I Come and See
Today I visited the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, and looked once more at the vignette from which book of Abraham Facsimile 1 is taken. I looked at it several times, and thought deeply. What a joy to see the papyrus itself, not a facsimile, not a photograph nor a digitized copy, but the very ink, the very hieroglyphs, the vignette itself in all its design and character!
Today I visited the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, and looked once more at the vignette from which book of Abraham Facsimile 1 is taken. I looked at it several times, and thought deeply. What a joy to see the papyrus itself, not a facsimile, not a photograph nor a digitized copy, but the very ink, the very hieroglyphs, the vignette itself in all its design and character!
To understand the vignette in its fullness, we must turn to the pages of the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price and read the explanations of a latter-day Seer. Otherwise, we risk seeing only a part of the meaning, that part that reflects darkly in the mirror of modern scholarship, a scholarship at a dusty multi-millennial distance from the lost past.
I do not fault today's scholars for not seeing what Joseph Smith saw: Who can be expected to possess the high gift of the seer to see things as they really are, and as they really once were?
Yet I do detect a mote in the scholarly eye, when students of an ancient civilization pretend to a preeminent knowledge of that past. We learn to read an ancient script, yes, and master our tentative lexical lists--but to boast? "Yea, how quick to boast" (Helaman 12:5).
What do we know? What can we know? Professor Westendorf would tell his students that no living person can know Ancient Egypt as it once was; the best we might do is to build theoretical models by which to approximate that past. We may come thereby, if not to understanding, at least to a common ground for observation and discussion. We all recall those ridiculously disproportionate models fashioned by scientists to teach the public something of the swirling atom, to grant students a brush with molecular structure, and the like. Without the model, there can be no logos, that is to say, no -ology. We would all drift into incoherence, then into stillness.
Such limitations, however, do not apply to seers, because "things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known" (Mosiah 8:17). Such gifted revelators something call to mind the transcendence of translated beings, like Enoch or John the Beloved, being themselves translating beings capable of putting disparate peoples and cultures in touch with each other, as though they themselves transcended space and time and differences in language and culture.
As I consider the tone of scholarship everywhere today, I wonder how well any of us are doing at building models that invite dialogue--open, demanding, cheerful dialogue--about the forgotten past.
Such limitations, however, do not apply to seers, because "things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known" (Mosiah 8:17). Such gifted revelators something call to mind the transcendence of translated beings, like Enoch or John the Beloved, being themselves translating beings capable of putting disparate peoples and cultures in touch with each other, as though they themselves transcended space and time and differences in language and culture.
As I consider the tone of scholarship everywhere today, I wonder how well any of us are doing at building models that invite dialogue--open, demanding, cheerful dialogue--about the forgotten past.
For instance, as Professor Robert Ritner, in The Joseph Smith Papyri: A Complete Edition, winds up his argument against the Prophet Joseph's explanation of Facsimile 1, an argument consisting of merest ex cathedra declaration after declaration of Folly and Error, he pronounces:
"Except for those willfully blind, the case is closed."
The words of Scripture best suited to set alongside such an eager, un-nuanced, and incompletely argued pronouncement are those of King Limhi (Mosiah 8):
The words of Scripture best suited to set alongside such an eager, un-nuanced, and incompletely argued pronouncement are those of King Limhi (Mosiah 8):
"And now, when Ammon had made an end of speaking these words [about the interpreters and the high gift of seers] the king rejoiced exceedingly, and gave thanks to God, saying: Doubtless a great mystery is contained within these plates, and these interpreters were doubtless prepared for the purpose of unfolding all such mysteries to the children of men."
I say the same of Facsimile 1: a great mystery is contained within that vignette, rich as it is with representation and symbolism. And, as I see it, Joseph the Seer has unfolded a portion of its ancient "mysteries to the children of men" in latter-days, with more unfolding to come for those who seek. Neither is the door shut to those who seek either to understand or add to the Prophet's Explanation of Facsimile 1 by the study of Near Eastern languages and cultures. I attest to just how very open that door lies. Enter and seek--and find. It doesn't make a jot of difference whether anybody attempts to stop up that avenue of pursuit: seek and you will find abundance "of treasures hid in the sand." "And [you] shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures." Yes, you shall find even the Pearl of Great Price (Deuteronomy 33; Doctrine and Covenants 89).
As I reflect on Professor Ritner's pronouncement of blindness, even willful blindness, I am compassionately startled at what many apparently cannot see or do not even care to look for. "Look to God and live" (Alma 37). Like Limhi I feel to exclaim:
"O how marvelous are the works of the Lord, and how long doth he suffer with his people; yea, and how blind and impenetrable are the understandings of the children of men; for they will not seek wisdom, neither do they desire that she should rule over them!"
II A Word to the Wise
Wisdom! You may rule over me! Like Emerson, "I am weary of the surfaces, and die of inanition." If Hokhmah, Ma'at, Sofia, the Wisdom of the Ages, not sophistication nor prating invective, desires to rule my mind, a mind that now hopes to see, She may.
Let's take a look at her judicious works.
Journalist Doug Gibson, reprising via Twitter a frankly objective review of Professor Ritner's study of the Joseph Smith Papyri, a review originally appearing in the Ogden Standard Examiner, observes:
"To Ritner, the 'case is closed.' What Smith claimed, and the LDS Church claims today, is simply false, he says.
"Ironically, that certainty of Ritner's may be the weakest point of his arguments. One can make a case that to draw any conclusion that science is settled can be called unscientific.
"With ancient Egyptian-era digs going on in the world, it's an audacious claim to say that part of a book that millions regard as scripture is forever concluded to be a hoax" (Mormon History and Culture: "The Mummy's Curse and the Book of Abraham").
http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/04/29/scholar-challenges-joseph-smith-translation
While there is little original about the case Ritner presents against the book of Abraham, he presents it with a blare of trumpets. And few blasts are so sharp as his ridicule of the Prophet's explanations of certain goddesses appearing on Facsimile 3. How is it that the Prophet confuses goddesses with mortal males?
Yet addressing the very same embarrassment in 1956, before Professor Ritner was even born, Hugh Nibley had the following to say (in the form of an imaginary dialogue):
"'It is rather quaint,' Professor F. commented. 'Any fool can see, for example, that the figures called Pharaoh and his son are women.'
"Yes,' Mr. Blank answered, 'a myopic moron could see that, and that is why it so remarkable. It is plainly intentional.'"
Mr. Blank, in search of the patiently recovered remarkable rather than the surface visible--that is, what scholars do--goes on to cite arcane works of Egyptology in hopes of discovering why Joseph Smith might so discern a trace of the Pharaoh or the Prince in the outward form of a goddess (Lehi in the Desert. The World of the Jaredites. There Were Jaredites, 336-337).
To read anything of the Egyptian past, the student must drop all preconceived notions, including the norms of Western logic, and, well, venture. . .
As a serious reader of Professor Ritner's Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition (though not the only published edition!), I also note strengths and weaknesses; I note sound transcription, sound translation--and the unsound. The book may have its errors, and I've tallied a telling list, but the surprising, and I think the significant, thing to note is the singular lack of intellectual curiosity about the documents Professor Ritner assays to translate. Everything translates into the matter-of-fact, if not the outright dull. Another weakness is that Ritner does not await anyone else's sheaf-laden return from the library. Even as we, brim with joy, rejoice in discovery and ready our report, he interrupts by slamming the classroom door in our faces. Ritner makes it abundantly clear, however, that he is, by no means, the first to do so. Student after student, he notes, has slammed the door on the book of Abraham since 1861 or so. Yet as Nibley asks: Will the latch hold?
The latch simply never holds.
Intellectual Curiosity? We wonder whether documents such as the Book of Breathings or the hypocephalus have anything profound to tell us about the Egyptian mind? Do they yield a chapter in the intellectual history of the race? Might they have something--anything--to say to religious seekers? Or are they, as the Chicago Professor dryly puts it: "amulets" of "common" funerary hopes?
Ritner's "complete" transcriptions and translations, fleeting in comment, carry a cold and hurried air. We don't come to understanding. The book evinces a single-minded purposefulness in an impatient and aggrieved tone. Ritner not only declares: All Joseph Smith says is false! He also insists of the supposedly ubiquitous, thus "common" "amulets": Nothing to see here, move along.
If it is so, such a neglect seems to be very much at odds with Professor Ritner's other famous book, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, which the reader can hardly put down. If it is so, then Ritner's terse museum-label comments about these Egyptian texts also stand at odds with the trend of Egyptological writing since 1980. Go to any library and select books written by Jan Assmann, Erik Hornung, Alexandra von Lieven, Dimitri Meeks, Sylvie Cauville, John Baines, and so on, and see whether these ever fail to stir the soul with the wonders of the Egyptian mind, see whether these don't seek to draw the universal treasuries into the expanding picture.
Professor Ritner is always worth reading. Yet had Ritner's contracting book on the Joseph Smith Papyri undergone standard Egyptological peer-review or the requisite editing for printing at a standard publishing house (one not given to Mormon controversy), how many counts of sarcasm, what tally of the personal barbs, might have vanished from the final cut? So declawed, the book, written for a specific lay audience, would have lost its crowd appeal.
Hugh Nibley, by way of contrast, at least tried to gather documents having a similar thematic and cultural bearing, all of which he believes ought to read in light of the Joseph Smith Papyri and vice-versa. He invites the reader to study these, ponder the larger Kulturkreis, and then to decide whether such productions of the Egyptian mind as the hypocephalus, the Breathings document, or the vignettes, are worthy of our attention (see The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri (1975) and One Eternal Round (2010). Shall we brush these collections aside in our knowing simplicity? or shall we take a second look?
The test has to do with curiosity--and with attentiveness to matters of eternal concern. Ever reading, ever studying, ever discovering, we wait on the Lord for the fullness of truth.
II A Word to the Wise
Wisdom! You may rule over me! Like Emerson, "I am weary of the surfaces, and die of inanition." If Hokhmah, Ma'at, Sofia, the Wisdom of the Ages, not sophistication nor prating invective, desires to rule my mind, a mind that now hopes to see, She may.
Let's take a look at her judicious works.
Journalist Doug Gibson, reprising via Twitter a frankly objective review of Professor Ritner's study of the Joseph Smith Papyri, a review originally appearing in the Ogden Standard Examiner, observes:
"To Ritner, the 'case is closed.' What Smith claimed, and the LDS Church claims today, is simply false, he says.
"Ironically, that certainty of Ritner's may be the weakest point of his arguments. One can make a case that to draw any conclusion that science is settled can be called unscientific.
"With ancient Egyptian-era digs going on in the world, it's an audacious claim to say that part of a book that millions regard as scripture is forever concluded to be a hoax" (Mormon History and Culture: "The Mummy's Curse and the Book of Abraham").
http://www.standard.net/stories/2012/04/29/scholar-challenges-joseph-smith-translation
While there is little original about the case Ritner presents against the book of Abraham, he presents it with a blare of trumpets. And few blasts are so sharp as his ridicule of the Prophet's explanations of certain goddesses appearing on Facsimile 3. How is it that the Prophet confuses goddesses with mortal males?
Yet addressing the very same embarrassment in 1956, before Professor Ritner was even born, Hugh Nibley had the following to say (in the form of an imaginary dialogue):
"'It is rather quaint,' Professor F. commented. 'Any fool can see, for example, that the figures called Pharaoh and his son are women.'
"Yes,' Mr. Blank answered, 'a myopic moron could see that, and that is why it so remarkable. It is plainly intentional.'"
Mr. Blank, in search of the patiently recovered remarkable rather than the surface visible--that is, what scholars do--goes on to cite arcane works of Egyptology in hopes of discovering why Joseph Smith might so discern a trace of the Pharaoh or the Prince in the outward form of a goddess (Lehi in the Desert. The World of the Jaredites. There Were Jaredites, 336-337).
To read anything of the Egyptian past, the student must drop all preconceived notions, including the norms of Western logic, and, well, venture. . .
As a serious reader of Professor Ritner's Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition (though not the only published edition!), I also note strengths and weaknesses; I note sound transcription, sound translation--and the unsound. The book may have its errors, and I've tallied a telling list, but the surprising, and I think the significant, thing to note is the singular lack of intellectual curiosity about the documents Professor Ritner assays to translate. Everything translates into the matter-of-fact, if not the outright dull. Another weakness is that Ritner does not await anyone else's sheaf-laden return from the library. Even as we, brim with joy, rejoice in discovery and ready our report, he interrupts by slamming the classroom door in our faces. Ritner makes it abundantly clear, however, that he is, by no means, the first to do so. Student after student, he notes, has slammed the door on the book of Abraham since 1861 or so. Yet as Nibley asks: Will the latch hold?
The latch simply never holds.
Intellectual Curiosity? We wonder whether documents such as the Book of Breathings or the hypocephalus have anything profound to tell us about the Egyptian mind? Do they yield a chapter in the intellectual history of the race? Might they have something--anything--to say to religious seekers? Or are they, as the Chicago Professor dryly puts it: "amulets" of "common" funerary hopes?
Ritner's "complete" transcriptions and translations, fleeting in comment, carry a cold and hurried air. We don't come to understanding. The book evinces a single-minded purposefulness in an impatient and aggrieved tone. Ritner not only declares: All Joseph Smith says is false! He also insists of the supposedly ubiquitous, thus "common" "amulets": Nothing to see here, move along.
If it is so, such a neglect seems to be very much at odds with Professor Ritner's other famous book, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, which the reader can hardly put down. If it is so, then Ritner's terse museum-label comments about these Egyptian texts also stand at odds with the trend of Egyptological writing since 1980. Go to any library and select books written by Jan Assmann, Erik Hornung, Alexandra von Lieven, Dimitri Meeks, Sylvie Cauville, John Baines, and so on, and see whether these ever fail to stir the soul with the wonders of the Egyptian mind, see whether these don't seek to draw the universal treasuries into the expanding picture.
Professor Ritner is always worth reading. Yet had Ritner's contracting book on the Joseph Smith Papyri undergone standard Egyptological peer-review or the requisite editing for printing at a standard publishing house (one not given to Mormon controversy), how many counts of sarcasm, what tally of the personal barbs, might have vanished from the final cut? So declawed, the book, written for a specific lay audience, would have lost its crowd appeal.
Hugh Nibley, by way of contrast, at least tried to gather documents having a similar thematic and cultural bearing, all of which he believes ought to read in light of the Joseph Smith Papyri and vice-versa. He invites the reader to study these, ponder the larger Kulturkreis, and then to decide whether such productions of the Egyptian mind as the hypocephalus, the Breathings document, or the vignettes, are worthy of our attention (see The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri (1975) and One Eternal Round (2010). Shall we brush these collections aside in our knowing simplicity? or shall we take a second look?
The test has to do with curiosity--and with attentiveness to matters of eternal concern. Ever reading, ever studying, ever discovering, we wait on the Lord for the fullness of truth.
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