2nd Watson Letter just found!'

[_Ray A]

Round and round the bumbleberry bush...

Unfortunately, that's the only way to find the truth.

[_Dr. Shades]

The EOM quotes Palmer's In Search of Cumorah, which was published in 1981.

Does the Encyclopedia include it as a reference?

So the EOM entry actually comes from In Search of Cumorah (and is probably what Watson used pre-1985).

So why did Watson get a statement from the First Presidency in 1990 instead of using In Search of Cumorah like he supposedly did with Hamblin?

[_Ray A]

Does the Encyclopedia include it as a reference?

It does. You can check it yourself.

So why did Watson get a statement from the First Presidency in 1990 instead of using In Search of Cumorah like he supposedly did with Hamblin?

Religious politics? Who knows? ("The Brethren" apparently deferred to the scholars. They may have adopted Palmer's findings rather than asking the Lord?)

[_beastie]

Curiouser and curiouser.

by the way, I think this does prove DCP is acting in good faith and is not being deliberately deceptive. But despite cal's protests otherwise, I think this also proves, as many of us have speculated, that his memory is unreliable, as well.

So why hasn't the church bothered to change its actual teachings on the subject, as in the scripture guide on its website? Are apologists being appeased without any attempt to 'educate' members otherwise? Are they just trying to get apologists to quit complaining with things like the Ogden fax?

[_Ray A]

So why hasn't the church bothered to change its actual teachings on the subject, as in the scripture guide on its website? Are apologists being appeased without any attempt to 'educate' members otherwise? Are they just trying to get apologists to quit complaining with things like the Ogden fax?

It gets even more complicated when you consider DCP's statement:

I agree with this. I don't think the Church ever has, or ever should, teach the two-Cumorah theory.

It seems clear, even to a dunce like me, that they are in utter turmoil about this issue. It may also explain Watson's contradictory statements. It seems like Dan is saying, on the one hand, "well, this is what the scholars have found", but on the other, "let's keep an open mind", especially if the prophets declare otherwise (safety net). Remember that Dan is someone who believes that faith "should often" contradict known evidence, otherwise it would not be "real" faith. If the prophet came out tomorrow and said that there is only one Cumorah, and that the final Nephite battles were fought in NY, Dan would burn all previous "scholarly" thought on the subject.

Or he would have to join us in apostasy.

Just my guess.

[_Nimrod]

OH. MY. GOD.

So, now Hamblin is claiming that Watson quoted from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism back in 1985--a full eight years before the Encyclopedia even existed?

For my money, I think DCP is acting in good faith. I think that Hamblin, on the other hand, is simply making things up as he goes along. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is, after all, the same guy who gave us "Metcalfe is Butthead."

NIMROD: Switching gears a little, in order for me to better digest everything you wrote to me above, would you kindly give me your own version of the timeline of events?

I am using your list as a starting point, so much of it is your words, Dr Shades (no plagiarism intended), but here's how I see it from your starting point:

1. The Tanners publish the 10/16/1990 Watson Letter (can't quite call it the "First Watson Letter" anymore).
2. The Encyclopedia of Mormonism is published in 1992, with the 'Cumorah' entry authored by David Palmer.
3. Some anti-Mormons in Texas use the First Watson Letter to counteract Mopologetic theories about Mesoamerica.
4. Several members begin questioning FARMS about its Mesoamerica hypothesis in light of the 10/16/1990 Watson letter, and Hamblin tasks Brent Hall, office manager, to get what he can by way of a retraction out of Watson.
5. Brent Hall contacts the Church Office Building in April 1993 and eventually gets connected to Watson, explains what is in the 'Cumorah' entry, causes Watson to question himself (and the 10/16/1990 letter) about what the LDS doctrine on the subject is, explains that scientific evidence is mounting and the Church needs a retraction, convinces Watson to issue a retraction and faxes up language composed by Hall (or Hamblin) taken from the 'Cumorah' entry in EoM but with "including Mesoamerica" excised from it.
6. Watson tasks Ogden with putting the verbiage into a fax to send back Brent Hall back, giving himself and the Brethren a little needed distance from a flat out retraction.
7. Brent Hall receives the fax and circulates among his superiors at FARMS. Since the fax is unsigned and not from Watson himself, Hall types up his own memo explaining that he'd talked to Watson, quotes the fax, and then signs his memo. Or maybe he handwrites on copies of the fax itself. Thus, the "4/23/1993 Watson Letter" and the "Carla Ogden fax" are one and the same.
8. Hamblin quotes the Ogden Fax (that did not have "including Mesoamerica" as an example of members' speculations) except that he leaves off the end of the Ogden Fax ("that has been suggested") in Hamblin's article and the Brent Hall Cover as recent, clarifying correspondence from Watson in Hamblin's Journal of Book of Mormon Studies article. Hamblin knows that the 4/23/1993 Ogden Fax and Brent Hall Cover do not rise to the level of authenticity and validity as a statement of LDS doctrine as the 10/16/1990 Watson letter does, so Hamblin intentional makes vague his citation reference to in in footnote 70.
9. Soon after that article is passed and for 16 years, critics inquire into the provenance of the unrevealed and undiscovered 4/23/1993 Watson Letter, which Hamblin and DCP insist exists, held in their very hands, seen with their very eyes.
10. Gregory Smith becomes excited that the (supposed) 4/23/1993 Watson Letter is discovered, since it's the actual fax from the First Presidency's office, NOT Brent Hall's write-up and explanation of it.
11. DCP speculates on a mythical Ur-text that's supposedly the source of A) the EoM article, B) the 4/23/1993 Watson Letter, and C) the Carla Ogden fax (not realizing that B and C are the same item). His speculations are mistaken, because if such an Ur-text existed, then the 10/16/1990 Watson Letter would have drawn from it, too.

[_Nimrod]

Curiouser and curiouser.

by the way, I think this does prove DCP is acting in good faith and is not being deliberately deceptive.

How much good faith has DCP demonstrated?

One day he posts that Hamblin must have no idea of this Watson letter mess; the next day DCP posts a quote from his own e-mail/text to Hamblin that Metcalfe has now jumped into the fray (with no need to explain to Hamblin what fray that would be).

He denies the possibility that the Ogden Fax is the 4/23/1993 'Watson letter', refusing to entertain the possibility or express any intellectual curiosity despite the date being the very one in issue, the sending Office the same, the receiving FARMS the same, and the verbiage being identical but for the ending phrase, "that has been suggested." Not what I would consider 'good faith' demonstrated.

DCP has posted dozens of times that this issue is of no importance to him, Hamblin or FARMS, all the while he is texting Hamblin about it, talking to colleagues at BYU about it, and calling the Office of the First Presidency about it. That demonstrates good faith that it is, as DCP has protested time and again, that it is of no importance to him.

Despite Metcalfe's having posted the Z board quotes of DCP about the interactions of FARMS and the Brethren, DCP continued to post that FARMS did nothing of the sort.

With all due respect--and my respect is genuine in particular due to your efforts to enlighten the zealots in the last few days--I must disagree that anything in this episode proves DCP has acted in good faith.

[_Gadianton]

I need to think about this new revelation before commenting too extensively.

One note, however, if Hamblin is really telling the truth, then isn't this case a classic example of the pitfalls of apologetics? Isn't it interesting how all of the apologists just assumed, like sheep, that what Hamblin and DCP maintained was right, it didn't matter how bizarre a coincidence it was that the same letter would be faxed carelessly and also composed with care on official FP letterhead? I mean, doesn't this just show what a sham the entire foundations of apologetics are -- to make make favorable assumptions before hand and just deny the facts or try to work everything in no matter how logically strained and ridiculous? No one was even the least bit skeptical over there on MAD, were they?

[_beastie]

Wait just a minute. If Watson knew the "right" answer in 1985 in his letter to Hamblin, why in the world did he give the "wrong" answer in 1990?????

[_Gadianton]

Oh, I think they are screwed now. Because they'll need to update the FAIR wiki to say that the 1990 document is a correction of the error made to Hamblin.