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I was searching the FARMS site the other day and I found a page that posts some of their books online. Included on that page is the entire book Warfare in the Book of Mormon .
That is amazing news. Now I can direct people straight to the reference, and I don't have to buy it on Ebay for $200, I can also review it at my leisure instead of the two weeks I get as a non-student at SVU's Library.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Wouldn't know a scholar if he beat you with his Harvard PhD
So I decided that I would finally comment over at that love shack known as CARM. I decided to re post one of my responses over here because I believe it shows several things. First, it details some steps for how you can tell if a scholar is credible (what press published their book, looking at a C.V., endorsements etc). Second, it references an article that details how Mormon scholars are perceived, which relates with trying to broaden the audience interested in Book of Mormon warfare. Third, I toot my horn a little bit and I never get to play, so this is a brief window into my academic pedigree. I also included the rather pathetic response. (I will not link to it because most of those people are so lame you can refer to the title of this post) Without further ado:
SVU is neither owned, operated, or funded by the Church of Jesus Christ. If you are going to make snide remarks about my education you should know the facts first. For instance, SVU does not have any history faculty that are LDS. My advisor is a Catholic that used to teach at Yale after getting his PhD from Harvard.
My graduate advisor works at the National archives. Dr. John Broom, a former professor at the U.S. Army War College reviewed and approved of my paper on a Mormon topic that was later published. My advisor in military theory is the head of research for the U.S Army's Strategic Studies Institute and is arguably the top Clausewitzean scholar in the world. His name is Anutlio Echevarria II, you can find his books on Clausewitz in any decent university library. He has his PhD from Princeton, and was happy to write a letter of rec for me and recommend my paper on Clausewitzean theory that was later published.
If you want to look up Hamblin you can easily find his C.V. It is very long and filled with many non Mormon publications. You can look up his book "Warfare in the Ancient Near East", its published by a non Mormon (and quite respected) printing press. I found a very positive review on Amazon in about 5 seconds. The cover of the book has positive reviews from a professor at Vanderbilt.
You can look up the editor of the series, Jeremy Black. His C.V. made my jaw drop, and Jeremy Black put his name on Hamblin's research. No scholar would do that for a crack pot they don't respect. Hamblin also used to teach at the University of Southern Mississippi, a school with a well regarded PhD program in military history.
Kelly Devries' CV is very easy to find. (I think its even linked to on wikipedia for crying out loud) He has published Hamblin's research as well. (you can find it on deremilitari.org) Again, no scholar would put their name or touch somebody with a ten foot pole that they did not respect. The academic world is all about dropping names or making a name, so getting somebody to associate himself with your work is a sign that a scholar respects you. A basic example of this principle is getting a prestigious scholar to write a foreword for your book.
All of this is fairly simple stuff that I should not have to explain. I only wrote this long aside to show that many MANY people, far more respected in their fields than you, respect our research. We don't suddenly become crackpots in their minds because we publish about the Book of Mormon. And in many cases, as detailed in an article by John Tvedtness called "scholarship in Mormonism and M in scholarship", they applaud our work even if they don't agree with our conclusions.
In short: burying your heads in the sand and declaring that we and our research does not count laughs in the face of many respected scholars who say that it does matter.[This is from another post but predicts the response very well] Unfortunately, I doubt you will even read [my blog], let alone engage mine or others research. Its far easier to simply ridicule us for daring to believe in the historicity of the Book and hi five the others that do the same or claim its "God's way" to mock those who disagree with you.
The response was typical, and ignored the basic fact that SVU is not operated by the LDS church and that we have credible scholars producing respected work in support of the BoM:
Oh, come now! To quote Sunstone, "All of the school's [Southern Virginia University] top administrators and all but three of its trustees are LDS."
That doesn't happen by osmosis, morgan.
And, frankly, scholarship re the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham does not exist outside of Mormon scholarship. Nobody else takes it seriously. A google search simply brings up pages and pages of [useless] Mormon apologetic sites because Mormonism has flooded the field lest people read anything that might question the required "follow the prophet" response. And Mormon apologists confuse their readers by substituting volume for quality. The usual Mormon sees so much material available and concludes that such extensive "documentation" would surely not exist unless it "proved" Mormonism historicity to be true. Wrong!
The fact remains that there is no association whatever between the Book of Abraham text and the Mormon published documents/"translations." All hopes for any type of historicity are based entirely on the claim that "the scrolls are missing." In fact, ALL Mormon scholarship is dependent upon non-existent "missing" documents. If real "evidence" exists, it contradicts Mormonism.
And even inside the camp, the division is currently very explosive, which gives me a bit of hope that some of the Mormon people may be recovering some of their God-given reasoning abilities.
When it comes to the Book of Mormon, Sunstone [again] did one terrific job of exposing the horrendous problems for the Mormon faithful in their recent article, Mapping Book of Mormon Historicity Debates—Part 1 . Part 2 is available to the Sunstone subscriber [recommended], but I have not seen it online yet.
I should also add that having Liberal Mormons make her argument belies that claim the we are all brainwashted and it personfies the "losing and not knowing it" argument that Mosser and Owens have made.
SVU is neither owned, operated, or funded by the Church of Jesus Christ. If you are going to make snide remarks about my education you should know the facts first. For instance, SVU does not have any history faculty that are LDS. My advisor is a Catholic that used to teach at Yale after getting his PhD from Harvard.
My graduate advisor works at the National archives. Dr. John Broom, a former professor at the U.S. Army War College reviewed and approved of my paper on a Mormon topic that was later published. My advisor in military theory is the head of research for the U.S Army's Strategic Studies Institute and is arguably the top Clausewitzean scholar in the world. His name is Anutlio Echevarria II, you can find his books on Clausewitz in any decent university library. He has his PhD from Princeton, and was happy to write a letter of rec for me and recommend my paper on Clausewitzean theory that was later published.
If you want to look up Hamblin you can easily find his C.V. It is very long and filled with many non Mormon publications. You can look up his book "Warfare in the Ancient Near East", its published by a non Mormon (and quite respected) printing press. I found a very positive review on Amazon in about 5 seconds. The cover of the book has positive reviews from a professor at Vanderbilt.
You can look up the editor of the series, Jeremy Black. His C.V. made my jaw drop, and Jeremy Black put his name on Hamblin's research. No scholar would do that for a crack pot they don't respect. Hamblin also used to teach at the University of Southern Mississippi, a school with a well regarded PhD program in military history.
Kelly Devries' CV is very easy to find. (I think its even linked to on wikipedia for crying out loud) He has published Hamblin's research as well. (you can find it on deremilitari.org) Again, no scholar would put their name or touch somebody with a ten foot pole that they did not respect. The academic world is all about dropping names or making a name, so getting somebody to associate himself with your work is a sign that a scholar respects you. A basic example of this principle is getting a prestigious scholar to write a foreword for your book.
All of this is fairly simple stuff that I should not have to explain. I only wrote this long aside to show that many MANY people, far more respected in their fields than you, respect our research. We don't suddenly become crackpots in their minds because we publish about the Book of Mormon. And in many cases, as detailed in an article by John Tvedtness called "scholarship in Mormonism and M in scholarship", they applaud our work even if they don't agree with our conclusions.
In short: burying your heads in the sand and declaring that we and our research does not count laughs in the face of many respected scholars who say that it does matter.[This is from another post but predicts the response very well] Unfortunately, I doubt you will even read [my blog], let alone engage mine or others research. Its far easier to simply ridicule us for daring to believe in the historicity of the Book and hi five the others that do the same or claim its "God's way" to mock those who disagree with you.
The response was typical, and ignored the basic fact that SVU is not operated by the LDS church and that we have credible scholars producing respected work in support of the BoM:
Oh, come now! To quote Sunstone, "All of the school's [Southern Virginia University] top administrators and all but three of its trustees are LDS."
That doesn't happen by osmosis, morgan.
And, frankly, scholarship re the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham does not exist outside of Mormon scholarship. Nobody else takes it seriously. A google search simply brings up pages and pages of [useless] Mormon apologetic sites because Mormonism has flooded the field lest people read anything that might question the required "follow the prophet" response. And Mormon apologists confuse their readers by substituting volume for quality. The usual Mormon sees so much material available and concludes that such extensive "documentation" would surely not exist unless it "proved" Mormonism historicity to be true. Wrong!
The fact remains that there is no association whatever between the Book of Abraham text and the Mormon published documents/"translations." All hopes for any type of historicity are based entirely on the claim that "the scrolls are missing." In fact, ALL Mormon scholarship is dependent upon non-existent "missing" documents. If real "evidence" exists, it contradicts Mormonism.
And even inside the camp, the division is currently very explosive, which gives me a bit of hope that some of the Mormon people may be recovering some of their God-given reasoning abilities.
When it comes to the Book of Mormon, Sunstone [again] did one terrific job of exposing the horrendous problems for the Mormon faithful in their recent article, Mapping Book of Mormon Historicity Debates—Part 1 . Part 2 is available to the Sunstone subscriber [recommended], but I have not seen it online yet.
I should also add that having Liberal Mormons make her argument belies that claim the we are all brainwashted and it personfies the "losing and not knowing it" argument that Mosser and Owens have made.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Myriads of Soldiers
Over at mormonheretic someone made a comment suggesting that numbers in the Book of Mormon could mean specific units instead of an exact count. I was somewhat surprised and skeptical of that notion....Until I was studying some Xenophon today.
Xenophon's book, The Anabasis, recounts the story of Ten Thousand Greek soldiers that were trapped deep in Persian territory and had to fight their way out. In that book, the Greek root of the word myriad actually refers to a Greek unit of ten thousand men. I only mention it because today we use myriad in an adverbial sense, such as "the myriad fish in the ocean". And it can also be used as a noun, as in the "myriads of soldiers". In both instances the original usage of myriad, meaning ten thousand is lost and replaced with an approximate use of the word.
Now I can see a case where the Book of Mormon uses a reformed Egyptian word that has colloquial meaning, but Joseph Smith translates the term literally into a number. It would be as though a modern translator took the opposite of what happened to myriad, they took a phrase that now means "many people" and literally translated it to ten thousand.
Thus there is one more nuance added to our understanding of numbers in the Book of Mormon. There is evidence from classical western sources that a specific term for a military unit can change meaning through time. I appreciate Firetag for raising the original question and I hope to see some of his research soon.
Xenophon's book, The Anabasis, recounts the story of Ten Thousand Greek soldiers that were trapped deep in Persian territory and had to fight their way out. In that book, the Greek root of the word myriad actually refers to a Greek unit of ten thousand men. I only mention it because today we use myriad in an adverbial sense, such as "the myriad fish in the ocean". And it can also be used as a noun, as in the "myriads of soldiers". In both instances the original usage of myriad, meaning ten thousand is lost and replaced with an approximate use of the word.
Now I can see a case where the Book of Mormon uses a reformed Egyptian word that has colloquial meaning, but Joseph Smith translates the term literally into a number. It would be as though a modern translator took the opposite of what happened to myriad, they took a phrase that now means "many people" and literally translated it to ten thousand.
Thus there is one more nuance added to our understanding of numbers in the Book of Mormon. There is evidence from classical western sources that a specific term for a military unit can change meaning through time. I appreciate Firetag for raising the original question and I hope to see some of his research soon.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
An Open Invitation: Warfare 2.0
Some scholars have said that one third of the Book of Mormon is devoted to war. Yet only one book is exclusively devoted to the subject (and is now an out of print collectors item) This book was the product of a symposium held by The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormons Studies back in 1989.
There is a huge demand for the study of warfare in the Book of Mormon. Victory in the book was a product of superior faith, and defeat often the consequences of sin. Warfare touches upon every other subject as well. The composition of armies can use sociological tools, the funding of armies moves towards economics, the reasons for war meld into political science, the experience in battle give us insights into social history, students at war colleges can study the strategy of wars, the inclusion of women and families in Nephite armies can lead to gender studies, and the entire record contains elements of ethnocentric and class bias.
After doing some research of my own and viewing the lack of in depth research concerning this subject and the topics mentioned above, I feel it is time to rejuvenate warfare studies. With this intent I announce a Symposium on Book of Mormon Warfare. This is tentatively entitled Warfare 2.0 in the Book of Mormon, since this is 20 years later than the first symposium. I am looking for those who want to present original research that they have done concerning Warfare in the Book of Mormon (as stated above, this is a diverse topic). Parties simply interested in attending are welcome as well.
I want this symposium to be a place where like minded individuals can get positive feedback for their research, or simply enjoy listening to ideas. You should also mention your location, since I will try to plan it around the center of gravity for warfare scholars. Depending on the quantity of interested persons and quality of papers, I will also try to co sponsor this with outside parties such as FARMS or FAIR or even Southern Virginia University. I also want to invite one major LDS historian and a major non LDS military historian as keynote speakers.
Since this is in the early planning stages I have no date scheduled. I am located at Southern Virginia University, and nearby Lexington is hosting the Society for Military History Annual Conference a year from now,(this is the equivalent of the LDS General Conference for military historians) thus I am leaning towards the same general time and using SVU facilities.
In short, this a chance for all of you budding scholars and Book of Mormon enthusiasts to get your ideas heard in a constructive setting. This is also a chance to generate interest in a greatly neglected but ready to harvest area of Book of Mormon research. I look forward to seeing your comments.
There is a huge demand for the study of warfare in the Book of Mormon. Victory in the book was a product of superior faith, and defeat often the consequences of sin. Warfare touches upon every other subject as well. The composition of armies can use sociological tools, the funding of armies moves towards economics, the reasons for war meld into political science, the experience in battle give us insights into social history, students at war colleges can study the strategy of wars, the inclusion of women and families in Nephite armies can lead to gender studies, and the entire record contains elements of ethnocentric and class bias.
After doing some research of my own and viewing the lack of in depth research concerning this subject and the topics mentioned above, I feel it is time to rejuvenate warfare studies. With this intent I announce a Symposium on Book of Mormon Warfare. This is tentatively entitled Warfare 2.0 in the Book of Mormon, since this is 20 years later than the first symposium. I am looking for those who want to present original research that they have done concerning Warfare in the Book of Mormon (as stated above, this is a diverse topic). Parties simply interested in attending are welcome as well.
I want this symposium to be a place where like minded individuals can get positive feedback for their research, or simply enjoy listening to ideas. You should also mention your location, since I will try to plan it around the center of gravity for warfare scholars. Depending on the quantity of interested persons and quality of papers, I will also try to co sponsor this with outside parties such as FARMS or FAIR or even Southern Virginia University. I also want to invite one major LDS historian and a major non LDS military historian as keynote speakers.
Since this is in the early planning stages I have no date scheduled. I am located at Southern Virginia University, and nearby Lexington is hosting the Society for Military History Annual Conference a year from now,(this is the equivalent of the LDS General Conference for military historians) thus I am leaning towards the same general time and using SVU facilities.
In short, this a chance for all of you budding scholars and Book of Mormon enthusiasts to get your ideas heard in a constructive setting. This is also a chance to generate interest in a greatly neglected but ready to harvest area of Book of Mormon research. I look forward to seeing your comments.
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