevance.

The MI is definitely not a scholarly source - apologetics are anathema to scholarly inquiry.

This is simply confused, and historically illiterate. I've dealt to some extent with this claim at

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... m=2&id=621

As it stands, MI has no more credibility than any amateur blog you might come across. Not professional, not scholarly, not credible.

You're welcome to your opinion, of course. It's just not worth much.

Apologetics is not a scholarly endeavor, no matter who is doing it

St. Thomas Aquinas, Richard Swinburne, Peter Kreeft, John Henry Newman, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, N. T. Wright, Steven Davis -- these are all apologists, and they're all scholars and very good ones.

But you? I rather doubt it.

history and evolutionary biology. Scholars in those fields must be dispassionate and unbiased in their analysis of the evidence, not advocates of a philosophical position.

They are inevitably advocates of a philosophical position -- and the better ones are very self-aware and upfront about it.

You seem to be arguing for something like "objectivity" in history. Too bad. It has come in for some well-deserved criticism over recent decades, largely because it's an incoherent idea and utterly unworkable.

Here's a good place to begin reading about the problems in the concept:

http://www.amazon.com/That-Noble-Dream- ... 0521357454

Don't worry. The author is a Jewish agnostic, not a Mormon. But you can read something of what he has had to say on the specific topic of "historical objectivity" within Mormonism here:

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publica ... m=1&id=596

[_moksha]

I think that the most spectacularly weak portion of Grant Palmer's book was also the one portion of it where he could claim some originality. That was his attempt to link the Moroni story with E. T. A. Hoffmann's Der goldne Topf. I can't think of any serious scholar, Mormon or non-Mormon, nor even any serious critic, who has found it even remotely convincing. And for good reason.

Excellent point. The speculative link to the Golden Pot was a road less traveled. The rest was just a rehash of Mormon history. And what was up with the Golden Pot when a better linkage was to Ethan Smith's A View of the Hebrews or even better, the Vern Holly maps with a transparent overlay. Wish one of those reviews would have challenged him on this. Transparent overlays not being in Signature Books budget would have been another item he would need to answer for - enough of these adding up and the rebuttal becomes overwhelming.

.

[_Daniel Peterson]

And what was up with the Golden Pot when a better linkage was to Ethan Smith's A View of the Hebrews or even better, the Vern Holly maps with a transparent overlay.

I'm not very impressed with those, either. But Der goldne Topf was simply ludicrous.

[_Simon Belmont]

An Insider's View of Mormon Origins.

Grant Palmer would have to be at least 181 years old to have such an insider's view of Mormon Origins.

This is like saying I wrote a book called An Insider's View of Human Saturnians.

I am, of course, an insider of humanity, being one; and Grant Palmer is an insider to Mormonism, formerly being one. but it is not possible for me to be an insider of humans living on Saturn, as I have never been to Saturn. Likewise, it is not possible for Palmer to be an insider to Mormon origins, because he wasn't there when Mormonism originated.

Very simple, really.

So, let me construct these side-by-side, just for Themis:

[_Aristotle Smith]

My advice for those reading Palmer's book is always the same, skip the Golden Pot chapter.

Apologists almost always focus their efforts on a few key areas in Palmer's book. The #1 target is always the Golden Pot stuff (with some justification I might add). Palmer has in recent times backpedaled and claimed that the chapter is merely trying to put the treasure digging and seeking in context. However, the list of specific parallels usually leads people to conclude (with some justification), that he is making points of specific comparison, not providing general context.

Target #2 seems to be the fact that Palmer was on the payroll of CES while not believing in the truth claims of the LDS church (i.e., he is a hypocrite). Palmer has rebutted this time and time again. Amazingly enough he was up front with his questions about the truth claims and spent the last years of his CES career in a non-denominational capacity at a Salt Lake area jail. I think the situation reflects well on both CES and Palmer, that they were able to come to an understanding that allowed Palmer to continue to retirement with CES.

Target #3 is usually that Palmer is not an insider. This is a baseless claim since there is no clear definition of "insider," it's a loose term relatively defined. Was Palmer an insider? According to apologists, definitely not. I think to most non-LDS, a prime target audience for Palmer's book I might add, the term would not be controversial.

However, my observation is that critics of the book rarely try and go after the other chapters, at least not with the same gusto as they go after the above three points. The other chapters are mainly a fast paced summary of the New Mormon History, trimmed of academese, and focusing on the most salient points likely to interest the average Mormon.

Indeed, I think this is why FARMS is so intent to go after Palmer's book, because unlike most books on Mormon history it is not mind numbingly boring to the average Mormon. Sure Bushman's RSR is arguably better history, but it's orders of magnitude more boring. Same for Compton's ISL. My wife hates hates history and non-fiction, but she made it through Palmer. She got to the Kirtland chapters in RSR and gave up.

[_Themis]

An Insider's View of Mormon Origins.

Grant Palmer would have to be at least 181 years old to have such an insider's view of Mormon Origins.

This is like saying I wrote a book called An Insider's View of Human Saturnians.

I am, of course, an insider of humanity, being one; and Grant Palmer is an insider to Mormonism, formerly being one. but it is not possible for me to be an insider of humans living on Saturn, as I have never been to Saturn. Likewise, it is not possible for Palmer to be an insider to Mormon origins, because he wasn't there when Mormonism originated.

Very simple, really.

So, let me construct these side-by-side, just for Themis:

If you still trying to show how stupid you can be, you are doing a fantastic job.

[_Simon Belmont]

Themis, how am I wrong?

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Themis, how am I wrong?

Simon,

Do you think you might just have a tiny credibility problem with this board? Fake Facebook account, fake Master's Thesis, etc.

It's hard to take what you say seriously for two reasons:

First, most of the time you are completely wrong; and

Second, you intentionally lie, fabricate and deceive.

You will find in life that those types of behavior will not get you far in life. Unless you feel that "getting far in life" is working night-shift at Carl's Junior.