Response To Chris Ralph

[Kevin Christensen]

What I notice regarding the letter is that despite the serious concerns raised, there is no effort whatsoever to explore any LDS resources whatsoever. With the discovery of the papyrus in 1967, Nibley started addressing these issues. A great deal has been published, and is easily available. In the famous Mosser and Owen paper, "Loosing the Battle and Not Knowing it" the evangelical authors comment:

In a survey of twenty recent evangelical books criticizing Mormonism we found that none interact with this growing body of literature. Only a handful demonstrate any awareness of pertinent works. Many of the authors promote criticisms that have long been refuted; some are sensationalistic while others are simply ridiculous. A number of these books claim to be "the definitive" book on the matter. That they make no attempt to interact with contemporary LDS scholarship is a stain upon the authors' integrity and causes one to wonder about their credibility.

There are several well-trained LDS scholars with credentials in Egyptian. It's not as though we are helpless. I've got several books on my shelves. FAIR (as has been noted here, has some excellent, relevant resources.) Even the Nibley essays in the Improvement Era noticed that the figure on the couch does not behave like your run-of-the-mill candidate for embalming. With both his legs and arms in motion, in obvious contrast to the illustrations provided, we have something worth both notice and explanation. And if Abraham is not named in Figure 1, he is actually named on a similar figure, as noted in the FAIR links, and originally published in the Ensign. Does it matter that Nibley and Rhodes, among others have translated and published the Breathings text? Does the Traditions About the Early Life of Abraham volume not merit at least a mention? And Will's 2010 essay on the priority of the Abraham text over the Kirtland papers? People can disagree, of course, and debate the issues, but there should be some acknowledgement of what is out there, well known, and easily available.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[cdowis]

This issue that the KEP was done before or after. Am I understanding it right?

If I have the following sentence in Spanish:

Yo soy de los Estados Unidos.

And I translate it as:

In the land of the ^aChaldeans, at the residence of my fathers, I,^bAbraham, saw that it was needful for me to obtain another place of ^cresidence

And you find me with documents that show stuff like:

Yo = In the land of the Chaldeans

soy = at the residence of my fathers

de = I, Abraham

Isn't that equally condemning no matter if I used that document to translate or I put it together after the fact?

OK, your argument is sound but your example is silly, flawed.

You need to read Tvedtnes' actual examination of the translation, comparing it with the manuscript. He gave a detailed analysis on how the two fit together.

NOTE: Personally I am an advocate of Tvedtnes' mnemonic theory of translation. However, Gee did persuade him to abandon this line of research, but I find it does answer some questions such as the one you posed.

Edited September 3, 2012 by cdowis

[cdowis]

No, because you are assuming that the KEP was used as a tool for translation or as a reverse engineering project.

The first theory seems to be dead as there is much evidence against it.

Interesting.

Perhaps you could humor me and give a quick summary of all that evidence. I have a feeling that the interpretation is based on one or more false assumptions. I am in possession of a very sensitive BS detector.

Edited September 3, 2012 by cdowis

[robuchan]

OK, your argument is sound but your example is silly, flawed.

You need to read Tvedtnes' actual examination of the translation, comparing it with the manuscript. He gave a detailed analysis on how the two fit together.

NOTE: Personally I am an advocate of Tvedtnes' mnemonic theory of translation. However, Gee did persuade him to abandon this line of research, but I find it does answer some questions such as the one you posed.

I doubt I will ever read Tvedtnes' book. Can you give me the key logic points? Or a link to a summary?

Is this related to the Facsimiles or the KEP's matching up of English to Egyptian?

[Robert F. Smith]

Abraham does not say the god Elkenah but "the god of Elkenah". I don’t believe that Abraham through Joseph meant to call the gods by their names. Elkenah and the rest mentioned are not gods themselves but are either a place name or person.

Abraham writes;

My fathers, having turned from their righteousness, …unto the worshiping of the gods of the heathen…For their hearts were set to do evil, and were wholly turned to the god of Elkenah, and the god of Libnah, and the god of Mahmackrah, and the god of Korash, and the god of Pharaoh, king of Egypt;

Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah and Korash were the heathens who worshiped the false gods which we know as the sons of Horus.

Note that in chapter 1 verse 7 it says "The priest of Elkenah was also the priest of Pharaoh" Pharaoh was a person thus Elkenah was person who shared a priest with Pharaoh. It is a personal name in the Bible, Hannah’s husband.

In Joshua 10:20 it says;

"Then Joshua passed from Makkedah, and all Israel with him, unto Libnah, and fought against Libnah"

These are places names I even read they are doing some archeology at Libnah these days which would have been occupied at the time of Abraham by heathens.

Figure 9 in the vignette makes my point. It is a crocodile and Joseph writes;

"The idolatrous god of Pharaoh"

He’s not calling the Pharaoh a crocodile but that the crocodile was the god the different Pharaohs worshiped or represented the Pharaoh's power.

There are certainly a number of possible ways to grammatically understand such phrases: The "of" could be partitive, simple possessive, or appositional, but that doesn't really tell us which was meant.

One way to tell is to examine the ways in which such concepts were actually employed anciently. For example, the crocodile-god Sobek, which you rightly understand as the god of Pharaoh, was a god in his own right with which the Pharaohs especially identified -- so that in Abraham's time they actually sometimes used the name of Sobek as part of their Pharaonic titlature. So the "of" in that case would mean "belonging to" or "identified with."

Another example we can use is the name Elkenah, which is indeed the personal name of the husband of Hannah. However, Elkenah is also a divine name meaning "El-Creator (of the heavens and the earth)," which was used by the Canaanites and Hittites, and later by the Israelites -- in either its long form or short form (Gen 14:19,22, Ex 20:11, II Chron 2:11-12, Isa 42:5; Mosiah 4:2, 13:19, 15:4, Alma 18:28; Jn 1:3, Acts 4:24, 14:15, 17:24). These examples suggest that the names are the actual names or epithets of particular gods rather than gods belonging to some named human (thus for priest of, altar of, etc.).

[Robert F. Smith]

I doubt I will ever read Tvedtnes' book. Can you give me the key logic points? Or a link to a summary?

Is this related to the Facsimiles or the KEP's matching up of English to Egyptian?

As Kevin Christensen pointed out above, the two fair-minded evangelical scholars, Owen & Mosser, concluded that "In a survey of twenty recent evangelical books criticizing Mormonism we found that none interact with this growing body of literature. Only a handful demonstrate any awareness of pertinent works. Many of the authors promote criticisms that have long been refuted; some are sensationalistic while others are simply ridiculous. A number of these books claim to be 'the definitive' book on the matter. That they make no attempt to interact with contemporary LDS scholarship is a stain upon the authors' integrity and causes one to wonder about their credibility." This has been and remains the single most difficult obstacle to overcome when considering the Mormon Canon of Scripture, but is even more problematic when accompanied by biblical illiteracy. One can simply not give a concise summary of every issue in the absence of familiarity with the basic facts.

The most important observation on this matter is Will Schryver's pointing out at FAIR that the effort by Joseph's scribes to create ciphers began even before the Egyptian Papyri arrived in Kirtland, Ohio, and simply continued after that arrival. There is no evidence to indicate that any of the claimed "translation manuscripts" had anything to do with translation of the papyri. If you have not listened to the Schryver lectures in full, and then read Chris Smith's “The Inspired Fictionalization of the 1835 United Firm Revelations,” Claremont Journal of Mormon Studies, 1/1 (Apr 2011), 15-31, online at http://www.claremontmormonstudies.org/journal/ , you are simply not going to be able to understand the context.

[Robert F. Smith]

What is the faithful response to the following (excerpt from letter responding to this spring's initiative to help European leaders deal with disaffectation of members. http://stevebloor.wordpress.com/ ) Do we already have a response (links, please)?

The first thing I noticed about Steve Bloor's blog was that he deliberately made it impossible to read the 2-page LDS letter he reproduced. The second thing I noticed was his continuous and deliberate misstatement of facts about LDS Scripture and theology. He exhibited no familiarity with scholarly literature on the subjects he addressed.

I adhere to the school of hard knocks on belief and faith: If people in general are silly enough to believe the ridiculous yammerings of this or that flim-flam man, begone with them!! Let them become humanists, atheists, or whatever their hearts desire. If they prefer to swill booze and cuss up a storm, let them have at it. This is already a major problem for religion in general in Europe -- most Europeans now reject belief in God and don't bother to go to any church -- and Mormons there no doubt get caught up in the irreligious culture. Things have gone so far there that children who believe in any religion are teased for it at school. Bloor and his buddies are merely cruel, insensitive, and boorish. Their contemptuous and selfish natures will spell doom to the future of Europe.

[robuchan]

As Kevin Christensen pointed out above, the two fair-minded evangelical scholars, Owen & Mosser, concluded that "In a survey of twenty recent evangelical books criticizing Mormonism we found that none interact with this growing body of literature. Only a handful demonstrate any awareness of pertinent works. Many of the authors promote criticisms that have long been refuted; some are sensationalistic while others are simply ridiculous. A number of these books claim to be 'the definitive' book on the matter. That they make no attempt to interact with contemporary LDS scholarship is a stain upon the authors' integrity and causes one to wonder about their credibility." This has been and remains the single most difficult obstacle to overcome when considering the Mormon Canon of Scripture, but is even more problematic when accompanied by biblical illiteracy. One can simply not give a concise summary of every issue in the absence of familiarity with the basic facts.

The most important observation on this matter is Will Schryver's pointing out at FAIR that the effort by Joseph's scribes to create ciphers began even before the Egyptian Papyri arrived in Kirtland, Ohio, and simply continued after that arrival. There is no evidence to indicate that any of the claimed "translation manuscripts" had anything to do with translation of the papyri. If you have not listened to the Schryver lectures in full, and then read Chris Smith's “The Inspired Fictionalization of the 1835 United Firm Revelations,” Claremont Journal of Mormon Studies, 1/1 (Apr 2011), 15-31, online at http://www.claremont...es.org/journal/ , you are simply not going to be able to understand the context.

Owen and Mosser's article is 15 years old and was written with the intent of educating evangelical theologians that misunderstand Mormonism. I don't see the relevance. But I get your point. It's that the critics don't understand the apologists' arguments.

I'd like to understand Schryver's research better. It does seem like a strike against the BoA if its best apologetic defense is unpublished and so complex it's impossible to provide a summary.

[Robert F. Smith]

Owen and Mosser's article is 15 years old and was written with the intent of educating evangelical theologians that misunderstand Mormonism. I don't see the relevance. But I get your point. It's that the critics don't understand the apologists' arguments.

I'd like to understand Schryver's research better. It does seem like a strike against the BoA if its best apologetic defense is unpublished and so complex it's impossible to provide a summary.

I had no trouble understanding Schryver's presentation. He was very clear, used excellent illustrations, and was systematic. It would already have been published formally had it not been for the false rumors started by anti-Mormons who were deathly afraid of seeing Schryver in print. However, you still have access to his work at http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2010-fair-conference..

Unfortunately, the same does not apply to Greg Smith's piece analyzing John Dehlin's work -- no one has access to it, and it has not yet been published due to behind the scenes calumnies being heaped upon Smith. You and I are actively being prevented from reading it. Why?

Edited September 5, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[robuchan]

I had no trouble understanding Schryver's presentation. He was very clear, used excellent illustrations, and was systematic. It would already have been published formally had it not been for the false rumors started by anti-Mormons who were deathly afraid of seeing Schryver in print. However, you still have access to his work at http://www.fairlds.o...fair-conference..

Unfortunately, the same does not apply to Greg Smith's piece analyzing John Dehlin's work -- no one has access to it, and it has not yet been published due to behind the scenes calumnies being heaped upon Smith. You and I are actively being prevented from reading it. Why?

Please don't blame anti-Mormons for stopping the Lord's work when it comes to apologetics. But this is a tangent, let's get back to the issue.

The reason for my reply to you was that you told me a summary for Shryver's work was impossible and that I would have to watch and read follow up material to understand. I was hoping I get a summary of the issues.

[Cobalt-70]

I had no trouble understanding Schryver's presentation. He was very clear, used excellent illustrations, and was systematic. It would already have been published formally had it not been for the false rumors started by anti-Mormons who were deathly afraid of seeing Schryver in print. However, you still have access to his work at http://www.fairlds.o...fair-conference..

If Schryver's work were worth the paper it's written on, it would be published in a respectable, non-apologetic forum. He's bragged that he expects that a "particular East Coast university press" will be beating down his door when he finishes his book, but I can't see that happening if the final product is anything resembling his presentation. I hate to see spending all those hours on a project that's never going to get any respect except among a small fringe.

[USU78]

It does seem like a strike against the BoA if its best apologetic defense is unpublished and so complex it's impossible to provide a summary.

Or maybe you're projecting speculations into a very straight-forward problem:

Authors like credit for what they've discovered . . . and in the boobird vs. apologist world, you want everything picture perfect before you put something into publishable form: saves time by answering CFRs before they're asked. There is, moreover, this: there's never an end to research, and deciding upon a stopping point in research for purposes of publication necessitates that every published work in necessarily misleading, as it leaves off all developments that occur from the point the manuscript is prepared for submission to editor and the date of publication. Such a time frame might be years long.

[robuchan]

Or maybe you're projecting speculations into a very straight-forward problem:

Authors like credit for what they've discovered . . . and in the boobird vs. apologist world, you want everything picture perfect before you put something into publishable form: saves time by answering CFRs before they're asked. There is, moreover, this: there's never an end to research, and deciding upon a stopping point in research for purposes of publication necessitates that every published work in necessarily misleading, as it leaves off all developments that occur from the point the manuscript is prepared for submission to editor and the date of publication. Such a time frame might be years long.

That's fine. That comment might not have been fair. I don't know how these things work in the academic world. The more salient point about Schryver's work and Robert's reply to me was that he introduces it as being impossible to summarize. The only way to understand is to watch the presentation and then read follow up publications.

[USU78]

That's fine. That comment might not have been fair. I don't know how these things work in the academic world. The more salient point about Schryver's work and Robert's reply to me was that he introduces it as being impossible to summarize. The only way to understand is to watch the presentation and then read follow up publications.

Yet there is a summary: on the FAIRlds.org website. Will's presentation there from a couple of years ago.

In short: the Egyptian/English Dictionary and other works from the Kirtland period were not working papers for production of the BoA. Neither were they attempts to reverse engineer it. They were in large part a cipher designed for use in correspondence and whatnot. And there's good physical evidence for the proposition.

See? There's a summary for you.

And as for Robert's disinterest in creating a summary . . . that's between you and him, not you and Will.

If you don't want to do the homework to catch up on what's been said, pro and con, during and since the presentation, then I cannot help you.

Edited September 5, 2012 by USU78

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Interesting.

Perhaps you could humor me and give a quick summary of all that evidence. I have a feeling that the interpretation is based on one or more false assumptions. I am in possession of a very sensitive BS detector.

I already have. You know, I have read your posts and you are not the type of person I care to dialogue with. You are way to cynical for me. Good day.

PS I have quite the BS detector myself. And I think you are full of it.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Yet there is a summary: on the FAIRlds.org website. Will's presentation there from a couple of years ago.

In short: the Egyptian/English Dictionary and other works from the Kirtland period were not working papers for production of the BoA. Neither were they attempts to reverse engineer it. They were in large part a cipher designed for use in correspondence and whatnot. And there's good physical evidence for the proposition.

See? There's a summary for you.

And as for Robert's disinterest in creating a summary . . . that's between you and him, not you and Will.

If you don't want to do the homework to catch up on what's been said, pro and con, during and since the presentation, then I cannot help you.

Correct.

[Robert F. Smith]

Please don't blame anti-Mormons for stopping the Lord's work when it comes to apologetics. But this is a tangent, let's get back to the issue.

The reason for my reply to you was that you told me a summary for Shryver's work was impossible and that I would have to watch and read follow up material to understand. I was hoping I get a summary of the issues.

You were the one complaining that Schryver had not yet published his views. I simply explained why -- because anti-Mormons were deeply fearful of such publication and so sought to prevent that publication by ignoble means.

I did not tell you that "a summary for Schryver's work was impossible." Where to you get this stuff? What Owen & Mosser said fifteen years ago is still true: the anti-Mormons are not interested in anything substantive and so do not read and interact with actual Mormon claims. The fear I imagine is that the dissonance would be too much for them.