Thanks largely to Dan the Interpreter, LDS apologetics has a history of logical fallacies and mean-spirited rhetoric, reinforced through a citation cartel of like-minded academics.
A book review of a book by Christopher Thomas, titled A Pentecostal Reads the Book of Mormon: A Literary and Theological Introduction, is a good example of how Dan the Interpreter's reputation lives on in the pages of the Interpreter, and, by extension, in the archives of Book of Mormon Central, a subsidiary of BMAF, which also employs Dan's rhetorical tactics.
BTW, I agree with much of the substance of the review. Chris Thomas effectively presents an outsider's perspective on the Book of Mormon. But the review unfortunately employs the Dan-inspired rhetorical content typical of the Interpreter that discredits the journal as an academic endeavor.
Then the review complains because Chris didn't adequately acknowledge the M2C citation cartel. Incredible.
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This one sentence from the review epitomizes the problem.
It is free from the acrimony, spitefulness, and dishonesty that can often be seen in the shabby literature of the Christian counter-cult.
https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content/book-review-reading-a-pentecostal-reads-the-book-of-mormon
which is an excerpt from
https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/reading-a-pentecostal-reads-the-book-of-mormon/
Notice how the author condemns "acrimony, spitefulness, and dishonesty" in others, then himself uses the acrimonious, spiteful and dishonest terms "shabby literature" and "Christian counter-cult."
That's classic Dan, written by a fine young scholar who carries Dan's torch.
Two sentences later, we get this:
Unlike many of his predecessors who have provided commentary on Mormonism, Thomas performs actual scholarship, including a close and fair reading of the Book of Mormon.
For this Interpreter author, "actual scholarship" is scholarship the author approves of.
Those familiar with this author have seen plenty of previous examples of his approach to scholarship: if he agrees with it, it's "actual scholarship," but if he disagrees, it's "shabby literature." No wonder Dan loves his protégé.
The full article in the Interpreter has another fun line that doesn't appear in the summary.
This is entirely welcomed by the Latter-day Saints, especially when such attention comes from a place of fairness
and open-mindedness.
This Freudian slip is not the only example from this author. In his effort to ingratiate himself, he has copied his mentors' approach in numerous writings and presentations, displaying the antithesis of fairness and open-mindedness.
Next, the author complains that Chris Thomas failed to adequately recognize the M2C citation cartel.
Weaknesses
Thomas is not explicitly hostile towards Joseph Smith’s account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. Polemicists eager to get their hands on anti-Mormon fodder will have to look elsewhere, as Thomas does not indulge in any of the often offensively petulant antics of many sectarian critics of the faith of the Latter-day Saints.
Notice how "fair" and "open-minded" the author is in that sentence. One wonders whether a search of the archives at the Interpreter/Book of Mormon Central, would reveal that these phrases are borrowed from Dan the Interpreter himself.
In the spirit of objectivity and fairness he does, however, devote much attention to what he calls “complications to the standard story” (401). Here Thomas is at his weakest, as he does a decent job summarizing the objections to the “standard story” without giving the responses to these complications a fair shake.
Perhaps Thomas concluded that the responses are not susceptible to being given a "fair shake" because the M2C citation cartel produces unpersuasive outcome-oriented apologetics that amount to a repudiation of the teachings of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery anyway.
I do not detect any overt malice on Thomas’s part, however.
LDS apologists following Dan the Interpreter typically delude themselves into thinking they can detect malice in others, overt or otherwise.
I suspect it is perhaps a matter of Thomas’s not being completely aware of the scholarship that has been produced in defense of the Book of Mormon, with perhaps an understandable non-Mormon bias influencing how much time and attention he allots to the two sides of this issue.
The author simply assumes that being aware of the "scholarship" produced by his mentors in the M2C citation cartel would have persuaded Thomas of its merit, but another possibility is that Thomas was courteous enough not to mention the logical and factual fallacies that permeate the work of the cartel.
This is most easily discerned with a quick glance at Thomas’s bibliography. Whereas the work of Fawn Brodie,6 Dan Vogel,7 Grant Palmer,8 Michael Coe,9 Thomas Murphy,10 and Jerald and Sandra Tanner11 [Page 297]are all featured in the bibliography and footnotes, hardly anything appears from scholars who have responded to these and other writers who have passed negative judgment on the Book of Mormon’s historicity.
Here, the author recognizes that there are other critical writers that Thomas did not mention. Thomas did not give a laundry list of critics; he could hardly discuss the Book of Mormon without mentioning these six well-known authors.
John Welch and John Sorenson find themselves in Thomas’s book but not their strongest or most relevant works.12
"Strongest" and "relevant" are subjective terms, of course. But Thomas did mention them, so why complain?
Sorenson’s work blasting amateurish attempts to find archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon is quoted by Thomas, for instance,13 but not his seminal An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, nor his magnum opus Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book.14
Mormon's Codex might be Sorenson's "magnum opus," but to everyone outside the M2C bubble, its lists of "correspondences" are transparent logical fallacies that persuade only the already persuaded. There's no reason for Thomas or any other non-M2C scholar to cite this work except as an example of how bias confirmation works, which was not the point of Thomas' book.
Amazingly, the work of major Book of Mormon scholars such as Hugh Nibley and Royal Skousen is missing altogether from Thomas’s treatment.15
This is hardly amazing. Skousen's work on the history of the text says little about the narrative itself, which was Thomas' main focus. Nibley's work is voluminous and difficult to access; it's unrealistic to expect non-LDS readers to delve into Nibley. On that point, a coherent, concise volume of Nibley's work on the Book of Mormon would be useful, not only for Thomas but for LDS readers.
Take Thomas’s treatment of the DNA issue as a case study. He skips through the issue in little over a page and a half (418–20). “Just as with the archaeological attempts to vindicate the Book of Mormon,” Thomas writes, “the DNA explorations were terribly disappointing to those” who sought to find a genetic link between modern Native Americans and Middle Eastern populations (419).
That's an accurate statement from every point of view.
Thomas then immediately proceeds to quote the damning judgments of Thomas W. Murphy and Simon Southerton on this matter. As a gesture towards the apologetic response to this, Thomas does briefly summarize Terryl Givens (one of the few believing scholars he bothers to quote at all in this section16) thus: [Page 298]“The disappointing nature of the results of such DNA testing has resulted in a tendency among some LDS readers to devalue the importance of such testing and even to dismiss the possibility, suggesting that such testing is virtually impossible to carry out” (419).17
"Briefly summarize" is redundant, but Givens' summary is accurate. Why complain?
Thomas does not give even a brief mention to the work of Latter-day Saint geneticists such as Ugo Perego, John Butler, Michael F. Whiting, and David A. McClellan responding to the criticisms leveled by Southerton and Murphy.18
The M2C citation cartel often claims that the number of scholars who agree is just as important as the quality of their analysis. Often, as here, the cartel pretends that the number is more important than the quality. The four scholars mentioned here essentially make the point that Thomas provided by quoting Givens' summary.
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Readers of the Interpreter are accustomed to the apologetic style of this book review. Read the old FARMS material from Dan the Interpreter to see the intellectual ancestry of the Interpreter.
Hopefully, Latter-day Saints will break free of the M2C citation cartel and think for themselves. Books such as the one Chris Thomas wrote will help give us a different perspective that can enhance and deepen our own faith. We don't need the Interpreter to tell us what to think.
So far, the Interpreter demonstrates how not to approach these issues.
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