Earlier this month, my blog passed its two-year anniversary. In honor of this event, I thought I'd share the year's stats and highlights. Traffic this year was up 50% from last year, with 15,518 visits from 11,587 absolute unique visitors. Special thanks are due to Times and Seasons, Mormon Times, and Latter-day Main Street, the blogs that referred the most traffic to my site. By far the top search strings that brought people here were "sheum" and "positive thinking songs".
The ten most viewed pages of the year:
1. The Top Ten Positive Thinking Songs of All Time
2. Head Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:3-16
3. Mormons Give More, Says Christianity Today
4. My Favorite Joseph Smith Revelation
5. Interview with Pastor Dean Jackson, "Peacemaker in Provo"
6. Sheum in the Book of Mormon
7. Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire!
8. The Rediscovery of Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar: A Short History
9. The Silence of Women Is Golden?: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
10. Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone: Night by Elie Wiesel
Many of my own favorites, of course, didn't make the list. Here are a few good ones you may have missed:
1. Joseph Smith's Seeker Uncle
2. Some Old Art of Mine
3. You Have to Have Religion Before You Can Have Relationship
4. Can a Mormon Be a Compatibilist?
5. Ben Franklin's Plurality of Gods
6. The Night I Spoke in Tongues
7. The Biblical Case Against Biblical Inerrancy
8. Alabama Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Defining Christian Religion
9. Mosiah Priority and the Therefore/Wherefore Shift
10. Universalism Among the Early Church Fathers
I've also done some fun things off-site this year, including my paper "In Defense of a Christian Pluralism" in the JRRT, and my interview on the Book of Abraham with the Mormon Expression Podcast.
So, as I embark on another year of sporadic blogging, I'd just like to say, thank you everyone for reading. It has been a pleasure to share my thoughts with you all here, and to enjoy your thoughts on all of your blogs, as well. Ihope that everyone had a very merry Christmas, and that your New Year will be even better still!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Avatar: A Visual Treat
I went and saw Avatar today. It is a great deal better than the trailer made it look. Whereas the trailer appears somewhat cartoony, every moment of the actual movie is visually stunning. It is like an eye candy buffet. Add to this a decent plot, OK acting, and amazingly fast-paced action scenes, and we have a movie every male will love. I was also pleased that it bridged my two favorite genres: sci-fi and fantasy. Think Narnia meets The Matrix, and you'll have a pretty good idea the stuff this movie is made of. It was by far one of the most satisfying moviegoing experiences I've had in recent history. And there wasn't much adult content, either, except for the violence. I guess the blue aliens are half-naked most of the time, but it's not erotic or anything, and since they're aliens you don't really think about it.
My biggest objection to the film was that its plot was so obviously derivative. It was pretty clearly based on the European conquest of the Americas, except with a happy ending this time. There were enough other interesting story elements thrown in to keep the heavy Native American overtones from overwhelming the story. But they're definitely there, and they distract a bit from the experience. I kept assuming it was an allegory, and expecting an unhappy ending.
In addition to the historical references, there were also a number of obvious similarities to Timothy Zahn's sci-fi novel Manta's Gift. Zahn's book was about a paraplegic who gets his nervous system hooked into an alien body so that he can go as a spy/operative into an indigenous culture whose resources humanity hopes to exploit at the aliens' expense. At the end of the book he of course ends up fighting on the side of the aliens against the humans. Probably not enough here to get Cameron sued for plagiarism, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the concept was borrowed from Zahn.
Anyway, derivative or not, it was a really good action flick. Nerds like me will love it. Non-nerds maybe not so much... but who cares about them, anyway?
My biggest objection to the film was that its plot was so obviously derivative. It was pretty clearly based on the European conquest of the Americas, except with a happy ending this time. There were enough other interesting story elements thrown in to keep the heavy Native American overtones from overwhelming the story. But they're definitely there, and they distract a bit from the experience. I kept assuming it was an allegory, and expecting an unhappy ending.
In addition to the historical references, there were also a number of obvious similarities to Timothy Zahn's sci-fi novel Manta's Gift. Zahn's book was about a paraplegic who gets his nervous system hooked into an alien body so that he can go as a spy/operative into an indigenous culture whose resources humanity hopes to exploit at the aliens' expense. At the end of the book he of course ends up fighting on the side of the aliens against the humans. Probably not enough here to get Cameron sued for plagiarism, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the concept was borrowed from Zahn.
Anyway, derivative or not, it was a really good action flick. Nerds like me will love it. Non-nerds maybe not so much... but who cares about them, anyway?
Friday, December 18, 2009
Baer on Apologetics and the Nature of Egyptian Religion
Here is the last of the three Klaus Baer letters Noel Hausler sent to me. This one is particularly important, I think, because it makes a crucial methodological point about the nature of Egyptian religion. Because the Egyptians were pantheistic and engaged in "free association" of symbols and deities, Baer argues, LDS apologists like Nibley can justify almost any interpretation of the Joseph Smith Papyri that serves their purposes. Such interpretations will not be common or mainstream, but they will be defensible on some level. I'd add, for my own part, that even apart from the peculiarities of Egyptian religion, images and symbols are inherently multivalent and almost always capable of multiple interpretations and adaptations. This is the strength of Kevin Barney's "Semitic adaptation" theory: it takes advantage of this inherent pictorial ambiguity. (But see here for a particularly problematic case where this favorite apologetic escape hatch does not apply.)
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10 April 1972
Dear Reverend Walters,
Many thanks for your letter of April 3, which just got here. Under separate cover, I am returning to you the photocopies of Nibley's articles in the IMPROVEMENT ERA; I have the whole set, and you mught be able to use the copies. I must confess that I haven't actually managed to read the thing from one end to the other. As you say, it is virtually impossible to refute what Nibley writes as fast as he produces it -- and quite difficult, since what the LDS would demand is proof that something isn't the way Nibley says it is, when often all the conscientious scholar can say is that the evidence doesn't support a conclusion of any kind.
To put it briefly and in general form, the problem facing us with the study of Egyptian religion is one (probably) common to all polytheistic religions. The Egyptians were essentially pantheistic, believing in one divine substance that could manifest itself in a great many different ways. While for the common believer (and for the purposes of the cult) each image was a separate entity (and thus there were many Amons, who could even disagree with one another), at the same time that each god could be seen as many gods (from one point of view), many gods could be seen as one (from another aspect). There may well be a train of thought leading to the trinitarian theology of the Alexandrians here. One even finds identifications of gods across the sex line (which isn't supposed to happen according to theoreticians of religion). One result, of course, is that symbols can have a most confusing application. Just for the lotus, for instance, we have (Moren, Schubert, DER GOTT AUF DER BLUME: the primeval lotus that arose from the primeval waters at creation (hence creator), the lotus at the nose of Re (the creator) (hence creation), god of perfume, hence Nefertem, Harsaphes, Harsomeeus, Re, Horus, King, etc. etc. Thus there is nothing that says (by the king of free association indulged in by the Egyptians in this sphere) that they could not have associated a lotus with a lion that guards the frontiers and hence meant Abraham -- unfortunately there is also no shred of evidence that they actually did so, and that is the important thing. In a world where anything can be anythin, the outsider who wants to prove something must do more than simply say that such and such is possible withing [sic] the framework of Egyptian thought. He must prove that it actually happened, something much harder. Similarly Heyerdahl's mistake: Even without the Ra trip, I would have been delighted to agree that the Egyptians _could_ have crossed the Atlantic with their (substantial) wooden ships. The question is: did they? If there were evidence (and there isn't), then even the failure of Hyerdahl's trip wouldn't prove anything. As it is, his success is equally meaningless.
In regard to the quotes from my letters; don't mention it to Tanner. There's no point in warming up ancient history, and I am, after all, in contact with them (may have mentioned it when I visited them in Salt Lake some years ago).
Dear Reverend Walters,
Many thanks for your letter of April 3, which just got here. Under separate cover, I am returning to you the photocopies of Nibley's articles in the IMPROVEMENT ERA; I have the whole set, and you mught be able to use the copies. I must confess that I haven't actually managed to read the thing from one end to the other. As you say, it is virtually impossible to refute what Nibley writes as fast as he produces it -- and quite difficult, since what the LDS would demand is proof that something isn't the way Nibley says it is, when often all the conscientious scholar can say is that the evidence doesn't support a conclusion of any kind.
To put it briefly and in general form, the problem facing us with the study of Egyptian religion is one (probably) common to all polytheistic religions. The Egyptians were essentially pantheistic, believing in one divine substance that could manifest itself in a great many different ways. While for the common believer (and for the purposes of the cult) each image was a separate entity (and thus there were many Amons, who could even disagree with one another), at the same time that each god could be seen as many gods (from one point of view), many gods could be seen as one (from another aspect). There may well be a train of thought leading to the trinitarian theology of the Alexandrians here. One even finds identifications of gods across the sex line (which isn't supposed to happen according to theoreticians of religion). One result, of course, is that symbols can have a most confusing application. Just for the lotus, for instance, we have (Moren, Schubert, DER GOTT AUF DER BLUME: the primeval lotus that arose from the primeval waters at creation (hence creator), the lotus at the nose of Re (the creator) (hence creation), god of perfume, hence Nefertem, Harsaphes, Harsomeeus, Re, Horus, King, etc. etc. Thus there is nothing that says (by the king of free association indulged in by the Egyptians in this sphere) that they could not have associated a lotus with a lion that guards the frontiers and hence meant Abraham -- unfortunately there is also no shred of evidence that they actually did so, and that is the important thing. In a world where anything can be anythin, the outsider who wants to prove something must do more than simply say that such and such is possible withing [sic] the framework of Egyptian thought. He must prove that it actually happened, something much harder. Similarly Heyerdahl's mistake: Even without the Ra trip, I would have been delighted to agree that the Egyptians _could_ have crossed the Atlantic with their (substantial) wooden ships. The question is: did they? If there were evidence (and there isn't), then even the failure of Hyerdahl's trip wouldn't prove anything. As it is, his success is equally meaningless.
In regard to the quotes from my letters; don't mention it to Tanner. There's no point in warming up ancient history, and I am, after all, in contact with them (may have mentioned it when I visited them in Salt Lake some years ago).
Sincerely,
Klaus Baer
Klaus Baer
Monday, December 14, 2009
More from Klaus Baer on Hugh Nibley
Thanks again to Noel Hausler for providing these very interesting letters. Notice that Baer here clarifies his comments from the last letter I posted. Someone commented that it sounded like Baer was a little perturbed with Walters in that letter, but actually it was the Tanners he was annoyed with.
20 March 1972Dear Reverend Walters,
Many thanks for your letter of March 14 and the copy of Nibley's article, which I found here upon returning from Toronto. Just one brief remark: Nibley cites and awful lot of scholarly literature, but it seems noteworthy that certain recent publications that just possibly might have a closer bearing on the subject under discussion are ignored. Also no acknowledgement on p. 173; to my knowledge it wasn't Nibley who discovered the original location of the mismounted fragments. But then, as I have said before, most of what is being written is religious apologetics, which usually has different standards than one would expect in scholarly work.
In regard to quotations from letters: most of the citations from unnamed Egyptologists on p. 135 of THE CASE AGAINST MORMONISM, vol. I [by Jerald and Sandra Tanner] come from letters I wrote -- cf. e.g. the top of p. 2 of my letter to you written September 2, 1967. Even though the Egyptologist is anonymous (and few people that know me personally are likely to see the book), I think you will admit that the page in question was something of a shock to me. Things would have been worded very differently if I had at that time anticipated publication. But this is past history.
In any event, I have said what I had to say in regard to the papyri, and am just as happy I don't have to follow the twists and turns that the LDS argument seems to be taking. I must admit that I wonder how some of the more learned early Mormons would have reacted on being told that their religion was closer to gnosticism than Christianity. But then, if Nibley can find religious comfort in the endless reams of boring rubbish that the Coptic Gnostic texts tend to consist of (I am not interested in Gnosticism, obviously), more power to him.
Sincerely,
Klaus Baer
Klaus Baer
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