How Did I Stop Believing My Own Evidence for the Book of Abraham?!
Posted: Thu May 13, 2021 3:04 am
How did It Happen That I Stopped Believing My Own Evidence for the Book of Abraham?!
How did it happen that I am now more doubtful about the Book of Abraham authenticity than when I was an apologist in its favor? A lot of people want to actually know this about what happened to me. This is a question that exercises me in this paper.
I am into Bayes Theorem again, and I have heard from the rumor mill that Mormon apologists are jumping on it in defending the Book of Abraham. This very much interests me to see if I am justified in my disbelief and if apologists are justified, or is it just that I want to sin? A usual intimidation tactic used by many Mormons.
In Bayes, it is the ratio between 2 claims that is all important in this particular instance involving myself. In my case the ratio of my doubt to apologetic belief is what matters here. That is the ratio of two different hypotheses. My hesitancy vs. the apologists and their belief in the Book of Abraham.
So what brought on my skepticism about my own answers and evidences for the Book of Abraham? This turn about with me personally is what is so interesting. It happened to me, and it wasn’t supposed to! Yet it did! Why? What is the basis for me changing my mind? I am forced to ask this. Can I ever get back, and if so, how - I mean honestly within myself - my own heart - if there is a turn around possible, where would that exist if it could so exist? Did I believe because I wanted to believe? Because I wanted praise from my peers and associates? Can a way back exist? Yes, I think so realistically, but, and here’s the fulcrum, it has to be better and stronger than what caused me to doubt. Now this is for me personally. This is not the necessity in general, but personal. But the way back, if it’s meant to be, has to have a cumulative overall affect of eliminating the cumulative overall affect of all that which has caused me to no longer believe the Mormon apologetic is valid, and therefore have any belief in the Book of Abraham.
I look back at my method. I was literally mesmerized by Hugh Nibley, as many apologists today still are. I utterly devoured everything he wrote and published multiple times, none more so than his Book of Abraham materials. I did not care a whit what critics were saying, Nibley showed them they were incomplete, wrong, and biased. This was to me the Gospel Apologetic defense anchor. With Nibley we win. And if he could find parallels, then by gosh, so could I. And I did. I found more parallels (“evidence”) than any others except Nibley, and I put it all out on the internet. I not only gathered sources he had referred to, I found boatloads of my own. Joseph Smith said this is what that Egyptian item meant, so I looked until I found someone (anyone!) else who said the same thing and wala! Evidence. Smith got it right. Don’t you see? Both Smith and Nibley got it right, and now so have I! It’s a win, my testimony is true. You mean you can’t see that?
And so I marched on for years. And I got pretty doggone decent at finding all kinds of ancient parallels from the Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, Ugaritic materials, Mesopotamians, Jews, Early Christians, canonical and non-canonical materials, Dead Sea Scrolls, even Mesoamerican and Hopi materials! I was invincible. Archaeology bore me out. So why didn’t this work? There has to be a reason because I stopped believing my own very powerful evidence! That’s just weird isn’t it?
What the hell happened? I mean for me. I had it all figured out and now it’s all to no avail. What changed? I can’t remember all the exact details, which article or reviews (there were hundreds I devoured) or whatever it was, but something, somewhere along the line actually got me to read an article “from the other side.” I had been challenged to something I had said, and so I had to get into that article, which with the help of Nibley, I could refute. But I couldn’t. I genuinely couldn’t. Nibley didn’t help.
I actually had to concede the point. But hold on. It’s not a crisis, because there is so much more that is right. To make a long story short, this began happening more often. And the issues became more central, in that through time, I began to see the whole edifice crumbling. I eventually, through an increasing anguish, came to the realization that I was the one who was biased. I had only kept to the LDS Egyptological side, the Nibley’s, Gee, Rhodes and Muhlestein’s.
I distinctly recall how odd it was that after Nibley had died, and Gee took over, that he was not producing tomes of evidence as Nibley had done. He was not doing all that great at filling Nibley’s shoes, but then who, who would have been able to? His arguments were not much like Nibley’s. I used him to try and refute some online arguments and ended up having to look into sources other than LDS views. And I discovered that Gee wasn’t as strong as Nibley. But Nibley also wasn’t as strong as I had presumed either. Through time I was forced to read responses to Gee and one by one, I saw his arguments fail. More Egyptologists were responding now against the apologetics. Gee was being refuted and his arguings being extensions of Nibley’s were in serious trouble.
Gee could not win a single argument of his reasons that the Book of Abraham was authentic. None of his views of the papyri relationship to the Book of Abraham held up. He, and now Rhodes and Muhlestein began to look like they were thrashing about, and actually pulling out ideas that were desperate from previous ones, and whether historically, philosophically, linguistically, mathematically, or Egyptologically, nothing was working! It was all being refuted!
And the more I read the other side, the more clear I saw my own bias.
But it was when Gee once had bore his testimony, it struck me as patently absurd. Nothing panned out for any of his numerous theories (or anyone else’s) yet he knew the scripture was true? How exactly did that work? I turned it around and asked myself what if the Egyptologists did this - took this approach - what would that do for their credibility in my eyes? How would I react - “be honest, be absolutely honest with yourself Kerry.” If Egyptologists were forced by LDS apologetic evidences to admit and see their arguments were wrong, and they came up with ideas to salvage these arguments, and each new attempt was also shown to be invalid, yet they came out and said “but we know or believe that we are correct anyway,” What would I think of that? It would utterly annihilate their credibility to me. Why? It was not until I discovered Bayes and how it helps us think more reasonably that I actually lost my fear of “losing my testimony” of the Book of Abraham. And now I can explain my thinking process. I had found the justified why.
My worldview, my knowledge, my prior probability coupled with the evidence I found was very high as an apologist. And every new evidence I found made my conclusion - the subsequent probability that the Book of Abraham was believable and Joseph Smith was correct - very strong.
But I was not taking seriously into account the other theories and their evidences which came to different conclusions. This is my personal experience of what I did and did not do. Bayes showed me that I was truly biased, and to what extent, and what the effect of that bias means as a truth-telling-holding device is in my personal thinking. And it cannot lead to a legitimate balanced belief for truth. Testimony is designed to hide the bias and legitimize hiding it. This is most curious!
What happened is simple. I genuinely wanted to know. Because of this, I was forced to view all evidence, from all sides, and assess the strength/weaknesses of all evidences in play. Now this is impossible in reality, it is an ideology to get all the evidence, we are all aware of that, of course. But it is not impossible to ask myself, with what evidence I see, now on both sides, is this the kind of evidence I would see if the LDS apologetics views are correct and accurate? Is it the kind of evidence if the other side is correct? What is the strength of the evidence? What if it’s being actually misused? Taken unrealistically out of context? Or fabricated to improve a theory? Now that I wanted to actually know, these questions become quite serious to investigate how they affect my belief. Are scholars misusing other scholars ideas and evidences to make their own interpretations appear stronger? Is this what they would do if they knew that their view had merit? What does that do to me accepting their arguments uncritically? Am I even justified in pointing things like this out when I find them, and I do find them! And are scholar’s reactions the kinds of reactions I would see if they had the actual evidence? Why do I see some reactions as just outright weird? (John Gee’s response at a FAIR Conference “why bother responding to what Ritner says?” when it was Gee who started it all with Ritner!).
Now everything is on the table. And this changes the kiinds of questions I ask. To me, this is the importance to Bayesian thinking when it comes to LDS apologetic claims, and Egyptological claims as well. The evidence has changed, reactions have changed, and questions have changed. Things are no longer in the same grooves or truth and false. Now it comes to how much truth can we justifiably accept in a claim to give belief in the claim? Just how strong is the evidence in a much more complete rounded context now? Evidence for both sides and against a claim must be put into a ratio, and that ratio is moveable either in favor or against, in relation to strengths and number of evidences, i.e., now both quality and quantity matters.
I’m not longer amendable to believe on just a parallel in favor imagining that one piece of evidence overcomes 4 pieces of evidence from Egyptologists. I have to learn and know the strengths of evidences, the quantity, the validity, the how evidence was arrived at, and is it what is expected? How much expected?
Bayes Theorem is opening my eyes to how much more involved this thing we call probability is, and much more about kinds of evidences - for they are not equal. This includes the importance of not eliminating that which does not help give our argument strength, or in adding ad hoc anything which does. Bias must be honestly dealt with and that means a serious and an honest attempt to see the true state of the arguments, evidences, biases, and probabilities. Neither belief nor doubt is simple. But they must be justified. And that takes real work. That is what I was missing as an apologist.
Now then… Why my disbelief? I have to have a probability of less than 50% or I am not really being a solid disbeliever as I am. There is a number involved with this, the question is just what number realistically without a bothersome subjectivity? But everyone is subjective, but we can be this way as objectively as we can be based on what we know. Subjectivity is not arbitrary or dubious. Bayes does not make us more subjective by clarifying it with a number, the subjectivity is already there. It just makes us be more explicit, which is a clearer view. What do we know today about this whole subject? A generalized view is all we really need in order to find out if we are justified. I can make this a formal paper if need be, and perhaps will do so, but all my information here can be Googled easily. I will present the core players simply because everyone else is still just using their already used arguments and evidences, so the core is what matters most in an informal survey as I give here.
What we Know Today
Egyptologists from the beginning, since Smith published his translations, lets say from his death in 1844 right to today, 177 years, have not found anything credible about Joseph Smith’s translations. The response has been entirely consistent. Even with improved Egyptology through the last 177 years - and its been enormous! - nothing has changed to verify Smith. Is this the kind of evidence a disbeliever would expect to find or a believer? It’s on the side of disbelievers.
LDS arguments in the 1860’s, 1912, the 1960’s, 2000’s up to today have not been persuasive evidence to convince Egyptologists. Again this favors disbelievers.
Many LDS theories to explain why evidence doesn’t confirm Smith’s translations, Mnemonic, missing papyri, two scrolls ideas, missing scrolls, 2 inks, the scribes did it not Smith (with the EAG), catalyst theories of special revelation, mathematical length theories, hidden meanings, any kind of Egyptian parallel theories, mistaken identity theories, nobody really understands Egyptian anyway theories, etc., present a singularly fatal problem. For every theory proposed attempting to cover the fact that there is no evidence for Joseph Smith’s claim of translating Abraham from Egyptian papyri, apologists lower the probabilities for Joseph Smith. They appear blissfully ignorant of this fundamental probability fact. Each and every theory carries with it probability weight, and that probability can only be 100% (which is all the space there is in probability), and that must be shared with each and every extra proposed theory. Therefore, to illustrate the problem, 100% divided by, how many theories do we have, 12, = a mere 8.3%! True some of these theories could carry more probability weight than some of the others, but this shows that every extra ad hoc excuse effort to hide the fact that the evidence doesn’t favor Smith digs a deeper hole for apologists to get out of. The more they try to save Smith, the worse off the entire issue is for them. This becomes a probability of liability for them. It is seriously vastly worse since Nibley died, because now they have established for our background knowledge - what we know today - is that they have a track record of several failed attempts to save Joseph Smith, and this now also must be accounted for in every attempt from here forward to defend the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as being correct! This enormous negative cannot be ignored. It is part of the issue now. Not all these theories can be correct, but they can all be wrong. Mormons are reduced to desperate guessing. This completely favors disbelievers. It is exactly the kind of evidence we expect to find, and we most certainly do so find it.
No LDS apologist has ever published their Mormon defense information in peer reviewed scholarly journals but instead kept them published in their own LDS sponsored journals. This tilts toward disbelievers. If they really had the goods, and their evidence was as good as they crow about in their own LDS journals, why not publish it to the rest of the world? That makes no sense at all.
Hugh Nibley’s vast output on the Book of Abraham. Is this what we expect as disbelievers? No. This certainly favors believers. Some believers however vehemently disagreed with him and that he was cooking the evidence, but his materials exist, so it favors believers, just not powerfully since there have been signal disagreements and refutations from many quarters through the years.
John Gee’s materials. Publications, articles for Interpreter, and in the Ensign, etc. They’re good for some believers, not so good for others. Disbelievers have a hey day refuting much of his presentation of evidences because they are just so weak and distorted, not mathematically confirmable, linguistically ridiculous, and historically preposterous. Especially the debacle of his claim of Abraham being actually found on a lion couch being sacrificed found in the Greek Magical Papyri, all of which was found to be misguided and mistranslated, so he had to back peddle almost entirely. Kerry Muhlestein picking it back up and making the exact same mistakes Gee did earlier was hilarious beyond description! But overall this is what believers would expect from an apologist scholar, so it mildly favors them. Unfortunately for Gee, Ritner more than makes up for lost ground here as I present below.
Michael Dennis Rhodes has actually worked at translating the papyri and written articles on the facsimiles, and this is evidence believers would expect to have, so it favors them. However, the downside of this is he has fundamentally been entirely dismantled by Egyptologists and this is evidence believers would expect to see, and we do. Overall this favors disbelievers. The apologetic has not held up, nor convinced any Egyptologists.
The same with Kerry Muhlestein, who is noted for his creative misreading of historical sources, and his truly weird unscholarly methodology, some some favorable aspects for believers, but much more for disbelievers when Egyptologists destroy his evidences, many of which are quite taken entirely out of context of what Egyptologists say.
John Tvedtnes materials on the Abraham legends. This is certainly evidence believers would expect, so it favors them. However, since the vast majority of the materials are actually post Christian, and far later than when Abraham lived, and so much has now been discovered in Joseph Smith's era, the power of this approach has been greatly reduced, which favors disbelievers.
Jeff Lindays’ webpages extensive which is what believers would expect, but most of it from the old Nibley days grooves which have been entirely relegated to useless, so this doesn’t do much for believers as it does for disbelievers.
FAIR is in the same boat as Lindsay, except for their tangling with Jeremy Runnells CES Letter. Overall their materials have failed to convince anyone, and there is much testimony online of their efforts actually hurting believers. Their multiple ad hominems against Runnells is the kind of evidence disbelievers would expect to see and we do, so it favors disbelievers.
Jeremy Runnells CES Letter is the kind of evidence expected by disbelievers. FAIR’s responses favor believers more or less, but Runnells response to the FAIR response is favorable for disbelievers. Other separate LDS single attempts have been made against Runnells which favors believers more or less. Over all this appears a toss up to me, though Runnell’s arguments are more in line with Egyptologists, so it actually ends up favoring disbelievers after all.
RFM interview of 4 ½ hours with Robert Ritner is perfect evidence in favor of disbelievers. Straight from the horse’s mouth, and very powerful for disbelievers as he literally single handedly takes apart all of the major Mormon apologists, their arguments, and evidences. He leaves the entire apologetic enterprise in a pile of ashes. This favors disbelievers.
Robert Ritner’s book length refutation of everything apologetics has ever offered in Smith’s favor and shows nothing is authentic in any manner. His invites to other experts each in an area concerning the papyri is also the expected evidence disbelievers would find if they are justified. Absolutely nothing in the apologetics field pans out on scrutiny of the evidence. The invitation of Michael Marquardt, another Mormon who left, and who is so honest with the actual evidence, the EAG, the papyri, the problems for translation, that this is, so far as I am aware, the only non-Egyptologist ever invited to write in an Egyptological scholars’ book. That is seriously impressive for a disbeliever. Marc Coenen (dating the papyri to far later times than Abraham) and Christopher Woods in Ritner's book also find exactly nothing to help out Joseph Smith. That Gee actually accepts Coenen's view is pure bonus for disbelievers! I can't help but wonder if he does not fathom that!
John Gee’s wimpy interview to answer Ritner’s interview is merely ad hominem and weak sauce not even dealing with the issues Ritner brought up. It is more mockery than scholarship. So yes believers get a response, but disbelievers get the lion’s share of good out of this. If there was better, he sure didn’t present anything. Bad for believers.
RFM’s 2 ½ hour analysis of Kerry Muhlestein’s methods, evidences, and scholarship is exactly what disbelievers would expect for evidence and believers are hard pressed to defend against.
Two of my internet colleagues, Paul Osborne and Kevin Graham who also have left Mormonism over this issue, and their extensive analysis, and Paul’s very interesting newly discovered evidence of Anubis being mutilated by someone in Joseph Smith’s day rendering a completely false interpretation of him, realistically, done under at least Smith’s supervision, if not by Smith himself, certainly favors the disbeliever side. Kevin has consistently and logically presented the evidence that the papyri we have from 1967 is the same papyri Joseph Smith used to translate into the Book of Abraham. And Paul’s consistent and persistent challenge to actually show anything in the facsimiles are translated accurately and has had no LDS takers or refutations. He has been screaming for an internet showdown now for well over a decade. No one dares step into the ring with him. Again, this favors disbelievers.
Brian Hauglid’s work on the Church’s own Joseph Smith Papers Project, and using Dan Vogel’s view! This is the kind of evidence disbelievers and doubters of LDS apologetic would expect and we find. John Gee’s notorious slobbering and spitting and making a complete professional fool of himself in pure pettiness because he was not in charge of the project also favors disbelievers.
Brian Hauglid, a Book of Abraham scholar, leaving the church on retiring from MI/BYU, and lambasting John Gee’s and Kerry Muhlestein’s work as positively horrible is the kind of evidence disbelievers would expect to find, and we have it.
Nibley’s grand finale, published posthumously, “One Eternal Round” defending Smith’s translations, which he worked on for 40 years (!) is entirely ignored by apologists and LDS scholars. This is evidence disbelievers would expect to find and are not surprised, as Nibley got his head handed to him by Ritner, Ashment, Thompson, Vogel, and others. Nibley’s evidences are no longer considered valuable to apologists.
Daniel Peterson’s small Ensign article on evidences in favor of the Book of Abraham is the kind of evidence for believers, but is simply regurgitated from Nibley and Gee and perhaps Muhlestein. It has all been soundly refuted by Egyptologists, so that turns the favor to disbelievers.
Dan Vogel’s materials with Brent Metcalfe’s on the Alphabet and Grammar, refuting the apologists materials based on Nibley’s fatally flawed thinking about the entire issue of scribes and the papyri favors disbelievers, including his brand new book concerning this issue. This favors disbelievers.
More LDS scholars, including those who can translate the papyri, and apologists, and lay folk have left the church by far over Joseph Smith’s translations, than Egyptologists have agreed to the evidence and joined Mormonism because of it. This favors disbelievers.
LDS scholars actually agreeing with the Egyptologists translations! This definitely tilts to the disbelievers side. And then the apologists flat out lying and saying Joseph Smith has actually gotten everything correct! A blatant and totally lying opposite conclusion. This also favorable tilts to disbelievers. Kerry Muhlestein and Michael Dennis Rhodes says this of the facsimile translations, and there is not a single Egyptologist on the planet who agrees and in fact they sputter at such blatant dishonesty on the part of apologists.
Based on this “What we Know” background knowledge of the issues, my disbelief in ratio to my belief in the Book of Abraham due to the various apologetic/Egyptological discussions of evidences pro and con, I would put like this. This is concerning my epistemic belief. It does not flow out into a generality that this is for everyone.
I shall write it out in order to better see the idea in a Bayesian setting.
The probability of my disbelief based on evidence and background is based on my prior, which I personally cannot seriously see less than being .90 = 90%. This is NOT my final conclusion, it is what I know. It must be tabulated with the evidence, which, again, for my disbelief based on all I have presented here can also be quite comfortably placed at .90 = 90% strong for me disbelieving as well. Can any of you other disbelievers argue my number is too subjective? What then is the percent you disbelieve, based on everything I have presented? The prior for my belief MUST be such that both Priors = 1, or 100%, the whole probability space. Therefore the prior for me believing based on all this has to be the much smaller .1 = 10%. Dividing the ratio established between my disbelief and belief gives this equation - again, not proof of anything, not finding certainty and absolute truth that anything is false, but MY personal disbelief justification conditional on what I know about everything involved here. Therefore, the power of the evidence favoring belief is a mere .10 = 10% also. In other words, the apologists have utterly failed abjectly to convince any Egytologists they are correct in their defense and Smith translated correctly. The rest of the world is not exactly enamored with their efforts either and is hardly knocking each other down to get in line to join Mormonism! I sincerely believe the evidence is less than .10%, but I will leave it here.
.90 X .90
---------------------------
[.90 X .90] + [.10 X .10]
That second addition term in brackets on the bottom of the fraction, the 10% is the prior of my belief (low) and the power of the evidence for my belief (again low due to knowing all the problems apologetics have with Egyptologists refuting pretty much everything they bring out]
This comes to
.81
-----
.82
Which = 98% justified in my disbelief based on all the evidence of the entire core of Egyptological defense, their refutations, and actions of apologists and Egyptologists clarifying the Egyptologists plagiarizing them (Rhodes plagiarizing Ritner in his own translation of the papyri - a HUGE red flag), dissing them on stupid matters and for petty, unprofessional reasons, and misusing what Egyptologists are actually saying which apologists mess up deliberately in order to try and strengthen their own views. And above all entirely agreeing with the Egyptologists translations on the papyri and facsimiles which show Joseph Smith got absolutely nothing correct, and then turning around and proclaiming to their own LDS audiences that he got everything right! The hypocrisy and lie is stunning! But again, it certainly is evidence which, once more, favors the disbeliever.
No I didn’t use all evidence in existence from both sides, but the rest of the small stuff is just followers of both sides merely repeating both sides arguments and arguing, not bringing out new evidences. All the major players, their interpretations, translations, arguments, and evidences, are here represented.
The bottom line, I am comfortable disbelieving this strongly until better evidence comes about. The apologists simply do not present any evidence in favor of Joseph Smith that withstands Egyptological scrutiny, and then lash out unprofessionally and quite childishly with all kinds of silly attacks against the Egyptologist person! That is all evidence for a disbeliever. But now, the apologists have to have, they are forced to have, due to their previous incompetent attempts, to have incredibly powerful and good enough evidence to begin turning around the Egyptologists' skepticism because they now have as part of our background knowledge, which must now always be taken into account on any new defense of Joseph Smith and his translations, a huge failing track record to overcome involving many evidences that is badly needed, and yet, nowhere in sight. I just think it is time for apologists to see the actually REAL problem they have gotten themselves into. You can't dig a 40 foot deep hole jump in and then expect a single pogo stick hop of a single piece of evidence to get you out of it.
How did it happen that I am now more doubtful about the Book of Abraham authenticity than when I was an apologist in its favor? A lot of people want to actually know this about what happened to me. This is a question that exercises me in this paper.
I am into Bayes Theorem again, and I have heard from the rumor mill that Mormon apologists are jumping on it in defending the Book of Abraham. This very much interests me to see if I am justified in my disbelief and if apologists are justified, or is it just that I want to sin? A usual intimidation tactic used by many Mormons.
In Bayes, it is the ratio between 2 claims that is all important in this particular instance involving myself. In my case the ratio of my doubt to apologetic belief is what matters here. That is the ratio of two different hypotheses. My hesitancy vs. the apologists and their belief in the Book of Abraham.
So what brought on my skepticism about my own answers and evidences for the Book of Abraham? This turn about with me personally is what is so interesting. It happened to me, and it wasn’t supposed to! Yet it did! Why? What is the basis for me changing my mind? I am forced to ask this. Can I ever get back, and if so, how - I mean honestly within myself - my own heart - if there is a turn around possible, where would that exist if it could so exist? Did I believe because I wanted to believe? Because I wanted praise from my peers and associates? Can a way back exist? Yes, I think so realistically, but, and here’s the fulcrum, it has to be better and stronger than what caused me to doubt. Now this is for me personally. This is not the necessity in general, but personal. But the way back, if it’s meant to be, has to have a cumulative overall affect of eliminating the cumulative overall affect of all that which has caused me to no longer believe the Mormon apologetic is valid, and therefore have any belief in the Book of Abraham.
I look back at my method. I was literally mesmerized by Hugh Nibley, as many apologists today still are. I utterly devoured everything he wrote and published multiple times, none more so than his Book of Abraham materials. I did not care a whit what critics were saying, Nibley showed them they were incomplete, wrong, and biased. This was to me the Gospel Apologetic defense anchor. With Nibley we win. And if he could find parallels, then by gosh, so could I. And I did. I found more parallels (“evidence”) than any others except Nibley, and I put it all out on the internet. I not only gathered sources he had referred to, I found boatloads of my own. Joseph Smith said this is what that Egyptian item meant, so I looked until I found someone (anyone!) else who said the same thing and wala! Evidence. Smith got it right. Don’t you see? Both Smith and Nibley got it right, and now so have I! It’s a win, my testimony is true. You mean you can’t see that?
And so I marched on for years. And I got pretty doggone decent at finding all kinds of ancient parallels from the Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, Ugaritic materials, Mesopotamians, Jews, Early Christians, canonical and non-canonical materials, Dead Sea Scrolls, even Mesoamerican and Hopi materials! I was invincible. Archaeology bore me out. So why didn’t this work? There has to be a reason because I stopped believing my own very powerful evidence! That’s just weird isn’t it?
What the hell happened? I mean for me. I had it all figured out and now it’s all to no avail. What changed? I can’t remember all the exact details, which article or reviews (there were hundreds I devoured) or whatever it was, but something, somewhere along the line actually got me to read an article “from the other side.” I had been challenged to something I had said, and so I had to get into that article, which with the help of Nibley, I could refute. But I couldn’t. I genuinely couldn’t. Nibley didn’t help.
I actually had to concede the point. But hold on. It’s not a crisis, because there is so much more that is right. To make a long story short, this began happening more often. And the issues became more central, in that through time, I began to see the whole edifice crumbling. I eventually, through an increasing anguish, came to the realization that I was the one who was biased. I had only kept to the LDS Egyptological side, the Nibley’s, Gee, Rhodes and Muhlestein’s.
I distinctly recall how odd it was that after Nibley had died, and Gee took over, that he was not producing tomes of evidence as Nibley had done. He was not doing all that great at filling Nibley’s shoes, but then who, who would have been able to? His arguments were not much like Nibley’s. I used him to try and refute some online arguments and ended up having to look into sources other than LDS views. And I discovered that Gee wasn’t as strong as Nibley. But Nibley also wasn’t as strong as I had presumed either. Through time I was forced to read responses to Gee and one by one, I saw his arguments fail. More Egyptologists were responding now against the apologetics. Gee was being refuted and his arguings being extensions of Nibley’s were in serious trouble.
Gee could not win a single argument of his reasons that the Book of Abraham was authentic. None of his views of the papyri relationship to the Book of Abraham held up. He, and now Rhodes and Muhlestein began to look like they were thrashing about, and actually pulling out ideas that were desperate from previous ones, and whether historically, philosophically, linguistically, mathematically, or Egyptologically, nothing was working! It was all being refuted!
And the more I read the other side, the more clear I saw my own bias.
But it was when Gee once had bore his testimony, it struck me as patently absurd. Nothing panned out for any of his numerous theories (or anyone else’s) yet he knew the scripture was true? How exactly did that work? I turned it around and asked myself what if the Egyptologists did this - took this approach - what would that do for their credibility in my eyes? How would I react - “be honest, be absolutely honest with yourself Kerry.” If Egyptologists were forced by LDS apologetic evidences to admit and see their arguments were wrong, and they came up with ideas to salvage these arguments, and each new attempt was also shown to be invalid, yet they came out and said “but we know or believe that we are correct anyway,” What would I think of that? It would utterly annihilate their credibility to me. Why? It was not until I discovered Bayes and how it helps us think more reasonably that I actually lost my fear of “losing my testimony” of the Book of Abraham. And now I can explain my thinking process. I had found the justified why.
My worldview, my knowledge, my prior probability coupled with the evidence I found was very high as an apologist. And every new evidence I found made my conclusion - the subsequent probability that the Book of Abraham was believable and Joseph Smith was correct - very strong.
But I was not taking seriously into account the other theories and their evidences which came to different conclusions. This is my personal experience of what I did and did not do. Bayes showed me that I was truly biased, and to what extent, and what the effect of that bias means as a truth-telling-holding device is in my personal thinking. And it cannot lead to a legitimate balanced belief for truth. Testimony is designed to hide the bias and legitimize hiding it. This is most curious!
What happened is simple. I genuinely wanted to know. Because of this, I was forced to view all evidence, from all sides, and assess the strength/weaknesses of all evidences in play. Now this is impossible in reality, it is an ideology to get all the evidence, we are all aware of that, of course. But it is not impossible to ask myself, with what evidence I see, now on both sides, is this the kind of evidence I would see if the LDS apologetics views are correct and accurate? Is it the kind of evidence if the other side is correct? What is the strength of the evidence? What if it’s being actually misused? Taken unrealistically out of context? Or fabricated to improve a theory? Now that I wanted to actually know, these questions become quite serious to investigate how they affect my belief. Are scholars misusing other scholars ideas and evidences to make their own interpretations appear stronger? Is this what they would do if they knew that their view had merit? What does that do to me accepting their arguments uncritically? Am I even justified in pointing things like this out when I find them, and I do find them! And are scholar’s reactions the kinds of reactions I would see if they had the actual evidence? Why do I see some reactions as just outright weird? (John Gee’s response at a FAIR Conference “why bother responding to what Ritner says?” when it was Gee who started it all with Ritner!).
Now everything is on the table. And this changes the kiinds of questions I ask. To me, this is the importance to Bayesian thinking when it comes to LDS apologetic claims, and Egyptological claims as well. The evidence has changed, reactions have changed, and questions have changed. Things are no longer in the same grooves or truth and false. Now it comes to how much truth can we justifiably accept in a claim to give belief in the claim? Just how strong is the evidence in a much more complete rounded context now? Evidence for both sides and against a claim must be put into a ratio, and that ratio is moveable either in favor or against, in relation to strengths and number of evidences, i.e., now both quality and quantity matters.
I’m not longer amendable to believe on just a parallel in favor imagining that one piece of evidence overcomes 4 pieces of evidence from Egyptologists. I have to learn and know the strengths of evidences, the quantity, the validity, the how evidence was arrived at, and is it what is expected? How much expected?
Bayes Theorem is opening my eyes to how much more involved this thing we call probability is, and much more about kinds of evidences - for they are not equal. This includes the importance of not eliminating that which does not help give our argument strength, or in adding ad hoc anything which does. Bias must be honestly dealt with and that means a serious and an honest attempt to see the true state of the arguments, evidences, biases, and probabilities. Neither belief nor doubt is simple. But they must be justified. And that takes real work. That is what I was missing as an apologist.
Now then… Why my disbelief? I have to have a probability of less than 50% or I am not really being a solid disbeliever as I am. There is a number involved with this, the question is just what number realistically without a bothersome subjectivity? But everyone is subjective, but we can be this way as objectively as we can be based on what we know. Subjectivity is not arbitrary or dubious. Bayes does not make us more subjective by clarifying it with a number, the subjectivity is already there. It just makes us be more explicit, which is a clearer view. What do we know today about this whole subject? A generalized view is all we really need in order to find out if we are justified. I can make this a formal paper if need be, and perhaps will do so, but all my information here can be Googled easily. I will present the core players simply because everyone else is still just using their already used arguments and evidences, so the core is what matters most in an informal survey as I give here.
What we Know Today
Egyptologists from the beginning, since Smith published his translations, lets say from his death in 1844 right to today, 177 years, have not found anything credible about Joseph Smith’s translations. The response has been entirely consistent. Even with improved Egyptology through the last 177 years - and its been enormous! - nothing has changed to verify Smith. Is this the kind of evidence a disbeliever would expect to find or a believer? It’s on the side of disbelievers.
LDS arguments in the 1860’s, 1912, the 1960’s, 2000’s up to today have not been persuasive evidence to convince Egyptologists. Again this favors disbelievers.
Many LDS theories to explain why evidence doesn’t confirm Smith’s translations, Mnemonic, missing papyri, two scrolls ideas, missing scrolls, 2 inks, the scribes did it not Smith (with the EAG), catalyst theories of special revelation, mathematical length theories, hidden meanings, any kind of Egyptian parallel theories, mistaken identity theories, nobody really understands Egyptian anyway theories, etc., present a singularly fatal problem. For every theory proposed attempting to cover the fact that there is no evidence for Joseph Smith’s claim of translating Abraham from Egyptian papyri, apologists lower the probabilities for Joseph Smith. They appear blissfully ignorant of this fundamental probability fact. Each and every theory carries with it probability weight, and that probability can only be 100% (which is all the space there is in probability), and that must be shared with each and every extra proposed theory. Therefore, to illustrate the problem, 100% divided by, how many theories do we have, 12, = a mere 8.3%! True some of these theories could carry more probability weight than some of the others, but this shows that every extra ad hoc excuse effort to hide the fact that the evidence doesn’t favor Smith digs a deeper hole for apologists to get out of. The more they try to save Smith, the worse off the entire issue is for them. This becomes a probability of liability for them. It is seriously vastly worse since Nibley died, because now they have established for our background knowledge - what we know today - is that they have a track record of several failed attempts to save Joseph Smith, and this now also must be accounted for in every attempt from here forward to defend the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith as being correct! This enormous negative cannot be ignored. It is part of the issue now. Not all these theories can be correct, but they can all be wrong. Mormons are reduced to desperate guessing. This completely favors disbelievers. It is exactly the kind of evidence we expect to find, and we most certainly do so find it.
No LDS apologist has ever published their Mormon defense information in peer reviewed scholarly journals but instead kept them published in their own LDS sponsored journals. This tilts toward disbelievers. If they really had the goods, and their evidence was as good as they crow about in their own LDS journals, why not publish it to the rest of the world? That makes no sense at all.
Hugh Nibley’s vast output on the Book of Abraham. Is this what we expect as disbelievers? No. This certainly favors believers. Some believers however vehemently disagreed with him and that he was cooking the evidence, but his materials exist, so it favors believers, just not powerfully since there have been signal disagreements and refutations from many quarters through the years.
John Gee’s materials. Publications, articles for Interpreter, and in the Ensign, etc. They’re good for some believers, not so good for others. Disbelievers have a hey day refuting much of his presentation of evidences because they are just so weak and distorted, not mathematically confirmable, linguistically ridiculous, and historically preposterous. Especially the debacle of his claim of Abraham being actually found on a lion couch being sacrificed found in the Greek Magical Papyri, all of which was found to be misguided and mistranslated, so he had to back peddle almost entirely. Kerry Muhlestein picking it back up and making the exact same mistakes Gee did earlier was hilarious beyond description! But overall this is what believers would expect from an apologist scholar, so it mildly favors them. Unfortunately for Gee, Ritner more than makes up for lost ground here as I present below.
Michael Dennis Rhodes has actually worked at translating the papyri and written articles on the facsimiles, and this is evidence believers would expect to have, so it favors them. However, the downside of this is he has fundamentally been entirely dismantled by Egyptologists and this is evidence believers would expect to see, and we do. Overall this favors disbelievers. The apologetic has not held up, nor convinced any Egyptologists.
The same with Kerry Muhlestein, who is noted for his creative misreading of historical sources, and his truly weird unscholarly methodology, some some favorable aspects for believers, but much more for disbelievers when Egyptologists destroy his evidences, many of which are quite taken entirely out of context of what Egyptologists say.
John Tvedtnes materials on the Abraham legends. This is certainly evidence believers would expect, so it favors them. However, since the vast majority of the materials are actually post Christian, and far later than when Abraham lived, and so much has now been discovered in Joseph Smith's era, the power of this approach has been greatly reduced, which favors disbelievers.
Jeff Lindays’ webpages extensive which is what believers would expect, but most of it from the old Nibley days grooves which have been entirely relegated to useless, so this doesn’t do much for believers as it does for disbelievers.
FAIR is in the same boat as Lindsay, except for their tangling with Jeremy Runnells CES Letter. Overall their materials have failed to convince anyone, and there is much testimony online of their efforts actually hurting believers. Their multiple ad hominems against Runnells is the kind of evidence disbelievers would expect to see and we do, so it favors disbelievers.
Jeremy Runnells CES Letter is the kind of evidence expected by disbelievers. FAIR’s responses favor believers more or less, but Runnells response to the FAIR response is favorable for disbelievers. Other separate LDS single attempts have been made against Runnells which favors believers more or less. Over all this appears a toss up to me, though Runnell’s arguments are more in line with Egyptologists, so it actually ends up favoring disbelievers after all.
RFM interview of 4 ½ hours with Robert Ritner is perfect evidence in favor of disbelievers. Straight from the horse’s mouth, and very powerful for disbelievers as he literally single handedly takes apart all of the major Mormon apologists, their arguments, and evidences. He leaves the entire apologetic enterprise in a pile of ashes. This favors disbelievers.
Robert Ritner’s book length refutation of everything apologetics has ever offered in Smith’s favor and shows nothing is authentic in any manner. His invites to other experts each in an area concerning the papyri is also the expected evidence disbelievers would find if they are justified. Absolutely nothing in the apologetics field pans out on scrutiny of the evidence. The invitation of Michael Marquardt, another Mormon who left, and who is so honest with the actual evidence, the EAG, the papyri, the problems for translation, that this is, so far as I am aware, the only non-Egyptologist ever invited to write in an Egyptological scholars’ book. That is seriously impressive for a disbeliever. Marc Coenen (dating the papyri to far later times than Abraham) and Christopher Woods in Ritner's book also find exactly nothing to help out Joseph Smith. That Gee actually accepts Coenen's view is pure bonus for disbelievers! I can't help but wonder if he does not fathom that!
John Gee’s wimpy interview to answer Ritner’s interview is merely ad hominem and weak sauce not even dealing with the issues Ritner brought up. It is more mockery than scholarship. So yes believers get a response, but disbelievers get the lion’s share of good out of this. If there was better, he sure didn’t present anything. Bad for believers.
RFM’s 2 ½ hour analysis of Kerry Muhlestein’s methods, evidences, and scholarship is exactly what disbelievers would expect for evidence and believers are hard pressed to defend against.
Two of my internet colleagues, Paul Osborne and Kevin Graham who also have left Mormonism over this issue, and their extensive analysis, and Paul’s very interesting newly discovered evidence of Anubis being mutilated by someone in Joseph Smith’s day rendering a completely false interpretation of him, realistically, done under at least Smith’s supervision, if not by Smith himself, certainly favors the disbeliever side. Kevin has consistently and logically presented the evidence that the papyri we have from 1967 is the same papyri Joseph Smith used to translate into the Book of Abraham. And Paul’s consistent and persistent challenge to actually show anything in the facsimiles are translated accurately and has had no LDS takers or refutations. He has been screaming for an internet showdown now for well over a decade. No one dares step into the ring with him. Again, this favors disbelievers.
Brian Hauglid’s work on the Church’s own Joseph Smith Papers Project, and using Dan Vogel’s view! This is the kind of evidence disbelievers and doubters of LDS apologetic would expect and we find. John Gee’s notorious slobbering and spitting and making a complete professional fool of himself in pure pettiness because he was not in charge of the project also favors disbelievers.
Brian Hauglid, a Book of Abraham scholar, leaving the church on retiring from MI/BYU, and lambasting John Gee’s and Kerry Muhlestein’s work as positively horrible is the kind of evidence disbelievers would expect to find, and we have it.
Nibley’s grand finale, published posthumously, “One Eternal Round” defending Smith’s translations, which he worked on for 40 years (!) is entirely ignored by apologists and LDS scholars. This is evidence disbelievers would expect to find and are not surprised, as Nibley got his head handed to him by Ritner, Ashment, Thompson, Vogel, and others. Nibley’s evidences are no longer considered valuable to apologists.
Daniel Peterson’s small Ensign article on evidences in favor of the Book of Abraham is the kind of evidence for believers, but is simply regurgitated from Nibley and Gee and perhaps Muhlestein. It has all been soundly refuted by Egyptologists, so that turns the favor to disbelievers.
Dan Vogel’s materials with Brent Metcalfe’s on the Alphabet and Grammar, refuting the apologists materials based on Nibley’s fatally flawed thinking about the entire issue of scribes and the papyri favors disbelievers, including his brand new book concerning this issue. This favors disbelievers.
More LDS scholars, including those who can translate the papyri, and apologists, and lay folk have left the church by far over Joseph Smith’s translations, than Egyptologists have agreed to the evidence and joined Mormonism because of it. This favors disbelievers.
LDS scholars actually agreeing with the Egyptologists translations! This definitely tilts to the disbelievers side. And then the apologists flat out lying and saying Joseph Smith has actually gotten everything correct! A blatant and totally lying opposite conclusion. This also favorable tilts to disbelievers. Kerry Muhlestein and Michael Dennis Rhodes says this of the facsimile translations, and there is not a single Egyptologist on the planet who agrees and in fact they sputter at such blatant dishonesty on the part of apologists.
Based on this “What we Know” background knowledge of the issues, my disbelief in ratio to my belief in the Book of Abraham due to the various apologetic/Egyptological discussions of evidences pro and con, I would put like this. This is concerning my epistemic belief. It does not flow out into a generality that this is for everyone.
I shall write it out in order to better see the idea in a Bayesian setting.
The probability of my disbelief based on evidence and background is based on my prior, which I personally cannot seriously see less than being .90 = 90%. This is NOT my final conclusion, it is what I know. It must be tabulated with the evidence, which, again, for my disbelief based on all I have presented here can also be quite comfortably placed at .90 = 90% strong for me disbelieving as well. Can any of you other disbelievers argue my number is too subjective? What then is the percent you disbelieve, based on everything I have presented? The prior for my belief MUST be such that both Priors = 1, or 100%, the whole probability space. Therefore the prior for me believing based on all this has to be the much smaller .1 = 10%. Dividing the ratio established between my disbelief and belief gives this equation - again, not proof of anything, not finding certainty and absolute truth that anything is false, but MY personal disbelief justification conditional on what I know about everything involved here. Therefore, the power of the evidence favoring belief is a mere .10 = 10% also. In other words, the apologists have utterly failed abjectly to convince any Egytologists they are correct in their defense and Smith translated correctly. The rest of the world is not exactly enamored with their efforts either and is hardly knocking each other down to get in line to join Mormonism! I sincerely believe the evidence is less than .10%, but I will leave it here.
.90 X .90
---------------------------
[.90 X .90] + [.10 X .10]
That second addition term in brackets on the bottom of the fraction, the 10% is the prior of my belief (low) and the power of the evidence for my belief (again low due to knowing all the problems apologetics have with Egyptologists refuting pretty much everything they bring out]
This comes to
.81
-----
.82
Which = 98% justified in my disbelief based on all the evidence of the entire core of Egyptological defense, their refutations, and actions of apologists and Egyptologists clarifying the Egyptologists plagiarizing them (Rhodes plagiarizing Ritner in his own translation of the papyri - a HUGE red flag), dissing them on stupid matters and for petty, unprofessional reasons, and misusing what Egyptologists are actually saying which apologists mess up deliberately in order to try and strengthen their own views. And above all entirely agreeing with the Egyptologists translations on the papyri and facsimiles which show Joseph Smith got absolutely nothing correct, and then turning around and proclaiming to their own LDS audiences that he got everything right! The hypocrisy and lie is stunning! But again, it certainly is evidence which, once more, favors the disbeliever.
No I didn’t use all evidence in existence from both sides, but the rest of the small stuff is just followers of both sides merely repeating both sides arguments and arguing, not bringing out new evidences. All the major players, their interpretations, translations, arguments, and evidences, are here represented.
The bottom line, I am comfortable disbelieving this strongly until better evidence comes about. The apologists simply do not present any evidence in favor of Joseph Smith that withstands Egyptological scrutiny, and then lash out unprofessionally and quite childishly with all kinds of silly attacks against the Egyptologist person! That is all evidence for a disbeliever. But now, the apologists have to have, they are forced to have, due to their previous incompetent attempts, to have incredibly powerful and good enough evidence to begin turning around the Egyptologists' skepticism because they now have as part of our background knowledge, which must now always be taken into account on any new defense of Joseph Smith and his translations, a huge failing track record to overcome involving many evidences that is badly needed, and yet, nowhere in sight. I just think it is time for apologists to see the actually REAL problem they have gotten themselves into. You can't dig a 40 foot deep hole jump in and then expect a single pogo stick hop of a single piece of evidence to get you out of it.
In fact, I think I will real quick!