Facsimiles Do Not Match Translation?

[kamenraider]

So what's Barney saying -- that some semitic redactor wrote out a copy of the Book of Abraham in egyptian hieratic writing and saw Hor's Book of Breathings and said "Oh wow, those vignettes would make great illustrations for the Book of Abraham" and put the two documents together or attached them or something, and then Hor's family said "Nooo! Give that back -- we need to put that in the catacombs along with Hor's mummy!" and then did so?

Edit: How does that help us understand how you can, say, read the name "Shulem" in the characters above Hor's hand in facsimile 3?

[Calm]

Kerry: where is the "Studies of the Book of Abraham?"

The third book (Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, by John Gee, Brian M. Hauglid) is available for reading here: http://www.farms.byu.edu/publications/booksmain.php

Click on the name for a list of the articles in the book.

Here is the info of the two other books off the FAIR website:

Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham

Hor Book of Breathings

I have all three. Too bad you don't live closer.

[e=mc2]

Kamenraider:

So what's Barney saying -- that some semitic redactor wrote out a copy of the Book of Abraham in egyptian hieratic writing and saw Hor's Book of Breathings and said "Oh wow, those vignettes would make great illustrations for the Book of Abraham" and put the two documents together or attached them or something, and then Hor's family said "Nooo! Give that back -- we need to put that in the catacombs along with Hor's mummy!" and then did so?

And my new post on my blog shows that the Jews did the same thing from Mesopotamian and Babylonian sources for the singular most important person in their Hebrew scriptures, the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. Yes, the Jews utilized the sources available to them for using to elucidate their doctrines, history, and beliefs. It didn't apparently matter to the Jews whether they borrowed, changed, utilized and amalgamated Egyptian, Babylonian, Ugaritic, North Semitic, or Assyrian and Babylonian sources either. That is what the evidence which Barney and myself and Kevin Christensen, David Bokovoy, Daniel C. Peterson, Bill Hamblin, Lou Midgley, and many others have been showing for years, all thanks to the patternistic thinking of the late great Hugh Nibley.

[kamenraider]

Thanks for replying to that, e=mc2. Now how about replying to the last part?

[e=mc2]

I don't know about Shulem enough yet to comment. Give me a few years. In the meantime, I can live with it. There is plenty to show me personally thatJoseph Smith is not only still in this ballgame, but he appears to be hitting more homeruns than critics are giving him credit for.

[cksalmon]

Kamenraider:

And my new post on my blog shows that the Jews did the same thing from Mesopotamian and Babylonian sources for the singular most important person in their Hebrew scriptures, the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53. Yes, the Jews utilized the sources available to them for using to elucidate their doctrines, history, and beliefs. It didn't apparently matter to the Jews whether they borrowed, changed, utilized and amalgamated Egyptian, Babylonian, Ugaritic, North Semitic, or Assyrian and Babylonian sources either. That is what the evidence which Barney and myself and Kevin Christensen, David Bokovoy, Daniel C. Peterson, Bill Hamblin, Lou Midgley, and many others have been showing for years, all thanks to the patternistic thinking of the late great Hugh Nibley.

Hi Kerry--

This strikes me as an apples-and-oranges comparison. For the sake of argument, let's assume the essential correctness of John H. Waltonâ??s theory (I note that you've never, in anything I've read or heard from you, actually questioned any of the scholarship that you take as supporting your own positions). We then are presented with a pre-existing trope adapted by Isaiah for larger theological purposes. And it was written by a Jew. In Hebrew. And comes down to us with a discernible manuscript history.

With BoA we have no discernible manuscript history (no transmission history), no Hebrew writing (which is arguably a minor point from an LDS perspective), and no consensus on what even counts (or would count) as the source of JS's "translation." So, Abraham borrowed some common illustrations and adapted them? It's logically possible. But it has precious little bearing on the question of the antiquity and genuineness of BoA.

Was there a missing scroll, Kerry? Or, is what is now in the possession of the LDS Church the source document for JS's BoA? What is the transmission history of BoA? Where was it for a couple thousand years before it got buried with Hor in AD 12 (or whenever)? And since JS's interpretation matches no one else's--ancient or modern--does the superficial similarity you've posited (not demonstrated) really matter that much? I can't see how it does.

Best.

CKS

[e=mc2]

CKSalmon:

So, Abraham borrowed some common illustrations and adapted them? It's logically possible. But it has precious little bearing on the question of the antiquity and genuineness of BoA.

Perhaps I was not as clear as I could have been. I am not arguing that Abraham himself borrowed the Egyptian materials, but a later Jewish redactor in line with Kevin Barney's article. My point is Jews certainly used existing materials when they felt it made points in their religion they could use for illustrative and didactic purposes.

[cksalmon]

CKSalmon:

Perhaps I was not as clear as I could have been. I am not arguing that Abraham himself borrowed the Egyptian materials, but a later Jewish redactor in line with Kevin Barney's article. My point is Jews certainly used existing materials when they felt it made points in their religion they could use for illustrative and didactic purposes.

Kerry--

While I appreciate your clarification, I don't find it probative of anything in particular--certainly not the Big Issues involved here.

I'm still interested in some your personal answers to these questions:

(1) Was there a missing scroll?

(2) Is what is now in the possession of the LDS Church the source document for JS's BoA?

(3) What is the transmission history of BoA?

(4) Where was it for a couple thousand years before it got buried with Hor in AD 12 (or whenever)?

This is purportedly a 4,000-year-old document. We have two transmissional hits. One in the first century (or thereabouts) from a funerary text that bears no resemblance to JS's interpretation, and then JS's interpretation itself from the nineteenth C. If the pattern holds true, every 2,000 years or so some form of this document shows up?

And you think, for additional compelling insights, we should read a book on Egyptian occult practices by a practitioner of ancient Egyptian religion and devotee of the goddess Isis? Kerry, you seem to have very little discernment when it comes to deploying random sources to support your convictions. But, then, you do regularly profess your allegiance to Nibley's patternistic thinking. I don't get it.

Best.

CKS

[e=mc2]

CKSalmon:

I'm still interested in some your personal answers to these questions:

(1) Was there a missing scroll?

(2) Is what is now in the possession of the LDS Church the source document for JS's BoA?

(3) What is the transmission history of BoA?

(4) Where was it for a couple thousand years before it got buried with Hor in AD 12 (or whenever)?

These aren't issues nearly as important to me as simply understanding the magnificent Book ofAbraham and its lessons for us, so I probably won't be much help for you.

[Jan]

So what's Barney saying -- that some semitic redactor wrote out a copy of the Book of Abraham in egyptian hieratic writing and saw Hor's Book of Breathings and said "Oh wow, those vignettes would make great illustrations for the Book of Abraham" and put the two documents together or attached them or something, and then Hor's family said "Nooo! Give that back -- we need to put that in the catacombs along with Hor's mummy!" and then did so?

KR - what do you think of the 3 non-LDS examples that Barney explains in his article?

[cksalmon]

CKSalmon:

These aren't issues nearly as important to me as simply understanding the magnificent Book ofAbraham and its lessons for us, so I probably won't be much help for you.

Kerry--

I don't see it. As you have done in the past, you refuse to answer direct questions I've raised about your research.

I'm asking for straight answers from you about the issues that have been raised. Granted that non-spiritual substantive questions are of less importance to you than the spiritual insights you find in BoA. But I'm asking some non-spiritual substantive questions of you personally.

I assume you have answers with which you're personally comfortable. Please share them. You purport to broadcast them in your podcasts and the articles on your site. But you don't seem capable of answering inquiries about your use of those sources. Or the conclusions you've drawn from them. I've asked you more than once about specific issues in your podcasts and have yet to receive any sort of answer. Even when you've stated that "[you'll] look into it."

You're more than ready to cite uncritically sources you deem supportive of your beliefs, but when asked specific questions, you punt to, in this instance, "understanding the magnificent Book of [] Abraham and its lessons for us" without reference to specific critical questions. You suggest, "I probably won't be much help for you." But, that's exactly my point. You don't seem willing to answer legitimate questions about your methodology or conclusions.

So, again.

I'm still interested in your personal answers to these questions:

(1) Was there a missing scroll?

(2) Is what is now in the possession of the LDS Church the source document for JS's BoA?

(3) What is the transmission history of BoA?

(4) Where was it for a couple thousand years before it got buried with Hor in AD 12 (or whenever)?

It just doesn't seem, based on your extant material, that you interact critically with any of your sources. I certainly haven't seen that sort of scholarly regimen in your materials. Who are you speaking to?

Let's get down to brass tacks here. I'm willing to be wrong. Are you? Perhaps if you'd answer the above questions, we could move on to more substantial questions. But, please, don't punt to the spiritual lessons of the BoA when, in your personal media, you're more than willing to invoke superficial parallels in defense of BoA's genuineness and antiquity.

CKS

[Jan]

You didn't ask me but I bet I can give some reasonably accurate non-expert answers:

So, again.

I'm still interested in your personal answers to these questions:

(1) Was there a missing scroll?

(2) Is what is now in the possession of the LDS Church the source document for JS's BoA?

(3) What is the transmission history of BoA?

(4) Where was it for a couple thousand years before it got buried with Hor in AD 12 (or whenever)?

(1) Dunno

(2) Probably (or most definitely) not

(3) Dunno, but JS most definitely did not "translate" something written directly by Abraham (i.e., an autograph)

(4) Who knows?

[kamenraider]

KR - what do you think of the 3 non-LDS examples that Barney explains in his article?

I didn't think they were necessary in order to prove to me that there could be an adoption/adaptation of Egyptian materials by Semitic people in general. The Book of Breathings for Hor doesn't seem to me like a good document to apply this idea to though, because it was created to be interred with a mummy by people that believed in Egyptian ideas regarding the afterlife and so it seems odd to me to propose that some Semitic redactor guy studied that particular document and happened to interpret it just the same way Joseph Smith did 1800 or so years later.

It would make more sense to me for the redactor guy to be Egyptian in his religious beliefs, but someone who still understood Semitic language, culture, and was familiar with the Book of Abraham text. Maybe he respected Abraham as much as Egyptians in Abraham's day did, and recognized Abraham as the source of some of their beliefs, thus feeling it appropriate to include a copy of the Book of Abraham with Hor's other funeral documents. I wouldn't attempt to use this idea to defend the explanations for the facsimiles though. I think they are obviously based on Joseph Smith's speculation (albeit remarkably inspired speculation in some instances IMO), rather than translation. I think Joseph Smith may have misunderstood the Book of Breathings scroll for Hor to be part of the Book of Abraham document -- maybe because it had a representation of a bedstead-like lion couch and gods near the beginning, and the Book of Abraham mentions these.

[Kevin Barney]

Here is a direct link to my article on the Facsimiles if anyone would care to read it:

http://farms.byu.edu/publications/bookscha...&chapid=168

I basically suggest that one possibility to keep on the table is that the relationship between the Facsimiles and the published interpretations is the same as the relationship between the vignette accompanying Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead to the Testament of Abraham. Whoever wrote the Testament was clearly basing his depiction of the Judgment scene on the psychostasy scene that accompanies Spell 125, yet he has adapted it as an illustration for his own text. So for him the figure on the throne is not Osiris, but rather the biblical Abel.

Was he wrong? As an interpretation of the vignette in its Egyptian context, yes. But as an adapted illustration of his own text, the Testament of Abraham, no, certainly not.

That's the basic idea in a nutshell. But if anyone is interested in this, I would encourage you to read the actual article, which gives other examples as well.

[Dan Vogel]

So again, the apologetic slant is to show that evidence is not really evidence of anything. This is why it does not make sense to offer evidence to an apologist. In matters of religion, in the end, there is only opinion and faith. So just stick with the faith and stop asking for evidence.

As usual, you miss the point. It's not the critics who are trying to convince believers not to believe, but the believers who are trying to convince the rest of the world why they should believe Mormonism. The burden is on believers, not critics. Believers put forth the BOA as a translation of ancient papyri. Critics tested that claim and found it wanting. What's happening here is apologists are making excuses for why a rare opportunity for testing JS's claims has failed in a big way. Of course, the apologists hang on to little bits of indirect evidence like life-preservers, which is understandable. But I think your demand that apologists change or else dialogue is useless is unrealistic, and assumes that the evidence is so convincing that everyone should see it the same way, immediately.

There never will be perfect evidence that will force everyone to agree. It simply doesn't exist, for anything, not just religion. The best one can hope for is to establish one's case beyond a reasonable doubt. If you opt out of the discussion because you can't convince the apologists, they have succeeded in silencing your voice and will move into that void. So I have to ask--why are you so easily persuaded by their arguments? Why have you let them define what evidence is? Apologists will continue to express unreasonable doubts about negative evidence, but they aren't the one's sitting in the jury box.

On a philosophical note: what you are advocating is fideism (Latin fides, "faith"), the view that religious truth is ultimately based on faith rather than reasoning or evidence. It has been asserted in many forms by anti-rationalist theologians from the days of the apostle Paul to the present. A few years ago, I responded to a paper Van Hale gave at Sunstone in which he took a similar view about BOM historicity, or rather to avoid discussing historicty problems. Judging by his recent presentations at FAIR and Sustone, Blake Ostler seems to hold a fideistic position. In a sense, all religions are Fideistic, but Van's position seemed to move from Augustine's moderate Fideism, expressed in the dictum: "I believe in order to know." To the extreme Fideism expressed by fourth-century theologian Tertullian: "I believe that which is absurd." Or rather: "I believe despite its absurdity." Faith in the absence of evidence is one thing, but faith in the face of contrary evidence is quite another. However, I can understand why an apologist might take this position, but I find it quite ironic that a critic would. Why would a critic would want to help apologists avoid the implications of negative evidence?

My guess is that you too are an apologist in need of escaping reason and evidence. So I'll ask you what I asked Van Hale: When confronted with evidence that conflicts with our faith, should it not lead us to question the process that leads to faith rather than to reject reason itself? At what point do we take a closer look at faith and our commitment to it?

[William Schryver]

cksalmon:

(1) Was there a missing scroll?

The extant papyri represent only a fraction of the original collection. It is debatable what the actual quantity of scroll material was originally. There is much contemporary testimony to suggest that there was originally considerably more than what has survived.

(2) Is what is now in the possession of the LDS Church the source document for JS's BoA?

No. However, as Nibely demonstrates in The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, there is an interesting relationship between the so-called "breathing permit" text and what we would understand to be temple rituals.

(3) What is the transmission history of BoA?

Direct revelation from God to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1835, through the medium of the Urim and Thummim.

(4) Where was it for a couple thousand years before it got buried with Hor in AD 12 (or whenever)?

Presumably in a location similar to that of the parchment of John "translated" as D&C 7, and the record of Moses and Enoch "translated" as the Book of Moses.

Incidentally, these particular scrolls are from the Ptolemaic era, not the Roman.

[Chris Smith]

Kevin,

Just to clarify, we have no evidence that the psychostasy scene was ever used "as an illustration" for the Testament of Abraham. What we have in the TestAbr is a description of a judgment scene, which merges Egyptian and Jewish apocalyptic imagery (the former being known chiefly from BoD 125). That's very different than, say, finding a Jewish document that includes an illustration from the Book of the Dead.

I think your theory is just fine insofar as it can stand on its own two feet. But insofar as it depends on Gee's awful missing papyrus model, it's in trouble. I recommend in particular that if you pursue this idea in print in the future, you divest your footnotes of the inference Gee draws from Gustavus Seyffarth's 1856 observation. I am shortly going to see to it that that particular inference is turned utterly on its head.

William,

While there is certainly a substantial quantity of material missing, including Facs 2 and the latter half of the Book of Breathings, I think that "contemporary testimony" does much less for the size of the missing material than some folks have argued. For example, in an essay on the translation timeline that I am currently in the process of writing, I argue that Joseph Smith never had more than a small fragment of the roll of Amenhotep (the length of which Gee estimates at 320 cm). The situation with the Neferirnub roll is fuzzier, but if JS had it he doesn't seem to have flaunted it, since most eyewitness testimony can be fairly reliably pinned on the extant collection.

-CK

[William Schryver]

CK:

While there is certainly a substantial quantity of material missing, including Facs 2 and the latter half of the Book of Breathings, I think that "contemporary testimony" does much less for the size of the missing material than some folks have argued. For example, in an essay on the translation timeline that I am currently in the process of writing, I argue that Joseph Smith never had more than a small fragment of the roll of Amenhotep (the length of which Gee estimates at 320 cm). The situation with the Neferirnub roll is fuzzier, but if JS had it he doesn't seem to have flaunted it, since most eyewitness testimony can be fairly reliably pinned on the extant collection.

Well, I am disinclined to go as far as Gee does in making the case for 40-foot-long scrolls. However, caught between the extremes of those who argue for scrolls stretching down the street and around the corner, and critics who argue for scrolls that would fit comfortably on a childâ??s desktop, I think I can reasonably take ground somewhere in the middle. And that position is that there was considerably more scroll material than has survived. Whether that material, if found, would contain the text of the Book of Abraham is entirely another discussion. But I cannot see any other reasonable conclusion from the contemporary testimony than that there was a lot more material then than there is now.

[cksalmon]

Hi Kevin--

I composed the following off-board. My sustained references to you in third-person form is not at all meant sneeringly.

See here.

--------------------------

As I'm sure Kevin is aware, his article "The Facsimiles and Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources" provides no positive apologetic for the genuineness and antiquity of BoA. Such was not his purpose and so I certainly won't fault him for failing to accomplish something he didn't set out to do.

The reason I say that his purpose was not to provide a positive apologetic is two-fold.

- 1 -

His argument is logically circular, or, in other words, if one were to read it as an attempt to commend the antiquity of BoA, one might have to read it as an extended exercise in begging the question, because, of course, Kevin's primary premise is that BoA is what it claims to be: an ancient document (which is not to be confused with the belief that the JS papyri are autographic writings of Abraham, which he is clear to point out). Still, because it is a given for Kevin that BoA is, in fact, true, his interesting article cannot be seen as a apologetic for that claim. Otherwise, he'd been assuming what he has set out to prove.

What is it? It reads to me more like intramural talking points--a faith-based article for LDS readers and thinkers interested in the issues surrounding the historicity of BoA. Certainly, there is nothing inherently wrong about an article of that nature.

- 2 -

Kevin posits in this article that a Semitic redaction theory has significant explanatory power. I suppose this is true, to an extent. It only has significant explanatory power, however, if one is already committed to the verity of BoA. If one is not so committed, the Jewish redactor (J-red) theory seems curiously ad hoc--though instead of being proposed as a means of dealing with a single issue, his theory actually, to his thinking, disposes of a number of criticisms leveled against BoA.

Kevin freely admits that his theory is completely hypothetical, thus: "What if they already existed and were either adopted or adapted by an Egyptian-Jewish redactor as illustrations of the attempt on Abraham's life and Abraham's teaching astronomy to the Egyptians?" and "(For convenience, I shall refer to this hypothetical Jewish redactor as 'J-red.')"

It should be stressed, then, that Kevin's theory rests entirely upon an unproven, undemonstrated hypothesis.

So, this isn't an apologetic defense of BoA.

But what is it? It reads to me more like intramural talking points--a faith-based article for LDS readers and thinkers interested in the issues surrounding the historicity of BoA. Certainly, there is nothing inherently wrong about an article of that nature.

But what's the point?

Kevin is clear, at least in an implicit sense (and occasionally in an explicit one), that the purpose of his theory is to solve or mitigtate problems for BoA. That's its apparent raison d'etre.

Thus:

"[Assuming the truth of the hypothesis] the ultimate question would not be 'What do the facsimiles mean to modern Egyptologists?' nor 'What would the facsimiles have meant to an ancient Egyptian?' but rather 'What would the facsimiles have meant to J-red?'"

In this way, Kevin's theory relieves BoA from having to interact successfully with either modern Egyptology or an ancient Egyptian milieu; rather, questions about BoA's lack of correspondence with either can be deferred to the hypothetical J-red. This doesn't actually solve any correspondence problems, of course, it just attributes them to a hypothetical figure.

Kevin's conclusions clearly demonstrate what he takes to be the explanatory power of the J-red hypothesis.

The following points correspond to the near-final section of his article here.

(1)

PROBLEM: "Based on present knowledge, the facsimiles appear to be vignettes that should date to a period of Egyptian history substantially (i.e., more than a millennium) removed from the time of Abraham. There is, therefore, an inherent dating anachronism involved in ascribing the facsimiles to Abraham."

DEPLOYMENT OF HYPOTHETICAL J-RED: ...

BENEFIT: "The Semitic Adaptation theory, by allowing separate provenances for the text of the Book of Abraham and its facsimiles, and by allowing the facsimiles to have their origin for Egyptian religious purposes, resolves this issue by permitting the adaptation to flow in the other direction."

The vignettes don't match Abraham's epoch. Kevin posits a hypothetical redactor to solve this problem.

(2)

PROBLEM: "[T]here remain substantial disconnects between the proffered explanations and those of the Egyptologists."

DEPLOYMENT OF HYPOTHETICAL J-RED: "The Semitic Adaptation theory fully explains why such disconnects exist."

BENEFIT: "Under this theory, the Egyptologists are no longer the final arbiters of the correctness of the explanations of the facsimiles."

If Kevin believed that this was an apologetic defense of BoA, it would be too convenient by half. He posits a hypothetical redactor to deal with the fact that Egyptological research fails to vindicate BoA.

(3)

PROBLEM: JS's explanations of the facsimiles do not match what the Egyptologists would expect to find in JS's reconstructions of the missing portions of the papyri.

DEPLOYMENT OF HYPOTHETICAL J-RED: "the Semitic Adaptation theory moots the question."

BENEFIT: "even if the priest standing to the left on Facsimile 1 were wearing the jackal mask of Anubis and did not hold a knife in his hand, it still would have been quite natural for J-red to perceive the scene as showing the attempted sacrifice of Abraham. Therefore, under this theory the details of the reconstruction of the facsimiles become largely immaterial vis-