Ad Hominem in Mormon Studies

I have come across many sites that irk me for one reason or another. I have recently put my finger on one of the more frequent problems I see. In order to illustrate this I will take everybody back to my last class on American Military history.

(Cue the wavy lines and flash back music)

One of our main texts books was by Kenneth Hagan. I don't know this guy from Adam but he did make some interesting arguments about America's naval theory and actions. He argued that America's dominant naval tradition was Guerre De Course and not a Mahanian desire for big ships and decisive battle. Now I won't get into the details and problems of his argument. Around the time we were studying the Spanish American War I made an argument about U.S. strategy that used the Hagan book. In response I was simply told by the individual in the class that I could not use him because he is biased. I asked for proof, or some analysis showing that he was biased. He did not give me any except to basically say "trust me: I know what I am talking about". I was not only less than impressed with his analytical skills, but I was extremely annoyed because he never pushed back against my analysis or argument, but simply repeated the fact that he "distrusted" Hagan for unnamed reasons.(Upon review that reflected his bias more than any supposed fault with Hagan) What it boiled down to was that he disqualified a person and not an argument. In fact, he would later go on to attack me, and not my argument as well. (This was not the most pleasant semester of school to say the least)

(Cue the wavy lines and back to the present music)

Now in studies of the Book of Mormon I often hear the question: What non Mormon scholar argue that it is true? This meets the criterion for ad hominem fallacy, which in simple terms means that you attack the person instead of his argument. Thus if Kenneth Hagan becomes "biased" than you can safely dismiss his argument without reviewing it. And if you can dismiss a scholar simply because of who he is (a Mormon) then you can also dismiss his argument without the effort of actually reading and contending with the persons logic or reasoning. If a person has been professional in building his case then it should not matter who that person is. What would matter is the argument that person made and if he adequately proves his thesis. Thus many people build a case in trying to prove the Book of Mormon; barring that they make a sufficient case for its plausibility. And so many times we are met with the response that we are Mormon scholars. The End.

In my personnel experience I rarely have anybody question my arguments, my cases, my evidence, or my research. I have simply been dismissed based on who I am. Thus many Book of Mormon scholars feel that others cannot contend with their arguments because they don't. (See the Mosser and Owens article here)This is shoddy scholarship in the realm of American history or Mormon Studies. With this in mind, I invite comments concerning my research into warfare in the Book of Mormon.

The Missing Ingrediant

After doing some searching on the internet I came across an article from The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) that detailed the missing ingrediant from my comparison post. The citation is here:

Recent Trends in Book of Mormon Apologetics: A Critical Assessment of Methodological Diversity and Academic Viability
Benjamin N. Judkins
FARMS Review: Volume - 16, Issue - 1, Pages: 75-97
Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 2004


The most important quote places my research concerning comparisons in ancient warfare in a broader context. At the end of the quote I will explain how my research attempts to avoids the pitfalls that he mentions.


The ethnographic school, founded and championed by Hugh Nibley...seeks to situate the Book of Mormon as an ancient document through a slow and steady process of building up literally thousands of parallels with the ancient world. It is more in the traditional Latter-day Saint vein of seeking to open a space for rational belief rather than attempting to "prove" a proposition...it has probably made the most substantial contributions of all. Especially helpful are recent efforts to use the work of Margaret Barker and others to situate the Book of Mormon in the emerging vision of what life in the ancient Near East must actually have been like. Efforts to show the Book of Mormon's compatibility with this world (knowledge of which was totally unavailable to Joseph Smith and his contemporaries) serve both to reinforce the historicity of the work and to provide a powerful new lens for examining its essential message. The recent work of Daniel C. Peterson, John Gee, John A. Tvedtnes, and others all offer striking new ways of reading the text—even some of its most Christian, nineteenth-century-sounding sections.

The ethnographic school itself is not free from methodological issues. One must specify what cultural parallels are expected in a given place and what sorts of parallels would be significant before conducting any investigation. At a minimum, an ongoing dialogue between theory and empirical investigation must occur. If it does not, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to defend a set of correlations against the charge of spuriousness. In fact, it is the lack of such theoretical considerations that has led to the not totally unjustified charge of parallelomania, particularly with regard to Nibley's work.

As I have done in such posts as "Military Cause for the Social Problems in the Book of Helaman" and "The Bad Emperor", I have tried to analyze a separate text or historical incident, such as the Agrarian Crisis or the Bad Emperor trope used by Chinese historians before I have shown its similarities in the Book of Mormon. As seen in my posts, I detail the salient features of the given point, and detail the same points within the Book of Mormon. I also take special pains to point out the differences in the given theories and tend to draw modest conclusions. These are all attempts to maintain a sober study of the Book of Mormon that does not seek a single 'silver bullet', or shoe horn comparisons, but seeks to find many loose parallels that help our study of the Book of Mormon and our knowledge of its historicity.

The Pioneers lead us from Valhalla

I came across a really good post right here: (sorry for no link, I am still a historian not a techie)
http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2009/03/20/the-pioneers-our-models-of-faith-courage-endurance-war/comment-page-1/#comment-8251

I have commented over there extensively on it. The part that got me was the extolling of our pioneer's war like qualities. This may seem odd since they really didn't fight in any wars. The Mormon Battalion recorded the longest land march in United States Army history, and some of them found gold in California when they were done, but they really did not fight. The qualities extolled remind me of Victor David Hanson's description of the "rustic elan" of yeoman farmer that made the Roman soldier so lethal. It also reminded me of the Vikings (and many other ancient societies) who would praise the warlike qualities of their ancestors and try to draw upon their power in their current fight. Thus the title of my post. I also think its interesting that World War II era Mormons would praise their ancestors warlike qualities and cheer lead the war in such an obvious way. And finally, I do think that the qualities of courage and sacrifice showed by our pioneer ancestors would make us better soldiers.

As they say, go read for yourself. Update: I have a more current post beneath this. It posted there because I have had it saved in my queue for a little while now.

The Missing Ingrediant in the Problem with Comparisons

I have had this post saved in my queue for quit awhile. I haven't posted it yet because I feel there is something missing. Without that missing part I am afraid this post is little more than semi inspired musings (the cynic might say that is all any blog post is, but I am trying to make this better than just a random blog). Being incredibly busy with real life and realizing the need to continue posting, I will post this anyway while begging your indulgence and asking your help for that missing ingredient. Hope you enjoy and help:

This addresses a methodological problem in Book of Mormon studies that I think is largely absent from comparisons of in warfare. Over at mormon matters I found this article (again sorry for no hyperlink, I am still not a techie): http://mormonmatters.org/2009/02/19/bad-apologetics-meet-bad-polemics/

The problem is stated in more scholarly terms by William Hamblin ("Sharper Than a Two Edged Sword" from Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought) and a few other places. What caught my attention at mormon matters was the comparison between Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Both contain many similar items and yet because we have all seen both movies we know that George Lucas did not simply copy The Lord of the Rings. In the Hamblin and Mormon matters article they describe how both critics and defenders fall into this problem. Critics point many 19th century parallels while defenders point to Mesoamerican parallels. Hamblin goes one step further by providing the correct methodology in a logical proof. If the Book of Mormon is x than details of the Book of Mormon are being compared to y (19th Century American or Mesoamerica). But you should also include q. As in the Book of Mormon bears more resemblance to y than it does to q. In other words, the Book of Mormon is more similar to Mesoamerica than 19th century America. That prevents "parrallelmania" from taking hold where you can make a case that Star Wars is a direct rip off of The Lord of the Rings, or The Book of Mormon was plagiarized from The View of the Hebrews.

In warfare however, such concerns do not matter. The objective of most military theorists is provide principles that can be applied in a wide variety of situations. Thus principles of good generalship largely transcend cultural boundaries. The technology and limits of premodern warfare was also largely similar across cultural lines. (See Robert Hingham: A Military History of China chapter 1)Thus the writings of Sun Tzu are also generally good principles for Moroni, just as the writings of Vegetius, Frontinus, Maurice, B.H. Liddel Hart and Clausewitz. Some writers such as J.F.C. Fuller and Antione Henri Jomini go as far as to claim that warfare is a "science". Gravity applies to you no matter what time and place you live in the earth, thus the military "science" can be applied the same way.

So the military similarities in the Book of Mormon are a result of good generalship that transcends cultural boundaries. And the differences could result in either the poor leadership of the particular individual, or the exception to the rule that makes many theorists say that war is an art instead of science. In short: I feel this is one area where even the supposed mistakes augment the case for the historicity of the Book of Mormon.