Another of Jonathan Neville’s specious comparisons

One consistent aspect of Jonathan Neville’s arguments is that they sound or appear plausible at first, but on further examination they quickly begin to fall apart.

Some examples of this can be found in his April 29, 2022, blog post, “M2C NPCs”:

Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has brought out the differences of opinion about “free speech.” Here’s an [sic] summary from a Twitter user:

Perhaps what is happening here is that the left doesn’t want to engage in any debate because they know that they can’t win the argument if the other side is allowed to speak.

The parallels to the M2C and SITH citation cartels are apparent.

They’re only “apparent” if you buy Neville’s false claim that Book of Mormon Central, the Interpreter Foundation, and BYU Studies Quarterly don’t publish Heartland research because these organizations “reject the teachings of the prophets” about the location of the hill Cumorah. The truth is that these organizations don’t publish research by Heartlanders because—as I’ve documented on this blog—they continually use irresponsible scholarly methods, continually appeal to conspiracy theories, continually treat fraudulent artifacts as genuine, and continually misrepresent the arguments of those who disagree with them (including, in at least one instance, comparing people who disagree with them to Satan).

But just because these organizations don’t publish Heartland research doesn’t mean they don’t “want to engage in any debate because they know that they can’t win the argument if the other side is allowed to speak.” Heartlanders have many websites and blogs through which they disseminate their views. (Neville himself has, as of the date of this writing, thirty-one blogs that he maintains.) Book of Mormon Central and the Interpreter Foundation have reviewed Heartland publications (see here and here), and BYU Studies has published a favorable examination of the New York Cumorah (see here), so any claim that they are refusing to “engage in debate” is simply false. Finally, Heartland publications and conferences don’t promote opposing views; does that mean that Heartlanders aren’t “allowing the other side to speak”? Of course not.

Neville’s comparison of debate among Latter-day Saints over issues of importance to Heartlanders to Twitter’s controversial practice of banning users is therefore inaccurate, bordering on ludicrous.

In the same blog post, Neville complains that he “keep[s] hearing the same tired, ridiculous arguments from M2Cers,” including this example:

Q. The Book of Mormon doesn’t mention snow (except as a metaphor), so how could it have taken place in the Midwestern states through New York where it snows annually?

A. The New Testament doesn’t mention snow (except as a metaphor), so how could it have taken place in Israel, Turkey, etc., where it snows annually?

Neither the Book of Mormon nor the New Testament related weather reports.

This is a not just a bad comparison, it’s also a dodge—and not a clever one. By comparing the extensive historical narratives in the Book of Mormon to the much more limited narratives in the New Testament, he’s employed the logical fallacy of the False Equivalence—an “apples and oranges” argument.

While it’s true that the New Testament only mentions snow three times—and each time only as a metaphor (see Matthew 28:3; Mark 9:3; Revelation 1:14)—the New Testament doesn’t contain anything like the broad, sweeping narrative histories that make up much of the Book of Mormon, including the Book of Mormon’s lengthy explanations of the migrations of groups of people and large-scale military operations. It would be more legitimate to compare the Book of Mormon to the Old Testament, which does mention snow in the land of Israel (e.g., 2 Samuel 23:20/1 Chronicles 11:22; Job 9:30; Job 24:19; Psalms 148:8; Jeremiah 18:14).

Deep drifts of snow in central Illinois, which the Nephites never mentioned in their record.

But even comparing the experience of the Israelites in the Old Testament to the experience of the people of Lehi in the Book of Mormon is still not entirely legitimate, because the Mediterranean climate of Israel is mild in comparison to the climate of the American Midwest. In Israel, temperatures are mild at the coast and hot in the inland deserts, and snow is only seen at elevations above 2,500 feet. The American Midwest, on the other hand, is wet and cold in the winter, with significant snowfall throughout the entire region. Modern Illinois—the purported site of “the plains of the Nephites”—typically receives 14 inches of snowfall annually in the south and 38 inches in the north. Anyone who is familiar with Latter-day Saint history knows how bitterly cold and snowy the winters were in New York and Ohio (which receive lake-effect snowstorms due to their proximity to the Great Lakes), as well as the horrific conditions the Saints experienced in Missouri in the winter of 1838/1839 and in Iowa in the winters of 1846/1847 and 1847/1848. The light dusting of snow seen occasionally in the hill country of Jerusalem simply doesn’t compare to the blizzard conditions regularly seen the American Midwest and Northeast.

The Book of Mormon always describes the Lamanites and the Gadianton robbers wearing next to no clothing (Enos 1:20; Mosiah 10:8; Alma 3:5; Alma 43:20; Alma 44:18; 3 Nephi 4:7). The only time individuals are described as wearing thick or heavy clothing was for defensive reasons, not for warmth (Alma 43:19; Alma 49:6). The text only uses the word snow once (metaphorically, by Nephi who was raised in the area near Jerusalem—1 Nephi 11:8) and the word cold is also only used once (also by Nephi to describe “the cold and silent grave”—2 Nephi 1:14).

The New Testament doesn’t mention snow because it has very little historical narrative and snow was not that common in the area around Israel. The Old Testament mentions snow occasionally because it has more historical narrative and snow did occasionally fall at lower elevations. The Book of Mormon doesn’t mention snow anywhere in its extensive historical narrative, despite the fact that (according to Heartlanders) it supposedly took place in a region where snow is frequent, common, and often deep.

Neville’s comparison of the Book of Mormon to the New Testament is both specious and disingenuous.

—Peter Pan