Great Interview With Don And Dan

[why me]

I think that this is a great interview by Don Bradley and Dan Peterson. I am glad that they are on the apologist side. I realize that the interview is quite long but it is well worth it. Don gives a wonderful explanation why he returned to the church. Lets hope that link works. It is on K-talk which I am sure that all utah knows about.

Mills Crenshaw with Don Bradley and Daniel Peterson.

Edited July 29, 2013 by why me

[Scott Lloyd]

I think that this is a great interview by Don Bradley and Dan Peterson. I am glad that they are on the apologist side. I realize that the interview is quite long but it is well worth it. Don gives a wonderful explanation why he returned to the church. Lets hope that link works. It is on K-talk which I am sure that all utah knows about.

Mills Crenshaw with Don Bradley and Daniel Peterson.

I got a kick out of "Carl," the caller who swore up and down that the word "sheum" is in the Bible. He's probably still absolutely certain of it.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[Robert F. Smith]

I got a kick out of "Carl," the caller who swore up and down that the word "sheum" is in the Bible. He's probably still absolutely certain of it.

Did he give a citation for it? I checked and can't find anything like that.

However, there is that exact word in Akkadian cuneiform as the most common word for grain, she'um. It would have to have been brought over to the Americas by the Jaredites, through the Mulekites, to Mosiah as the name for a food plant unknown to Joseph Smith (such as amaranth).

There are a number of such improbable instances in which Book of Mormon names and common nouns are clearly derived from ancient Near Eastern languages which Joseph did not know.

[HiJolly]

Thanks, why me, for that link. I really enjoyed it. :-)

[Tacenda]

Did he give a citation for it? I checked and can't find anything like that.

However, there is that exact word in Akkadian cuneiform as the most common word for grain, she'um. It would have to have been brought over to the Americas by the Jaredites, through the Mulekites, to Mosiah as the name for a food plant unknown to Joseph Smith (such as amaranth).

There are a number of such improbable instances in which Book of Mormon names and common nouns are clearly derived from ancient Near Eastern languages which Joseph did not know.

http://valsederholm.blogspot.com/2011/04/and-with-neas-and-with-sheum-mosiah-99.html

I too listened to the whole radio interview, and remember the guy. It got me curious and when I went to google and put the word in, the above site came up and it mentions that sheum isn't Akkadian as it turns out.

C/P from the BlogSpot above, is this quote, which includes you!! If indeed you are THE Robert F. Smith.

"As long ago as 1973 students of the Book of Mormon sought to identify the grain sheum with what appears to be the very same word in the Akkadian language, or East Semitic. After all, what could be closer to Zeniff's sheum than sheum? (See Robert R. Bennett, "Barley and Wheat in the Book of Mormon," on the Website of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, BYU. According to Bennett, it was Robert F. Smith, in a talk given at BYU, who first compared Akkadian sheum to the word found in Mosiah). The guess was a good one, but the understanding of ancient languages moves on, and, as it moves on, waits for no man.

In his "Glossary of Akkadian Words," Professor John Huehnergard comments on the correct Akkadian word for barley or grain, um:

um

Sum[erian]. lw.? always written with log[ogram] SHE, e.g., acc. SHE-am or SHE-a-am for am; also written either SHE.UM or SHE. IM , regardless of case) 'barley, grain'; note: until very recently this word was read in Akkadian as sheum, and appears as such in both dictionaries and all text publications up through 1990" (John Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, 528).

For any student of Sumerian and Akkadian the matter is crystal clear. The Akkadian word um (barley) perforce takes as determinative sign the Sumerian word SHE (classes of grains). Sheum was a misreading: there is no such word in Akkadian.

[volgadon]

http://valsederholm....-mosiah-99.html

I too listened to the whole radio interview, and remember the guy. It got me curious and when I went to google and put the word in, the above site came up and it mentions that sheum isn't Akkadian as it turns out.

C/P from the BlogSpot above, is this quote, which includes you!! If indeed you are THE Robert F. Smith.

"As long ago as 1973 students of the Book of Mormon sought to identify the grain sheum with what appears to be the very same word in the Akkadian language, or East Semitic. After all, what could be closer to Zeniff's sheum than sheum? (See Robert R. Bennett, "Barley and Wheat in the Book of Mormon," on the Website of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, BYU. According to Bennett, it was Robert F. Smith, in a talk given at BYU, who first compared Akkadian sheum to the word found in Mosiah). The guess was a good one, but the understanding of ancient languages moves on, and, as it moves on, waits for no man.

In his "Glossary of Akkadian Words," Professor John Huehnergard comments on the correct Akkadian word for barley or grain, um:

um

Sum[erian]. lw.? always written with log[ogram] SHE, e.g., acc. SHE-am or SHE-a-am for am; also written either SHE.UM or SHE. IM , regardless of case) 'barley, grain'; note: until very recently this word was read in Akkadian as sheum, and appears as such in both dictionaries and all text publications up through 1990" (John Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, 528).

For any student of Sumerian and Akkadian the matter is crystal clear. The Akkadian word um (barley) perforce takes as determinative sign the Sumerian word SHE (classes of grains). Sheum was a misreading: there is no such word in Akkadian.

He is indeed THE Robert F. Smith.

As for Sederholm, he has failed to take into consideration that the word made its way into Hebrew, as sheu'it- black-eyed peas.

[Tacenda]

He is indeed THE Robert F. Smith.

As for Sederholm, he has failed to take into consideration that the word made its way into Hebrew, as sheu'it- black-eyed peas.

Whatcha talkin bout Willis? I did read the thread back in 2011, the discussion on this and you did bring this up. But still don't get it, or where you're going with it.

[volgadon]

Whatcha talkin bout Willis? I did read the thread back in 2011, the discussion on this and you did bring this up. But still don't get it, or where you're going with it.

[media=]

Sederholm splits she and um, but when the word appeared in Hebrew, it only dropped the -m.

[Scott Lloyd]

Did he give a citation for it? I checked and can't find anything like that.

"Carl" is extremely combative, and the impression I got is that this tends to make him talk without having his brain engaged, that the host, MIlls Crenshaw, typically doesn't let him on the program to spew his anti-Mormonism, but that Crenshaw made an exception in this case because the guests were who they are.

He was raving on with some irrelevancy about barley being a species of wild grass. How that is supposed to disprove the Book of Mormon I could never grasp.

[why me]

I got a kick out of "Carl," the caller who swore up and down that the word "sheum" is in the Bible. He's probably still absolutely certain of it.

He seems to be a regular caller. I think that carl lost the debate.

[why me]

I think that Don's story about why he returned to the church was a wonderful story of research and putting together context and content. He is an example for many others who are in the same as he when he was out of the church.

[Scott Lloyd]

I think that Don's story about why he returned to the church was a wonderful story of research and putting together context and content. He is an example for many others who are in the same as he when he was out of the church.

I look forward to hearing him at the FAIR Conference this week.

[Brian 2.0]

Has Dan's presentation happened yet where he said he would mention a new approach to apologetics and a new "tool" to help? I'd be really interested in that. He said it was going to be on "Friday" I think. But I don't know if that is last Friday or this coming one.

[why me]

Thanks, why me, for that link. I really enjoyed it. :-)

What I also found interesting is the case made by critics that the church is hiding information. Now I know that Don and Dan do work for the church since Dan works for BYU and Don was working on the JSPs, but it seems that both answered questions honestly and openly with nothing hidden. Anyone in Utah listening to this radio show came away better educated about some of the controversies that are being discussed on the internet.

[Robert F. Smith]

Has Dan's presentation happened yet where he said he would mention a new approach to apologetics and a new "tool" to help? I'd be really interested in that. He said it was going to be on "Friday" I think. But I don't know if that is last Friday or this coming one.

This coming Friday Aug 2, at the Utah Valley Convention Center in downtown Provo on Center St.

More about the FAIR Conference at http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2013-fair-conference/conf13a .

[Robert F. Smith]

http://valsederholm....-mosiah-99.html

I too listened to the whole radio interview, and remember the guy. It got me curious and when I went to google and put the word in, the above site came up and it mentions that sheum isn't Akkadian as it turns out.

C/P from the BlogSpot above, is this quote, which includes you!! If indeed you are THE Robert F. Smith.

"As long ago as 1973 students of the Book of Mormon sought to identify the grain sheum with what appears to be the very same word in the Akkadian language, or East Semitic. After all, what could be closer to Zeniff's sheum than sheum? (See Robert R. Bennett, "Barley and Wheat in the Book of Mormon," on the Website of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, BYU. According to Bennett, it was Robert F. Smith, in a talk given at BYU, who first compared Akkadian sheum to the word found in Mosiah). The guess was a good one, but the understanding of ancient languages moves on, and, as it moves on, waits for no man.

In his "Glossary of Akkadian Words," Professor John Huehnergard comments on the correct Akkadian word for barley or grain, um:

um

Sum[erian]. lw.? always written with log[ogram] SHE, e.g., acc. SHE-am or SHE-a-am for am; also written either SHE.UM or SHE. IM , regardless of case) 'barley, grain'; note: until very recently this word was read in Akkadian as sheum, and appears as such in both dictionaries and all text publications up through 1990" (John Huehnergard, A Grammar of Akkadian, 528).

For any student of Sumerian and Akkadian the matter is crystal clear. The Akkadian word um (barley) perforce takes as determinative sign the Sumerian word SHE (classes of grains). Sheum was a misreading: there is no such word in Akkadian.

Thanks for quoting Dr. Sederholm's blog, Tacenda.

There is indeed an ongoing debate on how to read texts which have been read she'um in the past. Val Sederholm (PhD in Egyptology, UCLA) is a friend of mine, and he is very talented and knowledgeable. His opinion should be taken seriously, and I like his alternative offerings, but his opinion is not the only one:

According to Zipora Cochavi-Rainey, the Sumerian sign ŠE "grain; barley," was read as syllabic še from Old Akkadian through Late Babylonian times (Cochavi-Rainey, Akkadian Dialect of Egyptian Scribes [ugarit-Verlag, 2011], 21). The Akkadian nominative case ending -um was dropped long before the time of Lehi & Nephi, but, as Cochavi-Rainey points out, Egyptian scribes using Akkadian cuneiform for diplomatic purposes in the 2nd millennium B.C., regularly used "habitual spellings," and there is no reason why the Jaredite terminology might not have been maintained frozen over a long period of time -- even into late Zeniffite usage (37,74).

Of course, Sederholm may be right, and the old readings of the great Miguel Civil may be wrong in his readings of the late Neo-Babylonian or Seleucid Tablet VII/4, line 33 as ú meaning u-um, while he reads the Sumerogram ŠE in line 36 as še-um (Civil, MSL, 14:466 for Aa Tablets);

However, following Prof. Huehnergard, Sederholm notes that the Sumerian logogram is always attached to the Akkadian, giving us legitimate readings such as ŠE-a-am, ŠE-am, ŠE-um, etc., provided of course that we are reading a transliteration of what a scribe is dealing with as he transmits ideograms in an unknown language into Nephite. As for the Egyptian scribes which Cochavi-Rainey describes being confused by such phenomena, such a reading ought not to surprise us at all. After all, generations of Sumerologists and Assyriologists have been equally confused.

[Scott Lloyd]

Has Dan's presentation happened yet where he said he would mention a new approach to apologetics and a new "tool" to help? I'd be really interested in that. He said it was going to be on "Friday" I think. But I don't know if that is last Friday or this coming one.

The FAIR Conference convenes tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday. Dan's will be the last presentation of the conference on Friday.

[MDalby]

I listened to the interview. I know this isn't representative of all those that are opposed to the restored Gospel but that anti was sure angry. Why are antis angry? I have my own answer. This was a rhetorical question.