Responding to my #17 ============= As you say, a parody. Now, as to that evidence you are not producing? You write, “I think we first need to discuss questions of presuppositions, methodology and epistemology in order to understand what would constitute evidence and how it can be interpreted properly.” Um, why would that be? We are both grown ups, we are both published historians, we know these issues extremely well. I have lived with these issues for forty-plus years, and... Read more
Jenkins has repeated asserted that, since there is ample historical evidence in the ancient Near East, one should expect to find similar quantities of evidence in the New World. Therefore, by analogy, we should expect ample evidence for the era of the Book of Mormon. Alas, he is seriously misinformed. For the ancient Near East we have literally hundreds of thousands of inscriptions and written texts. Contrast this with the New World, where there the inscriptions number in the hundreds,... Read more
A parody of the debate thus far: J: Show me evidence for the Book of Mormon! H: I think we first need to discuss questions of presuppositions, methodology and epistemology in order to understand what would constitute evidence and how it can be interpreted properly. J: No! Show me evidence for the Book of Mormon! Now! H: Well, there’s lots of evidence and analysis presented in books and articles by LDS scholars. Like Sorenson’s Mormon’s Codex. Will you read them? J: No! All... Read more
Note: I’m changing the identification codes on the posts for clarity. I initially called my “Jenkins Response” meaning my response to Jenkins. Then when Prof. Jenkins started posting I called them “Jenkins Rejoinder” because “response” was already used. From now on I’m going to call my posts “Hamblin” and prof. Jenkins’ posts “Jenkins.” Dear Philip, You need to remember that you are a guest on my blog. I have attempted to let you have your say in a completely unfettered... Read more
In my attempt to draw these exchanges to a civil conclusion, I suggested that Dr. Hamblin and I had reached stalemate. I was being polite, and magnanimous. Is there any doubt that I have entirely made the case I set out to a month or so back? What I said was that there was no evidence for the historicity of the Book of Mormon, whether historical, genetic, archaeological, or linguistic, and that anyone wishing to contradict that view should do... Read more
This in from Prof. Jenkins. ====================== I am disappointed in Dr. Hamblin. I kindly tried to give him an out from the impossible situation in which he had found himself. Unfortunately, his ungracious latest screed shows that he is not willing to play nice, and he falsely portrays my gesture as a surrender. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/enigmaticmirror/2015/06/26/jenkins-response-15/ That is unbelievably rude behavior. So here we go again. Here is the problem. I have spent a great many messages pressing home one question again... Read more
Prof. Jenkins has decided to withdraw from this discussion. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/enigmaticmirror/2015/06/26/jenkins-rejoinder-8-farewell/ He has also tacitly admitted that he has not read the Book of Mormon, and has expressly said he refuses to read anything published by LDS scholars on the historicity of the Book of Mormon. To most scholars this would render his views on the Book of Mormon completely irrelevant. He also tacitly refuses to answer any of my questions, by which I was, in a para-Socratic fashion, attempting to... Read more
I received this from Prof. Jenkins. =================== Dr. Hamblin, If you are a chess player, you know the concept of stalemate. IThis is what we have here, and we should recognize the fact and move on. We both have lives, careers, research agendas, and families. And priorities. We appear to be at fourteen or so posts by yourself and seven rejoinders by me, not to mention various comments. Good grief. Here is a summary of the circle we are in.... Read more
Question for Prof. Jenkins. Is there any archaeological evidence for the existence of Israelites and Judeans in Iron Age Mesopotamia? Or are those tens of thousands of Israelites and Judeans essentially transparent in the archaeological record? Read more
The real problem with the rejection of the historicity of the Book of Mormon is not that the Book of Mormon professes Precolumbian transoceanic contact with the New World. Sixty or seventy years ago that possibility was almost universally rejected by scholars of Precolumbian America. (The Viking site at L’Anse aux Meadows was discovered only in 1968.) Now the possibility is widely accepted, at least in principle. The problem with the Book of Mormon is not the claim that a... Read more
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