My Paper On The Book Of Abraham Criticisms And Defenses - Please Review!

[TruthSeeker2013]

bcuzbcuz, on 18 Nov 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

Only trouble is, the Egyptians didn't have any virgin sacrifice on altars.

 

And you know this.... how?

 

LDS Egyptologist Stephen Thompson explains that religious persecution like that described in the BoA didn't take place anywhere in the world until 200BC.

 

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V28N01_155.pdf

Edited November 21, 2013 by TruthSeeker2013

[TruthSeeker2013]

A pagan God of fertility with ... with an ... no, it's too horrible to even contemplate; bodies, parts, and passions are gross and sinful and evil. 

THE HORRORZ

 

I agree that it's silly the church would edit it out for nearly 100 years.

[TruthSeeker2013]

How can those who are unwilling to put faith in the witness of the Holy Ghost put unwavering faith in the "scholarship" of man?  This isn't meant as an attack on Truthseeker.  I honestly think critics and defenders put too much stock in academia.  Just my two cents.

 

I think it's a fair question. For me, I don't believe the Holy Ghost to be a reliable indicator of truth. Goodness, yes, but not truth. I feel this way because I know there are billions of people in the world who subscribe to their specific religious beliefs based on the same feelings we feel about our religion. Others feel their religions and beliefs are true because the Holy Ghost has manifested itself unto them through warm feelings, peace of mind, dreams, visions, etc. Also, many people experience the Holy Ghost telling them that our beliefs are NOT true. Just like we feel the Holy Ghost tell us that the beliefs of Muslim Extremists who commit acts of terror are not true, many other similarly have felt that our religion and truth claims are not true.

[TruthSeeker2013]

Quite an interesting paper.  I haven't read much on the Book of Abraham issues.  Just curious, what has this done to your faith?  Do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet?  What role does the Book of Abraham play in that belief?

 

The Book of Abraham, I believe, is the one and only smoking gun of Mormonism. There is much else which is evidence that the Book of Mormon, for example, is not true. And I think when put together the evidence is overwhelming that the church is not what it claims to be. But I find the BoA to be unique in that in and of itself it proves, in my mind, that Joseph was either a fraud (which I don't believe) or was unable to differentiate between his own imagination and revelation (I believe this is true). And if Joseph is unable to differentiate then everything he produced is put into question.

 

So do I believe Joseph was a prophet? Yes, but not in the way traditional Mormonism defines a prophet. I think he was a prophet in the sense that he had some amazing spiritual insights which may or may not be true but that do "taste good." I also believe that he honestly believed that he himself was a prophet. But I don't believe that he was chosen by God to restore God's one and only true church and to be God's mouthpiece to the world.

 

The Book of Abraham has destroyed my testimony of traditional Mormonism. I am still completely active in the church and love much about Mormonism. I can no longer believe that the church is what it claims to be, though  - God's one and only true church on the earth with the only prophet on the earth.

[Kevin Christensen]

I'm willing to allow Joseph to make mistakes. But doesn't  that then bring into question everything else he produced? In other words. If he got THAT wrong, how do we know the other stuff he got right? I'm sincerely curious as to how you reconcile this.

Sure, if Joseph could make a mistake, that raises the question of other mistakes. But raising the question is not the same thing as answering such questions. It can be a simple matter of pulling the motes out of my own eye so has to improve the quality of my own vision.

I've personally tested Joseph Smith's productions on many issues, and have read material by hundreds of LDS scholars who dealt with other questions. Much of what I find amazes and impresses me. I've also read several anti-LDS volumes and try to stay informed.

In reading your little article here, I could not help noticing mistakes and selectivity. Does that bring into question everything you produce? If you get anything wrong, how do I know your other stuff is right? See how this kind of thinking has double edges not only on the blade, but on the handle. It's very easy to cut yourself.

Kuhn explains that paradigm choice is not about finding perfect knowledge, but of deciding "which paradigm is better, and which problems are more significant to have solved." And then making a faith choice about which paradigm to use when approaching problems yet unsolved.

I reconcile my choice by also weighing in things like Robert Smith's essay, other things by Gee, Nibley, Rhodes, Tvedtnes, Barney and others. They offer information that factors in when considering whether your paradigm is better, and which problems are more significant to have solved.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Edited November 22, 2013 by Kevin Christensen

[TruthSeeker2013]

Did you get anything wrong?  Yes.  For instance, in the Introduction, third paragraph, you have this, insinuating sinister suppression of damning evidence.

 

"One might wonder, then, why the church doesn't shout from the rooftops that it has the papyri

– the source of the Book of Abraham – and Joseph‘s translations of them which prove that Joseph had the prophetic

gift of translation."

 

I would expect that one who adopts the name "truthseeker" would mention the January 1968 publication of photographs of the recovered papyri in the Improvement Era, something the Metropolitan Museum could have done at any time during the sixty or so years they had them.  The church managed to get it all out there very quickly, even without the aid of desktop publishing tools.

 

https://archive.org/details/improvementera7101unse

 

And Nibley's 1975 publication from Deseret Book,  The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyrii: An Egyptian Endowment, more recently republished in an expanded edition.  And the FARMS Publication called The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary.

 

I rather think these publications demonstrate that the church has not hidden away the papyrii nor shied away from putting out translations of their contents.  Don't you think that formal publication of photographs and translation is a better way of getting the word out than shouting from a rooftop?

 

Given what I have previously read about the Book of Abraham and ongoing debates since 1975 when I personally started taking an interest, compared to what I see in the paper, I have to agree with Volgadon. 

 

Almost nothing of the really interesting material about the Book of Abraham makes it here.  It's the usual dismissals, a selective slice focused on one side of the debates. The business of wings versus fingers, for instance, has been settled on evidence that did not make it here. The seeking that produced this strikes me as rather selective relative to "knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come."  No Will Schryver or Don Bradley, for instance.  No Kevin Barney.  No Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham.  No One Eternal Round.  No Hamlet's Mill.

 

And incidentally, there are at least 28 Biblical tests for true and false prophets.   Omniscience and popular acceptance and agreement by secular scholars are not on the list.

 

FWIW

 

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

 

Thank you for your input. To be clear, I wasn't trying to insinuate that the church is hiding the papyri. What I was trying to point out is that this is the perfect test to prove to the world that Joseph really was the prophetic translator of ancient languages that he claimed to be! We have the source and the translation! Unfortunately, the translation is incorrect. If the church believed that the translation WAS correct, then we would certainly be hearing about the papyri more often than once every few decades. And I would expect that missionaries would be teaching this in their discussions on a regular basis, etc.

 

And I understand that some believe we DON'T have the source of the Book of Abraham. Apparently the church now takes this position as well given it's new 2013 Pearl of Great Price introduction of the Book of Abraham. I obviously disagree that the source of the text is anything other than the Small Sensen portion of the Breathing Permit of Hor as I've laid out in my paper. But what what EVERYONE can I agree on, I think, is that we DO have the source and translation of the three facsimiles. Again, if Joseph had gotten these translations and restorations correct, the church would be shouting from the rooftops that we have proof of Joseph's self-proclaimed prophetic ability to translate. But the church has not done this given that Joseph unfortunately got the translations wrong.

[TruthSeeker2013]

The paper makes for a very convenient digest of anti-Mormon arguments regarding the BoA, so that is perhaps its only redeeming feature.

 

I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you!

[TruthSeeker2013]

No.  There have been no changes to the Mormon Canon in the 2013 edition.  Some people have commented that some introductory material has been changed, but that is not part of the official Canon, and is innocuous in any case.  Changes in the introductions and addenda have occurred many times over the years, and the LDS Church has made clear in such cases that the material is merely added as a help to understanding.

 

The 2013 changes are far from innocuous and there have NOT been many changes over the years. I lay the changes out in detail in my paper. 2013 is the first year ever that the introduction in the Pearl of Great Price backs away from 3 claims that appeared in every Book of Abraham and Pearl of Great price introduction up until 2013:

1) Joseph translated the papyri, 2) the papyri was the source of the Book of Abraham, and 3) the papyri literally contained Abraham's own writing. These changes back away from these three claims that Joseph made himself in Manuscript 2 and in the publication of the Book of Abraham in 1842.

[wenglund]

My paper: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tz1iy4q7w39wvor/The%20Book%20of%20Abraham%20Criticisms%20Defenses%20and%20Implications.pdf

I have found the Book of Abraham criticisms and defenses to be relatively complex and difficult to understand without visual aids. To solve these problems, I put together my own paper on the Book of Abraham. It includes 37 visual aids, and covers 6 main topics:

1. The Papyri's Age Proves That it Cannot Contain Abraham's Writing as Joseph Claimed

2. Joseph's Translation of the Facsimiles was Incorrect

3. The Church Proposes New Theories to Defend the Book of Abraham

4. The Missing Papyrus Theory Fails

5. The Catalyst Theory Fails

6. The Church Has Revised History in an Attempt to Minimize the Devastating Implications of the Book of Abraham

I would love your thoughts on my paper. What could I do to make it better? Did I get anything wrong? Any and all criticism is welcome!

 

What? No mention of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[TruthSeeker2013]

Sure, if Joseph could make a mistake, that raises the question of other mistakes. But raising the question is not the same thing as answering such questions. It can be a simple matter of pulling the motes out of my own eye so has to improve the quality of my own vision.

I've personally tested Joseph Smith's productions on many issues, and have read material by hundreds of LDS scholars who dealt with other questions. Much of what I find amazes and impresses me. I've also read several anti-LDS volumes and try to stay informed.

 

In reading your little article here, I could not help noticing mistakes and selectivity. Does that bring into question everything you produce? If you get anything wrong, how do I know your other stuff is right? See how this kind of thinking has double edges not only on the blade, but on the handle. It's very easy to cut yourself.

Kuhn explains that paradigm choice is not about finding perfect knowledge, but of deciding "which paradigm is better, and which problems are more significant to have solved." And then making a faith choice about which paradigm to use when approaching problems yet unsolved.

I reconcile my choice by also weighing in things like Robert Smith's essay, other things by Gee, Nibley, Rhodes, Tvedtnes, Barney and others. They offer information that factors in when consider whether when considering whether your paradigm is better, and which problems are more significant to have solved.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

So is it kind of a weighing thing for you? In other words, you see enough evidence to support Joseph's prophethood vs. the mistakes he made to lead you to believe he really was a prophet? That makes sense. I suppose I've done that as well and just come to a different conclusion.

 

If you noticed mistakes in my paper, please point them out because I would like to improve it! And what did you mean by selectivity? I obviously didn't cover every aspect of the Book of Abraham, but tried to focus only on the leading criticisms and defenses. In the topics that I DID address, do you feel like I left out something important?

 

You compared me to Joseph and asked if because I made mistakes then should you doubt the rest of my work. 1) I don't claim to receive revelation directly from God as God's one and only true prophet on the earth, so I would expect Joseph's ability to communicate truth to be far more advanced than mine, and 2) YES!, you can doubt everything else I've done if I get things wrong. I would hope you just don't take my word for it and would actually investigate what I present as my findings. Similarly, I don't think we should just take Joseph's word for it and should investigate his claims.

[bcuzbcuz]

Put yourself in the shoes of the Jewish scribe who is transmitting the text:

Where are you getting this from? Do you have any evidence at all that "Jewish scribe(s)" ever recorded anything to correlate to the ideas you put forward in your following points?

And what does "transmitting the text" mean?

 

it is very clear that the two hands reaching up can be seen as Abraham reaching up in supplication.  It is highly ritualized and archetypal in nature,

 

Do you have any art work from ancient Hebrew sources that show hands raised in supplication? (Assuming, of course, that the filled in lacunae are correct?)

replacing the counterfeit with the real thing,

"counterfeit"? Counterfeit of what? "Real thing"? Real thing of what?

 

correct translation of Canaanite-Hebrew panim, “face, presence,” pene-

"Correct translation of Canaanite-Hebrew"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole text in Abraham from Egyptian, that has nothing to do with Hebrew? Wasn't the whole point of Joseph Smith's "translation" was that he was translating an Egyptian text that accompanied Egyptian mummies, from Egypt? Where does Joseph Smith ever mention anything about working with a Hebrew text?

[TruthSeeker2013]

What? No mention of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

 

Yes, I cover those throughout my paper. I discuss the manuscripts, the Egyptian Alphabets, the rediscovered papyri, the missing papyri, etc.

Edited November 21, 2013 by TruthSeeker2013

[wenglund]

Yes, I cover those throughout my paper. I discuss the manuscripts, the Egyptian Alphabets, the rediscovered papyri, the missing papyri, etc.

 

Could you summarize your views about the Egyptian Alphabets and Grammar in relation to the Book of Abraham?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[TruthSeeker2013]

Could you summarize your views about the Egyptian Alphabets and Grammar in relation to the Book of Abraham?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

 

Have you read my paper? If not, please read it first. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have.

[Kevin Christensen]

Thank you for your input. To be clear, I wasn't trying to insinuate that the church is hiding the papyri. What I was trying to point out is that this is the perfect test to prove to the world that Joseph really was the prophetic translator of ancient languages that he claimed to be!

Well that is just what Bishop Spalding thought back in 1912.

And of course, it might help to discard naive notions of proof in this context. You ought to read Ian Barbour's Myths, Models, and Paradigms. Pay close attention to what he describes as the limits on falsification and verification. Pay close attention to what he says about falsification involving "networks of assumptions" being tested at once.

We have the source and the translation! Unfortunately, the translation is incorrect. If the church believed that the translation WAS correct, then we would certainly be hearing about the papyri more often than once every few decades. And I would expect that missionaries would be teaching this in their discussions on a regular basis, etc.

See if you can make explicit the network of assumptions behind your statements here. What kind of translator did Joseph Smith claim to be? Can you come up with a description that accounts for him studying Hebrew the hard way? And that accounts for his willingness to edit and revise his own revelations? That involves him translating the Book of Mormon while looking at a stone in a hat, rather than the metal plates, and a parchment from John, a book of Enoch, and revelation to Moses without ever possessing documents of any kind?

And given your flat statement that "the translation is incorrect" what am I supposed to do with studies I have read that you have not referenced if you have read that suggest otherwise on several points? Would is be more accurate, and do a better job of exposing the network of assumptions to say "incorrect according to" various specific people?

And I understand that some believe we DON'T have the source of the Book of Abraham. Apparently the church now takes this position as well given it's new 2013 Pearl of Great Price introduction of the Book of Abraham.

Calling the papyrus we have "The Hor Book of Breathings" is not 2013 news. That was obvious in 1968, and it was Nibley who made the specific identification as a Breathings text, and not a Book of the Dead, a related but not identical class of documents.

I obviously disagree that the source of the text is anything other than the Small Sensen portion of the Breathing Permit of Hor as I've laid out in my paper.

It is tricky to get from that to the Book of Abraham. But it seems to me the whole situation is far more complex.

But what what EVERYONE can I agree on, I think, is that we DO have the source and translation of the three facsimiles. Again, if Joseph had gotten these translations and restorations correct, the church would be shouting from the rooftops that we have proof of Joseph's self-proclaimed prophetic ability to translate. But the church has not done this given that Joseph unfortunately got the translations wrong.

Again, the notion of "proof" involves networks of assumptions, "translate" in the 1828 Websters meant "carry across", and Nibley and Rhodes and others have pointed out several very interesting aspects of the Three Facsimiles that I didn't see evidenced at all in your paper. I'm thinking of Gee on the issue of fingers versus wings, for example, and Nibley and Rhodes in One Eternal Round on the solar bark restoration, compared to similar hypocephali. And the astonishingly well-informed Robert Smith's paper. I don't think the LDS are required to trust our case to the objectivity of the prosecution, nor to make conclusions about Joseph Smith's life as a whole based on a skeptic's evaluation of three pages when there are many hundreds to consider. It strikes me as far too narrow a test. It seems to me to require that I discard the results of hundreds of other tests solely on the grounds that their results are inconvenient with respect to the desired outcome.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[CA Steve]

Kevin,

If it were possible to find a group of Egyptologist unfamiliar with the Joseph Smith papyri collection and hand them the collection completely intact (including the missing portions), do you believe any of them would find anything on any of those documents that spoke of Abraham or Joseph?  I am trying to see if you are arguing for a pure catalyst theory or not

Edited November 21, 2013 by CA Steve

[TruthSeeker2013]

See if you can make explicit the network of assumptions behind your statements here. What kind of translator did Joseph Smith claim to be? Can you come up with a description that accounts for him studying Hebrew the hard way? And that accounts for his willingness to edit and revise his own revelations? That involves him translating the Book of Mormon while looking at a stone in a hat, rather than the metal plates, and a parchment from John, a book of Enoch, and revelation to Moses without ever possessing documents of any kind?

He's a translator who translates by using the power of God, or so he claimed. So if he gets something wrong then it's either God's fault (unlikely) or Joseph's fault. And if it's Joseph's fault then the next question is "well if Joseph misunderstood the revelation and confused his own imagination with revelation then how do we know that everything else he produced was revelation or just his own imagination?"

 

And given your flat statement that "the translation is incorrect" what am I supposed to do with studies I have read that you have not referenced if you have read that suggest otherwise on several points? Would is be more accurate, and do a better job of exposing the network of assumptions to say "incorrect according to" various specific people?

I see what you're saying. And perhaps it would be better to word it that way. I have just found the opinions of Rhodes, Gee, and Nibley to be really reaching and incompatible with the views of other Egyptologists. In my mind, they're not credible. They are obviously credible to many other people. And even if Joseph was 100% right on the facsimiles, I'm not aware of any Egyptologist who believes the extant portions of the Breathing Permit to be the source of the Book of Abraham text. And I believe there is overwhelming evidence that Joseph believed the Small Sensen to be the source of the BoA text. So if he got that wrong, we're back again to questioning everything else he produced using his prophetic gifts of translation and revelation.

 

Calling the papyrus we have "The Hor Book of Breathings" is not 2013 news. That was obvious in 1968, and it was Nibley who made the specific identification as a Breathings text, and not a Book of the Dead, a related but not identical class of documents.

Right, I wasn't trying to say the identification was new. What's new is the church's backing away from Joseph's claims. What's new in 2013 is that the church is altering the Pearl of Great Price introduction which has remained unchanged in substance since 1851. And in so doing is backing away from three claims that Joseph himself made and that every Introduction to the Book of Abraham and Pearl of Great Price Introduction of the Book of Abraham made. That 1)Joseph translated the papyri, 2)the papyri was the source of the BoA, and 3)the papyri literally contained Abraham's own writing. I find this to be very significant given that it's backing away from the prophetic translator's own claims and backing away from over 150 years of church history that reiterated Joseph's claims.

 

It is tricky to get from that to the Book of Abraham. But it seems to me the whole situation is far more complex.

Again, the notion of "proof" involves networks of assumptions, "translate" in the 1828 Websters meant "carry across", and Nibley and Rhodes and others have pointed out several very interesting aspects of the Three Facsimiles that I didn't see evidenced at all in your paper. I'm thinking of Gee on the issue of fingers versus wings, for example, and Nibley and Rhodes in One Eternal Round on the solar bark restoration, compared to similar hypocephali. And the astonishingly well-informed Robert Smith's paper. I don't think the LDS are required to trust our case to the objectivity of the prosecution, nor to make conclusions about Joseph Smith's life as a whole based on a skeptic's evaluation of three pages when there are many hundreds to consider. It strikes me as far too narrow a test. It seems to me to require that I discard the results of hundreds of other tests solely on the grounds that their results are inconvenient with respect to the desired outcome.

While I've found Gee, Rhodes, Nibley, etc. able to find interesting parallels and possible "hits" here and there, it still seems to me to be overwhelmingly a false translation. I understand that some people have different opinions than mine. Thank you for reminding me about Robert's paper, I need to read that.

[Kevin Christensen]

Kevin,

If it were possible to find a group of Egyptologist unfamiliar with the Joseph Smith papyri collection and hand them the collection completely intact (including the missing portions), do you believe any of them would find anything on any of those documents that spoke of Abraham or Joseph?  I am trying to see if you are arguing for a pure catalyst theory or not

All five scrolls intact, rescued from the Chicago fire? I think it's possible, particularly given an existing Lion Couch papyrus that does mention Abraham (as Gee has written up), and the evident connection between the Egyptian Books of the Dead and the Abraham Apocrypha (see Nibley's discussion in Abraham in Egypt). Those associations exist at present entirely apart from the Joseph Smith Book of Abraham and papyrii. But I also think that given Joseph's productions elsewhere, I think a catalyst theory is reasonable.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[wenglund]

Have you read my paper? If not, please read it first. I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have.

 

I have no interest in pouring through your entire paper, though I would be interest in considering what you have to say on this specific point. If you are willing to post a summary here for discussion, then great. If not, then oh well.

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[TruthSeeker2013]

I have no interest in pouring through your entire paper, though I would be interest in considering what you have to say on this specific point. If you are willing to post a summary here for discussion, then great. If not, then oh well.

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

I cover the Egyptian Alphabets in Section V-E of my paper. A quick summary would be this: The first three EAs offer a translation of the hieroglyphics in the columns surround the vignette in the Facsimile 1 fragment. In all three of these EAs, they end with two additional characters which are NOT on the facsimile 1 fragment but instead Joseph put at the beginning of the Small Sensen (which immediately followed the facsimile 1 fragment when the scroll was still one piece). The two characters are translated in the EAs as "Abraham" and "Chaldeans" which is consistent with Joseph translation of 1:1. This is all quite confusing without looking at the photos in my paper, but what it boils down to is that Joseph began his translation of the papyri by starting at the beginning of the Breathing Permit scroll and then moved on to the Small Sensen. Again, the pictures make this much easier to understand. The implication of this is that it's yet another link between the extant papyrus and the Book of Abraham - thus contradicting the Missing Papyrus Theory and the Catalyst Theory.

[cognitiveharmony]

I'll first point you to the following links:

Removed links to site with temple content

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ehFJoKfDNAg/T4Hth70yHZI/AAAAAAAABR0/Wddn9bNgZL8/s1600/RELIGION_mummification_anubis_ba.gif

 

I would take exception to you saying that his "hands" are by his face. There is only evidence of one "hand" being by his face. I would guess that the original image more closely resembled one of these images. The fourth image very clearly depicts Anubis between the deceased and the lion couch which is actually what the JS papyri also depicts. So maybe you can start over.

 

We don't allow sites that contain temple content.  Please read the board guidelines.

 

Nemesis

I had no idea that site had temple content. I apologize. Here is another link that shows one of the same images along with a picture of the original that shows the image is presented correctly :

 

http://www.egyptology.com/extreme/opet/

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I cover the Egyptian Alphabets in Section V-E of my paper. A quick summary would be this: The first three EAs offer a translation of the hieroglyphics in the columns surround the vignette in the Facsimile 1 fragment. In all three of these EAs, they end with two additional characters which are NOT on the facsimile 1 fragment but instead Joseph put at the beginning of the Small Sensen (which immediately followed the facsimile 1 fragment when the scroll was still one piece). The two characters are translated in the EAs as "Abraham" and "Chaldeans" which is consistent with Joseph translation of 1:1. This is all quite confusing without looking at the photos in my paper, but what it boils down to is that Joseph began his translation of the papyri by starting at the beginning of the Breathing Permit scroll and then moved on to the Small Sensen. Again, the pictures make this much easier to understand. The implication of this is that it's yet another link between the extant papyrus and the Book of Abraham - thus contradicting the Missing Papyrus Theory and the Catalyst Theory.

I think you are going to run into serious issues if you think that EAG was a translation document. I am currious. Have you seen Willaim's Schryvers 2010 presentation?

[TruthSeeker2013]

I think you are going to run into serious issues if you think that EAG was a translation document. I am currious. Have you seen Willaim's Schryvers 2010 presentation?

I'm not sure what you're meaning of "translation document" is, but what is incontrovertible is that the EAs list the hieroglyphics from the Facsimile 1 fragment and then provide an alphabet and grammar for some of the characters. I think the significance of the EAs is that 1) Joseph appears to be trying to work out a way to translate the papyri, 2)he starts at the beginning of the Breathing Permit which suggests the Breathing Permit is the source of the BoA, and 3) the last two characters in the EAs are the first two characters in the manuscripts, suggesting that he was working on translating/deciphering the Facsimile 1 fragment at the beginning of the Breathing Permit scroll and then when he was finished he moved onto the next part of the scroll which is the Small Sensen. There is certainly much stronger evidence that the Small Sensen is the source of the BoA, but that's one piece that suggests it. I haven't seen William Schryver's presentation. Do you have a link?

[cognitiveharmony]

I am not sure what you are unable to verify, although these  matters have been discussed previously on this discussion board.

 

You could begin with the Book of Abraham itself in order to determine where the human sacrificial rites are taking place:  Long before he goes down to Egypt, in the land of the Chaldeans (Abr 1:1), Abram's pagan fathers were worshiping a variety of gods, whom he lists (1:5-7, noting the dual role for the priest of Elkenah, who also acted as priest of Pharaoh).  He then turns to the ecumenical setting for the sacrificial altar in the land of Chaldea (1: 8 ), on a hill at the head of a plain (1:10).  The altar itself is Chaldean, not Egyptian (1:13), which is why a papyrus from 2,000 years later does not depict a Chaldean one.

 

If your problem is with Akkadian Ulisum/Ulishim in northwest Syria as Book of Abraham Olishem, then see the inscriptions of kings Rim Sin and Naram Sin (ca. 2250-2150 B.C.), in J. M. Lundquist, "Was Abraham at Ebla?" in R. L. Millet & K. P. Jackson, eds., Studies in Scripture, 7 vols. (SLC: Randall, 1985), II:233-235; P. Y. Hoskisson, “Where Was Ur of the Chaldees?” in H. D. Peterson & C. D. Tate, eds., Pearl of Great Price: Revelations From God (BYU Religious Studies Center, 1989), p. 136, n. 44; John Gee, FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, IV (1992), 115, n. 64; Daniel Peterson, Ensign 24/1 (Jan 1994), 17-18, citing I. J. Gelb & B. Kienast, Die altakkadischen Königs-inschriften des dritten Jahrtausends v. Christentums (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1990), 255-256; cf. “Inscription of Naram-Sin, the Campaign Against Armanu and Ebla,” in William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger Jr., eds., The Context of Scripture, vol. 2, Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (Boston: Brill, 2003), 245 (the line reads, “From the Bank of the Euphrates until Ulisum”).  See also Gee, “Abracadabra, Isaac and Jacob,” 26–27; C. Wood in Ritner, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri (SLC: Smith-Pettit Fdn/Signature Books, 2011), 74, U₂-li-śi-imki, “roughly in the area of Ebla, west of the Euphrates and far west of Haran.”

 

If you don't know the origin and use of Elkenah, please see Hebrew ʼEl-qanah (I Sam 1:1,4), ʼEl-qoneh “El, Creator of the Earth,” short for ’El ‘Elyon qone šamayim wa’ares “God Most High, Creator of Heaven & Earth” (Gen 14:19,22, Acts 4:24; cf. with Yahweh Ex 20:11, II Chron 2:11-12, Isa 42:5) = Aramaic ʼl qn(‘)rʿ(‘), Aramaic & Neo-Punic ʼl qn ʼrs = 1200 B.C. Hittite El-qônê-ersi (El-ku-ni-ir-ša), late Hittite Elkoners. -- Patrick Miller, “El, The Creator of the Earth,” BASOR, 239 (Summer 1980), 43-46, comparing 1200 B.C. Hittite Il Kunirsha, and Aramaic and Neo-Punic ʾl qnʾrs.  W. F. Albright felt that this reflected Canaanite El-kunirša, ’El-qone-’erşi on the Hittite tablet (El-ku-ni-ir-ša pronounced ’Elqonrs "El-Creator-of-the-Earth," Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan [London, 1968], 46,107 [late Hittite Elkoners]; R.J. Clifford, CBQ, 33:222; A. Goetze in Pritchard, ed., ANET, 3rd ed., 519).  See also Conrad E. L’Heureux, Rank Among the Canaanite Gods: El, Dagan, and the Rephaim, Harvard Semitic Monograph 21 (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979); E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature, Harvard Semitic Monograph 2 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1980); cf. the 700 B.C. Jerusalem ostracon with ['l] qn 'rs "[El] Creator of the Earth" (Cross, From Epic to Canon, 87 n. 8, citing N. Avigad, IEJ, 22 [1972], 195 pl. 42B.

I was unable to verify that any of what you presented was anything other than pure conjecture. I don't mean that as an insult and I apologize if it appears so. It is very easy to point out the logical fallacies that you employ to arrive at your "evidence". I could take just about ANY made up word and find a transliteration of it in the Hebraic language because of the nature of the language itself. If I then apply the endless degree of separation that do, I could also arrive as just about any interpretation that I chose. Of course, the name Elkenah is not a wholly "made up" name. A form of this name "Elkanah" appears in the bible multiple times and is a possible source in this case. Joseph was also studying Hebrew and knew that the root "El" of this name means God. He very well may have known that this word translated means "God has possessed" or "God has created". So is it more likely that the transliterations of this word that you refer to were actually speaking of the same God as who Joseph is here? Or did Joseph just steal this name from the bible? Regardless of how Joseph came to name the Gods in the facsimile, you must contend that all or most of the other scenes depicting these same 4 Gods have either been interpreted incorrectly, or that in this ONE instance, they actually depict 4 different Gods than what they commonly depict. And to arrive at this conclusion you say that a "jewish" scribe just used a common funerary scene to represent something other than an actual funerary scene IN A SET of common FUNERARY documents? This just doesn't make any sense in an unbiased view of these documents. If someone wants to hope against hope that your explanations might somehow be true, then that's their choice. But I find them wholly without merit.

[wenglund]

I cover the Egyptian Alphabets in Section V-E of my paper. A quick summary would be this: The first three EAs offer a translation of the hieroglyphics in the columns surround the vignette in the Facsimile 1 fragment. In all three of these EAs, they end with two additional characters which are NOT on the facsimile 1 fragment but instead Joseph put at the beginning of the Small Sensen (which immediately followed the facsimile 1 fragment when the scroll was still one piece). The two characters are translated in the EAs as "Abraham" and "Chaldeans" which is consistent with Joseph translation of 1:1. This is all quite confusing without looking at the photos in my paper, but what it boils down to is that Joseph began his translation of the papyri by starting at the beginning of the Breathing Permit scroll and then moved on to the Small Sensen. Again, the pictures make this much easier to understand. The implication of this is that it's yet another link between the extant papyrus and the Book of Abraham - thus contradicting the Missing Papyrus Theory and the Catalyst Theory.

 

Interesting. This prompts a couple of initial questions intended to test your conclusions:

 

1. Do you have pictures showing where the 23 characters of EA Part 1 (which are the first 23 characters on the first page of the EA's) show up in Facsimili 1 fragment? I am particularly interested in the 7th character.

 

2. Do you have pictures showing where the first 13 characters of EA Part 2 (or characters 24 thru 36 on the first page of the EA's) show up in Facsimili 1 fragment? I am particularly interested in the 4th thru 9th characters of EA Part 2 (or the characters 27 thru 32 on the first page of the EA's).

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited November 22, 2013 by wenglund