2nd Watson Letter just found!'

[_Paul Osborne]

I don't mean to pipe in without substance but I view modern Mormonism to have apostatized from old Mormonism. FARMS and all the GA's are apostates! Brigham Young must be rolling in his grave screaming foul words about Spencer Kimball and other successors of this man made religion! "How dare them do away with polygamy and how dare them ordain blacks to the priesthood"!

Mormonism today is certainly not the Mormonism of yesterday. Indeed, FARMS is an apostate branch of an apostate church. I think they should all be excommunicated right away.

Paul O

[_Sethbag]

Or are they being throw sops now and then to appease them? Yeah, sure, we'll send you a corrective fax, but don't expect us to change what we teach on our official website.

There have been apostles and others in the church hierarchy before who were not averse to throwing chapter and verse at someone who appeared to them to be deviating from orthodoxy, such as Joseph Fielding Smith or McConkie, but I'm guessing that many of the leadership would rather avoid a fight than pick a side and potentially alienate or "offend" a member and risk harming someone's testimonkey.

Hence the first Watson letter, to a chapel Mormon, was willing to stand by decades of prior teaching by prophets and apostles on the Hill Cumorah (as a chapel Mormon would expect), yet when a potential disagreement rears up with the FARMS folks, they're unwilling to stand and fight it out, so they choose to sweep it aside, as with the 2nd Watson letter. That keeps everyone in the tent happy.

This is a highly plausible scenario to me. I simply cannot convince myself that Hamblin or DCP are lying about this. I could see them remembering differently after a couple decades, possibly, so I leave open in my mind that maybe the Ogden fax really is what DCP saw, but he remembered it as a letter from Watson for so many years that the "memory" of it is fully entrenched in his mind now. I have no idea whether this happened or not, but I could see it happening. But I simply don't see there being malice or duplicity involved in this. I've remembered things in ways that differed from reality before and was shocked when confronted with the evidence that I was wrong - human memory can play tricks like that.

And once again, I just don't see why this is such a big deal.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hello,

Dr. Peterson says:

I'll trust to my memory, corroborated by Professor Hamblin, of having seen and read and handled a letter from Michael Watson.

I saw and read and handled a letter from Michael Watson, though, and so did Professor Hamblin.

There is no 2nd Watson Letter. There is no Pre-Watson Watson Letter (1985 edition). There is no cognitive bias, gentlepeople. There is deliberate prevarication, however.

Very Respectfully,

Doctor CamNC4Me

Post Script- I must add, and please forgive me for being so uncivil, but Mr. Lloyd is an oaf. I cannot entertain the notion Mormon apologists are pleased to have this man on their side.

[_beastie]

Well, Brent just shared even more pertinent information:

What the...

Your and Bill's timeline is... well, read below...

A few pertinent questions:



* Did you "handle"/ "read" this pre-1985 letter signed by Mike Watson?

* Who else can affirm the pre-1985 date on the letter? (Clearly you can't.)

* How did Bill happen to coincidentally attribute the date of Watson's pre-1985 letter to the very date of Ms. Ogden's fax to Brent Hall when you and Bill have claimed no prior knowledge of Ms. Ogden's fax?

But far more germane...



* If Bill Hamblin had received a letter from the Office of the First Presidency signed by Watson, why did he omit reference to the letter in the first version of his FARMS essay distributed on 8 March 1993, yet include it in his spring 1993 revision of his essay (well after Hall had received Ms. Ogden's fax)?[/quote]

(quotes from the essay, I can't block it within a block)

[William J. Hamblin, "Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon," FARMS Paper, Ham-93 (8 March 1993), 17–18, bold (he used red, I'll just bold) emphasis is text omitted from the spring 1993 revision.]

Finally, Wilson does not mention the fact that the LDS Church has no official position on Book of Mormon geography, or that other LDS General Authorities have advised caution in theorizing about Book of Mormon geography. Wilson also ignores the fact that versions of the Limited Geography model have been published in The Ensign, the Church’s official magazine; Sorenson’s An Ancient American Setting was published by Deseret Book, the Church's publishing company. It should be clear that the official LDS position on the Limited Geography model is not antagonistic. Some LDS leaders have disagreed with the model. Others, however, support it.




[William J. Hamblin, "Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2, no. 1 (spring 1993), 181–82, bold (red) emphasis is text that augments or is added to the 8 March 1993 version in the spring 1993 revision.]

Finally, Wilson does not mention the fact that the Latter-day Saint Church has no official position on Book of Mormon geography, or that other Latter-day Saint General Authorities have advised caution in theorizing about Book of Mormon geography. Michael Watson, secretary to the First Presidency of the Church, has recently clarified the Church’s position on Book of Mormon geography.

The Church emphasizes the doctrinal and historical value of the Book of Mormon, not its geography. While some Latter-day Saints have looked for possible locations and explanations [for Book of Mormon geography] because the New York Hill Cumorah does not readily fit the Book of Mormon description of Cumorah, there are no conclusive connections between the Book of Mormon text and any specific site.


Wilson also ignores the fact that versions of the Limited Geography Model have been published in The Ensign, the Church’s official magazine; while Sorenson’s An Ancient American Setting was published by Deseret Book. It should be clear that the official Latter-day Saint position on the Limited Geography Model is not antagonistic. Some Latter-day Saint leaders have disagreed with the model. Others, however, support it.

I’m going to have to think about this some more. This additional information from Brent is, in my opinion, very important.

[_beastie]

Anyone else think it's time to start a countdown to thread closure by MAD mods?

[_Nimrod]

Hi, beastie,

MAD mods will leave it open as long as we keep discussing it over here--so DCP can defend himself there (as if he doesn't have that option here).

I think that older posts in the thread will see some serious editing very soon and complete purging of the thread, not long after posting on it stops (or as you speculate, it is closed).

[_harmony]

Hi, beastie,

MAD mods will leave it open as long as we keep discussing it over here--so DCP can defend himself there (as if he doesn't have that option here).

I think that older posts in the thread will see some serious editing very soon and complete purging of the thread, not long after posting on it stops (or as you speculate, it is closed).

Save your posts now, if you're concerned they will be edited by mad MAD mods.

[_TAK]

Astonishing.. Despite the skeptic that I am, I was willing to give the benefit of a doubt that there was a second letter because DCP said several times that he saw and handled it.. He never did. He lied. Simply astonishing the degree these people will go further the fraud of the LDS faith.

[_Ray A]

Please note that entries in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism were often original contributions by specific authors (I personally know several of the contributors). On the "Cumorah" entry, I'm unaware of any sentences in D. Palmer's first edition of In Search of Cumorah: New Evidences of the Book of Mormon from Ancient Mexico (1981—two other editions were published in 1992 and 1999) that correspond to the parallel sentences between the EoM and Ms. Ogden's fax to Brent Hall. If you disagree, I welcome your correction.

Brent,

I can't verify much as I no longer own Palmer's book, and I suppose you would have access to much better resources than I have, such as a searchable disk, so I would have to take your word that there is no such reference. However, the EOM does quote Palmer as a source of information for its "Cumorah" entry.

The dichotomy is the EOM entry, which you are seem sure was written by the original contributors, and therefore may not be in Palmer's book verbatim.

The mystery is Bill's claim about the pre-1985 letter from Watson. Short of Hamblin clearing this up in more detail himself, I still think it may be early to jump to conclusions. As far as DCP is concerned, I believe he has been acting in good faith, and although he has previously flippantly brushed off suggestions to contact the office of the FP, his attempt to clarify this with a phone call tells me he's doing his part to make all pertinent information available, even at the risk of being "screwed" by the facts.

[_Nimrod]

DCP's memory must have decayed to the point it comes and goes, if he is not to be declared a prevaricator.

In an attempt to quell the storm three weeks ago, he wrote in post #63 of the MADHouse thread In need of convincing LDS Scholarship:

Here are the facts: Bill Hamblin wrote to the First Presidency for clarification of the earlier letter. I didn't see his request for clarification, but I gather that he suggested some of the reasons why many of us think the question of the location of the final battles remains open, or, even, should probably be answered with "Mesoamerica." I did, however, see Brother Watson's response, on First Presidency letterhead, and I am the editor of the FARMS Review, in which the entire text of that response (apart from the greeting and the signature) was published. My two associate editors of the FARMS Review, George Mitton and Prof. Louis Midgley, also saw it, as did the Review's production editor, Dr. Shirley Ricks, and the Maxwell Institute's director of publications, Alison V. P. Coutts, and at least one source checker.

Given that DCP is the editor of the FARMS Review, but never of the Journal, there had to be some article in the FARMS Review that "the entire text of [Brother Watson's] response (apart from the greeting and the signature) was published". There was an article published in DCP's FARMS Review in 2004, authored by Matt Roper: Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations http://mi.BYU.edu/publications/review/? ... m=2&id=555. Thus, DCP's post #63 was right, and according to DCP the following individuals at FARMS saw the Watson-signed letter with the verbiage in question and that was quoted by Hamblin in his 1993 Journal article and then Roper in his 2004 Review article:

1-DCP
2-George Mitton
3-Louis Midgley
4-Shirley Ricks
5-Alison V. P. Coutts
6-"at least one source checker".

If we are to believe DCP/Hamblin's pre-1985 version which DCP posted yesterday, then this august group of scholars each and everyone missed the fact that Roper cited the letter as having a 4/23/1993 date when in fact the Watson letter they each saw bore a pre-1985 date.

This morning in post #631 DCP throws DCP of 3 weeks ago under the bus (unless his pesky memory problems are so patchy that we can excuse differences in accounts just three weeks apart). Today, DCP glosses right over the Roper article published in the FARMS Review in 2004:

So far as I'm aware, the Michael Watson letter has only been used in one essay, published more than sixteen years ago.

Funny thing is, DCP was correct three weeks ago, but wrong this morning.

And so it goes... . Today we just have one more episode in the saga of DCP/Hamblin backpedaling on what was once aptly described as the '2nd Watson Letter'.