Crockett Challenges Scratch to a Debate

[_Mister Scratch]

My answer above stands. Since the only place Charles Larson could have obtained his very high-quality images of the documents would have been only the Church, one must assume that that is where he got them.

Do you or do you not know how and where he got them, Bob?

Your best anecdote just falls flat.

Whoever said this was my "best anecdote"?

There are plenty of better ones; I'm surprised you don't even know any of them. Restriction of access to rare documents (done by many many archives -- including the Library of Congress) is a far cry from the active suppression of history.

There is a difference between "restricted access," and complete prohibition of access to anyone other than staunch TBM scholars.

I'll ask you again: Where is the evidence that the Church itself published BoA-related material? Where is the link that you spoke of? C'mon, Bob, it should be pretty easy for you to pony up the proof. Don't be afraid of getting pinned by the evidence. I promise to be fair.

[_antishock8]

If you were to go into a typical Utah County chapel on any given Sunday, how many members would have an inkling of an idea that Joseph Smith used a rock in the hat? Best guess.

If I had to guess, 95% wouldn't know.

If you were to ask these members how they envision the translation process, what do you think their response would be?

I know that as for myself, when I was a typical chapel Mormon, I would have said that Joseph Smith wore the Urim and Thummim like a pair of glasses and with the plates in front of him, studied them and read from it to a scribe. Exactly like the church sanctioned picture shows him.

The church knows EXACTLY how they want to portray Joseph Smith. And reading from a hat does not fit into their image.

My good friend, a return missionary at BYU, knew nothing of the rock in the hat. I still don't think he believes me.

I served a mission in Peru from '90-'92. Married in Bellvue temple. I didn't know about the Rock in the Hat until AFTER I left the Morg.

On a side note, I used the seminary studyguide for the Book of Mormon and a host of other church provided materials when studying my way through the Book of Mormon before and during my mission. Never once was the Rock in the Hat translation presented. Not once.

[_rcrocket]

My answer above stands. Since the only place Charles Larson could have obtained his very high-quality images of the documents would have been only the Church, one must assume that that is where he got them.

Do you or do you not know how and where he got them, Bob?

From the Church. When Larson wrote his book, there was no other possible source for the highly-detailed photographs. His photographs were, according to the Institute for Religious Research (which republished Larson's work), the "first published color photographs of the complete Joseph Smith Papyri collection." (See IRR's website, http://www.irr.org/mit/bhoh-pt1.html.)

The Church acquired the papyri at the end of 1967 from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, as announced by the Deseret News. (Larson, chap. 4). They were immediately turned over the BYU scholars to review. (Id.)

The Improvement Era then produced photographs of all eleven fragments in February 1968, or about four months after the Church acquired them. (Larson, chap. 5.)

Charles Larson is not a Mormon. Yet, his book contains the best photographs. This is hardly suppression.

Your best anecdote just falls flat.

Whoever said this was my "best anecdote"?

This is the one you selected.

There is a difference between "restricted access," and complete prohibition of access to anyone other than staunch TBM scholars.

I work in the archives frequently. Nobody asks me if I am a member of the Church, staunch or otherwise. There are usually a dozen other researchers there, and so I go rather unnoticed.

I'll ask you again: Where is the evidence that the Church itself published BoA-related material? Where is the link that you spoke of? C'mon, Bob, it should be pretty easy for you to pony up the proof. Don't be afraid of getting pinned by the evidence. I promise to be fair.

The aforementioned Improvement Era article. Publishing all fragments.

[_Yong Xi]

As is well known, the press which exposed Joseph Smith in printing "The Nauvoo Expositor" was destroyed. It can be argued that the action was or wasn't legal. It can be argued that it was or wasn't the church that ordered the press's destruction. Can it be argued that it wasn't an attempt at suppression?

[_Scottie]

First, this is a fundamental principle, why? Second, as it has been published in various Mormon publications for years, this is suppression, why?

It's not.

So, the next logical question...if it has nothing to do with our salvation, why does the church feel a need to portray Joseph Smith studiously translating the plates at all? What does the church have to gain by altering the perceptions of the general membership? Why doesn't the church show Joseph Smith with his face in a hat? After all, it has nothing to do with our salvation.

Second, a "variety"?? I only know of one Ensign article. Oh, and I guess the RSR and NMKMH and such. Yeah, I guess that's a variety.

One other question...If the church isn't trying to hide this, why aren't the missionaries taught it? Surely you arm your salesmen with the defects of the products and possible rebuttals when confronted with said defects, right?

[_Mister Scratch]

My answer above stands. Since the only place Charles Larson could have obtained his very high-quality images of the documents would have been only the Church, one must assume that that is where he got them.

Do you or do you not know how and where he got them, Bob?

From the Church. When Larson wrote his book, there was no other possible source for the highly-detailed photographs. His photographs were, according to the Institute for Religious Research (which republished Larson's work), the "first published color photographs of the complete Joseph Smith Papyri collection." (See IRR's website, http://www.irr.org/mit/bhoh-pt1.html.)

Oddly, this link leads to a dead page. I wonder why?

The Church acquired the papyri at the end of 1967 from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, as announced by the Deseret News. (Larson, chap. 4). They were immediately turned over the BYU scholars to review. (Id.)

Right: BYU scholars; not scholars in general. Part of the definition of suppression involves preventing information from receiving a full, balanced review.

The Improvement Era then produced photographs of all eleven fragments in February 1968, or about four months after the Church acquired them. (Larson, chap. 5.)

This doesn't really matter, Bob. Shortly after the fragments were recovered, Hugh Nibley began wildly scrambling to come up with new theories to explain them away. Sure: the Church may have been willing to print photos in 1968, but would they do so now? Or, can we observe a new degree of paranoia and suppression concerning the Book of Abraham? Based on Gee's comments, I think we have to agree with the latter.

Charles Larson is not a Mormon. Yet, his book contains the best photographs. This is hardly suppression.

Larson is a BYU alum.

Your best anecdote just falls flat.

Whoever said this was my "best anecdote"?

This is the one you selected.

I selected history of Church finances---something which you completely ignored.

There is a difference between "restricted access," and complete prohibition of access to anyone other than staunch TBM scholars.

I work in the archives frequently. Nobody asks me if I am a member of the Church, staunch or otherwise. There are usually a dozen other researchers there, and so I go rather unnoticed.

And are you handling the Book of Abraham materials that Gee mentioned?

I'll ask you again: Where is the evidence that the Church itself published BoA-related material? Where is the link that you spoke of? C'mon, Bob, it should be pretty easy for you to pony up the proof. Don't be afraid of getting pinned by the evidence. I promise to be fair.

The aforementioned Improvement Era article. Publishing all fragments.

Is that it? Can you name anything post-Nibley?

[_Doctor Steuss]

Oddly, this link leads to a dead page. I wonder why?

Take out the period at the end (for some reason, it looks like the link pulled it in).

http://www.irr.org/mit/bhoh-pt1.html

[_Scottie]

Ahhh...Scratch!! Put The Architect back on! That No Country for old Men guy scares me!

[_Rollo Tomasi]

From the Church. When Larson wrote his book, there was no other possible source for the highly-detailed photographs. His photographs were, according to the Institute for Religious Research (which republished Larson's work), the "first published color photographs of the complete Joseph Smith Papyri collection." (See IRR's website, http://www.irr.org/mit/bhoh-pt1.html.)

The Church acquired the papyri at the end of 1967 from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, as announced by the Deseret News. (Larson, chap. 4). They were immediately turned over the BYU scholars to review. (Id.)

The Improvement Era then produced photographs of all eleven fragments in February 1968, or about four months after the Church acquired them. (Larson, chap. 5.)

Charles Larson is not a Mormon. Yet, his book contains the best photographs. This is hardly suppression.

Charles was a Mormon at one time (and is a BYU graduate). According to the Tanners, the color photos were leaked to others, namely, one Grant Heward:

A book analyzing Joseph Smith's translation of the "Book of
Abraham" has caused a real stir in Utah. It is written by Charles M.
Larson and is entitled, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look At The
Joseph Smith Papyri. We understand that before the book was offered for
sale, about 30,000 copies were sent without charge to members of the
Mormon Church. Almost all the homes in one stake received a free copy.
One man told us that his bishop was so upset with the book that he
warned members of his ward not to read it. This, of course, made the man
very curious and he came to our bookstore to purchase a copy.

Mormon scholars seem to be very worried that Larson's book will
cause members to lose faith in the Book of Abraham. The Mormon apologist
John Gee, a researcher for the Foundation for Ancient Research and
Mormon Studies (F.A.R.M.S.), has written a review of this book which is
published in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, vol. 4, 1992.
While Mr. Gee tries very hard to find some way to belittle Mr. Larson
and undermine his work, we do not feel that he has successfully answered
the major issues. He, in fact, has made his own mistakes.

For example, on pages 93-94 of his article, Mr. Gee quotes from
a cover letter which was sent out with copies of Larson's books. He
notes that the letter says that the book contains "the first ever
published color photographs of the Joseph Smith papyri collection." Gee
then asserts that this claim is not true and goes on to state: "...the
publishers... are mistaken in thinking that they are publishing the
first color photographs of the Joseph Smith papyri. They are nearly a
quarter century too late for that, for The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints published a complete set of color photographs of the
Joseph Smith papyri in the February 1968 Improvement Era."

While the photographs in the Improvement Era give the
appearance of being "color" reproductions of the papyri (we ourselves
once thought they were full-color photographs), the printing was
apparently done with sepia ink, a dark brown or reddish-brown ink. This
worked fairly well because papyrus is basically brown. Unfortunately,
however, some of the papyri contain "rubrics"--portions written in red
ink. Wherever rubrics appeared on the papyrus, the characters did not
reproduce well in the church's magazine, Improvement Era. Instead
of being red, they appear to be a very light brown and sometimes fade
out to the point that they are hardly readable. In the photographs found
in Larson's book, however, real color printing has been used.
Consequently, the rubrics come out red and are very readable.

While Michael Marquardt believes John Gee is wrong about the
Feb. 1968 issue of the Improvement Era having real color photographs
of the papyri, he feels that the cover of another issue did have a color
photograph of one fragment of papyrus, Fac. No. 1.

It is interesting to note that when the church received the
papyri on Nov. 27, 1967, church leaders only allowed four or five black
and white pictures to be published. Reed Durham, an instructor at the
LDS Institute of Religion at the University of Utah asked if we could
furnish photographs of all eleven pieces of papyri for the library at
the Institute. We replied we could not obtain copies and wondered why he
was not able to obtain them from his own church. He stated that when he
contacted the church's Deseret News, he was told they had a large
number of copies of photographs of all the papyri, but had been ordered
not to release them. Later however, Grant Heward was able to obtain
photographs from another source after being refused by the Mormon
Church. When the Deseret News learned that Mr. Heward had the
photographs, it caused a great deal of excitement, and word went out
that photographs had fallen into the hands of the enemies of the church.
Mormon leaders knew that if they did not release all the photographs, we
would print them.

Evidence seems to indicate that there were originally no plans
for any pictures of the papyri to appear in the Feb. 1968 issue of the
Improvement Era and that the publication of the photographs of the
papyri were inserted at the last minute in a hasty and peculiar manner.
In the table of contents on page 1 we read that pages "33-48" are
devoted to a section called "Era of Youth." In the midst of this
section, beginning at page 40, the Era of Youth abruptly ends and ten
pages of photographs of the papyri are inserted. After this the Era of
Youth starts again and continues to page 48 as the table of contents
indicated. Two pages of the Era of Youth were deleted at the place where
the 10 pages of photographs were added. This, of course, created a
problem in the page numbers. To solve this the photographs of the papyri
are numbered as pages 40, 40-A, 40-B, etc.

This unusual method of producing the February issue of the
church's magazine seems to show that once word got out that our friend
Grant Heward had photographs, the church rushed to get them into print.
Church leaders certainly did not want these photographs to appear first
in the Salt Lake City Messenger! This hasty attempt to get the
pictures into print may have made it expedient to use sepia ink instead
of going through the added trouble of making full color pictures.

(Emphasis added)

[_rcrocket]

There you go. Evidence of suppression may be seen from the Tanners' claim that the Church published the materials only two months after obtaining the fragments. I got it. If you want to suppress material, make sure you publish it so that it does not really appear that you are suppressing it.

Look, I don't doubt that the Church wanted to get the leg up on publication rights and an explanation. I see that frequently in the Church (as well as other cases -- the Dead Sea Scrolls project, for instance). But I hardly see this as a good example of suppression. Two freakin' months, for crying out loud.

And to say, as Scratch claims, that the Church continues to suppress the facsimiles -- citing Gee? How could that possibly be, with Larson's publication and the Improvement Era's?

Do you, Rollo, really subscribe to Scratch's view that the Church is suppressing knowledge of the facsimiles?