Sunday, March 19, 2017

Joel Kramer embarrasses himself on the River of Laman

Source Flix (PKA Living Hope Ministries), headed by Joel Kramer, have a video on youtube entitled: Where is the River Laman?





The summary they offer for the video reads as follows:

The Book of Mormon suggests that a three days' journey from Jerusalem, one found a continuously flowing river, flowing into the Red Sea. Despite several attempts to promote evidence of this river, no such evidence exists. And when you examine the reality of the terrain and the climate, it's quite easy to see why.

Sadly for them, the River of Laman and Valley of Lemuel has been found:

Book of Mormon Central, Have The Valley Of Lemuel And The River Laman Been Found?

S. Kent Brown, The Hunt for the Valley of Lemuel

What is more, this has been discussed for a number of years now, so Kramer et al. have no excuse for their deceptive presentation. What is more, the River of Laman is named using the active, not passive voice by Lehi, showing that it was the name Lehi's party gave to the river, not that "Laman" was the pre-existing name of the river (1 Nephi 2:8). That further blows Kramer et al. out of the water, as well as prove their lack of intellectual integrity and honesty.

This video was a cut scene from "The Bible vs. the Book of Mormon" that Source Flix produced. The "documentary" was soundly refuted in the following scholarly reviews:

Brant A. Gardner, Behind the Mask, Behind the Curtain: Uncovering the Illusion (see here for a thread where Robert Bowman failed spectacularly to critique Brant's review)

David E. Bokovoy, The Bible vs. the Book of Mormon: Still Losing the Battle

This is not the first time that Joel Kramer et al. produced a "documentary" full of disingenuous "arguments" against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A few years ago, Stephen Smoot, James Stutz, and I collaborated on a project answering their video "The Bible vs. Joseph Smith." To this day, the following (devastating) review has not been touched by them, notwithstanding their having been made aware of it many times now:

Joel Kramer vs. the Bible and Joseph Smith

Such only shows that Joel Kramer and his associates are not trustworthy sources of information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.