Fairmormon Conference Quotes

[cinepro]

We don't know what else was on the papyrus, because most of it was destroyed. The text corresponding to the picture could have been somewhat removed from it on the papyrus and still have referred to "the representation at the commencement of this record."

 

Scott, you've got the Book of Abraham telling a story about the attempted human sacrifice of young Abraham on an altar and saying "if you want to know what the altar looked like, check out the illustration at the commencement of this record."  It then goes on to explain that this setting included the "gods" named "Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and also a god like unto that of Pharaoh, king of Egypt."

 

Then you have "Facsimile 1" which shows a scene exactly like the one described in chapter 1, including some animal-figure jars which Joseph Smith pointed to and said "this one is Elkenah, this one is Libnah, this one is Mahmackrah, this one is Korash, and this one is Pharaoh."

 

You have the text of chapter 1 referring to very specific elements in the illustration, and then you have Joseph Smith identifying those same specific elements in the illustration as being in the text. 

 

So if Facsimile 1 is not the "representation" referred to in Chapter 1 verse 12, then what could that "representation" have possibly looked like that's different than Facsimile 1?  All the elements mentioned in the story are in the Facsimile.

 

And most importantly, if Facsimile 1 isn't the "representation" mentioned in verse 12, then where did Joseph Smith get the information about the names and actions in this illustration?!

 

 

In fact, the wording indicates the picture was somewhat removed from the text, not adjacent to it. You don't refer to something as being "at the commencement of this record" when it is immediately adjacent to what you are writing.You say "the picture above" or "below" or "at right" or "at left."

Sure you do. If someone said "go back and read the post at the commencement of this thread", you would go back and read the first post. You wouldn't look for a post that is somewhere else. The commencement means the beginning, and it specifically indicates that it is connected to what follows. If it was separate, it wouldn't be the "commencement."

Especially if you're writing (or reading) a scroll.

Edited August 14, 2014 by cinepro

[cdowis]

As has been pointed out, these witnesses understood metals and materials.  And they were careful to indicate that the plates had the "appearance of gold" rather than calling them gold plates.  They were no fools, and noted that the plates weighed only about 40 pounds rather than the 100 to 200 pounds that the antimormons claim.

 

It would be very unlikely that they would have been fooled by lead plates.

Edited August 14, 2014 by cdowis

[juliann]

 

 

Apologists might not like having to account for Facsimile 1, but the implications of Kerry's quote in post #3 are far, far worse.

Which apologists? There is not one "apologetic" position.

[Scott Lloyd]

  If someone said "go back and read the post at the commencement of this thread", you would go back and read the first post. You wouldn't look for a post that is somewhere else. The commencement means the beginning, and it specifically indicates that it is connected to what follows. If it was separate, it wouldn't be the "commencement."

Especially if you're writing (or reading) a scroll.

  If someone said "go back and read the post at the commencement of this thread," I would read the first post on the thread. I wouldn't read the post directly above the post directing me to the commencement of the thread, unless I were specifically directed to read the post directly above it.

 

Your emphasis on reading a scroll strengthens my position, as an Internet message board is very much like reading a scroll.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[omni]

If someone said "go back and read the post at the commencement of this thread," I would read the first post on the thread. I wouldn't read the post directly above the post directing me to the commencement of the thread, unless I were specifically directed to read the post directly above it.

 

Your emphasis on reading a scroll strengthens my position, as an Internet message board is very much like reading a scroll.

I hope I'm understanding you correct - are you actually attempting to argue that the facsimiles located in the BoA are not what the scripture is referencing. If this is true, why are the facsimiles even in the BoA and why have the church leaders been deceived for so long?

[volgadon]

I am so glad that you noticed that the Book of Abraham was originally published in the National Geographic.

 

Of course you and those who gave you rep points for your brilliant treatise clearly see to the core of the issue, acknowledging that there are no differences between contemporary cultural publishing standards and ancient Egyptian papyri.

 

I think you have just revolutionized Book of Abraham scholarship!  Congratulations!!

 

Clearly they still use the same style guides even.  

 

I don't know what was wrong with those scribes.  They didn't even post anything on youtube.

 

I apologize for the derail.  I didn't know anyone would make such an earth-shattering discovery right here on this thread.

 

I gave Cinepro a rep point because I think that he is correct on this. It is one thing to observe that as many as half the known papyri do not match text and image. It is quite another thing to insist that this is true for Fac. 1 when the text explicitly refers to it, and the image matches the context. One must ask why we should reject the plain reading, and if the answer is that it hurts the Missing Papyrus Theory, then it is not acceptable. A theory explains the evidence, not the other way round. Fac. 1 has always been a fatal flaw in the standard MPT, and I think that there is another explanation. As far as I know, only one other person has come close. The key is that the current fragments are very much a part of the BoA, but they are not the source of the text in the PoGP. There is still a missing papyrus, though it needn't be very long. I hope to complete a paper explaining all this, but we tend to completely miss the answer because we look at religion from a very rational POV rooted in the imaginal world and perception of reality of the Reformation. As a close reader of Wittgenstein, i think that you might be able to get what I'm hinting at, but I'll drop another hint. did the older generation of Polish Catholics see infant baptism as having an apotropaic role? Until we look at religion from an older perspective, and consider the creative power of words, the role of the papyri fragments and their relation to the BoA will continue to be overlooked.

[halconero]

I gave Cinepro a rep point because I think that he is correct on this. It is one thing to observe that as many as half the known papyri do not match text and image. It is quite another thing to insist that this is true for Fac. 1 when the text explicitly refers to it, and the image matches the context. One must ask why we should reject the plain reading, and if the answer is that it hurts the Missing Papyrus Theory, then it is not acceptable. A theory explains the evidence, not the other way round. Fac. 1 has always been a fatal flaw in the standard MPT, and I think that there is another explanation. As far as I know, only one other person has come close. The key is that the current fragments are very much a part of the BoA, but they are not the source of the text in the PoGP. There is still a missing papyrus, though it needn't be very long. I hope to complete a paper explaining all this, but we tend to completely miss the answer because we look at religion from a very rational POV rooted in the imaginal world and perception of reality of the Reformation. As a close reader of Wittgenstein, i think that you might be able to get what I'm hinting at, but I'll drop another hint. did the older generation of Polish Catholics see infant baptism as having an apotropaic role? Until we look at religion from an older perspective, and consider the creative power of words, the role of the papyri fragments and their relation to the BoA will continue to be overlooked.

 

Agreed, many Western Christians, even Catholics, tend to view religious concepts through a lens developed out of Renaissance-era Protestantism. Grace is less the divine patronage of God as it was to Christians, Jews, and Pagans of the New Testament era, and more like a no-obligations saving power. I'd like to see how you apply the ancient paradigm to writings such as the Book of Abraham.

[wenglund]

I gave Cinepro a rep point because I think that he is correct on this. It is one thing to observe that as many as half the known papyri do not match text and image. It is quite another thing to insist that this is true for Fac. 1 when the text explicitly refers to it, and the image matches the context. One must ask why we should reject the plain reading, and if the answer is that it hurts the Missing Papyrus Theory, then it is not acceptable. A theory explains the evidence, not the other way round. Fac. 1 has always been a fatal flaw in the standard MPT, and I think that there is another explanation. As far as I know, only one other person has come close. The key is that the current fragments are very much a part of the BoA, but they are not the source of the text in the PoGP. There is still a missing papyrus, though it needn't be very long. I hope to complete a paper explaining all this, but we tend to completely miss the answer because we look at religion from a very rational POV rooted in the imaginal world and perception of reality of the Reformation. As a close reader of Wittgenstein, i think that you might be able to get what I'm hinting at, but I'll drop another hint. did the older generation of Polish Catholics see infant baptism as having an apotropaic role? Until we look at religion from an older perspective, and consider the creative power of words, the role of the papyri fragments and their relation to the BoA will continue to be overlooked.

 

I am looking forward to reading it. Will the paper be published in the Interpreter?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[cinepro]

I hope I'm understanding you correct - are you actually attempting to argue that the facsimiles located in the BoA are not what the scripture is referencing. If this is true, why are the facsimiles even in the BoA and why have the church leaders been deceived for so long?

 

That's where things get uncomfortable. 

 

There are three pieces to this puzzle:

 

1. The "translation" of the text given in Chapter 1 by Joseph Smith which describes the sacrifice scene (including the names of the gods).

 

2. The illustration known as "Facsimile 1"

 

3. The explanation of the specific items and characters of Facsimile 1, including the same specific names of the gods from the chapter (Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and Pharaoh).

 

If you want to argue that the Facsimile isn't directly related to the "translation", then you've got to somehow get rid of #3.  It's what ties them together.

 

Good luck with that.

[volgadon]

I am looking forward to reading it. Will the paper be published in the Interpreter?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

 

 

I intend on submitting it there, yes.

[Scott Lloyd]

I hope I'm understanding you correct - are you actually attempting to argue that the facsimiles located in the BoA are not what the scripture is referencing. If this is true, why are the facsimiles even in the BoA and why have the church leaders been deceived for so long?

No, you are misunderstanding me.

 

I'm saying the figures represented by the facsimiles would not have to have been positioned directly adjacent to the relevant text on the scroll for them to apply to the text. The phrase "at the commencement of this record" may, in fact, suggest that they were positioned at some distance from the text.

 

Critics point to the fact that the text adjacent to the Facsimile 1 figure is not from the Book of Abraham. But Muhelstein says -- and I agree -- that the text of the Book of Abraham could have been located elsewhere on the papyrus and still relate to the Facsimile 1 figure.

 

No one can be certain one way or the other, because most of the papyrus is missing.

Edited August 18, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

Continuing with quotations from the conference.

 

From Ty Mansfield:

 

It seems that sexual desire can easily blend with or be stimulated by any strong emotion, of which love is only one. Because sexual desire is, in the minds of most people, coupled with the idea of love, they are easily misled to conclude that they love each other when they merely want each other physically. But if this desire is not stimulated by love, it leaves strangers as far apart as they were before.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

Continuing the prior quote from Ty Mansfield:

 

Humans are capable of a wide range of tastes and affinities and attractions and impulses, and I sense that culture, emotional maturity, capacity for attachment, intimate relationships and sense of self-identity have as much or more of an influence on how those attractions develop as do genes or biology.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

I gave Cinepro a rep point because I think that he is correct on this. It is one thing to observe that as many as half the known papyri do not match text and image. It is quite another thing to insist that this is true for Fac. 1 when the text explicitly refers to it, and the image matches the context. One must ask why we should reject the plain reading, and if the answer is that it hurts the Missing Papyrus Theory, then it is not acceptable. A theory explains the evidence, not the other way round. Fac. 1 has always been a fatal flaw in the standard MPT, and I think that there is another explanation. As far as I know, only one other person has come close. The key is that the current fragments are very much a part of the BoA, but they are not the source of the text in the PoGP. There is still a missing papyrus, though it needn't be very long. I hope to complete a paper explaining all this, but we tend to completely miss the answer because we look at religion from a very rational POV rooted in the imaginal world and perception of reality of the Reformation. As a close reader of Wittgenstein, i think that you might be able to get what I'm hinting at, but I'll drop another hint. did the older generation of Polish Catholics see infant baptism as having an apotropaic role? Until we look at religion from an older perspective, and consider the creative power of words, the role of the papyri fragments and their relation to the BoA will continue to be overlooked.

For some reason I missed this post until just now.

 

I am not enough of a scholar to know the answer to your comment about Polish Catholics, and my family has been in the US for over 5 generations so my knowledge of Polish is limited to baby talk really.

 

But yes, I could not agree more about our perception of reality which is ultimately still rooted in the Enlightenment for the man in the street, though philosophers have moved beyond that position long ago, certainly starting with Kant and Schopenhauer, and Wittgenstein's influence has obviously been a tidal wave changing everything.

 

Wittgenstein is ultimately a mystic when it comes to these matters, and he was arguably a lifelong Catholic perhaps "in the closet".  He understood of course that there was only so much we could depend upon language to do, and I think he would have instantly understood these issues, if he has ever cared about them, as a "translation" in name only including even Facsimile 1.

 

Certainly "magic" was part of Joseph's understanding of the world and clearly there are elements of magic in all of our experience.  Joseph wrote what he wished to write without worrying about any sacred sense of "The Text" and that is clear in the Inspired Version of the Bible which is also described as a "translation".  He put the sum of his experiences and vocabularies including Masonry, folk magic, the King James Bible, frontier logic, and an almost infinite variety of who-knows-what into the soup of his world view which is inevitably included in his revelations.

 

So I understand that I am not answering your question, but I certainly "get" that any or all of it indeed could be seen as filling an apotropaic role.  I recall driving through Western New York and Western Pennsylvania in the 1950's as a kid and seeing barns with strange designs painted on them and asking my parents about them and their answer was "Oh those people are superstitiuous- those are hexes and they think that keeps the cattle safe from evil spirits".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_sign

 

Joseph would have most certainly been very familiar with these figures, and to me, they relate directly to the pentangles on the Nauvoo temple.

 

So as a firm believer in the catalyst theory, as I have said before, I would not care if Joseph thought he was "translating" the patterns on the wallpaper.  To me, what came out on paper was itself pure magic, and my testimony says it was from God.

 

I guess I am just the same kind of simpleton Wittgenstein was. 

Edited August 19, 2014 by mfbukowski

[cdowis]

Several years ago I made the prediction in this forum that the Missing Papyrus Theory would fail.  Has that happened yet or do we have a couple more years of thrashing about.

 

May I observe that, while the recent research on the EAP is interesting, I think they drew incorrect conclusions.  They were abit too anxious to toss out the EAP as a factor in the translation, and found what they were looking for.

 

Anyway, I've already said enough, so let's re-visit this in another five years and see what is what.

Edited August 20, 2014 by cdowis

[Jeanne]

My own fairmormon quote:  "Life is NOT Fair"!