Welcome question for Mr. Peterson: Where is the stone box?

[_Mister Scratch]

I just find it odd that a particular document is cited/quoted in a journal (and continues to be relied upon by apologists), yet no one (including the author) apparently has a copy.

It's unfortunate that Bill mislaid it.

As did, apparently, anyone with a copy. Unfortunate, indeed.

Do you have any reason to believe that they "mislaid" their copies? I don't. I said they probably threw them away. There was no reason whatever to retain them.

What!?! "No reason whatever to retain them"?!?! This was a document of huge apologetic consequence! And you are saying that people just blithely tossed them aside? Please forgive me if I find this to be utterly outrageous. This would be like throwing away a photocopy of Mark Hofmann's Anton Transcript. Or, perhaps this whole scenario is more reminiscent of the way the Church handled the Salamander Letter, eh?

I suspect, anyhow, that no more than one photocopy ever existed in the first place. No additional copies would be needed for the source-checking process.

You know, all of this just strains credulity. Are you really telling me that all of you guys---despite your knowledge of the skepticism of your critics---would really be so blase and careless about something of this magnitude?

Nobody knew that Bill would mislay it. Anyway, all of us know where the entire text of the letter is to be found.

Where? Buried in his office, and all of you are simply too lazy to go and look for it?

And none of us doubt the letter's existence. "Ref" (whoever he was) evidently did, and Scratch claims to. I've heard of nobody else.

So...what? You are saying that because not enough people have expressed their concerns, your argument is somehow more valid? Isn't that known as argumentum ad populorum?

[_Daniel Peterson]

What!?! "No reason whatever to retain them"?!?! This was a document of huge apologetic consequence! And you are saying that people just blithely tossed them aside? Please forgive me if I find this to be utterly outrageous.

You have far worse sins on your soul than holding a silly opinion on this subject.

Source checkers check a source against an article or book manuscript to make sure that it's accurately cited/quoted in a text slated for publication. That's it. When they've done that, they're done with the source. If they want to keep it around for their own use, that's entirely up to them. Whether they did that or not, I can't say. I can't think of any reason why they would, though, since they know, as I know, that the text appears in its entirety in the published version of Bill Hamblin's article, and they know where to find it. A letter is just a piece of paper, apart from its content. This was not a letter from Isaac Newton or Richard III. It has no intrinsic historical or other value apart from its content. A photocopy of a letter is just a piece of paper, apart from the content. The content is faithfully preserved. It's up on the FARMS website at this very moment. It exists in many, many hard copies of the published article.

You know, all of this just strains credulity.

It does, actually. You're creating a melodrama out of nothing.

Are you really telling me that all of you guys---despite your knowledge of the skepticism of your critics---would really be so blase and careless about something of this magnitude?

Bill Hamblin mislaid it. I didn't. "We" didn't.

Contact Michael Watson if this exercises you so much.

Nobody knew that Bill would mislay it. Anyway, all of us know where the entire text of the letter is to be found.

Where? Buried in his office, and all of you are simply too lazy to go and look for it?

The text of the letter is published, in its entirety, in Bill's article. (I think I've said this often enough. It's beginning to bore me.)

I'm not interested in ransacking Bill's office in order to try to satisfy your insatiable hostility, no.

You are saying that because not enough people have expressed their concerns, your argument is somehow more valid? Isn't that known as argumentum ad populorum?

No. We're not talking about the logical validity of an argument here. We're talking about whether an issue rises to the level of concern where it would merit spending much time on it. This one doesn't. You and "Ref"/you don't count for much, in that regard. And a simple cost/benefit analysis indicates that the benefit (your heartfelt trust in me ever afterwards) would be both negligible in importance and unlikely of attainment, compared to the trouble of searching through Bill's campus office and his home office for a document that may or may not even still be there.

Write to Michael Watson. This your concern. It isn't mine.

[_Mister Scratch]

What!?! "No reason whatever to retain them"?!?! This was a document of huge apologetic consequence! And you are saying that people just blithely tossed them aside? Please forgive me if I find this to be utterly outrageous.

You have far worse sins on your soul than holding a silly opinion on this subject.

Source checkers check a source against an article or book manuscript to make sure that it's accurately cited/quoted in a text slated for publication. That's it. When they've done that, they're done with the source. If they want to keep it around for their own use, that's entirely up to them. Whether they did that or not, I can't say. I can't think of any reason why they would, though, since they know, as I know, that the text appears in its entirety in the published version of Bill Hamblin's article, and they know where to find it. A letter is just a piece of paper, apart from its content. This was not a letter from Isaac Newton or Richard III. It has no intrinsic historical or other value apart from its content.

I'm afraid I don't agree with this. Given that the 2nd Letter would have overturned a crucial bit of information relating to LDS history, I rather tend to think that it has pretty staggering historical implications. (At least within the context of Mormon Apologetics.)

And really, were you guys thinking to yourselves, "Well, here we have the key document which will shut those critics up for good! All we have to do is publish it in our own, Church-run journal, not ever bothering to show the original text to anyone outside our 'circle', and that will close the book on everything!" I find it very, very hard to believe that you guys would really be this careless... Or are you admitting that you were?

You know, all of this just strains credulity.

It does, actually. You're creating a melodrama out of nothing.

I don't think so. This "2nd Letter" is shaping up to be a lot like the mysterious "Murphy Transcript."

Are you really telling me that all of you guys---despite your knowledge of the skepticism of your critics---would really be so blase and careless about something of this magnitude?

Bill Hamblin mislaid it. I didn't. "We" didn't.

Not very nice of you to dump on your friend like this! Have you ever urged him to look for the letter? Have you ever offered to help him go through his office in an effort to find it?

Contact Michael Watson if this exercises you so much.

Why don't YOU contact him? After all, as ABman pointed out, I would in all likelihood just be ignored.

Nobody knew that Bill would mislay it. Anyway, all of us know where the entire text of the letter is to be found.

Where? Buried in his office, and all of you are simply too lazy to go and look for it?

The text of the letter is published, in its entirety, in Bill's article. (I think I've said this often enough. It's beginning to bore me.)

I'm not interested in ransacking Bill's office in order to try to satisfy your insatiable hostility, no.

I don't see how there is anything "hostile" about wanting to know why such an important document was handled in such an apparently careless manner. I mean, if you guys had found the Lost 116 pages, and printed them in FARMS Review, would it really be too much to ask to see the originals? The Church subjected Mark Hofmann's forgeries to quite a rigorous authentication process. Why is it that you seem to object so strenuously to the same rigor being applied to the Watson letter?

[_Mercury]

Actually, if you must know, I've been out to dinner with the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations.

A couple of clues: I came on this board to address some specific issues with some specific people. This isn't one of them, and you're not one of them.

Capice?

You know what I lke about this board? No one makes the rules. Your rule that you wrote down in crayon with this post demonstrates your lack of understanding on what participation on this board means.

Put up or shut up dannyboy. You look like an even bigger braying jackass (or is that tapir?) when you write who you will confront and who you will ignore.

If porters question is so difficult possibly you could point us at some scholarly research as to similar sites and stone boxes that meet the same criteria laid forth by Joseph Smith. One must be able to reproduce the same scenario described in the official Canon.

Since you can't do that wthout breaking the rule about scholarship only, I am going to do my "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta" victory dance around my house.

Peterson is butthead

Once again the closet angry man lashes out. But look dopey little tantrum boy, Peterson need not reply if he does not feel like it. It is a free board. Now stop crying about him ingoring the other angry boys STUPID topic.

Peterson will not reply to sensibly constructed arguments so I just go for broke. Knowing that he reads it is satisfaction enough.

[Analytics]

Contact Michael Watson if this exercises you so much.

Why don't YOU contact him? After all, as ABman pointed out, I would in all likelihood just be ignored.

I said no such thing. I only said that the best thing that could happen to you is to be ignored by them. I said nothing about the likelihood thereof. Indeed, I am beginning to wonder whether I shouldn't attempt to contact Michael Watson about the letter. If I get a response will you do a dossier of my choosing?

That you seem so unwilling makes me believe that you're too lazy and/or suspect that Dr. Peterson is correct. After all, if Dr. Peterson was lying about the letter then you'd score a great point against his character with a minimum of effort. If, howver, Dr. Peterson is correct then you have to stop beating this particular issue. If you get no response, then you can claim you've done your part and put more pressure on Dr. Peterson to dig up the letter while continuing to insist that there is something fishy gonig on.

I don't see how there is anything "hostile" about wanting to know why such an important document was handled in such an apparently careless manner. I mean, if you guys had found the Lost 116 pages, and printed them in FARMS Review, would it really be too much to ask to see the originals? The Church subjected Mark Hofmann's forgeries to quite a rigorous authentication process. Why is it that you seem to object so strenuously to the same rigor being applied to the Watson letter?

Only you (Scratch, Rollo and the other guy) view the Watson letter as comparable in importance to the 116 pages or a Hoffmann forgery. Those were purported to have been written by significant historical figures. I suspect that while Michael Watson is probably a very nice guy, few people outside his posterity will much care about what he wrote some 100 years from now. This is rather unlike the 116 pages.

[Physics Guy]

Contact Michael Watson if this exercises you so much.

Why don't YOU contact him? After all, as ABman pointed out, I would in all likelihood just be ignored.

I said no such thing. I only said that the best thing that could happen to you is to be ignored by them. I said nothing about the likelihood thereof. Indeed, I am beginning to wonder whether I shouldn't attempt to contact Michael Watson about the letter. If I get a response will you do a dossier of my choosing?

That you seem so unwilling makes me believe that you're too lazy and/or suspect that Dr. Peterson is correct. After all, if Dr. Peterson was lying about the letter then you'd score a great point against his character with a minimum of effort.

I have no interest in "scoring a point against his character." I just want to know why he and other apologists seem so...odd about this letter. Further, there's no reason for me to "worry" that DCP is correct. If he's right, then he's right. You know? It will not upset me in the least. It seems to me that it is the Good Professor who most stands to benefit from tracking down the letter. Not tracking it down really works out more in the favor of critics.

If, howver, Dr. Peterson is correct then you have to stop beating this particular issue.

Sure, no problem.

[_asbestosman]

Okay, look. I just phoned the Church, asking to speak with Bro. Watson about the letter. I was told that he was too busy to speak with me. Now what? I've done my part, so what now, ABman?

I'll defer to Dr. Peterson or some other guy on how to best get a response, but I suppose you can now at least claim you've done your part and say that the ball is now in Dr. Peterson's court. Will he look for the letter now that you've put in an effort, or is there a more reasonable way to get a response such as actually writing a letter yourself--probably a very short one paragraph deal.

In any case, your willingness to call at least puts you back up a few notches and I apologize for thinking you were lazy or perhaps afraid.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Given that the 2nd Letter would have overturned a crucial bit of information relating to LDS history, I rather tend to think that it has pretty staggering historical implications. (At least within the context of Mormon Apologetics.)

I thought it was helpful. I didn't realize that it reconfigured the cosmos and could eventually be sold by Sotheby's as if it were a copy of Hamlet signed by Will Shakspere (or the Earl of Oxford).

And really, were you guys thinking to yourselves, "Well, here we have the key document which will shut those critics up for good! All we have to do is publish it in our own, Church-run journal, not ever bothering to show the original text to anyone outside our 'circle', and that will close the book on everything!"

It was a helpful comment from a secretary to the First Presidency. That's all.

At the time, I didn't know of your/"Ref's" existence, so I could hardly have imagined the extent to which somebody would be willing to fantasize conspiracy theories about a fairly ordinary little letter.

I find it very, very hard to believe that you guys would really be this careless... Or are you admitting that you were?

Why do you continually imagine that the mislaying of the original of this brief little letter was a collective, corporate act?

This "2nd Letter" is shaping up to be a lot like the mysterious "Murphy Transcript."

And, as usual, you're the one doing the "shaping."

Not very nice of you to dump on your friend like this!

I'm not "dumping" on him. He says he mislaid the letter. I believe him. I might have lost it, too. (My offices are a mess.)

Have you ever urged him to look for the letter? Have you ever offered to help him go through his office in an effort to find it?

No.

Contact Michael Watson if this exercises you so much.

Why don't YOU contact him?

Because I have no questions or concerns about the letter.

I don't see how there is anything "hostile" about wanting to know why such an important document was handled in such an apparently careless manner.

Your hostility is plain in the insinuations you make, as it is in virtually everything else you post. The insinuation that we forged the letter isn't exactly an outlier for you. It's scarcely an anomaly. It's completely in character.

I mean, if you guys had found the Lost 116 pages, and printed them in FARMS Review, would it really be too much to ask to see the originals?

Good grief.

The Church subjected Mark Hofmann's forgeries to quite a rigorous authentication process. Why is it that you seem to object so strenuously to the same rigor being applied to the Watson letter?

You write as if you actually believed that we've misplaced something like an autographed copy of Homer's Iliad.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Okay, look. I just phoned the Church, asking to speak with Bro. Watson about the letter. I was told that he was too busy to speak with me. Now what? I've done my part, so what now, ABman?

I'll defer to Dr. Peterson or some other guy on how to best get a response, but I suppose you can now at least claim you've done your part and say that the ball is now in Dr. Peterson's court. Will he look for the letter now that you've put in an effort, or is there a more reasonable way to get a response such as actually writing a letter yourself--probably a very short one paragraph deal.

Maybe Scratch called. Maybe he didn't. Who knows?

He can write to Michael Watson. (I wouldn't have called.) He should, ideally, provide Michael Watson with a copy of the text of the letter, and ask him whether he denies having written the letter.

If Michael Watson denies having written the letter, we'll go from there. If he can't recall, one way or the other, that will be fine with me. If he confirms it, the game will be over, and Scratch will have to move on to a new avenue of attack. It won't take him more than a few seconds.

[_rcrocket]

I say, go with the first Watson letter until you see the second. For those who have seen the second, go with that.

Since I have only seen the first, I subscribe to the view that: "The Church has long maintained, as attested to by references in the writings of General Authorities, that the Hill Cumorah in western New York state is the same as referenced in the Book of Mormon."



rcrocket