Kirk Magelby claims scholars are taking the Book of Mormon Seriously

[Rivendale]

I find this humorous because he claims that during his lifetime he has watched the Book of Mormon go from a laughingstock to now a reputable scholarship endeavor. Some of his proof is the fact Universities teach it in graduate level classes. I wonder what he did when it was a laughingstock? https://youtu.be/N0L3Liyx5A4

[drumdude]

I’d love to see serious non-Mormon scholars take it seriously. A major complaint of Mopologists is that all criticism of the religion comes from disaffected Mormons or evangelicals.

When that same criticism comes from unbiased academics, it closes out yet another bad apologetic argument.

[Gadianton]

Sounds pretty desperate. He knows darn well nobody takes it seriously. There may be "Mormon studies" type grad courses that talk about the Book of Mormon as a cultural artifact, but there are zero grad courses (even at BYU) that talk about the Book of Mormon as real history, which is the only thing that matters to the apologists.

[I Have Questions]

There are certainly some non Mormon institutions that study the Book of Mormon as a fascinating piece of 19th Literature. But nowhere treats it as an example of the writings of ancient Americans - the KJV Bible plagiarism within it rules that out. Magleby has been desperate to be a “somebody” for a very long time. He will probably take great satisfaction that there’s a thread about something he said. He’ll feel validated. Which is quite sad really.

What were the examples Magelby provided to support his assertion?

[Philo Sofee]

There are certainly some non Mormon institutions that study the Book of Mormon as a fascinating piece of 19th Literature. But nowhere treats it as an example of the writings of ancient Americans - the KJV Bible plagiarism within it rules that out. Magleby has been desperate to be a “somebody” for a very long time. He will probably take great satisfaction that there’s a thread about something he said. He’ll feel validated. Which is quite sad really.

What were the examples Magelby provided to support his assertion?

He regurgitated the books of Hugh Nibley, Dan Peterson, John Welch, FARMS, FAIR, and now Scripture Central. He put out a laundry list of books defending the faith and being talked about in a class or two being held at BYU. He is especially enamored with Brian Stubbs and Mesoamerican languages being connected to Hebrew, etc.His approach is the exact same approach we all used in apologetics all these years until some of us realized it isn't working. It's a stop gap measure, a mere bandaid. It convinces no one but those within the temple doors. and that appears to be the only audience anyone is actually willing to go after these days.

[Rivendale]

There are certainly some non Mormon institutions that study the Book of Mormon as a fascinating piece of 19th Literature. But nowhere treats it as an example of the writings of ancient Americans - the KJV Bible plagiarism within it rules that out. Magleby has been desperate to be a “somebody” for a very long time. He will probably take great satisfaction that there’s a thread about something he said. He’ll feel validated. Which is quite sad really.

What were the examples Magelby provided to support his assertion?

He regurgitated the books of Hugh Nibley, Dan Peterson, John Welch, FARMS, FAIR, and now Scripture Central. He put out a laundry list of books defending the faith and being talked about in a class or two being held at BYU. He is especially enamored with Brian Stubbs and Mesoamerican languages being connected to Hebrew, etc.His approach is the exact same approach we all used in apologetics all these years until some of us realized it isn't working. It's a stop gap measure, a mere bandaid. It convinces no one but those within the temple doors. and that appears to be the only audience anyone is actually willing to go after these days.

Stubbs claimed he had evidence of trans Atlantic contact but several scholars had scathing critiques of it. Here is one. https://nahuatlstudies.blogspot.com/20 ... html?m=1

[Fence Sitter]

Wake me up when someone can point to even one piece of physical evidence supporting the existence of a literate, record-keeping Christian civilization in the Americas dating from roughly 2200 BC to AD 400.

[Philo Sofee]

Wake me up when someone can point to even one piece of physical evidence supporting the existence of a literate, record-keeping Christian civilization in the Americas dating from roughly 2200 BC to AD 400.

Rip Van Winkle comes to mind......

[Dr. Sunstoned]

Wake me up when someone can point to even one piece of physical evidence supporting the existence of a literate, record-keeping Christian civilization in the Americas dating from roughly 2200 BC to AD 400.

Chances of that happening are slim to none. Thomas Ferguson gave it the old college try, but in the end, he came up with nada.

[I Have Questions]

He regurgitated the books of Hugh Nibley, Dan Peterson, John Welch, FARMS, FAIR, and now Scripture Central. He put out a laundry list of books defending the faith and being talked about in a class or two being held at BYU. He is especially enamored with Brian Stubbs and Mesoamerican languages being connected to Hebrew, etc.His approach is the exact same approach we all used in apologetics all these years until some of us realized it isn't working. It's a stop gap measure, a mere bandaid. It convinces no one but those within the temple doors. and that appears to be the only audience anyone is actually willing to go after these days.

Stubbs claimed he had evidence of trans Atlantic contact but several scholars had scathing critiques of it. Here is one. https://nahuatlstudies.blogspot.com/20 ... html?m=1

From your link...

Rogers points out some serious flaws in the work: Primary of these is that it does not stick to the established bilateral method of comparing languages with languages and proto-languages with proto-languages, but that it frequently cherrypicks so that a form in any Semitic or Egyptian variety can be compared with a form in any Uto-Aztecan language. As has been demonstrated time and time again this multilateral method hugely increases the risk of mistaking chance resemblances for cognates, and makes it possible to prove virtually anything. As Rogers’ points out since any two languages can be expected to have between 1% and 3% chance cognates, if we add additional languages to the comparison the risk rises incrementally as well. This means that once Stubbs is comparing 30 Uto-Aztecan languages with at least three Semitic and Egyptian varieties (actually more, including at least Egyptian, Coptic, Syriac, Hebrew, Aramaic) the number of expected chance similarities far exceeds the 1528 proposed cognates. He also notes that Stubbs does not adequately explain non-matching segments (in fact no explanation at all is given in most cases), and that he does not adequately account for other potential explanations of the similarity (such as onomatopoeia). These general criticisms seem absolutely valid to me, now on having reviewed Stubbs' work myself.

Why are so many LDS apologists wilfully intellectually dishonest?