Anubis and Osiris vs. Elkenah and Abraham

[SilverKnight]

As much as I find the practice of virtual *high-fiving* (unless, of course it's me receiving the accolades) loathsome...

+1

I'll take a +1 mace from the Good Doctor any day.

[USU78]

It would be quite helpful if Mormons could locate just ONE qualified Egyptologist that would concur that Smith's translation can mean what Smith said it meant. Such a person would have to say, "Yep, it could mean that. Yes, indeedie."

The reason that Mormons will never find that person is because it's obvious that Smith adopted the symbolism at whim to create his own story.

Other than taking up bandwidth, just what does this post accomplish? It certainly has nothing to do with my post, which was in response to somebody else's which was in response to my prior.

If you don't like my posts, don't read 'em.

But don't post non sequitur responses to my posts. It's silly and timewasting.

[Doctor Steuss]

In what way have I misunderstood the LDS message to me here in this thread?

Come now, don

[Pahoran]

Oh, I see how this works.

Do you?

I have to answer every question put to me, no matter how off-topic (such as your request for evidence for the exodus), else I'm not playing fair.

No, you do not; and I have difficulty seeing how you come to that conclusion.

You are obligated to provide documentary support for your assertions. Nothing else.

My question about the Exodus was merely to discover whether there are any limits to your worshipful devotion to academia.

Once again, this is not CARM. I realise that, over there, the locals enjoy the liberty of diverting a thread into any direction that looks polemically promising, and demanding that the Mormon dhimmi answer or else. However, we do not have that particular privilege here. As thread originator, you get to define the scope of the thread. My questions arise from your assertions.

This thread isn't about the exodus and it's not about evidence for talking donkeys either.

Must -- resist -- temptation.

I'm not falling for such ill treatment.

A Prot fundie from CARM whining about "ill treatment?"

Isn't that the dictionary definition of "hypocrisy?"

Goodbye.

That's one way to avoid supporting your own claims, I suppose.

Regards,

Pahoran

[volgadon]

Here you have an alleged prophet of God taking an Egyptian story and completely changing the meaning to suit his own theology and needs.

Or, as Kevin Barney has proposed, a Jewish redactor adapting Egyptian imagery to enhance the account of Abraham.

Not too dissimilar to David being depicted as Orpheus in synagogue mosaics.

The Cat in the Hat has become Three Blind Mice and those who defend the changes are viewed suspiciously.

Actually, the Cat in the Hat illustrations have been used to accompany a variant of the Prometheus story. This analogy is more apt than the one you made up.

When asked why such changes should be considered legitimate, the standard Mormon reply is "Just have faith."

Why shouldn't they be considered legitimate?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I'm not falling for such ill treatment.

Goodbye.

"I have read every responce and every link and it is obvious that JS got it wrong. Opps".

See ya.

[volgadon]

Actually, you did:

"...we now have a Baal-Seth scarab to further show how plausible the idea is that Egyptian deities could be known under different, local names."

Here you are trying to loosely tie Abraham to the altar (pun intended) as some sort of "evidence" that it "could be" Abraham.

That's the argument from silence.

That is not an argument from silence, that is providing concrete examples to substantiate my claim that deities being assigned different identities is quite plausible. In other words, there is historical precedent.

Here's the thing, I read every word in this thread. Real Egyptologists tell us what the scene means. Joseph explained it very differently. He got the storyline wrong, he got the identities wrong and he got the genders wrong. In a nutshell, he attempted to reexplain the scene in fac. 1 completely differently from what it really means.

Egyptologists tell us what they think the scene meant to ancient Egyptians. Nobody denies that Joseph explained it differently. Symbols can have hundreds of meanings. To interpret a symbol, context is essential. Joseph's context was different to that of the Egyptians, pure and simple.

Suppose we didn't have the Hebrew inscription identifying this as David. Would a classicist be correct in identifying this figure as Orpheus?

LDS apologists want to come across as experts on this issue, but the real experts disagree with you.

I like what Sandra Tanner has to say regarding fac. 2 fig. 7, the ithyphallic deity which supposedly represents the God of the Holy Bible.... according to Mormons.

"Joseph Smith's identification of these pagan deities with the God of Abraham makes no more sense than to claim that a a statue of the Buddha actually represents Jesus Christ in prayer or claiming the Hindu goddess Parvati is actually the Virgin Mary." Salt Lake City Messenger Nov. 2009, issue no. 13

Amen, Sandra.

Why don't Mormons see it?

Yet, that is precisely what has happened in the past, as shown by the Baal-Seth scarab and the David-as-Orpheus mosaic, or yule-trees, or the fish, cross and eye of Horus.

Kuando el Rey Nimrod, a medieval Jewish romance from Iberia, adapts the Nativity from Matthew's gospel, casting Abraham in the role of Christ and Nimrod in that of Herod.

[handys003]

Once again Russ B - I have been waiting since the first page of this thread for your explanation of translation of these attached hieroglyphics at Abydos. Better yet get me a non-Mormon Egyptologist to translate.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Egyptologists tell us what they think the scene meant to ancient Egyptians. Nobody denies that Joseph explained it differently. Symbols can have hundreds of meanings. To interpret a symbol, context is essential. Joseph's context was different to that of the Egyptians, pure and simple.

It would seem that repition is generally a strong tool. It seemed to have failed this time in this thread.

Once again Russ B - I have been waiting since the first page of this thread for your explanation of translation of these attached hieroglyphics at Abydos. Better yet get me a non-Mormon Egyptologist to translate.

BTW Russ has gone bye bye Egon, do you have any better ideas?

[handys003]

It would seem that repition is generally a strong tool. It seemed to have failed this time in this thread.

BTW Russ has gone bye bye Egon, do you have any better ideas?

What the heat in the kitchen got too hot?

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

What the heat in the kitchen got too hot?

Um, yeah, it would seem that he had a really hard time grasping that JS was not giving an explination that the egyptians would use. Which I will note that several of us told him from the get go.

[handys003]

Um, yeah, it would seem that he had a really hard time grasping that JS was not giving an explanation that the Egyptians would use. Which I will note that several of us told him from the get go.

What a shame. I take poo all the time. Too bad the big bad proselytizers wanna act tough, but pick up their toys and leave when it doesn't go their way.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

I've never seen you do that with those drive-by comments.

Maybe definition will help for "holding feet to fire"...

Also, keep someone's feet to the fire. Pressure someone to consent to or undertake something, as in The only way you'll get him to agree is to hold his feet to the fire. This idiom alludes to an ancient test of courage or form of torture in which a person's feet were so placed. It began to be used figuratively in the second half of the 1900s.

Drive by's...I resemble that remark!

[Kevin Barney]

If anyone is interested in my take on the question raised in the OP, here it is:

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

[Mortal Man]

If anyone is interested in my take on the question raised in the OP, here it is:

http://maxwellinstit...d=40&chapid=168

Kevin, what is your current opinion regarding the location of the BoA text among the papyri?

[Kevin Barney]

I'm open minded on the subject. Realistically, I think the only good possibility for the BoA being among the papyri would be if it were appended to the BoB. If it weren't, I suspect it wasn't actually a part of the collection JS and others purchased in Kirtland, which would push me into catalyst territory.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

So. Yet another CARMite, who has clearly never so much as opened the Book of Abraham, comes swanning in here to tell us what idiots we are for not being Calvinists. Of all things.

Call for references, please; on both counts.

Call for references, please.

It is clear that you have never read the Book of Abraham. Rather, you rely upon the polemical propaganda flick you are promoting.

Had you actually bothered to read the text, you might have seen that little word "of." Which means that Joseph didn't give the figure a name at all.

You absolutely love what "Egyptologists" have to say -- but only as long as they tell you what you want to hear: namely, that there is something wrong with a religion you despise and detest. Are you equally happy with them when they tell you things you don't want to hear?

Will you accept the verdict of the "Egyptologists" about whether or not there really was an Exodus?

Or are you going to skate over that, like a good little Pharisee?

Regards,

Pahoran

Methinks Russ is getting his clock cleaned. Out of his "depth" so to speak.

Help him out.

[Mortal Man]

I'm open minded on the subject. Realistically, I think the only good possibility for the BoA being among the papyri would be if it were appended to the BoB. If it weren't, I suspect it wasn't actually a part of the collection JS and others purchased in Kirtland, which would push me into catalyst territory.

Sounds reasonable. I'd be very interested in your opinion of our paper when it comes out.

Assuming that the BoA was appended to the BoB, do you think it was written in the same hieratic Egyptian as the BoB?

Regarding the interpretations of the facsimiles, you said

In this case, the facsimiles would have both an Egyptian context (reflecting the religious purpose for which they were originally created by the Egyptians) and a Semitic context (reflecting the religious purpose for which they were adopted²⁵ or adapted by J-red).²⁶ Thus, 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?"

How do you reconcile this view with Joseph's many specific statements that his interpretations were "as understood by the Egyptians"?

Finally, why is it more valid for a second-century-BC Egyptian Semite to reinterpret funerary vignettes than it is for Joseph to do so? What does the middle-man accomplish?

[Kevin Barney]

Can you tell me anything about your paper? What it's about, where it will appear, an ETA? I'm sure I'll be interested.

If a copy of the BoA were appended to the BoB, then it would have been produced roughly contemporaneously in time, so yes, it likely would have been written in hieratic.

My hypothetical J-Red would have been an Egyptian, but also Jewish. Egyptians weren't monolithic at the time. But beyond that, I'm not convinced that Joseph himself fully understood his inspired translation projects, either as to process or setting.

On your last question, I quite agree that conceptually this same kind of adaptation could have been undertaken by Joseph himself. The middleman is simply a very plausible possibility given well established Jewish adaptation of Egyptian sources at the time the JSP were created, and I think that is perhaps a spoonfull of sugar to help people come to grips with adaptation as a possibility. But I agree that a possibility on the table is that Joseph was the one adapting the vignettes as illustrations for the BoA.

[Mortal Man]

Can you tell me anything about your paper? What it's about, where it will appear, an ETA? I'm sure I'll be interested.

Chris Smith and I have calculated the original length of the scroll of Hor using data obtained from the papyri in the Church Historian's Office. We plan to submit it to a Mormon journal by the end of the month. An earlier study (now obsolete) is described here (unfortunately they obliterated most of my images when they revamped the board). Our new study is far more exhaustive than the preliminary study (based on photos), which I posted. I can't say here what the new numbers are or else no one will read our paper, but I'd be happy to send you a copy when it comes out.

On your last question, I quite agree that conceptually this same kind of adaptation could have been undertaken by Joseph himself. The middleman is simply a very plausible possibility given well established Jewish adaptation of Egyptian sources at the time the JSP were created, and I think that is perhaps a spoonfull of sugar to help people come to grips with adaptation as a possibility. But I agree that a possibility on the table is that Joseph was the one adapting the vignettes as illustrations for the BoA.

You've shown many fine examples of Jewish adaptation of Egyptian literature; however, it seems to me that iconography is a bit different. The image of Osiris on his seat predates Abraham and is carved all over Egypt. It's hard to imagine anyone living in ~200 BC not being thoroughly familiar with its meaning. This would present a formidable barrier to its readaptation. For example, suppose I wrote a book in which I claimed that this image

represented treasure hunters: Vladimir, Popov, Hugo and Gorky attempting to retrieve a colorful artifact they had just dug up. Do you think my book would gain a large audience or even be accepted by a local community of believers in the Provo area? But suppose that the monument were lost for two millennia and then rediscovered by some archaeologists who had no idea concerning its original meaning. Don't you think my reinterpretation would then have a better chance at being accepted?

[Kevin Barney]

Your picture doesn't show up on my screen. In any event, what I suggest is directly analogous to the Testament of Abraham, where the image of Osiris sitting on his throne in the vignette to Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead was reconceptualized as the biblical Abel in the judgment scene. I believe the author of the Testament was using the Egyptian vignette in crafting his scene.

In any event, good luck with your article. I rarely come around these parts, so it is unlikely I'll see further discussion. (I'm more of a blog guy than a message board guy.)

[volgadon]

You've shown many fine examples of Jewish adaptation of Egyptian literature; however, it seems to me that iconography is a bit different. The image of Osiris on his seat predates Abraham and is carved all over Egypt. It's hard to imagine anyone living in ~200 BC not being thoroughly familiar with its meaning. This would present a formidable barrier to its readaptation.

You mean like Orpheus being readapted as David? Hmmmm........

[USU78]

You mean like Orpheus being readapted as David? Hmmmm........

Or Athena actually appearing as Mentor:

Now, either because Mentor was a man of integrity, or because he was an excellent friend of his friends, or because he did not deal in lies, or because he could speak out if necessary, or for all these reasons, or for other motives known or unknown, the goddess Athena assumed his shape many times in order to give counsel to those she wished to help. So turning herself into Mentor, she came to Telemachus, and gave him instructions concerning his journey to Pylos and Sparta, where he went to gather news about his father; and when the ship was ready, she gave the order to start the journey and came herself on board, always looking as the trustful Mentor and using his voice.

Nothing can be compared to the favor of the gods: in Pylos, unexperienced Telemachus was closely guided by Athena, in the shape of Mentor, when about to meet Nestor:

Telemachus: "Mentor, how am I to go up to the great man? How shall I greet him? Remember that I have had no practice in making speeches; and a young man may well hesitate to cross-examine one so much his senior."

Athena: "Telemachus, where your native wit fails, heaven will inspire you. It is not for nothing that the gods have watched your progress ever since your birth."

Or perhaps it's that Mentor is imbued with the spirit of Athena, as the spirit of Ma'at is present in Pharaoh's heir.

[Doctor Steuss]

Maybe Abraham got peanut butter in Anubis' chocolateeeeeeeeeeee

(The above was posted via a Toyota keyboard)

[handys003]

Methinks Russ is getting his clock cleaned. Out of his "depth" so to speak.

Help him out.

Nice gesture, but frankly you can't help those out who push the outreached hand away all the time..