mfbukowski Posted April 17, 2010 Share Posted April 17, 2010 May I point out one tiny issue.The visible universe constitutes only 20% of the universe. Surely the description of the universe in Abraham has to take into account dark matter.I agree- there is much unknown. I think the reason this does not look as appealing as it might is of course that "dark matter" does not give off light, which when you think about it, is not really a requirement at all unless one takes a pretty fundamentalist position. Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted April 17, 2010 Share Posted April 17, 2010 I've been going to scan this for a long time and finally got around to it. A pocket digital camera makes a dandy scanner these days, btw.WoodThanks for this- great quote.Hey I am not about to argue with this. Who knows? Link to comment
Olavarria Posted April 17, 2010 Author Share Posted April 17, 2010 Im assuming Woody isnt a sock puppet pretending to be a TBMThis is the internet after all....First, I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. So the idea, suggested in some of the references posted here, that the Book of Abraham is 19th century pseudoepigrapha is crazy as far as I'm concerned.No one said it was 19th century psuedopigrapha. IF the BoA was attached on the Hor Scroll then it might be a psudepigraphical work. That doesn't mean it isn't ancient or uninspired, it only means Abraham himself didn't write it. Again, Hebrew didn't exist as a language during Abraham's time, yet Hebrew words are found in the BoA(Rakia,Olam,kokobim,kokob). One possibility is that IFthe BoA was attached on the Hor Scroll then it mightbe a heavily redacted work with an Abrahamic core. If the text was originally written by Abraham and then passeddown for 1300+ years before it was written on the Hor scroll then their certainly is room for redaction.Again, I don;t have answers to these questians, they are only possibilities. I also know Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God.So you're point is?I can't see revelations from heaven giving incorrect science. So, the idea of Abraham thinking in terms of a geocentric model of the cosmos is crazy too.I recommend this paper. and this paperI don't think it's crazy to believe that God condesends to His children's level of understanding, no matter how "incorrect" it is,in order to teach important spiritual truths. My parents did it with me, growing up. If you read carefully, the lecture on astronomy isn;t really about astronomy is it?Abraham used Fac. 2 or something like it to teach his readers. Did he? As far as I know, hypocephali didn't appear until the Saite Period(672 BC to 525 BC). As far as we know all hypocephali post date Abraham. I belive the BoA and hypocephalus have two completly different origins and authors. The hypocephalus is being redacted for use in the BoA. Fac. 2 is anything but geocentric! There in the center is God, on his throne. There at the bottom is a cow which (the Egyptians supposed) represented the sun. And there in the bottom corner is the earth. It not only ain't geocentric, it ain't heliocentric; it's actually a good match with current science... earth orbits the sun, sun orbits the center of the galaxy along with a lot of other stars. I dont have time to go over the hypocephalus, you can visit my blog though. I also recommend Nibley's "One Eternal Round". I also recommend this paper. Our solar system is a little provincial region. So that puts me in the group that thinks Kolob is near the center of the galaxy, I guess... which btw is in the Constellation Sagitarrius. We can't see it, there's a lot of dust and stuff in the way, which is why this place is so dark. But it can be imaged, in the infrared.Sorry, I'm not buying it. And third, something that was posted but now I don't see it, somebody was saying that Kolob isn't a planet, it's a star.Im only going off what the BoA says. "And he said unto me: Kokaubeam, which signifies stars, or all the great lights, which were in the firmament of heaven." BTW,this is Hebrew. kokobim(??????)"Kolob is the greatest of all the Kokaubeam." It doesn't get plainer than that. Keep in mind, my whole OP is based on the premise that 1)The BoA is the translation of an ancient work and 2)Abraham was an actual anciient man,looking at an actual star in the actual heavens. I don;t see why the astronomy should look anything but ancient, nor why the star should be mysterious and invisible to us. I just don;t see God coming down and playing out this scenario:God:" Abraham, my son, I want to tell you about cosmic background radiation, Quasars and white dwarfs."Abraham: "What?"I could be wrong, but that's the way I see it. Link to comment
volgadon Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 And third, something that was posted but now I don't see it, somebody was saying that Kolob isn't a planet, it's a star.there is utterly no distinction in ancient Hebrew between stars and planets. Link to comment
volgadon Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 My parents did it with me, growing up. If you read carefully, the lecture on astronomy isn;t really about astronomy is it?Hear, hear!It is an ancient theological lesson employing heavenly objects, not modern astronomy. Link to comment
Woody Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 Im assuming Woody isnt a sock puppet pretending to be a TBMThis is the internet after all....I'm a TBM, just not died in the wool. My mother could not distinguish the LDS missionaries from the JW's. They'd set up their phonograph on the porch, give a couple of winds, and ring the doorbell and she'd do her best to swing the screen door out and smack that thing into the bushes. I 'spect she gave the Mormon missionaries the same short sermon. So I didn't join the Church until college. I'm in the Colorado Columbine Stake, if you want to check.No one said it was 19th century psuedopigrapha. One of the references says they do. You cite it below.IF the BoA was attached on the Hor Scroll then it might be a psudepigraphical work. That doesn't mean it isn't ancient or uninspired, it only means Abraham himself didn't write it. Um, I'll stick with what it says. This is one advantage of ignoring works like "By His Own Hand" - I suspect that people who have gotten deeply involved with Larsen's nonsense, for or against, can no longer understand this. But the two- or three-layer colophon at the top of the BofA says: "A Translation of some ancient Records, that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. Link to comment
Stargazer Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 Yes, I understand it is common for French missionaries to teach about binary star systems especially to pre-literate peoples. Since these missionaries are generally expert in their training in astronomy, it is important in teaching the rudiments of Christianity to people such as the Dogon.Thanks for the chuckle -- yes, it is definitely one of the principles of the Gospel as understood by the French. I may have misstated what I had heard in a cosmology class I took many years ago, in which the Dogon and their myths were brought up by the instructor. Here's a little more on the controversy, about how some kind of cross-cultural contamination might have occurred, and so on. Link to comment
volgadon Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 The first of these two talks about the Book of Abraham being said to be "purely a nineteenth-century document":"Second, most non-Mormons who have concerned themselves with the question, viewing the Book of Abraham as purely a nineteenth-century document, have attempted to associate the astronomy of the Book of Abraham with early nineteenth-century astronomical speculations. The Book of Abraham would thus represent Copernican and Newtonian astronomy, which was heliocentric, or centered on the sun."Woody, they simply stated the view of many critics, which is not the same as endorsing or advocating said view! Link to comment
volgadon Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 People are missing stuff. Hey, I'll bold up the salient words. Here:Abraham 3:1-2 AND I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees; And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it;It's right in front of us. How could Abraham tell whether any stars were very great? They all look like points, even with the iris of a human eye opened wide in the night, it's still only about 3 mm and that simply will not resolve any star other than the sun. Some are a little brighter than others, but none are "great". And how on earth could anyone determine whether these are close to His throne? Are we to suppose that's the name of a constellation? No unaided observer can determine celestial distances - only angular separation. Where is there any area of the sky with a really good concentration of very bright stars close together? It seems you have missed this.http://calba-savua.blogspot.com/2009/12/and-we-all-shine-on.htmlIn the Midrash Tehilim (or the Shocher Tov), which is a commentary on Psalms, there is an interesting section, which compares men to stars.Praise ye him, sun and moon; praise him all ye stars of light (Ps 148:3).Who are the sun and the moon? The patriarchs and matriarchs, who are compared (meshulot here could also be in similitude of) to the sun and moon, as it is said, (Gen 37:9) behold the sun and the moon. Who are these stars of light, these are the righteous, as it is said (Dan 12:3), they that turn many to righteousness as the stars, so thus it is said praise him all ye stars of light. From this you learn that everyone has a star in the heavens, and it shines according to his deeds Link to comment
Nofear Posted April 18, 2010 Share Posted April 18, 2010 May I point out one tiny issue.The visible universe constitutes only 20% of the universe. Surely the description of the universe in Abraham has to take into account dark matter.Actually, the amount of the visible universe (the universe is infinite in size as far as we know) which we see which is "visible" is more like 5%. Here I take "visible" to mean made of matter that is understood (proton, neutrons, neutrinos, etc.). Some 17% is dark matter (stuff that attracts gravitationally but is unknown to us and does not emit/absorb light), some 73% is dark energy (does not behave like any matter gravitationally).Anyway, gets complex. But, you will be safer with a statement like, "Off all the stuff that makes up the universe, we only understand about 5% of it."On the other hand, I see nothing in Abraham's account which would necessitate commenting on the other stuff in the universe. Link to comment
Woody Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 There's just one thing missing. In what way is Sirius the greatest of all the Kokaubeam? Surely there is something more concrete than apparent magnitude?Abraham said he saw a number of stars that were very great. Here is a list of the 26 brightest stars as seen from earth: http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/brightest.htmlBut a star's apparent brightness is a function of several things: its true brightness, its distance from us, and also any occluding material in between.It is possible to make educated guesses about these factors and thus try to identify the truly brightest stars. Here is a tentative list of the 8 truly brightest stars in the galaxy. http://www.tim-thompson.com/bright-stars.htmlNotice that 3 of these 8 are located in the "Quintuplet Cluster". My curiosity led me to look that up. It turns out that the Quintuplet Cluster is located in Sagittarius, at the galactic center. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintuplet_clusterWood Link to comment
LinuxGal Posted May 16, 2010 Share Posted May 16, 2010 Here is a list of the 26 brightest stars as seen from earth: http://www.astro.wis.../brightest.htmlBut a star's apparent brightness is a function of several things: its true brightness, its distance from us, and also any occluding material in between.Brighter is not always better. On that list, only Rigilkent (Alpha Centauri) is suitable for life, being a main sequence G class star like the Sun.The other ones are so hot that planets suitable for life could only exist out where the gas giants exist in our system lie, perhaps as moons of these giants. But taking the 60+ moons of our system as a representative sample, moons large enough for an atmosphere are extremely rare. We only have one, Titan, and that's only because it's cold and has a heavy atmosphere. A moon large enough to retain an oxygen atmosphere at Earth temperatures would need to be one or two orders of magnitude more massive than Titan. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.