Probability and NHM

[Uncle Dale]

That's flat nonsense, and unworthy of a response.  Professor Hamblin has told me that he regards continued participation in this discussion as a waste of time, and I agree with him.

Dr. Peterson, if you were to write up a paper on this issue and submit it to a refereed, non-LDS journal, I'm confident that they would agree with my assessment. I invite you to prove me wrong.

No doubt there is some scholarly journal, in which the etymology of NHM and the

excavation of Nehem in Yemen might be discussed professionally, (with mention of

the BoM tie-in relegated to the footnotes).

I would welcome seeing the FARMS-associated scholars having their papers set before

a wider readership, for review and comment. They might then cite their own non-LDS

contributions to knoweldge, back within the cloister of future FARMS activity.

The BYU profs' cooperation in Dead Sea Scrolls studies follows this sort of publishing

pattern, does it not? Some material offered to a wider reading audience, and some

other, more specialized reporting directed at the LDS readership?

Uncle Dale

[cinepro]

It is quite easy for us to remove the angel from the equation. We could simply state that Joseph lost the artifacts, or that they were stolen. We could say that he found the gold plates under a stone, where they were buried. We could come up with any number of scenarios in which Joseph Smith translated the Gold Plates without the assistance of an angel.

You could. But you don't.

[Dan Vogel]

Bill,

Sorry to hear about your premature departure from the game you started.

Since the 188 non-Biblical BofM names do not use F, Q, V, W, X, Y, we are talking about 16 consonants.

Vogel's growing desperation is assuming amusing proportions. Vogel now wants to rig the probability game by claiming that the range of possible letter choices for JS should not be determined by the letters in the English alphabet, but only by those letters that JS actually chose. Thus, if we try to determine the probability of selecting the name George from the English alphabet, using Vogel

[thesometimesaint]

New Kid OTB:

Talk about poisoning the well. The only researchers that are to be trusted are non-LDS.

[New Kid OTB]

Talk about poisoning the well. The only researchers that are to be trusted are non-LDS.

Since I said nothing of the sort, feel free to let down your bucket and drink to your heart's content.

[Daniel Peterson]

Dr. Peterson, if you were to write up a paper on this issue and submit it to a refereed, non-LDS journal, I'm confident that they would agree with my assessment.  I invite you to prove me wrong.

Okay. That stock response tempts me back into a reply.

Let's suppose that I wrote something up about this and submitted it to a refereed non-LDS journal. You're confident that said journal would reject my submission with essentially the same disdain that you feel toward the NHM idea.

On what grounds do you believe that they would hold the idea in contempt?

Would they object that NHM had not actually been found on three inscribed altar pieces? Clearly, they would not. Those findings have already been published in refereed non-LDS journals.

Would they object to the dating of the altar pieces to roughly 600 BC? No. The dates have already been published in refereed non-LDS journals.

Would they object to the purported location of the finds? No. The location has already been identified in refereed non-LDS journals.

So the factuality, the date, and the location of the NHM artifacts clearly poses no problem for refereed non-LDS journals. Accordingly, one side of the NHM/Nahom comparison is wholly unproblematic by normal academic standards.

What about the other side? Here is where the problem lies. Denominational polemics or apologetics are stoutly resisted by mainstream academia. Not because the issues are intrinsically uninteresting or because the arguments are necessarily fallacious but because sectarian religious matters have been determined to be inappropriate for the public square. (I remember a case in which I was tangentially involved some years ago: A certain author proposed a paper for delivery at a regional meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, which, that year, was to be held at BYU. [Presumably that was the reason for his choice of a topic.] He intended, he said, to critique the Mormon doctrine of God. His proposal was vetoed not by the local organizing committee but by the president and president-elect of the SCP -- respectively, George Mavrodes of the University of Michigan and Marilyn Adams, then of Yale University and now of Oxford -- on the grounds that neither sectarian advocacy nor denominational critiques had any place in an academic meeting. They suggested that, instead, he critique, say, Blake Ostler's writings about God, or David Paulsen's. Significantly, he declined to refocus his paper, so his proposal was rejected.)

Arguing for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon is inescapably a matter of denominational or sectarian advocacy. It cannot be otherwise, since admission of the antiquity of the Book of Mormon is tantamount to acceptance of the prophethood of Joseph Smith. (The antiquity of the Bible, by contrast, is universally acknowledged, and accepting it is compatible with Catholicism, Judaism, evangelicalism, and even atheism.) As such, it would be ruled out of bounds from the get-go.

This is one of the principal reasons why discussions of Lehi's journey through Arabia (which have accepted the same basic route since Hugh Nibley's first publications on the subject in 1950) occur in Latter-day Saint venues, and not in secular journals of ancient history and archaeology. (There is also, of course, the general lack of interest in and knowledge of the specifics of Latter-day Saint claims regarding the Book of Mormon.) It explains why a paper that intended to examine NHM as evidence for the Book of Mormon would not be accepted for publication in a secular, mainstream journal. It would not be because the paper was necessarily unrigorous or even wrong -- peer review occasionally (though not always) eliminates badly done papers, incidentally, but lack of peer review doesn't, in and of itself, demonstrate a paper or book to be bad -- but because its topic was ideologically out of bounds and, for reasons of academic comity and decorum, inappropriate. This is why demonstrating the relevance of the academically legitimate finds of the NHM altars to the Book of Mormon will continue to be a topic for, among other locations, peer-reviewed LDS publications such as the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, but not for secular or mainstream scholarly organs.

NHM continues to me to be a very nice (though plainly not decisive) instance of a theory (in this case, Nibley's 1950-1952 proposal regarding the Arabian route of the Lehite company and the Hiltons' 1976 refinement of that proposal) gaining plausibility because of much more recent archaeological finds that are strikingly consistent with what that theory would have led us to expect. I find it absolutely fascinating, psychologically speaking, that some appear to want to deny even a tiny trace of relevant significance to such a find. Plainly, there is a strong desire to ensure that nothing, absolutely nothing, count in even the least degree against a decision to disbelieve. The notion that this is merely an "absurd game," "a hand-waving argument based on cherry-picked data and post facto interpretations," equivalent to the so-called Bible Code, is nothing more than insubstantial blather and bluster, wholly false, and an attempt to substitute scornful but hollow rhetoric for actual substantive engagement with the issues raised by the NHM finds.

[asbestosman]

Mr. Vogel, I would like some clarification.

My suggestion that we limit the number of consonants comes from their absence from at least 188 names in the BofM. That doesn

[Marcelo]

If you understand why the above facts do not constitute significant evidence for a mystical link between Lincoln and Kennedy, then you also understand why the NHM hits aren't as impressive as they seem at first blush.

That's what I call a false analogy or misunderstanding of Mathematical Probabilities.

We are trying to figure out what was the probability to match NHM in a specific part of the Arabic Peninsula for Joseph Smith. Period!

Now, if we start with 2 famous US presidents that were killed by a gunshot! Period! How many similitudes could we find to enhance our case?

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.

John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

But how many elections did both of them take part? How many charges do they both have around their life that would match an exactly difference of 100 years, or apart by 50 years, or 150 years, or 200 years, if they lived almost 100 years apart? Or how many positions could they both be assumed in the same day, or in the same month, or in the same day of week, etc?

This probability could be calculated, notice that 100 years is a pos-factum analogy, we only highlight it after know about it. We could highlight any similitude in months, days, weekdays, etc. after notice the parallel events. With BOM we have a pre-factum, a toponym in 600 BC called Nahom by others outside the Lehite group in the Arabic Peninsula. The event is already given. Could it be corroborated? What was the probability of it happens by chance? Period!

All of your examples below are post factuns, highlighted after noticed, we could calculated the probability of any similar event that occurs by chance, considered that any pos-factum similitude could be highlighted.

>Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.

>John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

I think that it is a good coincidence, but btw, it was in the same day and month? How many politicians that were elected and killed could be put in a exactly time difference of 1 day, 1 month, 1 year, 10 years, 50 years, 100 years? 200 hundred years apart? The probability could be also calculated!.

>Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.

I think that almost every President is concerned about civil rights! Almost 100% of Probability of similitude!

>Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.

Well, we have only 7 days to be shot. Was it at the same hour? Or in mathematician terms, 1/7 is the probability of 2 persons be killed in the same weekday. If I pick out from the set of all politicians that were killed by a gun on the head, what is the probability that 2 of them were killed in the same day of the week?

>Both Presidents were shot in the head.

Not much options to a killer's shot, the heart or the head?

>Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.

>Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

How many secretaries, mounthspeakers, body-guards,a president has in turn of him that could give you parallel names?

.

:

.

>: A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland

>A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

Ok! But a week, a day , a month, two months, a year before they could be anywhere in the same place. It's also another pos-factum which probability could be calculated.

That's the major difference between Comoras/Moroni (Riplia Creek, etc.) and Nahom probability, that some of you didn't understand yet.

The first ones are pos-factum that could be correlated like the Lincoln/Kennedy pararalelisms.

The second is already an event set up. Period!

Regards!

[Uncle Dale]

Dr. Peterson, if you were to write up a paper on this issue and submit it to a refereed, non-LDS journal, I'm confident that they would agree with my assessment.  I invite you to prove me wrong.

Here is where the problem lies. Denominational polemics or apologetics are stoutly resisted by mainstream academia. ...

I'm not so sure of that. The Journal of Biblical Literature and Catholic Biblical

Quarterly both occasionally publish reputable articles, in which a denominational

bias can be detected. The same can be said for other, similar scholarly publications.

No doubt there is some scholarly journal, in which the etymology of NHM and the

excavation of Nehem in Yemen might be discussed professionally, (with mention of

the BoM tie-in relegated to the footnotes).

I would welcome seeing the FARMS-associated scholars having their papers set before

a wider readership, for review and comment. They might then cite their own non-LDS

contributions to knoweldge, back within the cloister of future FARMS activity.

The BYU profs' cooperation in Dead Sea Scrolls studies follows this sort of publishing

pattern, does it not? Some material offered to a wider reading audience, and some

other, more specialized reporting directed at the LDS readership?

Probably a paper such as I have suggested, concentrating upon the etymology of

NHM and the archaeological discoveries at Nehem would best be submitted to a journal

specializing in ancient Semetic languages and inscriptions. In such a paper you could

relegate the BoM tie-in to a footnote which cited Meridian Magazine or some

other LDS-oriented articles.

Once your NHM paper was safely and solidly within the non-sectarian scholarly

literature, THEN a more BoM-empahsizing article, accompanied by nice photographs,

could be submitted to Biblical Archaeology, a journal that stands on the fringe

between popular and scholarly reporting.

Or, do you know in advance that your article submissions to such journals would be

refused, based upon your general reputation in connection with FARMS efforts?

Uncle Dale

[cinepro]

Dr. Peterson, as an LDS reader of the Book of Mormon, I find the subject of this thread fascinating, but I can't help but think that if I had solely an interest in ancient history, I would find the NHM tie to the Book of Mormon interesting as well. Would it be possible to write a scholarly article that presents this evidence not as being decisive for the Book of Mormon, but merely really, really interesting (if only from a mathmatical perspective).

Do you think there are journals that deal with ancient history or archaeology that would accept something like this? The "thesis" doesn't have to be "The Book of Mormon is true", can't it just be "The Book of Mormon mentions a place called Nahom, which seems related to this place in Arabia?" or something like that?

[asbestosman]

Do you think there are journals that deal with ancient history or archaeology that would accept something like this? The "thesis" doesn't have to be "The Book of Mormon is true", can't it just be "The Book of Mormon mentions a place called Nahom, which seems related to this place in Arabia?" or something like that?

You mean like Troy mentioned in Homer's epic poem, The Iliad?

[Magyar]

The late great Hugh Nibley was able to do this now and then -- get articles on ancient temples and such into scholarly magazines, with an occassional nod to LDS beliefs.

[New Kid OTB]

In response to Dr. Peterson, it's strange that professional decorum compels us to deprive anthropologists of evidence authenticating a collection of information-rich ancient documents. (And yes, I realize that apologists periodically caution us that the spirit is the only compelling evidence, but they also contradict that disclaimer regularly.)

The NHM argument is hand-waving because probabilistic conclusions are drawn without attempting even a rough statistical analysis. The data is quite obviously cherry-picked -- nobody has argued otherwise. As to the post facto interpretations, how do we know that the phrase "the place which was called Nahom" means that the name predated Lehi's party, or that the place was named after the tribe living there? And what leads us to believe that Ishmael was buried in a formal burial ground? Were these assumptions made before or after we discovered the altars?

None of this means that the NHM altars are necessarily unassociated with the Book of Mormon. It does mean that more rigor is required before we can credibly make that association.

Marcelo, I don't understand the distinction you're making when you say, "The first ones are pos-factum that could be correlated like the Lincoln/Kennedy pararalelisms. The second is already an event set up. Period!"

Thanks.

[Uncle Dale]

None of this means that the NHM altars are necessarily unassociated with the Book of Mormon. It does mean that more rigor is required before we can credibly make that association.

OK -- the way this sort of topic is often pursued in academia is that a university

professor will farm out (no pun intended) certain aspects of his/her core research work

to a few of the junior colleagues and graduate students in the department or college,

and in seminars, colloqua, and independent studies programs, those associates will

make contributions that end up being published in peer-reviewed professional journals,

either under the lead professor's name, or as joint-participant papers.

In this way a "body of scholarly reporting" is built up in the reputable literature, all of

which, taken together, constitutes a contribution to knowledge. Other researchers and

experts also contribute supportive or non-supportive papers, reviews, theses, etc.

Once this sort of scholarly groundwork has been laid, THEN the more adventurous and

innovative aspects of the core topic can be submitted for consideration in learned

societies' paper-readings and further publication efforts.

Thus, Dr. Peterson's initial contributions need not bear the blazing headline of "Book of

Mormon Proved Historical by Astounding Arabian Discoveries!" -- but rather would

appear in some staid quarterly serial devoted to old Semetic inscriptions, with a title

such as "Preliminary Lingusitic Explorations of NHM in an Arabian Setting," or some

such boring moniker.

Once the peer "rigor" is applied to his article, by expert critics, then the interesting

"association" with things Mormon might be published in an entirely different journal.

I think that FARMS scholars are reluctant to enter upon this tedious and demanding

pathway to reputable acknowledgement. I can only guess at their reasons, however.

Uncle Dale

[Dan Vogel]

Aspestosman,

It must be my BYU education, but I honestly don't see what you mean here. Are you trying to say that all 188 names are going to be the target and that the probability of correctly guessing all 188 using a smaller alphabet is less than the probability of only getting 1 target name using a slightly larger alphabet? If that is so, you are mathematicly correct.

Are you saying that given a smaller alphabet it's harder to find 188 valid names from a smaller alphabet given that other valid names use more of the alphabet? I'm certain that would be a faulty argument. You would need to know the ratio of valid new names introduced to the ratio invalid new names introduced by expanding the alphabet.

No. You misunderstand my position. Remember, I said, a smaller alphabet would make my test more difficult. According to my test, the target is all Semitic names. That would have been a JS

[asbestosman]

Aspestosman,

It must be my BYU education, but I honestly don't see what you mean here. Are you trying to say that all 188 names are going to be the target and that the probability of correctly guessing all 188 using a smaller alphabet is less than the probability of only getting 1 target name using a slightly larger alphabet? If that is so, you are mathematicly correct.

Are you saying that given a smaller alphabet it's harder to find 188 valid names from a smaller alphabet given that other valid names use more of the alphabet? I'm certain that would be a faulty argument. You would need to know the ratio of valid new names introduced to the ratio invalid new names introduced by expanding the alphabet.

No. You misunderstand my position. Remember, I said, a smaller alphabet would make my test more difficult. According to my test, the target is all Semitic names. That would have been a JS

[Dan Vogel]

Dr. Peterson,

NHM continues to me to be a very nice (though plainly not decisive) instance of a theory (in this case, Nibley's 1950-1952 proposal regarding the Arabian route of the Lehite company and the Hiltons' 1976 refinement of that proposal) gaining plausibility because of much more recent archaeological finds that are strikingly consistent with what that theory would have led us to expect. I find it absolutely fascinating, psychologically speaking, that some appear to want to deny even a tiny trace of relevant significance to such a find. Plainly, there is a strong desire to ensure that nothing, absolutely nothing, count in even the least degree against a decision to disbelieve. The notion that this is merely an "absurd game," "a hand-waving argument based on cherry-picked data and post facto interpretations," equivalent to the so-called Bible Code, is nothing more than insubstantial blather and bluster, wholly false, and an attempt to substitute scornful but hollow rhetoric for actual substantive engagement with the issues raised by the NHM finds.

For the record, I didn

[Dan Vogel]

No. You misunderstand my position. Remember, I said, a smaller alphabet would make my test more difficult. According to my test, the target is all Semitic names. That would have been a JS

[Confidential Informant]

Okay, another question for consideration here.

We believe we know where the city of "Troy" is located because it's been found. Yet to my knowledge (which is admittedly lacking on this topic) it wasn't found because of a toponym, rather it was found because the ruins were located in just about the exact location where the Illiad says they would be (there were actually about 11 cities layered one on top of another that were found. However, no toponym was found to identify which was "Troy" and it only via other evidences that that Troy VII is now believed to be the "Troy" spoken of by Homer.

Now, why is their no real dispute that the Troy found by Schliemann is the same "Troy" written about by Homer despite that fact that no toponym exists yet the NHM discovered in Arabia is disputed as the same NHM that the Book of Mormon mentions even though a properly dated toponym exists (along with other clues)?

C.I.

See The Discovery of Troy

[charity]

Because nobody's religious disbelief is challenged by the Troy question and a lot of disbelief is challenged by NHM.

[New Kid OTB]

Marcelo, and others,

To clarify my point, consider the sentence: If we found _________ , it would lend support to the Book of Mormon.

How many ways could we fill in that blank?

... a pre-Columbian picture in Mexico that appears to depict a crucifiction ...

... gold pieces in the ratio of 2:4:7 in Guatemala ...

... the name Mahora Koriantomor in an ancient Babylonian text ...

... inscriptions indicating that a tribe named Nihm inhabited an area that's a candidate for Nahom ...

... an oral tradition of an ancient prophet named Aloma in an area that seems to fit the geographical requirements for Zarahemla ...

And the list goes on and on and on, bounded only by our creativity. The odds of a given item in the list occurring by coincidence are small, but that's not important. The question is: What are the odds of any item, or handful of items, occurring by coincidence?

In other words, it's cheating to focus on a hit without considering it in the context of all possible hits.

[The Dude]

Now, why is their no real dispute that the Troy found by Schliemann is the same "Troy" written about by Homer despite that fact that no toponym exists yet the NHM discovered in Arabia is disputed as the same NHM that the Book of Mormon mentions even though a properly dated toponym exists (along with other clues)?

Whose side are you on, CI? So if Troy was accepted by the world academic community without any toponyms, then why not Nehom with three entire letters to it's name? It's got a toponym, and toponyms are way cool.

There must be a secular conspiracy against it like Charity said.

Or else you agree with Uncle Dale that FARMS isn't trying hard enough to get this convincing case published in a real journal.

Shhh, don't tell Daniel Peterson. He's sensitive.

[Daniel Peterson]

The Journal of Biblical Literature and Catholic Biblical Quarterly both occasionally publish reputable articles, in which a denominational bias can be detected. The same can be said for other, similar scholarly publications.

The existence of "a denominational bias" that "can be detected" is one thing. Outright denominational apologetics is quite another. Still, I can't say that I'm altogether astonished that believing Catholics do sometimes appear in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. Something like that, I suppose, is bound to happen occasionally.

I would welcome seeing the FARMS-associated scholars having their papers set before a wider readership, for review and comment. They might then cite their own non-LDS contributions to knoweldge, back within the cloister of future FARMS activity.

The BYU profs' cooperation in Dead Sea Scrolls studies follows this sort of publishing pattern, does it not? Some material offered to a wider reading audience, and some other, more specialized reporting directed at the LDS readership?

"The BYU profs'" -- all of them associated with FARMS -- have indeed done precisely that. I've done the same thing myself, from time to time, as have still others. A notable example would be the Harvard Theological Review articles that David Paulsen has done (most recently with Carl Griffin) on Origen, Clement, and Augustine and the idea of divine corporeality. John Gee is publishing extensively in mainstream Egyptological venues as a preparatory step to several interesting Mormon applications.

Incidentally, I should have mentioned Terryl Givens's By the Hand of Mormon, which not only discusses the NHM finds but includes a photograph of one of the altars. Oxford University Press is not only a peer-reviewed venue but perhaps the most prestigious academic press in the English-speaking world. Moreover, so far as I'm aware, it's a subsidiary of neither FARMS nor Deseret Book.

Probably a paper such as I have suggested, concentrating upon the etymology of NHM and the archaeological discoveries at Nehem would best be submitted to a journal specializing in ancient Semetic languages and inscriptions. In such a paper you could relegate the BoM tie-in to a footnote which cited Meridian Magazine or some other LDS-oriented articles.

We would scarcely cite Meridian Magazine as a source when, in fact, the NHM inscriptions have been discussed in several refereed scholarly venues.

Or, do you know in advance that your article submissions to such journals would be refused, based upon your general reputation in connection with FARMS efforts?

I have absolutely no reason to expect that Herschel Schanks or Biblical Archaeology Review would be interested in publishing an essay in Book of Mormon apologetics.

In response to Dr. Peterson, it's strange that professional decorum compels us to deprive anthropologists of evidence authenticating a collection of information-rich ancient documents.

Strange or not, that's the way things are.

(And yes, I realize that apologists periodically caution us that the spirit is the only compelling evidence, but they also contradict that disclaimer regularly.)

I'm not accountable for what some unspecified and anonymous group of "apologists" supposedly say. I have, myself, never discounted the importance of conventional evidence, though I realize its limitations.

The NHM argument is hand-waving because probabilistic conclusions are drawn without attempting even a rough statistical analysis.

It would seem that your acquaintance with "The NHM Argument" is limited to this particular thread, since, so far as I'm aware, no formal published presentation of the NHM materials has ever attempted to draw "probabilistic conclusions" from "statistical analysis."

The data is quite obviously cherry-picked -- nobody has argued otherwise.

I see nothing "cherry-picked" in the publications on NHM. Please be more specific.

As to the post facto interpretations, how do we know that the phrase "the place which was called Nahom" means that the name predated Lehi's party,

We don't know it for certain -- absolute certainty may be attainable in geometric proofs and symbolic logic, but is only very rarely available in historical or archaeological studies -- but it does seem an eminently reasonable inference to draw from the fact that, in contrast to other place names mentioned in 1 Nephi that were given by the Lehites as they passed through (e.g., "he called the name of the river Laman" [1 Nephi 2:8], "we did call the name of the place Shazer" [16:13], and "the land which we called Bountiful" [17:5]) and that, accordingly, would likely have been known only by them, Ishmael was buried in "the place which was called Nahom" (1 Nephi 16:34). That use of the passive voice suggests that this was not simply a family designation -- and implies that it preexisted and almost certainly survived beyond their sojourn there.

or that the place was named after the tribe living there?

It scarcely matters what the original source of the name might have been. The fact is that the name NHM was associated with that place anciently, just as the Book of Mormon says it was.

And what leads us to believe that Ishmael was buried in a formal burial ground?

That's just an educated guess. Ishmael was buried at Nahom. There is an ancient burial place at NHM. It would be difficult not to think of the former in view of the latter. But it's of secondary importance.

Were these assumptions made before or after we discovered the altars?

Hugh Nibley noted the apparent significance of the difference between the active-voice namings undertaken by the Lehi party, on the one hand, and, on the other, Nephi's passive-voice acknowledgement of the name Nahom, and proposed the existence of a "desert burial ground" at Nahom, in his 1950 series of articles on "Lehi in the Desert" (since reprinted in book form in 1952 and in 1988). So please explain, again, how this is all just post hoc.

Once this sort of scholarly groundwork has been laid, THEN the more adventurous and innovative aspects of the core topic can be submitted for consideration in learned societies' paper-readings and further publication efforts.

Thus, Dr. Peterson's initial contributions need not bear the blazing headline of "Book of Mormon Proved Historical by Astounding Arabian Discoveries!" -- but rather would appear in some staid quarterly serial devoted to old Semetic inscriptions, with a title such as "Preliminary Lingusitic Explorations of NHM in an Arabian Setting," or some such boring moniker.

Once the peer "rigor" is applied to his article, by expert critics, then the interesting "association" with things Mormon might be published in an entirely different journal.

I think that FARMS scholars are reluctant to enter upon this tedious and demanding pathway to reputable acknowledgement. I can only guess at their reasons, however.

I would be fascinated and intrigued to read your "guesses." (Are our alleged reasons for supposedly not doing what we in fact have done several times sinister? Sordid? Or merely shameful?)

The fact is that the basic work on NHM has already appeared in those "staid quarterlies." The "scholarly groundwork" has already been "laid." All that remains, now, is to correlate the NHM finds with the Book of Mormon (or, alternatively, to demonstrate the folly of such correlation). And we have already set about doing that, not only in "an entirely different journal" but in several books.

[Uncle Dale]

I think that FARMS scholars are reluctant to enter upon this tedious and demanding pathway to reputable acknowledgement. I can only guess at their reasons, however.

I would be fascinated and intrigued to read your "guesses." (Are our alleged reasons for supposedly not doing what we in fact have done several times sinister? Sordid? Or merely shameful?)

The fact is that the basic work on NHM has already appeared in those "staid quarterlies." The "scholarly groundwork" has already been "laid." All that remains, now, is to correlate the NHM finds with the Book of Mormon (or, alternatively, to demonstrate the folly of such correlation). And we have already set about doing that, not only in "an entirely different journal" but in several books

My guess is that FARMS does not maintain a dedicated staff of contributors and that

you accept useful material when and where it becomes available, without demanding

much of a scholarly "paper trail" in the non-sectarian literature. So a Givens might

come to you with a contribution more supported by pre-publication within the general

academic and scholarly circles than perhaps some other researcher/writer's contribution.

But, more to the point, I suppose that you have a specific mission statement and that

you are accountable to financial and publication supporters who expect your writers

to address primarily a faithful LDS audience and with outcomes which generally work

in favor of the advancement of the CofJCofLDS, as much as possible.

Then again, I'm making general statements which may not always hold up in specific

cases. Perhaps, were you to simply post the NHM studies bibliography here in this

thread, once and for all, the discussion at hand might not keep drifting over into this

"peer reviewed journals" disgression.

Uncle Dale

[Bookworm]

My guess is that FARMS does not maintain a dedicated staff of contributors and that

you accept useful material when and where it becomes available, without demanding

much of a scholarly "paper trail" in the non-sectarian literature.

My guess is that you have never looked at many of the footnotes in FARMS publications, many of which are extensive, mostly to non-LDS sources (it depends on the writer).

But, more to the point, I suppose that you have a specific mission statement and that

you are accountable to financial and publication supporters who expect your writers

to address primarily a faithful LDS audience and with outcomes which generally work

in favor of the advancement of the CofJCofLDS, as much as possible.

Considering that most FARMS publications have the mission statement, you might want to actually read it. It might help you do more than suppose.