Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Nibley: genius or fool?
From: <HISWJH@BYUVM.BITNET>
Date: Monday, 17 Aug 1992 15:18:29 MDT
Distribution: na
Organization: Brigham Young University


I find Glenn ClappUs criticisms of Nibley on Enoch somewhat
mystifying.  (I also find his refusal to take seriously the arguments
of those who disagree with him, and his tendency simply to wave
aside extremely sophisticated opposing positions, both arrogant and
tedious.  Such casual smugness is a crashing bore.  If it continues,
there is really little point in wasting time on these exchanges.)  Let
me, however, address the three general issues with which he
challenges Professor Hamblin:

(1)  "The Nephi bunch sailed to the Tpromised landU in 344 days,
with a fierce wind.S  Wrong.  Mr. Clapp has confused the Nephites and
the Jaredites.  However, for good materials on the Nephite crossing,
see Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon, 53-56; Clark, "Lehi
and El Nino: A Method of Migration,S BYU Studies 30 (Summer 1990):
57-65.

But I will grant that the Jaredites -- not the Nephites -- did, in
fact, take 344 days to make the sea voyage to "the land of promise.S
This bothers Mr. Clapp.  "At only 3 knots, they could have sailed
around the entire planet in that time.S

He is quite correct.  But can he describe for us the JareditesU
route?  Does he know how long it was?  Did they cross the Atlantic?
The Pacific?  The Indian Ocean and the Pacific?  Does he know how
many times the Jaredites came ashore for food and water?  Does he
know whether the boats made a direct journey?  We know very, very
little about their voyage, as it is described in only eight verses
whose central concern is neither seamanship nor navigation (Ether
6:4-11).

Furthermore, the Jaredite boats were of very odd construction.
The text repeatedly refers to them as "barges"(e.g., at Ether 2:16
and 6:4).  They seem to have resembled NoahUs ark in many ways,
including the fact that they appear to have been not so much vehicles
as sheer means of survival upon water.  They do not seem to have had
sails, the people aboard them seem to have done little or nothing to
steer them (Ether 6:9), and they seem to have spent much of their
time being pounded by waves and submerged under tempestuous seas
(Ether 6:6-7).  This does not seem an ideal way to make good time on
a transoceanic voyage.  Unpiloted barges have seldom done well in
the AmericaUs Cup competition.

It must be remembered that Christopher Columbus, in his
relatively advanced vessels, with a crew of professional sailors
actively involved in sailing and navigation, took 61 days sailing a
direct route with no landfalls to cross the Atlantic from Spain to
the Bahamas.  Crossing the Pacific would presumably have taken
even longer.  In medieval times it could take two months to cross
the Mediterranean from Barcelona to Alexandria (J. H. Parry, The Age
of Reconnaissance, p. 52)  Magellan's voyage around the world lasted
from 1519 to 1521.

"Please also address, the amount of food and water stored for a
voyage of that duration for that many people.S  Who knows?  Again,
we have no idea whether they made landfalls to replenish supplies.
Probably they did.  And we donUt know how often.  Mr. ClappUs clear
intent is to cast doubt on the Book of Mormon account by strongly
implying its implausibility.  But his attempt fails.  The text is
simply not detailed enough on this matter to allow decisive
judgments of any kind.

(2)  "Right after NephiUs arrival, he built a temple after that of
Solomon.S  ThatUs right.  And for interesting insight into the motives
and implications of that project, see Welch, ed., Reexploring the
Book of Mormon, 66-68.  But Mr. Clapp doubts that a small colony
could have built so large a building.  "Hmmmm.  15 people, one
Temple.  Now, how long did it take for build his?  [sic]  How many
people?  It took Solomon 8 years, 155,000 men, 30,000 overseers.S
The implication is that the Nephite colony could not possibly have
built a temple like SolomonUs, and that the Book of Mormon,
therefore, must be both silly and fictional.  But Mr. Clapp is
assuming far too much.  How does he know that the similarity of
NephiUs temple to SolomonUs consisted in its size and splendor?  The
text of the Book of Mormon goes as follows:  "And I, Nephi, did build
a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of
Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they
were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built
like unto SolomonUs temple.  But the manner of the construction was
like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was
exceedingly fine"(2 Nephi 5:16).  The question is, What does it mean
to be built "after the manner of the temple of SolomonS?  To be
patterned after?  To have the same general layout, without
necessarily being on the same scale?  That, it seems to me, is a
perfectly plausible way to read it.  And since we know that such
smaller temples did in fact exist in ancient Israel, there seems no
real reason to assume without evidence that one could not have
existed among the Nephites.  Avraham NegevUs Archaeological
Encyclopedia of the Holy Land, p. 28, tells of one such temple, built
"after the manner of the temple of Solomon,S as follows:  "The most
remarkable discovery at Arad is the temple which occupied the
north-western corner of the citadel. . . . Its orientation, general plan
and contents, especially the tabernacle, are similar to the Temple of
Solomon. . . . Flanking the entrance to the hekal were two stone
slabs, probably bases of pillars, similar to the pillars of Jachin and
Boaz in the temple at Jerusalem (1 Kgs. 7:21; 2 Chr. 4:17).S  Yet it
was only 1/3-1/4 the size of Solomon's temple. The Arad temple
survived, in use, until approximately the time of Lehi.  And it was
far from alone (see Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the
Bible, [1990] pp. 492-502.)

Mr. Clapp demands archaeological proof of NephiUs temple.
"Where is it now?S he asks.  Who knows?  Where are most of the
buildings of ancient Rome, Babylon, medieval Cairo, or even early
twentieth century Los Angeles?  Perhaps NephiUs small temple still
sits under dirt and vegetation somewhere in Mesoamerica.  More
likely, it was destroyed in war or civil strife, or its materials were
pillaged to construct some other, later building.  How many buildings
of any type survive from the sixth century B.C., anywhere?  The
pyramids are still standing, but where are the palaces of the
pharaohs who built them?  Where, indeed, is their great capital city
of Memphis?  It has essentially vanished.  (I know.  I lived near its
meager ruins for almost four years.)  Where, for that matter, is
SolomonUs temple itself?

(3)  "In Jeremiah,S says Mr. Clapp, "God forbis [sic] writing any
scripture in Egyptian.S  Where does this prohibition occur?  I am
aware of nothing in Jeremiah that says such a thing.  Can Mr. Clapp
provide a specific reference?

"Why did Nephi write in Egyptian?S  Who says he wrote in
Egyptian?  That is certainly one possibility, but many scholars (e.g.,
Stephen Ricks, Sidney Sperry, John Sorenson, and John Tvedtnes)
suggest, rather, that the language of the Nephites was Hebrew,
written in Egyptian characters.  However, the Book of Mormon itself
gives a clear answer to the question of why the Nephites used an
Egyptian script.  It was to save space on the plates (Mormon 9:33),
which were presumably difficult to make and difficult to engrave.
"Where is the evidence of this writing in this society (Reformed
Egyptian, that is).S  I donUt understand this question.

"Why has no writing that matches the Treformed EgyptianU has
[sic] ever been found outside the BoM sales flyer?S  Again, Mr. Clapp
assumes far too much.  First of all, the Nephite language was unique
(Mormon 9:34), especially after a thousand years of independent
linguistic evolution.  (Can Mr. Clapp read Beowulf, or even The
Canterbury Tales, as easily as he reads a modern newspaper?  Yet
Beowulf arguably represents a form of English, and Chaucer is
beyond question an English author.)  So there is absolutely no reason
to have expected "reformed Egyptian"to show up anywhere beyond
the Nephite realm.  But, intriguingly, there is more that can be said
on this question.  The practice of representing one language in a
script commonly associated with another language is very common.
Yiddish, for instance, which is basically a form of German, is
routinely written in Hebrew characters.  Swahili can be written in
either Roman or Arabic scripts.  Judeo-Arabic, as written for
instance by Moses Maimonides, was medieval Hebrew written with
Arabic letters.  In fact, almost any textbook of colloquial Arabic or
Chinese or Japanese aimed at Western learners will use the Latin
alphabet to represent those languages.  Language and script are
essentially independent.  Turkish, which used to be written in a
modified Arabic script, has been written in Latin letters in the
Republic of Turkey since the 1920s.  However, in the areas of the old
Soviet Union, it is now usually written in Cyrillic (Russian)
characters.  Likewise, perhaps the major difference between Hindi
and Urdu may be the mere fact that the former uses a Sanskrit
writing system, while the latter uses a modified Arabo-Persian
script.  So this phenomenon, of changing the script with which one
writes a language, is by no means unusual.

But we need not speak only in theoretical terms.  We have, in
fact, an ancient illustration that comes remarkably close to the
Book of Mormon itself.  Papyrus Amherst 63, a text from the second
century B.C., seems to offer something very much like "reformed
Eygptian.S  It is a papyrus scroll that contains Aramaic texts
written in a demotic Egyptian script.  (Aramaic is a language closely
related to Hebrew.  Part of the Old Testament book of Daniel is
written in Aramaic, and it was the spoken language of Jesus and his
apostles.  It used the Hebrew script.  Incidentally, however, a
Christian form of the language came to use an alphabet related to
Arabic -- again illustrating the independence of script and tongue.)
Interestingly, one of the items found on Papyrus Amherst 63 is a
version of Psalm 20:2-6.  (So much for Mr. ClappUs claim that
scripture cannot be written "in Egyptian.S  It not only can be, it
was.)  Some of this is discussed in a brief article entitled "Language
and Script in the Book of Mormon,S published in the March 1992
newsletter of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon
Studies (F.A.R.M.S.)  Those who wish to keep up with the rather
exciting things now occurring in Book of Mormon research should
contact F.A.R.M.S. at P.O. Box 7113, University Station, Provo, Utah
84602.

But now a question for Glenn Clapp:  What does he do with the
testimony of the eleven witnesses to the Book of Mormon?  They
seem to me to provide highly plausible and sober evidence that there
were, indeed, real golden plates connected with the Book of Mormon,
and that a genuinely supernatural being was involved in its
production.  It will not do for Mr. Clapp simply to say that they were
fools, or that they were insane or hallucinating, or that they were
involved in some pointless conspiracy to commit fraud.  Books like
Lyndon W. CookUs just-off-the-press David Whitmer Interviews, to
say nothing of Eldin RicksUs The Case of the Book of Mormon
Witnesses and Rhett JamesUs The Man Who Knew (about Martin
Harris) and Richard Lloyd AndersonUs classic Investigating the Book
of Mormon Witnesses simply do not allow such cheap escapes.  As
Professor Hamblin would say, "Evidence and analysis, please!S  (IUm
told that Mr. Clapp explains the witnessesU fidelity to their
testimony as motivated by fear of murderous Danites.  That sort of
preposterous nonsense wonUt wash, either.  Where is there any
evidence for such a thing?  Why would Oliver Cowdery have
reiterated his testimony on his death bed, when he was presumably
beyond the power of the Danites even had they existed?  Why do we
also find David Whitmer and Martin Harris enthusiastically repeating
their testimonies on their deathbeds?  Why, if he was afraid, did
David Whitmer repeatedly feel free to mingle his testimony of the
Book of Mormon with denunciations of Joseph Smith and Brigham
Young and polygamy?  Fear of Danites might explain unwillingness to
deny oneUs testimony, but it cannot explain WhitmerUs active
involvement in establishing his own church, based on the Book of
Mormon.  And it cannot explain the joy that observers frequently
noticed in Whitmer and the other witnesses, notably Martin Harris,
when they got a chance to testify to the angelic visit and the truth
of the Nephite record.)  What is more, there are more witnesses
beyond the eleven, whose testimony must be rationalized away by
anybody who wants to cling to Mr. ClappUs position.  On them, such
books as Milton V. BackmanUs Eyewitness Accounts of the
Restoration and Susan Easton BlackUs Stories from the Early Saints
must be confronted and explained.  Mr. Clapp has some good reading
ahead of him, if he is really interested in dealing with the evidence.
Is he?  I have serious doubts.

Daniel C. Peterson

Addendum by Bill Hamblin:  Note my challenge was for Glenn to
provide what he felt were his best criticisms against the Book of
Mormon which had been ignored by the LDS.  Clapp has failed on both
counts: the criticisms are weak, and have been sufficiently dealt
with in published LDS responses.