Today's Maxwell Quote

From A Time to Choose:

Adults would do well to distinguish between our secular accomplishments and our spiritual commitments. The former is subject to question—as a possibly atrophying "arm of flesh"—while the latter is both what we most cherish and what gives us certitude. A simultaneous defense of the American economic system and the reality of modern revelation is unwise even when we believe in both, because the one is changing and managed by frail mortals while the other is unchanging and managed by God.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From A More Excellent Way (1967):

In almost every leadership situation we are working against the clock—in terms of time as well as facts and feelings. Joseph in Egypt knew through divine revelation that food must be stored for the years of famine. He was ready, and Egypt was ready, when the famine struck. He worked against the clock and finished his work on time. In just as real a sense—though on a smaller scale—a bishop who is striving to get a young man ready for a mission faces a chronological deadline even though it may not be a formal deadline or a stated deadline. A Scoutmaster, too, is facing a psychological clock, when he is preparing young men to receive their Eagle Scout awards. For the statistical evidence is plain, the Eagle award is almost always achieved by a certain age, or not at all. A commitment to temple marriage is usually made by young people in advance of their serious courting, or not at all. Not all leadership situations have this kind of time pressure but this is increasingly true in our kind of mobile society.

The Parental Role in the Loss of Faith in Youth

A few months ago, I looked at the sociological data from the National Survey of Youth and Religion (NSYR) on the loss of faith in youth:

• post 1 (how many are lost),
• post 2 (where do they go),
• post 3 (why do they leave), 
• post 4 (bibliography),
• post 5 (why do they leave II),
• post 6 (why do they leave III),
• post 6 (what we are doing well),
• post 7 (major reasons for leaving),
• post 8 (the effects of divorce),
• post 9 (the impact of morality),
• post 10 (shifts among various levels of activity),

By request, here I am going to look at one area where parents help bring about the loss of faith in youth. This is not to say that parents are the only factor, just where they are one factor.

The NSYR used qualitative comparative analysis to look at "combinations of causal factors most likely shifting the more highly religious teenagers into the least religious emerging adult religious groups within five years" (Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 230). They found three different combinations of factors (or pathways) to loss of faith.

The first combination of factors is:

• lower parental religious service attendance and importance of faith
• lower importance of religious faith for the teen
•  the teen prays and reads scriptures less frequently
• the teen has some doubts about their faith
• the teen has few adults in the congregation to whom he or she can turn for help

The second pathway is:

• lower parental religious service attendance and importance of faith
• lower importance of religious faith for the teen
• the teen has fewer personal religious experiences 
• teen prays and reads scriptures frequently
• the teen has many adults in the congregation to whom he or she can turn for help

The third combination of factors is:

• lower parental religious service attendance and importance of faith
• lower importance of religious faith for the teen
• the teen has fewer personal religious experiences
• the teen prays and reads scriptures less frequently
• the teen has no doubts about their faith

(Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 230.)

The NSYR notes:

Altogether, 60 percent of teens who experienced one of these three combinations of factors ended up as emerging adults in the low religious categories. And 56 percent of all those higher religious teenagers who did end up as emerging adults in a low religion category got there by following one of these three paths.

(Smith and Snell, Souls in Transition, 230.)

Two factors appear in all pathways: (1) religion and church attendance is not that important to the parents, and (2) it is not all that important to the teen. The two factors are probably related.

My concern is with what parents do or can do for their youth. What does it mean for parents to have lower religious service attendance and importance of faith? In a Latter-day Saint context it might be manifest by the following (not an exhaustive list by any means):

• Using Stake or General Conference as an excuse for a vacation.


• Giving athletic events a higher priority than attendance at a young men's or young women's activity.


• Not holding family home evening if it is not convenient.


• Treating Youth Conference as an optional activity.

This is not to say that there might not be legitimate reasons to miss Stake Conference or family home evening, or a young women's meeting. But when it becomes a regular occurrence, parents might ask themselves what sort of message they are sending to their children. Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave another example in a General Conference talk in 2003:

Parents simply cannot flirt with skepticism or cynicism, then be surprised when their children expand that flirtation into full-blown romance. If in matters of faith and belief children are at risk of being swept downstream by this intellectual current or that cultural rapid, we as their parents must be more certain than ever to hold to anchored, unmistakable moorings clearly recognizable to those of our own household. It won’t help anyone if we go over the edge with them, explaining through the roar of the falls all the way down that we really did know the Church was true and that the keys of the priesthood really were lodged there but we just didn’t want to stifle anyone’s freedom to think otherwise. No, we can hardly expect the children to get to shore safely if the parents don’t seem to know where to anchor their own boat. Isaiah once used a variation on such imagery when he said of unbelievers, “[Their] tacklings are loosed; they could not … strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail.”

I think some parents may not understand that even when they feel secure in their own minds regarding matters of personal testimony, they can nevertheless make that faith too difficult for their children to detect. We can be reasonably active, meeting-going Latter-day Saints, but if we do not live lives of gospel integrity and convey to our children powerful heartfelt convictions regarding the truthfulness of the Restoration and the divine guidance of the Church from the First Vision to this very hour, then those children may, to our regret but not surprise, turn out not to be visibly active, meeting-going Latter-day Saints or sometimes anything close to it.

Not long ago Sister Holland and I met a fine young man who came in contact with us after he had been roaming around through the occult and sorting through a variety of Eastern religions, all in an attempt to find religious faith. His father, he admitted, believed in nothing whatsoever. But his grandfather, he said, was actually a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “But he didn’t do much with it,” the young man said. “He was always pretty cynical about the Church.” From a grandfather who is cynical to a son who is agnostic to a grandson who is now looking desperately for what God had already once given his family! What a classic example of the warning Elder Richard L. Evans once gave.

Said he: “Sometimes some parents mistakenly feel that they can relax a little as to conduct and conformity or take perhaps a so called liberal view of basic and fundamental things—thinking that a little laxness or indulgence won’t matter—or they may fail to teach or to attend Church, or may voice critical views. Some parents … seem to feel that they can ease up a little on the fundamentals without affecting their family or their family’s future. But,” he observed, “if a parent goes a little off course, the children are likely to exceed the parent’s example.”

To lead a child (or anyone else!), even inadvertently, away from faithfulness, away from loyalty and bedrock belief simply because we want to be clever or independent is license no parent nor any other person has ever been given. In matters of religion a skeptical mind is not a higher manifestation of virtue than is a believing heart, and analytical deconstruction in the field of, say, literary fiction can be just plain old-fashioned destruction when transferred to families yearning for faith at home. And such a deviation from the true course can be deceptively slow and subtle in its impact

Now, this covers a majority of the cases, but forty percent do not follow the three pathways. What factors were present in those cases, the NSYR did not specify; we cannot know whether or not parental attendance at Church was a factor; but in at least three out of five cases it was. Parents would be foolish not to take it into consideration.

This brings to mind the famous quote of William Law:

If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From A More Excellent Way (1967), 63:

We need to give much more attention than we now do to those individual differences which produce what Harry Emerson Fosdick called the second form of hypocrisy, the situation in which we let ourselves appear worse than we are. This form of hypocrisy is just as insidious (and may be more wide spread) than the other form of hypocrisy—the situation in which we let ourselves appear better than we are. The second form of hypocrisy is apt to be a heightened challenge because of the growing uniqueness and size of the Church; it will be increasingly tempting for members of the Church to play down their convictions and commitment—to appear less committed than they really are.

General Orders

Every so often some ancient letters bring a particular matter into focus. A set of three letters by the general Piankh is one such group of documents. The first letter runs as follows:

Pharaoh's general to the necropolis scribe Tjaroy, saying: I heard every thing about which you sent me, what you said about this matter of the two policemen, how they are talking about these matters. Get together with Nudjmet and Payshuweben. Send and have these two policemen brought in to the house. Get to the bottom of things quickly. If you find out that what they say is true then put them in a couple of baskets and dump them in the river at night, but don't let anyone find out about it at all.

On another matter: How is Pharaoh going to attack this land? Who is Pharaoh still the boss of? Three months ago I sent a barge but you have not sent me a single tiban of gold or a single tiban of silver. It is okay. Don't worry about it. As soon as this letter reaches you scrounge up a tiban of gold and one of silver and send it to me on a barge.

(P. Berlin 10487 = LRL 21)

We have another letter that deals with this scandal:

Pharaoh's general to the agent Payshuweben, saying: I heard every thing about which you sent me, what you said about this matter of the two policemen, how they are talking about these matters. Get together with Nudjmet and Tjaroy. Send and have these two policemen brought to my house. Get to the bottom of things quickly. Kill them and dump them into the river at night, but don't let anyone find out about it at all.

(P. Berlin 10488 = LRL 34)

The two letters are almost identical for a bit but differ in places. So Payshuweben was to do the actual killing, while Tjaroy was to bring some baskets to dump the bodies into the Nile.

But three people were involved and we have the third letter as well:

Pharaoh's general to the chief of the harem of Amonrasonter Nudjmet in life, prosperity and health, and the favor of Amonrasonter. I ask every god and goddess whom I pass by that you may live and be healthy and I may see you when I return and fill my eyes every day with the sight of you.

I heard every thing about which you sent me, what you said about this matter of the two policemen which you said. They are talking. Get together with Payshuweben and that scribe Tjaroy. Send and have these two policemen brought to my house. Get to the bottom of things quickly. Have them killed and dumped into the river at night.

Write to me about how you are doing. Be well. Be healthy.

(P. Berlin 10489 = LRL 35)

This last letter has the same author and subject matter as the other two letters but is much more polite. It begins with the standard niceties. If anything, it contains more of them than the typical letter of the time. It also ends with pleasantries that seem sincere.

What accounts for the difference? The recipient of the third letter is a woman and the recipients of the other two are men. That accounts for some of the difference. Piankh does not have a woman get her hands dirty with any of the nasty business that he has the other men do. From her title, Nudjmet has a high position in the religious hierarchy. But this does not explain everything. As it so happens, we know from other records that Nudjmet is Piankh's mother. The other two are Piankh's subordinates. As a general he is used to giving orders and so he does.

All three letters ended up in the archive of Tjaroy. So the three individuals apparently did get together.

In an interesting twist, Nudjmet's copy of the Book of the Dead mostly survives split between three museums: P. BM EA 10541 + P. Louvre E.6258 + P. München ÄS 825. (The portion in the Munich museum was destroyed during World War II.) In Nudjmet's negative confession she includes the passages "I have not slain; I have not ordered a murder" (BD 125 A 14-15) and "I have not slain any person" (BD 125 B 5).

We sometimes wonder if the ideals of ancient Egyptian religion actually had an impact on the actual actions of individuals. In some cases it is clear that they did. In this case, we can see that they apparently did not or at least Piankh did not think they should.

And yet, if we wanted to make a case that Piankh was simply irreligious, we might make a case from the first two letters but not the third. In the third letter, Piankh certainly expresses the normal pieties. A few year later, Piankh became the High Priest of Amun and even received an oracle from the god.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From A Time to Choose (1972), 1:

The world of today's disciples—particularly of the young—reflects a great human ambivalence about many things: about authority, about freedom, and about science and technology. The sense of perplexity is not unlike Dostoevsky's words. An avalanche of apocalyptic advice from secular prophets swirls about young and old alike; there is an abundance of earnest Paul Reveres who warn us about what is coming, or is already here.

The disciple—one who has committed himself to Christ—is not insulated from the realities of such an unsettled world, yet he will see it differently:

The Ancient Importance of Letter Writing

The Late Egyptian Miscellanies are a group of seventeen documents which were used for scribal education in New Kingdom Egypt. The texts in the first five scrolls include:

• 35 model letters
• 8 hymns
• 5 prayers  
• 2 lists of people
• 1 praise of the scribal profession
• 1 building description
• 1 list of titles
• 1 list of good wishes
• 1 account entry
• 1 journal entry
• 1 didactic text
• 1 practice dating protocol
• 3 unclear texts

This list reflects the scope of Egyptian scribal activities. As is clear from the list, letter writing played a large role in ancient scribal practice. Much of what they will have had to do was keeping journals and account, writing tax lists, writing dates on documents, writing hymns and prayers, and writing letters. Letter writing was hugely important in scribal education.

The variety of model letters is also striking. The model letters include letters of complaint, letters of report, letters of praise, letters to kings, letters to underlings. I simple glance at the historical documentation of the ancient world shows that a significant proportion of it was letters. There are thousands of letters from the ancient Near East and they provide an important window on life in ancient times. A look at scribal copy books shows that the ancients realized this too.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From A More Excellent Way (1967), 30.

Focusing on the mechanics of leadership, which are certainly necessary, could ignore the underlying skills and traits that rest on fundamental concepts without which no system of techniques, procedures, mechanics, and follow-up can possibly work. It does very little good, for instance, to develop elaborate organizational and flow charts if the people who inhabit the real world symbolized by these charts do not trust each other or really communicate with each other. It does little good to strive to achieve goals if we allow ourselves, as leaders, to be too much at the mercy of our moods so that we are experienced by followers as ambivalent administrators whom others find unpredictable or capricious concerning the goals we espouse.

Sin and Resurrection in Second Maccabees

Occasionally it is suggested that Christianity's concern with the resurrection is an idiosyncratic phenomenon. Although many Jews of the Second Temple period did not believe in the resurrection, some did. Some even argued for it. Here is an example of it:

After a fierce battle, Judas and his army gathered the dead for burial:

εὗρον δὲ ἑκάστου τῶν τεθνηκότων ὑπὸ τοὺς χιτῶνας ἱερώματα τῶν ἀπὸ ιαμνείας εἰδώλων ἀφ' ὧν ὁ νόμος ἀπείργει τοὺς ιουδαίους

They found under the tunics of each of the dead things sacred to the idols of the Iamnites, which are forbidden to the Jews by the Law. (2 Maccabees 12:40)

This, of course was both something of a scandal and an obvious cause for their ill fate in battle.

ποιησάμενός τε κατ' ἀνδρολογίαν εἰς ἀργυρίου δραχμὰς δισχιλίας ἀπέστειλεν εἰς ιεροσόλυμα προσαγαγεῖν περὶ ἁμαρτίας θυσίαν πάνυ καλῶς καὶ ἀστείως πράττων ὑπὲρ ἀναστάσεως διαλογιζόμενος

εἰ μὴ γὰρ τοὺς προπεπτωκότας ἀναστῆναι προσεδόκα περισσὸν καὶ ληρῶδες ὑπὲρ νεκρῶν εὔχεσθαι

εἶτε' ἐμβλέπων τοῖς μετ' εὐσεβείας κοιμωμένοις κάλλιστον ἀποκείμενον χαριστήριον ὁσία καὶ εὐσεβὴς ἡ ἐπίνοια ὅθεν περὶ τῶν τεθνηκότων τὸν ἐξιλασμὸν ἐποιήσατο τῆς ἁμαρτίας ἀπολυθῆναι

After he made a collection of two thousand drachmas, he set it to Jerusalem to offer an offering for sin doing well and honestly because he considered the resurrection, for if he had not expected that those who had fallen to rise again it would have been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. Also since he saw that those who died piously had great favor laid up--the thought was holy and pious--so he made an atonement to do away with the sins of the dead. (2 Maccabees 12:43–45)

There is a clear thought that action in mortality can have some effect on those who have left mortality (and one can trace such ideas in Egypt back at least as far as the Middle Kingdom). The expression in 2 Maccabees where one can pray on behalf of the dead (ὑπὲρ νεκρῶν) is echoed in Paul where he notes that one could be baptized on behalf of the dead (ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν, 1 Corinthians 15:29). Both cases reflect the desire of the living to do something on behalf of those who have died that they can no longer do for themselves.

Types of Evidence

People who do not work across disciplines can sometimes be confused about various categories of evidence and how they are used to reconstruct the past.

Historical evidence is written evidence about the past.

Archaeological evidence is material evidence about the past.

These categories of evidence are not necessarily mutually exclusive. An inscription found in situ (in place) on an archaeological dig is both archaeological evidence and historical evidence.

We attempt to reconstruct the past from various types of evidence. Generally, historians have no training in or competence with archaeological evidence, and archaeologists generally have no training in or competence with historical evidence. There are some very notable exceptions to those generalizations; a number of scholars successfully work with both types of evidence and certain disciplines routinely work with both types of evidence.

Archaeological evidence and historical evidence provide different pictures about what happened in the past. These viewpoints might be complementary or contradictory. In both cases we can only deal with the evidence we have.

For example, the inscriptions from Til Barsip (modern Tell Ahmar) indicate that the dynastic succession at Masuwari was complicated; they do not, however, give us the names of all the rulers involved. So we can only work with inadequate evidence.

To show how the archaeological and historical record give different pictures, consider Nicaea. From historical sources we know that Nicaea was near Constantine's summer residence. We have no archaeological evidence that he was ever there or ever paid any attention to the place. The lack of archaeological evidence does not prove Constantine was never there. On the other hand archaeological evidence tells us that the theater seated 15,000. I know of no historical evidence that provides us that information. The lack of historical evidence does not mean there was no theater.

Sometimes historical and archaeological evidence overlap. Sometimes they conflict. Most of the time they do neither. Each provides its own sort of evidence. One cannot just expect the two types of evidence to corroborate each other. Much of the material in the Bible, for example, is not and cannot be corroborated archaeologically. There are points at which the archaeological record does corroborate the Bible. But archaeology does not necessarily corroborate every point one might like.

Historians not used to dealing with archaeology have a tendency to overestimate the extent to which the archaeological evidence can be expected to corroborate the historical evidence.

Some Other "Pseudo-Sciences"

Lets consider some other subject areas that fit in a recent commentator's definition of pseudo-sciences. These are areas of study without departments, majors, or even classes:

• Elamite


• Kassite


• Urartian


• Hurrian


• Luwian

There are no Elamite departments, no Kassite departments, no Urartian departments, no Hurrian departments, and no Luwian departments in North America.

There are no classes in Elamite, Kassite, Urartian, Hurrian, or Luwian. Now I actually took a class in Hurrian but it was listed in the course catalog as Akkadian, so according to our opinionated critic, that does not count. I also took some Luwian but it was as a part of a Hittite course; so therefore by the same reasoning that does not count either.

Hittite almost fits in this situation. It used to be that Hittite was taught at four universities in the United States. Now there is only one. If Hittite ceases to be taught will it cease to be a legitimate academic discipline?

Hurrian is a particularly interesting case study. Not only can one not major in Hurrian or take classes in Hurrian but:

1. We do not know where the capital of the Mitanni empire was.


2. Although we know that the Hurrians used Khabur ware, so did the Assyrians, and it has been found in Iran. So there is no distinctive Hurrian pottery. We cannot tell the difference between the material culture of the Hurrians and several other cultures in the area.


3. So archaeologically, the Hurrians are invisible and indistinguishable from other cultures in the area.

Now, we are not talking about some backwater, the Mitanni empire was a major world empire in the Late Bronze Age.

So the idea that there must be an academic program in order to have a legitimate academic discipline is specious and only pushed for ideological reasons.

Is Numismatics an Academic Discipline?

According to some:

the complete lack of recognition for the subject in any and all universities, colleges or like institutions, . . . and the absence of the slightest respect accorded to journals. There may be plenty of journals in the field, but . . . they are ignored or despised . . . . Nor, as I have said, can you take an actual degree of any kind in the subject, not even an undergraduate minor, still less a doctorate.

If it is not an academic discipline, then it is irrelevant to note how many people work in the area, not how many books appear each year. It may well be a thriving area of interest and enthusiasm, but it is in so sense an academic or scholarly discipline.

Let's take the field of numismatics, for example. Numismatics is the study of coins, particularly historical coins. This is an important source for ancient history.

Where can one major in numismatics? No college in America that I can find offers a major in numismatics. (The University of Vienna does have an Institute for numismatics, and there are claims that one can get a bachelors or masters degree in the subject, but reading the materials it appears to be a minor rather than a major). The only classes in numismatics regularly offered in America are not offered at an accredited university. Should we therefore refer to it as the "discredited cranky pseudo-science" of numismatics?

Is it perhaps that no credible academic institution of any kind, . . . views [numismatics] as an authentic or respectable academic discipline?

Tomorrow, I will suggest some other "pseudo-sciences" that fit these criteria.

More on the New Hebrew Inscription

As a follow-up on my post of yesterday, I saw this post by Christopher Rollston where he comes to the same conclusion about what the new inscriptions mean (I cite only the fourth of his six observations):

(4) The script of this inscription is that of a trained scribal professional. There is no doubt about this. The morphology of the letters was executed with precision and deftness. The spacing between words was careful and precise. The word dividers were nicely done and consistent. This inscription constitutes further evidence for the presence of trained scribal professionals in the southern Levant during the late 11th and early 10th centuries BCE (see Rollston 2006 for primary and secondary literature on scribalism and scribal education during the 9th through 6th centuries BCE). Those who wish to argue that there were no trained scribal professionals in ancient Israel and Judah during the 10th and 9th centuries continue to find themselves defending a position that is flying in the face of the epigraphic evidence for the entire southern Levant.

The Latest on Hebrew Inscriptions

Back in January, I listed the various Hebrew inscriptions according to date and in a series of posts (here, here, here, here, and here) discussed some of the implications of them.

The latest issue of BASOR arrived this week. Garfunkel, Golub, Miagav and Ganor mention that there are now six eleventh century inscriptions from the area of Israel.

This demonstrates how the accident of discovery impacts our reconstruction of history. By my count (which is subject to change) there are more eleventh century inscriptions known than there are tenth century ones.

What these new inscriptions mean is that the Israelite scribal apparatus dates about a century earlier than we previously thought.

It also shows that in certain areas it only takes a single find to completely change the subject.

The Archaeology of the Council of Nicaea

Recent, under-informed assertions about the Book of Mormon and archaeology prompt this discussion.

Let's ask a simple question:

What archaeological evidence do we have that the Council of Nicaea ever took place?

Unlike Zarahemla, or the Mitanni capital of Washshukanni, Nicaea is a site whose location is known. It has been excavated. We know what is there.

Archaeologically, Nicaea (modern Iznik) is most famous for its ceramic tiles, but they date from the Ottoman period. On the other end of the time spectrum, some neolithic pottery has been found at Iznik (Machteld J. Mellink, "Archaeology in Anatolia," American Journal of Archaeology 89/4 (1985): 549).

The theater is 1st century, a typical Hadrianic style building that would have seated about 15,000 people. (Marie-Henriette Gates, "Archaeology in Turkey," American Journal of Archaeology 98/2 (1994): 276.)

The city wall is also first century with numerous renovations in later times.

The church at Nicaea is 6th century (William Tabbernee, "Asia Minor and Cyprus," in Early Christianity in Contexts, ed. William Tabbernee [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2014], 307.) The Koimeisis Church dates to the early eighth century (SEG XLI 1099) or late seventh century (SEG XLIV 1007).

So all of the Christian structures date at least two centuries after the Council of Nicaea. This is problematic.

The epigraphic corpus for Nicaea is extensive: Sencer Sahin, Katalog der antiken Inschriften des Museums von Iznik (Nikaia), 4 vols. (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1979-87). With four volumes of inscriptions plus numerous additions in the SEG (Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum), it is clear that Nicaea has more inscriptions than most Mesoamerican sites.

As far as epigraphic evidence we have:

1st century BC

• a first century BC epitaph (SEG XXIX 1289).

1st century AD

• an inscription of Nero (AD 54-68) regarding street repair (I Iznik I 13 = CIG 3743)
• two first century AD dedications on the city gate to the Flavians (AD 70-79)  (SEG XXVIII 1028-29).
• a building dedication to the Flavians (AD 78) (SEG LI 1709)
• a statue of Domitian (AD 81-96) (SEG LVII 1275)
• three first century inscriptions for Roman officals (SEG XXVIII 1025-27).
• four first century epitaphs (SEG XXVIII 1032-33; XXX 1429; XLVII 1679) 

2nd century AD

• an aquaduct inscription of Hadrian (AD 117-138) (I Iznik I 1)
• an architrave inscription of Hadrian (AD 117-138) (I. Iznik. I 30a = SEG XXIX 1282).
• an altar dedicated to Hadrian (AD 117-138) (I Iznik I 32 = SEG XXIX 1283). 
• a dedicatory inscription from the reign of Hadrian (I Iznik I 56 = SEG XXXVII 1071 = SEG XLVI 1604)
• three second century altars (SEG XXXIV 1263; SEG XLIII 897)
• thirty-one second century epitaphs (SEG XXIX 1290-91; SEG XXX 1430; SEG XXXIV 1264-65; SEG XLIX 1789; SEG LI 1710-11; SEG LV 1346, 1348-56, 1358; SEG LVI 1392-93; SEG LVII 1278, 1281-88; SEG LVIII 1447).

3rd century AD

• an honorary inscription from the reign of Elagabalus (AD 218-222) (I Iznik I 60 = SEG XXIX 1281).
• a milestone of Julius Verus Maximinus (AD 235-38) (I Iznik 21 = CIL III 12226 = 13650)
• two inscriptions of Claudius Gothicus (AD 268-70) regarding the rebuilding of the city wall (I Iznik I 11-12 = CIG 3747-48)
• four third century dedications to Zeus (SEG LV 1337-39; SEG LVII 1276)
• twelve third century epitaphs (SEG XXIX 1293; XXXIII 1080; SEG LI 1712-13; SEG LV 1344, 1357, 1359-63; SEG LVI 1394-95).
• a fragmentary third century epitaph (SEG XXIX 1292). 
• a milestone of Diocletian and Maximian (AD 286-293) (I Iznik I 22) 

4th century AD

• a fourth century epitaph (SEG XXIX 1294).
• a fourth century Jewish inscription quoting Psalm 135:25 (I Iznik II 615 = SEG XLVIII 1499) 

Undated

• an undated dedication to Ti. Claudius Aelianos Sabinos (I Iznik I 35 = SEG XXIX 1284).
• six undated dedications to Zeus (SEG XXX 1428; SEG XL 1144-46; SEG XLVII 1678; SEG LX 1338)
• an undated dedication to Zeus, Hera, and Athena (SEG XXVIII 1030)
• an undated altar dedicated to Apollo (SEG LV 1340)
• an undated altar dedicated to Hermes and Apollo (SEG LV 1341)
• an undated honorary inscription (SEG XLVII 1677)
• an undated altar dedicated to Tadenos and Okkonenos (SEG LX 1339)
• three undated altar inscriptions (I Iznik I 43 = SEG XXIX 1288; SEG LI 1709 bis; SEG LX 1340).
• three undated fragmentary dedications (I Iznik I 36, 42, 66 = SEG XXIX 1285-87; SEG XXXVI 1153).
• two undated fragmentary inscriptions (SEG XXIX 1343-44).
• fifty-nine undated epitaphs (SEG XXVIII 1034; SEG XXIX 1295-1318, 1320-24, 1326-31, 1333-38; XXX 1431-34; XXXIII 1081-82; SEG XLVII 1680-81; SEG LX 1341-49) 
• four undated Christian inscriptions (SEG XXIX 1339-42)
• four undated Christian epitaphs (SEG XXIX 1319, 1325, 1331-32)
• an undated testamentary regulation (SEG XLIX 1790)

There is no epigraphic evidence that Constantine paid the least attention to Nicaea. Furthermore, looking at the epigraphic evidence, we would conclude that fourth century inhabitants of Nicaea had converted from the worship of Zeus to Judaism, not Christianity. There is not a single inscription of Constantine's from the site.

There appears to be no archaeological evidence that Constantine was ever in Nicaea, nor that there was a Christian council held there in the fourth century, and, of course, no archaeological evidence for the content of the Nicaean Creed. Should millions of creedal Christians therefore abandon their faith? They cannot point to a single piece of archaeological or epigraphic evidence that the Council of Nicaea ever took place. No reputable archaeologist has ever produced any. I can find no record of any reputable archaeological journals that have published any archaeological evidence that the Council ever took place or that support the creed that it supposedly produced.


Anyone who has actually worked trying to integrate archaeological with historical data can spot the problems with this sort of analysis easily. Some people, however, want to apply a double standard applying different standards to the Book of Mormon than they do to other historical events.

A Thought from Elder Scott

Elder Richard G. Scott in the April 2008 General Conference shared the following:

Now, to the perpetrator who has shattered the life of another by abuse: Recognize that you need help with your addiction or it will destroy you. You will not overcome it by yourself. You likely need specialized professional help. I plead with you to seek to be rescued now. You likely have deceived yourself in the false, temporary security that you have successfully hidden your transgression from the civil or Church authorities. But know that the Lord Jesus Christ is completely aware of your sins. He has warned: “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones … , it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Know that even without action by a victim, your act of abuse will be publicly known, for Satan will expose you, then abandon you.

Simplify your life by taking steps now to cleanse your soul from such sin and resolve the penalties they evoke. Show your desire to heal the anguish that you have caused others. Talk to your bishop or stake president. The seriousness of your acts may require you to face civil and Church discipline. But full repentance will bring the sweet relief of forgiveness, peace of conscience, and a renewed life. It will also bring relief to the abused and their families. You will be free of the weight of remorse and the accusing thoughts of what you have caused in grief and anguish in another’s life. Recognize that it is much easier to repent in this life than it will be in the next, so repent now. You will be helped when you decide to be freed from your addiction through repentance and the support of others. Be grateful that you didn’t live anciently when abusers were stoned to death without the opportunity for repentance.

Learn Arabic

In case you could not think of enough good reasons to learn Arabic, here are some more.

Actually the decline in emphasis on foreign language learning in higher education over the last decade has been alarming.

A Bad Month for the Boy Scouts

First there was Stephen Cranney noting how the Church's treatment of boys and girls was unequal because of the scouting organization.

Then there was the Boys Scouts of America (BSA) banning squirt guns and water balloons bigger than a ping-pong ball, which got them compared to a nanny state.

Then the President of the Boy Scouts of America announced that they will probably allow homosexual leaders soon.

None of this is good publicity for the BSA.

By the way, the new Cub Scout program launches at the end of the month with some interesting implications. The BSA would not let leaders look at the specifics of the new program until the beginning of this month. There are a number of unpleasant surprises buried in the manuals. These will likely not make the headlines.

Faking It

This news report covers another instance of an individual faking data in a widely-publicized study designed to advance a particular narrative. The lead author on the study, Columbia University Political Scientist Donald Green, has done the honorable thing upon finding that his co-author faked his data, and retracted the study. A full report can be found at Retraction Watch.

The upshot is that the individual who allegedly faked the data, Michael LaCour, has allegedly been hired as "an Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Politics at Princeton University."

The anthropologist Jonathan Marks makes some apposite remarks:

Incompetence is not a defense, and the end does not justify the means. . . . After all, once you have established that your colleague's work is not reliable, it really doesn't matter why. If some scientists don't do good research, it is difficult to maintain that they should nevertheless still be employed and receiving grants, much less that you want to continue collaborating with them!

The problem with the "incompetence defense," then, is that it implicitly raises a question about the rest of their work and about your own judgment in standing by incompetent work. To say someone is a sloppy researcher whose work is riddled with mistakes is not a compliment, and it immediately raises the questions of why you are associated with such a person, how competent the rest of their research has been, and why they should remain at work. I can think of no other profession in which that would be tolerated.

(Jonathan Marks, Why I am Not a Scientist (Berkeley: University of Californian Press, 2009), 189.)

Kudos to Professor Green for doing the right thing and to UC Berkeley graduate students, David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, and Yale professor, Peter Aronow, for bringing this fraudulence to light. As Marks notes: "it is not in anyone's interests to find fraud, and they will go to odd lengths to avoid it." (ibid.)

[Update: Apparently Michael LaCour made up information on his CV including funding sources, and awards. Here, is an interview with Donald Green about the whole affair. Green's comments about the role of faith in scholarship are worth quoting:

On the one hand, there’s obviously the potential for abuse in that sort of situation. On the other hand, in any professional settings, if we didn’t have certain baseline assumptions that our colleagues are acting honestly, or not making stuff, everything would grind to a halt. There’s no way to not have some degree of trust baked into the research process, right?

I agree. I think that one wants to be skeptical and build in checks, but without some degree of trust one would have to build in so many checks and so much redundancy into the system that nothing would be feasible except at very high cost. So there’s a cost of ratcheting up the level of mistrust.

Scholarship rests on a certain amount of faith in the trustworthiness of your colleagues.]

What Mothers Do

Mother's Day was yesterday, and although I was going to post this yesterday, I simply have not had time to get it written.

Ancient literature tends not to mention much about some facets of daily life, like what women do. Occasionally, one finds references to it scattered about in treatments of other things. This is a mother's description of motherhood in the middle of a war narrative:

υἱέ ἐλέησόν με τὴν ἐν γαστρὶ περιενέγκασάν σε μῆνας ἐννέα καὶ θηλάσασάν σε ἔτη τρία καὶ ἐκθρέψασάν σε καὶ ἀγαγοῦσαν εἰς τὴν ἡλικίαν ταύτην

Son, have mercy on me, who bore you in the womb for nine months, and nursed you for three years, and raised you, and brought you to this age (2 Maccabees 7:27)

It appears that motherhood was a lot of work back then too.