Obnoxious Orthobro Andrew Wilson Debates a Mormon Nobody

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There's a possibility a ninja assassin got in a time machine, went back in time, right? Assassinated Joseph Smith,
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then hopped in the time machine again, went back and then helped him translate [music] these documents just to make a
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fool out of him. That's possible, right? But it's not very it's not very likely though, right? And he would ask and
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demand evidence for such a claim, [music] which is fair. So we have the Star Wars theory now, and now we have the Deadpool theory. Is that
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fair? Well, I mean, they're both your theories. [laughter] Just saying. They're both your theories. The saying
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it is written by Abraham's hand does not mean that it wasn't handed down and
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written translated that way. When you're talking about the gospels, several of the gospels were written by someone else
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and then included into the Bible. Do any of those gospels start with in my own hand John?
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No. But many but every single one of the letters of Paul is written by Paul. Do do you think
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we have the which one start with in the hand of Paul himself? X. None of them. Right.
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What I'm Andrew, what I'm saying is the papyrus that Joseph Smith is saying he had could have been written, transcribed
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down to down to down. And all of them would have started with in my own hand.
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I am Abraham. I am writing this in my own hand. And it's going down between each person. Is that an
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So, did Abraham write the book of the dead? Is that what you're saying? Because here's the thing that's
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interesting. I'm willing to even grant it. I'm willing to grant that Abraham originally originally by his own hand
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pinned this document which then other people in Egypt pinned and and ended up
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putting it in a mummy's tomb. But then that would mean that Abraham wrote the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Does that
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sound right to you? No, I don't. No, it doesn't sound [clears throat] not really doesn't sound right. Doesn't
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sound right. So the the this was the papyrus translated by Joseph Smith. We
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actually have again a thing which can be falsified. You have just now read and
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I'll read it again uh translated from the papyrus by Joseph
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Smith the book of Abraham the translation of some ancient records that have fallen in our hands from the
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catacombs of Egypt. Now, to explain to the audience, and if you're not familiar with this tale yourself, sir, they
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bought the the papyrus, the Mormon church bought that for $88,000,
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which uh now it it this is modified and adjusted for inflation or inflation,
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right? So, it's $88,000 in our dollars. I think at the time it was three or four grand for them, which still an
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outlandish amount of money. Okay. So, they bought this thing. Now, now he's
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got an investment. Now, he's invested. Okay, we got an investment now. I just going to spend 88 grand to do nothing
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with it. So he at the time, of course, there was no Rosetta Stone. So we they
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weren't able to translate uh these Egyptian ruins. And so it was unfalsifiable. Isn't that convenient? So
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what happens here? Abraham, he he writes this and says the writings of Abraham
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while he was in Egypt. So he says these are the writings of Abraham while he was
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in Egypt called the book of Abraham written by his own hand upon papyrus.
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Now he says upon papyrus. Now they were translating it from the papyrus. I would infer that he means that papyrus. Uh but
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even if he didn't this would still mean that after these writings were translated that we either have one of
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two conclusions. either Joseph Smith was really, really, really, really wrong uh
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or that Abraham wrote the book of the dead. Which one do you think is more
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likely? There's actually a third possibility here. What is the third one? The third possibility is, as you said,
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there was a fire and there when fires happen, things get misplaced, moved around, destroyed. And it's very
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possible that they grabbed this and said, "Hey, this is actually the papyrus that was owned by the the Mormons, and
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this is what it is. So, hey, we better save it. It's very possible. This was a this is a fantastic uh what I
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call a cope argument from Mormons. But here's what's really funny. We have good recordkeeping now in the 1800s. Great.
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And we were able you're able to actually see all of the hands papyrus went through. You're able it was it's been
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well documented there. And by the way, I know for sure that the Mormon church
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agrees with me because they claimed that that is the papyrus. They claim that that is the papyrus itself. That was
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their claim. And again, so so are you saying you're saying the Mormon church is wrong?
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The Mormon church has been absolutely wrong when it comes to ancient documents before. They were conned by Mark Hoffman
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in the early '8s and it was one of the biggest scandals because the church was going and saying, "Look, we trust that
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these are the these are real documents. We believe that that's what it is." And so, hey, yeah, we're going to trust this
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is a reputable dealer. Mark Hoffman killed two people, including my sixth
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grade teacher's mother. So, I have a connection to this. I'm I'm really not
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happy with Mark Hoffman and what he did. But conmen are going to con and sometimes they fool the right they fool
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people. I know. There you go. Like, hang on. Like, wait a second. Wait a second. [laughter]
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Conmen fool people, do they? In the Mormon church. Does this happen often? So conman will So perhaps a con man
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could come in who doesn't read Egyptian and nobody else does and translate the
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book of Abraham, right? Adding to the Bible, the book of Abraham says it's
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from Abraham's own hand. And then after it's after it's it's uh all translated,
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we find out that it this was just standard 300 BC stuff from the book of
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the dead that you find everywhere. So, it's like, look, we're we're if if your third option is the Mormon church just
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got this wrong, then that means that Joseph Smith got that wrong.
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No. Again, now you you called it a cope argument, but I what I said is there's a third possibility that the documents are
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not what was originally purchased. That's okay. Give me the evidence for that. I don't need to. I just said it's
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possible. You don't need to. Well, okay. Yeah. It's also you would agree it's you would agree that it's logically possible that
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Wolverine could exist as well, right? That's logically possible, right? Do you believe Wolverine exists?
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I don't personally believe Wolverine because of a lack of evidence perhaps. Sure. Well,
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I think that that's totally I think that's totally fair. So, if it's a case though, so if that's the case,
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he does exist. He does exist in the comic books materially. Does he materially exist? I see what she did. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you agree that this
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papyrus materially exists, not just in your mind like a leprechaun. If you wanted to get real philosophical about
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it and say concepts exist, I'm willing to say sure, unicorns exist, leprechauns exist, dreams exist, they're all
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concepts, but the thing is is like materially, if Wolverine doesn't exist and you don't believe he exists because
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of a lack of evidence, I would like for you, if this is your actual claim that
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Joseph Smith was not a total fraud when he decoded these things, to show me the evidence that this papyrus is fake and
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not the one that he used. I again when you're talking about you said yourself there was a fire correct that they had
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this in a museum. No, it was pre it was just presumed to be lost. That's it.
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But we have the chain of custody proving it was not. When you're talking about stuff like this though, when you're talking about
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things that are lost, Dead Sea Scrolls, what's there? What's not? The book of Abraham, all these things, right? You're
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also talking what you said chain of chain of custody. Well, you're telling me that there's no possibility the chain
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of custody was corrupted that people didn't get wrong right up front saying, "Hey, this is what we think it was."
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That's an argument from incredility or incredul. It's facious on its face. I
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can grant that all of these things can be logically possible. But you being incredulous about it is not evidence.
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I'm giving you actual evidence. So, here's the contrast. I'm giving you evidence, really solid evidence, that
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not only is this the papyrus, that Joseph Smith claims that this was done by Abraham himself, by Abraham's own
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hand on this papyrus, that the Mormon church itself went ahead and canonized this and said that that is indeed the
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real deal. Okay? They t they touted it for years as being the real deal until it got translated and then they have
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been remarkably silent about it. But it's still part of your official cannon. The custody, the chain of custody is
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provable. That's all evidence. You're giving me an argument from incredul asking Andrew, isn't there a possibility
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X, Y, and Z could have happened? Sure, there's a possibility a ninja assassin, got in a time machine, went back in
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time, right? Assassinated Joseph Smith, then hopped in the time machine again, went back, and then helped him translate
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these documents just to make a fool out of him. That's possible, right? It's not very It's not very
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likely though, right? And you would ask and demand evidence for such a claim, which is fair. So, we have the Star Wars theory now and
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now we have the Deadpool theory. Is that fair? Well, I mean, they're both your theories. Just saying. They're both your
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theories. So, the the question becomes this or what is the evidence for this claim? What is it?
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Okay. Well, but again, Andrew, when we're talking about Joseph Smith and we're talking about the things that he translated and we're talking about uh
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translation of the Book of Mormon and we're talking about having golden plates and the sear stone and translating that,
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is it possible that having a document even if and again I know you're going to say this is what if what if and I get
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that but when you're talking about translation and the book of Abraham has nothing to do with the Dead Sea Scroll.
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I'm sorry, not the Dead Sea Scrolls, the book of the Dead. Is it possible that those were the inspirations simply to
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bring forth revelation that helps us become closer to God? Because everything in Abraham 1 again, it's it's going
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about who Jehovah is. Exactly. I'm willing to grant both of these arguments. Actually, just grant them as
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both being true. The reason I haven't brought up things like the Seer Stones and stuff like this, the reason is is
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that I'm I like to at least think that I'm on the pathway of becoming a a logician one day. [laughter]
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And that uh one day when I finally do become a legician, I can look back at all of the great mistakes that I made
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and logical errors and point them out and say, "Wow, you really screwed that up." Uh but today is not going to be
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that day. So, when you have these two when you have these these two positions
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granted to you, I'm willing to concede that I can't create um uh easy
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falsifications for these things, but I don't need to. It's not necessary for me to create falsifications for things
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which aren't really falsifiable when I can point to things which are and then make the contrast to Deuteronomy in
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order to understand whether or not I'm being, as you would put it, conned. Am I being conned? So, I haven't brought any
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of these external things up, the reading the out of the hat, things like that because they're tangential ultimately to
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my argument here. When we're talking about this, the Book of Abraham, this is canonized, canonized uh as part of the
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Mormon Bible. This is uh uh something which you have to account for. You have
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to give an accounting for it. The accounting for it, we have strong evidence this was a fraud. The evidence
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in fact is overwhelmingly on my side that this is a fraud. All you've offered up is a counter to that and your first
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argument was isn't it possible in the chain of custody something happened something like this. That's an argument from incredul so it can be dismissed.
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It's not counter evidence. The second now that you're bringing up is but Andrew couldn't this have just been used
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as inspiration perhaps. But you have a problem. And the problem is right away
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in the book of Abraham. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt called the
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book of Abraham written by his own hand upon papyrus. And the thing is is that
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this is the papyrus which is being referenced. And this is the writings which he says Abraham wrote while he was
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in Egypt. And we have the translation and that is categorically false. It is
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categorically false. So, how how does this just the idea for inspiration would still be under false pretext?
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Let me ask you this, Kander. Um, how much of the papyrus do we have that was not destroyed?
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Most of it. We'll say most of it. What was the original record the the witnesses that
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saw this papyrus? What do you know how they described it? Uh, actually I do. I have it uh written
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down here. Uh, but I believe that they described it as being exactly what it was. uh and the the Mormon church itself
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said that that was the case when they canonized it. Well, what I mean by that is when you're
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talking about let's say a few pages, right? So, enough that you can you can
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read some of it. The witnesses said that that scroll was over 40 ft long and what
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we have now is fits on a card table. So, again, papyrus, you could go
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historically and you could say papyrus was actually used over and over and over. Which witnesses made this claim?
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Uh, okay. Well, that goes back to the same thing of what what witnesses said
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that that was the same scroll. I will find it though. But anyway, while I look
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it up, I don't think that's really interesting. Well, the thing is
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I know what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the most interesting, right? [laughter] Because No, no, no. What I mean is if me I don't
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think it's interesting me looking it up is all that interesting. uh go and uh hey let me let me go through here and
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find the sourcing. Uh it's I know it's in the church history volumes which they
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are massively huge. Um yes they are. That's not that's not a
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joke. I I understand that. So I think you're looking for uh Oliver Oliver Cry
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maybe one of them. Yeah, he's one of them. Uh the problem is is these witnesses give conflicting testimony, don't they? They
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give conflicting testimony as to what the papyrus actually was. Some describe it as two rolls, some don't. Some
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describe it as just fragments, which makes sense because that's what they look like uh to the museum was just
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fragments. But even if that was the case, let's just grant it. Let's just grant that it was the case.
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And just so you know, you you said Oliver County, William W. Phelps was another one. Eyewitnesses estimated in a
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letter letter from WW Phelps. The scrolls are described as extensive, possibly leading later commentators to
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estimate them between 20 and 40 ft, likely multiple scrolls combined. So again, one versus two, you're you
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depending on who depending on who you talk to. So we have eyewitness testimony which is conflicted, right? But the Mormon church
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itself who says that this is legitimate and the real deal. And we have and we have a chain of custody and the all we
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got was, "Hey, guess what guys? Um, this is from the book of the dead and we can
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make comparisons to many, many other scrolls like this from the book of the dead and all you can give me is conflicting testimony from the witnesses
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which is not good and I can give you the chain of custody, the falseness itself of the translations. Not to mention that
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this is the second uh instance where I can give you a major prophecy which led to an entire inspiration for the book of
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Abraham which is categorically false. It can't be true. So the chain I'm I'm com
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not confused. I I'm interested in the the chain of custody because we all know
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that when you have a chain of custody, military police f this up all the time. I was a former MP. We talked about that
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before. But is there any way to prove same thing that you're saying who are
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these witnesses? Is there any way to prove the chain of custody is accurate? Yes. Well, I mean, yeah, that's what you
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you have a chain of custody for. scholars have indeed gone back and in my opening, if you'll remember, I gave you
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uh the timeline for the papyrus. If you'd like to, I can do so again. Yeah. Well, I'd like you to I'd like you
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to provide the chain of custody. What What's the sourcing you have on that? Yeah. So, hang on a second. Let me go
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back uh to my summarization here. Okay. So, 1835, uh Joseph Smith buys the
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papyrie from a traveling merchant, right? Can we agree that that's true? I I believe that's the story. Yeah.
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Yeah. Okay. Uh and claims that they were writings from Abraham and Jacob pinned by their own hands from the time they
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were in Egypt. Right. Okay. Uh he went on to translate the portion which he claimed were Abraham's writings. The
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translation became part of the Mormon scriptures uh specifically the Pearl of Great Price being canonized in 1880. Do
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you agree with that? Yeah, sure. Okay. It was translated after his death. The papyrie exchanged hands and most of them ended up in
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Chicago. They ended up in Chicago. [snorts] uh and are destroyed.
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Are are we do we have how they got to Chicago? Who took them to Chicago? I I can pull that up. Yes. But it was
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verified. This is the church's account, by the way. This is the church's account of these things. Uh so they ended up in
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Chicago. They were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 was the presumption. uh but they actually
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survived and ended up in the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1946 and they were given to the LDS church in
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' 67. So the uh Metropolitan Museum in New York actually uh gives us some
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insight here. So does the Mormon church for who they were given to and the fact that they were given to the LDS church
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back in ' 67. We do have a pretty clear chain of custody here. This is the church's own account of this
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and and again the church has been misled and has been wrong and there's I'm not
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saying that everything is perfectly was who were they misled by in this case though
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it could it be by the by the whether it's the Joseph Smith
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the salesman the guy who s you sell it to Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith goes
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okay man this is the inspired word of Abraham written by his own hand. How do
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you blame the salesman for that? No. No. You Well, so what I'm saying is
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you've got Joseph Smith who is going through and this guy comes to him and says, "Hey, $88,000, right?" And Joseph
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Smith going, "We we don't have a lot of money here, but this seems like it's it's worth it." And as you said,
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something comes out of it, the translation. And the entire part of the trans all of the book of Abraham is
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about again is about testifying of Jesus Christ. It's about a positive thing.
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It's about whether the sourcing comes from the papyrus or the sourcing comes
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from the inspiration of Joseph Smith translating what he had, it's still a good thing that comes out of it.
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Can I ask you a question? Did Jim Jones make testimonies in the name of Jesus Christ? I couldn't care less what Jim Jones
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said. Did Jim Jones make testimony in the name of Jesus Christ? I don't know. I don't follow Jim Jones.
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Yeah. The answer is yes. Would you believe that Jim Jones at least made testimony in the name of Jesus Christ?
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He probably did. So did the dude. You saying the dude who just shot the two. So you saying So you making the
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kind of bold claim here that because he adds the word Jesus Christ and that somehow makes it true is absurd. many
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false prophets which were warned about and I gave you all the various passages of how many false prophets were
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predicted by by almost all the apostles in fact who had writings which survived all of them spoke about this phenomenon.
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You saying that because he references Jesus Christ and that's a good thing is a non-argument. And here's why it's a
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non-argument. Because obviously Jim Jones can reference it, by the way. Did you There was another cult, Charles
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Manson. Didn't they reference Jesus Christ? Sure. There's many, many cults which reference Jesus Christ. Why?
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Because Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the light. Because of that, because you and I know that this is a
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fact, the enemy will often use the prongs of humanity in order to be what
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is considered the wolf in sheep's clothing and come in the name of Christ in order to mislead. That's what all the
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apostles claimed was going to happen. And so you saying that he added some Jesusy stuff does not make this true.
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And saying, well, it's a good thing because he's trying to expand the testimony of Christ. That's exactly what
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we were warned about here. So, I need to know, how is it that the Mormon church says that this is true?
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Well, first I said, you know, again, when you're talking about the papyrus itself, I I do think there's some
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questions about if that's the actual papyrus because I have said the church has been misled on ancient documents
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before, like by Mark Hoffman. Okay. Um, Joseph F. Smith said it among others that he recalls going to the Nauvoo
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House, seeing the scrolls unrolled, and from one of the house to the other. So, It is possible. I'm not sitting here and
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saying, "Yep, those are the exact scrolls that what was given to Joseph Smith and then it went from Joseph Smith
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to the museum to this to this." I'm saying, "Yeah, it sounds like there's a pretty good possibility that there's a
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difference between the scrolls that Joseph Smith had versus the scrolls we have now simply because again, there was
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a major fire and you're talking about 200 years. Things get misplaced. There's stuff all over the place right now. We
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have no idea what is real, what is not, what's been accurately documented in any
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library realistically. However, however, yes, we do. That [laughter] is most
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certainly a false uh statement by you. Yes, we most certainly have libraries
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which have welldocumented histories of their books and we know exactly what comes in and what comes out. That's an
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absurd statement on its face. That's just absurd to say out loud. I'm not saying everything, Andrew. I'm
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saying libraries have been misled and they've misplaced things as well. This is just again an argument from
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incred from incredility and you saying like I'm just incredulous because uh by
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the way do you honestly think that the Metropolitan Museum New York in 19 1946
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that they just had really bad recordeping? I don't think so. You know [laughter]
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No, I'm saying before it even got to the Metropolitan it could have been in in
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the wrong custody. There was a you said there was a major fire right so if
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there's this major fire there's no what's the evidence that these things went through this fire just
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because there was a presumption that they what I said said to you is that there was a presumption they were lost
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in the fire not that they ever actually went through one how did they pro how did they prove after the fire that those were the same
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papyrus or those same You should ask your church because they claim they are you should ask your church your church
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is the one who ratified this and it hasn't part of their cannon.
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Don't you think they did their due diligence? Dude, again though, when you're talking about the and saying this is the papyrus and
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it's 40 ft long versus what we have today. Is it I understand everything on
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religion is about possibility. Everything, all of it. We believe in the Bible because we kneel down and we pray
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and say, "All right, heavenly father, okay, God, tell me that this is real. Show me in my heart that this is real."
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And your journey I'm guessing your church fathers, you believe that they're inspired as prophets as well, at least
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to some degree, right? Sure. I don't Well, they canonized it. They canonized
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it, dude. And said it was the real deal. The the message. Yeah. The words.
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No. No. The papyrus itself, the papyrus itself, they said is real. They made the
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claim that this is the real deal. You're church fathers. And if most fragments were destroyed in those that fire,
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you're still in a situation where you say, "Yes, these are accurate." That was not the claim of your church.
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Your church did not claim that, oh, most of this was destroyed in some fire. That
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is not what they claimed. They claimed that this was the legitimate papyrus which was translated by Joseph Smith.
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Those were their early claims. Did they say these are the full records, the full papyrus that Joseph Smith
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translated? this this is everything that Joseph Smith had. We've got the whole thing. Or did they say, "Hey, yeah, this
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this part that would be irrelevant." They still canonized that as being as being the
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papyrus in which Joseph Smith made these translations and it was completely a fabrication and an
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obvious fabrication. By the way, let let's just can we just point out to the absurdity that a traveling salesman just
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so happens to have the scroll of Abraham written by Abraham's own hand and then
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hands it to Joseph Smith for a few thousand bucks. Like, that doesn't immediately raise massive alarm bells in
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your brain. Well, considering the Bible has a talking donkey, I don't think it's the craziest claim.
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What? Okay, wait a second. Let's let's back up. Even if everything in the Bible
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was false, which wouldn't help your case at all, right? You're trying to create a falsification. I'm not falsification
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here has no bearing or merit on the fact that uh immediately we start with having to
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suspend this disbelief of the chances that a traveling salesman just so
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happens to come by the Mormons give them something which is uh written in Egyp
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Egyptian sells it to them and it just so happens to be pinned by Abraham himself.
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Now, mind you, we've had crusades up to this point. We've been all over the Middle East. We've been people have been
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scrging up every bit of biblical documentation they could for, you know, roughly 1,800 years before this happens.
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And just so happens that this guy picks up a scroll and he's just rolling by and
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he's like, "Oh, hey guy, self-declared prophet of God. Take this." And then the he goes through and he reads it and
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translates it and says it's from Abraham's own hand. You don't think that
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that is a bit of a stretch immediately? We at the time there were a lot of
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discoveries going on in Egypt, right? All the tombs, people were doing a lot of archaeological digs. The Dead Sea
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Scrolls didn't come along. If you'd said in 1830, "Hey, I've got these clay pots
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that are full of these papyrus." People would have gone, "Wow, that's crazy.
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Let's Yeah. Okay. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which verified all of the text up to that point."
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[laughter] Sure. Joseph Smith didn't he didn't verify the text. He made new text.
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[laughter] What I'm saying is what I'm saying is that the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls, if if it had been, hey, I found
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this. I gave this and passed on. It would have been seen as, okay, yeah, hey, this dude has these scrolls. He
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found them in a cave. It wouldn't have been that outrageous in the 18 early 1800s. That was going on in the 1800s.
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They were finding people were going in and stealing from tombs and things were getting passed on. But I I had a note
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that actually would make my case, right? Yes, you're right. They found that people in the 1800s and by the way even
27:20
earlier than that because there was gold and treasure inside of many of these tombs that tomb thiefs would go in and
27:26
they would steal and then they would sell these various things. It's no shock to me that at the same exact time that
27:32
these massive tomb theft thefts were going on and being sold all over the world to collectors, private collectors,
27:38
various things like this that a traveling merchant in the United States would happen to get his hands on a piece of an Egyptian book of the dead. What I
27:46
mean, it's almost like you're making my my uh my point for me here, man. But I'm really not because now you said
27:51
the LDS church, and I had a note passed to me. The LDS church historically claimed that the the papyrie were
27:57
destroyed in the great fire of Chicago in 1871. And this was the official, as
28:02
you said, assumption for many decades. However, that changed in 1967 when some of the fact fragments of the papyrie
28:09
were rediscovered, leading to a nuance position. Today we only have part of the original collection and some or most may
28:16
still have been destroyed. Yeah. Why don't you pull up though, whoever that notegiver is, and have him
28:21
tell you about how the LDS church was touting this as a great victory for
28:26
them. The fact that they had recovered the lost papyrie and that they they
28:32
really made a big to-do out of it until it got translated because at the time there was no way to translate it until
28:39
we found a way to translate it. and then it became completely falsified and they changed their tune on this. So e either
28:46
either you're going to have to concede of at least one of a few points here. Either a is it logical and reasonable to
28:53
assume that while tomb thefts were going on in Egypt and it happens a fragment of the book of the dead ends up in a
28:59
merchant's hand who then sells it to Joseph Smith who then declares that it's the book the hand of Abraham himself.
29:06
Okay. And the church claims that these are lost in a fire. turns out that they weren't. Then they go out they go ahead
29:12
and say this is actually uh part of the papyrus at the very least part of it. Um
29:19
that either they were wrong or Smith was wrong. Somebody's wrong here, man. Some somebody coming through the chain here
29:25
got it wrong real bad. Right. They didn't they didn't get stuff right here as we're going through it.
29:31
So, okay. Again, I I I go back to when you have the Book of Mormon and you have
29:39
the plates, right? And Joseph Smith translates these and you they take him to an Egyptologist in New York and he
29:46
says, "Yeah, this is a good translation." Then he turns around and says, "Oh, no, no, f that. You're you're with them Mormons." No. Takes back the
29:52
certificate of authenticity and blows it up, right? So if you're talking about
29:58
this 40 this this long papyrus for and Joseph Smith says okay here's what this
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says and he's inspired to translate it and the inspiration is from the scrolls
30:10
then I don't see a problem with it if the if what you're reading is in line
30:15
with the teachings of Jesus Christ and in you can say well then you'll be fooled by anything got it but when
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you're saying the inspiration of the translation and the miraculousness of the translation is
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what was miraculous about the translation that it was translated from the scroll and it was inspired and then written
30:34
into yeah it was translated from the scroll that we we have now actually translated
30:40
and it was wrong how is that a miracle that's the opposite of a miracle is is I'd be curious to go back and see
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the scroll we have today what parts of it are still in place and which parts
30:54
are not because neither of us know that we we actually I have a I have a picture of it
30:59
I think I can share. It's very public information. 40 is it 40 40t long?
31:05
Yeah, but not all the witnesses said it was 40t long, did they? It's very conflicted what these witnesses claim.
31:10
And again, the chain of custody is on my side, not on yours. And on top of all of
31:16
that, even if it was the case, there's no reason for us to assume that Abraham was like, "Oh, I'm going to pin this
31:22
entire thing on this 40ft scroll." And uh also, uh there's going to be the book
31:27
of the dead in there for no particularly good reason that anybody can ascertain, which makes no sense. From 300 BC, the
31:34
time frame doesn't even make sense. None of the time frame would even make sense. from the time of Abraham to the to the
31:40
Egyptians stuffing mummies within the tomb of the like none of that would make sense. So the the ultimately what you
31:47
would have to demonstrate here is a that this traveling merchant gave him the
31:53
actual book of Abraham pinned by Abraham's own hand. Give me a timeline how that would make sense to include the
31:58
book of the dead and how your how your church got this so demonstrabably wrong when they touted this thing as being the
32:06
actual written word of Abraham himself.

I know Andrew knows nothing about Mormonism, the last thing I heard him say was rudely dunking on a girl when he found out she was LDS, saying her prophet is in prison for heinous crimes (mistaking Warren Jeffs to be the LDS prophet). She couldn't correct him, partly because she may not know what he was referencing but, also, he was being very obnoxious. A critic who prides themselves on logic while committing the fundamental category errors, conflating the FLDS and the LDS Church. If Wilson is operating from a position of absolute logic, he’s vulnerable to the very standards he tries to set.

Here are some of Andrew's arguments, why the reasoning is flawed, and what the LDS scholarly position is.

Argument from Incredulity and the "Ninja Assassin"

Wilson uses the "Ninja Assassin" analogy to mock the possibility for the Catalyst Theory or the Lost Scroll Theory. It's a Reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity). His logic is if you can just invent an unprovable, 'miraculous' theory to keep your faith alive, then I can invent an equally unprovable, 'fantastic' theory to tear it down (I can say a ninja went back in time to make a fool of Joseph Smith)."

Stephen Smoot points out that the Missing Scroll theory isn't invented out of thin air to save face, it is based on contemporary eyewitness accounts from the 1840s, like those of Charlotte Haven and others, who described the length and appearance of the scrolls in ways that do not match the small fragments we have today. Joseph Smith’s "translation" was a revealed process. If Joseph was using the papyri as a catalyst for revelation (The Catalyst Theory), then the content of the ink becomes secondary to the inspiration received. Wilson's logic is a bit circular, "Joseph is a fraud because he didn't translate linguistically; I know he didn't translate linguistically because he's a fraud."

The Missing Papyrus as a Cope

Wilson calls the missing scroll theory a "cope."

According to Smoot, this is simply the math. Eyewitness descriptions like those from Jerusha Walker Blanchard describe long, beautiful scrolls. The fragments recovered in 1967, the "Small Sensen" text, account for only a tiny fraction of the original purchase.

Misuse of Burden of Proof. Andrew assumes LDS scholars must prove a specific reconstruction of the lost papyri. Historical reconstruction always involves probability, not certainty. When evidence is fragmentary, multiple viable models remain legitimate. Therefore, Andrew’s model is not falsifiable either, he simply prefers it.

Either Joseph Smith Was Wrong, or Abraham Wrote the Book of the Dead

Andrew repeatedly frames the issue as a forced binary. Either Joseph Smith falsely translated Egyptian funerary texts, or Abraham authored the Egyptian Book of the Dead. This framing excludes well-documented alternatives recognized in both LDS and non-LDS Egyptology.

Stephen Smoot explicitly rejects this binary. The Book of Abraham is not required to be a direct, word-for-word translation of the extant papyri Joseph Smith’s use of "translation" reflects 19th-century prophetic language, not modern philological terminology. Ancient texts were often used as revelatory catalysts, not sources in the modern academic sense. Smoot notes that ancient Jewish and early Christian pseudepigrapha regularly attribute texts to ancient patriarchs without implying autograph authorship. Andrew’s dilemma assumes a modern documentary standard that neither Joseph Smith nor ancient religious communities operated under.

Written by His Own Hand upon Papyrus

Andrew insists the phrase “written by his own hand upon papyrus” must mean Abraham personally authored the physical papyrus Joseph Smith possessed. Its Anachronistic Literalism Andrew imposes modern legal-document expectations onto ancient and pre-modern religious language.

Smoot points out that, "Written by his own hand" is a known ancient literary trope, not a forensic claim. Biblical texts use similar language without implying physical autograph manuscripts. Egyptian and Jewish scribal cultures routinely used ascribed authorship to convey authority and tradition.

Example:

The Book of Daniel claims first-person authorship, yet critical scholars agree it was compiled centuries later. Andrew selectively literalizes LDS scripture while granting flexibility to biblical texts, a double standard.

We Have the Papyrus Joseph Smith Used

Andrew asserts there is a "proven chain of custody" and claims the extant fragments must be what Joseph Smith translated. 

Smoot emphasizes eyewitness accounts consistently describe scrolls far longer than what survives today. The Chicago Fire in 1871 plausibly did destroyed a significant portion of the collection. The LDS Church’s 19th-century assumption about the fragments discovered are not binding doctrinally and were revised once Egyptology matured.

No contemporaneous source explicitly states Joseph Smith translated only the surviving fragments. Andrew assumes completeness without evidence and dismisses contradictory eyewitness data.

Egyptologists Have Falsified the Translation

Andrew thinks because Egyptologists translate the fragments as funerary texts, Joseph Smith is falsified. Andrew assumes if a text does not linguistically equal the Book of Abraham, the revelation is false.

Smoot clarifies Egyptology can only evaluate what the papyri say, not how Joseph Smith received revelation. LDS scholarship does not claim the English Book of Abraham is a direct academic translation of the extant fragments. The Bible quotes many passages that do not exist in their supposed source texts.

Good Outcomes Don’t Make False Prophets True (Jim Jones Argument)

Andrew compares Joseph Smith to cult leaders, arguing moral or theological value proves nothing. This is rhetorical, not analytical.

Revelations must be evaluated on its own theological terms.

The LDS Church Changed Its Story

Andrew accuses the LDS Church of backpedaling once Egyptology developed, a Genetic Fallacy. He implies because understanding evolved, the claim must be false.

All religious traditions refine interpretations as knowledge grows. Biblical scholarship has radically revised views on authorship, dating, and composition without invalidating faith. Development is not dishonesty.

Overall Performance Unfortunately, Andrew won his little debate. He likes to control the narrative. He repeatedly forces his opponent to defend positions he lays out. He uses dismissive labeling as a rhetorical weapon. Reducing arguments to absurdity. Wilson demonstrated superior preparation for this, and so was able to catch his opponent off guard. While this wins points with his "ortho bro" audience, it can be seen as "punching down" when debating someone who is clearly not a trained apologist.

Edited February 19 by Pyreaux