--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Evans, John Henry collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 16 number: 4 published: 1913-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Evans, John Henry, \"Bishop Spulding's Jump in the Logical Process,\" *Improvement Era* 16, no. 4 (February 1913): 343–346." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1604unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1604unse start_page: 343 end_page: 346 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1604unse publication_year: 1913 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Bishop Spulding's Jump in the Logical Process — "JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AS A TRANSLATOR" 341 ever, be willing to have It. declared the author stated that if it could be wholly wrong because of a very small shown that Napoleon had made a misnumber of errors. (Exists there a take in one battle all other claims rereligious body who would?) No just lating to his generalship would thereand impartial judge would require it by be destroyed. To the pamphlet of them. They themselv-js do not were appended the statements of a look upon it as being faultless. It has number of competent officers to the cr me from God through human hands. effect that Napoleon had made a mis- They claim that it came as a revela- take at Waterloo. The author then tion of God to man, and that here called upon all men to repudiate Naand there within it there are probably poleon not only at "Waterloo but elsethe finger prints of mortality. If man, where, and Anally branded all who the medium through which it came, would not do so as ignorant and dishad been perfect, the religion would honest. have been perfect. The Latter-day Reader, what would be the nature Saints do claim, however, that "Mor- of the reception of this pamphlet? monism" is the most nearly perfect' Would the reasoning of its author religion upon the face of the earth, convince mankind that Napoleon was far from excepting that espoused by not a general in any sense of the term the writer of the pamphlet under ques- and should be repudiated, or would the tion. author of the pamphlet be regarded The reader is now asked to imagine with some degree of pity and quickly the publication of a pamphlet bearing forgotten? the title "Napoleon Bonaparte, as a (Note: The present writer is by no General; an Inquiry." The first pages means convinced that Joseph Smith told of the sincerity of the general and incorrectly translated the Book of the devotion of his followers. It also Abraham. An article dealing with spoke of their fairness and integrity. this phase of the subject will follow And near the close of the argument later.) Scholars Disagree. BY JUNIUS F. WELLS [On December 19 the following a ppeared in the Deseret News, which the author has permitted the Era to reprin t. The Editors.] Editor Deseret News: tigators in the field of archaeological — Dear Sir I read with deep interest research, and who took a keen the editorial review in Tuesday's paper interest in matter, the I had the of Bishop Spalding's treatise upon the Pearl of Great Price, containing cuts of the original drawings of the these cuts and Joseph Smith, the Book of Abraham and was particularly Prophet's interpretation of t hem pleased with your wise and clever com- sent first to Sir Flinders Petrie, who, ments upon the discrepancies and dif- however, being away from London, ferences of the world's eminent savants could not then be reached, and secondin their respective interpretations of ly to Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., the Egyptian hieroglyphics and hypo- who, after examining it himself, passed cephali that have been so variously it on to the very celebrated Dr. E. A. and learnedly deciphered by them. W. Budge, head of the Department of It reminded me of an inquiry I had Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities of the opportunity of instituting while in the British Museum for many years; London in 1903. Through the favor of the author of a voluminous History of Hon. James W. Barclay, M.P., a publi- Egypt; of the Dictionary of the Book cist of considerable note and friend of the Dead, and of numerous works of many of England's foremost inves- upon the language, religion, poetry and 342 IMPROVEMENT ERA mysticism of ancient Egypt and As- deceased person. It is a falsified copy. syria. I also, having cards of intro- The letter press is as idiotic as the pictures, and it is clearly based on duction, presented the Pearl of Great the Bible and some of the Old Test. Price personally at the museum to Apocryphal histories. Dr. Lloyd, keeper of Assyrian antiqui- I return the book and the letters herewith. ties. He, however, merely glanced at am. I the engravings and, observing that the Yours very truly, characters were Egyptian, told me to E. A. W. BUDGE. take it in to Dr. Budge. As the latter Dr. Henry Woodward, F. R. S. was not in his office, I was not able* to I forwarded allcorrespondence the have the pleasure of a personal inter- to President P. M. Lyman, then at view. Liverpool, for his perusal and com- The purpose of this inquiry was to ment, and take pleasure in quoting secure the opinion of those learned in from his reply: ancient Egyptian writings of the genu- 42 Islington, Liverpool, ineness and meaning of these cuts. In October 16. 1903. response I received letters written by I fully endorse your estimate of the Drs. Woodward and Budge. Mr. Bar- findings of Doctors Budge and Woodclay's comment after reading them and ward, I hope Mr. Barclay observes that the learned Doctors are as adverse to handing them to me was that there ap- each other as they are to the Prophet. peared to be room enough in the differ- They concede that the characters are ence of their interpretations to admit copies of genuine originals even if they are poorly executed. They can be read Joseph Smith's to at least an equal by them. This in favor of the candor footing with them. of the Prophet. Now we have three These letters are as follows: readings and two must stand con- demned for rendering a corpse with 12 9 Beaufort St., eyes open and limbs raised up. Chelsea, S. W. Of the three readings there can be October 10, 19 03. only one correct. The learned readings My dear Mr. Barclay: must be wrong, and the Prophet's may Papyri and the literature thereof be right. It has this merit, it is reaare all at Bloomsbury, so I have sent sonable, which cannot be said of the your request on to my friend, Dr. Ernest others. It is most fortunate that you A. T. W. Budge, keeper of Egptian, o^+ained the two readings. and Assyrian antiquities, to reply to Preserve the documents and let them and I hope he will do so. Savigny wrote °-o home and they will be profitable to the account of the first Napoleon's us. Egyptian campaign and in it are papyri (drawn) before the year 1870. At Prpsidfnt Lyman's request Elder I think all Smith's drawings are very Joseph J. Cannon. his assistant in the bad copies of early genuine papyri engravings which he must have seen Liverpool office, also wrote me in somewhere. His interpretations are of part as follows: course all rubbish! Abraham being sacrificed by Elkanah is an embalmer. Liverpool, Eng., knife in hand, preparing to disembowel Oct. 16. 1903. a dead body to embalm it! and the President Lyman suggested my gods are a row of mummvpots. writing you regarding the letters from HENRY WOODWARD. Doctors Woodward and Budge. We were very much struck by their Department of Egyptian and Assyrian unity in declaring the Prophet's in- Antiquities, terpretation bosh, rubbish, and the ex- British Museum tremely wide difference between their London W. C. own interpretations. No. 4272 9.10.03 Dr. Woodward says: "Abraham beinsr My dear Sir: — sacrificedby Elkanah is an embalmer No. 1 is an imitation of the scene knife in hand preparing to disembowel from the Book of The Dead in which a Head body to embalm it!" Anubis stands by the side of the de- Dr. Budge savs: "No. 1 is an imitaceased on his bier. The interpreta- tion of the scene from the Book of the tion is bosh. Dead in which Anubis stands bv " the No. 2 is from one of the hvpocephali. side of the deceased on his bier I should say copied from the late Dr. Anubis was the deity, according to Birch's papers. The interpretation is EervDtian mvthology. that escorted the likewise bosh. spirits of the departed to their abid- No. 3 is adoration of Osiris by some ing place. With this divergence of "JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AS A TRANSLATOR" 343 opinion among the learned, we think it equal to those Bishop Spalding quotes, not unreasonable to accept the Pro- antedates the latter's inquiry by ten phet's views. As you remarked, the reclining figure looks anything but like or a dozen years, it at least serves to a corpse. show that we have not been lax, nor Dr. W. writes "the gods are a row of afraid to learn from whatever light the mummy-pots!" That may be, but the wisdom of the world might throw upon - sacred mummy-pots would themselves be objects of adoration, and the top, the illustrations of the Book of Abraat least, is formed into characteristic ham and their translation by the shapes. Their difference of form indi- Prophet Joseph. cates that they represent something. Believing the above might prove of Dr. Budge thinks that No. 2 is from the late Dr. Birch's papers. I could interest to your readers and that it find none of Dr. Birch's early writings should find the permanence of publiin the public library here. I found a cation, I take pleasure in submitting it listof them, however, and they might be examined at the British Museum. for your use and comment. Bespectfully, As inquiry with its responses this JUNIUS F. WELLS, from Egyptologists of eminence quite Salt Lake City, 19th December, 1912. Bishop Spalding's Jumps in the Logical Process BY JOHN HENRY EVANS, OF THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS' UNIVERSITY "In almost every act of our per- from the fact? That the Book of ceiving faculties," says John Stuart Abraham as a whole was not trans- Mill, "observation and inference are lated correctly! Is this leap in the intimately blended. What we are said to observe is usually a compound re- logical process warranted? sult of which one-tenth may be ob- For the benefit of those who are servation and the remaining nine- afraid of the scholars, let me say that tenths inference." this leap is not made 'by the eight If we substitute the word "fact" for learned men. They tell us only that the word "observation" in this pas- the figures submitted to them were sage, we shall have a most accurate not translated correctly. Before they description of the logical process in- would be warranted in saying that the volved in the pamphlet on "Joseph entire Book of Abraham was not Smith. Jr., As A Translator," by Bish- properly translated, they would have op F. S. Spalding, of the Utah Episcopal to examine the original papyrus, or a church. Fact and inference are here copy of it, from which the Book of so "intimately blended" that special Abraham was translated. The infer- attention to this phase of the ques- ence therefore is wholly the bishop's, tion is needed before one can appre- so that we are not here -bucking the ciate the numerous errors in the rea- scholarship of the special scholar but soning process. And so I shall un- rather the logic of the logician; and dertake in this brief article to point nobody has a corner on reasoning. out where links are missing in the Now, as a matter of fact, the hierobishop's chain of reasoning. glyphics submitted to the scholars con- Bishop Spalding submits to eight stitute less than c ne-se-« nth of the Egyptologists t v e three facsimiles in Book of Abraham and that only an the Book of Abraham with expla- accompaniment of the text. The quesnations by the Prophet Joseph tion "Is any one therefore, becomes, Smith, for the purpose of getting justified drawing a conclusion re- in t^cir opinions as to whether they were specting an entire manuscript from a translated correctly. The scholars statement which was made with reanswer substantially that they were spect only to a very small part of that not correctly translated. That is the manuscript?" fact. What is the inference drawn The scholars are practically agreed 344 MPROVEMENT ERA that the hieroglyphics are badly cop- translating the two books lies in the ied. If so, and there is ample directness of the inspiration, in the room for 'loubt of that, may case of the Book of Mormon, as comnot some part of the learned pared with the Book of Abraham. In men's observations concerning them the translation of the Nephite record point to the conclusion that the the Prophet used the Urim and Thumtranslator was a poor copyist rath- mim; in the case of the Abrahamic er than a poor translator? This ap- manuscript there is no mention of pears to be the more probable from any direct means in the translation. the fact of differences in the interpre- Then again. Joseph expressly says thai tation of the scholars. And then, too, he studied the writings of the ancient may it not be possible that these par- Patriarch for the purpose of conticular hieroglyphics present peculiar structing a grammar of the language. For every one knows, who difficulties? Moreover, he was at work on the has done any work in translation, that papyrus intermittently from February, not all parts of a given literary pro- 1835, to the same month in the year duction are of the same ease in the — 1842 a period of seven years. Do translation. And the uninitiated in not these facts, which the bishop adthe lore of the ancientEgyptians mits inferentially, point to the greater would naturally imagine that the un- use of the Prophet's own resources in evenness would be still greater in the translation of the Book of Abrahieroglyphic writing. ham than was the case in the transla- tion of the Book of Mormon? And is do not wish to claim too much for I not this difference sufficient to invalimy point. I do not say definitely and date the reasoning- of Bishop Spald- positively that this is so. But I ing? do insist that the doubt thus thrown on the bishop's inference makes it In saying this, I am not denying the inspiration in the translation of the impossible for him reasonably to build so high a superstructure as he does Book of Abraham. I am merely on so frail a foundation. The infer- emphasizing a distinction, well known ence is clearly unwarranted. to the bishop as a theological student; namely, that between direct revela- II. tion and inspiration. But the fact In the next place, the bishop de- that there was an essential difference clares that, since the translation of between the translation of this record and the Book of Mormon destroys the the Book of Abraham was incorrect, force of the 'bishop's reasoning that and since also the inspiration in the Nephite volume was incorrectly the translation of the Book of Mormon, translated 'because the Book of Abraand that of the Book of Abraham were ham contains errors in the translathe same, therefore the Book or Mor- tion. mon, too, was incorrectly translated. III. This is a longer jump in the logical A third false inference lies in the process than the one I have just transition from the thought, "Joseph pointed out. And here again I ask, Smith was not an inspired translator," "Is the inference warranted?" to the thought, "Therefore the Latter- The inference here turns on the day Saints to be consistent are required point, Was there a sufficient differ- to 'repudiate' not only the Book of ence between the translation of the Mormon but also the whole body of Book of Mormon and the translation belief, which has been built upon it." of the Book of Abraham to weaken There are two points here that deor destroy the reasonableness of this serve consideration. inference? If it can be shown that The first is the bishop's queer blunthere is a single difference in an es- der that the whole body of the "Morsential particular, then the inference mon" belief is built upon the Book of falls to the ground. Mormon. For this is the only mean- A vital difference in the mode of ing I can give to the phrase. As a