Mopologetics and book burning

[Gadianton]

They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.

I considered these words from Rousseau on a recent afternoon as I took my pour of Scotch at my office, and I thought to myself, is it not true that Mopologetics is mostly a protracted book burning?

Hugh Nibley read books in the same way a health nut puts carrots into a juicer. No book had value for Nibley unless it produced an insight for his prearranged Mormon beliefs. Once that insight had been extracted, the rest was discarded as sophistry.

What is Egyptology to Gee aside from a tribute to Joseph Smith? What do apologists say of Egyptologists who ignore LDS connections to Egypt, and try to explain Egypt without any reference to Mormonism?

'reductionism' is criticized by apologists as narrow, but books have far more value for reductionists because nobody knows in advance what they're getting reduced to. The world has become significantly deeper and more complicated under reductionism, while the religious world of Mormonism has become airy and trivial. It had a little more depth in the past, but now Church leaders keep faith simple and won't risk saying things that they worry sound silly. Today, Mormon theology is basically Reader's Digest articles. Don't believe me? Just read the latest stories about "White Water" Rusty.

When objective knowledge by revelation appears unable to compete with science, apologists rush to advance subjective knowledge, varieties of religious experience, becoming, living wisdom, etc. as categorically important in their own right, and not subject to critical examination. Fantastic, but we're really not going to need the library in that case, so get on with it and light the torch!

Anyone disagree?

[Kishkumen]

Greetings, Dean. I like this idea of Mopologetics as book burning as exemplified dramatically in your quote. Why burn when you can excerpt, translate, re-interpret, etc.? Nibley was all about rewriting the past to make it Mormon-seeming. Mopologetics has carried that forward to today in its untenable arguments for an ancient Book of Abraham. For those who don’t look at the ancient sources that are massaged by the Mopes, those ancient sources only exist in the misinterpreted versions. We run into a similar problem with Augustine’s quotations of Varro in City of God. It can be difficult to extricate and understand Varro outside of Augustine’s hostile interpretations of them.

Your material about the failure of religion is less interesting to me, but I can see how you connect the two.

[Chap]

They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.

I don't want to distract from the OP - but it is as well to set on record the fact that Rousseau's story is a common and often repeated piece of nonsense, nowadays often recounted by anti-Muslims (of whom I am sure Gadianton is not one). In fact the Library had more or less ceased operations long before the rise of Islam in the 7th century AD:

Library of Alexandria

The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The Library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts.[10] The idea of a universal library in Alexandria may have been proposed by Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled Athenian statesman living in Alexandria, to Ptolemy I Soter, who may have established plans for the Library, but the Library itself was probably not built until the reign of his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, due largely to the Ptolemaic kings' aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. It is unknown precisely how many such scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height.

Alexandria came to be regarded as the capital of knowledge and learning, in part because of the Great Library.[11] Many important and influential scholars worked at the Library during the third and second centuries BC, including, among many others: Zenodotus of Ephesus, who worked towards standardizing the texts of the Homeric poems; Callimachus, who wrote the Pinakes, sometimes considered to be the world's first library catalogue; Apollonius of Rhodes, who composed the epic poem the Argonautica; Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who calculated the circumference of the earth within a few hundred kilometers of accuracy; Aristophanes of Byzantium, who invented the system of Greek diacritics and was the first to divide poetic texts into lines; and Aristarchus of Samothrace, who produced the definitive texts of the Homeric poems as well as extensive commentaries on them. During the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, a daughter library was established in the Serapeum, a temple to the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis.

Despite the widespread modern belief that the Library of Alexandria was burned once and cataclysmically destroyed, the Library actually declined gradually over the course of several centuries. This decline began with the purging of intellectuals from Alexandria in 145 BC during the reign of Ptolemy VIII Physcon, which resulted in Aristarchus of Samothrace, the head librarian, resigning from his position and exiling himself to Cyprus. Many other scholars, including Dionysius Thrax and Apollodorus of Athens, fled to other cities, where they continued teaching and conducting scholarship. The Library, or part of its collection, was accidentally burned by Julius Caesar during his civil war in 48 BC, but it is unclear how much was actually destroyed and it seems to have either survived or been rebuilt shortly thereafter; the geographer Strabo mentions having visited the Mouseion in around 20 BC and the prodigious scholarly output of Didymus Chalcenterus in Alexandria from this period indicates that he had access to at least some of the Library's resources.
The Library dwindled during the Roman Period, due to a lack of funding and support. Its membership appears to have ceased by the 260s AD. Between 270 and 275 AD, the city of Alexandria saw a rebellion and an imperial counterattack that probably destroyed whatever remained of the Library, if it still existed at that time. The daughter library of the Serapeum may have survived after the main Library's destruction. The Serapeum was vandalized and demolished in 391 AD under a decree issued by Coptic Christian Pope Theophilus of Alexandria, but it does not seem to have housed books at the time and was mainly used as a gathering place for Neoplatonist philosophers following the teachings of Iamblichus.

Now please let us return to Mormonism ...

[dastardly stem]

They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: 'If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.

I considered these words from Rousseau on a recent afternoon as I took my pour of Scotch at my office, and I thought to myself, is it not true that Mopologetics is mostly a protracted book burning?

Hugh Nibley read books in the same way a health nut puts carrots into a juicer. No book had value for Nibley unless it produced an insight for his prearranged Mormon beliefs. Once that insight had been extracted, the rest was discarded as sophistry.

What is Egyptology to Gee aside from a tribute to Joseph Smith? What do apologists say of Egyptologists who ignore LDS connections to Egypt, and try to explain Egypt without any reference to Mormonism?

'reductionism' is criticized by apologists as narrow, but books have far more value for reductionists because nobody knows in advance what they're getting reduced to. The world has become significantly deeper and more complicated under reductionism, while the religious world of Mormonism has become airy and trivial. It had a little more depth in the past, but now Church leaders keep faith simple and won't risk saying things that they worry sound silly. Today, Mormon theology is basically Reader's Digest articles. Don't believe me? Just read the latest stories about "White Water" Rusty.

When objective knowledge by revelation appears unable to compete with science, apologists rush to advance subjective knowledge, varieties of religious experience, becoming, living wisdom, etc. as categorically important in their own right, and not subject to critical examination. Fantastic, but we're really not going to need the library in that case, so get on with it and light the torch!

Anyone disagree?

I wish I could disagree. I've seen Mopologetics as a weakened version of Christian apologetics. They, of course, want to play off their big brother and use every useful sounding thing he has, but when it comes to their own innovative material it's not interesting enough for big brother to notice.

[Kishkumen]

Thanks, Chap. What you say is true. The real role of Islam is that it became a guardian and transmitter of Greek philosophical and scientific knowledge, so much so, in fact, that you really can't master some topics in Greek philosophy and science without learning Arabic. Dr. Peterson, by the way, wrote his dissertation on one such topic. It is an interesting story, but unfortunately a highly prejudiced one that is best avoided if possible. In this case, Dean Robbers was using it in a particular way without the intention of being anti-Islamic so much as, perhaps, broadly anti-religious. The anti-religion part actually comes in at the end of this post and is, in my view, unnecessary. I saw his point as being that the destruction of knowledge by its assimilation or distortion to fit a Mormon view is analogous, if not tantamount, to the destruction of book knowledge, represented in the story by the Great Library.

[Doctor Scratch]

I don't disagree, Dean Robbers, and in fact I think your ideas are supported by the fact that, e.g., Dr. Peterson never seems to read beyond pg. 20 of whatever book he happens to be using to hit his word count on "SeN." And then there's Dr. Midgley, who only seems to have read Paul Tillich and Peter Novak, and the only reason he seems to have read them is in order to score points against critics.

I suppose the only place I differ with you--and my differing is very slight, I hasten to add--is that I don't think that they do this strictly to affirm Joseph Smith and/or Mormonism. That is: sure Gee, is using Egyptology to support Joseph Smith, but the Mopologists also do all of this for reasons of ego. They want these degrees, and their alleged "book learning" to given them higher status during their "mortal probation," just as they crave status in the Added Upon realms of the (imaginary) next life.

[AZCaesar]

I feel we are all overlooking the most important question stemming from the OP, and that is: what kind of Scotch?

[Dr Moore]

Hugh Nibley read books in the same way a health nut puts carrots into a juicer. No book had value for Nibley unless it produced an insight for his prearranged Mormon beliefs. Once that insight had been extracted, the rest was discarded as sophistry.

Wow. A small shift in framing sure goes a long way. What was the perceived value of Nibley's product to rank and file members? It was a laser light through the cobwebs of history. For those who took time to read his books, he practically spoon fed so much evidence of the restoration. Your insight calls it well.

My one gripe with your analogy is the carrots. If [carrot] "juice" was the product, then Nibley wasn't stuffing carrots, but all manner of carrot-shaped things, into his juicer.

[Lem]

I don't disagree, Dean Robbers, and in fact I think your ideas are supported by the fact that, e.g., Dr. Peterson never seems to read beyond pg. 20 of whatever book he happens to be using to hit his word count on "SeN."

I would only slightly disagree. It seems that after we pointed out that his quotes all ranged from pages iii to 20, he started opening books in the middle, and quote mined from there. Every book he mentions still only includes quotes from about a 6 page range, and are inevitably all found on some "quotes from books" reference site, so I don't know who he thinks is fooled by that.

[Lem]

My one gripe with your analogy is the carrots. If [carrot] "juice" was the product, then Nibley wasn't stuffing carrots, but all manner of carrot-shaped things, into his juicer.

Well said. Apophenia at its finest.