Many of the criticisms are already familiar to us, but Professor Jenkins is an extraordinarily effective communicator, so I recommend reading his posts.
The issue follows his musings on ancient America in the following post:
The Monte Verde Principle
Then he uses the Book of Mormon as a test case for marginal claims about ancient America:
Mormons and New World History
Wandering over the Plains of the Nephites
Ordinary Faith and Extraordinary History
What Scholars Do
Myth-History and Real History
Academic Heresy and Atlantic Ice
Historians' Fallacies
Nahom Follies
In response to the usual lot of apologetic bellyaching in the comments section, Jenkins sums up his view of his accomplishment thusly:
I engaged in this process to make points about history and pseudo-history, and I believe I have done so. My views are out there for anyone who wishes to read them. In my view, what I have said about the total and absolute lack of evidence in the New World utterly destroys any vestige of plausibility the Book of Mormon may claim as a historical or archaeological source. What else is there to say? If anyone makes any claims about vaguely plausible new evidence, linguistic, archaeological or genetic, I'm happy to respond. I am just not going round the same circles endlessly.
There comes a point of frustration dealing with these issues where it really becomes hopeless. Either you enter the obsessions of the true believers, or you make your point, and leave it. I had planned to finish with these columns last week, but the frequent resort to Nahomism just called forth this last one.
Professor Hamblin uses the whole episode to make another swipe at the new Maxwell Institute:
Professor Hamblin wrote:Note that Jenkins believes that the “subsuming” of FARMS into the “highly respectable Maxwell Institute” is a good thing precisely because the new Maxwell Institute is no longer hampered by “literal-minded apologists.” In other words, Jenkins clearly see the new Maxwell Institute as rejecting the (for Jenkins) untenable historicity of the Book of Mormon. This is what makes it “highly respectable.” In other words, a highly intelligent, though casual observer of things Mormon thinks it obvious that the new direction of the Maxwell Institute represents a marginalization of the question of Book of Mormon historicity by BYU and the official Church. So my question is: Is this the impression that BYU and the Church want to give? It is clearly what most casual observers will make of it.