DCP cannot help himself when it comes to spinning a new yarn and trying it out on his sycophants (and critics) to see if it has legs before he then exposes a source for it.
The most recent exhibit (post #397 in the In need of convincing LDS Scholarship thread at the MAD House is this:
"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."
Of course, DCP will not name the colleague unless and until this fabrication perhaps withstands scrutiny. Some problems for DCP is that the EoM's article that includes the identical phrases as the Ogden Fax is not entitled 'Book of Mormon Geography' but 'Cumorah'. So perhaps DCP's unnamed colleague and DCP were talking about two different entries in the EoM without either realizing it.
For more weaseling, DCP says his unnamed colleague prefaced his comment with that colleague "was not mistaken".
Then DCP's statement, (1) so conditioned, (2) from the unnamed colleague (3) about a differently titled section of the EoM than that which Brent Metcalfe so aptly discovered and pointed out, reads that the text in the EoM "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." Not sure which one, Oaks or Maxwell (let's make sure Oaks, who is still alive, has some deniability--DCP is learning the lessons of the last fortnight rather well.
Maybe the unnamed colleague is John E Clark, the author of the other entry, the one entitled 'Book of Mormon Geography'--a much more thorough treatment in the EoM on the topic, but not the one from which the Ogden Fax phrases were lifted (that one was 'Cumorah' to which Ludlow's only Bibliography references are only to three of his comrades at FARMS.
Clark writes in the 'Book of Mormon Geography' entry that
[a]lthough Church leadership officially and consistently distances itself from issues regarding Book of Mormon geography... . * * * Dissimilarities among [speculators] stem from differences in (1) the interpretation of scriptural passages and statements of General Authorities;... . * * * The official position of the Church is that the events narrated in the Book of Mormon occurred somewhere in the Americas, but that the specific location has not been revealed. This position applies both to internal geographies and to external correlations. * * * In statements since [1842], Church leaders have generally declined to give any opinion on issues of Book of Mormon geography. * * * While the Church has not taken an official position with regard to location of geographical places, the authorities do not discourage private efforts to deal with the subject (Cannon).
There is no citation by Ludlow to what DCP describes as "First Presidency text" that predated EoM. No citation is made by Ludlow to either Maxwell or Oaks, who deliberately worked the language into EoM--neither at the 'Book of Mormon Geography' or 'Cumorah' entries. Yet there are at least 23 citations to Oaks in 14 other entries in the EoM and at least 22 citations to Maxwell in 16 other entries.
As for what is cited, ecclesiastically speaking, there are:
1-"Three statements sometimes attributed to the Prophet Joseph Smith are often cited as evidence of an official Church position. An 1836 statement asserts that 'Lehi and his company…landed on the continent of South America, in Chili [sic ], thirty degrees, south latitude' ([Richards, F., and J. Little, eds. Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel, rev. ed. Salt Lake City, 1925], p.272). This view was accepted by Orson Pratt and printed in the footnotes to the 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon, but insufficient evidence exists to clearly attribute it to Joseph Smith ('Did Lehi Land in Chili [sic]?'; cf. Roberts[, B. H. New Witnesses for God, 3 vols. Salt Lake City, 1909], Vol. 3, pp. 501-503, and Widtsoe[, John A. Evidences and Reconciliations, 3 vols. Salt Lake City, 1951], Vol. 3, pp. 93-98)."
2-Cannon, George Q. "Book of Mormon Geography" Juvenile Instructor (1890), reprinted, Instructor (1938) ("When asked to review a map showing the supposed landing place of Lehi's company, President Joseph F. Smith declared that the "Lord had not yet revealed it""; "the authorities do not discourage private efforts to deal with the subject").
3-In the words of John A. Widtsoe, an apostle, "All such studies are legitimate, but the conclusions drawn from them, though they may be correct, must at the best be held as intelligent conjectures" (Vol. 3, p. 93).
DCP quite supposes that the Office of the First Presidency created an "in-house document formulated at some point" prior to 1992 (date of EoM's publication). Post #407.
So, why no citations by Clark in the 'Book of Mormon Geography' entry in EoM to the "First Presidency text" of which DCP speaks and supposedly pre-dates the 1992 EoM. Why no citations by Clark to Oaks and/or Maxwell, who deliberately worked the language into EoM?
Why no citations by Ludlow in the 'Cumorah' entry of EoM to the "First Presidency text" of which DCP speaks and supposedly pre-dates the 1992 EoM. Why no citations by Ludlow to Oaks and/or Maxwell, who deliberately worked the language into EoM?
Ludlow and Clark both cited to many footnotes, but both need to keep the "First Presidency text" of which DCP speaks and supposedly pre-dates the 1992 EoM a secret? A secret that DCP is now letting out of the bag?
There seems to be no end to the extent that DCP will go in imagining something that excuses FARMS from having created the no-doctrine position of the LDS Church on the geography of Cumorah. DCP will suppose that there's some in-house document created at the Office of the First Presidency that Ludlow had access to and lifted phrases from for the EoM, without citing to or otherwise attributing the source.
But on the other hand, DCP and Hamblin dismiss what Watson wrote on October 16, 1990 as Watson's "misunderstanding" despite his official position with the First Presidency, and his explaining that "[t]he 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."
All of which begs the question, why DCP do you not put yourself out of this misery and get a copy of the file copy at the Office of the First Presidency of the 4/23/1993 letter from Watson to Hamblin, or barring that, a shiny new letter with this boilerplate signed by the Secretary to the First Presidency?
Do you not dare ask for it?
Do you fear what the response will be?
Do you fear what the implications for your life's work might be?