Some Puzzles from the John Gee Paper

[William Schryver]

Using MM's technique to calculate thickness, the other scrolls are:

Noufianoub = 0.0525 cm, which is about 110-120 lb paper (105 lb paper is 0.0445 cm thick)

Semminis = 0.0398 cm, which is about 85 lb paper

Horus (using Gee's data) = 0.00477 cm, which is about 8 lb paper!

Somehow, I suspect there is something fatally flawed with your calculations. Probably starting with the fact that a wrapped papyrus and a ream of paper have little in common.

[dblagent007]

Somehow, I suspect there is something fatally flawed with your calculations. Probably starting with the fact that a wrapped papyrus and a ream of paper have little in common.

Will, I have no dog in this fight. If my calculations are wrong, then MM's calculations are wrong too since I just used his method. I provided the comparison to paper that we are familiar with today (common printer and copy paper is 16-24 lbs) so that people could get a real world feel for the thicknesses that we are talking about. For what it's worth, the thickness of the Horus scroll as calculated by MM is about double the thickness of the Noufianoub scroll.

The essence of the dispute here is that MM believes the Horus scroll is really thick and Gee believes it is really thin. Someone is clearly wrong, but I can't determine which one. I would like to hear Gee's thoughts on this. Perhaps he has seen the Horus scroll and can tell us that it is very thin compared to the Noufianoub and the Semminis scrolls. Also, maybe he can explain the flaw in MM's methodology (I suspect that if there is a flaw, it has something to do with the use of the jpeg picture to obtain the measurements).

[Mortal Man]

The essence of the dispute here is that MM believes the Horus scroll is really thick and Gee believes it is really thin. Someone is clearly wrong, but I can't determine which one. I would like to hear Gee's thoughts on this. Perhaps he has seen the Horus scroll and can tell us that it is very thin compared to the Noufianoub and the Semminis scrolls. Also, maybe he can explain the flaw in MM's methodology (I suspect that if there is a flaw, it has something to do with the use of the jpeg picture to obtain the measurements).

I have twice redone my analysis using Chris' scaled images. My new estimate for the maximum length of the original scroll is 199 cm, with no more than 124 cm of missing papyrus. I edited my OP to incorporate my latest estimate, which should be more accurate for the following reasons:

(1) It does not rely on a scale factor.

(2) It incorporates data from an additional winding.

(3) The thickness estimate is consistent between windings.

(4) A, B, C and D are the result of averaging half a dozen measurements, in which corresponding locations in each of the lacunae were identified.

I have listed all of my measurements and calculations, such that anyone interested can check each step of my analysis. I invite everyone to search my OP for errors.

Will,

I emailed Prof. Gee, but I suspect that he would be more likely to respond to you than to me. Can you ping him to see if he'd be willing to look at this? Also, perhaps the mods can pin this somewhere until Prof. Gee has a chance to critique it.

MM

[Chris Smith]

Hey Mortal,

Thanks for the update of your OP. Our results are very similar. And most importantly, they agree with the eyewitness evidence (most notably Gustavus Seyffarth's 1956 statement) that there was no record of Abraham after the Book of Breathings on the roll.

Great work here.

Best,

-Chris

[William Schryver]

Hey Mortal,

Thanks for the update of your OP. Our results are very similar. And most importantly, they agree with the eyewitness evidence (most notably Gustavus Seyffarth's 1956 statement) that there was no record of Abraham after the Book of Breathings on the roll.

Great work here.

Best,

-Chris

I don't mean to "niggle" over details, but I think you mean Seyffarth's 1856 statement -- although I might take exception with your interpretation of that statement.

Either that or you're confusing this with Josiah Quincy's 1956 account of his visit with Joseph Smith in 1845.

[Chris Smith]

I don't mean to "niggle" over details, but I think you mean Seyffarth's 1856 statement -- although I might take exception with your interpretation of that statement.

Either that or you're confusing this with Josiah Quincy's 1956 account of his visit with Joseph Smith in 1845.

lol! Good catch.

[PacMan]

MM,

199 cm? That's 6 feet, 6 1/2 inches. That's taller than I am (which means nothing to you, I know)! I would call that a lengthy scroll, and believe it would substantiate Joseph F. Smith's recollection from seeing it in the Nauvoo House. Clearly it's not 41 feet, but even your estimate produces a good deal of papyri long since lost.

PacMan

[Mortal Man]

MM,

199 cm? That's 6 feet, 6 1/2 inches. That's taller than I am (which means nothing to you, I know)! I would call that a lengthy scroll, and believe it would substantiate Joseph F. Smith's recollection from seeing it in the Nauvoo House. Clearly it's not 41 feet, but even your estimate produces a good deal of papyri long since lost.

PacMan

Keep in mind that 199 cm is an estimate for the maximum possible length, not the actual length. I believe the actual length was closer to 135 cm, since the text so closely follows Papyrus Louvre N. 3284.

Also, remember that Gee's 41' figure is just for the missing section, such that the total scroll would have been ~43.5'.

[Chris Smith]

MM,

199 cm? That's 6 feet, 6 1/2 inches. That's taller than I am (which means nothing to you, I know)! I would call that a lengthy scroll, and believe it would substantiate Joseph F. Smith's recollection from seeing it in the Nauvoo House. Clearly it's not 41 feet, but even your estimate produces a good deal of papyri long since lost.

PacMan

Understand, however, that 199 cm is the original dimensions of the roll. The portion missing from the end of the roll, which alone would have been intact as a roll during the Nauvoo period when five-year-old President Smith viewed the papyri, is no more than 120-something cm, or about 4 feet. The remainder of the Hor Book of Breathings would fill at least half that, which means there is, at the most, two feet of space (accommodating about three columns of hieratic text) for a missing Book of Abraham. That's hardly room for a biography of the patriarch. I doubt that even the extant English text could be translated into a mere three columns of hieratic, and the extant English text is incomplete; Cowdery suggested that it would fill "large volumes" when finished!

Moreover, Mortal Man's analysis assumes that the change in wrapping lengths over the first two wraps is normative for the rest of the roll. This is not necessarily the case. From what I can tell, the change in length between the two innermost extant wrappings is about twice the change in length between the outermost wrappings that MM took as normative. That suggests that the inner, missing portion of the papyrus may have been thicker or more loosely wrapped than the extant outermost portion. If the length-change of the innermost wrapping is taken as normative rather than that of the outermost wrapping, we get exactly the sixty centimeters of missing papyrus we'd expect for the remainder of the Hor Book, and nothing more. The length-change for the innermost wrapping, incidentally, is more typical of papyrus rolls of the Ptolemaic period than is the outermost wrapping.

There's also the possibility that there was some kind of solid core in the center of the roll, which cannot be strictly ruled out.

My own linear regression analysis, taken from the same photos that MM worked with, put the length of the missing portion at about 85 centimeters. I believe that linear regression is a more accurate method, because it accounts for the inner wrappings as well as the outer ones, without privileging either.

Neither my nor Mortal Man's estimates agree with Nibley's probably-misremembered statement that the papyrus when unrolled stretched through two rooms of the Mansion House.

Best,

-Chris

[Mortal Man]

Moreover, Mortal Man's analysis assumes that the change in wrapping lengths over the first two wraps is normative for the rest of the roll. This is not necessarily the case. From what I can tell, the change in length between the two innermost extant wrappings is about twice the change in length between the outermost wrappings that MM took as normative. That suggests that the inner, missing portion of the papyrus may have been thicker or more loosely wrapped than the extant outermost portion. If the length-change of the innermost wrapping is taken as normative rather than that of the outermost wrapping, we get exactly the sixty centimeters of missing papyrus we'd expect for the remainder of the Hor Book, and nothing more. The length-change for the innermost wrapping, incidentally, is more typical of papyrus rolls of the Ptolemaic period than is the outermost wrapping.

There's also the possibility that there was some kind of solid core in the center of the roll, which cannot be strictly ruled out.

My own linear regression analysis, taken from the same photos that MM worked with, put the length of the missing portion at about 85 centimeters. I believe that linear regression is a more accurate method, because it accounts for the inner wrappings as well as the outer ones, without privileging either.

Chris likes to keep rubbing my face in the fact that I haven't examined JSP X.

Actually, Chris makes a very good point. If the papyrus had any strength; i.e., resistance to deformation; i.e., tendency to return to it's original shape, then each winding would "press out" against windings at larger radii, such that the outermost windings would be subject to the cumulative force of all inner windings and hence be more tightly pressed together. Also, the inner windings have a smaller radius of curvature and hence are more deformed than the outer windings. It's hard to roll a sheet of paper up from the very core because the deformation of the innermost winding is so severe.

[William Schryver]

Has anyone ventured to inquire of Professor Gee yet?

[Mortal Man]

Has anyone ventured to inquire of Professor Gee yet?

Yes, I sent him an email (see post 28). I don't think he'll answer me though. I think he'd be more likely to respond to someone he knows, e.g., you.

[William Schryver]

Yes, I sent him an email (see post 28). I don't think he'll answer me though. I think he'd be more likely to respond to someone he knows, e.g., you.

I just talked to him and he claims to have sent you a lengthy reply yesterday afternoon, about 4:00pm.

[Mortal Man]

I just talked to him and he claims to have sent you a lengthy reply yesterday afternoon, about 4:00pm.

I'll check my spam filters...

[MAsh]

I just talked to him and he claims to have sent you a lengthy reply yesterday afternoon, about 4:00pm.

How 'bout getting someone to post Gee's response here.

[Mortal Man]

How 'bout getting someone to post Gee's response here.

Where's my FedEX?

[MAsh]

Where's my FedEX?

It was returned to me. ...said there were no mortal men at the address I gave them.

[MAsh]

I've been in contact with John Gee and he gave me permission to post the following excerpt from an email he sent to "Mortal Man."

Dear Brother ...,

You asked me to look at your analysis. I generally avoid the message boards as they take

a good amount of time that is better spent elsewhere. I assume that you are writing under

the pseudonym "Mortal Man". I have the following observations:

(1) Unfortunately, your images are not available to me; I get an error message when I try

to look at them. I cannot see the basis of your measurements. I also see that you do not

address the issues of photographic distortion in your analysis. Until you do, your

measurements will be problematic.

(2) I understand your attempt at calculation and it is a good first step, but you are

operating only with geometry when the continually changing radius demands the use of

calculus. You ought to read Hoffmann's study. There is little point in reinventing the

wheel. He has looked at the entire problem whereas you are only at the beginning stages,

and he lays out the argument rather clearly. All I have done is plug the data into his

formula which is the standard one in Egyptology. I am working within the standards set in

my discipline. I have provided two different ways to deal with the problem of the lacuna

yielding two different calculations.

Your analysis reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about Egyptian practices for using

scrolls. Hoffmann, who has considerable experience working with original documents,

explains how things work in his article and what assumptions he uses in his calculations.

They are entirely reasonable to me and I have seen no reason to change them. Again, I am

working within the accepted parameters of my discipline. No one debates the results of

the calculations on the other two scrolls. If there is a problem with the assumptions or

the formula, then the proper thing to do is challenge Hoffmann in the Egyptological

publications and show what difference the result will create in his original test case.

(3) Now, step back, if you will, to the larger issue.

We know from the nineteenth century eyewitness testimony that both Mormons and

non-Mormons identify the "long roll" as being the source of the Book of Abraham. For

years I assumed that this meant the Semminis roll. The calculations changed my mind, but

I have no problem changing back to my previous position. The calculations provide an

educated guess about the length of the rolls. For Latter-day Saints, the attempt to match

the currently known rolls to the eyewitness descriptions is interesting, but ultimately

does not matter since we know from the eyewitness descriptions that the fragments that

ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of art are excluded from being the source of the Book

of Abraham on historical grounds. If the Horos roll is not the longest roll, then it is

not the source of the Book of Abraham. I have no problem with that. For the critics,

however, the entire case is built upon the Horos roll being the source of the Book of

Abraham. If you (and Chris Smith) are correct, then the Book of Abraham cannot have been

translated from the Horos roll and the critics' case completely collapses. I do not have

any problem with that.

Since I cannot see the basis for your measurements, I cannot comment on your

measurements. I know the basis for my measurements, which were carefully made and done a

number of times, but I am human and do not claim some sort of perfection in myself or my

measurements. Measuring from photographs, however, is tricky

(http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Abraham/Size_of_missing_papyrus) and I have never seen

any analysis from the photographs that address the issues of the photographs and their

doctoring. If your calculations are in the correct ballpark, I have no problem accepting

them. You do, however, need to deal with the issues of photographic distortion,

photographic doctoring, the constantly changing radius, and actual ancient Egyptian

practice. Hoffmann's article is the starting point for understanding the last two issues

and you could have saved yourself a lot of time and effort if you had read it first.

Whatever the actual length of the Horos roll, we are powerless to determine what was on

the missing portion. At least a quarter of known Documents of Breathings Made by Isis

have additional texts on them, but there is no consistency in what texts accompany them.

This is simply unknowable at present and likely in the future. The only eyewitness to

their content was not competent in an Egyptological sense and that makes his testimony

somewhat problematic (not that he had much to say anyway). Of course, if the Horos roll

is not the longest roll, then the contents are of mere academic interest since we know it

did not contain the Book of Abraham.

...

At any rate, you have my reaction to your discussion.

Best wishes,

John Gee

William (Bill) Gay Associate Research Professor of Egyptology

Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Brigham Young University

[dblagent007]

Does Gee or Hoffman provide a way to calculate the average thickness of the paper from the different winding lengths? Using MM's method, the papyrus would have been as thick as 8lb paper today. I would be interested to know if there is a better way to calculate the thickness.

[Chris Smith]

I don't have Hoffman's article yet (though I've had it on order through interlibrary loan for a while now), so I can't comment on the derivation of the formula. But when I plugged my results into Hoffmann's formula (as reported by Gee) I actually got a slightly lower estimate for the length of the missing portion than what MM and I have reported here. So Gee's nod to Hoffmann hardly helps his case. As for photographic distortion, I will concede that there is some slight distortion in the Improvement Era photos and that Larson's scale may be slightly off. You can actually tell from the IE photos that they are distorted at the edges, because the photos include rulers along the edges. Nevertheless, we can definitely tell from the photos as well as simply from the physics of the case that Gee's numbers are incorrect. I have used both the Larson photos and the IE photos and gotten very similar results both times, both times far removed from the figures reported by Gee. I intend to repeat my measurements using the BYU Studies photos as soon as I get an actual-size copy of them (which I also have on order through ILL). And I have a proposal in to see the original papyri, though it cannot be reviewed by the committee till after June due to the moving of the library. Since Ritner was refused access, I do not have high hopes that I will be treated better. It's easy to shrug off criticism as based on inferior sources when one is keeping the originals behind locked doors. In any case, I believe our sources are more than sufficient, and I will continue to make the most of them.

As for Gee's comments on the eyewitness testimony, all I can say is that he has not understood said testimony. Seyffarth was demonstrably Egyptologically competent to identify the names of Horus and Osiris on the papyrus, as well as to understand the concept of mystical identification of the deceased with Osiris and to identify Facsimile 3 as a judgment scene. The attempt to dismiss Seyffarth's testimony as incompetent therefore falls flat on its face. So also does the suggestion that if the Book of Abraham was not on the Hor roll then it can simply be moved to some other roll. All the evidence indicates that the Book of Abraham was associated with the Hor roll, and in fact the statements of William I. Appleby and Gustavus Seyffarth also indicate that the Hor roll was the only one that remained intact as a roll in and after the Nauvoo period.

[dblagent007]

If you (and Chris Smith) are correct, then the Book of Abraham cannot have been

translated from the Horos roll and the critics' case completely collapses.

Whoa! I had no idea MM and Chris Smith are apologists.

[Chris Smith]

Whoa! I had no idea MM and Chris Smith are apologists.

I think what Dr. Gee means to say is that since he is unwilling to reevaluate his assumption that the Book of Abraham is a true translation of some papyrus document in Joseph Smith's collection, proof that the Book of Abraham can't have come from the Hor roll would simply mean that it came from some other roll. Ergo, the critics' case (which requires that the non-negotiable assumption be negotiable) collapses.

[William Schryver]

CS:

All the evidence indicates that the Book of Abraham was associated with the Hor roll ...

Really?

Could you make us a short list of said "evidence"?

[Chris Smith]

CS:

Really?

Could you make us a short list of said "evidence"?

Here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Abr. 1:14 indicates that Facsimile 1 was "at the beginning," apparently of either the scroll or the record. This is confirmed by the (apparently) interlinear emendation in Abraham 1:12, which places the vignette "at the commencement of this record." The vignette, of course, is at the beginning of the Hor roll.

2. Two of the three Facsimiles-- those that are interpreted as scenes from Abraham's life-- are derived from the Hor roll. (The third was associated with no roll at all and is interpreted as a more general representation of the Abrahamic astronomy.)

3. According to Oliver Cowdery and W. W. Phelps, Joseph Smith had only two rolls (along with two or three other small pieces of papyrus). One of the rolls contained a record of Abraham and the other of Joseph. William I. Appleby indicated that there was a noticeable difference in handwriting, with Joseph being the better scribe. This is consistent with the Abraham roll being that of Hor and the Joseph roll being that of Ta-shere-min. Oliver Cowdery interpreted a number of vignettes from the record of Joseph, which match vignettes on the Ta-shere-min roll. This again indicates that it was the Hor roll on which the record of Abraham was found.

4. Characters in the margins of the Book of Abraham translation manuscripts that are matched up with discrete portions of the English text (and which are also translated in relationship to Abraham in the Alphabet and Grammar) actually come sequentially from column 1 of the Hor roll. Where there are lacunae in the Hor roll the margin characters have been invented, consistent with William S. West's observation that the prophet intended to interpret portions that were lost as well as portions in his possession.

5. Two separate eyewitnesses-- Josiah Quincy and the anonymous writer of the Alexandria Gazette narrative-- report that the portion of the papyrus the prophet identified as Abraham's record had been framed for preservation under glass. A third eyewitness, Henry Caswall, was told the same by a Nauvoo storekeeper who had been left in charge of the antiquities while the prophet was away. Thus a portion of the record of Abraham is among the extant fragments.

All of this cannot just be shrugged off as if it didn't matter. It cannot be made to go away by impugning the character and integrity of the witnesses, as if Caswall, Quincy and our anonymous writer were involved in some conspiracy to foil the missing papyrus theory (a theory that had not then been invented) by making the extant fragments contain the writings of Abraham. Nor can it be made to go away by blaming everything on the misconceptions of the scribes. The prophet worked directly with his scribes in interpreting the papyri. There was no one in a better position to know his mind than they. The scribes' testimonies confirm each other, and where we have records of the prophet's own words, those records corroborate what his scribes were saying. The prophet also utilized the very manuscripts that apologists wish to attribute exclusively to the scribes: he exhibited the Alphabet and Grammar to visitors, kept it in his office in Nauvoo, and had plans to prepare an edition of it for publication.

The bottom line, as I see it, is that the missing papyrus theory is having to increasingly distance itself from all the known historical evidence concerning the source of the Book of Abraham, preferring an appeal to mystery, silence, and extremely dubious Egyptological precedent to actual engagement with the nineteenth-century witnesses and manuscripts. As it continues to attack eyewitnesses and to discredit as malicious historians that disagree with its premises and conclusions, it will find itself alone in a vacuum wherein it will starve to death.

Best,

-Chris

[William Schryver]

Thanks for the list, Chris. I think you've touched upon just about everything that is out there.

Of course, I believe that each one of the items on your list is debatable -- some much more than others -- and I'm sure that, once my interest turns again to the historical data, we'll have occasion to talk about these things.

I do find it intriguing how you seem to privilege certain historical sources while simultaneously rejecting those that tend to disagree with your favorites. I guess that's all part and parcel of crafting history, though, isn't it?

The bottom line, as I see it, is that the missing papyrus theory is having to increasingly distance itself from all the known historical evidence concerning the source of the Book of Abraham, preferring an appeal to mystery, silence, and extremely dubious Egyptological precedent to actual engagement with the nineteenth-century witnesses and manuscripts. As it continues to attack eyewitnesses and to discredit as malicious historians that disagree with its premises and conclusions, it will find itself alone in a vacuum wherein it will starve to death.

I think this is hyperbole, and that your sense of certainty far exceeds your capacity to substantiate your conclusions.

But again, we'll have to save this for a future day ...