"Evidence of Early Mormon Counterfeiting 1800-1847" New Book

[ALarson]

15 hours ago, volgadon said:

Based on recent interaction with Melonakos, I think that the only way you could tell that she studied philosophy at Stanford is if she told you (and she will). Very primitive and narrow understanding of the correspondence theory of truth; odd arguments (Joseph was a prophet of Calvinism because he preached from the same Bible that a Caalvinist majority in the US read); poor grasp of Mormon history even in areas - like the Kirtland Safety Society - which are central to her thesis; use of non-credible secondary sources like Eidemose's book on Christianity and the constitution; uncritical acceptance of primary sources such as the one accusing Joseph, Sr. of bigamy in Canada, anything that taints by innuendo; and her historical conclusions are entirely theologically driven. I am very curious to read her thesis on James now, to see if it suffers from the same issues. 

That's interesting, thanks.  I hope you'll continue posting how your "debating" (mentioned in your other post) goes with her.

I honestly just couldn't continue reading her book.  She'd state something as fact (from church history) that has not been proven, and then build on that "fact" to make other assumptions and conclusions.  I have so many other books that I want to read and I just really lost interest in finishing her book.  Some may find it interesting, but I personally did not.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

When I started back in the 70s, all I did was collect others' work and try to figure out how good it was.  We had at least two professional genealogists researching two grandparents' lines.  Massive amounts back to William the Conqueror except for the paternal line and that dies out with my gggrandfather who was a Jew in Baden-Baden, Germany.  I learned shortly before my daughter got to an age where she demanded full 24/7 attention to keep up with her that such Jews often had records kept in the local Protestant church, but 23 years later I haven't got back into it. And all the work I did do is obsolete.

Oh well, it was fun.  Now I need to figure out what to do with thousands of family groups sheets.  

Keep em. You never know when we will be back to the stone age after somebody uses the bomb.

Nobody will know anything or how to even tie their shoes  

Edited November 5, 2016 by mfbukowski

[Gervin]

1 hour ago, ALarson said:

She'd state something as fact (from church history) that has not been proven, and then build on that "fact" to make other assumptions and conclusions.

can you give an example?

[ALarson]

1 minute ago, Gervin said:

can you give an example?

I'm not home today, but if I get the chance tomorrow, I'll try to pull the book back out and look up a reference for you.

[cdowis]

2 hours ago, ALarson said:

I honestly just couldn't continue reading her book.  

Just remember Amazon's 30 day return policy.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Keep em. You never know when we will be back to the stone age after somebody uses the bomb.

Nobody will know anything or how to even tie their shoes  

If we get back to that, the paper will probably be more useful to get fires going...or perhaps a less attractive, but highly necessary usage.  So hoping it doesn't go there.

Thinking about it, probably be most useful as paper, either to use the blank side or to mush up to create new paper.

Edited November 5, 2016 by Calm

[volgadon]

Here come the reviews. http://associationmormonletters.org/blog/reviews/current-reviews/melonakos-secret-combinations-evidence-of-early-mormon-counterfeiting-1800-1847-reviewed-by-cheryl-l-bruno/

[cdowis]

44 minutes ago, volgadon said:

Here come the reviews. http://associationmormonletters.org/blog/reviews/current-reviews/melonakos-secret-combinations-evidence-of-early-mormon-counterfeiting-1800-1847-reviewed-by-cheryl-l-bruno/

The review begins "Kathleen Kimball Melonakos, descendant of Mormon leader Heber C. Kimball..."  

Sigh.  "Move along folks, nothing here to see."  
For example, in the second paragraph, accusations (indictments) against Mormon leaders are happily accepted as proof positive that "Mormon Nauvoo was the source of large amounts of bogus"  And the review whispers in dark tones that most Mormons were unaware of that fact.  

Yep, just another example on how the Mormon church hides its sordid history, which is now being exposed by this book written, no less,  by an authentic  descendant of Heber C. Kimball.

Edited November 14, 2016 by cdowis

[HappyJackWagon]

17 minutes ago, cdowis said:

The review begins "Kathleen Kimball Melonakos, descendant of Mormon leader Heber C. Kimball..."  

Sigh.  "Move along folks, nothing here to see."  
For example, in the second paragraph, accusations (indictments) against Mormon leaders are happily accepted as proof positive that "Mormon Nauvoo was the source of large amounts of bogus"f  And the review whispers in dark tones that most Mormons were unaware o that fact.  

Yep, just another example on how the Mormon church hides its sordid history, which is now being exposed by this book written, no less, than by an authentic  descendant of Heber C. Kimball.

Did you read the entire review? It seemed quite balanced to me. It described the good and the bad. It was neither glowing with praise nor condemned. I, for one, never knew anything about the counterfeiting accusations against church leaders. So she's not wrong about suggesting that most Mormons are unaware of the fact that many church leaders, including Brigham Young, were indicted on counterfeiting charges. Here's a passage from the end of the review...

Quote

In the final analysis, this book is not a completely historical treatment of the subject of early Mormon counterfeiting. The book may not receive widespread respect from serious students because of the question-begging and over-enthusiastic conjectures that are included. Historians may grow weary of the author’s unfounded allegations of counterfeiting activities, though she does provide the seeds for further research in several areas.

 

[cdowis]

1 hour ago, HappyJackWagon said:

"In the final analysis, this book is not a completely historical treatment of the subject of early Mormon counterfeiting."

The review makes the assumption that "early Momon counterfeiting" itself was an established fact, but her treatment of it was incomplete and occasionally flawed.   I don't call that "balanced" with swatting at mosquitoes while ignoring the elephant in the room.  And it still leaves the issues mentioned in my previous post.

Very clever pretense of being balanced.  It had you fooled.

Edited November 14, 2016 by cdowis

[hope_for_things]

An interesting review on this book has been written by Cheryl Bruno.  The book's author has a response in the comments at the bottom of this blog as well.  Just in case anyone is interested.

http://associationmormonletters.org/blog/reviews/current-reviews/melonakos-secret-combinations-evidence-of-early-mormon-counterfeiting-1800-1847-reviewed-by-cheryl-l-bruno/#comment-41258

[Calm]

Already posted by Volgadon.