50 replies to this topic

[Brent Metcalfe]

Hi Pac,

You're mistaken.

I've addressed extraordinarily complex issues in radio and phone interviews.

In the venue I proposed, Will has the advantage (as I've noted). There's no conspiracy, Pac.

If someone will (again, no pun intended) fly me and my children to UT, I'll "discuss," "debate," or whatever you'd like to call it, on any weekend I'm available.

Will is a gifted snake oil purveyor, nothing more.

My best,

</brent>



http://mormonscripturestudies.com
(© 2010 Brent Lee Metcalfe.)
———————————————
The thesis of inspiration may not be invoked to guarantee historicity, for a divinely inspired story is not necessarily history.
—Raymond E. Brown

[PacMan]

Brent Metcalfe, on 13 August 2010 - 08:50 PM, said:

[font="Times New Roman"]Hi Pac,

You're mistaken.

I've addressed extraordinarily complex issues in radio and phone interviews.

In the venue I proposed, Will has the advantage (as I've noted). There's no conspiracy, Pac.

If someone will (again, no pun intended) fly me and my children to UT, I'll "discuss," "debate," or whatever you'd like to call it, on any weekend I'm available.

Will is a gifted snake oil purveyor, nothing more.

My best,

</brent>

Brent,

I can only conclude that you confused my post with that of someone else.  If you read mine again, it should be clear that I am simply advocating position papers relevant to the agreed upon topics for debate, with responses prior to a debate/discussion/etc..  And let me say, it's for purely selfish reasons.  Whatever it is, it will necessarily be technical.  Assuming the purpose is to create a discussion that will be useful to the academics, a streamlined and digestible context seems necessary.  'Addresses and interviews of extraordinarily complex issues' means nothing if the explanation are incomprehensible.  In other words, I want to able to weigh the arguments for myself and discern whether a presenter "draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.” [Shakespeare].  I simply can't do that if I haven't the foggiest about you two are talking about.  To bring myself to such a level on my own would require doses of medication which I neither have the constitution to consume, nor the cash to pay for.

Anyway, I don't know what conspiracy you're referring to.  I never mentioned as much.  And although you may have promulgated your views in various forums, I would be much obliged if you could point me to a paper where you lay out - not necessarily just your criticisms of Will's proposition - but your alternative positions.  I don't mean to be obtuse, but I simply don't know where to find the source.

And on the final note, the one thing I think I've demonstrated is that I'm in no rush.  I'd rather the process produce something of worth, which requires time and effort.

Best,
PacMan

[William Schryver]

Metcalfe:

Quote

Evidently in your imaginary world not only did I implicate Hugh in child molestation, but I also conspired with folks at the Exmormon Foundation to permanently eradicate the evidence...

Your evidence for this scurrilous claim?... I can only assume email messages and phone records that are no longer extant—in fact, they are so no longer extant that the only place they exist is in your paranoid fantasies.

Here's a clue: If you want to find the conspiratorial email communiqués and phone records, check Area 51, right next to the cryogenic chambers containing Elvis and Walt—oh, and on the same shelf as your missing BoAbr manuscript from early July 1835.

Oh, to be sure, as I indicated above, it was nothing more than a “veiled insinuation.”  Not even really that big of a deal.  I took notes at the conference, both of your presentation, and of your Q&A session.  One questioner asked you about Hugh Nibley, your response to which concluded as follows:

Quote

Now I would not even remotely claim to have the kind of knowledge that Hugh Nibley had about the world, but I can say this: On the things where my knowledge does overlap with Hugh Nibley’s, he was wrong in numerous instances.  I can at least say that much.

At that point, a woman in the audience rose to ask you if you felt Nibley really knew all along that the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith, etc., were just a tawdry fraud, but that, “He just didn’t have the balls to stand for his convictions.”

To which you then replied, “Well, I suppose Martha would be the best one to ask about that.”  Thus making a “veiled insinuation” that the allegations of Martha Nibley Beck, Hugh’s daughter who has accused him of child sexual molestation, probably have some merit.

Oh, how the audience loved that cute little comeback!  They laughed.  They cried.  They fawned adoringly over you.  I’m sure it was very gratifying … for a moment.  But apparently, upon reflection, you thought better of your little comedic indiscretion, for, when the recorded transcript of your address appeared, I was amused to note that you had obviously directed the people at the Exmormon Foundation to excise just that portion of the recording!  

The only problem is that they didn’t really do it that well, and didn’t cut out all of the aftermath of the joke, but left in just a little bit of the interplay of you and audience between the joke and the subsequent question.  Thus the audio track resumes in medias res, thereby leaving a crude but obvious record of the excision.

So what?  

Well, nothing really.

It was, as I suggested, a mere veiled insinuation, nothing more.  But obviously it was something you didn’t want to come back to haunt you, as it now has to some degree, and therefore you took measures to alter the historical record to conform to the way you wanted it seen.

There is a deliciously pregnant irony at work in the whole affair, but I’m sure it’s not something your sensor would detect.

At any rate, no “conspiratorial communiques and phone records.”  No “Area 51.”  Just Brent Metcalfe, in public, committing a minor verbal faux pas that he then felt the need to expunge from the public record—and then feign ignorance about it when I should mention it some 4 years later!



Ok, well that’s that.  I can, of course, provide the relevant audio extract from the Q&A session where the excision occurred, should anyone be so interested in this little imbroglio that they would want to verify my claims.

You continue:

Quote

Will, you're an apologetic loose canon with a lousy aim.

I like that!  It has a catchy appeal to it: “apologetic loose cannon.”  I’ve now made it my “member title” below my avatar.

Now, as to the question of my aim … well, that’s a different issue altogether, and we shall yet get to it below.

You continue:

Quote

Yet you've been given unprecedented access to some of Mormonism's most esteemed documents, and now the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship is going to publish your unmitigated nonsense in its official publications...

I doubt that Neal would have approved.

It clearly rankles you that I have, in fact, been “given unprecedented access” (for an amateur, at least) to what have been, historically, some of the most restricted documents in the archives.

Ensconced as you obviously are in your view of the materials, you cannot understand how it is that anyone, let alone the NAMIRS, could view my findings as anything other than “unmitigated nonsense.”

And yet, provided with an initial installment of the most treasured and valuable documents I have produced in the course of my studies, young Dan McClellan is absolutely eviscerating the vapid arguments of your proxy, Dan Vogel, who is attempting to defend what are most certainly your arguments.

McClellan has, in just a few days, with the aid of the information I provided him, augmented by his own incisive observations, and the application of standard text-critical methodologies from his extensive training, been able to see that not only are my claims of the precedence of the text of the BoA to the A&G correct, but he has used that knowledge to dispatch the arguments of Chris Smith and Dan Vogel—both of whom, by the way, have demonstrated an extraordinary ignorance of the material, despite their abundant posturing.

Those who know a little bit about what has been going on behind the scenes are simultaneously stunned by the ease with which McClellan has done this, and yet gratified to see it.

I know I am.  For it has now been proven to me that it will be a small matter for others to take the results of my research and, adding to it their own contributions, quite easily dispense with the erroneous arguments of the past 40 years when it comes to the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.

I shall watch these things unfold with great interest and, no doubt, a measure of satisfaction, knowing that I will have been instrumental in setting the whole thing in motion.

Ah, but you conclude:

Quote

Will is a gifted snake oil purveyor, nothing more.

So you say.  And with that dismissive reply, you save yourself from what I’m sure was the terrifying prospect of having to, finally, after all these years, produce and own a position on these questions.

Not only that, but you save yourself from what would have been, based on the relative strength and merits of our respective explanations of the meaning and purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, a potentially humiliating experience for you.

Oh, well.  Maybe Chris Smith is interested in playing the game in your stead …

In any case, should you find your temerity rising again at some point in the future, my invitation still stands.  According to the equitable terms I have proposed.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll continue to prepare my detailed paper for the journal, and sit back contented while Dan McClellan and others (yes, I have provided some of my research products to a select group of people) proceed to systematically dismantle the false argumentation hoisted upon the world by people like Richard Howard, Edward Ashment, Chris Smith, and—to a significantly lesser degree—you.

Have a nice day!

-WS

Edited by William Schryver, 14 August 2010 - 07:41 AM.

[USU78]

Something has been bothering me.  Assuming sufficient clarity in the documents in BM's possession, and assuming sufficient time of possession, why did the apparent fact that the majority of the characters in the left-hand columns of the 3 grammar documents are nowhere to be found in the JS Papyri never become clear to him?

If it did become clear at some point, why did BM never come clean on the subject and deal with it in his public discourse on the subject?

[William Schryver]

USU78, on 14 August 2010 - 07:00 AM, said:

Something has been bothering me.  Assuming sufficient clarity in the documents in BM's possession, and assuming sufficient time of possession, why did the apparent fact that the majority of the characters in the left-hand columns of the 3 grammar documents are nowhere to be found in the JS Papyri never become clear to him?

If it did become clear at some point, why did BM never come clean on the subject and deal with it in his public discourse on the subject?

You mean the 3 "Alphabet" documents, of course.  The "Grammar" is what I have termed the later, bound volume entitled "Grammar and A[l]phabet of the Egyptian Language."

But your question is quite pertinent.

You will, in fact, if you study the history of these things as closely as I have, discover that Metcalfe has appeared to zealously restrict the dissemination of any substantive images of the Alphabet and Grammar materials.  Whether this merely reflects his preoccupation with the Abraham manuscripts, or is consequent to his having sensed danger to his theories within the A&G, is an answer we may never know.

[Chris Smith]

Hi Will,

Assuming your story about the ExMo conference is true, it's entirely possible that Brent didn't mean it like that, and that the decision to excise that portion of the audio was not his own.  I see no reason to assume he is lying, if he denies it.

In any event, I may be extraordinarily ignorant, but I am at least making a good-faith effort to understand and grapple with your views in a substantive way.  Please do not confuse me with other citizens of MDB who have shown you less respect, and please do not lash out at me without reason.

Thanks and peace,

-Chris

[LifeOnaPlate]

Brent,

Your confident rejoinders are somewhat flattened by your unwillingness to engage in the proposed debate, the terms of which seem entirely reasonable especially considering the nature of the subject under consideration. I would think if your confidence was backed by more solid information you would be willing (if not eager) to play your cards. You've dismissed Will as an apologetic loose canon (and heaven knows Will and I haven't seen eye to eye on certain matters), but it seems rather weak for you to engage in head wagging rather than just "put up," as they say. Do you have a better explanation as to why you think Will's terms are unreasonable? It really does make it seem like you just don't have anything solid to present yourself, but instead wish to simply attack or discredit Will's position.

[USU78]

Stick to your guns, Will.  If you concede, you make yourself a stationary target, committed as you are to a fully developed public position, while BM maintains freedom of movement, peripatetic, poetic and chic, able to wriggle and weasel and equivocate.

Edited by USU78, 14 August 2010 - 12:26 PM.

[John Larsen]

William Schryver, on 13 August 2010 - 05:02 AM, said:

Metcalfe:


Furthermore, your proposed “discussion” smacks of a set-up, given the extraordinary historic hostility of the putative “moderator” (John  Larsen) who has, on several occasions, expressed a profound antipathy towards me.  John may very well be a fine choice for discussions between most people, but his pronounced (and frequently displayed) animosity towards me gives me significant cause for concern that the game would be at least subtly rigged in such a way as to make the playing field unequal.  Such concerns would not exist in a live debate scenario such as I have proposed—thus its appeal to me as a preferred setting for our “candid, civil exchange of ideas.”  Besides, I guarantee you won't find my candor to your liking, since I intend to conclusively demonstrate the fatal flaws in the arguments previously made by Richard Howard, Edward Ashment, and Christopher Smith (notice you're not on the list, having never produced anything yet that one could cite as being "the arguments of Brent Metcalfe").

What in the world are you talking about with my "pronounced and frequently displayed animosity"? You must have me confused with someone else. Since it is so frequent, could you trouble to give an example? I barely pay any attention to you at all.

As to moderating the event, I am pleased to give as much or as little assistance as desired by the two parties. I am happy just to facilitate the recording. I would be equally happy to do this as a joint venture with FAIR and their new podcast. I believe I have show fairness in dealing with either side, so your worry about my devilish moderation is unfounded. Besides, you are the U2 of Mormon apologists. What would you have to fear from me?

[William Schryver]

John Larsen, on 14 August 2010 - 12:19 PM, said:

What in the world are you talking about with my "pronounced and frequently displayed animosity"? You must have me confused with someone else. Since it is so frequent, could you trouble to give an example? I barely pay any attention to you at all.

As to moderating the event, I am pleased to give as much or as little assistance as desired by the two parties. I am happy just to facilitate the recording. I would be equally happy to do this as a joint venture with FAIR and their new podcast. I believe I have show fairness in dealing with either side, so your worry about my devilish moderation is unfounded. Besides, you are the U2 of Mormon apologists. What would you have to fear from me?

John,

I don't fear you, nor even think about you in the least, but I also don't believe your assistance will be necessary in this matter.  I believe I have things well in hand, thank you.  As I said before, I am not interested in engaging in a "rinky-dink" podcast, whether with you as the "host" or anyone else, for that matter.  My concept of a "debate" of these things is much more formal and substantive than could possibly be realized in a podcast scenario.

Thanks, all the same, for your kind offer.

I could, but I will not, sift through your posts on MDB and then confront you with examples of your occasional outbursts of hostility towards me as expressed in the past. You know what I'm talking about, and I am not charmed by the facility for duplicity you demonstrate in your above post.  I would think much more highly of you were you to acknowledge your true feelings and be content with the consequences.

Best wishes,

William Schryver

[Chaos]

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