Egyptian Alphabet And Grammar - Any Way To Distance Joseph Smith From It?

[TruthSeeker2013]

Is it or is it not the truth to say the both the BoA and the BoM were translated "by the gift and power of G-d"?

I think that's the question that Closet Doubter is wrestling with (and myself as well to some degree). The fact is that the church taught for nearly the last 200 years that Joseph in fact translated the Book of Abraham from the papyri in his possession. It wasn't until earlier this year that the church finally distanced the Book of Abraham from the papyri in the 2013 scripture changes. So one could naturally wonder if Joseph Smith and all of the prophets since then until now never understood from God or were never told by God what the church is now saying in 2013, then perhaps there are other things that have been wrongly taught by the church over the past 200 some years. It seems like a natural and reasonable question to me. Don't get me wrong, for me it's not something to leave the church over, but it is quite frustrating. That's why I asked the original question (and have received some great links, thanks everyone!) to look for an answer about the EAG aspect of the BOA to try to make a little more sense of it.

[Calm]

It was actually my failed attempt at humor. A common apologetic response for the EAG was that it was JS's scribes' who made the failed attempt, not JS. So why didn't JS destroy or at least denounce the EAG knowing the scribes had no translation ability and that a failed translation would only give him a bad name?

Joseph Smith did not consider himself the most educated or scholarly among his associates so if the EAG was a mundane/academic attempt rather than revelation attempt, why would he think he needed to automatically assume control of the project? Why wouldn't he feel comfortable taking a backseat and learning along with the others? (I am asking a question here, not assuming a scenario)

[Calm]

We've gotten new information that confirms the BoA isn't a literal translation of the papyri.

How new?

[tagriffy]

How new?

1967, when they were rediscovered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and translated.

[Glenn101]

1967, when they were rediscovered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and translated.

However it has not been established that those papyri are the ones from which the Book of Abraham was translated. Far from it.

Glenn

[Calm]

1967, when they were rediscovered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and translated.

So we are talking almost 50 years ago at which time:

the Church ran a multi-part series with color pictures of the papyri in the Improvement Era (the predecessor to theEnsign) less than two months after they were received from the Metropolitan Museum.^[2]The series repeatedly affirmed that the recovered papyri contained Egyptian funerary materials and not the text of Book of Abraham. Although the article erroneously identified the papyrus as the Egyptian "Book of the Dead," it was later correctly identified as a "Book of Breathings.".......

The 11-part series, written by Dr. Hugh Nibley and entitled "A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price", began in the January 1968 Improvement Era and ran in every issue until May 1970 (with the exception of December 1969 and February 1970).

http://en.fairmormon...i#ref_improvera

I am not sure how the Church could have better prepared the Saints that are alive today than to more or less immediately (given the prep time it took to print a magazine back then) have stated (50ish years ago) that there was no literal translation on the papyri.

Edited June 8, 2013 by calmoriah

[tagriffy]

So we are talking almost 50 years ago at which time:

http://en.fairmormon...i#ref_improvera

I am not sure how the Church could have better prepared the Saints that are alive today than to more or less immediately (given the prep time it took to print a magazine back then) have stated (50ish years ago) that there was no literal translation on the papyri.

True enough, but Closet Doubter was complaining about being taught "the Book of Abraham was a literal translation from the papyri." If something different is happening now, then the rediscovery of the papyri is the new information that led to that result.

[Calm]

How old are you, Closet Doubter?

http://www.lds.org/l...0004d82620aRCRD

Edited June 8, 2013 by calmoriah

[oremites]

So one could naturally wonder if Joseph Smith and all of the prophets since then until now never understood from God or were never told by God what the church is now saying in 2013, then perhaps there are other things that have been wrongly taught by the church over the past 200 some years. It seems like a natural and reasonable question to me. Don't get me wrong, for me it's not something to leave the church over, but it is quite frustrating.

God cared enough about the Book of Abraham that He gave it to us. He cares that we read it and gain spiritual insights from it. I'm pretty sure that He doesn't care if we understand exactly how the book came about.

It would be easy for Him to reveal all the secrets of how it was produced, but how would that benefit any of us? A big part of our reason for being here is learning and growing, developing the ability to think for ourselves and reason. Getting the answers handed to us without effort on our part might satisfy our curiosity but it doesn't bring us closer to God.

It's really very impressive all the research, thought and effort that goes into trying to understand the origins of the Book of Abraham. That effort is what God wants from us and that's why we don't get all questions answered just for the asking. That's also why He doesn't ensure that everything the church teaches is 100% percent correct, if you think about it. It's vital to be able to distinguish between the important and the unimportant.

And it's not frustrating, it's exciting. The future will bring new knowledge gained and deeper insights attained. If we aren't continually learning new truths, modifying our beliefs where needed and discarding incorrect ones if necessary, then we're wasting our time. I've always understood from growing up in the church that increasing in knowledge and understanding is an important part of life.

[crixus]

Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham in the most literal way. From one source written in one language. to another source in another language. It doesn't matter if he used the "power of God" or Google translator. He still claimed that his final product was a valid translation of the original documents. In the context of written manuscripts, the word "translation" has only one meaning.

Turns out, the translation is bogus. This is pretty much proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Much of the text is just his imagination mingled with an already established narrative from the Old Testament.

[Glenn101]

Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham in the most literal way. From one source written in one language. to another source in another language. It doesn't matter if he used the "power of God" or Google translator. He still claimed that his final product was a valid translation of the original documents. In the context of written manuscripts, the word "translation" has only one meaning.

Turns out, the translation is bogus. This is pretty much proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Much of the text is just his imagination mingled with an already established narrative from the Old Testament.

The only bogus thing is to make the claim that the documents recovered by the church is the ones Joseph must have used in his translation. Anyone who will take the time to research the whole story will know that the papyri rediscovered in 1967 are only a fraction of those that were originally obtained by the church.

Glenn

Edited June 8, 2013 by Glenn101

[Kenngo1969]

Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham in the most literal way. From one source written in one language. to another source in another language. It doesn't matter if he used the "power of God" or Google translator. He still claimed that his final product was a valid translation of the original documents. In the context of written manuscripts, the word "translation" has only one meaning.

Turns out, the translation is bogus. This is pretty much proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Much of the text is just his imagination mingled with an already established narrative from the Old Testament.

Well, then ... shut 'er down, Clancy! She's pumpin' mud!

[Tacenda]

Well, then ... shut 'er down, Clancy! She's pumpin' mud!

Seriously acknowledging that fact must be hard to do sometimes.

[Kevin Christensen]

Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham in the most literal way. From one source written in one language. to another source in another language. It doesn't matter if he used the "power of God" or Google translator. He still claimed that his final product was a valid translation of the original documents. In the context of written manuscripts, the word "translation" has only one meaning.

Turns out, the translation is bogus. This is pretty much proven beyond all reasonable doubt. Much of the text is just his imagination mingled with an already established narrative from the Old Testament.

Regarding "imagination mingled with an already established narrative from the Old Testament," I'm reminded of this by Nibley from Abraham in Egypt:

We invite the critics to use the great advantage of their superior education and vast resource material to produce anything like it. We will even allow them full use of what they call Joseph Smith's modus operandi, which they have so brilliantly suggested as the explanation of how he really did it. And to assist them further, we offer at no extra charge another clue, a statement by the great E. A. Wallis Budge that is all the more revealing for its frank hostility to the Prophet: "The letter press [Joseph Smith's explanation of the Book of Abraham] is as idiotic as the pictures, and is clearly based on the Bible, and some of the Old Testament apocryphal histories."¹ As to those apocryphal sources, why have all his other critics overlooked them, insisting that the whole thing is "a pure fabrication," and "simply the product of Joseph Smith's imagination"? As we have already observed, what could Joseph Smith have known about Old Testament apocryphal histories? Budge was possibly the greatest authority of his day on apocrypha, but that was because he spent his days mostly in the British Museum among original manuscripts to which nobody else had access. There were indeed a number of important apocrypha published in Budge's day—but in the 1830s? Who has access to the apocryphal Abraham materials even today?"² Now if Budge insists that the Abraham story in the Pearl of Great Price is clearly based on Old Testament apocryphal sources, that story deserves to be treated with some attention. What, the relatively uneducated Joseph Smith using sources of which none of the experts save only Budge, the most prodigiously learned and productive Orientalist of his time, was aware? What a flattering accusation!

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=48&chapid=286

When Nibley wrote, it was still true that access to apocryphal Abraham materials was still spotty. Now though, we have this:

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/bookstore/?id=118

Regarding the Papyrus, Gee points out:

Eyewitnesses from the Nauvoo period (1839-1844) describe "a quantity of records, written on papyrus, in Egyptian hieroglyphics,"³² including (1) some papyri "preserved under glass,"³³ described as "a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics";³⁴ (2) "a long roll of manuscript"³⁵ that contained the Book of Abraham;³⁶ (3) "another roll";³⁷ (4) and "two or three other small pieces of papyrus with astronomical calculations, epitaphs, &c."³⁸ Only the mounted fragments ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and thence were given back to the Church of Jesus Christ. When eyewitnesses described the vignettes as being of the mounted fragments, they can be matched with the fragments from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; but when the vignettes described are on the rolls, the descriptions do not match any of the fragments from the Met. Gustavus Seyffarth's 1856 catalog of the Wood Museum indicates that some of the papyri were there. Those papyri went to Chicago and were burned in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Whatever we might imagine their contents to be is only conjecture. Both Mormon and non-Mormon eyewitnesses from the nineteenth century agree that it was a "roll of papyrus from which our prophet translated the Book of Abraham,"³⁹ meaning the "long roll of manuscript" and not one of the mounted fragments that eventually ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.⁴⁰

As for the translation, no one knows how it was done, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no position on how the Book of Abraham was translated or from what papyrus. Since there is no official position, members of the church divide into four opinions about the translation of the Book of Abraham. The smallest group, comprising about 0.5 percent of members—according to my informal, admittedly unscientific surveys—thinks that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from the existing fragments that were in the Met. The next largest group thinks that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from papyrus fragments that are no longer in existence. About one-third think that there is or was no connection between the Book of Abraham and any papyrus fragments. The largest group, more than half of members, do not care where the Book of Abraham came from. As Egyptologists, however, we routinely assert that the Mormon position is the one that is actually the least popular of all positions. The only eyewitness to the translation process to describe it was Joseph Smith's scribe, Warren Parrish, who claimed, after he left the church, "I have set by his side and penned down the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from Heaven."⁴¹

Editions

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=19&num=2&id=670

The final line, from the "only eyewitness to the translation process to describe it" is interesting.

Here is Webster's 1828 on Translate.

translate

TRANSLA'TE, v.t. [L. translatus, from transfero; trans, over, and fero, to bear.]

1. To bear, carry or remove from one place to another. It is applied to the removal of a bishop from one see to another.

The bishop of Rochester, when the king would have translated him to a better bishoprick, refused.

2. To remove or convey to heaven, as a human being, without death.

By faith Enoch was translated, that he should not see death. Heb. 16.

3. To transfer; to convey from one to another. 2 Sam. 3.

4. To cause to remove from one part of the body to another; as, to translate a disease.

5. To change.

Happy is your grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

6. To interpret; to render into another language; to express the sense of one language in the words of another. The Old Testament was translated into the Greek language more than two hundred years before Christ. The Scriptures are now translated into most of the languages of Europe and Asia.

7. To explain.

Joseph Smith's own personal definition is a bit more idiosyncratic, sometimes being the equivalent of revelation.

Having read a great many books and articles about the Book of Abraham over the years, including having read Nibleys 1975 book published by Deseret Book, and sold in LDS bookstores, that actually translates the Book of Breathings, and with no apologies for it not being the Book of Abraham, I find little sound bite tweet sized versions of the story, frustrating and depressing. Not to worry, the Book of Abraham remains fascinating, and the surprises and relevance keep on coming. Will's paper, for instance. If, of course, I don't shut my eyes and mind to them.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Calm]

Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham in the most literal way.

CFR please.

[cdowis]

It is not as ignored as you might think. I don't use the term "mneumonic" because it denotes something that is an aid to memory (think of flash cards used to memorize a multiplication table).

That is precisely its meaning in this theory, except your example of "flash cards" is a very primitive.

In this case, he suggests that one memory word is used to represent a phrase, and each of these memory words are associated with each other to form sentences and then paragraphs, etc. Flash cards, however, are not associated among each other -- each is independent of the other. The EAG is, according to that theory, the key to the translation, matching the memory word with the text.

Thus, if one reads the paragraph, they are unable to discern the actual "underlying" meaning. You have to take each memory word and find that meaning, as Tvedtnes attempted to do.

Decades ago, as I thought about this issue, I had the strong impression that the Book of the Dead IS the Book Abraham, and it IS NOT the BOA, a seeming paradox. Tvedtnes was able to resolve that paradox. (please note: Gee has convinced him to abandon that theory in favor of the popular missing manuscript theory.)

This nicely ties together the papyrus and the EAG with the translation of the BOA.

Finally the BOD was handed down over the centuries, initially due to its value as a memory device, then became to be considered as a holy text in its own right and the association to Abraham was probably lost.

Regardless of its validity, almost all difficulties of the BOA are resolved, tied together in a nice ribbon.

Edited June 8, 2013 by cdowis

[Kenngo1969]

Seriously acknowledging that fact must be hard to do sometimes.

Seriously acknowledging what fact? (And it's an honest question: I'm not trying to be obtuse or dismissive.) Acknowledging the lack of correspondence between the papyrus fragments we currently have and the Book of Abraham is one thing. Concluding that, "Ergo, The Book of Abraham is totally bogus" is quite another. I'm perfectly willing to concede the former, and not at all willing to concede the latter. Do you see a problem with that? And if so, why? (Again, these are honest questions. I'm not trying to be obtuse or dismissive.) Many critics consider the case closed on the basis of a lack of evidence, which isn't possible to do from a logical standpoint, either in legal matters, which which I'm most familiar, or in matters of scholarly inquiry. To me, it's the equivalent of (if I were a prosecutor) going into court and saying, "Your Honor, we've indicted the notorious Smedley Smileright for the murder (horrible name for a murderer, I know, but Smedley's disarming smile is a perfect example of why he's so devious ), and there's no evidence he didn't do it, so you must find him guilty!" Even if there's no evidence that the Book of Abraham comes from the fragments we have, that hardly exhausts the possibilities.

P.S.: See Kevin Christensen’s #39 on this thread.

Edited June 8, 2013 by Kenngo1969

[Deborah]

Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Abraham in the most literal way.

CFR as well and make sure you are actually using what Joseph himself said and what other people said he did. I don't recall reading anything from the Prophet describing what he actually did.

[cdowis]

dup

Edited June 8, 2013 by cdowis

[omni]

Joseph Smith did not consider himself the most educated or scholarly among his associates so if the EAG was a mundane/academic attempt rather than revelation attempt, why would he think he needed to automatically assume control of the project? Why wouldn't he feel comfortable taking a backseat and learning along with the others? (I am asking a question here, not assuming a scenario)

I think you have to look at the situation and see who more likely created the EAG. JS who translated the BoM, BoA, and attempted translations of the Kinderhook Plates and Greek Psalter (possibly) all from ancient unknown languages, or the scribes who had no training in ancient languages and no known supernatural abilities of translation? Don't you think it would be odd for some men with no training or translation abilities to create such a detailed translation system?

[Kevin Christensen]

I think you have to look at the situation and see who more likely created the EAG. JS who translated the BoM, BoA, and attempted translations of the Kinderhook Plates and Greek Psalter (possibly) all from ancient unknown languages, or the scribes who had no training in ancient languages and no known supernatural abilities of translation? Don't you think it would be odd for some men with no training or translation abilities to create such a detailed translation system?

Joseph Smith was perfectly willing to make the effort to learn Hebrew and German, setting aside any supernatural abilities or claims in those contexts. And several others attended the School of the Prophets besides Joseph Smith. Joshua Sexias had several students there. A student in the school of the prophets was, by definition, in training regarding translation abilities. Oliver Cowdery earlier wanted to try to translate. Why not other people later in Kirtland? It was group of people who pooled their resources to purchase the mummies and scrolls. Joseph was not the only one interested. I'd think it odd if no one else tried or was interested.

And one of the things Will's FAIR presentation demonstrates is that the EAG was dependent on pre-existing text, including, but not restricted to the Book of Abraham. (Have you looked at Will's presentation?) If it's a detailed translation system, rather than, as Will argues, a cypher key, how does the system actually work? Is is detailed enough to actually produce anything? Nibley was asking that question back in his BYU Studies article.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[Kenngo1969]

I think you have to look at the situation and see who more likely created the EAG. JS who translated the BoM, BoA, and attempted translations of the Kinderhook Plates and Greek Psalter (possibly) all from ancient unknown languages, or the scribes who had no training in ancient languages and no known supernatural abilities of translation? Don't you think it would be odd for some men with no training or translation abilities to create such a detailed translation system?

No more odd than it was for Oliver Cowdery to attempt to translate. See Doctrine & Covenants 8-9.

[omni]

Joseph Smith was perfectly willing to make the effort to learn Hebrew and German, setting aside any supernatural abilities or claims in those contexts. And several others attended the School of the Prophets besides Joseph Smith. Joshua Sexias had several students there. A student in the school of the prophets was, by definition, in training regarding translation abilities. Oliver Cowdery earlier wanted to try to translate. Why not other people later in Kirtland? It was group of people who pooled their resources to purchase the mummies and scrolls. Joseph was not the only one interested. I'd think it odd if no one else tried or was interested.

And one of the things Will's FAIR presentation demonstrates is that the EAG was dependent on pre-existing text, including, but not restricted to the Book of Abraham. (Have you looked at Will's presentation?) If it's a detailed translation system, rather than, as Will argues, a cypher key, how does the system actually work? Is is detailed enough to actually produce anything? Nibley was asking that question back in his BYU Studies article.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

The difference is that at the school of the prophets they were studying known languages. I think it's very difficult to argue that a group of respectable men would try and translate an ancient language they had no familiarity with, going so far as to creating a pronunciation guide for the characters. It would be one thing if the characters were pictographs and one showed an image of a boat and they assumed correctly or not that it translated as the word "boat". The characters in the KEP were completely unrecognizable, why would they even presume to be able to translate and provide a pronunciation for them?

[crixus]

The only bogus thing is to make the claim that the documents recovered by the church is the ones Joseph must have used in his translation. Anyone who will take the time to research the whole story will know that the papyri rediscovered in 1967 are only a fraction of those that were originally obtained by the church.

This has been pretty much demolished by available evidence.

Regarding "imagination mingled with an already established narrative from the Old Testament," I'm reminded of this by Nibley from Abraham in Egypt:

How does this change the fact that the Book of Abraham is largely lifted from the Bible?

Regarding the Papyrus, Gee points out:

Gee ignores the vast wealth of evidence pointing to the extant papyri as the source for the Book of Abraham.

Joseph Smith's own personal definition is a bit more idiosyncratic, sometimes being the equivalent of revelation.

"Personal definition?" You can point to different definitions of the word "translate" in a dictionary but only one can in any sense apply to the Book of Abraham. In the context of written manuscripts, the word has only one meaning. Besides, who here really believes Joseph Smith wasn't purporting to render the Egyptian text into English? None of the other definitions make any sense in this context, and you haven't suggested otherwise. All you did was throw up more definitions to confuse the readers into thinking something quite simple is really too complex to deduce on its own. So better leave it up to Mormon scholars to figure it out for us?

[webbles]

This has been pretty much demolished by available evidence.

CFR. Just curious what this evidence is.