Jonathan Neville first visited me at my office at the Maxwell Institute on January 11, 2015. He told me he had previously spoken with Jack Welch and that Jack had sent him to me. He told me he had recently read the article on the Times and Seasons editorials that had been published in 2013, which he had only recently been made aware of.[1] He told me we were wrong in our conclusions and that he thought they were really written by Benjamin Winchester. He wanted Paul and me to do a new study that took Winchester into account. When he told me this, I was somewhat puzzled by the suggestion, as Winchester was not in Nauvoo at the time. I was interested in Neville’s historical arguments, which I wanted to understand before proceeding with a new study. He said he had set out his arguments on Winchester in his book. I had never heard of this before. The book he had when he first visited me was called Who Can Hinder: How a Forgotten Mormon’s Zeal Influenced the Church for 173 Years. I asked if I could borrow it in order to examine his historical arguments for Winchester. He reluctantly allowed me to do so. With some embarrassment he explained that it was only a preliminary version, did not contain all the historical evidence he had, and that there was a more complete discussion in the revised version which would be out very soon. While allowing me to borrow the book, he asked me to not be too hard on it, because the revised version, which would be out shortly would be much better and that when it was out he would get me a copy. He told me that he had shared his research with many unnamed BYU professors, Church historians, and scholars working on the Joseph Smith Papers and that he had their support for his work and ideas. He did not provide any names.
We discussed generally the idea that it might be useful to
have a comprehensive database of all known early writers in Church
history. I indicated that our team was working
toward such a database. I had previously compiled an electronic collection of
published literature on the Book of Mormon which was freely available through
the Harold B Lee Library, which would be useful to anybody who wanted to pursue
that endeavor. I said I would check with my associate Paul Fields who oversees
and directs the statistical analysis on our projects to see if we could add
Winchester to the list of potential candidate authors for the 1842 articles. Paul
agreed that we could do this provided we had the needed data on Winchester. I
then told Neville that I thought it was a good suggestion to look at
Winchester’s possible influence. Before he left I gave him my business card
with my email and office phone number.
I had other projects and responsibilities at the MI and Paul
who runs his own business also had other work of his own and was getting ready
to leave for his teaching stint in Grenada, but since it would take some time
to gather samples of Winchester’s writings to do the data entry and prepare the
material for analysis, I began right away gathering samples of Winchester’s
writings for Paul and Larry Bassist in preparation for the new study.
As I read through Who
Can Hinder I noticed the conspiratorial nature of his argument about
Winchester, which did not strike me as very sound. I also had concerns about
his claim in the book that the Times and
Seasons editorials on Central America somehow “cast doubt on Joseph Smith’s
role as a Prophet.” This and other elements of the book seemed to echo earlier
false claims by Rod Meldrum (and others) that I had previously addressed in
2010. When he visited me he had simply focused on his interest in Winchester. None Can Hinder, and his book proposal raised
some concern, but since he had told me not to be too hard on him for this first
revision and had said that the revised versions would be more scholarly, I
decided to wait until I saw the new edition before passing judgment. In the
meantime, I saw nothing wrong with taking a look at Winchester.
On February 20, I wrote him and told him I wanted to return
his book and was looking forward to meeting with him again. I told him that I
had spoken with Paul Fields and we should be able to run the data on
Winchester.
Due to scheduling conflicts Neville and I were unable to
meet again until March 5. He visited my office then and returned the copy of None Can Hinder and he gave me a copy of
the updated version of his book, now under a different title, The Lost City of Zarahemla: From Iowa to
Guatemala and Back Again. He told me that he had a friend helping him on
the statistics material whose name was Daniel Hardman. I suggested to Neville
that it would be a good idea for Dan to get into contact with Paul Fields.
Neville wanted us to run the data on Benjamin Winchester. I asked Neville if
there was anybody else he thought we should consider as possible candidate
authors. He said, William Smith. I indicated again that we would be glad look
at this and share our findings when we were ready. After he left that
afternoon, I contacted Paul and discussed our visit, mentioned Daniel Hardman
and passed along Daniel’s email. I wrote to Paul, “John would like us to run
the data and include Benjamin Winchester and William Smith in the mix for the
T&S articles. I told him we would be glad to do this and then meet with
him.”[2]
In the time available to me I began gathering up material
from William Smith, so that Paul and Larry could prepare the data for analysis.
In addition to William Smith I was also gathering up additional data on other
potential candidates from the Nauvoo period to include them as well in hopes of
being a thorough as possible. I continued to work on this as time permitted
throughout the remainder of March and April. Once this was done, Paul and I
anticipated sharing the results of our analysis and publishing something in a
scholarly venue.
After March 5 I began reading the new edition of Neville’s
book. One of the first things that caught my eye was a chapter that was very
critical and dismissive of our earlier (2013) statistical analysis. He wrote:
On 9 January 2015, I met with Roper
to discuss his article. He agreed that a stylometry analysis is only as good as
the candidates tested. I suggested we collaborate to assess Winchester’s
potential authorship of these articles. He said he would need the historical
context, and I reluctantly left him an early draft of this book, along with my
contact information. As of this writing (20 February 2015), I have not heard
back from him and he has not responded to my efforts to contact him.
Consequently, I have arranged for an independent stylometry analysis and will
update this section as soon as that is available.[3]
I was surprised to read this. The statement seemed very inappropriate
given the context of our previous interactions. He knew where my office was. He
had visited me before. I had previously given him my card with my phone number
and he could have called me or visited my office at any time, but apparently
did not consider it important enough to do so before putting that statement in
print. I thought it was unprofessional for him to do so without consulting with
me first. Meanwhile, I had been proceeding exactly as we had discussed in
gathering and preparing data on Winchester for analysis. I was holding off
making comments on the earlier draft of his book as he had requested until I
saw the revision he was to bring me and which I was still waiting for and
expected to see at our next meeting. As far as I knew things were proceeding
just as we discussed. He never once indicated to me that he was going to provide
a partial representation our meetings and discussions in print and without informing me.
It was unnecessary, self-serving, and unprofessional for him to represent our
interactions in a way that implied that there was something furtive in my
behavior. This was troubling and made me wonder if I was being set up.
Additionally troubling was the revised version of the book.
For me this was not because of his personal opinions of Book of Mormon
geography, although I found them weak and unpersuasive. The real problems had
to do with his attempt to wrap those personal interpretations in the cloak of
prophetic authority, while characterizing those who interpreted things
differently as stupid, mentally deranged, or undermining Joseph Smith’s
prophetic authority. I had already seen this kind of thing before and I was
tired of such nonsense.[4]
Less offensive, but no less problematic was his apparent inability to
accurately characterize the arguments and interpretations of past writers on
the Book of Mormon and those of contemporary scholars. His representation of our 2013 study was also
deeply problematic.
All of these things concerned me, and I wondered what to do.
The awful book, self-published, even under the new revision was not well put
together, but I was reluctant to hurt Neville’s feelings. On March 10, I
consulted with Paul Fields and told him I was feeling increasingly uneasy about
our association with Neville. I told him, I did not mind pursuing our course
and sharing the results of our findings when we were done, but I had serious
issues with other elements of his book which were unsound. I asked Paul what he
thought we should do and we both agreed that we should just continue as we had
planned preparing the data and analysis on Winchester and others which we would
then share with Neville when it was complete. At that time we could sit down
with him privately, walk him through our results and discuss our data and
conclusions on the Winchester question. We continued to pursue this course until
the end of April.
On April 2, I received a last minute request from a friend
to submit a proposal for the John Whitmer Historical Association Meeting in
September. Although, our research was not complete, we were getting closer and
I thought that by September we ought to have results that we could present and
publish in a scholarly venue. I submitted the proposal which was accepted on
May 19.
On April 29 Neville wrote to me. He wanted to know about the
status of our work. He seemed to be under the impression that our association
extended beyond sharing the results of our findings with him when they were
complete and thought that we were building a data base together, something we
had never agreed to. In fact, aside from suggesting that we were wrong, and
that we should look at Winchester and William Smith as potential candidates, he
had up until then contributed nothing to our research work. Our team (Paul, Larry,
and I) had done all the work of data gathering, preparation ourselves. By this
time I had also finished reading The Lost
City of Zarahemla. I was uncomfortable with his criticisms of the Church,
and the scholarly essays on the Church website. By that time I felt that, given
his clear agenda as shown in his book the gentlest thing to do would be to disassociate
with him, leaving him free to pursue his own agenda along with the understanding
that we would still, as we had always said we would do, make the results of our
analysis available when it was ready. The next day I wrote to him as follows:
Jonathan,
The BYU library has an electronic
database which I put together a number of years ago called “Early Publications
about the Book of Mormon: 1829-1844” which is accessible and contains most of
what was published on the Book of Mormon during the lifetime of Joseph Smith.
If you and Dan would like to prepare a database for your research that would be
a good place to begin.
Now that I have been able to read
your book and seen where you are coming from in your discussion of Winchester
and the issue of Book of Mormon geography I have come to the conclusion that it
would be best for you to pursue these things on your own. I am deeply
uncomfortable with the way you have framed the discussion (Winchester as evil
villain and mastermind of an essentially apostate Mesoamerican geography which
you think hurts the Church). The historical discussion in the book is also
deeply problematic and in my view the work perpetuates a great deal of
misunderstanding which is not helpful to the study of the Book of Mormon. You
have not adequately addressed the literature on these questions either,
including a great deal that I have written myself. Additionally, you have
represented things in such a way that I, reluctantly, may find it necessary to
write a response myself in order to correct the record, although I don’t know
when I might have the time to do so or where it would be published.
I do thank you for the opportunity
to read your book, for your courtesy in providing me a copy and for suggesting
that we look at Winchester as a possible author of the Times and Seasons
articles. Paul and I will pursue the Winchester suggestion and see what comes
of it. Once we have completed our work and if we find something worthy of
publication we will be glad to share those findings with you.
Sincerely
Matt Roper
On May 17 and 20, a friend shared an email he had just
received from a recently called mission President who was then preparing to
serve and had been encountering difficulties with some advocates of the
Heartland theory. He wrote:
I have been attacked by my sister, [Rod]
Meldrum, and others concerning my testimony and worthiness to be a mission
president because of my belief that the Book of Mormon, for the most part, took
place in Central America and Mexico. This has been a belief I have had, but
never really thought much about it until my dedication and loyalty to the
Church, and Christ himself have been questioned by the “Heartlanders”[5]
Just to be straight, I have
received my criticism from Meldrum through my sister. I have not met or spoke with Meldrum
myself. I have spoken to Neville on the
phone. Neville told my sister that he
has concerns about my beliefs and how it will effect the missionaries I will be
presiding over. I think that is why he
wants to meet with me. I have never been
around such strange people. I loose the
spirit every time I get around these folks.
I do not mind their theories, but I do mind being questioned about my
faith and devotion. Thank you for taking
some of the brunt from Meldrum. Again,
feel free to share my experience with anyone. [6]
I had my 2 and a half hour meeting
with Jonathan Neville yesterday. He had
just come home that day from a dig in Iowa where they KNOW Zarahemla to
be. All they have found so far is
sand. The book that Neville wrote is
about a man named Benjamin Winchester. I
have read the book. I think it is poorly
written and not very well documented.
Neville contends that Winchester along with William Smith, with evil
design, wrote the articles in the Times and Seasons referring to Stephens and
Catherwoods books on Central America and the Book of Mormon. Neville admits all his evidence is
circumstantial. His explanations as to
why Joseph never corrected the articles are really lame. Neville claims to have the interest of many
in the Church History department. He
claims to have support from many "high officials" that are
"grateful" for his efforts and discovery . . . .
These folks that promote the
"heartland" theory seem to be on the edge. Neville was very critical of the information
on the church web site about DNA. He
expressed his criticism of the church having pictures of Christ in churches and
Temples depicting Christ in Mesoamerica.
I have never felt that kind spirit from anything I have read on the
Mesoamerican theory . . . . Feel free to
share this email and my story with anyone.
I need to start focusing on the mission, but I always have time to
discuss the great Book of Mormon and everything about it.[7]
On May 21 he wrote to me as follows:
I'm not sure if you know or not but
two of my sisters have been influenced greatly by Meldrum and now Neville. They worry about me and my ability to lead a
mission because I have an interest in Book of Mormon geography. Over the years I have purchased books by
Sorensen, Lund, Allen, Nibley, Warren and Ferguson, and Washburn. I even bought Porter and Meldrum's book. The "heartland" theory really never
made much sense to me. I have felt the
Mesoamerican theory did make sense. I
had some interest in the heartland just because I like to look at all
possibilities. When I heard my sisters
talk of absolutes and very critical of other theories and the people who had
them, I began to be turned off in a hurry . . . . I hope to someday kindly persuade my sisters
to not be so critical of those who have a different point of view. I even feel they are being critical of many
of the leaders of the church. I have
seen too many times how this leads to apostasy.
Any info I can get is helpful.[8]
After my first essay was published in Interpreter Garth Norman wrote to a friend of mine about an
encounter with Boyd Tuttle. Tuttle has
been the publisher of Rod Meldrum’s books and apparently was also promoting
Neville’s book even before I met him. Norman wrote:
I would really like to know
Tuttle's response to Roper's review. I had a short visit with Tuttle at the
Roots Conference last Fall. He approached me and introduced himself, shared
Neville's book in press, and stated it was devastating to the 1842 Times and
Season's editorials attributed to Joseph Smith as the foundation of the
Mesoamerican geography theory. He even mentioned that Jack Welch and other BYU
professors had given this new research discovery a favorable review. He
expressed his conviction of the Heartland geography theory, and invited me to
pray about it to come to the truth. When I responded with my own conviction of
Mesoamerica, based on geography requirements of the text, archaeological
support and much prayer, and invited him to pray about it, he suddenly had to
rush off to an appointment. Has he been
praying, or just promoting his publishing business?[9]
When Neville first contacted me on January 9, 2015, I had no
idea who he was or how informed he was about scholarship on the Book of Mormon
or Church history. Our conversation had been cordial, his manner friendly.
Given his interest in the subject, I recommended that he become familiar with
the literature including what I had written. He indicated that he already knew
all about what I had written. He did not tell me that he had been running
a blog since June 2014 entitled “Book of Mormon Wars” devoted to defending the
“Heartland” theory and attacking proponents of a Mesoamerican interpretation of
the Book of Mormon. One of the targets of his attacks was me. He had described
what I had written about the Zelph story as “deceptive” and characterized my
writings as “casting doubt on the early brethren.”[10]
When Neville visited me in January, he told me none of this. He never informed
me that he had a blog or that he had said anything about what I had written
there. In fact, until the later part of May the only awareness that I had with
his writings or arguments were those which he shared with me in his book in
both its earlier and later incarnations.
On May 22 a friend informed me that Neville had a blog. As,
noted already, this was the first time I knew of this. It seemed that Neville
had a great deal of time on his hands and was “driven” by some motivation to
attack all things Mesoamerican associated with the Book of Mormon. I saw now that instead of addressing these issues privately,
in a meeting where we could take him through our data and analysis and
conclusions, it would now be necessary given some of his very public activities
and criticisms, a measured public response. It would also now be necessary to
address some of the historical issues publicly as well. We would share our
analysis and findings and criticisms of his work in a more public way and in a
scholarly venue.
I was greatly surprised that during the very period when I
had in good faith been gathering and helping to prepare data on Winchester and
others with the objective of sharing the results of our analysis, he had been
posting public comments critical of my work. On February 12 and February 18 he
had for example posted entries that were critical of two articles I had
published for the FARMS Review in
2010. The February 18 entry claimed that “LDS Scholars” including me, contrary
to what I had affirmed, “do undermine Joseph Smith’s knowledge and prophetic
role.”[11]
The blog entries conveyed an agenda and animosity that had not been apparent in
Neville’s friendly manner during our visits.
One noteworthy entry was posted on March 18. There Neville
made disparaging comments about a review essay of Earl Wunderli’s essentially
anti-Mormon book. Paul Fields, Larry Bassist and I had written a critique of
the book that was published in BYU Studies. In his blog post Neville wrote:
On this point I have personal
experience with Roper. I approached him to collaborate with me on the
Winchester theory of the Times and Seasons articles. He agrees to do so, but
then reneged because he didn’t like my conclusions. He refused to provide me
his database or to test Winchester using his own software. In my view this is
astonishing. Rather than seek the best data, Roper’s primary objective appears
to be defending his own theories about authorship. Roper’s publications don’t
explain his methodology or his data assumptions. In the case of the Times and
seasons, he won’t even reveal what texts he used as samples of Joseph Smith’s
writings, let alone other candidates.
The truth of the matter is that I had told him in each of
our meetings that we thought looking at Winchester was a good idea and that we
would do it and share our findings and analysis when they were complete. We
never “reneged” on this verbally or in writing. We never refused to use our
software to examine the question. We had been and were at that very time working
on this, as we had previously, using the best scientific methods available and
were looking forward to sharing those results and explaining our work when it
was done. As we were working toward that end, we had no idea that he was
misrepresenting us on a blog which we knew nothing about.
In another comment from the same post he referenced our
discussion of statistical problems in Wunderli’s attack on the Book of Mormon.
Neville wrote:
I’d like to agree with Roper about
his authorship analysis, but I have zero confidence in either his objectives or
his methodology, based on my own experience, Wunderli’s observations, and the
content of Roper’s published explanations.[12]
I thought this was very strange. Less than two weeks before (on
March 5) I had met with Neville in my office where, for the first time he gave
me a copy of Lost City of Zarahemla, and
I had at time reaffirmed that Paul and I would look into the Winchester issue
and look at William Smith as well and share the results when we were done. Just
eight days before, his Nephew, Daniel Hardman had written to Paul Fields,
introducing himself for the first time.[13]
Now just more than a week later, unbeknown to us, Neville was writing the above on a
public blog.
While I had concerns about the many problems with his book (Paul
and I had privately discussed some of these), I had refrained from making these
an issue with Neville. I thought, few people would actually read the book and
so the poor historical material could be ignored without needing to embarrass
him. The main issue for us at the time was the authorship of the editorials. Paul
and I agreed that we would continue carrying out our research into the question
exactly as I had told Neville we would in January and in March. His March 18
claim that I had “reneged” on pursuing the question of other potential authors
because I didn’t like his conclusions was outrageous and the claim that we
refused to test Winchester or share the results and analysis of our data is not
true.
In another post on May 1, Neville had written:
The other day Matt Roper of the
Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship told me `You have not
adequately addressed the literature on these questions, including a great deal
that I have written myself.’ In that same exchange, he declined to respond to
any of my facts in my book, The Lost City of Zarahemla, and has refused further
collaboration . . . . I not only specifically addressed this article on this
blog and in my book, but I visited Matt three times, in person, all on my own
initiative, to discuss it with him. His response was to stonewall, make
promises he wouldn’t keep, and then accusing me of not addressing the
literature. Which is pretty much what everyone told me to expect” (“You Have
not adequately addressed the literature,” Book of Mormon Wars, 1 May,
2015).
The fact of the matter is that he never told me of any
blog and his book Lost City does
not adequately address the literature, as his discussion of the Zelph
issue was just one example.[14]
I had counseled him about this in our first meeting and he should have known
better. His blog entries (oddly self-anointed “peer reviews”), from February
until now have the appearance of someone who is still not familiar with the
academic literature and was playing catch-up, even though he had told me he had
previously addressed it. He also seemed to have serious difficulty in following
arguments and understanding what he reads. We never refused to examine the Winchester
data and in my last letter to Neville on April 30 I had again said, “Paul and I
will pursue the Winchester suggestion and see what comes of it. Once we have
completed our work and if we find something worthy of publication we will be
glad to share those findings with you.”[15]
Other things about the blog were troubling. On April 12 Neville
had posted a cartoon that he indicated he had shared to the amusement of crowds
at a public Conference at UVU. The cartoon portrayed the US/Mexican border with
a fence separating the two sides. On the Mexico side is a table with a sign
that says “maps to USA” and a line of Mexican people crawling under a fence. On
the US side is a big sign that says “USA Keep OUT” with tables with smaller
signs just below which say “Free Lemonade” “Free Education” “Jobs” “Free Health
Care.” On the Mexican side of the border in big red letters it states
“Mesoaamerica (Sorenson/BYU) promised land.” On the US side in green it says
“Heartland promised land.”
Aside from the inaccuracy of the message (Sorenson never argued that the United
States was not part of the land of promise), I found the cartoon, coming from
member of the Church, divisive, distasteful and offensive.
On June 26, Neville posted a video on his blog of Adolph
Hitler’s last days in his Berlin Bunker surrounded by his top Nazi Henchmen. Neville
posted not one but two different versions of the parody, noting, “The Hitler
video has been used for just about everything, but this version is one of the
best I’ve seen.”
The parody, based on a classic scene from a German movie portrays the men breaking
the news to Hitler that the war is lost and Hitler’s ballistic reaction. In the
parody on Neville’s blog, the evil murderous Nazi henchmen, identified as
Winchester, Hugh Nibley, John Sorenson, Matt Roper and Dan Peterson, and others
tell Hitler in English subtitles that Joseph Smith actually revealed a North
American geography and that the Book of Mormon didn’t happen in Mesoamerica. I
guess I could understand why some might find humor in such parodies. What I
cannot understand is why a fellow member of the Church would compare fellow
Saints to such people. It reflects a shameful insensitivity and a juvenile lack
of introspection and I can’t imagine why any scholar would want to collaborate
with a person who engages in such behavior.
[1]
Matthew Roper, Paul J. Fields, and Atul Nepal, “Joseph Smith, the Times and Seasons, and Central American
Ruins,” Journal of Book of Mormon and
Other Restoration Scripture 22/2 (2013): 84-97.
[2]
Matthew Roper to Paul Fields, 5 March, 2015.
[3]
Neville, The Lost City of Zarahemla,
220.
[4]
See my discussion under “How Not to
Have a `Conversation’ about Book of Mormon Geography,” in my, “Joseph Smith,
Revelation, and Book of Mormon Geography,” FARMS
Review 22/2 (2010): 22-26.
[5] Scott
Palmer to Tyler Livingston, 16 May, 2015.
[6] Scott
Palmer to Tyler Livingston, 20 May, 2015.
[7]
Scott Palmer to Tyler Livingston, 20 May, 2015.
[8]
Scott Palmer to Matthew Roper, 21 May, 2015.
[9] V.
Garth Norman to Tyler Livingston, 23 August, 2015.
[10]
“The Tone of the Discussion,” Book of Mormon Wars, 7 December, 2014, http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-tone-of-discussion.html
[11]
“Peer Review of the FARMS Review 22/2 (2010),” Book of Mormon Wars, 18
February, 2015, http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2015/02/peer-reviewing-farms-review-and-maxwell.html
[12]
“Peer Review of `If There Be Faults,’” Book of Mormon Wars, 18 March, 2015, http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2015_03_01_archive.html
[13]
Daniel Hardman to Paul Fields, 10 March, 2015.
[14]
See Matthew Roper, “The Treason of the Geographers: Mythical `Mesoamerican’
Conspiracy and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter:
A Journal of Mormon Scripture 16 (2015): 170-75.
[15]
Roper to Neville, 30 April, 2015.
[16]
The cartoon can be found at “Promised
Land Filter,” Book of Mormon Wars, 12 April, 2015, http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2015/04/promised-land-filter.html
[17]
“Just For Fun,” Book of Mormon Wars, 26 June, 2015, in http://bookofmormonwars.blogspot.com/2015/06/just-for-fun.html