Mike Reed'S Metal Plates Bombshell

[Xander]

I'm dealing with a broken pinky toe after clipping it on the edge of the bed yesterday, and I'm preparing my son's fifth birthday so I don't have a lot of time to post, but this was brought to my attention this morning by a friend of mine so I thought I'd share what is sure to be a hot topic for weeks to come:

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At the Bushman summer seminar, scholar Mike Reed presented what sounds to have been an absolutely fascinating paper in which he used multiple 19th-century sources to demonstrate that the old apologetic claim--that Joseph Smith and others of his time would not have known of ancient records on metal plates--was simply untrue. He did so at the invitation and assignment of the seminar's organizer, Richard Bushman. Evidently, this sent John Gee and Matthew Roper into an apologetic panic. John Gee seems to have produced a conspiracy theory on the fly in claiming Mike Reed was duped by numerous Hoffman forgeries that were written for the purpose of creating the erroneous impression that people knew of ancient records on metal plates in the 19th century. In Gee's bizarre theory, somehow Mark Hoffman was able to plant numerous unrelated texts, time travel, and any other number of highly improbable to impossible things. This is how attendee Loyd Ericson described what he witnessed:

At the BYU Gold Plates Summer Seminar Conference Michael Reed gave a paper where he presented dozens of early 19th century sources discussing ancient texts and scripture being recorded on metal plates, including popular bible dictionaries, textbooks, and news paper articles. He was largely responding to the claim of some apologists who argue couldn't have known about ancient texts and scriptures being written on metal plates.

In the Q&A, John Gee basically asked Michael if he knew if he was unknowingly using Hoffman forgeries for all of his sources, implying both that Mike was a terrible scholar who was simply ripping off someone else's work (who supposedly used some Hoffman forgeries) and that Hoffman somehow actually managed to go back in time and forge dozens of whole books that became popular back then

All I can say is, "Wow."

Edited August 19, 2011 by Xander

[Minos]

Do not use this board for third party he said/she tales with no substantiation.. You have been warned about your overuse of the term apologist to poison wells. If you want to post here be respectful of those who do not share your own apologetic views.