On the Latest Anti-Mormon Attack on the Book of Mormon I

Paul Owen is a fairly nice guy. I know him. He is, nonetheless, an anti-Mormon. He has written books explicitly attacking Mormonism in general and the Book of Mormon in particular. His latest article also attacks the Book of Mormon. He concludes that the Book of Mormon is a "fictional (though ancient) narrative" (Paul Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture: A Thematic Analysis of 1 Nephi 13-14," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (?!) 23 [2014]: 100):

What I am suggesting, in essence, is that the Book of Mormon could be taken as a genuinely restored ancient text with a fictional narrative that originated in the Old World

(Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture," 99)

Since the Book of Mormon claims to have come from the New World, Owens is arguing that the Book of Mormon is not what it claims to be.

Owen thinks that Joseph Smith took the narrative of the Book of Mormon (or at least 1 Nephi 13-14) from the apocryphal book of 2 Esdras. Owen does not explain that the 2 Esdras he discusses is not the 2 Esdras of the Septuagint but is the book that is also known as 4 Ezra. The earliest known version of it is not in Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek but in Latin.

Owen skirts the issue of whether his proposal that it is authentically ancient and still modern fiction is logically coherent, but setting that concern aside for the moment, let us look at one particular point of his argument.

Owen thinks that Joseph Smith took the idea of brass plates from 2 Esdras/4 Ezra:

The books that are revealed to and dictated by Ezra are first written down on "writing tablets" (2 Esdras 14:24 NRSV; "box trees" KJV). So also the Book of Mormon ( cf. 1 Nephi 13:23; Mosiah 1:3).

(Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture," 92.)

Owen argues that "those curious references to Jews writing on "tablets" (2 Esdras 14:24) in obscure characters (2 Esdras 14:42)" are the origin of the idea of the Book of Mormon being written in strange characters on plates of gold or brass (Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture," 95). Therefore,

Joseph Smith (or someone in his circle) could have read 2 Esdras in the King James Version of the Apocrypha and perhaps had access to commentary on its meaning through libraries and cultural knowledge.

(Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture," 94.)

Consequently, Owen maintains

that the gold plates that were shown to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni [were] not necessarily historical artifacts from the history of the America

(Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture," 97.)

Owen thinks that his speculations 

would allow the Book of Mormon to be taken as simultaneously modern and fictional, on the one hand, and miraculous and inclusive of authentic ancient material on the other. It would thus bring the manner of the production of the Book of Mormon more in line with the restoration of other ancient texts (e.g., the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses, Doctrine and Covenants 7).

(Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture," 98.)

So Owens makes the sweeping claim that like the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, the Book of Moses, and part of the Doctrine and Covenants are fictional as well.

There are a couple of small problems with Owen's thesis. I will deal only with the problems with 2 Esdras/4 Ezra being the origin of the idea of the plates.

1
Owen gets the notion of "writing tablets" from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible which was first published in 1989. The King James Version of the passage, which would have been available to Joseph Smith reads:

But look thou prepare thee many box trees, and take with thee Sarea, Dabria, Selemia, Ecanus, and Asiel, these five which are ready to write swiftly; (2 Esdras/4 Ezra 14:24, KJV).

Owen does not actually cite the passage because his reader would have found his argument confused by the actual evidence.

So Owen appears to be arguing that Joseph Smith got his basic scenario for the Book of Mormon by reading a translation that was published 155 years after he died like Owen did. This argument is anachronistic.

2
Owen attempts to obfuscate the issue by opining:

there can be no doubt that Joseph Smith's access to 2 Esdras provides a simple, straightforward explanation of the textual evidence-with the exception of one point. The references in the text of 2 Esdras to Jews writing on "tablets" in "obscure characters" are unclear in the King James translation available to Joseph Smith. While a bit mysterious, this could potentially be explained in several ways: (1) Smith (or someone in his circle) could have intuitively surmised (based on the context) the underlying meaning of the King James renderings "box trees" (2 Esdras 14:24) and "which they knew not" (14:42) in a way that happens to correspond to modern English translations. (2) Smith (or someone in his circle) could have had access to annotations on the Apocrypha through various sources (libraries, local ministers, bookstores) that clarified the meaning. (3) These particular parallels between 1 Nephi 13-14 and 2 Esdras 14 could be coincidental, parallels of which Smith and his associates actually had no awareness prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon.

(Owen, "Theological Apostasy and the Role of Canonical Scripture,"96.)

Of course, Owen's argument has major historical problems:

a
Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, described him as

a boy, eighteen years of age, who had never read the Bible through in his life: he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study.

( Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and his Progenitors for Many Generations (Lamoni, IA: The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1912, reprinted Independence, Missouri: Herald, 1969), 92 = Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith, by His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1901), 82.)

Joseph Smith had not read the Bible and was not inclined to read much anyway.

b
Joseph Smith's close associates, like David Whitmer, agreed with Lucy Mack Smith claiming that when Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon:

Smith was ignorant of the Bible.

(M. J. Hubble interview of David Whitmer, 13 November 1886, in Lyndon W. Cook, ed., David Whitmer Interviews: A Restoration Witness (Orem, Utah: Grandin, 1991), 211.)

c
Multiple accounts of the First Vision indicate that Joseph Smith found James 1:5 simply by flipping through the Bible at random. In an 1843 interview, Joseph Smith said that:

There was a reformation among the different religious denominations in the neighborhood where I lived, and I became serious, and was desirous to know what Church to join. While thinking of this matter, I opened the Testament promiscuously on these words, in James, 'Ask of the Lord who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not.' I just determined I'd ask him.

("The Praries, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c." The Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette 58 [September 15, 1843]: 3, reprinted in Dean C. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989], 1:444.)

Alexander Niebaur records Joseph Smith as telling him:

Joseph tolt us the first call he had a Revival meeting his mother & Br & Sist got Religion, he wanted to get Religion too wanted to feel & sho shout like the Rest but could feel nothing, opened his Bible f the first Passage that struck him was if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberallity & upbraidat not went into the Wood to pray

(Alexander Neibaur Journal, 24 May 1844, in Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:641.)

d
Joseph Smith's own Bible was not purchased until 8 October 1829 when the Book of Mormon was being printed.

e
Joseph Smith seems to have first systematically read the Bible when he was doing his own translation. When he got to the apocrypha (such as 2 Esdras/4 Ezra) he received D&C 91 and consequently seems to have skipped the apocrypha altogether. He thus seems never to have read any of the apocrypha in his life.

So Joseph Smith never read the Bible before he translated the Book of Mormon, did not even own one, and was ignorant of it. He seems never to have read the apocrypha in his life. The idea that he got the idea for the Book of Mormon by reading an apocryphal book seems far-fetched.

3
If Joseph Smith were to get the idea for the plates by reading an apocryphal book, then why 2 Esdras/4 Ezra and not 1 Maccabees? After all, Jews writing on brass plates is explicitly mentioned there:

τοῦτο τὸ ἀντίγραφον τῆς ἐπιστολῆς ἧς ἀντέγραψαν ἐπὶ δέλτοις χαλκαῖς

This is the copy of the letter which they copied on brass plates (1 Maccabees 8:22).

ἔγραψαν πρὸς αὐτὸν δέλτοις χαλκαῖς

And they wrote to him brass plates (1 Maccabees 14:18)

καὶ κατέγραψαν ἐν δέλτοις χαλκαῖς καὶ ἔθεντο ἐν στήλαις ἐν ὄρει σιων

And they wrote down in brass plates and placed them on stele on Mount Zion (1 Maccabees 14:26)

τὴν γραφὴν ταύτην εἶπον θέσθαι ἐν δέλτοις χαλκαῖς

And they said to put this writing on brass plates (1 Maccabees 14:48)

These passages would not necessarily have helped Joseph Smith because this is how they were translated in the King James Version:

And this is the copy of the epistle which the senate wrote back again in tables of brass, and sent to Jerusalem, that there they might have by them a memorial of peace and confederacy: (1 Maccabees 8:22 KJV)

They wrote unto him in tables of brass, to renew the friendship and league which they had made with Judas and Jonathan his brethren: (1 Maccabees 14:18 KJV)

So then they wrote it in tables of brass, which they set upon pillars in mount Sion: and this is the copy of the writing; The eighteenth day of the month Elul, in the hundred threescore and twelfth year, being the third year of Simon the high priest, (1 Maccabees 14:27 KJV)

So they commanded that this writing should be put in tables of brass, and that they should be set up within the compass of the sanctuary in a conspicuous place; (1 Maccabees 14:48 KJV)

While none of these passages match the language of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith probably never saw them in his life, they are much closer than imagining that Joseph Smith somehow got the idea for the Book of Mormon by reading about box trees.

Summation

Paul Owen's argument posits that Joseph Smith got the idea for the Book of Mormon by reading a book which historical sources deny that he read, in a translation published over a century and a half after he died.

There are a number of words one could use to describe Owen's argument, but scholarship is not one of them.

Asking the Wrong Questions IV

Mr. Lauer's fourth question is:

I understand that Dr. Ritner’s view of the interpretation of the text differs material [sic] from your view. Are there other ancient Egyptian documents in such dispute?

Which text are you talking about? And what do you mean by interpretation?

If you mean the Book of Abraham, then yes, our view differs. This is a natural consequence of denominational affiliation or lack thereof.

If you mean the Joseph Smith Papyri, then it depends on what you mean by interpretation. If you mean interpretation of the signs, it would depend on which of Professor Ritner's editions you refer to because Professor Ritner's readings of the papyri differ between his editions. If you mean interpretation of the words, then you might find Egyptologists in vigorous debate about which grammar theories are being used and what shade of meaning is given to various terms where you might see slightly different ways of saying the same thing, much as you would experience comparing two different Bible translations. We might see a significant difference where you might not.

The biggest problem is that I have never published my interpretation (in the sense of translation) of either the Joseph Smith Papyri or the Book of Abraham. I simply have not seen any compelling need to publish my own interpretation of more than isolate passages from the Joseph Smith Papyri. As for the Book of Abraham, since I am not one of those who thinks that we currently have the original text of the Book of Abraham, it is pointless to try to make my own translation.

Now for the second part of the question:

Are there other ancient Egyptian documents in such dispute?

Absolutely! Two immediately come to mind. One is the dispute between Martin Stadler and Joachim Quack about the interpretation of a line in Papyrus Insinger. Another would be the disagreements between Joachim Spiegel, Hartwig Altenmuller, Jürgen Osing, James Allen, and Harold Hayes about the Pyramid Texts. One can also look at the long-running disputes between Professor Ritner and Christopher Faraone about the interpretation of one of the PGM, or between Professor Ritner and any of a number of his colleagues.

To see why this is a bad question, one need look only to the Bible. Is a Calvinist going to interpret Romans the same way a Catholic is? Does the fact that the Calvinist does not interpret the text the same way that the Catholic does make the Calvinist automatically wrong?

Today's Nibley Quote

From "How to Write an Anti-Mormon Book" CWHN 11:487:

The average reviewer is the last person in the world to be seriously critical of sources (why should he seek for trouble?) and will be only too glad to go along with a writer who is good enough to include real names from time to time among the usual harvest of "it is said," "it was reported," "it was believed," etc.

Asking the Wrong Questions III

Mr. Lauer's third question is:

Who has access to view/study the Joseph Smith papyri [sic] in the LDS church’s possession?

Those who can best answer this question are the owner's of the papyri. I have made some observations about the process here.

The question can further be asked what can one gain by looking at the original that one cannot observe from the high resolution photographs available in this publication. Unless one has some specialized training working with papyri, I cannot see what a typical person would get that they could not get in the already available material.

Asking the Wrong Questions II

The second of Dave Lauer's questions is:

What work (if any) is being done now in regards to the Joseph Smith papyri [sic]? If work is being done, by whom and with what objective?

I am the co-chair of a project dealing with research on the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri. There are a number of individuals doing research on those subjects. I know about their research but I leave them the right to announce their results for themselves. So I am not at liberty to discuss their work in public before they have a chance to do so themselves. To do so would not be fair to them. Nor am I in the habit of announcing my own work until it appears in print. I do have at least article dealing with one aspect of the Joseph Smith Papyri in press in a non-Mormon scholarly venue. I have a number that are already in print. You can find them here, here, here, here, and in a few other publications that do not even have any sort of internet link.

There are thirteen publications that purport to be Egyptological publications of the Joseph Smith Papyri. Thirteen in forty-six years, that is one every three and a half years! (For a list when there were only twelve, see note 42 in this article.) I can think of no other Egyptian papyrus that has been published so frequently. While I can think of fruitful lines of research on the papyri that have not yet been done, I think that most of the publications of the papyri themselves were probably unnecessary and whose main purpose appears to be to boost the egos of the authors rather than advance the understanding of the papyri. I have not felt the need to do my own edition because there are already good editions out there. Some of them even use legal photographs of the papyri with permission of the owners.

Asking the Wrong Questions I

Dave Lauer may be a very nice man. I wouldn't know. What I do know is that (1) he works for Calvary Chapel in Boise, Idaho where he is developing a "Witnessing to Mormons" class called Grace Works, (2) that he misrepresented himself when he first contacted me in November, and (3) that he has been harassing the poor receptionists with his phone calls. (They do not deserve the harassment.)

He sent me a list of questions for me to answer. Given that he was willing to misrepresent himself I am certain that he would have little compunction about misrepresenting me so I have elected to make my answers public. So I am posting them in this forum.

The first question is

What do you believe is the relationship between the Joseph Smith papyri [sic] and the Book of Abraham and how have you come to this conclusion?

This is the problem of substituting opinion for evidence. It helps to set up a straw man argument. Drawing one opinion of a group may not be representative of a group. Remember Pauline Kael's famous remark after Nixon won by a landslide in 1972: "I only know one person who voted for Nixon." Pauline Kael's circle of acquaintance was obviously not representative of the larger population. I prefer to deal with the entire spectrum of views rather than the particular one I hold.

As I have discussed here, here, here, here, and here, and elsewhere, there is not one Latter-day Saint position on the relationship between the Joseph Smith Papyri and the Book of Abraham, but three and none of them are the official position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because there is no official position. I have laid them out as follows:

1. The text of the Book of Abraham was translated from papyri that we currently have. (Or, from the unbelieving perspective, Joseph Smith thought that the text of the Book of Abraham was on papyri that we currently have.)

2. The text of the Book of Abraham was translated from (or Joseph Smith thought the text of the Book of Abraham was on) papyri that we do not currently have.

3. The text of the Book of Abraham was received by revelation independent of the papyri.

Of these three positions, the first seems to be a minority viewpoint espoused by few if any members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Of the remaining two options, the last is preferred by a majority of the members of the church who care about this issue. Most members find the issue unimportant.

(I have a friend I respect very much who is involved in Mormon Studies and who questions my assertion that position 3 is the most popular; he thinks position 2 is. I agree that we need better and more recent data on this issue. Either way, it is clear that those who hold the last two position dwarf the number who hold the first.)

At this point, my personal beliefs are irrelevant because positions 2 and 3 are the positions most favored by believing Latter-day Saints. This has two implications. The easiest straw man to attack to attack is position 1 but few Latter-day Saints believe that position. So if one rails against position 1 then the typical Latter-day Saint who knows anything at all about the issue will simply shrug her shoulders and say: "So what?" One must deal with both positions 2 and 3 on the issue and the two points of view have very different assumptions and implications.

One implication of the two positions that poses a problem for Mr. Lauer and others who deal with this issue is that in neither case is the identification of the texts on the current fragments of the Joseph Smith Papyri important. They happen to be a portion of the Book of the Dead and a portion of an abbreviated version of the so-called Document of Breathings made by Isis, but they could be Homer's Odyssey or the Instructions of Onchsheshonqy, or the Law Code of Hammurapi for all that it matters to Latter-day Saints. Most Latter-day Saints do not think that the Book of Abraham is or was on the current fragments of the Joseph Smith Papyri and so it does not matter to them what text is there. Thus the opinions of Egyptologists and other experts about the identification of those texts is moot.

One does not see much debate between positions 2 and 3 among Latter-day Saints. This is because those who hold these views do not see it as significant enough a matter to debate. In fact, most Latter-day Saints do not care about this issue. It is unimportant to them.

An analogy might help Mr. Lauer here. It is a bit like saying that the Evangelical movement cannot be true because evangelicals have a mistaken view of the historical background of the book of Nahum. How many evangelicals care about the historical background of Nahum? How many could easily find it in their Bibles? Just because some outsider thinks that this should be a big issue for some religious group does not make it a big issue for that religious group. Most evangelicals that I know of care a whole lot more about Paul than Nahum; to me that is understandable. If an individual were developing a program for witnessing to evangelicals and kept harping on a non-issue like the historical date of Nahum and criticizing evangelicals for that, most of them would rightly think that that individual was nuts.

Note also that most members of the Church of Jesus Christ hold positions that are also held by those who are not members. So this issue is neither decisive for separating Latter-day Saints from non-Latter-day Saints, nor possible to attack without either sparing a large group of Latter-day Saints or attacking a sizable group of non-Latter-day Saints.

Today's Nibley Quote

From "How to Write an Anti-Mormon Book (A Handbook for Beginners)" CWHN 11:474-75:

Rule 2: A benign criticism of your predecessors will go far towards confirming your own preeminence in the field. Refer gently but firmly to the bias, prejudice, and inadequate research, however unconscious or understandable, of other books on the subject.

Do My Homework for Me!

On occasion I get requests from students at other institutions who want me to do their homework for them. I try to explain to them that they need to do their own homework. They do not want to read anything, they just want me to give them the answer over the phone or in a four sentence email. Please, they beg, just give me your opinion on this subject. At that point I usually need to explain the difference between facts and opinions: Asking a dozen Egyptologists how they think King Tutankhamun died provides one with a dozen opinions but no facts.

I received a phone call this afternoon from an anti-Mormon in Idaho who is trying to develop a new program for his sect to witness to Mormons (more here), but he was trying to hide his identity and his purpose. He wanted me to discuss a complex subject in just seven minutes, and furthermore he refused to read anything. I told him that he needed to do his homework first, and like many young students he insisted that getting an expert to tell him what to think was doing his homework. After all, he had already consulted with an atheist expert to tell him what to think about Mormons. (Would he listen to this same atheist if he were to tell him what to think about Evangelical Christians? I happen to have heard what this particular atheist thinks about that subject.)

I am hardly the first to notice this phenomenon, although I have some other comments on it buried in here. One of the best books on the subject is Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation. Wait a minute, someone interested might actually have to read something. Perhaps they can get someone else to read it for them and just tell them what to think.