2nd Watson Letter just found!'

[_Ray A]

You know, sometimes I think it would really be nice to give DCP a rest. But when he keeps coming up with stuff like this it’s nigh impossible:

Scott Lloyd mentioned “confirmation bias” “over at the compound”.

007 then wrote:

I find it highly ironic that you accuse them of confirmation bias when it is so deeply embedded in Mormon apologetics. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

And DCP’s reply:

I deny your claim, and say, in contrast, that, while confirmation bias is a problem for all human beings, it constitutes no greater problem for serious Mormon apologetic scholarship than for other areas of scholarship.

Heavens to Murgatroid. Apparently all non-Mormon scholars, and even some Mormon ones who see precious little evidence to support the Book of Mormon as a historical record, are all equally seeped in “confirmation bias”.

Shakes head in despair. If this is the sort of denial accompanying the 2nd Watson letter, I’d have to seriously re-think DCP’s clarity of thought. Yes, Virginia, there really is a 2nd Watson letter.



.

[_RockSlider]

I watched the ExMormon 2008's Conference presentation - "Lying For the Lord" the other day.

Take Ken Clark, a 27 year employee of the CES. I doubt (but might be surprised) that even apologist would say that he lied about the tactics used against him to get him to conform. There are just so many examples of the same experiences (i.e. long standing employees fired).

Having worked in several fairly large corporations over the years, one learns of the politics of one's profession and career. It's tough enough in the business world. I cannot imagine having to live in fear of the "Honor Code".

The sad part of this, I could never take the word of an individual pulling a paycheck from the church. How could you? I have to admire those, who many years into a career will abandon it based on principle. Twenty seven years into my career, I wonder if I would have the strength to risk all.

I say cut Dan some Christmas slack ... if nothing else, he's doing a very good job (like Nyle on the recent debate podcast)

[_Nimrod]

I think there is no 2nd Watson Letter, and that DCP's memory has played a trick on him. (Hamblin knows better, or over the years has come to believe his self-delusion about the Lost 2nd Watson Letter.)

But I think DCP has been disingenuous (if you prefer, read: has lied) when he says this is a matter of little or no importance to him and FARMS. From DCP's e-mail/texting to Hamblin that DCP has posted, it was obvious that the two had earlier discussed this current brouhaha, but DCP tried to portray Hamblin as incommunicado.

BYU must swarm with people who know the history behind the identical phrases used in 'Cumorah' section of EoM and the Ogden Fax--the day after Brent Metcalfe drops his H-bomb, DCP says he 'ran into a colleague who knows... ." How casual, how convenient. Either DCP is running around BYU showing people the Ogden Fax and EoM texts and asking if they know anything about it, or this is the front page topic on the Daily Universe these past 19 days. Either way, it is a big deal to DCP. If of no import, DCP could have much better served himself by stopping posting about it days, if not a week ago.

I do not fault DCP for his memory fade, or the loyalty he has shown Hamblin and FARMS in this matter. I do fault him for the painfully obvious spinning at the MAD House. He's the Pied Piper of MAD, and the others there the children he has abducted with his back-pedaling fabrications. That's what is pathetic about DCP--he's taking liberties with the truth now to cover up understandable lapses of memory about something 16 years ago. Maybe it's his ego driving this, maybe it is his annointed role at FARMS to defend everthing to the death. Whatever it is, it is embarrassing for a scholar.

[_Dr. Shades]

I ran into a colleague who knows something about the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.

I mentioned the manufactured Watson-letter teapot-tempest to him, and he replied that, as he understood it, the text that shows up in both the Carla Ogden fax and the Michael Watson letter had already been circulating for several years, and that, if he was not mistaken, the text of the Encyclopedia's 'Book of Mormon Geography' article postdates that First Presidency text, and its language was deliberately worked into the Encyclopedia article at the suggestion of Elder Oaks and/or Elder Maxwell.

DCP's colleague is flat wrong.

First off, DCP is committing the logical fallacy of "begging the question," since the "Michael Watson letter" is the Carla Ogden fax (in all likelihood). Assuming, of course, that he's referring to the mythological 2nd Watson Letter.

Second off, if the Ur-text of the Carla Ogden fax and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism entry had truly predated them both by "several years," then the First Presidency would've directed Michael Watson to include that in the First Watson Letter instead of the "the church has long maintained" text.

Third off, as Nimrod helpfully pointed out, Ludlow would've cited that Ur-text instead of mere FARMS articles if it actually existed.

But my main point is the second one, the one whose near-entire paragraph I bolded. It alone amply proves that DCP's colleague's recollection is wrong.

[_beastie]

Second off, if the Ur-text of the Carla Ogden fax and the Encyclopedia of Mormonism entry had truly predated them both by "several years," then the First Presidency would've directed Michael Watson to include that in the First Watson Letter instead of the "the church has long maintained" text.

You are exactly right. The timeline is too tight to allow the needed wiggle room for the apologists.

[_Doctor Scratch]

It's Bizarro World over there:

I see nothing particularly "mysterious" about the idea that an in-house document might have been formulated at some point, from which both the Carla Ogden fax and the Michael Watson letter drew (and from which it was intended that such communications draw), and from which the Encylopedia of Mormonism, advised by Elders Oaks and Maxwell, also drew. It may even have been created in connection with the production of the quasi-official Encyclopedia, which, as Elders Oaks and Maxwell surely understood, would be expected to explain the state-of-the-question on numerous issues, including Book of Mormon geography.

Is he reading the Brethren's minds, or what? It seems to me that he is just constructing a larger and larger ball of yarn. Here are some other things to consider:

---DCP has said that he was personally acquainted with (and perhaps friends with, to some extent) both of these General Authorities. Did Prof. P. honestly not know what they were up to vis-a-vis this Encyclopedia?
---There can be no mistake that the scholarship in Bill Hamblin's article is flawed, and that it shows evidence of a cover-up. The apologists can claim this was "accidental," or that it was just sloppy, but there is no question that Hamblin's endnote was seriously lacking in detail.
---Prof. Peterson has insisted over and over and over again that the Brethren are uninterested in Tanners-esque criticism and anti-Mormonism. DCP has said, in fact, that they call him in when they want to talk about the "Current State of Anti-Mormonism." If this is true, why would they have prepared some boilerplate text to deal with anti-Mormon analysis and criticism of the 1st Watson Letter?
---Brent Hall's coversheet seems to suggest that *he* had to inform Michael Watson about this troublesome "anti-Mormon" criticism, so again, one has to ask: Why would Elders Oaks and Maxwell be knowledgeable about the issues surrounding the 1st WL?
---DCP has not been up front about this whole episode. I have evidence that he hasn't been telling the whole truth, and I can present it if necessary. I suppose we can give him a bit more time to tell us how much he actually knew about the 2nd Watson Letter text. (Or he can claim again that his memory is sketchy.)

Look, Dr. Peterson: it's Christmastime. Why not just tell the truth?

[_cksalmon]

First off, DCP is committing the logical fallacy of "begging the question," since the "Michael Watson letter" is the Carla Ogden fax (in all likelihood). Assuming, of course, that he's referring to the mythological 2nd Watson Letter.

Sure, he is. But, nah, there's no "logical" fallacy entailed here. There's a robust documentary dispute, to be sure, but that's not the same thing.

cks

[_Doctor Scratch]

But I think DCP has been disingenuous (if you prefer, read: has lied) when he says this is a matter of little or no importance to him and FARMS.

I don't know whether he "lied" in the strict definition of the word. However, I do have indisputable evidence that he either (A) has an extremely faulty memory, or (B) that he has been suppressing highly relevant information for a long, long time.

[_beastie]

You know what this boils down to? The sausage makers don't want the customers to see inside the sausage factory.

Members believe that these issues are resolved by leaders via revelation. That's what they've been taught all their lives. The idea that these issues might actually be resolved by the Keystone Cops over at the hive (to mix metaphors) could be truly unsettling.

[_Doctor Scratch]

You know what this boils down to? The sausage makers don't want the customers to see inside the sausage factory.

Members believe that these issues are resolved by leaders via revelation. That's what they've been taught all their lives. The idea that these issues might actually be resolved by the Keystone Cops over at the hive (to mix metaphors) could be truly unsettling.

I think this is exactly right, and I was just thinking that this is going to hurt the apologists in the sense that it now shows a much tighter relationship between the Brethren and the Mopologists. That is to say: it contradicts all the old crap about how FARMS is sort of out there on its own, not changing doctrine and so forth. Now, DCP has had to concoct this highly questionable story about how Oaks and Maxwell were dictating to Clark and/or Sorenson (or whoever), telling them how to write the EoM. Doesn't it now seem rather blindingly obvious that the apologists *did* effect this "change" in doctrine?