Book Of Abraham Characters As Variables: Updated Explanation Page

[The Nehor]

The honestly engaging my theory part, even just to rebut it.

I tried that once. You claimed I did not understand which seems to be your status quo. I hate to tell you this but your interpretation is not that rarefied. You are just terrible at communicating your ideas and when you finally clarify you turn out to be wrong. I tried again. You started hurling obscenities at me. Yet for some reason it must be my fault.

[mfbukowski]

 Hello. I haven't read through Your entire blog so i apologize if You have addressed my questions thoroughly there or anywhere else. Your theory, as i understand it, seems interesting to me.

 

Now the questions.

 

Inasmuch as one symbol has more than one interpretation within the same cultural tradition (Let's just say that  X=Abraham, righteous, descend, multitude, sacrifice...), by what means is the meaning of that symbol understood? It would truly be a work of cryptographic genius to impose a different meaning on the characters of a text insuch a way that it would all hang together. It would be even more difficult to do so if the same character had multiple disparate meanings...not impossible, i've just never heard of anything that complex being done.

 

I have never been able to make a lot of sense of the Egyptian papers...i haven't spent a lot of time with them so that is my fault...am i correct in my perception that the characters are drawn at random from the Sensen text? If so, does that mean that when reading the Sensen text "Abrahamically" we should only "read" certain characters and ignore others? If so, it seems to me we are dealing with some kind of submerged cryptogram. Or are we intended to read all the characters of the Sensen manuscript but simply lack a glossary for all of them?

 

I have no position on any of these arguments. I'm interested in developing an understanding of Your position and how, from your viewpoint, my questions might be addressed. Thank you.

I have the same sort of question.

 

My understanding is that there was coded (by God?  By Abraham?) in the papyrus a message in the symbols that was specifically coded FOR Joseph to read, and so it becomes like a literal translation of a code between the writer- God or Abraham- and Joseph.

 

It is hard to evaluate the idea obviously, unless one understands it, and I am definitely not there yet either.   On the other hand I think this could be a useful exercise for Dragon to find the proper words to convey the idea clearly and briefly, and THEN back it up with his voluminous research.   As it is now, it is hard to find a clear statement of the central argument in the research presumably giving evidence for the central argument.

[cinepro]

In the Ptolemaic/Greco-Roman period which is a fact universally known and agreed among all scholars that have dealt with these papyri. 

 

Just to make sure I have this clear, are you suggesting that an Egyptian living ~300 BC intentionally "encoded" the writings of the biblical patriarch Abraham (who is estimated to have lived around 2000 BC) in what appears to be a regular funary text.  And this Egyptian did this in such a way that it was literally undetectable to anyone other than Joseph Smith, who alone was able to decipher the Abrahamic writings?

 

Keeping in mind that the difference in time between Abraham and this Egyptian is just a little shorter than the distance from us to Jesus Christ.

Edited March 19, 2015 by cinepro

[cinepro]

I honestly just heard this statement on a sports report regarding March Madness.

 

"Texas is this year's Tennessee"

 

Just a tad context dependent.

 

...but also deciferable, explainable and useful.  It can also be assumed (and probably proven with investigation) that the reporter had a specific, intended meaning behind the analogy. 

 

If I were to suggest that the reporter were stating that this year, the United States would experience another bloody civil war and instead of Tennessee hosting a majority of southern battles, Texas would, I suspect (and hope) there would be enough indicators that point to my interpretation being incorrect.

 

And if another poster suggested the reporter was predicting that recording studios in Texas would soon overtake those in Tennessee for their prominence in country music production, while another argued that the "context" indicates the reporter was referring to basketball teams, what could we do? 

 

And when a fourth participant suggests that "Texas" is actually a code word for "Star Wars" (it being the lone "star" state, after all), and "Tennessee" is actually a code word for "Guardians of the Galaxy" (Galaxee), it means the reporter was predicting that this years Star Wars movie will be a crowd pleasing sci-fi yarn on-par with last year's Gaurdians of the Galaxy, what then?  Could he be proven wrong?

 

Because in the context of this thread, I'm afraid we would have to accept all three theories as being equally valid.    They're just words, after all, and words can be variables that mean anything we want them to.

Edited March 19, 2015 by cinepro

[mfbukowski]

...but also deciferable, explainable and useful.  It can also be assumed (and probably proven with investigation) that the reporter had a specific, intended meaning behind the analogy. 

 

If I were to suggest that the reporter were stating that this year, the United States would experience another bloody civil war and instead of Tennessee hosting a majority of southern battles, Texas would, I suspect (and hope) there would be enough indicators that point to my interpretation being incorrect.

 

And if another poster suggested the reporter was predicting that recording studios in Texas would soon overtake those in Tennessee for their prominence in country music production, while another argued that the "context" indicates the reporter was referring to basketball teams, what could we do? 

 

And when a fourth participant suggests that "Texas" is actually a code word for "Star Wars" (it being the lone "star" state, after all), and "Tennessee" is actually a code word for "Guardians of the Galaxy" (Galaxee), it means the reporter was predicting that this years Star Wars movie will be a crowd pleasing sci-fi yarn on-par with last year's Gaurdians of the Galaxy. 

 

Because in the context of this thread, I'm afraid we would have to accept all three theories as being equally valid.    They're just words, after all, and words can be variables that mean anything we want them to.

Well I think you have made this post with an intent to ridicule that point of view but indeed, you have made the point perfectly.

 

If the post was intended to be sarcastic, I choose to read it as serious, and if so makes it one of the best posts I have ever read here, Taken seriously, it might have come as a perfect view of Wittgensteinian philosophy.

 

It is a perfect demonstration of a point he might make.

 

Using this example, we can apply it to the sentence "The Book of Mormon is true".   Understanding that sentence in the proper context makes all the difference in the world.

 

What THAT sentence is NOT saying is that "There exists scientific evidence for the Book of Mormon".  It is not saying that any more than the above statement is talking about the civil war.

 

Context is what creates truth.   If you take a sentence from one context and put it into another, you can prove or disprove just about anything, and works both FOR and against proving the truth of the BOM or the existence of God.

 

Regardless of your intent, I thank you for this post.  In fact it nails the issue if you wanted to or not.   Forget all the rotten things I have said about you.  ;)l  There is a brain in that head, even if it is upside down most of the time. 

[DragonLancer]

Just to make sure I have this clear, are you suggesting that an Egyptian living ~300 BC intentionally "encoded" the writings of the biblical patriarch Abraham (who is estimated to have lived around 2000 BC) in what appears to be a regular funary text.  And this Egyptian did this in such a way that it was literally undetectable to anyone other than Joseph Smith, who alone was able to decipher the Abrahamic writings?

 

Keeping in mind that the difference in time between Abraham and this Egyptian is just a little shorter than the distance from us to Jesus Christ.

 

Nope.  I have said nothing about encodings, although it is vaguely something that is creative that some people could try to use the word "encodings" for.  But I wish you could get past the idea of using the word encodings for it because that is just the wrong idea.  I will pull another rabbit out of a hat and get technical here since it seems like this is what it will take, but I doubt that you will "get it" without being a programmer, or a technical person of some sort.  I have exhausted all my simple analogies I can think of, so here we go to get technical.  This is the usage of abstract symbols with external context-helpers.  that isn't really an encoding.  This is just plain different, and it is not an encoding.  An encoding means that something can be unencoded.  This is something more along the lines in computer programming called a "hash" that is only a one way thing.  The relationship of the literal thing to the symbol can be seen only if the literal thing is known, not the other way around.  In other words, this is totally a one way thing, like hashing.  If you care to see the technical difference between encoding and hashing, here is this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

 

https://danielmiessler.com/study/encoding_encryption_hashing/

 

If you know the literal meaning, you can check it against the hash and you can see that it fits with the hash.  but the hash cannot be reversed.  The hash itself can give you no information about the thing that produced it or the thing that it is a place-holder for.  You can only see that it fits with the hash by having that information and checking it with the hash.

 

So, this is where someone uses a symbol dynamically to represent something that it has something in common or common attributes with.  there was nothing in the document to be detected because the things that could give you clues to it were outside the document and were not passed down.  And so, no, it was not deciphered in that way.  The "glossary" as Hillel2 calls it was revealed to a seer, and that is what made it useful to us.  It is not useful without thing things external to it.  Without the "glossary," you cannot see how the abstract symbols relate to the things they are meant to represent.  Once you have the glossary, then the relationships between the symbols and the things they are made to represent become evident.  I have shown the relationships to the symbols and their assigned meanings, and in every case, there are two facts:  1) The symbol doesn't LITERALLY mean what the assigned meaning says it means.  2) The symbol always shares attributes with the thing it represents, so they are tied together with the attributes they share in common.

 

Examples:  

(1) Osiris = Abraham.  Osiris mythologically shares many attributes that Abraham had literally.

 

(2) Reed Symbol, or Egyptian uniliteral Letter I = Land of the Chaldees.  the vocalization in the KEP is Chalsidonhiash, which is Joseph Smith's vocalization for the Kassite place name Karduniash, which is southern Babylonia, (i.e. Land of the Chaldees).  The Sumerian name of the place was Land of Reeds, or Kiengi, which is how it appears in their pictographic writings in the cuneiform.  So as you can see, Abraham was from the Land of Reeds, and the reed symbol was used to represent it pictographically.  On its own, the reed symbol is the letter I, and means nothing.  But when a glossary or table of meaning assignments is given, you can see that an abstraction (reed) was a suitible symbol to be used for a concrete value assignment (land of reeds).  and when you know the general meaning of Egyptian hieroglyph, and you can see a meaning assignment that is meaningful that manifests what the abstract symbol has in common with its meaning assignment, you can see through simple reasoning that it is not literally saying land of reeds.  It is however a suitable abstract symbol to represent land of reeds when you have that value assigned to it.

 

(3) Khnum-Ra = Kolob.  Khnum-Ra is the God of creation and Kolob is the first creation.  they share a thematic attribute making the abstract symbol (Khnum-Ra) a suitible place-holder or representation of Kolob through that theme:  creation.

 

And the list goes on and on and on.  They all share the same pattern:  non-literal symbol with attributes in common with the concrete value assignment making it a suitable symbol to represent the thing that it is made to represent as long as you have the thing that is the context helper, the thing that gives the value assignment to the abstract symbol.  By itself, the symbol doesn't have enough to offer anyone to help them understand what concrete or literal meaning should be applied to it without the thing that gives it meaning that is an external table of meaning assignments or glossary.

 

If you can't see what I'm talking about with these examples and can't see that it is not encoding of any kind, I don't know what to do to help you.  I've told you this in so many different ways, that I literally have exhausted all of my analogies I can think of.  I've supplied you with a number of analogies.  I've supplied you with examples.  I supplied you with a blog with tons of background information and research on this.  If you are not impressed and are still meh about it and it doesn't do anything for you, then I suggest that you move on.

Edited March 20, 2015 by DragonLancer

[DragonLancer]

 .

Edited March 20, 2015 by DragonLancer

[DragonLancer]

 Hello. I haven't read through Your entire blog so i apologize if You have addressed my questions thoroughly there or anywhere else. Your theory, as i understand it, seems interesting to me.

 

Now the questions.

 

Inasmuch as one symbol has more than one interpretation within the same cultural tradition (Let's just say that  X=Abraham, righteous, descend, multitude, sacrifice...), by what means is the meaning of that symbol understood? It would truly be a work of cryptographic genius to impose a different meaning on the characters of a text insuch a way that it would all hang together. It would be even more difficult to do so if the same character had multiple disparate meanings...not impossible, i've just never heard of anything that complex being done.

 

I have never been able to make a lot of sense of the Egyptian papers...i haven't spent a lot of time with them so that is my fault...am i correct in my perception that the characters are drawn at random from the Sensen text? If so, does that mean that when reading the Sensen text "Abrahamically" we should only "read" certain characters and ignore others? If so, it seems to me we are dealing with some kind of submerged cryptogram. Or are we intended to read all the characters of the Sensen manuscript but simply lack a glossary for all of them?

 

I have no position on any of these arguments. I'm interested in developing an understanding of Your position and how, from your viewpoint, my questions might be addressed. Thank you.

 

As you posted on your post in the Anthon Transcript thread, you noted that in some pictographic systems like the Aztec system, context is given by some symbols that are kind of set apart having the function of giving context.  In the case of the regular Egyptological system of reading an Egyptian document (i.e. what it actually "says", which is different from the system I am suggesting here), determinative characters are given that give people clues to help people understand the type of context that is intended.  On the other hand, when someone "recycles" or "repurposes" a document like this, because they have some kind of "attachment" to it, or some kind of veneration making it holy in some religious way, they make up an elaborate system for it like is found in the KEP, to pretty much "magically" come to life with dynamic usage that was not intended by its original author.  Some different Egyptians, perhaps from some sect that was into some sort of syncretism that regarded Abraham and other Hebrew patriarchs as something that was super-hero esque (like Ryan Larsen suggests), or almost god-like, came along after the fact came along and repurposed it.  These individuals happened to know the story of Abraham or had in their hands an actual copy of the Book of Abraham that actually "reads" the same way ours does according to our English version in some ancient language, perhaps Egyptian, or perhaps some Semitic language, and they decided it would be a neat religious trick to make up a system to apply the symbolism of this document to the story.  Now, since the original author did not intend it to be used this way necessarily, this required some kind of "trick" so to speak.  So someone with enough creativity and time on their hands repurposed these symbols.

 

Now you say that these symbols are not applied in order.  I have read somewhere and I would have to dig it up, that someone did a rebuttal to John Gee on this claim.  In fact, in the KEP, most if not all of the characters from the columns giving the genealogy/family background and titles and so forth of the priest Hor are actually given in order.  And it isn't even just the Sensen Papyrus that this system was used with.  They did it with the Book of the Dead and called it the Book of Joseph.  Many of the characters in the Book of Abraham manuscripts in the KEP are listed in order.  Gee's claim is simply wrong.

 

But yes, as you say, it boils down to us not having a "glossary" of all of them, and also, they are in effect pictographic in this usage.  Each character in the text of the Sensen Papyrus is like a little facsimile on its own, with its own context anyway.  They represent the themes from the sections of text of the Book of Abraham (since in the BOA manuscripts they are section markers for the sections of text that they contain a theme for), but they do not represent the text itself, or in other words, they do not have all of the information from the text "packed" in them or encoded in them.  Because there is no context helpers in the characters from the "text" itself.  The context-giving information is all external to the document.  Joseph Smith in giving us the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations.  It gets even more complex where this system has "dissection" of symbols, like each hieratic or hieroglyphic is dissected in pieces following the tradition of dissecting the Wedjat Eye, where, like the wedjat eye sections are fractions, each section of hieratic or hieroglyphic becomes its own symbol with its own meaning, all imposed on it after the fact.  The orginal author never meant the text to be used this way.  this book, like the book of the dead, was holy and venerated, and magical, and so, a creative, dynamic system was invented to harness its magic in magically and dynamically using its symbols for other contexts.

 

This is no different than the Hebrews thinking that the characters of their alphabet are holy and powerful, and using them in creative ways like acrostics in the Psalms.  In fact, in some ways, this usage of Sensen Papyrus characters resembles an acrostic.

 

Again, this is not a submerged cryptogram or anything.  The context helpers for this thing are all external to the document.  As I told cinepro above, the closest thing in computer science to this is Hashing.  It is a one-way thing.  Once you have the meaning or value in hand, you can see the relationship to the place-holder or hash.  But the place-holder or hash is a one-way trip.  It presents no information in itself that helps you know what it ought to be.  So you need the key or external context helper or table of meaning assignments, or glossary or legend.  Whatever term you choose to call this thing that is external to the document containing the symbols.  It is critical.  Otherwise you have to be a seer.

 

 

Another quick question. For anyone who does believe that the Sensen manuscript as we have it IS the original source of the BOA...What would be the need for the BOA to be "concealed" within the Sensen manuscript? As an example of apocryphal literature, it's very interesting but i don't find any of its assertions particularly astounding or dangerous should they fall into the hands of the wrong party. I can think of a large number of texts which make some, from the standpoint of received Judeo-christianity, really astounding claims but they were not encrypted or imposed on another text in order to conceal their contents from the unworthy.... Could there be other reasons for its being transmitted in this form?

 

Curious

 

Again, its not concealed in the document.  It is repurposing of the characters using "glossaries" or context helpers outside the text.  This was not "transmitted" in this form because again, this document by itself is nothing more than a funerary document.  Yet, it was holy and venerated, and meant enough to somebody culturally or religiously to put this kind of work into this.  This is one of the many contexts it could be repurposed in.  And so, this is useful for the book of Abraham in its context with an external table of meaning assignments or "glossary" as you say.  And we would not have this glossary of the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations without revelation.  If something like these existed in ancient times, its a possibility, but they may have just had all this information in their heads.  What makes it meaningful is that ancient people were doing it, and Joseph Smith "restored" this by giving us a "glossary" for it, and then translated the actual text of the story and information that it was used to represent.

Edited March 20, 2015 by DragonLancer

[Kaleb Webb]

 

(1) Osiris = Abraham.  Osiris mythologically shares many attributes that Abraham had literally.

 

Like...? It's been a while since I read about Osiris, but I don't remember there being more than a small handful of similarities between the two. 

[DragonLancer]

Like...? It's been a while since I read about Osiris, but I don't remember there being more than a small handful of similarities between the two. 

 

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1098&index=10

 

See Kevin Barney's article in Astronomy, Papyrus and Covenant on Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources where he discusses how Osiris = Abraham in the ancient sources.

[Hillel2]

As you posted on your post in the Anthon Transcript thread, you noted that in some pictographic systems like the Aztec system, context is given by some symbols that are kind of set apart having the function of giving context.  In the case of the regular Egyptological system of reading an Egyptian document (i.e. what it actually "says", which is different from the system I am suggesting here), determinative characters are given that give people clues to help people understand the type of context that is intended.  On the other hand, when someone "recycles" or "repurposes" a document like this, because they have some kind of "attachment" to it, or some kind of veneration making it holy in some religious way, they make up an elaborate system for it like is found in the KEP, to pretty much "magically" come to life with dynamic usage that was not intended by its original author.  Some different Egyptians, perhaps from some sect that was into some sort of syncretism that regarded Abraham and other Hebrew patriarchs as something that was super-hero esque (like Ryan Larsen suggests), or almost god-like, came along after the fact came along and repurposed it.  These individuals happened to know the story of Abraham or had in their hands an actual copy of the Book of Abraham that actually "reads" the same way ours does according to our English version in some ancient language, perhaps Egyptian, or perhaps some Semitic language, and they decided it would be a neat religious trick to make up a system to apply the symbolism of this document to the story.  Now, since the original author did not intend it to be used this way necessarily, this required some kind of "trick" so to speak.  So someone with enough creativity and time on their hands repurposed these symbols.

 

Now you say that these symbols are not applied in order.  I have read somewhere and I would have to dig it up, that someone did a rebuttal to John Gee on this claim.  In fact, in the KEP, most if not all of the characters from the columns giving the genealogy/family background and titles and so forth of the priest Hor are actually given in order.  And it isn't even just the Sensen Papyrus that this system was used with.  They did it with the Book of the Dead and called it the Book of Joseph.  Many of the characters in the Book of Abraham manuscripts in the KEP are listed in order.  Gee's claim is simply wrong.

 

But yes, as you say, it boils down to us not having a "glossary" of all of them, and also, they are in effect pictographic in this usage.  Each character in the text of the Sensen Papyrus is like a little facsimile on its own, with its own context anyway.  They represent the themes from the sections of text of the Book of Abraham (since in the BOA manuscripts they are section markers for the sections of text that they contain a theme for), but they do not represent the text itself, or in other words, they do not have all of the information from the text "packed" in them or encoded in them.  Because there is no context helpers in the characters from the "text" itself.  The context-giving information is all external to the document.  Joseph Smith in giving us the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations.  It gets even more complex where this system has "dissection" of symbols, like each hieratic or hieroglyphic is dissected in pieces following the tradition of dissecting the Wedjat Eye, where, like the wedjat eye sections are fractions, each section of hieratic or hieroglyphic becomes its own symbol with its own meaning, all imposed on it after the fact.  The orginal author never meant the text to be used this way.  this book, like the book of the dead, was holy and venerated, and magical, and so, a creative, dynamic system was invented to harness its magic in magically and dynamically using its symbols for other contexts.

 

This is no different than the Hebrews thinking that the characters of their alphabet are holy and powerful, and using them in creative ways like acrostics in the Psalms.  In fact, in some ways, this usage of Sensen Papyrus characters resembles an acrostic.

 

Again, this is not a submerged cryptogram or anything.  The context helpers for this thing are all external to the document.  As I told cinepro above, the closest thing in computer science to this is Hashing.  It is a one-way thing.  Once you have the meaning or value in hand, you can see the relationship to the place-holder or hash.  But the place-holder or hash is a one-way trip.  It presents no information in itself that helps you know what it ought to be.  So you need the key or external context helper or table of meaning assignments, or glossary or legend.  Whatever term you choose to call this thing that is external to the document containing the symbols.  It is critical.  Otherwise you have to be a seer.

 

 

 

Again, its not concealed in the document.  It is repurposing of the characters using "glossaries" or context helpers outside the text.  This was not "transmitted" in this form because again, this document by itself is nothing more than a funerary document.  Yet, it was holy and venerated, and meant enough to somebody culturally or religiously to put this kind of work into this.  This is one of the many contexts it could be repurposed in.  And so, this is useful for the book of Abraham in its context with an external table of meaning assignments or "glossary" as you say.  And we would not have this glossary of the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations without revelation.  If something like these existed in ancient times, its a possibility, but they may have just had all this information in their heads.  What makes it meaningful is that ancient people were doing it, and Joseph Smith "restored" this by giving us a "glossary" for it, and then translated the actual text of the story and information that it was used to represent.

Hello. Thank You for Your response. I will have to reread Your post a number of times because, for me, it is a lot to digest (although i find the notion that there is an unrecognized textual link between the Sensen Manuscript and the BOA fascinating). Certain distinctions made (for example, that between a code and a repurposing) are very very subtle and i will have to mull it over in my head. I guess, for me, if i take a text written in Mandarin, and assign systematically to each of the characters a meaning or set of meanings, i am both repurposing the text AND encoding something into it that was never intended by the original designer. Anyone who has my "key" can "break" break the code. (I will have to look up Your referrences to "hash" since i am unfamiliar with the terminology).

 

This is what i understand so far: we have two texts (Sensen and BOA) and a glossary (KEP). The glossary is incomplete. There is a systematic link between what we have in the KEP and the BOA. IE, Joseph Smith's translation, while not Egyptological, IS intelligible and can be demonstrated as such for those portions of the text for which we have the glossary.

 

The characters of the KEP are complex pictograms. The same complex pictogram can change its meaning depending on that portion of the SENSEN text in which it is found. They can't mean just anything however. Again, there is an objective intelligibility to what Joseph Smith was doing.

 

Again, i find myself very curious as to the why of it all from the standpoint of the ancient Egyptians. Speculation and conjecture are fun. If i understand You correctly, you suggest that, perhaps, syncretists found value in the Papyrae we have available and then read into it an understanding their own. But again, why the need to do so? I would assume the individuals in question were literate and could write (male Jewish literacy was becoming more and more widespread already during the time of Jesus) so why not just write down the text? Is there something in the contents of the BOA that would necessitate reading it into Egyptian script versus writing it down in Hebrew or Aramaic? Or, was it just an exercise undertaken, perhaps, for the pure pleasure of doing so? Could it serve some esoteric purpose?

 

You reference Hebrew. There is in Jewish homiletics a (LIMITTED) tradition of reading the letters of the alphabet "pictographically." Every Sukkot we read about the significance of the letters G and M in connection with Gog and Magog and the coming of Messiah. There are actually discussions in our texts of how the letters have meanings beyond their sounds (e.g. G=a roof, G-d's protection of the Jewish people et al.) We repurpose the letters to tell a complete story. In Jewish folklore it is said that the Torah can be read in similar fashion though, to my knowledge, there is no glossary anywhere that would help us to do so! Certainly, the notion of infusing characters with entire stories is plausible but doing so with something as large as the Sensen seems formiddible ( i wonder if it's been done in recent history, would it take a computer...?) and again, i have to look for a why in it. Were they just being creative for the fun of it? :-)

 

I recall a website Zomarah where the writer talks about the Sensen characters as reinterpreted (by Egyptians? by Joseph Smith?) which can be broken down and shown to have meaning based on the KEP. He also sees the translation as intelligible although he hasn't gone through the entire text. There was also an interview several years ago on a somewhat anti site with a George Miller (???) who thought that Joseph Smith intially saw the Sensen man., recognized in the facsimiles a story about Abraham that he had received through Masonry or possibly a hermetic tradition and produced the BOA. That sounds like catalyst theory but he then went on to suggest that perhaps Joseph Smith began to go through the text and systematically invested the characters with meaning. This could be a repurposing (retrofitting) by JS or it could have been a revelation of an earlier repurposing.

 

 

Now, again, i do not have a stance in any of this. I just like to ask questions so here's another one. Does it have to be the case that it was Egyptians that repurposed the text abrahamically? Whether i accept it as a matter of revelation or an exercise in genius (and prophecy and genius, some would argue, are the same thing) might not Joseph Smith be the one and only to infuse a real (but missing) BOA  into the Sensen Manuscript? It seems to me one can argue for that. This is not catalyst, the characters mean something but Joseph Smith is the only link between BOA and Sensen. Can we dispense with the Egyptians? I can think of no proof (save personal revelation... which is fine) to demonstrate that Egyptians did this and then Joseph Smith rediscovered it. Even without the Egyptians in the background, the translation would be an impressive feat though what it would mean would be a cause for discussion!

 

I hope i haven't been too vague. This is not an easy topic and the same words mean different things for all of us. While i don't "get" everything, i do enjoy thinking about the possibilities that You and others have suggested.

[cinepro]

 

 

Now, again, i do not have a stance in any of this. I just like to ask questions so here's another one. Does it have to be the case that it was Egyptians that repurposed the text abrahamically? Whether i accept it as a matter of revelation or an exercise in genius (and prophecy and genius, some would argue, are the same thing) might not Joseph Smith be the one and only to infuse a real (but missing) BOA  into the Sensen Manuscript? It seems to me one can argue for that. This is not catalyst, the characters mean something but Joseph Smith is the only link between BOA and Sensen. Can we dispense with the Egyptians? I can think of no proof (save personal revelation... which is fine) to demonstrate that Egyptians did this and then Joseph Smith rediscovered it. Even without the Egyptians in the background, the translation would be an impressive feat though what it would mean would be a cause for discussion!

 

I hope i haven't been too vague. This is not an easy topic and the same words mean different things for all of us. While i don't "get" everything, i do enjoy thinking about the possibilities that You and others have suggested.

 

Bingo.

 

Ultimately, this isn't an exercise in discovery or investigation.  It is an exercise in creative thinking.  As far as I can tell, this theory stems from DragonLancer's prefrontoal cortex, and is only limited by the bounds of his imagination. 

 

There's nothing wrong with creative thinking (and I, for one, fully acknowledge the role creative thinking can play in formulating new testable theories that can lead to new knowledge), but until we get to the point of a testable theory, I don't think we can say we have any new knowledge.

 

I suspect Brian Hauglid and any other qualified Egyptologist apologist would say the same thing.  I also suspect they would recognize this theory for what it is and not give it nearly as much time as we on this thread have, which is probably why they've accomplished so much more with their lives than I have.

Edited March 20, 2015 by cinepro

[The Nehor]

Bingo.

 

Ultimately, this isn't an exercise in discovery or investigation.  It is an exercise in creative thinking.  As far as I can tell, this theory stems from DragonLancer's prefrontoal cortex, and is only limited by the bounds of his imagination. 

 

There's nothing wrong with creative thinking (and I, for one, fully acknowledge the role creative thinking can play in formulating new testable theories that can lead to new knowledge), but until we get to the point of a testable theory, I don't think we can say we have any new knowledge.

 

I suspect Brian Hauglid and any other qualified Egyptologist apologist would say the same thing.  I also suspect they would recognize this theory for what it is and not give it nearly as much time as we on this thread have, which is probably why they've accomplished so much more with their lives than I have.

*slow clap*

[Hillel2]

Hello. While i do not subscribe to a position IF JS produced an intelligent translation from his own cortex it could still be seen by a believer as a sign of prophethood...if things match up that's impresaive. Could a computer do this let alone someone in 19th century? So the first thing to test are the KEP characters themselves. Given what exists, is There a consistent intellible correlation?? I think this is part of DL's assertion. A match would at least demonstrate someone in the 19th century produced an impressive artifact.

It would be fun to get a dozen brilliant wealthy retired linguists, cryptographers and others working on this. It should be demonstrable at which point we can dismiss the link and try other theories OR say pretty cool "translation" now what does this mean??? :-)

[mfbukowski]

Now, again, i do not have a stance in any of this. I just like to ask questions so here's another one. Does it have to be the case that it was Egyptians that repurposed the text abrahamically? Whether i accept it as a matter of revelation or an exercise in genius (and prophecy and genius, some would argue, are the same thing) might not Joseph Smith be the one and only to infuse a real (but missing) BOA  into the Sensen Manuscript? It seems to me one can argue for that. This is not catalyst, the characters mean something but Joseph Smith is the only link between BOA and Sensen. Can we dispense with the Egyptians? I can think of no proof (save personal revelation... which is fine) to demonstrate that Egyptians did this and then Joseph Smith rediscovered it. Even without the Egyptians in the background, the translation would be an impressive feat though what it would mean would be a cause for discussion!

Very interesting post.

 

Not sure if this applies, but there are serious logical problems with the idea of a private language, how it could have "rules" etc.  It is quite an important subject in philosophy.

The idea of a private language was made famous in philosophy by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who in §243 of his book Philosophical Investigations explained it thus: “The words of this language are to refer to what can be known only to the speaker; to his immediate, private, sensations. So another cannot understand the language.”^[1] This is not intended to cover (easily imaginable) cases of recording one's experiences in a personal code, for such a code, however obscure in fact, could in principle be deciphered. What Wittgenstein had in mind is a language conceived as necessarily comprehensible only to its single originator because the things which define its vocabulary are necessarily inaccessible to others.

Immediately after introducing the idea, Wittgenstein goes on to argue that there cannot be such a language. The importance of drawing philosophers' attention to a largely unheard-of notion and then arguing that it is unrealizable lies in the fact that an unformulated reliance on the possibility of a private language is arguably essential to mainstream epistemology, philosophy of mind and metaphysics from Descartes to versions of the representational theory of mind which became prominent in late twentieth century cognitive science.

 

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/#KriSceWit

 

I think the catalyst theory avoids those problems since the revelation is directly to Joseph- more a case of what you might call "genius".

I think Joseph used the papyri as a sort of mandala.  One could postulate that the BOA is what it is alleged to be and still hold this view- that it is a kind of re-transmission and "translation" of an actual lost manuscript.

 

In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala

[DragonLancer]

Bingo.

 

Ultimately, this isn't an exercise in discovery or investigation.  It is an exercise in creative thinking.  As far as I can tell, this theory stems from DragonLancer's prefrontoal cortex, and is only limited by the bounds of his imagination. 

 

There's nothing wrong with creative thinking (and I, for one, fully acknowledge the role creative thinking can play in formulating new testable theories that can lead to new knowledge), but until we get to the point of a testable theory, I don't think we can say we have any new knowledge.

 

I suspect Brian Hauglid and any other qualified Egyptologist apologist would say the same thing.  I also suspect they would recognize this theory for what it is and not give it nearly as much time as we on this thread have, which is probably why they've accomplished so much more with their lives than I have.

 

I suspect you have nothing to say constructively here left.  You not only do not know anything about what I have studied and presented, and you don't really care.  You don't even know that Hauglid is not an Egyptologist.  He is a specialist in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

 

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/people/brian-hauglid/

 

You betray not only your lack of desire to understand me and what I have found.  You betray your inability to do so.  I intend now to actually have a conversation with Hillel2.  You have already made your opinion known.  You are here now just to disrespect me and my work and insult my intelligence.  I'm not going to sit around idly by and allow you to insult me and my work.  You are not here to learn about what I have found.  So go create your own Ed Goble's Book of Abraham theory is stupid thread and get off mine.  And you and Nehor can have your Ed Goble is an idiot fest elsewhere.

Edited March 21, 2015 by DragonLancer

[DragonLancer]

*slow clap*

 

I would invite you to leave too, and cease to pollute my thread.

Edited March 21, 2015 by DragonLancer

[mfbukowski]

Hello. While i do not subscribe to a position IF JS produced an intelligent translation from his own cortex it could still be seen by a believer as a sign of prophethood..

Interesting.

 

So you think the prophets of old did not use their "own cortex" in receiving revelation?   Who was pushing the pen?

[DragonLancer]

Hello. Thank You for Your response. I will have to reread Your post a number of times because, for me, it is a lot to digest (although i find the notion that there is an unrecognized textual link between the Sensen Manuscript and the BOA fascinating). Certain distinctions made (for example, that between a code and a repurposing) are very very subtle and i will have to mull it over in my head. I guess, for me, if i take a text written in Mandarin, and assign systematically to each of the characters a meaning or set of meanings, i am both repurposing the text AND encoding something into it that was never intended by the original designer. Anyone who has my "key" can "break" break the code. (I will have to look up Your referrences to "hash" since i am unfamiliar with the terminology).

 

This is what i understand so far: we have two texts (Sensen and BOA) and a glossary (KEP). The glossary is incomplete. There is a systematic link between what we have in the KEP and the BOA. IE, Joseph Smith's translation, while not Egyptological, IS intelligible and can be demonstrated as such for those portions of the text for which we have the glossary.

 

The characters of the KEP are complex pictograms. The same complex pictogram can change its meaning depending on that portion of the SENSEN text in which it is found. They can't mean just anything however. Again, there is an objective intelligibility to what Joseph Smith was doing.

 

Again, i find myself very curious as to the why of it all from the standpoint of the ancient Egyptians. Speculation and conjecture are fun. If i understand You correctly, you suggest that, perhaps, syncretists found value in the Papyrae we have available and then read into it an understanding their own. But again, why the need to do so? I would assume the individuals in question were literate and could write (male Jewish literacy was becoming more and more widespread already during the time of Jesus) so why not just write down the text? Is there something in the contents of the BOA that would necessitate reading it into Egyptian script versus writing it down in Hebrew or Aramaic? Or, was it just an exercise undertaken, perhaps, for the pure pleasure of doing so? Could it serve some esoteric purpose?

 

You reference Hebrew. There is in Jewish homiletics a (LIMITTED) tradition of reading the letters of the alphabet "pictographically." Every Sukkot we read about the significance of the letters G and M in connection with Gog and Magog and the coming of Messiah. There are actually discussions in our texts of how the letters have meanings beyond their sounds (e.g. G=a roof, G-d's protection of the Jewish people et al.) We repurpose the letters to tell a complete story. In Jewish folklore it is said that the Torah can be read in similar fashion though, to my knowledge, there is no glossary anywhere that would help us to do so! Certainly, the notion of infusing characters with entire stories is plausible but doing so with something as large as the Sensen seems formiddible ( i wonder if it's been done in recent history, would it take a computer...?) and again, i have to look for a why in it. Were they just being creative for the fun of it? :-)

 

I recall a website Zomarah where the writer talks about the Sensen characters as reinterpreted (by Egyptians? by Joseph Smith?) which can be broken down and shown to have meaning based on the KEP. He also sees the translation as intelligible although he hasn't gone through the entire text. There was also an interview several years ago on a somewhat anti site with a George Miller (???) who thought that Joseph Smith intially saw the Sensen man., recognized in the facsimiles a story about Abraham that he had received through Masonry or possibly a hermetic tradition and produced the BOA. That sounds like catalyst theory but he then went on to suggest that perhaps Joseph Smith began to go through the text and systematically invested the characters with meaning. This could be a repurposing (retrofitting) by JS or it could have been a revelation of an earlier repurposing.

 

 

Now, again, i do not have a stance in any of this. I just like to ask questions so here's another one. Does it have to be the case that it was Egyptians that repurposed the text abrahamically? Whether i accept it as a matter of revelation or an exercise in genius (and prophecy and genius, some would argue, are the same thing) might not Joseph Smith be the one and only to infuse a real (but missing) BOA  into the Sensen Manuscript? It seems to me one can argue for that. This is not catalyst, the characters mean something but Joseph Smith is the only link between BOA and Sensen. Can we dispense with the Egyptians? I can think of no proof (save personal revelation... which is fine) to demonstrate that Egyptians did this and then Joseph Smith rediscovered it. Even without the Egyptians in the background, the translation would be an impressive feat though what it would mean would be a cause for discussion!

 

I hope i haven't been too vague. This is not an easy topic and the same words mean different things for all of us. While i don't "get" everything, i do enjoy thinking about the possibilities that You and others have suggested.

 

 

Hello. While i do not subscribe to a position IF JS produced an intelligent translation from his own cortex it could still be seen by a believer as a sign of prophethood...if things match up that's impresaive. Could a computer do this let alone someone in 19th century? So the first thing to test are the KEP characters themselves. Given what exists, is There a consistent intellible correlation?? I think this is part of DL's assertion. A match would at least demonstrate someone in the 19th century produced an impressive artifact.

It would be fun to get a dozen brilliant wealthy retired linguists, cryptographers and others working on this. It should be demonstrable at which point we can dismiss the link and try other theories OR say pretty cool "translation" now what does this mean??? :-)

 

That's why, the principles of the "code" behind the translation of the Book of Abraham can be observed and analyzed, because we have the key.  We can now observe the principles and see them in action.  Because of the key, the table of value assignments.  Yes, there is a systematic link.  That's right, they can't just mean anything.  They must fit certain criteria.

 

You call what I'm doing to try to discern the "why" behind all of this speculation.  I am not speaking from guesses.  I'm speaking from educated observations about their activities with the Syncretism in the so-called Greek Magical Papyri and so forth and all their activities of repurposing.  Read the blog, and you will see what I mean.

 

Yes, the earliest version of the Semitic Alphabet, the Proto-Sinaitic, is directly derived from Egyptian, and is partially pictographic.  It was derived from various Zodiacal/Calendar traditions.  And even the Zohar speaks about them being derived from Zodiacal traditions. Here are my articles on my research on the connections with the Sensen papyrus, ancient calendars and zodiacs, and the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet.  I have demonstrated that the proto-Sinaitic characters were selected from among Egyptian hieroglyphics for their calendrical/zodiacal significance.  This also has significance for the Sensen Papyrus in that the character values assigned to some uniliteral characters from the Sensen Papyrus in the KEP are given values such as Kli Flos Is Es, Kolob, Veh-Kli-Flos-Is-Es (Limdi), etc., which are consmological/astronomical value assignments from the Book of Abraham, even though they are not constellations like the Proto-Sinaitic characters are, from which all Semitic abjads derive.

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/02/khonsu-and-lunar-zodiac-origin-of.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-two-bulls-sun-and-moon-eyes-of-god.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/02/proto-sinaitic-ho-he-and-joseph-smiths.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/02/proto-sinaitic-character-tables.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/03/jehovah-iaoiaoueyahweh-and-vulture.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/03/alephalpha-as-el-god-of-canaan-and.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/03/proto-sinaitic-gamel-and-gemini.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/03/hebrew-daleth-greek-delta-proto.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/03/proto-sinaitic-beth-and-solar-zodiacal.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/03/solar-zodiacal-aquarius-and-proto.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/04/constellations-zodiacs-alphabets-and.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/04/proto-sinaitic-tsade-and-asterism-of.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/05/proto-sinaitic-n-nahasu-and.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/06/proto-sinaitic-en-ain-and-aldebaran-eye.html

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/06/proto-canaanite-peh-or-mouth-and.html

 

You seem to be asking if it would take a computer to do what they did with the Sensen papyrus in our day, calling it a formidable task.  It was formidable what people in the day of the Sensen Papyrus could do, themselves basically having "computers."  It is not surprising therefore that they basically turned the Sensen Papyrus into a "computer" of sorts in its own right:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

 

Here I discuss the analogy between hardware and software interactions in a computer and what is going on in the Sensen Papyrus and the KEP:

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2013/12/two-modern-analogies-to-syncretistic.html

 

Yes, I know who George Miller is (that is not his real name), and am quite familiar with his research on Masonry.  These characters are not derived from Masonry in spite of his claims and William Schryver's claims suggesting that.

 

I would like to ask you to direct me to somewhere where I can read up on this Zomarah site to analyze the claims that are being made.  I am not aware of this until now.  I would like to review those claims.

 

I understand that you would like to think that Joseph Smith did this.  Yes, that is something that William Hamblin has suggested and it is another option.  However, it is not my favored one.  There is definite evidence of modern reconstruction, and that does have to even figure in with he theory of ancient context:

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-modern-reconstruction-hypothesis.html

 

But to suggest that Joseph Smith did this and the ancients never did with the Book of Abraham is to reduce this whole thing to basically just a modified catalyst theory.  I'm sure that would be attractive to some, and they are free to think this way.  My evidence could be interpreted in that light, but I do not believe that.

 

But in the end, one has to make a choice for faith in an ancient context or not.  I choose faith in an ancient context.  This is why:

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/01/as-practiced-by-ancients-why-ancient.html

 

Because Joseph Smith was insisting that he was simply reproducing activity from ancient times.

[The Nehor]

 So go create your own Ed Goble's Book of Abraham theory is stupid thread and get off mine.  And you and Nehor can have your Ed Goble is an idiot fest elsewhere.

 

Sounds fun. So what is the traditional food served at an "Ed Goble is an idiot" fest? I hope it is cake.

[Hillel2]

Hello Dragonlancer. Can't get my quote button to work but i will try to be systematic. If You haven't already been there the site can be found by inputting Zomarah + decoding the book of Abraham. I don't know what his credentials are and don't want to post a direct link in case there is anything sensitive there. His theory occured to me more than 20 years ago. A lot of folk ARE wondering along similar lines. I don't believe he's gone into the matter as much as You but check out anyway. He is open to the idea that JS could have been creating his own reading but it IS an intelligible system.

Yes, to an extent, if JS read his own interpretation into Sensen, it's partway to the catalyst theory. Were i working on this, my first interest would be to demonstrate that there is a real albeit non-egyptilogical translation going on. Do You think there is enough material in the KEP to do this and if so, who should be working on it?

I read (quickly...sorry) the links You sent me. Please tell me if i understand correctly. Are You maintaing that some of the astrological meanings assigned by JS to the Sensen characters are similar/identical to those assigned by ancients to proto-sinaitic? Is that in Your opinion proof that the translation is NOT a brilliant product of JS' mind. If i understood it is a very interesting matter. The first time i read BOA i was surprised by some of its thematic links to Jewish apocrypha. Of course, there are non supernatural ways that JS could have come to this info. OTOH one wonders how much he could have known about the symbolism inherent in ancient charaters!

Per the Greek papyri...i understand the widespread syncretism of the time but giving egyptian names to greek gods or vice versa is small stuff. Do you know of any document besides Sensen which has been repurposed? I've tried writing out a paragraph and then superimposing another text onto/ into it. It's pretty difficult! Are there any Large scale examples from the ancient world of somebody doing a BOA like adaptation on something of the same scale?

I appreciate the genius of the ancient world...could somebody do it? Sure. But why? What is the value in it? Was the original considered too sacred for conventional writing? Was it commissioned so that JS could produce by revelation a baffling but intelligible translation as a sign of his prophethood? I understand there might be no answer or multiple ones . What do You think?

Thanks

[DragonLancer]

Hello Dragonlancer. Can't get my quote button to work but i will try to be systematic. If You haven't already been there the site can be found by inputting Zomarah + decoding the book of Abraham. I don't know what his credentials are and don't want to post a direct link in case there is anything sensitive there. His theory occured to me more than 20 years ago. A lot of folk ARE wondering along similar lines. I don't believe he's gone into the matter as much as You but check out anyway. He is open to the idea that JS could have been creating his own reading but it IS an intelligible system.

Yes, to an extent, if JS read his own interpretation into Sensen, it's partway to the catalyst theory. Were i working on this, my first interest would be to demonstrate that there is a real albeit non-egyptilogical translation going on. Do You think there is enough material in the KEP to do this and if so, who should be working on it?

I read (quickly...sorry) the links You sent me. Please tell me if i understand correctly. Are You maintaing that some of the astrological meanings assigned by JS to the Sensen characters are similar/identical to those assigned by ancients to proto-sinaitic? Is that in Your opinion proof that the translation is NOT a brilliant product of JS' mind. If i understood it is a very interesting matter. The first time i read BOA i was surprised by some of its thematic links to Jewish apocrypha. Of course, there are non supernatural ways that JS could have come to this info. OTOH one wonders how much he could have known about the symbolism inherent in ancient charaters!

Per the Greek papyri...i understand the widespread syncretism of the time but giving egyptian names to greek gods or vice versa is small stuff. Do you know of any document besides Sensen which has been repurposed? I've tried writing out a paragraph and then superimposing another text onto/ into it. It's pretty difficult! Are there any Large scale examples from the ancient world of somebody doing a BOA like adaptation on something of the same scale?

I appreciate the genius of the ancient world...could somebody do it? Sure. But why? What is the value in it? Was the original considered too sacred for conventional writing? Was it commissioned so that JS could produce by revelation a baffling but intelligible translation as a sign of his prophethood? I understand there might be no answer or multiple ones . What do You think?

Thanks

 

Thanks for giving me the search input thing to put in to the search engine.  Once I put that in, I found it.  When I read through it, I'll give you an opinion.

 

Yes, there is definitely enough material in the KEP to demonstrate that Joseph Smith was doing this.  Egyptologists ought to be working on it, but instead it is left to people like me to work on it since other people won't take it seriously, and have attitudes like those manifest by Cinepro and Nehor.

 

No.  I am not saying that the Proto-Sinaitic represent the same things as in the Sensen Papyrus.  What I am saying is that the Egyptian hieroglyphics in the Proto-Sinaitic were selected because they represent items on an ancient Calendar or Constellation sign list, an ancient Zodiac of sorts that has some elements from our Solar Zodiac.  But it is not a solar zodiac, because its ordering is not along the ecliptic.  Because other elements from other ancient Zodiacs like the Babylonian constellation list that had a different ordering and different basis in the sky than the solar one.  The solar one that we have inherited from the Greeks and Romans basically follows the Ecliptic.  I'm saying that it is significant that the Proto-Sinaitic characters represent astronomical information.  I'm saying that it is also significant that the the interpretations in the KEP of signs from the Egyptian uniliteral "alphabet" in the Sensen also are given astronomical information.  I did not say that they represent the same information.  I'm saying it is interesting that they both represent astronomical things.

 

The Proto-Sinaitic in itself is a repurposing of certain Egyptian signs to represent an ancient constellation list when the signs did not have that specific function before that.

 

So, what I'm trying to tell you is that the Sensen as a sign list and the Proto-Sinaitic as an astronomical sign list, and other Zodiacs/Calendars as astronomical sign lists.....  all of these things of the same genre of things:  astronomical/calendrical/consonantal sign lists.  And I assert that that observation is significant.  This is why Khonsu figures so prominently in the Sensen Papyrus, because he is the Egyptian version of a god that has to do with calendrical/astronomical sign lists.  He is the beginning and the end, the alef and the tav.   He himself represents "Sensen" which is the joining or conjuction of the sun and the moon, the conjunction of two bulls, a festival where the sun and moon were seen in the sky at the same time on a certain day.  Aleph is a bull or the sun.  The Tav, the tau, the Taurus is a bull, or the moon.  These things are all of the same genre of lists of signs.  Sensen is the festival of the joining of the two bulls in Ancient Egypt.  It is where the beginning meets the end, similar to how the new year is a new beginning.

 

I'm saying that all of this evidence together points to ancient origin, not to something that Joseph Smith did on his own.  Maybe this or that on its own isn't very compelling.  This all together points to something larger, because all the evidence together has a synergy that points to ancientness.

 

Yes, in this following blog post, I discuss about and give evidence for the repurposing of documents in the magical papyri, and for those that do not want to read it, I offer the following quote that I quoted from the Classical Weekly Journal about the Greek Magical papyri:

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2014/10/more-detail-on-sensen-characters-as.html

 

So far, then, the picture presented by the religion of the papyri is essentially that of the usual syncretism as we know it during the age of dying antiquity . . . The attention of the sorcerers is naturally centered on the two gods of light, Helios and Selene.  The former is identified with Apollo, with Mithras, with Ra-Horus, with Yahweh and his chief archangel Michael, the latter with Artemis, with Hectate, with Isis.  In the bewildering crowd of divine beings which appear on every page and in every column of the magical papyri it would seem almost impossible to constitute any order or system.  Yet, if one reads and rereads them, certain principles seem to stand out . . .

 

We can easily recognize here the admixture of Hebrew, Persian, and Egyptian elements . . .

 

Many years ago I called attention to a confusion in British Museum papyrus 46 . . . which seemed to prove that the original was compiled from loose scraps without much regard for their connection (or lack of connection), and that the 'Ring of Hermes' found its way into this theft-charm simply because in this, too, Hermes was invoked!  The cosmogony mentioned appears twice, with only slight variations, in the same papyrus, the first time under the title Monas, or Eighth Book of Moses, the second time as Moses's Holy Apocryphal (or Secret?) Book, called the Eighth or Holy book.  There is also mention of the same alleged author's book named Key, and the closing line of the papyrus promises further excerpts from a Tenth Book . . .  Sometimes we read also variations of the holy names, professedly found by the scribe in a different copy, and once, at least, an interpretative scholion has found its way into the text.  We are thus justified in assuming that our collections were formed from a large number of independent documents, and that the magicians adopted and adapted for their use whatever appealed to them as suiting their aims; in doing this they disregarded the original purposes of the various pieces.  So they may have taken over, bodily, hymns and prayers of mystic tales told by some of the many secret cult communities and conventicles which flourished elsewhere during the later periods.  The papyri may thus really contain pieces of actual cult ritual . . .  (Ernst Riess, The Classical Weekly, Monday, January 28, 1935, pp. 105-111)

 

 

Once again, you ask, why all of this is like this.  You ask what do I think.  There are several factors as to the why of all of this.  One, is that in our day, Joseph Smith had to produce something in our day that would be baffling to critics.  Because there is a principle where the Lord states that that which is OUR foundation stone is THEIR stone of stumbling.  That which is our delight is their undoing.  Just like with Book of Mormon archaeology, the Lord has to produce a situation through natural means where something has to be what it claims to be, without producing evidence that critics cannot deny.  That would take away our free agency.  So, the Lord's hand is in this for one thing, to give us something that is still the Book of Abraham, but something that critics in and out of the Church can try to deny with their rational mind.  So, for us, it requires faith for it to be our foundation stone.  Since they will not give it faith, it is their stone of stumbling.

 

A second principle is that the Lord isn't going to spoon feed us, and doesn't just require our faith, but also our work.  It is something that we have to work to find.

 

Thirdly, Egyptians, like the ancient Hebrews were lovers of mysteries.  Hebrews loved number games and cabbala-esque puzzles.  So did Egyptians.  So, the Lord used to his advantage a naturalistic process in ancient Egypt that produced this document to make the Book of Abraham papyrus a "sealed book" instead of handing it to us in a form that would just sort of be a sign for us to "consume it upon our lusts."  He wasn't going to just hand this to us.  But he requires us to work it out on our own until we figure out what to do with it.  The invitation to do so was in Facsimile 2 Explanation for figure 11, "If the world can figure out these numbers, so let it be, Amen."  Egyptologically, the figure 11 in facsimile #2 is not numeric in any fashion.  It is an invitation to us to figure out how that consists of numbers.  And generally, it is an invitation to use our own faculties to reverse-engineer these things using the table of value assignments or "glossary" that we have been given.  In figure 11, the hint was given that these are numbers somehow.  And then, it was left to us to do the work.  The same is so with the Sensen characters.  We were given enough to work with to as bread crumbs/clues/hints to actually get a favorable outcome if we will apply enough faith and effort to do so.

Edited March 22, 2015 by DragonLancer

[Thinking]

It seems that in previous threads where I tried to present my theory on the Book of Abraham, a number of people did not understand.  I have tried yet again to update my explanation page on my blog in a way that would make it understandable:

 

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/p/some-background-on-my-stance-on-book-of.html

 

Before I called the characters abstractions with concrete assignments.  I have tried yet again by using the word "variable" and to use the analogy of math or algebra for what I'm talking about.

 

Ed

 

As a math teacher, I have seen students do exactly what you are doing while trying to find shortcuts. After seeing the answer to a problem, they will look to see if they can create a shortcut.

 

Here is an example: 16/64 = (16x1)/(16x4) = (16/16)x(1/4) = 1x(1/4) = 1/4

 

A student who is looking for a shortcut might say, "Can't you just cross out the 6's?"

Shortcut After Seeing the Solution: 16/64 = 16/64 = 1/4

My Answer: That's clever, will it work for 17/74?

 

You are assigning values to the variables after seeing the text.

 

Here's another one: 2² = 4

One student might say that squaring is the same as multiplying because 2x2 = 4.

Still another might say that squaring is the same as adding because 2+2 = 4.

 

On almost a daily basis, I have to correct a student who is trying to find another way to solve a problem by finding a connection after seeing the solution.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Thinking

[DragonLancer]

As a math teacher, I have seen students do exactly what you are doing while trying to find shortcuts. After seeing the answer to a problem, they will look to see if they can create a shortcut.

 

Here is an example: 16/64 = (16x1)/(16x4) = (16/16)x(1/4) = 1x(1/4) = 1/4

 

A student who is looking for a shortcut might say, "Can't you just cross out the 6's?"

Shortcut After Seeing the Solution: 16/64 = 16/64 = 1/4

My Answer: That's clever, will it work for 17/74?

 

You are assigning values to the variables after seeing the text.

 

Here's another one: 2^2 = 4

One student might say that squaring is the same as multiplying because 2x2 = 4.

Still another might say that squaring is the same as adding because 2+2 = 4.

 

On almost a daily basis, I have to correct a student who is trying to find another way to solve a problem by finding a connection after seeing the solution.

 

I'm not assigning values.  I know the values already, as you say.  This is not a shortcut.  I'm dong an exercise in FINDING THE PROCESS AND THE PRINCIPLES.

 

When you step on the gas pedal, you have one known thing, A.  And when you see the car go, you have another known thing, Z.  If you are not a mechanic, and you have no mechanic to teach you, you have to open up the hood and start looking to figure out how you got from A to Z.  In fact you may have to dismantle the whole engine to figure it out.  You observed that cause (gas pedal press) led to effect (gar moving).  And you have another known:  that you have to put gas in to get it to go.  It doesn't help that you don't know yet the steps inbetween and the mechanism.  As in Computer Science, that which is under the hood is ENCAPSULATED and out of your view.

 

It is a black box, until you rip that box open.  When software testers do black box testing, they are agnostic about the inner workings of the thing in the box.  But this is about ripping open the box.  As a software engineer, I know that the existence of a black box is helpful in management of complexity, because it is the Abstraction principle in object oriented programming.  But in the end of the day, I have to have conciousness of what is inside the box if I have a bug that is hard to track down.  When I really need to know, especially when some other engineer designed the thing inside the black box, I have to go from the known to the unknown, tracking down and understanding what that person did that originally programmed that thing inside the black box.  And if there is no good documentation, and the programming style is confusing, then I have to go into debug mode in my programming environment, and trace down what is actually going on, inside that box.  Just trying to understand what another programmer did when there is a bug, is an exercise in reverse engineering.

 

If it is something where I have a component that is compiled down to some level of something closer to machine code, maybe .NET or Java bytecode/IL code from another company and a bug exists in it, then I am even in further trouble, because I have to decompile the thing from that lower level code and then dive in.  And in those cases, variable names are not there anymore so I have nothing to guide me, and no documentation.  All I have is my ability to trace through the code and watch it do what it does in each step.

 

I know you may think this has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but if you think that, then perhaps you really have no fundamental concept of what I'm doing, and that probably reflects something about you, and how you ought to re-think what you are saying to me, and probably means that you ought to more carefully analyze what I'm doing before you dive in and find fault.

 

I realize that you would like to find some little thing to use as a chink in my armor and call it a shortcut.  Unfortunately, what you are saying is not relevant.

 

I am a Software Engineer, and I do this for a living.  I deal with math all the time.  I have been doing this stuff professionally for 15 years.  And I was a programmer/hobbyist/hacker since 8th grade in Junior High School.

 

I get it that you are a math teacher.  A math problem was an analogy, not the point.  Did you get it that these are variables?  Do you see that a math problem was an analogy to get people to see what I'm talking about when I say the word variable?  Most people don't understand the word variable.  I know you do.  But you can't take for granted that a lot of people need a basic analogy here.

 

Are you familiar with hashing in cryptology?  Hashing only means anything if you know the answer and work backwards.  I presume that you know that as someone knowledgeable in math.

 

You do know, as a math teacher, I presume, that calculus, by its very nature, is an exercise in reverse-engineering.  I presume you know that as someone knowledgeable in math.

 

Here is another point.  Egyptian was solved from seeing the answer:  The rosetta stone gave the answer, and they had to work backwards.

That's the nature of reverse-engineering.  Knowing the answer and working backwards, because the true answer is the process and the mechanism, not the answer.  The so-called answer is really not the "answer," just one of the the things that are known.  The true answer is really the unknown thing, and is in this case, the process in the middle.  The thing at the start and the thing at the end are known.

 

 Moving from the known to the unknown.  Really, that is the point of algebra too, to discover the unknown from the known.  There is no fundamental difference really.

 

I am reverse-engineering things.  That's what reverse means.  Backwards.  That's the nature of the thing.  So, now, go lecture someone knowledgeable in Egyptian history and language and tell him reverse engineering cannot deliver results, and he will give you a lecture on the history of Champollion and the Rosetta Stone, and you will quickly realize that as a math teacher, you were speaking outside of your area of expertise presuming to lecture someone about the fundamental nature of how the knowledge of Egyptian translation was rediscovered.  Now, go read the blog, and look at the results, and see that there are fundamental principles in common with every time the process has been reverse-engineered.  Since it took the Rosetta Stone to decipher regular Egyptian, it isn't surprising that it takes the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations to decipher what is going on with the Book of Abraham.  After all, these are Egyptian characters.  It's not the so-called "answers" that needed to be found.  Its about how the answers are arrived at that we had to decipher.  It is moving from the known backwards.

 

Some food for thought and real world examples, since this is a real world thing:

 

http://refineandfocus.com/2012/05/reverse-engineering-refinefocus-approach-to-business/

 

http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/txt/acre.html

 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/988642/how-would-i-reverse-engineer-a-cryptographic-algorithm

Edited March 23, 2015 by DragonLancer

[The Nehor]

The problem with your comparison is that you have no "Rosetta Stone" with the Book of Abraham.