First claim: "The Book of Mormon is pretty ordinary"
My response to this is quite long so we will only address the response to the first two arguments:
Hamer's 1st argument: "The Book of Mormon doesn’t display special knowledge of history or Biblical literacy"
My response:
When it comes to Biblical literacy, the Book of Mormon displays lots of knowledge. I don’t know exactly what is meant by “special” knowledge but I think there are several good candidates coming in part 1b.
In the interview, Hamer elaborates on this by using a Star Wars analogy. The Book of Mormon as a sequel to the Bible is like the next Star Wars movie that doesn’t know anything about the previous one and doesn’t reference anybody from there. He mentions biblical characters and says the Book of Mormon has “none of that”. Hamer further claims that the Book of Mormon text knows nothing about stuff that is in the Bible.
Like many other claims in this interview, this one is unsupported. I don’t have a complete list of Biblical characters and events mentioned in the Book of Mormon, but at least I know that the following are mentioned: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zedekiah, Moses, Noah, Melchizedek, Nimrod, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh, Judah, David, Solomon, Samuel, Malachi, Adam and Eve. Note that one of the characters Hamer mentioned as an example of characters that are not included, Jeremiah, is indeed included in the Book of Mormon. Isaiah quotes include more references to other characters but I’m omitting those.
Stories and events from the Bible, which are referenced in the Book of Mormon, include the creation, the Garden of Eden and the fall, the flood, tower of Babel, God’s covenant with Abraham about his posterity, Abraham nearly sacrificing his son, Abraham paying tithing to Melchizedek, the Exodus including parting of the Red Sea and the Egyptians drowning, eating manna, Moses smiting the rock to get water, the poisonous serpents and the brazen serpent on a pole, the 10 commandments, Moses' face shining on mount Sinai, Joseph’s brothers renting his coat and selling him to Egypt, Joseph bringing his father to Egypt to save his household from famine, Solomon’s building of a temple, David and Solomon having wives and concubines, the use of Urim and Thummim or ‘Interpreters’, Jeremiah being in prison, and probably several others that I can’t think of right now.
I am quite sure critics would move goalposts at this time and say that these are all well-known people and stories. I agree most of them are, but listening to the interview, Hamer is not saying that the BoM doesn’t display knowledge of obscure people or events in the Bible. He is claiming that it contains almost no references to Biblical characters or events whatsoever. That is demonstrably false. But if “special” in his interview means something like “obscure”, I admit that the Book of Mormon doesn’t include many obscure events and characters. The question is why should it? How many obscure events or people from the Old Testament are referenced in the New Testament? If the Book of Mormon is a “sequel to the Bible” as Hamer states, then surely the NT is a sequel to the OT. Why should we expect the Book of Mormon to contain more (obscure) references to the Old Testament than the New Testament does?
But just like the New Testament, the Book of Mormon seems more concerned with referencing prophecies from the Old Testament, rather than obscure people or events. The Book of Mormon not only quotes but also expounds and comments on Old Testament prophecies and shows great knowledge of Biblical literacy in that regard. After quoting Isaiah, it is often explained afterwards and tied into the prophecies of the Book of Mormon prophets. Not only that, but chapters like 2nd Nephi 26-27 and 3rd Nephi 20 quite impressively jump in and out of Old Testament quotes while creating its own coherent text.
In 2nd Nephi 26-27 for instance, Nephi manages to reproduce the first half of Isaiah 29, in order, within a much longer discourse by inserting phrases here and there. As a small example of that, see how Isaiah 29:3-4 (highlighted in bold) is dispersed into 2nd Nephi 26:15-16.
“After my seed and the seed of my brethren shall have dwindled in unbelief, and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles; yea, after the Lord God shall have camped against them round about, and shall have laid siege against them with a mount, and raised forts against them; and after they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not, yet the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayers of the faithful shall be heard, and all those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not be forgotten.
For those who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground, and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit; for the Lord God will give unto him power, that he may whisper concerning them, even as it were out of the ground; and their speech shall whisper out of the dust.”
If you say Joseph Smith just made up and dictated things like this with his face in a hat, I don’t think the argument that the “Book of Mormon is pretty ordinary” holds. If that is not displaying knowledge of Biblical literacy, I don’t know what is.
Hamer's 2nd argument: "Includes none of the known Biblical characters from the time of Jerusalem’s destruction"
My response:
That is simply an incorrect statement. The Book of Mormon refers to Jeremiah, Zedekiah and the sons of Zedekiah, even possibly one not named in the Bible, Malkiyahu/Mulek (See https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/has-an-artifact-that-relates-to-the-book-of-mormon-been-found). How many other Biblical characters are there from the time of Jerusalem’s destruction and why should the Book of Mormon refer to them?
I am not sure exactly where Hamer is going with these arguments. Would the Book of Mormon be more extraordinary if it had included more Biblical characters from the time of Jerusalem’s destruction? Wouldn’t Joseph Smith just be accused of copying from the Bible?