Remembering Jenkins/Hamblin

[_I have a question]

Was it really 5 years ago that Jenkins and Hamblin had their back and forth on the historicity of the Book of Mormon? Wow. Time flies. Fortunately, for posterity Philip Jenkins has posted a compendium of links in chronological order.

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

It's a good resource which I hope remains available for scholars and researchers of the future.

[_Dr Exiled]

It was definitely the final nail in the coffin for me. What's funny is how too much cheer-leading about Nahom brought about the debate. Jenkins critiqued a Nahom piece and how it was over-blown. When called on it by the Mormon cheerleaders, he started asking for evidence of Nephites/Lamanites in the new world. Enter Hamblin and ....... he couldn't provide any ...... argued about the meaning of "evidence" instead of giving any, because there isn't any, and there never will be.

[_Dr Moore]

I appreciated how it was Jenkins who brought in the clarity. That spiritual evidence is purely internal (which is to be respected at all times, assuming those convictions lead to one becoming a better person) and therefore has no place or merit on the stage of scholarly debate.

[_Physics Guy]

You know, maybe the five year mark wouldn't be a bad time to reflect on this episode from different perspectives. The Jenkins-Hamblin debates were one of the first things I read as I started getting interested in Mormonism. This was a year or so after the debate itself, I think, but Bill Hamblin was still alive and posting on his blog and the debate seemed like recent history. I'm surprised now that it seems like a watershed event to other people here.

I've never been a Mormon or even known any Mormons well. Knowing that the Mormon faith was in fact still alive among educated people, I'd been assuming that Conan Doyle exaggerated early problems and that the modern-day faith at least was basically as respectable as most religions. I'm religious myself, at least for some values of "religious"; I live in Germany now but at heart I'm the kind of Massachusetts Episcopalian that looks forward to tea with the bishop and her wife. I'm also a scientist, so I'm used to accepting that religions in general have some 'splainin' to do.

At least the impression that I somehow got was that Philip Jenkins was a Christian academic like me, except probably somewhat more conservative as a Christian. It was weird seeing one of us as a voice of critical rigor instead of trying to hem and haw against atheists. But that was how I discovered that Mormon apologists are people that make conservative Christian academics look like rigorous realists.

I should say that I couldn't see anything wrong with anything Jenkins said just as a historian, though that's a for-what-it's-worth statement because no doubt a lot of garbage history would slip by me. But there was a surreal feeling for me in the whole exchange.

To me all the history and archaeology of the Christian Bible is kind of arguable but iffy. I'm not going to challenge anybody who argues that we can draw certain conclusions from the available evidence but in the back of my mind I'm always thinking, Look, it's not like we have any of this on video. So it was weird seeing the Bible as history being rock solid in comparison with the stuff that Hamblin was trying to uphold.

And that's how it looked from my end. I'd be interested to learn how it looked from a more Mormon perspective.

[_Gadianton]

I'm surprised now that it seems like a watershed event to other people here.

Well, it was a watershed event, but it wasn't because Jenkins' arguments were so much better than anything that had come before. Some of his stuff I didn't even agree with, although a few of his observations were brilliant, such as the "one piece of evidence" for Bigfoot that would make it worth his time further considering, when Hamblin pointed to the decades of internal scholarship that would be cost prohibitive to comb through.

It was the closest thing outside of a direct EV context to a scholar without a "history" engaging an apologist. After all that time and commitment to the cause, Hamblin had a terrible time coming up with something.

[_Philo Sofee]

Dan Peterson recently told me the way Hamblin argued was just fine and he didn't lose the debate, something which sailed right over my head. I love his attempt at intimidation. What did not sail right over my head was the actual fact that Hamblin produced nothing of evidence for Book of Mormon historicity. There is no actual evidence, just argument and testimony. That is what sailed right over Peterson's head, that Hamblin (nor Peterson... nor Midgley...) never produced real evidence we can point to and go look at for the Nephites and Lamanites. I didn't miss the point of Jenkins, Peterson did.

[_kairos]

Like going to heaven! Jenkins shred Hamblin to pieces and i loved every exchanged email. For me i used that "give me one physical piece of evidence that a group of jewish people lived on the continent in the Book of Mormon tine frame", in few exchanges myself. Also i believe Jenkins acted professionally in his exchanges an finally no DCP showed up to support Hamblin.

k

[_I have a question]

Like going to heaven! Jenkins shred Hamblin to pieces and i loved every exchanged email. For me i used that "give me one physical piece of evidence that a group of jewish people lived on the continent in the Book of Mormon tine frame", in few exchanges myself. Also i believe Jenkins acted professionally in his exchanges an finally no DCP showed up to support Hamblin.

k

DCP has stated on more than one occasion that he thought Hamblin did rather well in the exchange, that he "won", and didn't need any help in doing so.

Interestingly, I hadn't realised that Hamblin remarried shortly before his death.

Hamblin lived in Provo, Utah. He has three children with his ex-wife, Loree. The two divorced in 2013.[10]
At the time of his passing, he was living in Cedar City, Utah, with his wife, Laura. They were married in 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J ... sonal_life

Bill married Loree Peay on August, 2, 1977. Together they had three children: Ken, Karen, and Alex. They later divorced. Bill married Laura Behling Schroeder on February 19, 2019.

https://www.maglebymortuary.com/notices/William-Hamblin

Was his second marriage sealed in the temple?
Is it true DCP didn't approve of Hamblin's remarrying?

DCP didn't mention Hamblin's current wife in the blog post where he announces Hamblin's passing.

My wife and I and Bill and his wife Loree spent a lot of time together, exploring the wonders of pharaonic, classical, early Christian, and medieval Islamic Egypt.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... -2019.html
At the time Peterson wrote that Loree had been Bill's ex-wife for 6 years, and Laura was his wife.

[_moksha]

The debate was over when Jenkin's single shard of Nephite pottery argument could not be answered. The lesson for all future debaters is to come prepared with at least a single shard of evidence, even if it had to be manufactured in the kilns of BYU the day before and then taken from the earth by an angel before Jenkins had a chance to examine it and determined it was made of Kaolin clay from China. It wouldn't be cheating, it would be pottery for the Lord.

[_Stem]

Oh come on. Hamblin was the one who posed the question that Jenkins couldn't answer--What would qualify as evidence of something there is no evidence for?

Jenkins was stumped on that one and Hamblin gracefully took the prize.