From: wcsa@cbnews.cb.att.com (willard.smith)
Subject: Re: LDS: Nibley, genius or fool
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 14:46:30 GMT
Summary: I rarely find deception to be a compelling reason to believe
	 critics of Mormonism



In Article: <1992Aug13.215539.16645@newsgate.sps.mot.com> Mark Fuller writes:

|Nibley's book you mention is a very good example to substantiate Glenn's
|claim.  Nibley translated only 2 of the 10 fragments, and these 2 had
|already been translated many years previously.  Nibley failed to discuss
|the meaning of the hyroglyphics of 'Facsimile No. 1', the reason being
|that a true translation shows that the picture in the fragment is *not*
|Abraham fastened on an altar, but an Egyptian man being prepared for
|burial.  This casts serious doubt over Smith's veracity, and demonstrates
|again Nibley's biased position in relation to his employer.
|
|Edward Ashment, in _Sunstone, Dec. 1979_,  demonstrated Nibley's foolishness,
|prompting Nibley to respond, 'I refuse to be held reponsible for anything
|I wrote more than three years ago.'  Considering the book you reference as
|a shining example of Nibley's credibility was published in 1975, it appears
|Nibley abandoned it a short time later, after Ashment's criticism.

I don't know Mark Fuller, nor am I aware of the sources that he is using, but
I am fairly up to date on the current statues of the BoA controversy (past
and present) and I can only say that either Mr Fuller does not have all the
facts in hand, or he is simply deceptive. I would perfer to believe the
former. The Edward Ashment article in _Sunstone_ was a reprint of a
presentation which he presented at one of the early Sunstone Symposiums.
Ashment is both a Mormon and an accredited Egyptologist.

The gist of Ashment's presentation was that significant portions of Joseph
Smith's interpretation of Facsimile No. 1 are very accurate. Ashment's biggest
complaint is that portions of Facsimile No. 1 appear to have been damaged
before Joseph Smith had received the material, and it appears that the
reconstruction of the damaged parts left out some significant material.
Ashment's presentation then examined who was responsible for the
reconstruction. Ashment's criticism of Nibley was not over Nibley's book,
_Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri_ or over the majority of Nibley's work.
In fact Ashment acknowledges Nibley's significant contribution to the study.
Ashment's criticism centered around specific remarks Nibley had said back
in 1968 concerning Facsimile No. 1.

To suggest that Ashment's criticism was directed at Nibley's work in total
or even at major sections of his work is out and out distortion. All one
has to do is to read the entire article.

What Mr Fuller also seems to ignore (or be ignorant of) is the fact that
Nibley was present at Ashment's presentation, had been given a copy of
Ashment's paper before hand, and had been asked to respond. Nibley's response
was also published directly after Ashment's article in _Sunstone_. The gist
of Nibley's remarks was not that everything he had written three years ago
was now out of date, but rather as new information became available it is
important to reconsider old arguments. By distorting Nibley's response in
this fashion, all Mr Fuller has done is demonstrated how little he knows or
to what lengths he will go to "prove a point."

I want also to address another related issue. In the literature critical of
Mormonism, the writers attempt to paint a very "dogmatic" relationship
between Hugh Nibley (and other Mormons) and Egyptologists who might disagree
with them, such as Klaus Baer. For years copies of personal coorespondance
between Nibley and Baer, etc. have been circulating around BYU and have been
referred to in several current reviews of the controversy (See John Gee's
review of Larson's "By His Own Hand ...," _Review of Books on the Book of
Mormon_ 4:93-119). Nibley studied under Baer during the summer of 1964 and
Baer's overall evalution of Nibley's _Improvement Era_ articles (1968),
that defined the early boundaries of the controversy, was that they were a
"delight and should be compulsory reading for budding Egyptologists ... they
might be an effective inoculation against the pompous ass syndrome." (letter
to Nibley, 10 August 1968).

Even where Nibley and Baer come in conflict, there is none of the "ignorant,"
"stupid," or "novice" type labels that are being knocked about by the
professional mormon critics. It essentially comes down to a difference in
professional opinions, not in the errors of someone who simply doesn't know
what they are talking about. In contrast, perhaps Mr Fuller would be
interested in knowing exactly what some Egyptologists think of the work of
Nelson, Heward, and Tanner. Dieter Mueller described their work as "amateur"
and "polemical" "with several gross errors." (see _Annual Egyptological
Bibliography_ 1968 Leiden: Brill, 1973. Nelson is discussed on pp 131-132,
The Tanners are discussed on pp. 169-170, and Heward and the Tanners are
discussed on p. 84).

In short, if Mr Fuller wants to sally forth against Mormons, fine. But if he
must resort to destortion to accomplish his ends, then his arguments
personally mean very little to me

|I find this extremely difficult to comprehend.  Joseph Smith 'translated'
|76 words from *one* part of *one* egyptian word.  The word means 'water',
|and Smith produced from this the text contained in 1:13-14.  Actualy the
|entire compound Egyptian word is translated 'pool' or 'lake'.  Smith
|extracted an *incredible* 135 words from this -- producing 1:11-14.
|
|Smith also translated the one Egyptian word 'Khons' (the name of the
|Egyptian moon-god) into an astounding 177 english words, yeilding
|Abraham 1:16-19.  This would be like my claiming the phrase 'buenas dias'
|can be translated into the entire story of 'Little Red Riding Hood'.
|The abundandtly incompetant Nibley discussed this problem and explained
|it away as 'The Egyptian in particular had an incurable weakness for
|abbreviations, ...' _Improvement Era, Feb. 1968, pp. 14-15._
|
|This is absolutly laughable.  Nibley is telling us the one word name of
|the Egyptian moon-god 'Khons' is actually the abbreviated story:
|
|  'And his voice was unto me: Abraham, Abraham, behold, my name is
|   Jehovah, and I have heard thee, and have come down to deliver thee,
|   and to take thee away from thy father's house, and from all thy
|   kins-folk, into a strange land which thou knowest not of;
|[99 words deleted to save time]
|   'As is was with Noah, so shall it be with thee; but through
|   thy ministry my name shall be known in the earth forever, for
|   I am thy God'
|_Abraham 1:16-19_

I have always heard other Mormon apologists accuse Professional Anti-Mormons
of being ignorant of the current literature. Although I don't want to believe
it, the evidence is getting hard to deny.

The inherent problems of the Tanners' thesis dealing with the Kirtland
Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar have been described on the Net before now
(see the Mormon FAQ part 2 which was posted about four months ago and
which can be obtained from the moderator of the s.r.c group). These
problems were initially raised by Nibley, see "The Meaning of the
Kirtland Egyptian Papers," _BYU Studies_ 11/4 (Summmer 1971): 350-99.

I have yet to see the Tanners or any of their supporter address the specific
problems arising from their thesis. Even last year Charles Larson simply
reechoed the Tanners' argument apparently unaware of their arguments
weaknesses. The reviewers of Larson were not generous (see reviews by
Gee and Rhodes in _Review of Book on the BoM_ vol 4). Not only did Gee and
Rhodes raise *most* of the same points that were raised two decades ago,
they pointed out several more things that have come to light since then,
such evidence from Mormon and non-Mormon sources that shows that the current
collection of the "Grammar" represents only a small fraction of what was
under production at the time. 
-- 

              Willard C. Smith
  Oh God, Make my Words Palatable and Sweet, | att!cbnews!iwtgo!wcsa
   Because I Might have to Eat all of Them.  | wcsa@iwtgo.att.com
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