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Evidence for the Book of Abraham


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Abraham 1: 23 The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden;

24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.

 

Edited by cdowis
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You know it still seems to me that the primary difference between creationism and modern science is still one of timespan.

Whether something happened billions of years ago before humans or 6000ish years ago to a populated earth.

Did Pangaea break up 200 million years ago or in the days of Peleg?  Either way, it happened.

Edited by JLHPROF
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6 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

It at least makes plausible the statement about Egypt being under water when it was founded, although it could not have been completely under water.

Glenn

https://www.slam.org/exhibitions/archive/sunkencities.php

http://www.franckgoddio.org/projects/sunken-civilizations/introduction.html

Some of it still is.

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Well as a practical consequence that has meaning in my life, this skeleton proves scientifically that the resurrection is true and that my sins are forgiven.

Edited by mfbukowski
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4 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

You know it still seems to me that the primary difference between creationism and modern science is still one of timespan.

Whether something happened billions of years ago before humans or 6000ish years ago to a populated earth.

Did Pangaea break up 200 million years ago or in the days of Peleg?  Either way, it happened.

It may be that Pangaea did break up 200 million years ago and what happened in the days of Peleg was the ocean levels rose to the point that the Bering Strait was put underwater effectively dividing the world east to west.  Maybe it will reverse itself in time. 

D&C 133:26 And they who are in the north countries shall come in remembrance before the Lord; and their prophets shall hear his voice, and shall no longer stay themselves; and they shall smite the rocks, and the ice shall flow down at their presence.

Perhaps ice will return back to the northern countries like the last ice age.  Resulting in lower ocean levels and the Bering Strait land bridge existing again.  Perhaps some form of the "Day after Tomorrow" movie is right.

Edited by carbon dioxide
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5 hours ago, cdowis said:

Abraham 1: 23 The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden;

24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.

 

I am a little confused.  You are using fossils that date 50 million years ago to support a story that has Abraham living 6,000 years ago?  Do you see any problems with that?

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8 minutes ago, california boy said:

I am a little confused.  You are using fossils that date 50 million years ago to support a story that has Abraham living 6,000 years ago?  Do you see any problems with that?

Yes.  One of the two dates is probably wrong.

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32 minutes ago, california boy said:

I am a little confused.  You are using fossils that date 50 million years ago to support a story that has Abraham living 6,000 years ago?  Do you see any problems with that?

I'm confident  you can figure  it out.

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The issue is not the fossil itself , but that it indicates that Egypt was covered by a large body of water.

Quote

Radar images taken from the space shuttle confirm that a lake broader than Lake Erie once sprawled a few hundred kilometers west of the Nile, researchers report in the December issue of Geology. Since the lake first appeared around 250,000 years ago, it would have ballooned and shrunk until finally petering out around 80,000 years ago.
https://www.wired.com/2010/12/egypt-lake/

See also https://insider.si.edu/2010/12/ancient-megalake-discovered-beneath-sahara-desert/

Quote

These newly discovered lakes add to growing evidence of numerous early and middle Pleistocene lakes across North Africa that could have supported human migration patterns, the researchers  say. 

As expected the chronology does not match scriptural chronology

Edited by cdowis
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3 hours ago, california boy said:

I am a little confused.  You are using fossils that date 50 million years ago to support a story that has Abraham living 6,000 years ago?  Do you see any problems with that?

Uh no, you are the one confused.

The story that there was water there- really- is substantiated by the existence of a whale skeleton.

There is  nothing wrong with the logic.  I have no idea what you see as a problem.  Even if Abraham never existed "in reality" the story that there was water there at one time is substantiated.

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9 hours ago, cdowis said:

Abraham 1: 23 The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden;

24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land...............................

 

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Since the Nile floods routinely couldn’t it just mean they showed up when it was at high tide?

That reference is to the annual flooding of the Nile due to the rains in central Africa.  The High Dam at Aswan now prevents that annual flood, which made Egypt so fertile.  The founding first pharaoh of Egypt was a son of that first woman who arrived in the late 4th millennium B.C. during the annual Flood.

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The miracle to me is that over 50 million years of wind and water erosion has not obliterated to dust the fossils laying so near the surface. I do have one minor quibble with the video. It said that radio carbon dating has given the age of the fossil. IIRC radiocarbon is only good for dating back about 50,000 years.

Another miracle is the fact that there exists a whale fossil at all. If a whale were to die today in the ocean and sink to the bottom, there would be little or no evidence of it in  a century or maybe less. Between scavengers and marine organisms and micro-organisms little would remain, unless the carcass were to be quickly covered in mud by a undersea land slide or such.

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10 hours ago, strappinglad said:

The miracle to me is that over 50 million years of wind and water erosion has not obliterated to dust the fossils laying so near the surface. I do have one minor quibble with the video. It said that radio carbon dating has given the age of the fossil. IIRC radiocarbon is only good for dating back about 50,000 years.

Another miracle is the fact that there exists a whale fossil at all. If a whale were to die today in the ocean and sink to the bottom, there would be little or no evidence of it in  a century or maybe less. Between scavengers and marine organisms and micro-organisms little would remain, unless the carcass were to be quickly covered in mud by a undersea land slide or such.

It's been a while since Biology 101, but dating methods always seemed fishy - especially since there's no way to verify dates beyond any written records. Radiocarbon dating is also susceptible to contamination if there are any sources of carbon. I just did a quick google and read the earth's magnetic field affect radiocarbon dating - so scientific models about the magnetic field would have to accurate as well as the math behind it I would think. 

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4 hours ago, Alaris said:

It's been a while since Biology 101, but dating methods always seemed fishy - especially since there's no way to verify dates beyond any written records. Radiocarbon dating is also susceptible to contamination if there are any sources of carbon. I just did a quick google and read the earth's magnetic field affect radiocarbon dating - so scientific models about the magnetic field would have to accurate as well as the math behind it I would think. 

Typically there are multiple methods you can use and correlate them especially at points where one method becomes less accurate. So for instance in relatively recent history (20,000 years) you can often appeal to ice cores, tree rings, and other such items. To say that one can verify dates by written records though seems itself problematic especially when you move into the period with limited writing before late antiquity. When appealing to scrolls or the like there's some inherent ambiguity since when the scroll was made may not be when it was written upon.

Anyway, while there are some ambiguities, what's amazing is how much we can know so well about the dates in history.

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22 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Typically there are multiple methods you can use and correlate them especially at points where one method becomes less accurate. So for instance in relatively recent history (20,000 years) you can often appeal to ice cores, tree rings, and other such items. To say that one can verify dates by written records though seems itself problematic especially when you move into the period with limited writing before late antiquity. When appealing to scrolls or the like there's some inherent ambiguity since when the scroll was made may not be when it was written upon.

Anyway, while there are some ambiguities, what's amazing is how much we can know so well about the dates in history.

Following your comments I would conclude we cannot know much about dates in history.  ;)

There you go!  Different strokes for different folks!

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48 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Typically there are multiple methods you can use and correlate them especially at points where one method becomes less accurate. So for instance in relatively recent history (20,000 years) you can often appeal to ice cores, tree rings, and other such items. To say that one can verify dates by written records though seems itself problematic especially when you move into the period with limited writing before late antiquity. When appealing to scrolls or the like there's some inherent ambiguity since when the scroll was made may not be when it was written upon.

Anyway, while there are some ambiguities, what's amazing is how much we can know so well about the dates in history.

Call me skeptical of science at large, but beyond the written record each dating method is all theoretical. We know folks lived longer pre-flood for instance. Was that just man, or was creature / plant affected by that longevity as well?

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15 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The founding first pharaoh of Egypt was a son of that first woman who arrived in the late 4th millennium B.C. during the annual Flood.

I wonder if this isn't more ambiguous if it refers to people, especially Semitic peoples, moving into the region - a region perhaps already populated. If Genesis is suspect, turning to the Book of Abraham it's ambiguous. I'd also say Abr 1:23-25 is also written from a first person perspective thus reflecting Abraham's beliefs about the history but not relating how he came to those beliefs (that themselves may be distorted). In any case it doesn't give a date although it strongly promotes the idea of the Pharoah under discussion being Semitic. While I don't think we know how to take this section, those who see it as reference to the Hyksos probably have as good a possibility as any. I'm far from as well versed as you are in Egyptology, but I believe it's the sixth dynasty that's usually seen as a somewhat plausible case for a more Canaanite Egyptian group that does human sacrifices.

 

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1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Following your comments I would conclude we cannot know much about dates in history.  ;)

For many I think that's right. For others I think they're pretty good dating due to a variety of sources. Most things the past 2000 years one can date reasonably well. 

1 hour ago, Alaris said:

Call me skeptical of science at large, but beyond the written record each dating method is all theoretical. We know folks lived longer pre-flood for instance. Was that just man, or was creature / plant affected by that longevity as well?

Some theories are more trustworthy than some texts. I'm not sure we know pre-flood people lived longer though. The Bible was compiled by uninspired scribes during the Hellenistic period, the Book of Mormon tells us it was corrupted with many things left out, and there's no clear revelation asserting long lives. (The fact Joseph didn't change the ages in the JST Genesis doesn't count as a revelation)  On the other hand radiation is very well understood as is the record of plant life. 

I'll not debate the issue though. My experience is that when people throw all of science out there's no ground from which to debate. Typically one side takes a text (the Old Testament) I view as corrupt as infallible and denies the consistency of physical processes. At what point where can one even debate? There's no agreed upon facts.

Edited by clarkgoble
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1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I wonder if this isn't more ambiguous if it refers to people, especially Semitic peoples, moving into the region - a region perhaps already populated. If Genesis is suspect, turning to the Book of Abraham it's ambiguous. I'd also say Abr 1:23-25 is also written from a first person perspective thus reflecting Abraham's beliefs about the history but not relating how he came to those beliefs (that themselves may be distorted). In any case it doesn't give a date although it strongly promotes the idea of the Pharoah under discussion being Semitic. While I don't think we know how to take this section, those who see it as reference to the Hyksos probably have as good a possibility as any. I'm far from as well versed as you are in Egyptology, but I believe it's the sixth dynasty that's usually seen as a somewhat plausible case for a more Canaanite Egyptian group that does human sacrifices.

The BofA, like the Bible, is describing primeval times, and Ham is an eponym, the father of the Hamitic peoples (not Shem, the eponym of Semitic peoples).  This has nothing, therefore, to do with Canaanite (Semitic) Hyksos of the mid-2nd millennium B.C., which is the time of Moses.

Egyptologists agree that the first pharaoh to unify Egypt lived in the late 4th millennium B.C., during dynasty zero.  Abraham is telling a mythical tale as he has received it, and the text we know is from 2,000 years after Abraham, as copied and edited by Jewish scribes in Ptolemaic times.  The same applies to the very similar Testament of Abraham and Apocalypse of Abraham.  There is no lack of pseudepigrapha from that period.

Human sacrifice begins at the earliest horizon of pharaonic rule.

NYU, Yale, and University of Pennsylvania archeologists have determined that 1st Dynasty King Aha was accompanied at his funeral by a full retinue of officials and servants who were killed and buried with him.[1] The archeological evidence from 1st Dynasty King Aha's funeral enclosure at Abydos is that 6 courtiers were killed and buried simultaneously under the plaster floor of the enclosure, and that another 35 were killed and buried at his tomb. Evidence further suggests that some were killed by strangling, others perhaps with drugs (Petrie believed that some were still alive when buried). King Djer continued and even expanded on human sacrificial practice, taking some 569 courtiers with him at both tomb and enclosure, while King Qaa took only 30 courtiers with him at his tomb (his enclosure has yet to be discovered). Only a century before Abraham, six members of the royal harem of Nb-ḥpt-Rˁ Mntw-ḥtp II were sacrificed and placed within the precincts of his tomb-temple at Deir el-Baḥari. Leonard Woolley found the same type of royal sacrificial practice at Ur in southern Mesopotamia.[2]


[1] "Human Sacrifice at Abydos? Egypt's First Kings Had Company in the Afterlife," Archaeology Odyssey, 7/5 (Sept-Oct 2004):12, quoting co-director of the team, David O'Connor. 

[2] John Galvin, "Abydos: Life and Death at the Dawn of Egyptian Civilization," National Geographic, 207/4 (April 2005):106-121. With photos (by Kenneth Garrett) and illustrations.

 

Edited by Robert F. Smith
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39 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The BofA, like the Bible, is describing primeval times, and Ham is an eponym, the father of the Hamitic peoples (not Shem, the eponym of Semitic peoples).  This has nothing, therefore, to do with Canaanite (Semitic) Hyksos of the mid-2nd millennium B.C., which is the time of Moses.

Doesn't this presume that the term semetic maps onto the figures Shem and Ham in Genesis? That is it seems to me you're assuming the accuracy of some problematic sections of Genesis. If one doesn't trust that section of Genesis for obvious reasons, combines it with that section of Abraham 1 reflecting Abraham's beliefs, not a "gods eye view" then I'm not sure upon what basis one can reject the Hyksos. I just don't think the dates/lineage in Genesis should be trusted. Nor is it clear we should assume Abraham lived 1000 years before Moses.

It sounds like you're conclusion comes from when Egypt was first unified roughly 4000 BC. But it's not clear to me why we should assume that's what to referred to.

I agree with the rest you say though.  Although I'm not sure how we should take the dating of the Abraham text. I think the 1st century pseudopigrapha model is as problematic as the catalyst model.

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39 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Doesn't this presume that the term semetic maps onto the figures Shem and Ham in Genesis? That is it seems to me you're assuming the accuracy of some problematic sections of Genesis. If one doesn't trust that section of Genesis for obvious reasons, combines it with that section of Abraham 1 reflecting Abraham's beliefs, not a "gods eye view" then I'm not sure upon what basis one can reject the Hyksos. I just don't think the dates/lineage in Genesis should be trusted. Nor is it clear we should assume Abraham lived 1000 years before Moses.

Nearly all biblical archeologists agree that the approximate time of Abraham had to be ca. 2,000 B.C., in the Middle Kingdom.  The term "eponym" assumes mythical tales of origin, and are not intended to reflect professional historiography. Moreover, Abraham himself was not a professional historian.  Josephus associates the Hyksos with the Israelite Exodus under Moses, and all historical indicators point to that same period.  Around 500 years after Abraham.

39 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

It sounds like you're conclusion comes from when Egypt was first unified roughly 4000 BC. But it's not clear to me why we should assume that's what to referred to.

Egyptologists put the unification of Egypt under one king at around 3100 B.C., during dynasty zero.  It is clearly to that period which the BofA refers when it refers to the first pharaoh.  I'm talking archeology, not scripture reading and sunday school.

39 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I agree with the rest you say though.  Although I'm not sure how we should take the dating of the Abraham text. I think the 1st century pseudopigrapha model is as problematic as the catalyst model.

The BofA facsimiles are Ptolemaic (Snsn text of Hor and the Hypocephalus).  These are facts not in dispute, and the Testament of Abraham and the Apocalypse of Abraham are from the same period and have many of the same contents.

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On 12/2/2018 at 11:45 AM, JLHPROF said:

Did Pangaea break up 200 million years ago or in the days of Peleg?  Either way, it happened.

"Either way it happened" doesn't mean there is an equal likelihood that either one happened.

Did I take the garbage out to the curb this morning, or did an advanced alien race come down in their spaceship and use molecular transformation technology to instantly transport the garbage cans from the house to the curb?

Either way, it happened.

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On 12/2/2018 at 11:02 AM, cdowis said:

24 When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.

I hope I'm not the only one that is really, really glad that it's the first claim that's been proven true and not the second.

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