2nd Watson Letter just found!'

[_beastie]

beastie, that's true, but that's just compared to normal people like us. The world of apologetics holds much higher standards so Zakuska is really average or below average when compared to his peers. merely being in the genius range gets you about as far as Jskains or Leeuniverse who have also made similar revelations about themselves. On the first to second distribution you're dealing with Charity at near 170 if I remember right and CJCampbell who tips the scales approaching 200. And then for the real heavyweights, recall that on MAD, DCP and Hamblin were each sumbitted for the distinction of being the smartest person alive. DCP at least saw the thread and let it ride, so we can assume he agreed. We can probably extrapolate from these other scores and estimate either of those two at around 790 or higher.

So let's face it, if you're an apologist and a genius, you kind of suck.

No doubt.

If only our IQs were also in the genius range so we could be also be persuaded by the brilliant apologetics they offer.

[_Nimrod]

Greg Smith just posted on MAD that he has received Watson 2nd letter (http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/46468-in-need-of-convincing-lds-scholarship/page__view__findpost__p__1208771720), which in turn gives a link to FAIRwiki for an uploaded scan of the letter.

You can go to scan here:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon_geography/Statements/First_Presidency_Letter/Second_letter_scan

Who is Carla Ogden? Shouldn't the second "Watson letter" have been issued by Watson?

I didn't see the notations about the letter's provenance. Am I missing something?

[_Doctor Scratch]

I'm speechless. Utterly blown away by how different this is from what DCP had told all of us. Really, it will take me a little while to process all of this, but this is huge. This is the biggest and most important thing I have come across in my years of criticizing Mopologetics.

[Guest]

Professor Scratch, I was thrown off balance by this too. I will be PMing you with my concerns.

Edited to add:

Yes Nimrod, who the heck is carla ogden? That's one issue of many.

[_Nimrod]

Going back to Hamblin's article, he wrote very clearly that the letter was from Watson (not Carla Ogden):

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. [fn. 70 Correspondence from Michael Watson, Office of the First Presidency, 23 April 1993.]"

Basic Methodological Problems with the Anti-Mormon Approach to the Geography and Archaeology of the Book of Mormon, William J. Hamblin, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: Volume - 2, Issue - 1, Pages: 161-97, Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 1993

The text of what Greg Smith has posted (the Carla Ogden fax) and what Hamblin quoted "the second Watson letter" as saying appear to be ver batim except for the bracketed explanation that Hamblin added, and the omission in the quote of the last phrase of the Carla Ogden fax ("...that has been suggested").

[_Nimrod]

Hamblin's attribution of the Carla Ogden fax to being a letter from Watson, the secretary to the First Presidency, is not in any way indicated by the scan of the 4/23/93 fax to Brent Hall, FARMS. Why would Hamblin claim it was from Watson rather than from Carla Ogden?

Why did Hamblin cut short "there are no conclusive connections between the Book of Mormon text and any specific site that has been suggested" by leaving the end "that has been suggested" out of his quotation of the rest of the text? Whose suggestion of a specific site for the Book of Mormon Cumorah was being referenced by Carla Ogden? Was it a FARMS suggestion that the specific site is in mesoamerica? Is that why Hamblin would leave the last phrase out of his quote of the Carla Ogden fax (which Hamblin called a letter from Watson)?

[_Gadianton]

all good points nimrod, you definitely have a good nose for sniffing out the inconsistencies in the world of apologetics.

Oh man, when Professor Scratch says this is big, I am inclined to believe him. And I have a few ideas way.

Just so everyone is aware, I have completed my PM to Doctor Scratch on this matter.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Nimrod, you're absolutely right. The posting really does nothing but raise question after question:

---Why have the apologists always claimed that the 2nd Letter was from Michael Watson?
---Why did Daniel C. Peterson, Bill Hamblin, and at least one other FARMS editor claim that they saw, with their own eyes, the letter from Michael Watson?
---Why did DCP tell us--repeatedly--that this important document had "gotten lost" in Bill Hamblin's office?
---Why didn't any of the relevant individuals seem to be aware of the fact that copies of the fax had been made?
---Why did the apologists characterize this document as a "letter" rather than a "fax"?
---Why did DCP & et al. claim that it was _Hamblin_, rather than Brent Hall, who contacted Bro. Watson?

The questions go on and on and on. The only thing we can be certain of is that the apologists did not give us an accurate account of all this.

There is something else that's worth bringing up, which is the cover letter for the fax:

I thought you would be interested in this FAX from Michael Watson, secretary to the First Presidency. We have been receiving a number of questions from the Oklahoma, Texas area where anti-Mormons are using a letter from Brother Watson to a Bishop where Brother Watson said that the Church supports only one location for Cumoarh, and that is the New York location. I talked with him on the phone the other day and told him of the questions that were coming to us. He responded that the First Presidency would like to clear up that Issue and he would FAX me with that clarification.
<br. Thanks

[signed] Brent [Hall]

This is confusing, too. To whom was this sent? To Matt Roper? The fax itself was (apparently) sent to Brent Hall.... Was the cover letter (and accompanying copy of the fax) sent to Greg Smith? The text of the cover sheet itself is also odd. Is Brent Hall saying that "anti-Mormons" from the "Oklahoma, Texas" area finally prompted them to ask Michael Watson for a copy of the fax? Or, is this letter from circa 1993? And if not, why would Michael Watson be claiming now, in 2009, that the First Presidency would want to clear up that "Issue" which had supposedly been clearly up by the *original* fax/letter back in 1993?

Things just aren't adding up here.

[_Doctor Scratch]

Over on the aptly named MADboard, CKSalmon has pointed out something very important. He quotes DCP:

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.

I thought that CK's additional commentary was spot-on:

But, of course, in the image that Greg has provided there is without any doubt neither any greeting nor signature! It's certainly odd that DCP would state of a response by Watson that only "the greeting and the signature" was excised from publication when nary a greeting nor signature is actually present in the provided scanned fax. So, again, DCP, as the editor of the FARMS Review (as he announces), states that FARMS merely left out "the greeting and the signature" in its publication. But, there is neither in the provided document. Thus, this must not be the famous Second Watson Letter with which DCP is familiar.

I think DCP and I can agree upon at least that much. Whereas his Second Watson Letter is a response from Watson to Hamblin, with a greeting and a signature, the document Greg has provided is a response from Ogden to Hall with neither a greeting nor a signature.

This is the image that, if it were the Second Watson Letter, would contain, per DCP both a greeting and a signature.

Posted Image

But, it doesn't. So, this really can't be the response DCP has referred to, can it? A response to Hamblin with a greeting and signature that is neither to Hamblin nor contains a greeting or signature?

And, so, the Second Watson Letter, apparently, remains ever elusive, I suppose.

cks

I feel kind of hesitant about stating things directly, but I guess it needs to be said: somebody is clearly lying, and to paraphrase DCP, it seems that somebody is lying about material which was supposedly submitted by the First Presidency. Dr. Peterson has often said that if it turned out people were distorting the truth on this issue, then those people would stand to lose their employment at BYU, along with their Church membership. Based on what Smith has posted, we cannot include Hamblin and DCP in this. Based on the FAIRwiki material, the involved parties are:

---Greg Smith
---Matt Roper
---Brent Hall

***Note that Smith claimed that the origin of the fax was John Sorenson, so it could be that he was in on this, too--at least per Dr. Smith.

If this is a forgery of some kind, and DCP's earlier assessments are to be believed, then these three are in grave danger of being excommunicated. On the other hand, the alternative is even worse: i.e., that there was a widespread conspiracy within FARMS to use this fax as a shaky means of making claims about the First Presidency's beliefs.

There may be yet another explanation, but whatever it might be, I do not know. That said, I do remember somebody saying something about BKP demanding to see the 2nd Watson Letter.... I can't remember whether this was speculative or not, though. I'm pretty sure it was said in connection with all of the recent Meldrum stuff.

***A sidenote: Where is Wiki Wonka? I know that s/he posts here. As an editor of the FAIR wiki, I think that Wonka should be *EXTREMELY* careful in terms of analyzing the provenance of this fax. If you're reading this Wonka, you need to do a thorough check on that fax. If DCP is to be believed, then these individuals' Church memberships could be in serious jeopardy.

[_Doctor Scratch]

DCP has at last weighed in:

EDIT 2: Well, that's weird. The sender is Carla Ogden, not Watson. Also weird is that we already know that Hamblin had everything to do with the letter, as DCP has told us that the second Watson Letter was in direct response to a letter from Hamblin.

That was my understanding. But perhaps I was wrong. I've never heard of Carla Ogden, to the best of my recollection.

It's funny how the memory collapses in crucial moments like this.

Since DCP has seen Watson's response, not Carla Ogden's, it appears that this is not, after all, the infamous Second Watson Letter, after all.

There's nothing "infamous" about the letter. This is silly, overdone melodrama of the Snidely Whiplash variety.

The text of the fax, however, seems to be identical to the letter that I saw and that is quoted in full in the FARMS Review.

I've never understood the absurd dramatics with which a few critics desperately want to surround this non-issue. Unless they seriously want to argue that Bill, or Bill and I, or Bill and I and others at the Maxwell Institute brazenly forged the Watson letter -- a conclusion that seems a little problematic, now that the very same text has appeared in another apparently official document -- there doesn't seem to be much of any significance in this wearisome saga.

Well, I guess that's true---FARMS did not "forge" a document from Michael Watson. On the other hand, it *does* seem like they falsely attributed a "Carla Ogden" document to Michael Watson, and by extension, the First Presidency. CKSalmon very clearly, with no spin whatsoever, quoted DCP's claims about having seen the signature and so forth of the Watson "Letter". I am having flashbacks of Iran-Contra: "I don't recall."

Be careful, Prof. Peterson. The Brethren have special powers of discernment.