I include it here since it amazingly happens to capture what I consider the worst aspects of DCP-style apologetics AND the mainstream bloggernacle all in one post:
1- Over-reliance on philosophy (see the last pargraph). I am a history guy myself so I apologize to those more philosophically inclined on this board, but I have dabbled enough in philosophy to learn that (i) I prefer Aristotle to Plato, (ii) way too many philosophers since Plato have assumed that those who don't like or engage in philosophy are stupid and (iii) philosophers are very good at using lots of big words like a smoke screen.
2- Parallelomania: a favorite tactic for FARMS types going back to Hugh Nibley. Grant Palmer also suffers from the same affliction. It's actually quite widespread among biblical scholars as well (the term was not coined by a Mormon).
3- Insult the intelligence of the questioner (see the first sentence).
I could see immediately with your response to form critical elements in the Book of Mormon that I identified that you do not possess the background to assess these issues when you called such forms mere “parallels” with the Bible. A form is not a mere parallel. A form functions in a particular life- or ritual-setting and is presented in a particular order to fulfill its function. That is true of form critical prophetic calls and covenant renewal rites and is especially true of legal procedures. No one in Joseph Smith’s day had written about any of the forms that I have identified nor even had a clue about form criticism to detect them. Suggesting that such ordered forms in that fit their function in the correct situation are mere parallels is to miss what they reveal altogether.
Thus, it isn’t a fact that there is no evidence to support the Book of Mormon historicity — as you attempt to make it appear; nor is it a matter that only a conspiracy theorist would put the “evidence” together in this wild manner as with 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Rather it is a matter of properly assessing the evidence and providing a theory or theories that best accounts for all of the evidence. Rather than an either entirely modern or entirely ancient text, the evidence of the Book of Mormon suggests an ancient text that has been moderated through a 19th century commentator. In this case, there is strong evidence of antiquity based on the text itself.
We have’t found strong archaeological evidence in MesoAmerica — but I would ask what the likelihood is that there should be such evidence if what the Book of Mormon claims is true? The problem ve is that there simply is no way to answer that question. Without knowing the answer to that question, we don’t know if the lack of evidence is evidence of lack of evidence where there should be some. What we do know is that views of pre-Columbian America have been modified often and drastically within the last 20 years — and that we have not excavated most of the known sites. So I suggest that the issue remains scientifically tentative and leaves room for faith. However, the evidence strongly supports an ancient ur-text based on the forms and rituals evidenced in the Book of Mormon.
What that means is that FARMS has employed a very acceptable paradigm. It assesses the evidence without assuming that it is impossible that the Book of Mormon is a modern production by Joseph Smith. However, for every non-Mormon review of the Book of Mormon the assumption of modern origin is so controlling that there could not possibly be any evidence for antiquity. The mere assumption determines what can count as evidence.
This is not an issue of post-modern philosophy. It is an issue squarely addressed within the tradition of analytic philosophy and how assumptions and paradigms such as methodological naturalism control what we can possibly detect based on evidence and what we must not consider as evidence based on mere unproven and very questionable assumptions.