ClarkGoble wrote:Well part of that was because modern apologetics where there's a presumption to scientific facts is relatively recent. Yes you have the start of such things at the time of Widstoe, Roberts and Talmage. But I think it was a minority. It's really not until the 1980's, relatively recently, that an apologetic informed primarily by science occurs. (Nibley's approach was largely the old structuralist project within which he was trained - so I don't count that) There's still a mix in apologetics. While I think apologetics often gets a bum rap, there's no doubt that there's also a lot of crap.
That sounds about right. But in Joseph Smith's day it was an utter heyday for Mormon claims regarding Smith's ability to translate and it went completely unchallenged. Egyptology was in its infancy. But things started to change towards the end of the century and it became readily apparent that the Explanations of the Facsimiles were amiss and clarification was certainly needed. The missing scroll theory essentially became the bedrock defense for the Mormons in not being able to supply qualified answers to why the Explanations were contrary to conventional Egyptology. Without the papyrus there would ever remain questions and mystery on how to tie the Facsimiles to the papyrus. Then, in 1967 everything changed when missing papyrus was discovered and returned to the church. Suddenly apologetics went into full swing and the missing papyrus theory had to be changed from, "We don't have the papyrus" to "We don't have all the papyrus. The ground was broken for a full spectrum of all kinds of wild and crazy ideas on how to defend the translations of Joseph Smith.
