A serialized response to John Hamer - Part 2a

John Hamer's claim number 2:

"Text is far simpler than it first appears"

Hamer gives three arguments. My response to the second is very long so we will save that for part 2b tomorrow and look at the first and third today.

First argument: "Characters are 1-dimensional and story plots are wooden"

This sounds more like personal opinion. I think the Book of Mormon stories are great and not wooden at all. Take Zeniff and his band for instance. He was initially a spy but was able to see the good in the Lamanites and wanted to negotiate with them. He was “over-zealous” to inherit the Land of Nephi, but was fooled by the Lamanite king. He expresses faith and is a peacemaker but he is not described as a prophet, he doesn’t give sermons and doesn’t even mention Christ (although I’m sure he believed in His coming). Despite his righteousness, he describes how his people have “suffered these many years in the land”. I don’t think his character is 1-dimensional, nor do I think this story and many other Book of Mormon stories are “wooden”. But that is a matter of subjective opinion and not very useful to debate.

With more than 200 people included in a 1000 year timespan over 600 pages, it is obvious that we can’t get into all the multi-dimensional aspects of most characters. “Understanding the Book of Mormon” by Grant Hardy is a great resource to get under the skin of the main Book of Mormon authors and understand their various facets.

Third argument: "Complex systems like currency are expounded and forgotten"

In his presentation, John Hamer makes this point by claiming that when Jesus comes, he doesn’t use the Nephite currency when repeating the Sermon of the Mount, but uses “sheckles, talents or whatever”. I don’t know why he would say that but it’s either very dishonest or very sloppy. This is simply false and very easy to fact-check. Jesus does indeed use the Nephite currency, Senine, in 3^rd Nephi 12:26, which was introduced in Alma 11.

Since he only uses this as example, I am not sure which other complex systems he refers to. But I would argue that all the different sets of plates, the timeline and geography are all quite complex and they are not "forgotten". For instance, much of the geography is expounded in Alma 22 and then referred to many times later.