The Neville Formula

I’ve wanted to respond to the particulars of Jonathan Neville’s last two posts (“The M2C Hoax – Part 7 – when science replaced the prophets” and “The M2C hoax – Part 8 – impact on Church history”), since they are worth responding to in detail, but as I read and re-read them, I saw a pattern emerge. This pattern I am going to call the Neville Formula. It goes like this:

[Unsubstantiated claim that prophets have known by revelation the location of the Hill Cumorah]

[Accusation that “M2C* intellectuals” dismiss the prophets]

[Accusation that “M2C intellectuals” are censorious and/or conspiratorial]

[LETTER VII LETTER VII LETTER VII and/or PLAINS OF THE NEPHITES PLAINS OF THE NEPHITES PLAINS OF THE NEPHITES]

[Kids today don’t believe the Book of Mormon is history because of M2C and/or BYU fantasy map and/or CES indoctrination]

[Accusation that “M2C intellectuals” suffer from confirmation bias and other cognitive biases]

[Moral grandstanding and broad, sweeping claims about how he is right and M2C is wrong and all the problems and hangups people have with the Book of Mormon would go away if people could just see beyond the M2C conspiracy and believe Cumorah is in New York]

That’s it—I just summarized virtually all of Neville’s blog posts.

Seriously, go read his two blog posts (linked above) with this formula in mind and you’ll see what I’m talking about. All Neville is doing is repackaging the same talking points in a formulaic manner. He has nothing original or insightful to say. He doesn’t always use the formulaic points in the same order, but, almost without fail, he employs them in every single one of his blog posts.

Neville has turn continually misleading his readers into believing a false narrative by repeating the same misinformation over and over again into a quasi-scientific formula.

It is almost impressive how well he’s gotten away with it this long.

Almost.

—Captain Hook

* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.