Replies

Re. I would ... put up Nibley’s credentials against those you have cited any day of the week.

You may be interested to learn Dr. Nibley's credibility was seriously damaged when he initially authenticated Joseph Smith's translation of an Egyptian papyrus which was put forth as the Book of Abraham.

The award winning documentary, The Lost Book of Abraham, shown HERE, cites a number of prominent scholars who disagree with Smith and Nibley. Dr. Robert K. Ritner, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago, is cited most frequently in the film and takes an unequivocal position denying the validity of Smith's purported translation. I invite you to review Dr. Ritner's vitae HERE.
Interestingly, as noted HERE and HERE, Dr. Nibley would later recant much of his endorsement, but the damage to his reputation was done.

Dr. Nibley's credibility took another blow when, as explained HERE, he authenticated the Anthon Transcript, a sheet of paper believed to contain copies of the characters which appeared on the gold plates of the Book of Mormon. This document was later proven to be fabricated by Mark Hofmann.

Dr. Nibley made other pronouncements which impaired his value as a Mormon apologist. For example, in 1947 he published the following demonstrably false statement:

Yet of all churches in the world only [the Mormon Church] has not found it necessary to readjust any part of its doctrine in the last hundred years. – Hugh Nibley, No, Ma'am, That's Not History, page 46.

Still other examples of Dr. Nibley's lack of discernment can be found HERE.

In light of the above, you would probably be better served in future posts by not citing Dr. Nibley as an established expert.

Re. Some of those “experts” cited by the Tanners & others have been shown to be totally fraudulent in that in some cases, they didn’t have a degree for their research yet presented themselves as experts.

Would you please name just one example and provide supporting citations?

Finally: Returning to an earlier topic, can you refute any of the statements made in this POST concerning the lack of credibility of LDS sources vs. the anti-Mormon Tanners?

The "Caractors" are the only tangible evidence in existence related to Smith's story. No gold plates, no brass plates, no peep stones, no Urim and Thummim... only these "Caractors," not a single one of which is in the purported languages.

Smith's translation of the Caractors. According to Martin Harris (Joseph Smith - History, 1:64), "I went to the city of New York, and presented the characters which had been translated, with the translation thereof, to Professor Charles Anthon, a gentleman celebrated for his literary attainments. Professor Anthon stated that the translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet translated,* and he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic; and he said they were true characters."

Speak right up now in all truthfulness. Isn't it revealing how Smith started out making a stab at creating believable "caractors" but quckly gave up and produced nothing but squiggles, ending up wih a series of nothing more than crude little scribbles? Yet Professor Anthon supposedly translated them!

*Harris must have had two or three pieces of paper with him—one with characters and a translation of them (on the same paper or a separate one) and one with untranslated characters—quite likely the "Caractors." Some Mormon "scholars" have gone out on a limb, sawed it off, and knocked themselves out trying to translate from these true Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic characters a segment that would correspond with a verse from 1 Nephi.

Modern-day experts in Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and Arabic. In 1829, any knowledge of these languages possessed by U.S. scholars would have been rudimentary at best. Expertise in them has vastly improved since then. So go ahead, do it. Get any modern expert in these languages to identify which of these "Caractors" are Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac and Arabic. Better still, accept the claim of Mormon apologists that Anthon did indeed so testify and that his appraisal of the Caractors was correct. (Op. cit, pp. 73-75)

Save your money! Samples of Assyriac/Aramaic and Arabic writing:

What say you? Which of Smith's "Caractors" resemble the Assyriac and Arabic ones? No need to pay experts for their analysis. A child could accurately check this out. These writing systems have remained constant for well over 3000 years.