KM does not accept that Ritner et al have nailed the Book of Abraham coffin shut. If he could get Ritner to go along with further "research", he will have effectively kicked the Book of Abraham can down the road for a few more years. Thus KM can say "well there is so much yet to look at, we just don't know the full story-the jury is still out". He could ride that to retirement as the research would go on and on and on!
k
Surely KM could find others to collaborate on such research - even people who have already done work on the apologetic side of Book of Abraham.
Just off the top of my head:
Shulem
Philo
Dartagnan
I've a feeling I'm missing a couple of others.
KM wants Ritner, and the side-by-side volume approach, simply to give gravitas to the matter, especially to give the aura of the mopologist's point of view having some type of academic legitimacy. It does not, and it would be foolhearty of Ritner to succumb to such a sucker-punch.
Let it be that type of dialogue that took place a few years back when Philip Jenkins mopped up the late Bill Hamblin over the NHM "bullseye" and other Book of Mormon absurd apologetics.
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge." Isaac Asimov
Insisting on a multi-year, refereed, formal book process is simply the Mopologists proposing something that they know will not be accepted so that they can take their victory lap on their tricycles and slap each other on the backsides.
I'd have to disagree with you here old friend.
I think Mopologists would hail such a publication as a total victory. With Ritner on board they would surely find an eminent academic press to publish their work and the very act itself would be seen as a validation. Mopologists would immediately begin proclaiming that Mormon views of Egyptology are taken seriously by Non-Mormon scholars and how could the degenerate ex-mos argue otherwise? If Ritner and this publisher didn't think so, why would they bother to publish this at all?
Muhlstein could literally write an essay that was nothing but a lengthy sermon about the glory of the Restored Gospel as gleaned in the Book of Abraham that would fit right in at Meridian Magazine that absolutely refused to engage Ritner or even address the issues and DCP would be hailing it as the next piece de resistance of Faithful LDS Scholarship of the 21st century.
To most literate people outside Mopologetics it would look like a Goliath wailing away on a David, but the Mopologists and their audiences would see a titanic struggle of epic proportions between two diametrically opposed worldviews.
That's a good point, Mr. Stak. I'm reminded of the way that Owen and Mosser's "How Wide the Divide?"--published in the FARMS Review--was exploited repeatedly--mainly be DCP--as evidence that the Mopologists actually care about interfaith dialogue. Of course, in the same issue that "How Wide the Divide?" was published, they also published, like, 5 hit pieces meant to trash Owen and Mosser, so the actual intent here comes across pretty transparently.
That said, I agree with Dr. Smith that one of the goals here is to try to seize ownership of the "narrative." The Mopologists--the more cunning and savvy among them, anyway--seem to understand that they will never win the war, and so the best strategy is to aim for small victories that can be milked for maximum effect.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14