Pyreaux

I looked into it once. They have these old "student" laptops on ebay. They are cheap because they have no space for anything. Windows machines are in the $50–$80 range, they have small 32GB or 64GB drives. Windows 7 or 10 takes up about 20–25GB. Once you add system updates, temp files, and a few basic apps, you are left with almost nothing. Sellers often refurbish old enterprise or school laptops (like the Dell Latitude or HP ProBook series) and put the cheapest possible drive in them just to get them to boot. ChromeOS is essentially just a web browser, the operating system is very tiny (usually under 10GB). Lenovo 100e or Dell Chromebook 11 for as low as $50 to $70. Google stops sending security updates to older models after a certain date. On eBay, very cheap $30–$40 Chromebooks are often past this date. For music, get a microSD card (if it has a slot) or a tiny USB drive can give you at least an extra 64GB–128GB of storage for about $15, which is enough for photos, documents, and mp3s. Never buy a used microSD card with "1TB" for cheap, they often be corrupted.

I have a lot of special interests and crystalized knowledge. I'll save stuff or usually, like this time, what happens, I've read it before, then I bring it up off the top of my head, and then I have scramble to find it or anything like it again. I usually can, I remember the key words or phrases, I don't remember other things like the names, I have to find stuff I don't remember again in the search. I think I recalled this beetle from an old Book of Mormon Central page a long time ago.

Forensic entomologists like Dr. Jean-Bernard Huchet also know Taphonomy, how things decay and settle over time. The beetle remains were sealed under massive layers of adobe brick and sediment in subterranean chambers. The beetle remains were part of the materials Dr. Alana Cordy-Collins sent for the AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) dating. The AMS report for the "fly and beetle remains" returned a date consistent with the Moche period (500 AD).

Ah, okay, she simply found the beetles, AMS dating text doesn't list the species name because an AMS paper is about dating of the remains and just finding the beetles. They were supposedly sent to Dr. Jean-Bernard Huchet, the world's leading expert on identifying insects in mummies, and he identified them as Lasioderma serricorne. I'm saying "supposedly", the sources are all in French, and the bulk of work is published in French. I had to ask AI to find and translate Huchet. The Source: "Des Mouches, des Morts, des Offrandes : Archéoentomologie de tombes Mochica de la Pyramide de la Lune, Pérou" (Flies, Deaths, Offerings: Archaeoentomology of Mochica Tombs of the Pyramid of the Moon, Peru). Publication: Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, Volume 48, Number 2, 2018, pp. 33–44. Context: This research details the analysis of "bio-artifacts" (insect remains) found at Huaca de la Luna, a major Moche ceremonial site. Key Excerpt (French) "Parmi les coléoptères identifiés, la présence de Lasioderma serricorne (Fabricius) revêt un intérêt particulier. Ce petit anobiide, communément appelé « lasioderme du tabac », est un ravageur cosmopolite des denrées stockées. Sa présence au sein des dépôts funéraires mochicas, étroitement associée aux restes macrovégétaux (graines, piments, feuilles séchées), suggère qu'il a été introduit dans la tombe avec les offrandes végétales." English Translation "Among the identified beetles, the presence of Lasioderma serricorne (Fabricius) is of particular interest. This small anobiid, commonly known as the 'tobacco beetle,' is a cosmopolitan pest of stored products. Its presence within the Mochica funerary deposits, closely associated with macro-botanical remains (seeds, chili peppers, dried leaves), suggests that it was introduced into the tomb along with the plant offerings." Modern human-adapted TB, Lineage 4, had to evolved to thrive in lungs with high oxygen, the seal TB is genetically distinct. It lacks the specific RD1 deletion and other "modern" markers that allow the human strain to be so infectious. Human TB was refined in the dense cities like in Ancient Egypt and modern Europe, it made specific deletions in its genome that make it highly contagious between people. Even if the seal-strain TB spread human to human in Peru, it would still look like seal TB in its DNA. It wouldn't spontaneously transform into the Lineage 4 strain just by being passed around by humans. Peru mummies had "Human TB" from IS6110 markers found in 1994. Samorini’s claim that "other teams don't see cocaine" doesn't mean anything unless he shows they tested the same mummies that three people found cocaine in. Calling the results "trace," the concentrations in the Egyptian mummies were high enough that, in a modern forensic lab, they would be considered heavy users. Calling Balabanova's worka single "thin" paper. It spanned a decade of research, was published in The Lancet and Naturewissenschaften, and was confirmed by Parsche and Nerlich (independent researchers not connected with her). Samorini is gaslighting by portraying these as un-peer-reviewed notes.

The 2014 Nature study found pinniped (seal) strains of TB in 3 mummies that were on the coast, they used seal-bone tools, and ate seal meat and seals could be one source for weak TB, but it doesn't explain why the human-specific Mycobacterium tuberculosis is also present in other mummies. Identification of M. tuberculosis DNA in a pre-Columbian Peruvian mummy found IS6110, and Frontiers in Microbiology (2022) says IS6110 is the marker of "modern" human-adapted strains. Alana Cordy-Collins and the Tobacco Beetle (Lasioderma serricorne) in Peru data comes from the analysis of Skeleton H33 at the site of Dos Cabezas. In these high-status Moche tombs (dated to 450–550 AD), beetle remains were collected from within the skulls and funerary bundles in a sealed, primary context, inside the cranial cavity of a mummy that had been buried for 1,500 years. References to this is in "The Art and Archaeology of the Moche" (Edited by Steve Bourget and Kimberly L. Jones). The character attack on Balabanova is from Giorgio Samorini in 2024. Even if Balabanova were not a credible scholar (a subjective claim), her results were replicated. In 1995, Parsche and Nerlich conducted independent tests on the same mummies using GC-MS and found the same results. Notice how Samorini’s critique focuses on her methodology and lack of references, but he cannot explain away the presence of cotinine. If Balabanova was "unprofessional", did her machines suddenly become unprofessional too? Balabanova's character doesn't change the molecular weight of the Benzoylecgonine found in the samples. If her data is wrong, show me the study that re-tested those mummies and found zero alkaloids. They can't, because the alkaloids are there. He has nothing to say about that.

We don't need to find the specific shipwreck of an Egyptian Atlantic Vessel for it to be a strong possibility. We only need to show they had the seafaring capability, which we have seen. We have the Ra II experiment. Not only is it possible. We have the evidence of the cargo, that is the evidence of the vehicle. Not saying the Egyptians even need to be blue-water experts, the Egyptians just needed to be rich. We don't need to find a Polynesian ship or know how to prove they took the Sweet Potato from South America. What's more unlikely, is a ghost plant, that nature has to invent a 17-carbon alkaloid with a specific tropane ring twice, in two different hemispheres, and then have it go extinct on one hemisphere without a trace.

It looks like its relying upon 2026 IFLScience, a pop-science outlet. Cross-reactivity happens in immunoassays (cheap, preliminary tests). It does not happen in GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry), which Balabanova used as her confirmatory method. GC-MS identifies a molecule by its molecular weight and fragmentation pattern. It claims the 90s Radioimmunoassay/RIA was prone to false positives and is not as specific as modern GC-MS. Yet Balabanova did use GC-MS for her confirmatory tests. GC-MS was the standard in 1992 and it is still the standard in 2026. Since the 1992 study, other researchers, like Parsche and Nerlich in 1995, performed follow-up tests using more advanced mass spectrometry on the same mummies and confirmed the presence of both nicotine and cocaine. This argument is a historical myth. IFLScience also claims nicotine is found in eggplants, peppers, and cauliflower, so the Egyptians were just eating a lot of veggies. Nicotine exists in trace amounts in those plants, it is measured in micrograms. The levels found in the mummies were in nanograms per milligram of hair. An ancient Egyptian would have had to consume roughly 800 pounds of eggplant in a single sitting. Cotinine is a polar molecule created by an enzymatic reaction in the liver. If the chemicals are degrading and transforming, they would be less likely to look like a perfect match for cocaine and nicotine. Degradation makes things harder to detect, not easier to mistake for a complex South American drug. A philosophic parsimony like Occam’s Razor is misapplied to forensic evidence. In a courtroom, if you find a specific person's DNA at a crime scene, a parsimonious explanation isn't to claim the scene was contaminated, another unknown person with identical DNA committed the crime, or that the matching DNA evolved spontaneously, rather that the person with the DNA in your custody was there. For the theory to work, we must assume a plant that has never been seen, has no fossil record, and conveniently produced the exact same complex alkaloid as two South American plants. I don't have to assume the idea of seafaring ships. We know ancient humans had ships. We know the Ra II proved a reed boat can cross the Atlantic. We know the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. We know the Polynesians traded with South America, which is mainstream science now. Polynesian chickens were found in pre-Columbian Chile. DNA evidence proves that the Sweet Potato traveled from the Andes to Polynesia before Columbus. There were all sorts of middlemen. The Egyptian got their marijuana from China. China sold it to the Scythians and Persians, who sold to the Phoenicians, who sold to the Egyptians. They were all notoriously secretive about their trade routes to maintain monopolies. They'd famously sank their own ships rather than let Romans follow them to the "Tin Islands" of Britain. If they traded in drugs, those are consumed. They won't leave behind much archeological evidence, but what would be left behind would be metabolites in the people who bought them, likely the dying elite seeking exotic medicines and pain killers. Grok's claim Nicotiana africana explains the nicotine is chemically illiterate. N. africana is dominated by nornicotine. American N. tabacum is dominated by nicotine. The Balabanova study found a high nicotine-to-cotinine ratio, not a nornicotine profile. To suggest Egyptians used N. africana is like saying if someone who tested positive for caffeine actually just ate a lot of chocolate, the chemical is different.

The arguments have massive holes in it. The weakest one is the "contamination" theory suggesting that 19th-century curators sprinkled tobacco on mummies as an insecticide. While sprinkling tobacco explains nicotine on the surface, these sources admit finding cotinine, a reliable indicator of ingestion. If Balabanova found cotinine (which she did), then the "insecticide sprinkling" theory is not any good. A dead body cannot metabolize it into cotinine. Only a living liver can do that. The sources suggest the "local plant" theory, with Nicotiana africana as a local source for Egyptian nicotine. N. africana contains primarily nornicotine and anabasine. If the Egyptians were using the African plant, the chemicals in the mummies would show those specific alkaloids. Instead, the tests showed a profile consistent with Nicotiana tabacum, the American variety. The article even resorts to a "ghost plant" theory. The idea that an extinct African species might have produced cocaine, all to avoid the forensic reality of what we know exists in the Americas. The suggestion that two different American only metabolites in one body is explained by hypothetical extinct plants that no one has ever seen is weak. The most parsimonious explanation is that a single trade route brought these two American plant leaves to Egypt. This explains the cocaine and nicotine metabolites which prove ingestion, not contamination. Also Egyptian beetles and the pathogens in Peruvian mummies. All suggesting trade. These sources continuing to mention all three theories at once is just as daft as ChatGPT quoting all three golden plates theories at once. It cannot be contamination, local and extinct plants. The plates cannot be a non-existing conspiracy to fraud, a vision, and a prop. If they are all equally viable, what you mean is that you don't know, and each guess is as good as another. That is very Schrodinger.

Ancient Egyptian Mummies with American Only Drugs As always, AI doesn't know everything at all times, you have to tell it almost exactly what it should search for, or it won't know or bother to look. it will simply provide the most conservative archaeological view from off the top of its head. The evidence isn't a secret, it’s been causing a massive stir in the scientific community over the last 30 years. The "Cocaine Mummies" is the most famous piece of evidence of the 1992 Balabanova Study. Dr. Svetlana Balabanova, a German forensic toxicologist, tested the remains of several Egyptian mummies. She found significant traces of American only plants like cocaine and nicotine in the hair, soft tissue, and bones. The mainstream skeptics claimed it must be contamination, but the tests found metabolites (benzoylecgonine and cotinine). These chemicals are only produced when a living body processes the drug. You cannot "contaminate" a mummy with metabolites, the person had to have ingested the plant while they were alive. Since Coca and Tobacco are New World plants. They did not exist in Egypt. Their presence in the internal organs of mummies is strong evidence for trans-oceanic trade with Egypt. Peruvian Mummies with Egyptian Beetles and Eastern Hemispheric Diseases AI will likely tell you that Europeans brought TB to the Americas. Yet, there are Peruvian mummies that clearly died from TB based on the x-rays. DNA sequencing in 1994, researchers at the University of Minnesota and the University of Chicago extracted DNA from the lungs. The DNA was a 100% match for Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This proved TB was somehow crossed the ocean to the Americas long before Columbus. Though the conservative answer is the bacteria had to have "hitchhiked" on animals, like seals from Africa or Middle East. But strains in Peruvian mummies require prolonged human-to-human contact to jump and mutate the way they did. Seals didn't spend enough time hanging out with ancient Peruvians to facilitate a massive cross-continental jump of a specifically human-adapted pathogen. A merchant ship, however, is a floating petri dish. The Lasioderma serricorne is known as the "tobacco beetle" is native to Egypt. Archaeologists have found these specific beetles inside the wrappings and cranial cavities of these pre-Columbian Peruvian mummies. Beetles don't fly across the ocean. They travel in stored grain, dried plants, or textiles. If an Egyptian beetle is found inside a Peruvian mummy, it means there was an Egyptian product physically present in Peru. If ChatGPT has a better explanation for how an ancient Egyptian ended up with metabolized South American cocaine in her liver, or how Egyptian pests and bacteria got inside an ancient Peruvian, other than from global trade, I’d love to hear it. As I see it, there seems to have been an Egyptian diffusion in the Americas (1 Nephi 1:2). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3pH3YWiXJ4

The advice that their land "should" be kept secret from the Nations of the Old World, says absolutely nothing excluding Nationless vagabonds like everyone there. Exactly what "Nation" did the Clovis represent? Even with the Clovis there, the land is still undiscovered by any of the "Nations". The "nations" often meant major warring empires like Babylon or Egypt, rather than groups of indigenous people already living in there. 'Plain reading", as always, is a thing not considerate of what different people thought it meant in history. Ignoring how Ancient Near Eastern adoptions work, like in the Bible, "seed" often includes servants, concubines and their children, adoptees and migrants "grafted in." Over 1,000 years, Lehi’s biological markers would be diluted by a much larger "native" population, making them genetically invisible today while remaining "covenant seed" in God's eyes. Modern Americans have different notions of what "the land" or "all" the earth is. The Ancient Near East is full of hyperbole. "All" doesn't always mean "100%". In the Old Testament, phrases like "all the earth came to Egypt to buy corn" (Genesis 41:57) clearly don't mean people from Australia and the Americas were in Joseph’s grain line. It means "the known world" or "everyone in the region." Have you never read any local flood theories that explain a relative nature in these texts? The prophets confirm that Noah was real, the account all the earth was flooded is "true", just as there is "one" God, and Jesus is God's "only" son is also "true", but it's also hyperbole. What's interesting in the Nephite system is it's an exchange system tied specifically to barley, and barley was once an anachronism in the Americas too. Then we found it. The ancient Mesoamerican markets, goods were almost exclusively measured by volume, by filling containers. The use of metal as a weighted currency is not currently supported by the Mesoamerican archaeological record for this period, which is why the Book of Mormon description is viewed as an anachronism. But since there is evidence that ancient Egyptians traded with South Americans (for tobacco, coca plant). If trade and diffusion happened, wouldn't there likely be an Egyptian-influenced merchant using Egyptian systems? The Nephite system (based on values of 1, 2, 4, 7) is striking similar to ancient Egyptian weight systems. For example, the Eye of Horus fractions in Egypt used a similar binary-based division for measuring grain. If an advanced mercantile system existed in a specific city-state, it might not spread to the rural areas that didn't have access to metals. It is surprisingly easy for a group like the Nephites to leave a thin signature. If archaeologists haven't dug in the exact market plaza of that specific city, the evidence remains buried. Many pyramids are built on top of more advanced pyramids and civilizations. A marketplace from 80 BC could be buried under 60 feet of rubble and five subsequent layers of construction. If a city-state fell or went bankrupt, their gold and silver weights wouldn't be thrown away, they would be melted down to make jewelry and idols. That's assuming the Spanish didn't find it already and took it to Spain.

"There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory! O death, where is thy sting?! O grave, where is thy victory?!"(1 Corinthians 15:54) Was he secular? Sydney Carton’s final words as he sacrifices himself for another. A poignant and beautiful passage about redemption and finding peace in sacrifice. Capturing the idea of passing into a better place, leaving behind a legacy of love and honor. "I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. . . . It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known." (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles D!ckens) Or maybe All that is Dad still exists in an immaterial and aethereal form called... "information", we are an aspect of an “existentially unified” cosmos that will persist after our deaths. And his “spirit” or consciousness consists of information, eternal and indestructible. One of the deepest principles of quantum theory is called “unitarity,” which forbids the disappearance of information. This means with enough intelligence and the right technology, it could be retrieved, recreated or resurrected or even maintain its immaterial existence in a computer simulation.

They were great angels, human spirits who are called gods because God adoption them as the Sons of God. The preeminent Son of God, king of the council of gods, is Jesus Christ, featured in Genesis asking this council for its approval in the Creation, I'm not sure how much they helped beyond their approval. The angels and the Sons of Gods, have no origin in the Genesis Creation account, they already exist, like Job's Creation account, where the "Morning Stars sang together" and the "Sons of God shouted for joy" at the laying of the Earth’s foundations (Job 38:7). In Genesis the "Speaker" (the Word/Logos/Christ) isn't just talking to himself or magicking things into existence by speech; he is issuing a formal directive to a subordinate group, "Let there be..." issuing a decree to the Council. The Book of Abraham, this is made explicit: "And the Gods said: Let there be light... and they [the Gods] organized the light." The verification "...and it was so" the decree issued by the Speaker was carried out exactly as ordered by those assisting in the work. "...and He saw that it was Good" is an inspection of the work done by the Council. The Genesis "Us" is the Divine Council in mainstream scholarship ("Let us make man in our image"). It has long been debated. Strict monotheists want it to be a plural majesty, but it ignores the Ancient Near Eastern context. Genesis 1:26: The blueprinting of humanity modeled after the human looking gods. Genesis 3:22: The concern "The man has now become like one of us" the gods, knowing good and evil. Genesis 11:7: The intervention at Babel "Let us go down and there confound their language". This isn't "God" alone, the elohim are a category of being in a divine family of El. Daniel 4:17, the text explicitly mentions there are "gods", who are part of a judicial process where the Council deliberates and issue verdicts that affect Earth. "This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones." Job 1:16, says, "Fire of the Gods fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants." As the decree of the gods in heaven becomes a physical force on Earth. The Lord doesn't act in a vacuum; He puts the questions to the council, He hears their arguments. Job 15:7–8, Eliphaz is rebuking Job for arrogance. His questions are deeply loaded with the "Council of Gods" theology, "Are you the first man ever born? Were you brought forth before the hills? Have you listened in the council of God?" The Adam Rishon is referencing a specific tradition found in the Midrash that Adam was a divine, quasi-angelic being who existed before the physical creation of the Earth. He is essentially asking, "Were you one of the Noble and Great spirits who stood with God during the creation?" The primordial sage Adam had a seat in the heavenly court and possessed wisdom because he was there when the blueprints were drawn. "The Council" (Sod Eloah) is a technical term, a private, confidential gathering of high-ranking officials. It refers to an "inner circle". Since Job wasn't the "First Man" or a member of that pre-mortal assembly, he has no right to question the "Fire of the Gods" that fell upon him Midrash, Genesis Rabbah 8:7, the Jews address the question: "With whom did God take counsel?" The Midrash explicitly states that God consulted with the "souls of the righteous" (Nishmatan shel Tzaddikim) during the Creation. This suggests that in these "righteous ones" existed in a spiritual state before the physical world was organized. The Midrash implies that these spirits weren't just observers but were active participants in the "consultation" phase of humanity’s creation.

Who is dictating the core, the medieval mystics? The oldest "Joseph" figure wasn't a warrior or a giant killer. When we strip away the medieval additions, the DSS iterations of The Apocryphon of Joseph, the core details are the "Joseph" figure is a victim of intense persecution. He is described as being "abandoned into the hands of strangers" and into the hands of the "heathen." He is surrounded by enemies, "fools" and those who "mock" him. He cries out for vindication against those who have usurped his place. The conflict in the oldest accounts isn't a war with a border, but over sacred space. The Joseph figure laments that "fools" and "strangers" have defiled Zion and the Temple. "The fools have built for themselves a high place upon a high mountain to provoke Israel to jealousy; they have spoken words of rebellion against the tent of Zion. They have spoken against the Temple of the LORD, and they have done according to all their desire..." And it’s about apostasy, loss of the true priesthood, being usurped by those who claim it but have no right to it. There is no literal war, he's not yet the medieval Jewish King Authur. He represents the "Northern Tribes", Ephraim and Manasseh, who are currently "lost" or scattered. His mission is to pray for the time when "all the tribes" will be gathered back to the true worship of God. After that is the Talmudic snapshot in Sukkah 52a, the idea of his death is solidified, but it is still remarkably sparse on details. The text simply says he is killed and that there is a "great mourning." It's assumed he dies in a conflict, but the Talmud doesn't say things like name who kills him or where it happens. It is a theological necessity that he dies so that Messiah ben David can arrive. It's the Medieval Apocalypses (visionary and symbolic) where your "literal" details actually come from. In the 7th–10th centuries. Smith’s Joseph prophecy in Genesis 50 feels much more like the oldest layer. A Joseph, son of Joseph, a choice Seer who gathers and brings light, not so much the medieval layer who kills the anti-Christ. Who other than a would-be prophet gets to say how the past prophecy is actually fulfilled? When lamenting how many times a false prophet tries to claim how a past prophecy gets fulfilled, it's an inescapable notion for a believer in prophecy, that a prophet gets to say how the past prophecy is actually fulfilled. If Isaiah said "a young woman shall conceive," and he was talking about his own son in 700 BC, then a prophet coming along 700 years later and says "Actually, it’s a virgin birth recently in Bethlehem" is either re-conning history or... a prophet. The only difference between "mythmaking" and "prophecy" is whether you believe the guy who did the re-reading had the authority to do it. It's not easy. Unlike when Bar Kokhba, the 2nd-century Messiah candidate, died in battle against Rome, his followers didn't say, "well, maybe one day he'll be back." They said, "We were wrong," and he became known as Bar Koziba "Son of a Lie". Whereas the entire LDS project has always depended on the idea that God defines "Ephriam", "Israel", "Zion" and "The Temple" broader than the Bible authors did in several instances. Just as the Christians did with the ideas of "Exalt", "Save", and "Liberate". I think John says Jesus was exalted (lifted up)... On the cross... Hmmm, well, that is one way to put it. Maybe, I can't prophetically identify unidentified people. I've heard many theories based on the few clues that the Two Witnesses would be Elijah and Moses returned, I guess they are messiahs of sorts who do tend to return like on the Mount of Transfiguration (and Kirtland), but neither was a Josephite (Benjamin and Levi). The other theory is they are two latter-day prophets, and since I as biased, I'd say they are likely LDS prophets, one could be from Ephriam, I'm sure most have been made so in Patriarchal Blessings, but Joseph Smith still would likely be the foretold Josephite neo-Moses prophet, being influenced by the JST.

Certainly, as Jesus didn't fit all late expectations of the Messiah ben David, I'm not saying Joseph Smith is a 1:1 fulfillment of the medieval Jewish iteration of the Messiah ben Joseph. Joseph Smith fits a "type" of those later traditions. Joseph didn't die in a literal battle or in the war of Gog and Magog, he was Lieutenant General of the Nauvoo Legion and died a Martyr’s death that many might call a "battle" or rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, but he re-introduced the Temple to the modern world, midst a new Jerusalem of Zion. An ongoing work that is hoped to eventually reach old Jerusalem. The candidates for these prophecies may have multiple stages. Thus, Jesus will return later to be the expected King. Such arguments were used by 1st-century Jews to reject Jesus. Early Jewish leaders may have suppressed the suffering Josephite Messiah tradition to distance themselves from either Samaritan, Kingdom of Ephriam, claims or early Christian "Suffering Servant" Messiah arguments. As the Masoretic texts alterations show motivation to obscure Messianic prooftexts. The "Shared soul of Cain" or Metatron versions of Messiah ben Joseph are highly late-medieval Kabbalistic, but Joseph Smith matches the earliest layers found in the Dead Sea Scrolls which describe a Joseph figure involved in gathering the tribes. A "Forerunner" to the final victory. A "Second Joseph" narrative would naturally be colored by the hopes of the people, if they were under Roman or Islamic rule, they would militarize him. If they were mystics, they would Kabbalize him. You're right that Joseph Smith isn't everything expected but the core roles of the Messiah ben Joseph, gathering the tribes, being a suffering forerunner, and opening the door for the Davidic King, are exactly what he claimed to do. In the vision of the "Four Craftsmen" from Zechariah as interpreted in the Talmud, Sukkah 52b, the Righteous Priest in Jewish tradition, specifically Rashi, is almost universally identified as Melchizedek himself. The Dead Sea Scrolls like the Manual of Discipline 1QS explicitly state that the community should live by their strict rules until a specific time, "...until the coming of the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel." This "Prophet" aligns with the Messiah ben Joseph. Messiah of Aaron is the Priestly Messiah, a Melchizedek figure, Kohen Tzedek, Righteous Priest Messiah of Israel is thought to be the Kingly Messiah, a Davidic/Jesus figure. Though a Messiah of Aaron, John the Baptist was the son of Zacharias, a priest of the course of Abia and Elisabeth of the daughters of Aaron. He was, by birthright, the legitimate claimant to the Aaronic High Priesthood in a time when the Jerusalem temple leadership was seen as corrupt or illegitimate. Maybe the "Righteous Priest" is a title for someone of the "Sons of Zadok" the righteous priestly line, separate from the Hellenized establishment of Jerusalem.

The Seer named Joseph narrative was in the Book of Mormon first, a "choice seer" named Joseph, whose father would also be named Joseph (2 Nephi 3; JST Genesis 50). Messiah ben Joseph (Yosef) provides a massive historical weight to this. An anciently known prophecy, found specifically in the Talmud, Midrash, the Book of Zohar, of an anciently known figure from the tribe of Ephraim who prepares the way, gathers Israel, and often is killed in battle in the process before the final victory to come of the Messiah ben David. If Joseph Smith were just "writing himself in," he picked a remarkably specific and ancient Jewish archetype, a descendant of Joseph of Egypt, one that he likely had zero access to know about in the rural 1830s. A tradition that scholars like Margaret Barker suggest dates back to the First Temple period, long before the Talmud was compiled. Dead Sea Scroll fragments like 4Q372 and 4Q175 to show the roots of this tradition. These scrolls describe a "suffering Joseph figure" and a "Prophet like Moses" who would appear in the last days. "That Prophet" mentioned in John 1:21 priests asked John the Baptist if he is one of three prophesied figures, Elijah, the Christ, or "that prophet?", scholars like David Mitchell have argued that this represents the Messiah ben Joseph tradition. It could have been in Genesis or other texts before the Deuteronomic scribes removed it, like how the Masoretic Jews removed the "Messiah" from Isaiah 52:14, and the Deuteronomic scribes wrote-ins Cyrus the Great into Isaiah 150 years before he was born in Isaiah 44:28 because these scribes thought in their time that this Messianic prophecy was fulfilled by Cyrus, though it wasn't.

In what way? Historical or linguistic or theological? There would be a difference. If it was never in the Greek manuscripts, does this fit the nature of revelation? A Midrash isn't meant to replace history, it’s meant to reveal a truth hidden in the text. What if the JST's account of the disciples "complaining" helps a modern reader understand the dangers of apostasy or the loneliness of Christ's sacrifice? Then a proponent would argue it is "true" in its mission, even if it isn't in any ancient manuscript. The "Correctness" of the JST, or apocalyptic or Wisdom literature or Parables is judged by the doctrines it produces not the literalness of the dialogue or details written. If we don't have any idea what the original words spoken in the Garden were, and if the Greek Gospels were written anonymously decades later by people who weren't there, how do we know the Biblical account isn't the one that is 'wrong'? An incomplete spiritual record requires a living Prophet to fill in the gaps through the same Spirit that inspired the original writers. It's best to find out if Joseph Smith is a Prophet first, then his revelations are correct one way or another. Unless it's entirely wrong. Joseph Smith himself never published it. He was constantly revising it. Maybe that's God's way of saying we were never really meant to have it.

Except the Kinderhook Plates were six tiny, bell-shaped scraps of brass. The Book of Mormon plates were described as a substantial volume approximately 40–60 lbs. And we know exactly who made the Kinderhook plates, Wilbur Fugate and others. For the Gold Plates, we have no theory of a "Fugate." Did Joseph make them, how and where? If Joseph didn't make them, who did? If a local blacksmith made a 50-pound "golden" prop using copper or a high-zinc brass were industrial commodities. You couldn't just buy "sheets" at a local hardware store and make it at home. It'd cost nearly a month’s wages for common laborers like the Smiths, who were famously struggling with debt and losing their farm, spending a month’s income on a "prop" without anyone noticing the expenditure is a significant evidentiary hole. Tin-ware is cheaper but too light and silver-colored. To make it look like gold, it requires a gold lacquer. If the Eight Witnesses both "hefted" the plates and "turned" the leaves, they know it's too light to be gold, they would be seeing the wear and tear of the coating. Hand-engraving a single page of "Reformed Egyptian" characters into metal takes hours of meticulous work, even if you exclude the "sealed portion", it could take months of full-time labor. You cannot secretly hammer and engrave 50 pounds of metal in a small home shared with a dozen people without someone hearing or seeing. In a third-hand account in a private journal, Joseph apparently looked at the Kinderhook Plates, made a preliminary comment based on his existing worldview, and then... nothing. What he may have done was compare the Kinderhook characters to his "Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language" trying to be an amateur linguist in that instance. But for the hoaxers to trick Joseph tells us he must have believed that other metal plates existed. If Joseph was a conniving fraud, he would know ancient plates don't exist because he made his own, so he wouldn't be "tricked" by a hoax, he would recognize a fellow traveler. If Joseph was sincerely deluded, he might be tricked, but that doesn't explain how he produced a 500-page coherent text if that is the claim. The fact that the Kinderhook plates were fake does not suggest the Goldes Plates are faked, at least not easily. A skeptic would consider them being taken away convenient, but a jurist must evaluate the secondary evidence, like the Witnesses. The Kinderhook hoaxers admit to the fraud, while the Eight Witnesses never admitted to being part of a hoax. The Kinderhook analogy is a bit clunky. Note: I do encourage the thought experiment that if for argument's sake there is no God, there must be one natural explanation, even if it is just as unbelievable as saying God did it.

Mark 14:36–38. The JST adds specific verbs and internal motivations that aren't in the Greek manuscripts we have. "And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping...", becomes "And he cometh and findeth them asleep, and they said unto him..." they aren't just caught sleeping, they have an excuse. Jesus says, "the spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak" becomes the Disciples say, "The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak." "...and they began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy, and to complain in their hearts, wondering if this be the Messiah." Complaining in one's heart against a leader is called disloyalty. In the Old Testament, the Israelites complained in their hearts against Moses. God treated this as a rebellion. By "complaining," the disciples are essentially saying Jesus is spoiling their expectations of an anointed King. It's not unreasonable to say with Peter's previous rebuke, then the garden, then Peter’s violent outburst with the sword cutting off the ear of Malchus, where Peter is again rebuked for interfering with the plan. Whatever reason you give him, this is technically disloyalty. If there were doubt that there was doubt in Peter, there is Peter’s external denial in the courtyard. You can't say "I know him not" unless you have already "wondered if he be the Messiah" in your heart, as the JST suggests. I am aware, the thought is the other Gospels lean on Mark, and Mark was in Greek, and also Matthew has Greek word play, the Peter/Petra pun in Matthew 16, not suggestive of being a translation into Greek, if there was an Aramaic original, it'd be a complete rewrite into Greek. It was just a segway to suggesting we don't actually have original manuscripts or autographs. Certainly, the quotes of the disciples weren't originally spoken in Greek. Greek is not just a different set of words, it’s a different way of thinking. Greek is precise and philosophical, Aramaic is earthy. There will be idioms lost in translation, being written anonymously, the 150–200 year gap, and I'm not sure telnetd is ready to understand or acknowledge how a "telephone game" effect can happen with oral traditions.

I've been ignoring this thread, as I have nothing particular against naturalistic theories, but it's where all the activity is now. But what you shared looks like a composite naturalistic theory, it tries to be every naturalistic theory at once, so the plates are somehow a pious fraud, visionary trance, and physical prop at the same time. Was Smith a smithy? The naturalistic explanation usually posits a "prop" made of tin or lead. But in 1820s tin-smithing wasn't a kitchen table hobby. It requires a forge, shears, and specific hammers. If Joseph or any co-conspirator made them, where is the physical evidence, claim or theory of the workshop? The Eight Witnesses claimed to see "curious workmanship" and "engravings." If it was just scratched-up tin, why did eight men, several of whom were craftsmen and farmers familiar with metal, not recognize the metal wasn't gold or notice inferior workmanship as over hours of hefting and turning the plates? If it was a high-quality forgery with actual faux-Egyptian characters etched into metal, who had the skills? If it was a co-conspirator like Oliver Cowdery or your local blacksmith, why did the secret never leak, even during the bitterest periods of Oliver's apostasy? The other blur is with both Three and Eight Witnesses together was a "visionary" event. The Three Witnesses claimed to see an Angel and hear a Voice. Naturalisticly called a "collective hallucination." The Eight Witnesses testimony is strictly sensory. There was no angel, no voice, and no "spiritual eyes." They handled the leaves in broad daylight. If John Whitmer or Hiram Page who later became extremely hostile to Joseph Smith never blow the whistle and say they had been tricked by a cheap prop, their anger at Joseph would have given them every motive to expose the trickery. They didn't. They died asserting the reality of the plates. Brandon Sanderson uses a computer, an editor, a back-story wiki, and years of planning. Joseph dictated the Book of Mormon in roughly 60–90 days with no substantive internal contradictions, no rewrites, and no looking back at previous pages. You have suggested a 'physical prop' existed. If that prop was 'painted tin' (Vogel's theory), please explain how eight grown men handled a tin prop for an afternoon without doubt? If they were co-conspirators, why make a prop, and how did they spend 50 years lying about it for a man they eventually came to despise? What was their motive for maintaining a lie that brought them poverty and persecution long after they had broken with the 'liar' who started it?

When the JST says they were "wondering if this be the Messiah," it isn't saying they forgot who Jesus was, it’s saying they were experiencing cognitive dissonance. If for some of these ex-Zealots, a "Messiah" by definition is a Conquering King, and Jesus is currently a Sufferer, then their logic dictates, "Either our definition of Messiah is wrong, or this man isn't the Messiah." The JST suggests they questioned the latter in that moment of darkness. In the KJV, the disciples simply fall asleep because they are tired. In the JST, their sleep is portrayed as disloyalty. If they are confused-but-loyal, Jesus’ rebuke "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" seems harsh reaction to an innocent nap. But if they were doubting his very identity, his rebuke isn't just asking them to stay awake; he’s asking them to stay faithful as he is being "crushed." The JST then flips to the disciples saying "the spirit is ready, the flesh is weak" is the disciples admitting their lack of faith. So be clear, because you don't seem to be picking it up, I'm suggesting to you, Joseph Smith’s JST may not be intended to be a restoration of the original text, it may not even be "true" in the sense that is what they actually said, did, or recorded, rather what the JST "restored" wasn't there before. He's reading the Bible, gets a question. gets a revealed answer, he adds it to D&C or something, but then also tries to force fit the reply into the text, with some creative license, like prophetic midrash might do. If something was or wasn't in the manuscripts is a bit unfalsifiable, we can't really know for sure without an original manuscript. It seems more straight forward to simply determine whether Joseph Smith was or wasn't a Prophet by personal revelations first and then concede to the JST is a revelation of some sort, as opposed to going backwards, starting with trying to validate the JST to prove Joseph was a Prophet. What is true, is their dreams of a Messiah died in the Garden, the disciples' faith could have died with it, only to be "reborn" at the Resurrection. Peter’s three-fold denial in the courtyard is the historical anchor for the JST’s narrative. Peter literally swore oaths that he did not know the man. But if JST’s Gethsemane happened, Peter’s denial becomes a logical outcome rather than a sudden, out-of-character lapse.

Your idea that their conversion was static, the idea that once the disciples confessed Jesus as the Messiah, like Peter at Caesarea Philippi, the matter was settled is not so. Both the Bible and JST suggests that knowing someone is the Messiah in the good times is very different from believing it in your darkest hour. "Thou art the Christ" (Matthew 16:16) he says but consider the immediate context of that same chapter. Just moments after calling Jesus the Christ, Peter then tries to stop Jesus from going to the cross. Jesus responds, "Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matthew 16:23). So, even Peter who confessed the Messiah, then rejects the idea of a Messiah that is supposed to die. Matthew was supposedly written in Aramaic and it is now lost. That creates a "gap" where the JST could theoretically be restoring things that the later Greek translations missed. Papias of Hierapolis around 125 AD wrote, "Matthew collected the oracles in the Hebrew language [Aramaic/Hebrew], and each interpreted them as best he could." Irenaeus, Origen, and Jerome echoed this, claiming Matthew wrote for a Jewish audience in their native tongue before a Greek version was circulated. These Greek manuscripts are a record of what survived, but not necessarily a pure or complete record. I could stand on that alone, as many LDS do, but I'm not doing that. I'm just saying what Joseph Smith is "restoring" is possibly entirely new information. Joseph Smith restores the doubt not to make the disciples look bad, but to make the Savior look more Kingly. He stayed faithful even when his own Handpicked Presidency was "complaining" and "wondering" if they had backed the wrong guy.

It is interesting that you’ve spent 50 years in the faith without realizing that celebrating the life of Christ isn't adopting the traditions of the world. You are conflating the creeds with the holidays we actually love to acknowledge but usually very reserved in how we observe it, if at all; Easter, Christmas, Trunk or Treat. Sometimes even a shout out to Hanukkah and Passover. The Church doesn't mandate Lenten fasting or the distribution of ashes, but it certainly encourages members to remember the Resurrection, in their own way; bunny, no bunny, whatever. There’s a massive difference between not following the religious observance and forbidding the recognition of the week. Typical for a not-a-TBM to take the actions of a single uninformed teacher to define the attitude of the whole church. Ignorance of a ritual like Ash Wednesday doesn't negate the Church may still acknowledge the day. If you find it 'annoying' that a church is focusing on the final week of Jesus’s life, I think that says more about your desire for conflict than it does about any real concern about the purity of our theology.

For a Jew in the Second Temple period, the Messiah was the Davidic King who would crush the Romans. Some of the Twelve had Zealot backgrounds, like "Simon the Zealot", Judas Iscario, a corruption of Sicarii (the "dagger-men" or assassins). And Peter, in his behavior in the Garden drawing a sword and cutting off an ear is the classic signature of a Zealot who was ready for a violent uprising. We are simply supposing Jesus had already dispelled their political hopes. However, the Gospels show that the disciples were notoriously slow to believe Him. Even after the Resurrection, their first question was: "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). The Triumvirate of Peter, James, and John held a higher position than the others, they were the First Presidency of the ancient Church. Jesus expected more from those with more light. The eleven might all be amazed and complaining, but Jesus specifically pulls aside the Presidency to join Him, to watch. Their failure to stay awake is a greater betrayal of their specific office than the general confusion of the other eight. The JST highlights that even the Chief Apostles were susceptible to the weakness of the flesh. it might be Joseph Smith was highlighting a theme of Apostasy, that even those closest to Jesus had complained and doubted when things got hard.

Generally, it's obvious when studying it when one verse is changed but the surrounding verses and scaffolding of the chapter is left in its original form, shows an unpolished quality, and is a central part of the debate over what the JST is. LDS scholars have noted that Joseph Smith never finished the JST in the sense of a final, polished publication. He simply continued to tinker with it and make revisions until his death in 1844. One belief is the JST functioned as a pedagogical tool. Joseph was "translating" as a way to receive revelations like for the D&C. Once the specific doctrinal point was made, he moved on, even if the surrounding text wasn't fully smoothed out. Another notion is it's a midrash, so it doesn't have to be perfectly consistent with the source text; it just has to highlight a "new" truth. If the disciples were clueless as the Bible suggests, why would they suddenly feel heavy amazement? An LDS perspective might suggest the amazement of the disciples wasn't about the Atonement they didn't understand, but about the usurping of their other expectations. Their would-be King was talking about his blood being shed and being betrayed by one of their own. Their amazement was the shock at the mere suggestion their political hopes for him was about to end. It implies they weren't just tired; they were becoming disillusioned.

Don't ask me how spirits suffer, or why they wear cloths.