User:Yesterday, all my dreams.../Review1
The Errors of Bouflet
June 2023
I have been reading Joachim Bouflet's book "Impostures mystiques" published in 2023. In the book Bouflet discusses various people across several centuries and offers opinions about them. I have carefully read the sections on Maria Valtorta and Anna Katharina Emmerick and have looked through various other sections. Here I discuss some of the problems in Bouflet's work. I intend to question the suitability of Bouflet's book as a "reliable source" in areas such as ancient history, archaeology or botany where he has not demonstrated any past experience or expertise. As I read more chapters, I may enhance this page.
The page numbers I mention refer to the Kindle version in French bought in May 2023. Given that Bouflet states that he has changed his text to remove errors, these page numbers may be slightly different from earlier versions. And it is likely that Bouflet may change the text again as new errors are pointed out, e.g. that some of his comments are based on translation errors in the French version he has used. Future versions of his book may thus have slightly different page numbers, and his text may also change as errors get pointed out to him. But the paper version of the book will, of course, remain the same.
1. Context
Bouflet obtained a PhD in modern history in his earlier years and has written books on private revelations. That is his specialty. That is also the key problem in his book. Ancient history is not his subject, yet he has wondered into that field, obviously unaware of the issues. Going further, he has addressed archaeological topics in the Levant, also unaware of the complexities of the decades of debates in that field. For all we know Bouflet has never been involved in any excavations, and this lack of experience is quite obvious. As a whole, it appears that in Bouflet's mind not having experience in a field is no barrier to commenting on it. Thus he also comments on fields such as botany where the number of his past publications is exactly zero. Bouflet's adventures into new fields has had predictable results, with early readers informing him of the errors in his book, resulting in corrections documented in his own text. In the sections below I will explain why it was not a good idea for Bouflet to wonder out of his own field and get involved in subjects he is not familiar with.
2. Sloppiness and inaccuracy
The first issue that any careful reader notices in Bouflet's work is basic sloppiness. A careful first year university student could easily notice the inaccuracies in Bouflet's book. For instance on page 105 Bouflet states that agave is encountered three times in Valtorta's main book in sections 101, 102 and 127. But he has missed the mentions in sections 67, 221 and 412. So he only noticed half of the places agave is mentioned in Valtorta's book. That sloppiness may at first seem unimportant but section 221 directly negates Bouflet's point about agave and renders his argument on page 105 pointless. Sloppiness has consequences: it leads to errors on Bouflet's part, and brings into question the accuracy of the rest of his statements. But that is not all. Following that discussion Bouflet states that Valtorta's text in section 127 has an error because it states that agave has "petals". But the person making the mistake is Bouflet himself. The original Italian text of Valtorta's book does not include the word petal, nor does the English translation. The word petal appears only in the French translation, as a translation error. Bouflet did not check the original source in Italian and made an incorrect assertion as a result. During their very first year of study, all students of history are taught to never rely on translations when doing research, and always check the original source not to get trapped by translation errors. Bouflet must have missed that class when he studied history.
Another sloppy assertion by Bouflet is on page 102 of his book. Here he states that Valtorta had a "vision" of Tiberias in section 37 of her book around the year 5-6 AD, over a decade before Tiberias was built as a city where the ancient village of Rakkat stood on the western shore of Lake Galilee. But Valtorta does not describe Tiberias in section 37 of her book. In that section Valtorta writes of a scene that takes place in Egypt, and not in Galilee. In section 37 the child Jesus has built a small pond that might represent Lake Galilee. The child points to various parts on the small pond, without Valtorta describing any details of Tiberias. What Valtorta describes is the small pond, and interprets the places that get pointed to as locations that she recognizes like anyone else in the 1940's who had looked at a map of Lake Galilee. Valtorta did not describe the structure of any of those locations at all. The inadequacy of Bouflet's argument in this case is clear. And that becomes even more obvious in view of Valtorta's superior knowledge of the unexcavated archaeology of Galilee and Bouflet's lack of knowledge of the subject as demonstrated by the example discussed just below.
3. Lack of knowledge
The fact that Bouflet does not mention section 479 of Valtorta's book (written on the 24th of August 1946) is a good example of his lack of knowledge of the basic archaeological facts in Galilee, as well as Maria Valtorta's knowledge of unexcavated archaeological sites there. In that section Valtorta states that the site at Jezreel (southwest of Lake Galilee) had a central tower, as well as four large corner towers. This went against all that was known about Jezreel until the 1990's. In 1961, when Valtorta died, she could have been accused of hallucination for suggesting that Jezreel has four additional towers, given that only one tower was visible, and no ancient sources refer to any other towers. How could she even suggest that there were five towers at Jezreel?
In terms of background, Tel Jezreel is generally noted as the location where Jezebel was thrown down from the "Jezreel Tower" as discussed by David Ussishkin in the July/August 2010 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. The single tower at Jezreel was well known in the early parts of the 20th century. A 1967 survey by Asher Ovadiah of Tel Aviv University noted only a single tower, and no additional ancient structures. In the 1980's the Israeli department of antiquities (now called the Israel Antiquities Authority) issued a construction permit for a parking lot at the site, partly basing the decision on Ovadiah's report. The parking lot was in preparation for the building of a museum at the site. When construction started in 1987 a bulldozer hit and partially damaged one of the hidden towers, and work had to stop. In the early 1990's the site was excavated for several seasons by David Ussishkin and John Woodhead. The details of the bulldozer incident and the excavations are documented by Ussishkin and Woodhead in their paper "Excavations at Tel Jezreel, 1990-1991" in the January 1992 issue of the Tel Aviv Journal of Archaeology. The report is available at Academia for free and can also be purchased at Amazon.
Ussishkin and Woodhead's excavations identified what they call the four "monumental towers" at the corners of the site. These directly correspond to the "four giant towers" described by Valtorta in August 1946. Later studies were performed by Ebeling, Franklin and Cipin as documented in their paper "Jezreel Revealed in Laser Scans" [1] in Near Eastern Archaeology, 2012. The excavations also uncovered the "low defensive wall" that Valtorta had written about in 1946. Ebeling et al determined that the low defensive wall (casemate wall) was between 8-12 meters away from the central tower. Thus Valtorta's estimate of the distance as "about 10 meters" is corect as an average distance.
Maria Valtorta's extraordinary knowledge of historical and archaeological facts in Galilee and Judea is discussed in the books "Gesu e il Mondo Greco-Romano" ISBN 8879873369 and "La verita storica del Vangeli" ISBN 9788879873895 by Fernando La Greca, a professor of ancient history, as well as the book "Indagini scientifiche sugli scritti di Maria Valtorta" ISBN 8864098798 by Matricciani and De Caro, an engineering professor and a physicist. Hence there can be no doubt that in August 1946 Maria Valtorta knew what would be excavated at Jezreel in 1991, 30 years after her death. Anyone who reads section 479 of her book and the paper by Ussishkin and Woodhead can see that anyway.
Given this evidence, any good researcher would ask: how did Valtorta know that Jezreel had five towers, and how did she know about the casemate wall and know the correct distance from the central tower? But Bouflet never addressed the issue, perhaps because he did not know about Ussishkin's work. It is 100% certain that by the year 1994 every archaeologist in Israel knew about Ussishkin's work at Jezreel because he heralded it, and also because it was a good lesson for the department of antiquities on how not to issue a construction permit. The archaeological community in Israel is a small circle of people, and everyone knows what everyone else is excavating. Bouflet is not part of that crowd, and does not know the field. Being an armchair archaeologist in Paris only produces low quality opinions. But that does not seem to bother Bouflet, who has also commented on the structure of the Jerusalem Temple, again with hapless results.
4. Lack of Logic
A reader who has studied logic quickly notices that Bouflet's lack of knowledge is accompanied by his lack of logic. This section shows that in order to recover from his lack of knowledge Bouflet resorts to illogical arguments that are in a word "laughable". The case in point is his long held claim that Valtorta made a historical error in section 168 of her book by stating that vanilla existed in ancient Judea. After Bouflet wrote that an early reader who knew about Judea informed him of the excavations by a group involving Israel Finkelstein that showed ancient Judeans did have vanilla. This fact is well documented in the paper by Ayala Amir, Israel Finkelstein et al "Residue analysis evidence for wine enriched with vanilla consumed in Jerusalem on the eve of the Babylonian destruction in 586 BCE" in PLoS ONE March 29, 2022 [2]. A layman's version appeared in an article by Amanda Dan titled "Residue found in 3,600-year-old Holy Land tomb rewrites the history of vanilla" in the Times of Israel Nov 20 2018 [3]. This clearly demonstrates Bouflet's lack of knowledge of the archaeology of the Levant. Bouflet acknowledged his error on page 106 of his book, and admitted that vanilla existed in ancient Judea. But his sloppiness continued. While he corrected his error about vanilla on page 106, three pages before, on page 103, his book still claims that vanilla did not exist in ancient Judea. I chuckled again when I noticed Bouflet's sloppiness even in correcting his own errors. Bouflet is just too careless and sloppy to be able to do things right.
Bouflet's lack of logic becomes obvious when he tries to recover from his error about vanilla. When he realized his error, he attempted to switch from historical to linguistic reasoning, again with laughable results. In this new version of his reasoning Bouflet criticized Valtorta for using the term vanilla (vaniglia) in Italian rather than in an ancient language. He says Valtorta should have used the "first century word for vanilla" in whatever language the ancient conversation may have taken place. Once again, this made me chuckle. In that case, what word should Valtorta have used for "bread"? What about the words for "window", "sparrow" or "mountain"? Should she have used the Italian words for those, or the first century words? Indeed, why write in Italian at all? Why not write everything in an ancient language? Well, in that case her readers in Italy would have no idea what she was saying. So if she had used an ancient word for vanilla, bread or sparrow that would have just confused the reader. Why should vanilla be the only case where Valtorta had to use an ancient word? What distinguishes vanilla? It is distinguished by Bouflet's ignorance of its existence in ancient Israel. Valtorta had no reason to use a word in another language because she did not know Bouflet would not do his research, and obviously did not know who he was. Bouflet's logic here is not just inadequate, it is laughable.
The issue of vanilla involves a very important observation by Israel Finkelstein that was not noticed by Bouflet but was likely noticed by all those who understand the archaeology of the Levant. Finkelstein correctly stated that the discovery of vanilla in ancient Judea means that our "current understanding" of the trade routes into ancient Judea is incomplete. That point has implications beyond vanilla. The same trade route that brought vanilla into ancient Judea could have been used to bring in various other items. Hence any flat assertion about what else may or may not have existed in ancient Judea is reduced to a weak hypothesis until more is discovered about the ancient trade routes.
This then directly impacts Bouflet's comment on pages 103-104 of his book about the presence of Indian figs in ancient Judea. He argues that those plants could not have been present in ancient Judea. Yet at least in this case he points out that his viewpoint has had opposition in medieval literature. But more importantly, he does not realize that "the same trade route" that brought vanilla into ancient Judea could have also brought other plants. In general, Bouflet's fatalistic belief that we know all there is to know about ancient Judea is the clearest manifestation of his lack of experience in ancient history. The fact is that our understanding of ancient Judea changes every decade or two as new excavations are performed. In 1985 the hypothesis that Jezreel had 5 towers or the suggestion that vanilla existed in ancient Judea would have been rejected as incorrect. But all of that changed with a few excavations. Bouflet just does not understand how excavations continue to change the basic elements of our knowledge about the Levant every few years.
5. Lack of explanation
It is the duty of any serious author to clearly explain the rationale for their assertions. Bouflet is aware of this duty. He correctly criticizes the work of Jean Aulagnier for failing to provide reasons and explanations for the first century AD dates he derived from the episodes in Valtorta's book. But it is important to note that Bouflet only criticizes Aulagnier for the lack of explanations. He does not point out the obvious inconsistencies in Aulagnier's work. Why? Obviously because Bouflet does not know how to compute ancient calendars. I am almost certain that as a modern historian with no background in ancient calendars Bouflet does not know how to convert between Julian, Gregorian and unisolar dates, given the complexities imposed by how embolismic years were handled in ancient Judea. Else he would have noticed the problems in Aulagnier's book which was first published about 30 years ago, in 1994. That was an early attempt and has since been superseded by a careful study by the physicist Liberato De Caro in his 2014 book "I Cieli Raccontano" (The Skies Remember) ISBN 8879872125. But Bouflet does not mention De Caro's work, probably because he does not understand enough about that subject to discuss it. Failure to discuss the work of De Caro is just irresponsible.
Regarding the lack of explanation in Bouflet's own work a good example is on page 100 of his book about the "cupolas" mentioned by Valtorta around the Jerusalem Temple. Valtorta states the inner sanctuary was like a cube and did not have a curved roof, but there were other cupolas around the Temple. The Italian word "cupola" which Valtorta uses in her text may refer to either a small cupola or a large dome. The way to distinguish if it means a larger dome or a smaller cupola is by context. The word "duomo" in Italian does not mean dome, but usually refers to a church building which may or may not have a hemispheric roof. The French words "coupole" and "dome" are used to refer to hemispheric roofs. The French translation of Valtorta's book uses the word "coupole". Bouflet also uses that word.
How do we know if Valtorta meant a large dome or a smaller cupola in her text? That is clear from her likening each cupola to a "huge half orange" in section 8 of her book. The large dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florance can not be likened to a large orange, but the smaller cupola above it can. And if there were several cupolas around the inner sanctuary, they could not all be large domes. Thus it is clear that Valtorta meant a smaller hemisphere when she used the Italian word "cupola". Buoflet does refer to section 8 of the book, so he knows about the reference to oranges.
On page 100 of his book Bouflet uses a single sentence to mention the excavations by Nahman Avigad and Yigael Shiloh which ended in the early 1980's over 40 years ago, and took place away from the Temple in the City of David, etc. Then in "just one brief sentence" with no explanation Bouflet claims that he has somehow decided that these excavations confirm Flavious Josephus' account that the Temple had no "coupole". Why is there no mention of which section of Josephus Bouflet refers to? How well has he read Josephus? If I ever meet Bouflet, I would like to ask him a few questions to test his knowledge of the writings of Josephus. I am sure I can make him blush in shame. It is simply irresponsible to make a huge leap to a conclusion based on 40 year old excavations which have now been superseded by many more modern efforts and not mention how those relate to some unspecified portion of the works of Josephus.
What Bouflet does not seem to know is that the debates about what Josephus meant are never ending, and the moment he specifies which section of the Josephus he used scholars will emerge to agree and disagree with him and each other. And if he had bothered to even read the amateur literature on the subject he would have known that most issues about the Temple are still the subject of debate. An example the article in the October 8, 2005 issue of the New York Times [4] "Historical Certainty Proves Elusive at Jerusalem’s Holiest Place" written for the general public, explaining that so many issues about the Temple are open to debate. I think it is time to write an open letter to Bouflet and his publisher and ask Bouflet to explain himself on this issue. If Bouflet does not accept within a month or two, his assertion must be publically rejected. If he accepts, may heaven have mercy on him, for he is likely to fall over his shoelaces pretty hard.
I shoud also mention that Bouflet's lack of explanation on this issue is again accompanied by his lack of knowledge. It is just irresponsible for any author to discuss the roof of the Second Temple sanctuary without mentioning the Bar Kokhba numismatic evidence. These coins provide us with the most relevant evidence that the inner sanctuary was cube like (as Valtorta stated) and had a flat roof. They support Valtorta's description, not conflict with it, and they are fully relevant to the discussion. I was not surprised that Bouflet did not mention them, because he probably does not know about them. They relate to ancient history, not modern history. Bouflet does not know ancient history.
I know ancient Jerusalem so well, and have studied it for so many years that at times I feel I used to live there during the first century AD. So Bouflet's lack of familiarity with the issues is very clear to me, as it would be to anyone else who has actively studied the city for over 40 years. Those of us who know ancient Judea quickly realize that Bouflet is at the level of a first year student in archaeology.
6. Negligence
Apart from basic sloppiness, Bouflet's work suffers from significant negligence. A first example is his obvious support for Clemens Brentano's version of the statements made by Anna Katharina Emmerick on page 89 of his book. As a member of a society that supports Emmerick, it is hard to imagine how Bouflet does not know that within the scholarly world, and within the Catholic Church, there is close to universal consensus and significant documentation that Brentano "fabricated" most of what he published as the work of Emmerick. Brentano's work had been seen as acceptable until Winfried Humpfner published his doctoral thesis on the subject in 1923. Other researchers soon followed Humpfner. The fabrication was further confirmed by the anlysis of material found in Brentano's archives. It is pure negligence for Bouflet not to mention the article by Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins in the Osservatore Romano on October 7, 2004, a few days after Emmerick's beatification. In the article Cardinal Martins directly stated that the book was not Emmerick's work, but the "artistic fantasy" of Brentano. Bouflet's selective suppression of facts about Emmerick and Brentano is basic negligence.
A second example is Bouflet's failure to mention the detailed research by Rene Laurentin on the names of ancient people mentioned in the writings of Maria Valtorta. On page 100 of his book Bouflet uses a single sentence to mentions that Laurentin is positive about Valtorta. But he fails to mention the book by Laurentin, Debroise and Lavere "Dictionnaire des personnages de'L'Evangile selon Maria Valtorta", 2012 ISBN 2706709618. There is no doubt that Bouflet and Laurantin know each other, and that Bouflet rightly respects Laurentin as one of the leading scholars in the field. In fact Laurantin wrote the preface to one of Bouflet's books and they share a publisher, namely SALVATOR. The detailed analysis of the over 200 names of ancient people mentioned in Valtorta's work by Laurentin showed remarkable consistency. Laurentin, Debroise and Lavere state that they can not imagine how Valtorta obtained all that information.
Bouflet also fails to mention J. F. Lavere's book "Dictionnaire geographique de'L'Evangile d'apres Maria Valtorta" 2017 ISBN 236463511X. Lavere's detailed analysis of the over 200 ancient (and often obscure) locations mentioned by Valtorta again showed surprising consistency. My view is that Lavere's book on ancient locations probably scared Bouflet out of his chair. The issues involved are complicated and the names of the remote villages mentioned by Valtorta are far beyond the comprehension of a modern historian like Bouflet, who would be lucky to find his way around the suburbs of Rome, let alone ancient Judea. Hence Bouflet probably felt that the safe choice for him was to ignore Lavere's book. He made the right decision, else he would have fallen over his own shoelaces again. But it is still negligent of him to ignore the existence of the over 800 pages of research in the two books about ancient people and locations.
As a final case of negligence I should mention that Bouflet fails to compare the works of the different people he discusses in his book. A basic rule of good authorship is that if an author discusses two items, the relationships between those items must also be discussed. Thus if an author writes a book on the lives of world leaders during WWII it is negligent not to discuss the relationships between Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle. Bouflet discusses both Valtorta and Emmerick but fails to mention that Valtorta totally disagreed with the work of Emmerick. In a May 29, 1949 letter to a nun called Mother Teresa Maria Valtorta wrote that someone had recently shown her the book by Emmerick, and that she had read it. Valtorta then used the words "disaster" and "fraud" to refer to that book. Note that Valtorta had already finished writing most of her own book in 1947, so she only saw Emmerick's work after she had completed her own book. I could go on and discuss additional omissions and failures by Bouflet, but I think I have explained the issues by now.
7. Does Bouflet get anything right?
As I read Bouflet's book and noticed his obvious pain about the exaggerations of what he calls the lobby valtortiste (the Valtorta lobby) in France, I gained sympathy for his motives. At the personal level, I am also amazed by the level of exaggeration and sloppiness that some of the Valtorta supporters in France engage in. It is clear that Bouflet felt he was obliged to write this book to counter the extreme exaggerations of the lobby valtortiste. But not all Valtorta supporters in France are in the exaggeration business, and the two books by Laurentin and Lavere mentioned above include very careful studies. While Bouflet's urge to counter the lobby valtortiste may gain him sympathy, the errors in his book remain intact. In his attempt to counter the lobby Bouflet wondered away from what he knows about (modern history) and ventured into unknown territories. In those ancient territories he was walking in the dark and fell into pothole after pothole. So Bouflet's book should not be viewed as "all bad" but as what it really is: a book written with good intentions by a third rate researcher who commits blunder after blunder, lost in a jungle of information he knows very little about.
8. Conclusion
I am sure Bouflet did not start out to try to write a comedy, but in a way he has managed to do so. In that sense the book is entertaining, because every few pages he makes some type of basic blunder that gives rise to a chuckle. So if you are looking for a laugh, by all means read Bouflet's book. If you are looking for high quality research, you need to look elsewhere.