μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην

A great but often repulsive city — I first met William Hamblin in Cairo, when we were both graduate students there. (Wikimedia Commons public domain)

Some years ago, there was a relatively lengthy exchange between my friend and long-time colleague William Hamblin, now retired from the BYU Department of History, and Phillip Jenkins, a professor of history at Baylor University in Texas, regarding the question of the historical plausibility of the Book of Mormon. I have the very highest esteem for Professor Hamblin as historian and scholar. But I also want to say that I had long had and, albeit with some reservations arising from the exchange, still have considerable respect for the prolific, learned, and witty Professor Jenkins.

A substantial portion of the discussion between Drs. Hamblin and Jenkins (if, indeed, not all of it) can be read, with patience, on Professor Hamblin’s now suspended Patheos blog, Enigmatic Mirror. (If anything is missing from it, that can presumably be searched for and found on Professor Jenkins’s blog.) I haven’t set about to do this, though perhaps I should and perhaps someday I will. I followed the conversation with reasonable faithfulness as it occurred but haven’t gone back to it since then.

In some (fairly predictable) circles, this back-and-forth has taken on quasi-mythic status as the definitive and epic take-down of the claims of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration.

I didn’t think so then, and I don’t think so now. Not even close.

But the episode occasionally pops up in online discussions (at least, at one exceptionally toxic place that I sometimes browse), with one or two recurrent themes. It surfaced at that place again late last year, for instance, and, impelled by that particular discussion, I sent an email to Dr. Hamblin and he responded. I share my note and his reply here, for — as it were — the historical record.

First, my note to Professor Hamblin:

Incidentally, I have a serious question for you:

I’m being beaten up right at the moment for my failure to come to your aid in your exchange, a few years back, with Philip Jenkins.

I didn’t come to your aid because, frankly, I thought Jenkins was being a bit of a doofus and that you were doing just fine.

They, however, view the exchange as a catastrophic failure for “Mopologetics” and say that I was a coward for not stepping in.

Did you expect me to step in? Did I let you down by not doing so?

I’m serious. Tell me the candid truth.

Now, his answer to me:

You can quote me.

Hahaha those people are morons.

Or you can quote me:

I neither needed, requested nor expected help from Dan or anyone else. My greatest frustration from that exchange was that Jenkins refused to read ANYTHING on the topic.

Or quote both.

So now, admittedly with rather undiplomatic or politically incorrect language, you have our brief but frank take on that discussion. Should you or anybody else care.