Facsimile 3, figures 2, 4, and 5

[Mortal Man]

These threads always remind me of this Monty Python sketch.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

These threads always remind me of this Monty Python sketch.

What a great skit.

I agree that some just don't get it about the global warming er a cooling.

[jadams_4242]

Expose:

http://www.backyardprofessor.com/files/joseph-smith-as-egyptologist.pdf

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=48&chapid=294

Those are the two most prevalent, and, in my lowly opinion, satisfactory responses that I am aware of.

Also, these might be of interest:

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=40&chapid=168

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=40&chapid=167

Excellant!

[Expose]

That's an important part of the puzzle isn't it. We don't have the corresponding text of the BoA with which to interpret Joseph's indentifications. We are essentially comparing a known(the Egyptian context) with an unknown(Book of Abraham context).

And this is the whole issue. That is why there is so much focus (from the critics) on making the JS papri that the church has, be the BoA. If that were indeed the case the BoA would most definatly be false. We just don't have all of the pieces to the puzzle and unless we can recover all of the scrolls that JS did have this debate sometimes seems so pointless.

Maybe I wasn't clear, I'm talking about the characters that are on the facsimile, which Egyptologists like Ritner can read. See, e.g., Breathing Permit of Hor at 175:

The papyrus concludes with a vignette preserved only in a poorly rendered engraving at

the end of The Book of Abraham. Baer conservatively chose to translate only the most obvious

of these passages, but additional readings are possible and have been attempted

here, with uncertainties noted. The scene, as already recognized by Baer, is the well attested

conclusion of the older judgment scene associated with Book of the Dead.

For the life of me I can't understand why it would matter in any event why "recovering all of the scrolls that JS did have" would be necessary to the discussion of this particular, specific issue, if Egyptologist can read the characters.

[ttribe]

It seems to me there are many responses to the BoA issues...some going back 40 years:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

I can only surmise that, despite the fact that the thread seems unaware of these articles (since they are ignored), that the OP finds them unsatisfactory. I truly wish the OP, then, would address the extant responses rather than ignore them thus forcing us to retread them.

[Rommelator]

Maybe I wasn't clear, I'm talking about the characters that are on the facsimile, which Egyptologists like Ritner can read. See, e.g., Breathing Permit of Hor at 175:

For the life of me I can't understand why it would matter in any event why "recovering all of the scrolls that JS did have" would be necessary to the discussion of this particular, specific issue, if Egyptologist can read the characters.

Well, Expose, Egyptologists like Ritner are wrong.

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=40&chapid=167

Professor Gee has directly challenged the assertion by critics like Charles Larson and Robert Ritner that Facsimile 3 is related to (as Ritner claims) or is (as Larson claims) Book of the Dead 125.

Also note the comments by Baer in this regard:

"Facs[imile] No. 3 is not a judgment scene and exact parallels may be hard to find.â?

Cited by Gee, http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=4&num=1&id=92

So, Expose, what is Facsimile 3? It isn't Book of the Dead 125. It isn't a judgement scene. So, what say ye? And why have you studiously avoided my other citations and references?

But this is all a gross violation of my self-made promise not to get into these message boards anymore.

Take care!

Rommelator out!

[Expose]

E: If your answer to my question is that all the Egyptologists are wrong, . . .

Well, if they don't know everything then it is possible that they are wrong. Are you arguing that "they" can't possibly be wrong because they all happen to disagree with JS.

E: I'd be interested to know your basis for that other than armchair skepticism of academia as a whole.

Are you not skeptical about anything academic/scientific when the word "consensus" is used? It usually means that questioning the scholarship is not wanted.

E: I'm not sure I get the "global warming" reference, perhaps you're referring to the fact that a minority of scientists disagree that the current climate change is caused by humans.

So you buy into the BS that is "man made global warming". The true believers continue to ignore facts like the global temperatures have been going down since 1998. (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/74019.html) The latest mime is that this is just a temporary phenomenon. True believers must press on.

E: No scientist I am aware of, however, disagrees with the fact that the planet is actually getting warmer, they simply dispute the cause and implications of the warming, and human influence therein.

Not even the ones I just linked too.

E: I would analogize the Egyptian characters here to be DATA, similar to temperature data, in as much as they are actual written language. I also know of no Egyptologist who has ever stated that JS's explanations of the Egyptian characters in question were remotely correct.

Analyzing data we have tells us about the data we have and NOTHING about the data we don't have.

All hail to the infallible, inerrant, omniscient Egyptologists!!!!!

Clearly we disagree, but some of your comments make me think you didn't actually understand what I said.

If you go back and read what I said I acknowledged that there are scientists, albeit a minority, who disagree that global warming is caused by humans. I actually had a professor in my undergraduate days who was a proponent of this theory, and I understand it quite well, but I didn't express my opinion on it even though you assumed I was against it. My views on global warming aren't the issue here. It is funny that you're trying to impeach all scholars by showing that some scholars disagree. I also said that I know that not all scholars are right all the time, that's just part of learning.

I started this thread to try to hear any theories for explaining a particular, specific problem regarding the Book of Abraham. Your response seems to be that scholars are unreliable, and that somehow by relying on Egyptologists for an interpretation of Egyptian I'm holding them out as "infallible, inerrant, and omniscient." That's fine, that's your resonse, I get it. I respectfully disagree with the idea that because scholarship is sometimes wrong that must be the case in this specific instance.

You invoke possibility to prove probability, which I believe is a logical fallacy. It's possible that scholars in some areas are wrong about some things. But for Egyptologists merely reading what characters say, when they have spent their entire career and used all their faculties to study a language and culture, with all the context and understanding of what these documents were, but it is highly unlikely in this specific context they are incorrect about what the specific characters say.

[Expose]

It seems to me there are many responses to the BoA issues...some going back 40 years:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

I can only surmise that, despite the fact that the thread seems unaware of these articles (since they are ignored), that the OP finds them unsatisfactory. I truly wish the OP, then, would address the extant responses rather than ignore them thus forcing us to retread them.

Seriously? You're calling me "unaware" when it doesn't even look like you read the topic of the thread. Your first link is the the main FAIR page for the entire BoA, totally unhelpful.

As I stated I'm not talking about general responses to the BoA issues, I have a specific, limited question, and I'm just trying to hear the responses to it.

If you have your own theory that explains this specifically, I'd love to hear it, and please feel free to fully explain yourself so there will be no confusion over what you mean. If you know of an apologetic source that has responded to this specifically, that would be great as well, but I respectfully request that you point me to specifically where this has been dealt with before, rather than shotgun linking or to an entire article without a pinpoint reference.

[ttribe]

Seriously? You're calling me "unaware" when it doesn't even look like you read the topic of the thread.

I didn't call you unaware. On the contrary, I believe you are quite aware. I am confused as to why you aren't addressing the extant responses (some of which I linked) instead of acting like they don't exist.

Your first link is the the main FAIR page for the entire BoA, totally unhelpful.

Did you read any of the other links?

Additionally, this tone of yours is what got you kicked off before...is it really that difficult to be civil?

As I stated I'm not talking about general responses to the BoA issues, I have a specific, limited question, and I'm just trying to hear the responses to it.

Then why are you ignoring the ones that already exist?

[Expose]

Well, Expose, Egyptologists like Ritner are wrong.

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=40&chapid=167

Professor Gee has directly challenged the assertion by critics like Charles Larson and Robert Ritner that Facsimile 3 is related to (as Ritner claims) or is (as Larson claims) Book of the Dead 125.

Also note the comments by Baer in this regard:

"Facs[imile] No. 3 is not a judgment scene and exact parallels may be hard to find.â?

Cited by Gee, http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=4&num=1&id=92

So, Expose, what is Facsimile 3? It isn't Book of the Dead 125. It isn't a judgement scene. So, what say ye? And why have you studiously avoided my other citations and references?

But this is all a gross violation of my self-made promise not to get into these message boards anymore.

Take care!

Rommelator out!

First of all, let me state that I didn't create this thread to debate the theories provided, I'm more interested in actually hearing those theories. If others want to debate their theories that's fine, but I'm just here to make sure I've heard the main theories on this particular point. I don't know what Facsimile 3 is, I find Ritner very persuasive, he is extremely well qualified, and academically speaking can't really be compared to Gee. Furthermore, even if Ritner were wrong about where facsimile 3 came from, his interpretation of specific characters labeling the figures have not been called into question by Gee or anyone else to my knowledge, so his whole article is superfluous to this discussion.

I haven't avoided your other citations and references, sorry if that is the impression I gave. I've looked through them all, and personally I find them unpersuasive. I'm not sure what Gee's whole point is, at times he makes some extremely odd, frankly incomprehensible remarks. He doesnâ??t describe what facsimile 3 is at all, heâ??s merely showing what it isnâ??t, which does nothing to tell me other than he can criticize more credible scholars. Then I remember that I didn't lose my testimony completely until I'd read a few hours of FARMS articles. Some gems from this article (with my thoughts in parenthesis):

"I have no intention of explaining Facsimile 3 or providing the real parallels at this time." (Well then why am I reading your article and why does it sound like you are trying to explain Facsimile 3? Also, if Gee canâ??t offer an explanation for what Facsimile 3 actually is, I donâ??t see why I should, Iâ??m not the one trying to prove it could possibly be revelation.)

"Facsimile 3 came from the middle of a long roll belonging to a man by the name of Hor, who was the son of Osoroeris and Chibois." (So does that not have any implication for what JS said the entire roll was, or at a minimum what JS said facsimile 3 was? This seems like an almost overtly apostate statement.)

â??Some have assumed that the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham were drawn by Abraham himself.â? (Does â??someâ? include JS and did he really â??assumeâ? that or did he claim it was revelation?)

â??A general assumption, both inside and outside the church, is that â??Facsimile 3 presents a constantly recurring scene in Egyptian literature, best known from the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead. It represents the judgment of the dead before the throne of Osiris.â?? â? (No, Iâ??d say inside the church most members donâ??t have a freakin clue what facsimile 3 is, if they do then the â??general assumptionâ? is that it is exactly what JS said, not a constantly recurring scene in Egyptian literature but rather they â??assumeâ? it is a depiction of Abraham sitting on the throne of Pharaoh, based on what is in the scriptures. This statement is frankly ludicrous, how many members do you think would respond as he supposes?)

As for Mr. Shirts' article, it is difficult for me to take seriously anyone who starts out by stating that the facsimiles are not doctrinally important, he seems to miss the whole point of the debate, that is, it isn't the facsimiles' importance or unimportance doctrinally, but rather the accuracy of translation that is at issue. Generally I think his ideas are hard to follow and relies much to heavily on Nibley, whose forays into Egyptology have been pretty much shredded, even to the point where he voiced being tired of people criticizing his admitted mistakes. As I stated in #13 I find it totally unpersuasive, and frankly impossible, that JS correctly identified the "true" identities of the figures in the facsimile, because that would mean they were labeled incorrectly in the document itself. If, for example, figure 2 is actually supposed to be "King Pharaoh" as JS said, then I still don't understand why King Pharaoh would be labeled as Isis. In other words, your and Shirts' explanation doesn't solve the problem, it merely highlights it. Even if, hypothetically, JS was correct about the interpretation of who the figure was, that is, even if the figure that looks like Isis is actually supposed to represent "King Pharaoh" the actual written language labeling the person is still a problem, the same problem I've been talking about from the beginning.

Does that make sense? You said:

Actually, if you pursue the links I gave referencing Kerry Shirts and Hugh Nibley you would discover that there is no problem with Joseph Smith identifying female goddesses as male royalty. Why? Because that is exactly what the Egyptians themselves did. I mean, a two year old could recognize that these are females. So Joseph Smith was so stupid? Not really. I recommend you take a look at the links.

Further, it must be remembered that for Joseph Smith translation=revelation. Hence, the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Joseph didn't use any biblical manuscripts or Greek or Hebrew texts but, by revelation, was able to produce his own "translation". The same with D&C 7 and D&C 91.

So, yes, I tentatively suggest the following:

Joseph Smith, by revelation, identifies the figures as Abraham, Pharaoh, etc. (not so much a gender problem thanks to the research by Messers. Shirts and Nibley) and by either inspiration or natural assumption realizes that the hieroglyphic labels above the figures must identify the figures but doesn't offer a translation of the labels other than saying that they identify the figures that he has already identified. Sorry if that is unclear, I'm trying my best to articulate my thoughts.

I guess I don't understand where this gets you. Even if there is no problem with a male being represented visually by a female that doesnâ??t explain at all the problem of how they are labeled. If figure 2 is supposed to represent "King Pharaoh" why would it be labeled Isis? Even if we agreed that JS didn't offer a translation of the label text itself, the figure is still labeled as Isis. In other words, forget that JS said anything about the "characters above his head," but that he had merely labeled figure 2 as "King Pharaoh" and left it at that - the label is still there whether JS claimed to translate it or not, and the label still contradicts who he said the figure was.

I also find it unpersuasive that somehow JS could read Egyptian when translating other text, but not this text, but I stated that in a previous post.

[Expose]

I didn't call you unaware. On the contrary, I believe you are quite aware. I am confused as to why you aren't addressing the extant responses (some of which I linked) instead of acting like they don't exist.

Did you read any of the other links?

Additionally, this tone of yours is what got you kicked off before...is it really that difficult to be civil?

Then why are you ignoring the ones that already exist?

I'm trying to be civil but it is extremely frustrating to have people like you come on here and make amazingly generic responses. Others have responded specifically, I'm not sure why this is so hard for you. Yes, I looked at every one of your links. I'm not "ignoring" anything that already exists, I'm asking for a survey of ideas on this very limited topic, which you still haven't responded to. As I said in starting this topic, I've never seen a direct response to this question, certainly none of your sources provide such a response, I've looked at them. If you believe they do actually provide a specific response to my specific question, then, as I asked in starting this thread, please don't cite generally to an entire article unless the whole article is on this specific subject, or at least include a quote from it. By posting numerous links that are much, much broader than my question, and as far as I can see don't even discuss it at all, your post detracts from the issue at hand.

[dblagent007]

Also note the comments by Baer in this regard:

"Facs[imile] No. 3 is not a judgment scene and exact parallels may be hard to find."

Cited by Gee, http://mi.byu.edu/pu...l=4&num=1&id=92

So, Expose, what is Facsimile 3? It isn't Book of the Dead 125. It isn't a judgement scene. So, what say ye? And why have you studiously avoided my other citations and references?

Rommelator out!

Ritner addressed Baer's comments in his paper as follows. I assume that Gee must have refuted Ritner's arguments below in the other paper you cited (I am still reading Gee's paper)

The scene, as already recognized by Baer, is the well attested conclusion of the older judgment scene associated with Book of the Dead¹²⁵. Having attained justification, the deified Hor is brought by Maat and Anubis before the altar of the enthroned Osiris, behind whom stands Isis. Comparable scenes open Papyrus Hague 42/88 (Denon) and Tübingen 2016¹²⁶. The origin of these vignettes in the classic judgment scene is shown conclusively by the final vignette of the comparable Breathing Document Florence 3666 + Vienna 3850, in which Maat and Anubis escort the deceased to the scales, enthroned Osiris and Isis¹²⁷.

Note 125 Baer, pp. 126–27. Baer's statement that it is "similar to but not identical with scenes showing judgment of the deceased before Osiris" (p. 126) and "is not a judgment scene" (his quoted letter to Nibley in Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri, p. 100) means only that the actual process of judgment is not shown. This image does, however, form part of standard judgment scenes; see the following notes.

Note 126 Coenen and Quaegebeur, De papyrus Denon in het Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum, figs. 3–5, and Brunner-Traut and Brunner, Die ägyptische Sammlung der Universität Tübingen, pls. 12–13. These and other examples eliminate the doubt once expressed by Baer that "parallels may be hard to find" (quoted letter to Nibley in Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri, p. 100). Gee fails to quote the remainder of Baer's assessment: "But one must not exaggerate in the other direction. I doubt that one could find many instances of exactly identical scenes in Egyptian art" (Baer files, quoted by permission, unlike the unauthorized use by Gee, ibid., pp. 98, n. 15 and 100, n. 22). The inclusions of Thoth recording the judgment and the Swallowing Monster Amyt further stress the derivation of this scene from Book of the Dead 125 vignettes, as in the Papyrus of Hunefer illustrated in R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, rev. ed. (New York, 1985), pp. 34–35.

Note 127 Marc Coenen, "A Remarkable Judgement Scene in a Document of Breathing made by Isis: Papyrus Florence 3665 + 3666 and Papyrus Vienna 3850," Orientalia, n.s., 68 (1999): 98–103, esp. pl. 21.

I have now read Gee's paper and I'm not sure that he actually refuted Ritner's arguments. I need to analyze it all some more before reaching a stronger conclusion, but it is very late.

[Chris Smith]

Thanks for posting that, dbl. I was going to, but I got lazy.

[ttribe]

I'm trying to be civil but it is extremely frustrating to have people like you come on here and make amazingly generic responses. Others have responded specifically, I'm not sure why this is so hard for you. Yes, I looked at every one of your links. I'm not "ignoring" anything that already exists, I'm asking for a survey of ideas on this very limited topic, which you still haven't responded to. As I said in starting this topic, I've never seen a direct response to this question, certainly none of your sources provide such a response, I've looked at them. If you believe they do actually provide a specific response to my specific question, then, as I asked in starting this thread, please don't cite generally to an entire article unless the whole article is on this specific subject, or at least include a quote from it. By posting numerous links that are much, much broader than my question, and as far as I can see don't even discuss it at all, your post detracts from the issue at hand.

Uh huh..."trying to be civil"...I think you need to try harder.

[Vance]

It is funny that you're trying to impeach all scholars by showing that some scholars disagree. I also said that I know that not all scholars are right all the time, that's just part of learning.

I started this thread to try to hear any theories for explaining a particular, specific problem regarding the Book of Abraham. Your response seems to be that scholars are unreliable, and that somehow by relying on Egyptologists for an interpretation of Egyptian I'm holding them out as "infallible, inerrant, and omniscient."

It is funny that you are trying to impeach JS by showing that some scholars disagree! If their science is so unsettled that they can't agree on what the characters mean then why should I accept that they are right at all?

You seem to think that this is a case where the scholars CAN'T be wrong even though they disagree with each other.

You started this thread with the underlying assumption that the Egyptologists are right (even though they disagree) and that they are omniscient with regard to the Egyptian characters in question. How can you (or they) know that they know all possible meanings for those characters? They can't and neither can you. So why should I believe you OR them over JS?

When it comes to absolute truth, scholars ARE unreliable. To believe otherwise is to put your trust in the arm of flesh.

[Olavarria]

Ya know guys, Ritner translating certain names as Maat, Isis and Osiris-Hor is nothing like someone advocating Global Warming, Climate Change or whatever its called now. Ritner is correct and denying it makes us look silly. Remember, there are two ways of looking at this:

1)Say Joseph was wrong and argue for Catalyst and/or an Expanionist theory of translation.

2)Say Joseph was correct for reasons we don't know; "Shulem=X=Osiris-Hor".

Remember, a translatable text doesn't tell us everything about a religion. We also have to deal with what people actually said, thought and did. For example, a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness and an Evangelical can all write down: "The Father and the Son are One." But what each person means by that is totally different.

[T-Shirt]

Expose, let me see if I can show, by example, what I believe you seem to be struggling to understand.

Let's say that I, as a Christian and for a Christian audience, create the following images in 2009:

(click to enlarge)

Now, imagine that 4000 years in the future, Christianity is no longer well understood and English is mostly unknown. Scholars come up with an accurate translation but someone like Joseph Smith translates the words above the images in the following manner:

(click to enlarge)

Would you argue that this translator got the translation completely wrong and should be dismissed as a fraud? Why or why not?

Best,

T-Shirt

[mfbukowski]

You invoke possibility to prove probability, which I believe is a logical fallacy. It's possible that scholars in some areas are wrong about some things. But for Egyptologists merely reading what characters say, when they have spent their entire career and used all their faculties to study a language and culture, with all the context and understanding of what these documents were, but it is highly unlikely in this specific context they are incorrect about what the specific characters say.

Expose, let me point out the obvious one more time. No one here cares if Joseph "translated" the wall paper and thought pattern in the wallpaper were actually chinese "characters".

The BOA is revelation, period. Joseph may have thought it was a "translation" and perhaps in some sense it was. But you just are not getting it that no one here cares, because we believe it is a true revelation.

OK? That's simple and direct, and I suppose you will ignore it as you do all my posts.

[Mortal Man]

No one here cares if Joseph "translated" the wall paper and thought pattern in the wallpaper were actually chinese "characters".

Joseph may have thought it was a "translation" and perhaps in some sense it was.

Are you saying that JS was mistaken in thinking he was translating the characters when actually he was not?

[mfbukowski]

Expose, let me see if I can show, by example, what I believe you seem to be struggling to understand.

Let's say that I, as a Christian and for a Christian audience, create the following images in 2009:

Now, imagine that 4000 years in the future, Christianity is no longer well understood and English is mostly unknown. Scholars come up with an accurate translation but someone like Joseph Smith translates the words above the images in the following manner:

Would you argue that this translator got the translation completely wrong and should be dismissed as a fraud? Why or why not?

Best,

T-Shirt

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO- I like it! Good analogy!

[mfbukowski]

Are you saying that JS was mistaken in thinking he was translating the characters when actually he was not?

Ya know guys, Ritner translating certain names as Maat, Isis and Osiris-Hor is nothing like someone advocating Global Warming, Climate Change or whatever its called now. Ritner is correct and denying it makes us look silly. Remember, there are two ways of looking at this:

1)Say Joseph was wrong and argue for Catalyst and/or an Expanionist theory of translation.

2)Say Joseph was correct for reasons we don't know; "Shulem=X=Osiris-Hor".

Remember, a translatable text doesn't tell us everything about a religion. We also have to deal with what people actually said, thought and did. For example, a Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness and an Evangelical can all write down: "The Father and the Son are One." But what each person means by that is totally different.

Emphasis Mine

I agree with Pedro that option 1 in his post is the correct answer, as well as truly understanding what a "translation" is, as T-Shirt has also pointed out. "Mistaken" is perhaps too strong a word, but clearly the characters were not literally translated, and I have absolutely no problem with it.

The point that expose is not understanding is that I think most LDS posters here feel similar to the way I feel, and the bottom line is that we have answered it, and expose is wasting his time.

[Paul Osborne]

Paul O

[Mortal Man]

I agree with Pedro that option 1 in his post is the correct answer

Then let me politely point out this thread, in which I was excoriated for mentioning that apologists sometimes claim that Joseph did not know exactly what he was doing.

[mfbukowski]

Then let me politely point out this thread, in which I was excoriated for mentioning that apologists sometimes claim that Joseph did not know exactly what he was doing.

I shall read it but can't get to it til monday. It's my busy time of the week. And I didn't say that Joseph did not know exactly what he was doing. I think what he did was very close to what T-Shirt pointed out above. Was that a translation "mistake"? It becomes a definitional issue and your characterization I suspect is at the far end of the acceptable range of describing what was going on.

Edit: No, I don't have to read the whole thing after all. I read the first two lines of the OP and what you are talking about in that thread is far far far from what I am saying here.

[e=mc2]

You respectfully ask where this specific question has been discussed before? Rommelator has already given you links. Here is mine, which you already have been given. I would like to know specifically wherein my research is wrong.

http://www.backyardprofessor.com/files/joseph-smith-as-egyptologist.pdf