A sailor plays \u201cReveille\u201d into a megaphone at the U.S. Naval Training Camp in Seattle, Washington, in 1947. (Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the unpleasant things about the web is the megaphone that it provides for the spreading of stories and gossip. \u00a0Periodically, for example, I read accounts (usually anonymous or pseudonymous) about someone\u2019s interaction with me, in which I (a) floundered stupidly, (b) treated that someone abominably, (c) flatly lied, or (d) frankly but confidentially confessed to my own villainy, insincerity, and\/or dishonesty.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s difficult if not impossible to respond to such accounts, not least because, for every time a person\u00a0comes across one of them, there are probably ten (or a hundred or a thousand) occasions when a person\u00a0does not.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I may have already shared one of my favorite examples of the phenomenon, but, if so, I\u2019ll do it again:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quite a few years ago, I became aware that a certain person, by then an apostate from the Church, was telling of a conversation that he had purportedly had with me while we were both in the old Language Training Mission (LTM), the predecessor of today\u2019s Missionary Training Center (MTC). \u00a0He had, he said, demanded to know\u00a0why I refused to hold the Book of Mormon to the same standards in my apologetics as those to which I held the Bible. \u00a0According to him, I answered that I employed a double standard because I knew that the Book of Mormon could not withstand such scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The story is absurd on its face. \u00a0First of all, when I was a budding nineteen-year-old missionary in the LTM, I had done<\/em> no apologetics. \u00a0I had no track record of using either a double standard or a single consistent standard, and I had neither a name nor a reputation, good or bad, as an apologist. \u00a0Moreover, I hold no such view. \u00a0Not even remotely. \u00a0That wasn\u2019t my position\u00a0then, and it isn\u2019t my position\u00a0now. \u00a0If I didn\u2019t believe the Book of Mormon to be true, I wouldn\u2019t be an active Latter-day Saint.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moreover, I knew this person slightly, and I was quite confident that I had never met him until well past my mission. \u00a0I remembered no such conversation with him ever<\/em>, let alone while in the MTC. \u00a0So I asked him when he had been in the Missionary Training Center. \u00a0He responded by naming a period that was more than a year after my own stay there. \u00a0I was, by the\u00a0time he specified, well past the midpoint of my mission in German-speaking Switzerland. \u00a0When I called that fact to his attention, he replied that I was lying about the dates of my mission. \u00a0With that, I opted out of further conversation with him.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, my attention has been called to someone else\u2019s online account of an encounter with me.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
This particular story centers on an argument that I\u2019ve often made regarding the masculine personal name Alma<\/em> in the Book of Mormon. \u00a0In my argument, I\u2019ve pointed out that Americans typically regard that name as a feminine one, of Latin derivation, but that, in fact, with Yigael Yadin\u2019s late-sixties discovery of a signed land deed from the time of Simeon bar Kokhba\u2019s revolt against Rome (the so-called \u201cJewish Revolt\u201d of the early second century AD), we now know that Alma<\/em> is an authentically ancient and Semitic masculine personal name. \u00a0(Some evidence has since been found for it elsewhere. \u00a0But this will do for present purposes.) \u00a0The occurrence of Alma<\/em> in the land deed from Nahal Hever, by the Dead Sea, was significant evidence, I argued, for the authentic Semitic antiquity of the Book of Mormon, and a decisive refutation of the argument (made by some) that Alma<\/em> proves the Book of Mormon a modern forgery.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since the days when I frequently made that argument, occurrences of Alma<\/em> as a masculine personal name have reportedly been identified in census records from\u00a0the early nineteenth-century United States. \u00a0I haven\u2019t examined these alleged occurrences. \u00a0I seldom have occasion to speak about Alma<\/em> any more. \u00a0But they may well be authentic.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anyway, the person recounting his exchange with me says that he contacted me regarding the new information sometime in the past, and that I responded that, yes, I was aware of it. \u00a0Supposedly, I showed no willingness to correct or nuance my public claims \u2014 which, as I say, I rarely if ever have occasion even to make<\/em> any more \u2014 but insisted that, in supposedly continuing to make\u00a0the argument as I always had before, I was saying nothing untrue. \u00a0As such testimonials often do, the person telling this story concludes by expressing his (fully understandable) loss of respect for me.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Well.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
For one thing, I remember no such conversation. \u00a0I expect, though, that it occurred. \u00a0More or less. \u00a0But precision is important here. \u00a0Did I really say exactly (and only) what he remembers me to have said?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I doubt it very much. \u00a0And here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
His view is that the discovery of Alma<\/em> as a masculine personal name in the early American republic undercuts the argument that I used to make. \u00a0And I agree<\/em> with him. \u00a0(That\u2019s what happens in scholarship. \u00a0New facts are discovered, obliging honest people to modify their views.)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think that the discovery utterly destroys<\/em>\u00a0my argument. \u00a0It still remains true, for example, that the occurrence of Alma<\/em> as a Semitic masculine personal name demolishes the claim that the presence of Alma<\/em> in the Book of Mormon proves the Book of Mormon a modern forgery. \u00a0But, depending upon how likely one thinks it that Joseph Smith knew, or knew of, early nineteenth-century men named Alma, it indisputably and substantially weakens the claim that Alma<\/em> represents a clear indicator that Joseph had access to previously unknown information about ancient Near Eastern names.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I expect that the person telling this story about me sincerely believes it to be true, reliable, and significant, and that it counts as revealing evidence of\u00a0my lack of integrity, or something of that sort. \u00a0By contrast, although the exchange rings absolutely no bells with me, I can say that his depiction of my attitude is utterly foreign to what (and how) I actually think. \u00a0In other words, I don\u2019t concede the accuracy of the narrative. \u00a0At the most vital point, it\u2019s substantially misleading.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 One of the unpleasant things about the web is the megaphone that it provides for the spreading of stories and gossip. \u00a0Periodically, for example, I read accounts (usually anonymous or pseudonymous) about someone\u2019s interaction with me, in which I (a) floundered stupidly, (b) treated that someone abominably, (c) flatly lied, or (d) frankly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Reveille!\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/09\/22Getting_em_up22_at_U.S.Naval_Training_Camp_Seattle_Washington._Webster__Stevens._-_NARA_-_533698.tif_.jpg\")
<\/a>