If Eygyptian Was A "known" Language In 1835, Would We Have The Book Of Abraham?

[Thinking]

So, imagine that Egyptian was a known language in 1835, meaning that scholars were able to translate from Egyptian into other languages and this knowledge was well-known and published in widely available books.

 

How would the situation with the creation of the Book of Abraham have played out?  Do you think we would still have it, and if so, how would it be different?

 

The Book of Abraham would still exist but its claimed source would have been the Kinderhook plates, which would still have led to the catalyst theory.

[rongo]

Ok, point made. For argument's sake, we'll even suppose Nibley's footnotes are 100% accurate. So that takes care of the first part of my initial post. Now, going off that footnote-accuracy tangent, what about the second part? And also, what is Nibley arguing for?

 

Does he hold that hieroglyphs and Egyptian religion are so esoteric to us that we really can't make any sense of it at all? Is he saying that we're so out of touch that we can't figure that the Egyptian funerary texts Joseph Smith used to "translate" the Book of Abraham are indeed about Abraham, how he conversed with God/Jehova, how he received new knowledge about spirits, intelligences, etc., and that they also contain a retelling of the creation story?

 

I'm ready to correct my understanding if I'm missing something, but Nibley's point seems to boil down to saying that since modern translations are nonsensical because we can't neither grasp the full meaning nor the intent behind ancient Egyptian texts, then we can't know for sure whether Joseph Smith's rendering actually is the real deal or not.

Nibley argued that

 

1) There are many things that Joseph Smith got right, based on secular Egyptology.

 

2) Secular Egyptology can't be used as a stick to beat Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham with because tenets and axioms represented to be 100% consistent, without exception, in reality have many exceptions. And, these "iron law" claims are much less certain than advertised.

 

Nibley's effectiveness is that he used the expert sources, including sometimes the critics themselves. That's why critics/non-believers' response to Nibley is usually to seek to discredit him by questioning his accuracy or competency. In every instance that I have been able to verify, I have also found him to be spot-on accurate (I have gone to university libraries to look up footnote source material, and I read and speak German. Most of the scholarship was and still is in German).

 

He doesn't "hold that hieroglyphs and Egyptian religion are so esoteric to us that we really can't make any sense of it at all."   We can understand them at the literal level that we can understand them at. But, he argued, this literal level misses what they actually thought and meant (and what it meant to them) by a great deal, in many instances. Nibley wasn't alone in pointing this out (cf. Dr. John A. Wilson, cited above, and many others Nibley quotes).

 

Concerning Egyptian funerary texts, he argued that there is a direct link between them and Abraham traditions --- even though they don't mention Abraham by name. He connects these dots in "Abraham in Egypt," and offhand, I recall him citing an entire secular conference devoted to links between the Apocalypse and Testament of Abraham and The Book of the Dead. 

[bcuzbcuz]

 

Concerning Egyptian funerary texts, he argued that there is a direct link between them and Abraham traditions --- even though they don't mention Abraham by name. He connects these dots in "Abraham in Egypt," and offhand, I recall him citing an entire secular conference devoted to links between the Apocalypse and Testament of Abraham and The Book of the Dead. 

A "direct link" even though there is no link visible? How is that possible? Isn't that a contradiction? Isn't that more like wishful thinking rather than actual evidence?

[Stroopwafel]

Nibley argued that

 

1) There are many things that Joseph Smith got right, based on secular Egyptology.

 

2) Secular Egyptology can't be used as a stick to beat Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham with because tenets and axioms represented to be 100% consistent, without exception, in reality have many exceptions. And, these "iron law" claims are much less certain than advertised.

 

Nibley's effectiveness is that he used the expert sources, including sometimes the critics themselves. That's why critics/non-believers' response to Nibley is usually to seek to discredit him by questioning his accuracy or competency. In every instance that I have been able to verify, I have also found him to be spot-on accurate (I have gone to university libraries to look up footnote source material, and I read and speak German. Most of the scholarship was and still is in German).

 

He doesn't "hold that hieroglyphs and Egyptian religion are so esoteric to us that we really can't make any sense of it at all."   We can understand them at the literal level that we can understand them at. But, he argued, this literal level misses what they actually thought and meant (and what it meant to them) by a great deal, in many instances. Nibley wasn't alone in pointing this out (cf. Dr. John A. Wilson, cited above, and many others Nibley quotes).

 

Concerning Egyptian funerary texts, he argued that there is a direct link between them and Abraham traditions --- even though they don't mention Abraham by name. He connects these dots in "Abraham in Egypt," and offhand, I recall him citing an entire secular conference devoted to links between the Apocalypse and Testament of Abraham and The Book of the Dead. 

 

So... that means Nibley is saying that since modern translations are nonsensical because we can't neither grasp the full meaning nor the intent behind ancient Egyptian texts, then we can't know for sure whether Joseph Smith's rendering actually is the real deal or not.

 

I'd be interested in reading Nibley's work which you are referencing in your last paragraph. I know what you said is based on what you recall, but would you happen to remember the reference as well? If not, well, I guess I'd have to actually make an effort and search it by myself.

Edited February 20, 2015 by Stroopwafel

[bcuzbcuz]

Nibley argued that

 

1) There are many things that Joseph Smith got right, based on secular Egyptology.

 

2) Secular Egyptology can't be used as a stick to beat Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham with because tenets and axioms represented to be 100% consistent, without exception, in reality have many exceptions. And, these "iron law" claims are much less certain than advertised.

 

Nibley's effectiveness is that he used the expert sources, including sometimes the critics themselves. That's why critics/non-believers' response to Nibley is usually to seek to discredit him by questioning his accuracy or competency. In every instance that I have been able to verify, I have also found him to be spot-on accurate (I have gone to university libraries to look up footnote source material, and I read and speak German. Most of the scholarship was and still is in German).

 

He doesn't "hold that hieroglyphs and Egyptian religion are so esoteric to us that we really can't make any sense of it at all."   We can understand them at the literal level that we can understand them at. But, he argued, this literal level misses what they actually thought and meant (and what it meant to them) by a great deal, in many instances. Nibley wasn't alone in pointing this out (cf. Dr. John A. Wilson, cited above, and many others Nibley quotes).

 

Concerning Egyptian funerary texts, he argued that there is a direct link between them and Abraham traditions --- even though they don't mention Abraham by name. He connects these dots in "Abraham in Egypt," and offhand, I recall him citing an entire secular conference devoted to links between the Apocalypse and Testament of Abraham and The Book of the Dead. 

I admonish once again, read "The Eloquent Preasant" If you read it in English you will be reading a transliteration from hieratic, most often transliterated into hieroglyphs. Where, pray tell, in this story, do find the translation is "nonsense"? Please be specific.

[PacMan]

Well, Egyptian vernacular was sort of known -- scholars

were tracing back to pre-Arabic times, based upon lingering

usage among the Copts, etc.

 

By 1835 a few Frenchmen were figuring out a handful of

the hieroglyphs -- demotic and hieratic were being figured

out (at least what they were, if not what they meant).

 

Even the Palmyra and northern Ohio newspapers were keeping

up with the reports coming out of France.

 

So, the Kirtland Mormons must have known that Egyptian language

and writing systems would be deciphered with a few more years.

 

A guy like W. W. Phelps, pondering the Egyptian Alphabet and

Grammar, must have comprehended that the Kirtland "scholarship"

would one day be subjected to the scrutiny of the wicked Gentiles.

 

So (considering the audience) yes -- I suppose that the Nauvoo

Times and Seasons would still have published the text (albeit,

without the facsimiles).

 

UD

In addition, to Uncle Dale's thoughts, the phonetic nature of the Egyptian language was already known in the United States.  Champollion's stuff was already widely published.  In fact, Thomas Young was the first one to hit on all this, and his theories were published in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which copy, incidentally, Thomas Jefferson personally owned.

[rongo]

A "direct link" even though there is no link visible? How is that possible? Isn't that a contradiction? Isn't that more like wishful thinking rather than actual evidence?

Good point. "Direct link" is hyperbolic on my part. "Plausible link" would have been better.

[rongo]

So... that means Nibley is saying that since modern translations are nonsensical because we can't neither grasp the full meaning nor the intent behind ancient Egyptian texts, then we can't know for sure whether Joseph Smith's rendering actually is the real deal or not.

 

I'd be interested in reading Nibley's work which you are referencing in your last paragraph. I know what you said is based on what you recall, but would you happen to remember the reference as well? If not, well, I guess I'd have to actually make an effort and search it by myself.

Not "nonsense" in the sense of "completely and hopelessly nonsensical." But, specifically with respect to how critics portray *those sources* and how they are supposed to conclusively contradict what Joseph Smith produced, Nibley argued that scholarship is not really in a position to be able to make such a decisive determination.

 

As far as Nibley's sources for what (I think) you asked for, these are from pages 27 and 28 of "Abraham in Egypt:"

 

"In 1973 Mathias Delcor wrote . . . 'a number of elements point to Egypt as the place of origin' [of the "Testament of Abraham"] (George W.E. Nickelsburg, ed., "Studies on the Testament of Abraham [Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976], 9).' As he sums it up, 'We have, then, at the heart of the Testament of Abraham a midrashic account developed in Egypt' . . . 

 

"In September 1972, a symposium was held in Los Angeles under the auspices of the International Congress of Learned Societies in the Field of Religion to discuss 'The Testament of Abraham and Related Themes.' Out of this emerged in 1976 a volume of studies (Ibid, passim) . . . The most significant contribution of the Los Angeles conference was the general recognition of and emphasis on the strong Egyptian influence in the Testament of Abraham (Nibley, op. cit.).

 

" 'Most recently,' writes George Nickelsburg, 'the suggestion of Egyptian origin has been spelled out in considerable detail in a Strasbourg doctoral dissertation by Francis Schmidt  (--- ibid, 32). He 'compares the Testament of Abraham with judgment scenes in two late Egyptian documents: The Book of the Dead of Pamonthes and the Tale of Satni-Khamois' . . . On the basis of 'aggregate parallels, Schmidt finds evidence for a tentative conclusion that the Testament of Abraham used an Egyptian judgment scene as its model' (ibid, 33). The picture, that is, as well as the text --- a drawing from the Egyptian Book of the Dead --- was the inspiration for the Testament of Abraham!"

Edited February 24, 2015 by rongo

[rongo]

I admonish once again, read "The Eloquent Preasant" If you read it in English you will be reading a transliteration from hieratic, most often transliterated into hieroglyphs. Where, pray tell, in this story, do find the translation is "nonsense"? Please be specific.

There is a great difference between stories/narratives, and the specific documents in question when discussing the Book of Abraham; namely, the Book of the Dead (in all its iterations), the Book of Breathings (in its three types), and other things, such as the Pyramid Texts. These are much harder to translate and understand (Nibley gives voluminous quotes from Egyptologists underscoring their agreement with this).

 

In short, the documents in question with respect to the Book of Abraham are the very things that are "nonsense" in the literal sense of understanding and author's intent. Nibley was pointing out that confident declarations that this or that cannot possibly ever mean this or that simply cannot be made.

[Stroopwafel]

Not "nonsense" in the sense of "completely and hopelessly nonsensical." But, specifically with respect to how critics portray *those sources* and how they are supposed to conclusively contradict what Joseph Smith produced, Nibley argued that scholarship is not really in a position to be able to make such a decisive determination.

 

As far as Nibley's sources for what (I think) you asked for, these are from pages 27 and 28 of "Abraham in Egypt:"

 

...

 

Thanks for the reference!

Edited February 26, 2015 by Stroopwafel