I see that Neal Rappleye is going toe-to-toe with Jenkins in the "Comments" section, and was even so kind as to provide Jenkins with a link to a bibliography on his (i.e., Rappleye's) blog. Jenkins's reaction is classic:
Some other points. I looked at your bibliography, and groaned when I saw how many of them were from the basically worthless source of FARMS. Really? Of the 40-plus sources on your list, the vast majority are from hard core apologist outlets, and all but a handful are Mormon journals or publishers.
This was pretty devastating, too:
Well, this is startling. In his JAS article, then, Dr. Aston is tacking a very poorly documented period, where actual contemporary texts are as precious as diamonds. And here he has what he believes to be a strictly contemporary narrative text (a scripture, in fact) referring to the tribe's territory and presumed capital. If genuine, this would throw huge light on the site in context, and offer invaluable evidence of long term trading and/or communication routes. It would also provide irresistible color to the narrative. I can't imagine a scholar acting thus with a document he knew to be genuine. And as you point out, he could easily support the authenticity of the Nahom passage by referring to the lengthy list of supporting publications you yourself have collected at your website, lest the journal editors be in any doubt about the weight of the claim.
Why on earth would he be so restrained? It is almost as if he was aware that the text in question is pretty universally recognized as a nineteenth century American fiction, and he should not attempt to cite it as a serious source in a scholarly journal, or he would instantly destroy his credibility. But let me not put words in anyone's mouth. Perhaps Dr. Aston had other grounds for his discretion. Which would they be?
That pretty much sums up one of the basic problems with FARMS--and something that was apparent in our recent discussion of peer review amongst the Mopologists. They certainly crave the
credibility that goes hand-in-hand with legitimate scholarship and academics, but you could always sense a certain amount of resentment towards traditional or "mainstream" academia--and here Jenkins seizes on something very, very important. Of course Aston omitted mention of the Book of Mormon in the article he submitted to JAS. All of the Mopologists--Midgley, Gee, Hamblin, DCP, etc.--have all done the same thing. Either they submitted frankly apologetic items and got shot down, or they never submitted such things in the first place because they knew they would get show down: "grounds for discretion," as it were.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14