Things Joseph Smith Got Right in Facsimile No. 1

[ttribe]

Considering the fact that these Anubis/Lion-couch scenes are all over their temples, yes, I feel comfortable speaking for all Egyptians. If an archaeologist 2000 years from now dug up a great big sign with golden arches, he could be pretty confident that it would have reminded Americans of Big Macs and not roller coasters.

That seems mighty presumptuous of you. But, if you feel so inclined, carry on.

[Nevo]

What I find most striking about the facsimile, though, is when I compare Ritner's restoration and explanation to Joseph's.

I am fully persuaded by the argument of the thumbs. It looks pretty clearly like the artistic style of the artist to draw thumbs that way, and I've seen very similar styles in other Egyptian vignettes. So, at this point, on this issue, it seems to me that not only was Ritner wrong, but Joseph was right.

What do you mean here when you say that "Joseph was right"? Joseph interpreted Figure 2 of Facsimile 1 as "Abraham fastened upon the altar." I assume you are not concluding that he was right about that based on "the argument of the thumbs." Ritner argues that the missing figure is "(probably) the winged Isis" or perhaps "the remains of a winged sundisk such as that found above the mummy in P. T

[Sentinus]

Consig, good thread. Since it seems you were looking for some counter argument I felt the need to offer some. Heres some fodder for all to debate and dismantle.

Red = Joseph Smith

Black = Common Egyptologist interpretation

In reference to facsimile 1

Figure

1 The Angel of the Lord. / "The soul of Osiris (which usually has a human head)"

2 Abraham fastened upon an altar. "Osiris coming to life on his couch, which is in the shape of a lion"

3 The idolatrous priest of Elkenah attempting to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice. "The God Anubis (who usually has a jackal's head) effecting the resurrection of Osiris"

4 The altar for sacrifice by the idolatrous priests, standing before the gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and Pharaoh. "The funeral bed of Osiris"

5 The idolatrous god of Elkenah. Canopic jar portraying Qebehsenuf with a falcon's head - one of the four sons of Horus

6 The idolatrous god of Libnah. Canopic jar portraying Duamutef with a jackal's head - one of the four sons of Horus

7 The idolatrous god of Mahmackrah. Canopic jar portraying Hapy with an ape's head - one of the four sons of Horus

8 The idolatrous god of Korash. Canopic jar portraying Imsety with a human head - one of the four sons of Horus

9 The idolatrous god of Pharaoh. "The sacred crocodile, symbolic of the god Sedet"

10 Abraham in Egypt. "Altar laden with offerings"

11 Designed to represent the pillars of heaven, as understood by the Egyptians. "An ornament peculiar to Egyptian art"

12 Raukeeyang, signifying expanse, or the firmament over our heads; but in this case, in relation to this subject, the Egyptians meant it to signify Shaumau, to be high, or the heavens, answering to the Hebrew word, Shaumahyeem. "Customary representation of ground in Egyptian paintings (The word Shauman is not Egyptian, and the Hebrew word is badly copied)"

While I know that many more qualified people have debated this subject, IMO it seems nearly anyone who offered a religious interpretation of the facsimile would have gotten some strong hits as well. Had he mentioned Anubis, Osiris, Isis or any other correct name I think the case in his defense would be more solid. In the end it will all come down to faith regardless of scholarship.

Hope this helps your thread, I am not interested in debating the topic, but do enjoy reading how others respond to this type of common argument against Josephs interpretation of facsimile 1 .

Regards,

Sentinus

[Sentinus]

I love your bulllseye posts. And the reason there are so few replies is that you leave the critics with nothing to say. It really looks bad for them to only be able to post back, "un huh." I can imagine Kevin and/or his sock puppets putting his hands over his ears and going "la la la la la la la la."

Hey did you happen to see my post? Anything you could add or am I to presume (as you have) similar things of LDS regarding the the lack of response offered?

Kind regards,

Sentinus

[mledbetter]

I love your bulllseye posts. And the reason there are so few replies is that you leave the critics with nothing to say. It really looks bad for them to only be able to post back, "un huh." I can imagine Kevin and/or his sock puppets putting his hands over his ears and going "la la la la la la la la."

Kevin is a friend of mine. As much as I disagree with him, you can't ban the guy then act vitriolic when he doesn't respond to a thread openly.

That's just silly. Trust me, I seriously doubt that Kevin has his hands over his ears/eyes/whatever. If he's anything, he's at least honest and passionate about what he believes.

I've been reading now for a while on this board and I find it fascinating how this guy has been demonized here and the person I know and the person you people have created on this board just don't jive. Kevin lost his faith because of the KEP and JSP, but from what I can gather still hopes that something will restore that faith, though he's very doubtful about that happening.

[mfbukowski]

Hope this helps your thread, I am not interested in debating the topic, but do enjoy reading how others respond to this type of common argument against Josephs interpretation of facsimile 1 .

Since you brought it up, I guess it is up to us to defend against this approach.

Frankly, I think this argument is very simple minded and what the person on the video does is very clear.

Throughout his presentation he speaks of Joseph being a faulty "translator" and that the translation bears no resemblence to what the egyptian text says. Again and again he speaks of Joseph as a "translator"

Only at the very end does he say words to the effect that this shows therefore that he was a false "PROPHET". Yet the data he presents only shows that the translation was not literal!

Being a translator is not the same as being a prophet. How can an argument like this even be looked at as remotely credible? It's like saying this:

"What light through yonder window breaks? 'Tis Juliet, and she is the sun!" (quoted off the top of my head, so I don't know if it's accurate)

What a foolish statement Shakespeare made here! We are talking about light. Light doesn't break windows! Windows are made of glass, and light goes through windows without breaking them!

And then it says that a young woman is the sun? What kind of stupidity is that? The author didn't know the difference between the star around which the planets rotate, and a young woman? Perhaps this text refers to worship of a sun goddess? And besides we have NO way of knowing historically Juliet ever even existed! In fact there is much evidence that she did not!

This is the quality of argument the critics make against the facsimilies. It is so simple minded it barely should be noticed, and yet because it IS noticed, I suppose one must point these things out.

But there is a difference in that there was an historical Abraham - but for what we know about him from scientific history, he might as well have been Juliet. And I accept what the Prophet has said about him as being as historical as anything we can know from that remote past. But there is a difference between prophecy, translation, and history, and we have to keep them all in context, or we get silly confusions like my underlined "quote" above.

[charity]

Kevin is a friend of mine. As much as I disagree with him, you can't ban the guy then act vitriolic when he doesn't respond to a thread openly.

That's just silly. Trust me, I seriously doubt that Kevin has his hands over his ears/eyes/whatever. If he's anything, he's at least honest and passionate about what he believes.

I've been reading now for a while on this board and I find it fascinating how this guy has been demonized here and the person I know and the person you people have created on this board just don't jive. Kevin lost his faith because of the KEP and JSP, but from what I can gather still hopes that something will restore that faith, though he's very doubtful about that happening.

I guess then you haven't been on the sharp end of Kevin's sword. I have.

I didn't ban Kevin.

I don't think calling attention to anyone's errors in thinking is vitriolic.

Kevin has been very vicious in attacking the Book of Abraham.

IF he has lost his faith because of the mechanics of the production of the Book of Abraham, and IF he is hoping that something will restore that faith and IF you are his friend, you should counsel him that the only way he has any hope of restoring that faith is to stop fighting against Joseph Smith and his calling as a prophet.

Christ says that we are either for Him or against Him. Kevin has been doing an awful lot of "against." And using underhanded methods.

I hope as his friend, you can straighten him out before he gets so far down the apostate path that he won't be able to get himself back.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Sorry to interrupt the tour, but to me the speckling suggests a wingtip, rather than fingers (notice the speckles on the ba-bird). Kerry Shirts' "curvature of the thumbs" argument is an over-analysis of a handwriting issue; i.e., it is something to which the artist would have been completely oblivious.

http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/charles.htm

The role of Anubis here is to protect the corpse and help him get resurrected. No Egyptian would see him as harming the person on the couch.

I think you have a few problems do deal with with this approach. I don't think they at all look like wing tips. I think Kerry did a fine job debunking this. I am unware of any lion couch scene were there are 2 birds in it. I am not a scholar but perhaps you have one some were.

[cdowis]

5 The idolatrous god of Elkenah. Canopic jar portraying Qebehsenuf with a falcon's head - one of the four sons of Horus

6 The idolatrous god of Libnah. Canopic jar portraying Duamutef with a jackal's head - one of the four sons of Horus

7 The idolatrous god of Mahmackrah. Canopic jar portraying Hapy with an ape's head - one of the four sons of Horus

8 The idolatrous god of Korash. Canopic jar portraying Imsety with a human head - one of the four sons of Horus

9 The idolatrous god of Pharaoh. "The sacred crocodile, symbolic of the god Sedet"

11 Designed to represent the pillars of heaven, as understood by the Egyptians. "An ornament peculiar to Egyptian art"

I believe that it was Nibley that pointed out that the names are not necessarily the names of the gods themselves, but "the idolatrous god of 'some individual by the name of korash, mahmackrah, etc'. These are the names of important individuals who are the patrons of the unnamed gods.

So, the JS translation does not necessarily disagree with the egyptologists.

[Nevo]

I am unware of any lion couch scene were there are 2 birds in it. I am not a scholar but perhaps you have one some were.

I'm not a scholar either, but I noticed that Kerry helpfully provides one example here.

[mledbetter]

deleted by me for being a mean person.

[SilverKnight]

I think Facsimile No. 1 is beginning to look like a tour-de-force of sorts for Joseph Smith's abilities as a translator.

What say you?

Consig-

I've only done a cursory study of the BoA debate, but...

I went in bracing myself for the most damning evidence in existence for Joseph Smiths's lack of prophetic abilities. Based on critics statements, I understood the BoA to be a slam-dunk against JS that very nearly puts the nail in the coffin on the debate, at least as far as the BoA is concerned.

***

I came away astounded at the impressive number of direct hits JS managed to pull off considering the egyptology of the time hadn't even yet made the same identifications.

Yes, Joseph got a lot wrong, but the bits he got right are simply unexplainable given the historic context.

***

I notice Paul Osborne is back posting again. You should definitely invite him to share his thoughts on this thread.

[Mortal Man]

I don't think they at all look like wing tips.

Compared to the lower hand:

Why are the "fingers" so short?

Why is there a line drawn through them?

Why do they proceed up at an angle?

I am unware of any lion couch scene were there are 2 birds in it.

[volgadon]

I believe that it was Nibley that pointed out that the names are not necessarily the names of the gods themselves, but "the idolatrous god of 'some individual by the name of korash, mahmackrah, etc'. These are the names of important individuals who are the patrons of the unnamed gods.

So, the JS translation does not necessarily disagree with the egyptologists.

That has always been my impression and I have never read Abraham in Egypt. It is interesting to note that the only Egyptian name there is of pharaoh, their overlord. Also add to the mix the strong Egyptian cultural influence which extended to the Euphrates.

[Chris Smith]

Based on my admittedly limited reading on this subject, only Joseph Smith's interpretation of Figure 9 â?? the identification of the crocodile as "the idolatrous god of Pharaoh" â?? could plausibly be considered correct. As far as I can tell, his interpretations of Figures 1â??8 and 10â??12 are either incorrect or cannot be established by "non-LDS scholarly sources." So Consiglieri's triumphant declaration that "Facsimile No. 1 is beginning to look like a tour-de-force of sorts for Joseph Smith's abilities as a translator" seems premature to say the least.

Interestingly enough, Joseph Smith initially intended the label "idolatrous god of Pharaoh" to refer to the canopic jar whose head is shaped like a pharaoh. Only in the second-generation BoA manuscript does this label get shifted to the crocodile due to the addition of Korash, which is absent from the earliest manuscripts.

I have a theory for why this change happened. In the earliest manuscripts, "idolatrous god of" seems to have meant "idol made in the image of" rather than "god worshipped by" (which is what most interpreters today take it to mean). But in one of the places where the gods are listed in the BoA text, the earliest manuscripts refer to "the Gods of Elk Kener Libnah Mahmachrah and also a god like unto that of Pharaoh King of Egypt." The slightly redundant phrasing here, which is probably just an accident of dictation, implies that the fourth god is made in the image of Pharaoh's god, not of Pharaoh himself. I think it was this awkward phrasing that led to the addition of Korash and the shifting of "god of Pharaoh" to the crocodile.

Brent Metcalfe has also dug up quite a few early nineteenth-century texts that refer to the crocodile as the god of the pharaohs. His theory is that Korash was added and "god of Pharaoh" shifted to the crocodile because Joseph or one of the scribes ran across a reference to the pharaohs' worship of crocodiles.

Whatever the case may be, I'm hesitant to give JS credit for something he only got right on the second go-around, and then maybe only by accident.

[Chris Smith]

I think you have a few problems do deal with with this approach. I don't think they at all look like wing tips. I think Kerry did a fine job debunking this. I am unware of any lion couch scene were there are 2 birds in it. I am not a scholar but perhaps you have one some were.

The case of the hand vs. the wing is one where I am willing to be wrong, and express myself with less certainty than on other issues because of the difficulty of drawing conclusions with so little evidence. But in addition to MM's observations about the speckling and the differences between the shape of the two hands, I'll just point out that on JSP IV there is a bird drawn in the open-wing style even though elsewhere on the same papyrus there are birds drawn with closed wings.

Part of the problem with Kerry's comparative study is that he's working with examples of good-quality papyri made for important people in several different eras, whereas what we have in the JSP are relatively shoddy Ptolemaic papyri made hastily and drawn more or less haphazardly. Papyri like the JSP often aren't even considered important enough to publish, so you won't find much material to compare them to in the published Egyptological literature.

[Nevo]

Interestingly enough, Joseph Smith initially intended the label "idolatrous god of Pharaoh" to refer to the canopic jar whose head is shaped like a pharaoh. Only in the second-generation BoA manuscript does this label get shifted to the crocodile due to the addition of Korash, which is absent from the earliest manuscripts.

Very interesting. Thanks for that, Chris.

[Thinking]

When I saw the title to this thread, I thought to myself, "Shouldn't a TBM think that JS got them all right?"

So, did JS get them all right? If not, which ones did he get wrong, and what does that mean?

[TrespassersW]

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I just noticed this response and I wanted to answer Nevo's questions.

What do you mean here when you say that "Joseph was right"? Joseph interpreted Figure 2 of Facsimile 1 as "Abraham fastened upon the altar." I assume you are not concluding that he was right about that based on "the argument of the thumbs." Ritner argues that the missing figure is "(probably) the winged Isis" or perhaps "the remains of a winged sundisk such as that found above the mummy in P. T

[Olavarria]

Egyptologists, and many others, point to parallels in the roof chapels of the Dendara Temple as parallels for Facsimile 1. There are over forty lion couch scenes in these chapels, most of which are labeled as local variants of the same scene. What the critics do not do, however, is read the inscriptions. In the Dendara texts, the word for the lion couch, nm.t,[92] is either homophonous or identical with the word nm.t, "abattoir, slaughterhouse,"[93] as well as a term for "offerings."[94] This is picked up in the inscriptions.

For example, in the central scene in the innermost eastern chapel, we read, "He will not exist nor will his name exist, since you will destroy his town, cast down the walls of his house, and everyone who is in it will be set on fire, you will demolish his district, you will stab his confederates,[95] his flesh being ashes, the evil conspirator consigned to the lion couch / slaughterhouse,[96] so that he will no longer exist."[97] In another scene, Bastet (who is not pictured) "is your protection every day; she has commanded her messengers[98] to slaughter your enemies."[99] Symmetrical with this scene we have another scene with a broken inscription that mentions "ashes" and continues, "to burn his flesh with fire."[100] So here we have both a scene and descriptions that parallel the Book of Abraham.

Furthermore, in the same chapel we have depictions of Anubis and the sons of Horus (presumably the figures under the lion couch in Facsimile 1) holding knives. Anubis is here identified as the one "who smites the adversaries with his might, since the knife is in his hand, to expel the one who treads in transgression; I am the violent one who came forth from god, after having cut off the heads of the confederates of him whose name is evil."[101] The human-headed son of Horus is identified above his head as "the one who repulses enemies" and "who comes tearing out (

[bjw]

5 The idolatrous god of Elkenah. Canopic jar portraying Qebehsenuf with a falcon's head - one of the four sons of Horus

6 The idolatrous god of Libnah. Canopic jar portraying Duamutef with a jackal's head - one of the four sons of Horus

7 The idolatrous god of Mahmackrah. Canopic jar portraying Hapy with an ape's head - one of the four sons of Horus

8 The idolatrous god of Korash. Canopic jar portraying Imsety with a human head - one of the four sons of Horus

At this link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080124131600/...2languages.com/ ://http://web.archive.org/web/20080124...languages.com/

David Grant Stewart does a good job of explaining that Qebehsenuf, Duamutef, Hapy, and Imsety are only proper translations if you depend on a late linguistic interpretation of Egyptology. He said that Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, and Korash are correct translations if you take into account the change of the language over a 2,000 year period. At the above link he analyzes each word letter by letter and shows you how the change is made. (For example, Mahmackrah to Hapy) I used to believe Joseph Smith got these names from Exodus 6, but after reading this article I'm not so sure.

Here's a quote from the article:

I propose another explanation suggesting that the text provided by Joseph Smith

represents a real and accurate translation, while still rendering to Egyptologists their due

respect. This explanation centers upon changes in the Egyptian language over time, with

the characters having the sounds given by Joseph Smith in the early period, and those

given by Egyptologists in the late period of Egyptian literature.

If you haven't read this article I highly recommend it, because I think it shows that the JS translation of Fac.1 is at least feasible. However, I know many Egyptologists will probably disagree with it.

[charity]

When I saw the title to this thread, I thought to myself, "Shouldn't a TBM think that JS got them all right?"

So, did JS get them all right? If not, which ones did he get wrong, and what does that mean?

Of course, Joseph got them all right. Because he didn't do it on his own. He was as a prophet, and all was revealed to him. But the plates aren't here to check against anything. No matter what the language was, a competent scholar could take the plates and eventually translate them, and then we could see that the Book of Mormon really does say what the plates said. And we would see that he got them all right.

But with the Facsimiles there are ways to check how correct Joseph was, through revelation,. And the "hits" that consiglieri keeps coming up with show that Joseph, as a man, could not possibly have known about a lot of the information which was not availalbe to anyone during his lifetime. So when there is a string of "hits" that shows the revelations about those things were right on.

This is not hard to see.

[Areabird]

Of course, Joseph got them all right. Because he didn't do it on his own. He was as a prophet, and all was revealed to him. But the plates aren't here to check against anything. No matter what the language was, a competent scholar could take the plates and eventually translate them, and then we could see that the Book of Mormon really does say what the plates said. And we would see that he got them all right.

But with the Facsimiles there are ways to check how correct Joseph was, through revelation,. And the "hits" that consiglieri keeps coming up with show that Joseph, as a man, could not possibly have known about a lot of the information which was not availalbe to anyone during his lifetime. So when there is a string of "hits" that shows the revelations about those things were right on.

This is not hard to see.

But does a string of hits mean all of his 'translation' should be considered correct? What about the ones he clearly missed? If, as you say above, "the revelations about those things were right on". If God was helping him translate, how did he get any of them wrong?

[bjw]

But with the Facsimiles there are ways to check how correct Joseph was, through revelation,. And the "hits" that consiglieri keeps coming up with show that Joseph, as a man, could not possibly have known about a lot of the information which was not availalbe to anyone during his lifetime. So when there is a string of "hits" that shows the revelations about those things were right on.

This is not hard to see.

And if Stewart's analysis is correct, I don't see how he could have gotten all of those names correct.