malkie wrote:Do you think that nay of Jenkins' arguments, for example, can be dismissed as the product of bias?
Like I said earlier, I read the interchange between Jenkins and Hamblin on Patheos during the time it was going on. Also, as I said, asking me to remember the details at this point...I haven't gone back and re-looked at it since I followed it at that time...would be an exercise in futility. But since we are all biased...and may not be fully aware of how those biases affect our concious responses/intellect...even among the best and brightest of us... it would be very difficult to look at another and determine whether or not they are acting without bias/prejudice. In what is said or left unsaid, etc.
malkie wrote:AFAICS Jenkins approached his criticism of LDS scriptures in the same way as he would the scriptures of any other religion - he asked for verifiable evidence that would satisfy any disinterested trained historian. I don't see any bias at play there.
I suppose we'd have to go back and read/look at the whole interchange again in detail. All I was saying is that I don't think we can underestimate the effect that biases/prejudices may play as we communicate with each other. Especially when it comes to religion and politics.
I read those exchanges, in which Jenkins deployed the tools of a professional historian (which are, oddly enough, specifically designed to minimise the effects of 'biases/prejudices') to evaluate the claims that Hamblin advanced.
By the time Jenkins had done, there was not much left of Hamblin's position.
I notice that mentalgymnast does not deny that this is what took place - instead he falls back on saying he can't really remember it all very clearly. Maybe he could take a little look at maybe a part of the exchange, and show us any significant issue on which the difference in the Jenkins and Hamblin view of things can be reduced to a simple matter of 'biases/prejudices'?
by the way, had it been a case of an LDS historian wiping the floor with a non-Mormon critic during a long series of exchanges, I take leave to doubt that mentalgymnast would be telling us he couldn't really remember what took place, and that due weight had to be given to the role of 'biases/prejudices' in the positions taken by the LDS scholar involved.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
I'd like to think MG mistakes tone for honesty. I'd like to think he fundamentally misunderstands rigorous intellectual exchange due to myopia, but I don't. It's been too long and I've read too many of these exchanges to know otherwise. The dude is just straight up a hack.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
maksutov wrote:Jenkins has biases but not Hamblin?
Exactly. You'll notice Mg has done his typical rewrite since being called on it.
mg, first pass, wrote:The fact is, we can be fairly certain that Jenkins is biased and/or prejudiced. He will probably not be willing...or even able...to tell/explain those biases/prejudices to you. They're built up over a lifetime. We/he may not even be fully aware of what those biases/prejudices might be...or at least fully be able to articulate what they are, or are no.
mg, in his dishonest rewrite, wrote:I suppose we'd have to go back and read/look at the whole interchange again in detail. All I was saying is that I don't think we can underestimate the effect that biases/prejudices may play as we communicate with each other.
Mg's whole rant about Jenkins' biases and nothing about Hamblin's (until caught) is a great object lesson for ihaq's number 6 on his intellectual dishonesty list:
6. Demonstrate consistency. A clear sign of intellectual dishonesty is when someone extensively relies on double standards. Typically, an excessively high standard is applied to the perceived opponent(s), while a very low standard is applied to the ideologues’ allies.
By the way, did anybody notice this neat way of attempting to get Jenkins' demolition of Hamblin put safely 'on the shelf'?
mentalgymnast wrote:I suppose we'd have to go back and read/look at the whole interchange again in detail.
No we won't. So far as a historian can ever show that his or her opponent's position is without merit or rational basis, Jenkins did that to Hamblin.
Suggesting that somehow the whole question of who did what to whom has to be suspended pending a complete re-examination of the exchange is like saying that we need to look at the whole King Arthur/Black Knight exchange again in detail. We don't. King Arthur walked away without a scratch on him, and the Black Knight ...
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
Chap wrote:By the way, did anybody notice this neat way of attempting to get Jenkins' demolition of Hamblin put safely 'on the shelf'?
mentalgymnast wrote:I suppose we'd have to go back and read/look at the whole interchange again in detail.
No we won't. So far as a historian can ever show that his or her opponent's position is without merit or rational basis, Jenkins did that to Hamblin.
Suggesting that somehow the whole question of who did what to whom has to be suspended pending a complete re-examination of the exchange is like saying that we need to look at the whole King Arthur/Black Knight exchange again in detail. We don't. King Arthur walked away without a scratch on him, and the Black Knight ...
It's like the people who claim the jury is still out on evolution, that evolution is an endangered theory that will be abandoned any moment now...but they're speaking to a Sunday school class in a fundy church using fraudulent materials from the Morris clan and wondering why the world doesn't take them seriously.
MG says that we should "go back" and read the exchange again. I doubt that he read it in the first place, any more than he bothers to read anything that doesn't come from his favorite apologists. The irritating part is all of the denials, evasions, red herrings, claims of persecution, attempts to rewrite histories of threads. etc. MG doesn't want to set foot on the field but he's all about working the refs.
"Hardy (history & religious studies, Univ. of North Carolina, Asheville) here argues that the Book of Mormon has not received, but deserves, treatment as a literary document on its own terms and that in order to do so the questions of historicity need to be bracketed.
MG -
This is a fairly disingenuous tactic. Hardy knows that the Book of Mormon represents it's context as factual and historical, and it is rejected by most folks on the basis of that claim versus what is known otherwise. Hardy then pleads that we begin to consider it "on its own terms", whatever that means, as a way to introduce legitimacy through a back door approach. Were folks to take up the offer to do what Hardy suggests, then Hardy would seek to use the existence of such analyses as proof that the Book must be 'real' because folks outside the faith bothered to spend time writing about it.
Back to something like the LOTR series, or any of the 'alternate universe' collections of popular fictional phenomenon like Star Wars - a large body of related literature or analyses exists for those because they're honest about their fictionality and the audience then explores them within that condition. They don't pretend to reality and demand that an audience coalesce to analyze theses works based on an unspoken assumption of historicity in order to gain validation as such.
mentalgymnast wrote:Everyone is biased and/or prejudiced. ... You are saying that Philip Jenkins isn't either one or both?
Regards, MG
MG -
Within that exchange (Hamblin and Jenkins) can you let me know which parts were biased and/or prejudiced, and how this affected the outcome or conclusions?
"Hardy (history & religious studies, Univ. of North Carolina, Asheville) here argues that the Book of Mormon has not received, but deserves, treatment as a literary document on its own terms and that in order to do so the questions of historicity need to be bracketed.
MG -
This is a fairly disingenuous tactic. Hardy knows that the Book of Mormon represents it's context as factual and historical, and it is rejected by most folks on the basis of that claim versus what is known otherwise. Hardy then pleads that we begin to consider it "on its own terms", whatever that means, as a way to introduce legitimacy through a back door approach. Were folks to take up the offer to do what Hardy suggests, then Hardy would seek to use the existence of such analyses as proof that the Book must be 'real' because folks outside the faith bothered to spend time writing about it.
Back to something like the LOTR series, or any of the 'alternate universe' collections of popular fictional phenomenon like Star Wars - a large body of related literature or analyses exists for those because they're honest about their fictionality and the audience then explores them within that condition. They don't pretend to reality and demand that an audience coalesce to analyze theses works based on an unspoken assumption of historicity in order to gain validation as such.
Chap wrote:By the way, did anybody notice this neat way of attempting to get Jenkins' demolition of Hamblin put safely 'on the shelf'?
mentalgymnast wrote:I suppose we'd have to go back and read/look at the whole interchange again in detail.
No we won't. So far as a historian can ever show that his or her opponent's position is without merit or rational basis, Jenkins did that to Hamblin.
Suggesting that somehow the whole question of who did what to whom has to be suspended pending a complete re-examination of the exchange is like saying that we need to look at the whole King Arthur/Black Knight exchange again in detail. We don't. King Arthur walked away without a scratch on him, and the Black Knight ...
It's like the people who claim the jury is still out on evolution, that evolution is an endangered theory that will be abandoned any moment now...but they're speaking to a Sunday school class in a fundy church using fraudulent materials from the Morris clan and wondering why the world doesn't take them seriously.
Maksutov wrote:MG says that we should "go back" and read the exchange again. I doubt that he read it in the first place, any more than he bothers to read anything that doesn't come from his favorite apologists. The irritating part is all of the denials, evasions, red herrings, claims of persecution, attempts to rewrite histories of threads. etc. MG doesn't want to set foot on the field but he's all about working the refs.
Nice analogy there at the end, Maksutov.
The Jenkins-Hamblin debate was pretty fast-paced but fascinating. It should be required reading for anyone reading or writing apologetic material on any topic.
Jenkins wrote up a summary page and included all the links, which I realize now he has updated with a few new pieces at the end, I'm looking forward to reading them.
here's the intro and link:
DEBATING THE Book of Mormon Philip Jenkins. Baylor University
Between May and July 2015, I posted several items on my Anxious Bench blog concerning historicity and pseudo-history, and in the process, I denied any (literal) historical or archaeological claims associated with the Book of Mormon. My assertions naturally drew forth quite an intense reaction, reflected in numerous comments at my blog. From mid-June, these statements also provoked a blog war with BYU historian Bill Hamblin, a leading proponent of the school of Ancient Book of Mormon Studies. He hosted a debate at his blog, Enigmatic Mirror, which generated some dozens of contributions by the two of us.
In order to record the debate, and to provide a chronology, I have collected the references to each of the contributions at this site. I believe this is a full compendium of posts, but if I am wrong, I would be happy to be corrected.
I am not including here comments by other writers or blogs concerning the debate, whichever side they might take. Everything in this listing is authored either by Hamblin or myself. http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/p ... bating.htm
But since we are all biased...and may not be fully aware of how those biases affect our concious responses/intellect...even among the best and brightest of us... it would be very difficult to look at another and determine whether or not they are acting without bias/prejudice. In what is said or left unsaid, etc.
malkie wrote:AFAICS Jenkins approached his criticism of LDS scriptures in the same way as he would the scriptures of any other religion - he asked for verifiable evidence that would satisfy any disinterested trained historian. I don't see any bias at play there.
