Palmer: Two Items on Joseph Smith and Early Mormon Polygamy

[_Simon Belmont]

An Mormon Insider's View of anti-Mormonism!

How long have you been an anti-Mormon?

Read the title again, Buffalo.

[_Buffalo]

An Mormon Insider's View of anti-Mormonism!

How long have you been an anti-Mormon?

Read the title again, Buffalo.

Well, that doesn't really compare to Palmer's work - an insider's view on Mormon origins. Palmer is a Mormon insider, like almost everyone here. You're not an anti-Mormon insider, although many of them would say you're doing a heckuva job.

[_Simon Belmont]

Well, that doesn't really compare to Palmer's work - an insider's view on Mormon origins. Palmer is a Mormon insider, like almost everyone here. You're not an anti-Mormon insider, although many of them would say you're doing a heckuva job.

It compares exactly to Palmer's work.

Grand Palmer is not an insider to Mormon origins. He'd have to be 200+ years old!

[_Themis]

It compares exactly to Palmer's work.

Grand Palmer is not an insider to Mormon origins. He'd have to be 200+ years old!

You have to be extremely stupid to come up with that.

[_Themis]

]

It compares exactly to Palmer's work.

Grand Palmer is not an insider to Mormon origins. He'd have to be 200+ years old!

Personally I think you know you are being dishonest here.

[_Themis]

Awesome.

Stay tuned for my new book:

An Mormon Insider's View of anti-Mormonism!

What credibility I'll have!

Look forward to it. You would be a Mormon insider just like I am, but of course not an insider to anti-mormonism, but then neither would I or most people here.

[_Buffalo]

It compares exactly to Palmer's work.

Grand Palmer is not an insider to Mormon origins. He'd have to be 200+ years old!

Nor did he ever claim to be. Try to keep up.

[_Daniel Peterson]

This is so dumb. It reminds of the debate Mormons have with evangelicals about whether they are "christians." In both cases, one side defines the term to exclude/include the other side. But when you don't have much else to attack (like in the case of Palmer's book), look for any little crack you can, shove a crowbar into it, and try to make it as wide as possible.

If that were all we did, and if (as you imply) that were the only criticism we had leveled against his book, you would have a point.

As it is, you don't.

He probably has a more relevant background to talk about church history than someone who is, say, an expert in Islamic studies.

I, of course, haven't held myself up as an authority on Church history, so your assertion is irrelevant.

But it's also a dubious principle.

A person might, for instance, be an expert in both Islamic studies and Church history. (Davis Bitton and Stanley Kimball, in fact, were experts both in pre-modern European history and in Mormon history, and each of them published books and articles in both areas, and both of them served as presidents of the Mormon History Association.)

As it happens, I've actually published more on Mormon history than Grant Palmer had by my age, and more than he had published prior to publishing Insider's View. (It was easily accomplished: He had published precisely nothing.)

I would say any member who has been in the church for many years and especially if they grew up in the church could be viewed as an insider.

In one sense, surely. But not in the relevant sense.

Palmer sets his book up as an effort to tell other Mormons the inside but heretofore untold truth about Mormon origins. He must, accordingly, be an "insider" in a sense that doesn't apply simply to just "any member who has been in the church for many years." He claims to have truth that they don't have. Why? Not because he's a member of the Church. So are they. Rather, because he's got the inside scoop on what historians have discovered.

In the end it is just an attack on Palmer because of what he wrote.

It is a criticism of what he claimed. So, yes, in a sense, it is an attack on Palmer because of what he wrote about himself. And a perfectly appropriate one, too.

[_Themis]

Palmer sets his book up as an effort to tell other Mormons the inside but heretofore untold truth about Mormon origins.

Well that is essentially correct

He must, accordingly, be an "insider" in a sense that doesn't apply simply to just "any member who has been in the church for many years." He claims to have truth that they don't have.

Again he would be correct.

Why? Not because he's a member of the Church. So are they. Rather, because he's got the inside scoop on what historians have discovered.

Aagain he would be correct.

It is a criticism of what he claimed. So, yes, in a sense, it is an attack on Palmer because of what he wrote about himself. And a perfectly appropriate one, too.

The criticism is of course incorrect, and thus just becomes an attack on Palmer. If you would just stick to the issues and try to show he is incorrect, but most of what he talks about is correct and most apologists would agree with it. Some you don't, and that is the stuff you should deal with, not the BS that he somehow is not an insider. It is also childish and dumb as FC has stated.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Palmer sets his book up as an effort to tell other Mormons the inside but heretofore untold truth about Mormon origins.

Well that is essentially correct

Your remark is ambiguous.

You may have intended to endorse what I said, but I think you were actually intending to endorse Grant Palmer's claim that he had "insider" knowledge not accessible to other members of the Church.

But if that's what you intended to say, you've just undercut your position that he was claiming to be an insider only in the sense that he, like his supposedly less knowledgeable audience, holds membership in the Church.

Few members of the Church would be very interested in a book entitled A View of Mormon Origins from a Church Member Whose Historical Background is Just Like Yours and Every Other Member's.

But, of course, it is precisely his claim that what he was telling was the "truth" about Mormon origins to which his reviewers took quite substantive exception.

He claims to have truth that they don't have.

Again he would be correct.

You can't have it both ways, Themis.

If he was claiming "insider" knowledge of which other members were unaware, then his "insider" claim didn't simply assert that he was a member of the Church. And it becomes a fair topic for a reviewer to examine.

Which is exactly what our reviewers did. And they argued that, in fact, he didn't have the "truth" about Mormon origins.

he's got the inside scoop on what historians have discovered.

Aagain he would be correct.

And I'm sure that you feel quite certain of that.

But five very serious and very respected Mormon historians -- Louis Midgley (who has written a great deal on Mormon intellectual history and about Mormon historiography, growing out of his formal training in the history of Protestant and Catholic political theology), Mark Ashurst-McGee, Steven Harper, Davis Bitton (a former president of the Mormon History Association and a former assistant Church historian), and James Allen (also a former president of the Mormon History Association and also a former assistant Church historian) -- denied this. And, in a formal statement from the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, a number of other prominent historians of Mormonism (led by Jill Derr), denied it as well.

So it's not indisputable that you're right.

The criticism is of course incorrect,

It is entirely correct.

If you would just stick to the issues and try to show he is incorrect, but most of what he talks about is correct and most apologists would agree with it.

That isn't what the reviewers said.

Some you don't, and that is the stuff you should deal with,

And we did.

not the BS that he somehow is not an insider.

He's not. Not in any relevant sense. The claim was a marketing ploy, but it was also false.

It is entirely apropos to point that out.

It is also childish and dumb as FC has stated.

It is neither. You and FC are wrong.