Missing Papyrus

[Fifth Columnist]

One last thing.. Even in their estimates, 5 feet is missing. Don't let the 151cm fool you.. That's 5 feet folks. I don't care who you are, that's a lot of missing text.

Where did you get that number from? The Cook and Smith paper concludes that 56 cm is missing. 56 cm =1.83 ft.

[jskains]

Where did you get that number from? The Cook and Smith paper concludes that 56 cm is missing. 56 cm =1.83 ft.

That's overall length. Sorry. Lesson, don't re-read documentation that late at night when your overtired.

JMS

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

You really think that most people think that to be open minded, means to accept anything that is presented to you? That's called being gullible, not open-minded. Please cite one person who has defined open-mindedness the way you claim they did.

I said nothing about weather or not that is what they think. What I said is that is how they use it. I have had numerous examples when I was talking with critics (generally no one specific) that would tell me that I am not open minded. I had no idea what they were talking about as I considered their position, I just disagreed with them. I concluded that what they were really saying is that I did not accept their way of thinking on a particular matter. Not all critics do this, not even a majority do it. I am sure some apologists do this too. By all means don;t accept what I have to say. That just makes you close minded. Lol.

[jskains]

You know, if Kevin Barney is right, and the Egyptians re-used the original images from Abraham and that the book of Abraham is several re-writes behind, than while the ORIGINAL text claims that the facsimiles were in the beginning, that would no longer require that to be true.

If the facsimiles were re-used, and the BoA was on another scroll, that would make sense.... Perhaps in the original version it was at the beginning, but in this version, that would not necessarily be true.

JMS

[jskains]

So if one puts that together, Abraham wrote to the Egyptians in a way they could understand. The original never survived, but there was a copy of the BoA with the facsimiles relatively intact, but reused, and the text happened to be on a different scroll.

Joseph Smith made the mistake by reading the same thing we all read, assuming the facsimiles must be on the same document, when in fact just as a product of the copy process, on a different scroll.

If these events happened, that would explain a lot, and it would also explain why the BoM, which has a greater over-all importance, was kept on plates, rather than papyri. Perhaps God told them "Hey, a really useful document from Abraham was nearly lost, lets move to metal so this doesn't happen again.

JMS

[Mortal Man]

Chris ignores a lot of evidence to jump to his conclusions as does that linked document... So I am not sure your use of "actually missing" is honest.

His paper hasn't come out yet.

[Mortal Man]

So if one puts that together, Abraham wrote to the Egyptians in a way they could understand. The original never survived, but there was a copy of the BoA with the facsimiles relatively intact, but reused, and the text happened to be on a different scroll.

Joseph Smith made the mistake by reading the same thing we all read, assuming the facsimiles must be on the same document, when in fact just as a product of the copy process, on a different scroll.

If these events happened, that would explain a lot, and it would also explain why the BoM, which has a greater over-all importance, was kept on plates, rather than papyri. Perhaps God told them "Hey, a really useful document from Abraham was nearly lost, lets move to metal so this doesn't happen again.

You have an extremely flexible mind jskains; Rube Goldberg would be proud.

[jskains]

You have an extremely flexible mind jskains; Rube Goldberg would be proud.

If Joseph Smith were alive, and this is what he told you was what happened, you would not believe it.

JMS

[Mortal Man]

If Joseph Smith were alive, and this is what he told you was what happened, you would not believe it.

Perhaps he would thank you for pointing out all his mistaken assumptions.

[jskains]

Perhaps he would thank you for pointing out all his mistaken assumptions.

Perhaps he'd admit he made some mistakes. But making mistakes does not downgrade his Prophet status.

JMS

[Robert F. Smith]

If anyone here is interested in learning what is actually missing from Joseph's original papyrus collection, I encourage you to read Chris Smith's paper when it comes out next month.

In the meantime, you can see for yourself if the Book of Abraham could have been on the scroll containing Facsimile 1.

Thank you for calling our attention to the Spring 2011 Dialogue article by Cook & Smith, but where (in what venue) will Chris Smith's paper appear next month? And what will he do there that he and Cook did not do in the Dialogue article?

Will Chris address the question of what difference his estimates of the thickness of the papyrus might have on the conclusions provided by his formulae? Will he address the issue of whether the glued backing prevents our examination of the back of that same papyrus?

Will he come to grips with what it might mean for members of the Jewish community in Egypt to continue transmitting (recopying and translating and updating) old documents through nearly two millennia? In what form and in what language? Hieratic, demotic, or even an Aramaic or Greek Targum? What sort of form (or forms) might such a tradition have taken? Since Jewish aggadic legends include so much of what is contained in the LDS Book of Abraham, is this the original cauldron out of which the many-faceted Abraham traditions grew?

[Chris Smith]

Thank you for calling our attention to the Spring 2011 Dialogue article by Cook & Smith, but where (in what venue) will Chris Smith's paper appear next month? And what will he do there that he and Cook did not do in the Dialogue article?

It is slated to appear in the JWHA Journal in April. The paper argues that the Hor Document of Breathing was what Joseph Smith identified as the Book of Abraham, the Tshemmin Book of the Dead was what he identified as the Book of Joseph, and no more than about half the papyri originally owned by Joseph Smith were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. Whereas the Dialogue paper used geometry to estimate the original size of the Hor scroll, my JWHA paper takes a historical approach based primarily on the documentary sources.

Will Chris address the question of what difference his estimates of the thickness of the papyrus might have on the conclusions provided by his formulae?

My estimate of the thickness was offhand and entirely incidental to our formula. Our formula does not rely on measurements or estimates of papyrus thickness.

Will he address the issue of whether the glued backing prevents our examination of the back of that same papyrus?

I very briefly discuss this, yes, but not at any great length. You may be interested to know that according to Kerry Muhlestein, various ultraviolet, infrared, and other imaging techniques have been used to try to detect writing on the backside of the papyrus through the backing paper, but to no avail. Either there's nothing there to see, or the backing paper is too thick to see it. I don't mention these efforts in my paper, since I wasn't involved in the project and to my knowledge the results have not been published.

Will he come to grips with what it might mean for members of the Jewish community in Egypt to continue transmitting (recopying and translating and updating) old documents through nearly two millennia? In what form and in what language? Hieratic, demotic, or even an Aramaic or Greek Targum? What sort of form (or forms) might such a tradition have taken? Since Jewish aggadic legends include so much of what is contained in the LDS Book of Abraham, is this the original cauldron out of which the many-faceted Abraham traditions grew?

Those questions have no bearing on my paper, though I certainly encourage anyone who cares to pursue such a line of investigation.

[Robert F. Smith]

It is slated to appear in the JWHA Journal in April. The paper argues that the Hor Document of Breathing was what Joseph Smith identified as the Book of Abraham, the Tshemmin Book of the Dead was what he identified as the Book of Joseph, and no more than about half the papyri originally owned by Joseph Smith were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. Whereas the Dialogue paper used geometry to estimate the original size of the Hor scroll, my JWHA paper takes a historical approach based primarily on the documentary sources.

My estimate of the thickness was offhand and entirely incidental to our formula. Our formula does not rely on measurements or estimates of papyrus thickness.

I very briefly discuss this, yes, but not at any great length. You may be interested to know that according to Kerry Muhlestein, various ultraviolet, infrared, and other imaging techniques have been used to try to detect writing on the backside of the papyrus through the backing paper, but to no avail. Either there's nothing there to see, or the backing paper is too thick to see it. I don't mention these efforts in my paper, since I wasn't involved in the project and to my knowledge the results have not been published.

Those questions have no bearing on my paper, though I certainly encourage anyone who cares to pursue such a line of investigation.

Chris,

Thanks so much for your quick and complete response. I'll look forward to your article in the JWHA Journal.

Have you had a chance to attend that Claremont LDS Symposium on Peace and War yesterday (or today)? A colleague of mine, Gordon Thomasson was one of the presenters.

Bob

[Chris Smith]

Unfortunately, no. I committed to present at Sunstone West before I realized the two conferences overlapped. (In fact, that's where I'm off to right now!)