The LGT is Dead: Official CU announcement

[_Brackite]

People who switch to the Great Lakes theory have far more serious problems than DNA.

If you all think that pro-Mesoamerican apologists disregard and/or distort what the Book of Mormon says in an attempt to make it "fit", you ain't see nothing yet!!!

Yes, but at least the real Hill Cumorah is by the Great Lakes.

[_Gadianton]

Hi J Green,

If you're still around, I'd like to continue our discussion here just a bit. Now, first, I have to say that since my place of work acquired a Maybach Landaulet for shuttling around senior management, I've been sort of the guinea pig for our new European tours division -- it's a bit of history, education, and socializing, and a lot of Champagne sipping with my arms and legs stretched out. Anyway, I've not been in the loop about certain goings-on this summer and just catching up today.

I need to point out a couple of things. A year ago, I said:

It turns out that the [LGT] theory for all practical purposes been abandoned by the MI

Now, as it turns out -- did I call it or did I call it?

Further,

It's appropriate that this same edition that marks the name change to jettison the "ancient research" and emphasize the "Mormon studies" of the MI's Review also rather brashly admit that the LGT theory as particularly shaped by Soresnson marking a limited geography in mesoamerica, is a relic of intellectual history. As such, CU will now consider the matter of Book of Mormon geography closed from the Apologists.

From the infamous MI re-org letter:

http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/news/in ... &type=news

To better serve these goals, last year we renamed our venerable FARMS Review as the Mormon Studies Review...But to better position the new Mormon Studies Review within its academic discipline,...

So a year ago, I reported the MI was in the process of jettisoning the LTG theory based on circumstantial evidence found within what turns out to be the very last apologetics-oriented edition of the Review ever printed, and it turns out that my predictions have come to pass in a way that's larger than life. I slam dunked this one and brought down the glass, J Green, and I think I deserve a big high five and pat on the back. There should be no question that my scholarly standards define the cutting edge. What's even more remarkable is how close to my considerations the mechanisms of this turn of events have actually been.

Bear in mind, I have no connection to the MI, I receive no intel via PM about the MI, all my thoughts in this paper came from my own scholarly pursuits. As I've learned today, from P. Hamblin himself (I think this was from him), this reformation has little to do with personal squabbles, but from a ten-year long internal power struggle. While I did see the changing landscape and reported dutifully on it, I did not see it as the result of a power struggle between a Mormon Studies faction and an apologetics faction, I figured everyone was going along with the Mormon Studies bent and that this was in fact the work of Migdley-Bohn influence. I now see that is incorrect, after reading a bizarre essay by Bohn on the change that I will take up in another thread; man, this is some messed up stuff here. Well, what's interesting is that my observation about the lack of educational programs that would continue the LGT as a research paradigm are explained by this power struggle. The fact that the Mormon Studies faction had been winning the day at BYU explains the dwindling interest and infrastructure for producing LGT-trained scholars.

Anyway, just pointing out that now history has proven I was dead on.

[_Tator]

I am wondering if the Salt Lake church is finally coming to a time and place that the Reorganized Mormons a.k.a. Community of Christ come to a while ago when they basically declared the Book of Mormon as "inspired" fiction?

Whether it is LGT, Panama, Great Lakes, metaphor, etc. I am with the CofC on this one with one exception I believe it is all fiction and not "inspired" at all.

[_Doctor Scratch]

You've been vindicated in spectacular fashion, Dr. Robbers. The Upper Tier Apologists used to speak of their grasp of the MI's direction in very confident--dare I say "hubristic"?--terms, and yet it's now quite clear that they were totally and completely clueless about several things brewing under the surface. I share your interest in seeing what will happen next.

[_bcspace]

Well, from the last I checked, Rodney Meldrum is doing just fine. Perhaps the Church has settled the matter. The apologists are in a tough position when it comes to geography.

Not at all. Sorenson's two parter remains doctrine and it has not been superseded.

[_sock puppet]

I am wondering if the Salt Lake church is finally coming to a time and place that the Reorganized Mormons a.k.a. Community of Christ come to a while ago when they basically declared the Book of Mormon as "inspired" fiction?

Whether it is LGT, Panama, Great Lakes, metaphor, etc. I am with the CofC on this one with one exception I believe it is all fiction and not "inspired" at all.

You got that right, Tator!

[_sock puppet]

Sorenson really propelled the Mormon "intelligentsia" down the rabbit hole of the LGT. I doubt the Book of Mormon's historicity can be pulled back out of that hole, at least not for those abstaining from the TBM Kool-aid. Even that sentry keeping Mormon 'doctrine' limited, bcspace, considers Sorenson's LGT to be doctrine.

[_J Green]

Hi, Gad.

I don't have any intel on this issue either, and I haven't stayed at a Holiday Inn Express recently. The new MI may be jettisoning the LGT. I wouldn't know, but I don't see anything that has been made public that points to the MI abandoning ship on this issue. And there are a few indicators that point the other way. For example, while the new MI has simply put a complete stop to publishing certain articles or points of view with which they disagree, they're still moving forward with editing and publishing Sorenson's magnum opus on the LGT and its specific application. That would indicate to me that at the very least, theirs isn't an inimical position to it. Or are they simply following through on old business and plan to let the LGT die afterward? Personally, I'd let the weather clear before you celebrate the emperor's "finale of seem."

By the way, is it a white Maybach? I think I saw it the other day. It very nearly ran me over when I ventured on campus to accept the Wallace Stevens prize for my work on the continuum between imagination and reality in online discourse. Entirely my fault, though. I wasn't watching where I was going while practicing the the lines from "Tea" I planned to quote during my acceptance speech:

I was myself the compass of the sea:
I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself;

Cheers.

[_Gadianton]

that is a good point that finishing up the "magnum opus" could count for something. and of course, there may be several members who accept the LGT. but, as a "research paradigm", it has been abandoned by the MI, along with all other apologetic-oriented projects. and hamblins important revelation regarding the 10-year power struggle explains this decline quite well.

you are right of course that it remains to be seen just what exactly will be next. until the next FP meets with the new leaders and sets the course in stone, who is to say? but i think my predictions were pretty solid given what has been revealed by hamblin and by the note on the MI website. and i still think i deserve a high five.

yeah, white. and by that i mean the actual color of the vehicle, not meant to be a textual layer or placeholder for an unrelated descriptor.

[_J Green]

You may be right, Gad. And I suppose the best way to know what Bradford's intentions are regarding the LGT and any related research paradigms would be to simply ask him. But short of that, your argument appears to rest on the premise that Sorenson's work on the LGT is an apologetic enterprise. However, while I think it has an obvious apologetic utility, I don't consider his primary work to be apologetic in nature. Contrast this with his "Open Letter to Michael Coe," which is clearly apologetic in both form and substance. Then note that the Maxwell Institute is publishing one of these while the Mormon Interpreter is publishing the other. So following the popular "paradigms," which work is "apologetic" and which isn't? But I submit again that regardless of what you or I think, what is important is what Bradford thinks in terms of Sorenson's work on the LGT and whether or not he will encourage its growth in the future. And I simply don't know what Bradford thinks.

And speaking of the reality of actual colors contrasted with textual layers, I'm reminded of Steven's point in The Necessary Angel:

The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal and intensifies what is unreal, while its first effect may be extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect that it will ever have.

So theoretically I suppose one could argue that, like Plato's winged chariot, the white Maybach is a metaphorical emblem of this or that. However, having almost been run over by that very real vehicle while walking on the very real CU campus, I for one would never strain the dependence of imagination on reality by venturing down that path--even if accompanied by Europeans.

Cheers.