An Insider's View of Mormon Origins
 

Just Curious to know how many of you have read Grant Palmer's "An Insider's View of Mormon Origins" and what your impressions are on the book.

Have you got a link to a book review? As a policy I generally don't read book length treatments of this subject any more. Right now creekster has inspired me to read The Ancestor's Tale.

Here's a FARMS review:

http://www.farmsresearch.com/display...=review&id=513

And here's a non-apologetic review:

http://www.irr.org/mit/Insiders-View...n-Origins.html

and another from Dave's Mormon Inquiry Blog:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0128987/sto...onOrigins.html

I haven't read the book, but I did hear Van Hale's two hour interview of Grant on the Mormon Misc. radio show.

Thanks.

Wow. Thanks for this. The quotations in the non-apologetic review are very interesting as is the summary of the book. I may have to break down and buy this book. If anybody wants an empiricist's best estimate of how Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, this book endeavors to provide it. The quotations in the article show impressive insight and attention to the evidence.

The FARMS article is not worth reading. I scanned it, confirming FARMS is playing its usual role as LDS intellectual brown shirts. The article is 47 pages long and amounts to nothing more than a whole lot of heated argument, assertions and name calling, for example, asserting that the B of A papyrus fragment didn't contain the portion Joseph translated and calling Palmer "one sided" for not considering this view. I'd say the lady doth protest too much. Whether or not Joseph Smith was a fraudster (clearly Palmer believes he at least deluded himself into believing he saw Christ, angels and gold plates when no such thing actually happened), it's clear that FARMS has no regard for empirical truth, i.e., they are deliberate spinners of lies and purveyers of fraud. But I guess like lawyers and lobbyists for cigarette companies they too must earn a living.

I highly recommend folks here at least read the quotations from Palmer's book in the non-apologetic review.

It took me a minute to realize that you didn't say Van Halen. Man, that would be awesome to have an interview from members of Van Halen and their thoughts on mormonism.

Kettle, black ;)

Again, one finds what one is looking for, especially in regards to imperical evidence -that mind you is ever changing.

I did not. Pray tell what did he say.

Yeah, I know, everything is true, everything is a lie. I think you would find you and Palmer aren't that far apart. I was facinated by “The Golden Pot” by E. T. A. Hoffmann. A postmodern allegory almost 200 years ahead of its time.