BYU's John Clark -- Five year anniversary of being "ignored"

[_Runtu]

I suspect you wouldn't respond substantively, so what's the point?

I don't do substance.

Why on earth would I do it here?

I've seen you do substantive discussion, but rarely online. And never here. :)

Clark's problem, in my opinion, in the "convergence" fireside, isn't his grasp of archaeology, which I don't think anyone disputes. Rather, it's his assertions of what was known or believed in Joseph Smith's day that don't hold up. Just about everything he said Joseph couldn't or shouldn't have known turns out to be a pretty commonplace belief of Joseph's day. In that sense, yeah, I would consider his assertions debunked.

[_JohnStuartMill]

Are you a rigidly dogmatic critic, or a completely unreasonable one?

Definitely the former: I dogmatically believe that people should have compelling evidence for the supernatural claims they make.

[_Danna]

Does anyone have a link to a transcript?

[_Daniel Peterson]

So you'd go with W. K. Clifford against William James.

I wouldn't. Not that I think it quite relevant in this case.

Do you, incidentally, have compelling evidence for your position that people should have compelling evidence?

[_JohnStuartMill]

Hey Dan, what's your theory on why Egyptologists called the Book of Abraham a fraud even when they had access to the complete scrolls?

[_Runtu]

Does anyone have a link to a transcript?

Here's my response:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3510&p=83101&hilit=John+Clark#p83101

[_JohnStuartMill]

So you'd go with W. K. Clifford against William James.

I wouldn't. Not that I think it quite relevant in this case.

Do you, incidentally, have compelling evidence for your position that people should have compelling evidence?

No, that's axiomatic. I'm dogmatic, remember?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Thanks for pointing out the dogmatic/axiomatic quality of your position. You saved me the effort.

Hey Dan, what's your theory on why Egyptologists called the Book of Abraham a fraud even when they had access to the complete scrolls?

I'm not sure that they had access to the complete scrolls. (That is disputed, however certain a few here may be on the subject.) And I'm not sure that the Egyptologists of several generations ago were infallible. But I don't even require that the text was present on the scrolls at all. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. I don't much care. I'm open to various possible modes of its deliverance.

I'm much more interested in what the Book of Abraham has to say. And, thus far, although it's never been a major focus of my attention, I've published twice on that topic:

* With John Gee and William Hamblin. “‘And I Saw the Stars’: The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy.” In John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid, eds. Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant (Provo: FARMS, 2005), 1-16.

* “News from Antiquity [‘Evidence supporting the book of Abraham continues to turn up in a wide variety of sources’].” The Ensign 24/1 (January 1994): 16-21.

[_Yoda]

Are you a rigidly dogmatic critic, or a completely unreasonable one?

LOL! I have to admit, that's pretty good!

[_Runtu]

Are you a rigidly dogmatic critic, or a completely unreasonable one?

LOL! I have to admit, that's pretty good!

For some reason, all I could think about was Glinda the Good Witch saying that.