He didn't say that you couldn't dispute the truthfulness of their testimonies, which after all is a matter of faith, he said you couldn't challenge that they did not deny their testimonies. Can you? Or would you rather spew a series of formulaic criticisms of materials that fail to meet your own mercurial standards? Brodie speculating about the inner thoughts of a character in a way that may very easilty be absolutely wrong fails to give rise to anything but adulation in your world, yet conversations recorded in the manner of the day are intrinsically suspect. The common thread in your opinions of others' work seems to be whether they agree with you or not. Moreover, your example of claiming all aborigines are Lamanites was not an 'embellishment' as much as a misunderstanding. So we don't have the oroginal affidavits. You've told us at least three times today. We get it. You, and orhers, don't believe. I, and others do. While some of these discussions can be interesting few, if any , are helpful to either of the groups, in my opinion. There simply is no way to get there from here, so to speak.

I think Brodie would call it applying reasoning to facts.

If witnesses weren't important why are witnesses presented in the opening pages of the Book of Mormon?

Ah, the old asking me to prove a negative trick. That's the oldest trick in the book.

One woman's applying reason to facts may also be another's jumping to conclusions.

I can see what you're saying about witnesses, but then, could it be possible that the Declaration of Independence is a forgery? Just becasue it has signatures doesn't make it real, does it? A guy named Hoffman made a killing, both figuratively and literally on it.

How could one describe a woman using reason and accountability?

We've just proven there is no way Brodie could have done what she claimed to have done, use reason and accountability, because women lack those things.

Case closed.

Nice evasion. Can you proffer ANYTHING? Of course by inducing mje into asking this question I havre been pulled into the very thing I was criticising. Even so, I don't think you can. If you did, it still wouldn't amtter to me.

Why not? That's what Brodie tries to do, after all. :)

No, I'm simply pointing out that the lack of an original document upon which they have signed their name to their testimony is irrelevant, given the frequent reiteration of their testimonies. If the lack of the original document was so problematic, one could not expect all three witnesses (along with the eight) to go all the way through their lives, down to their graves, proclaiming the testimony to be true as written.

Nevertheless, I recognize that you and I can look at the same pieces of evidence and come up with completely different results. I also recognize that the same distrust you harbor for church historians (which, to be honest, is probably not unreasonable) is the distrust I harbor for anti-church historians. I do encourage you to aspire to the greatest extents of academic integrity, as I sincerely hope you would challenge me and hold me to them. However, I hope I would never ask you to go beyond your own convictions, as I would hope you would never ask me likewise.

Gentlemen, I suspect that we've exhausted the profitable exchange on the matter. We've all heard these arguments before and they've not changed our minds. Let's not let the differences of our evaluations force us to behave uncivily.

We're lawyers (at least some of us); these sorts of exchanges ARE civil.

All kidding aside, AA is correct, but I have also always found that lawyers tend to tolerate agressive advocacy without residual hard feelinjgs much more easily than do non-lawyers.