Book Of Abraham Characters As Variables: Updated Explanation Page

[DragonLancer]

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

 

The problem with your statement is that you don't see that the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations are the Mormon Rosetta Stone.

[The Nehor]

The problem with your statement is that you don't see that the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations are the Mormon Rosetta Stone.

I do not. The Rosetta Stone presented both ends of the translation. Your Book of Abraham explanation requires there to be a hidden meaning on the Egyptian side which we do not have access to.

What you are doing is holding up a translation of something that, if it exists, is as obscure as a translation of the hidden meaning of the Voynich manuscript.

[DragonLancer]

I do not. The Rosetta Stone presented both ends of the translation. Your Book of Abraham explanation requires there to be a hidden meaning on the Egyptian side which we do not have access to.

What you are doing is holding up a translation of something that, if it exists, is as obscure as a translation of the hidden meaning of the Voynich manuscript.

 

Wrong.  The Facsimiles explanations and the KEP provide one end.  Regular Egyptian translation presents the other end.  The process and principles with how the two relate is the unknown.

[The Nehor]

Wrong.  The Facsimiles explanations and the KEP provide one end.  Regular Egyptian translation presents the other end.  The process and principles with how the two relate is the unknown.

And if there was a Rosetta Stone equivalent between the two then the Book of Breathings would be LDS canon and the facsimiles would suggest that the Eloiheim contain the Egyptian deities.

[DragonLancer]

And if there was a Rosetta Stone equivalent between the two then the Book of Breathings would be LDS canon and the facsimiles would suggest that the Eloiheim contain the Egyptian deities.

 

The Egyptian Deities are abstractions used to represent true things.  We've been over and over this.  But of course, you are just the trickster.

 

The funerary manuscript context is not what we care about as Mormons, with the exception of how Hugh Nibley showed that that context parallels Mormon Temple Ritual.  We would not canonize something in text form that is already in our temple, that is already canonized in that way.  That's why Facsimile #2, figure 8 explanation says, "Contains writings that cannot be revealed unto the world; but is to be had in the Holy Temple of God."

[The Nehor]

The Egyptian Deities are abstractions used to represent true things.  We've been over and over this.  But of course, you are just the trickster.

 

The funerary manuscript context is not what we care about as Mormons, with the exception of how Hugh Nibley showed that that context parallels Mormon Temple Ritual.  We would not canonize something in text form that is already in our temple, that is already canonized in that way.  That's why Facsimile #2, figure 8 explanation says, "Contains writings that cannot be revealed unto the world; but is to be had in the Holy Temple of God."

If they are abstractions then it is not the equivalent of a Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone translations would be direct translation (or as direct as translations can be) from one language to another.

[DragonLancer]

If they are abstractions then it is not the equivalent of a Rosetta Stone. Rosetta Stone translations would be direct translation (or as direct as translations can be) from one language to another.

 

Regular Egyptian is a direct translation of something that sometimes results in a thing that contains a message.  Other times, a symbol contains a basic object or a basic concept.  When that basic object or basic concept has fundamental criteria in common with the thing that someone used it to represent, then you can look at A and B and see the criteria it has in common.  We've been over and over that as well, and at that point you can see that A actually is a perfect placeholder for B.

Edited March 23, 2015 by DragonLancer

[The Nehor]

Regular Egyptian is a direct translation of something that sometimes results in a thing that contains a message.  Other times, a symbol contains a basic object or a basic concept.  When that basic object or basic concept has fundamental criteria in common with the thing that someone used it to represent, then you can look at A and B and see the criteria it has in common.  We've been over and over that as well, and at that point you can see that A actually is a perfect placeholder for B.

The problem is that your A to B is pure guesswork.

Still not a Rosetta Stone.

[DragonLancer]

The problem is that your A to B is pure guesswork.

Still not a Rosetta Stone.

 

We'll let the people that matter to this discussion decide whether it makes sense to them or not, since the people that matter are the audience this was meant to reach.

Your fundamental trollish nature is not a deciding factor in when 20 years from now someone sees this discussion after 20 more years of research and decides that it has merit.

The spirit of trolling in you is not going to matter when it is demonstrated and checked out, and then that which is true endures.  It doesn't matter what you say when you make claims like this, because history will decide, not you.

[Ahab]

DragonLancer, I appreciate the many good thoughts I have received from God while reading your words to express your and his corresponding thoughts to me. You are definitely on to something good and it sounds and feels and tastes very good to me, personally. And I don't think anyone could be any more clear about what you are trying to convey to others. Some just do not agree for some reason and that is just how things go sometimes when trying to share good thoughts with the masses, whether members of the Church or not.

[mfbukowski]

The problem with your statement is that you don't see that the KEP and the Facsimiles Explanations are the Mormon Rosetta Stone.

I of course agree with this approach.   I have been wondering what the pragmatic value is of deciphering the "language" Joseph used, but I myself have used the facsimilies in a systematic way to better understand the temple ordinances.  There ARE correlations there, I have no doubt

 

Some of the various sacred gestures made mirror the facsimilies and correlate with the explanations.

 

I see value in that for me personally because of course what I have learned cannot be shared anyway, unless there was a "class" taught in a temple and that is not going to happen anyway.

 

My original question was that if indeed there IS a correlation in the rest of the BOA, since we already have the "translation", what is the value of figuring out how Joseph came up with it, since we already have the message which is of more importance than how he received it?

 

I guess I am wondering why there is any net spiritual value in understanding the details of how Joseph used the various sources since we still end up with basically the catalyst theory anyway.

[cinepro]

We'll let the people that matter to this discussion decide whether it makes sense to them or not, since the people that matter are the audience this was meant to reach.

Your fundamental trollish nature is not a deciding factor in when 20 years from now someone sees this discussion after 20 more years of research and decides that it has merit.

The spirit of trolling in you is not going to matter when it is demonstrated and checked out, and then that which is true endures.  It doesn't matter what you say when you make claims like this, because history will decide, not you.

 

Who, exactly, are you trying to reach here?  You mentioned Brian Hauglid, but I don't recall him ever participating here.

 

Maybe it would be more productive for you to prepare a clear, understandable summary (say, fewer than 500 words) and send it to five of the "people that matter".  Ask them if they think you're heading in the right direction, and then share their responses here.

 

I would send them the summary myself, but I still can't figure out what, exactly, you are proposing.  Specifically, here is what I can't figure out:

 

Let's call the scribe who prepared the actual papyri "Mim".  You previously stated that you believe the papyri were prepared in the "Greco Roman" era, so around 300 BC. 

 

According to your theory, was Mim familiar with the content of The Book of Abraham (as written by Abraham himself ~1700 years earlier)?

 

If so, how did Mim change the funerary papyri to include the content of The Book of Abraham, and what could be his incentive to do this?

 

In other words, if Mim prepared the papyri in the regular way so as not to encode The Book of Abraham, how would it be any different?  Which hieroglyphs would have to be different?

[mfbukowski]

DragonLancer, I appreciate the many good thoughts I have received from God while reading your words to express your and his corresponding thoughts to me. You are definitely on to something good and it sounds and feels and tastes very good to me, personally. And I don't think anyone could be any more clear about what you are trying to convey to others. Some just do not agree for some reason and that is just how things go sometimes when trying to share good thoughts with the masses, whether members of the Church or not.

I agree there is something there but I am also not sure what.

[mfbukowski]

I of course agree with this approach.   I have been wondering what the pragmatic value is of deciphering the "language" Joseph used, but I myself have used the facsimilies in a systematic way to better understand the temple ordinances.  There ARE correlations there, I have no doubt

 

Some of the various sacred gestures made mirror the facsimilies and correlate with the explanations.

 

I see value in that for me personally because of course what I have learned cannot be shared anyway, unless there was a "class" taught in a temple and that is not going to happen anyway.

 

My original question was that if indeed there IS a correlation in the rest of the BOA, since we already have the "translation", what is the value of figuring out how Joseph came up with it, since we already have the message which is of more importance than how he received it?

 

I guess I am wondering why there is any net spiritual value in understanding the details of how Joseph used the various sources since we still end up with basically the catalyst theory anyway.

Regarding the facsimilies as the rosetta stone, I posted this back in 2009http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/40478-facsimile-no-1/?p=1208570660

 

 

But what is not understood is the fact that the papyri include information not found in the text which is relevant to understanding the temple rites. This is what most miss. This is one of the reasons I chose my avatar. This particular cut is precisely what Jospeh says it is, and has been a major key to my understanding of the temple ceremonies.

If we didn't have the actual cuts as given by Joseph, this would not be possible. You may think what you want about Joseph, but especially for those who think he was a fraud, he was not stupid. If he was a fraud, why would he publish material which he must have been able to forsee would some day be translated to the detriment of his "translation"? Remember this was AFTER the whole Anthon manuscript BOM affair, so clearly being a cunning fraud, he would have already learned his lesson about releasing manuscripts which might be translated differently by others.

So to me, that is a very naive view that a man as smart as Smith would make the same huge mistake twice.

Clearly, the facsimilies have another hidden function for the whole scriptural scheme. And what they are is clear with a little study of them with spiritual eyes. They are keys to the understanding of the temple ordinances. They are the rosetta stones for understanding the symbols, if you only really see what is there.

For one who was involved in sacred mysteries, what better way to find those prepared for understanding than to publish the keys to the mysteries for all who are not prepared, to ignore and argue over? There is a certain humorous justice in all of it.

 

Edited March 23, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Ahab]

I agree there is something there but I am also not sure what.

I think it's mainly just a good understanding of how Egyptians communicated ideas, and how Joseph "saw" that method. He didn't have the table/glossary/index with definitions written down for his use so the only way he could have gotten it was as a "seer", through the power of God, with him then writing it down for our use.

Basically, we would still be wondering where Joseph "came up" with all of the other stuff that isn't explicitly written in the text.

We now see that Joseph bridged the gap for us.

[The Nehor]

We'll let the people that matter to this discussion decide whether it makes sense to them or not, since the people that matter are the audience this was meant to reach.

Your fundamental trollish nature is not a deciding factor in when 20 years from now someone sees this discussion after 20 more years of research and decides that it has merit.

The spirit of trolling in you is not going to matter when it is demonstrated and checked out, and then that which is true endures.  It doesn't matter what you say when you make claims like this, because history will decide, not you.

Who are these "people that matter" you keep going on about?

[Ahab]

Who are these "people that matter" you keep going on about?

Hint: You are not one of them, apparently.

Hint #2: If the shoe fits, you can wear it.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Ahab

[The Nehor]

Hint: You are not one of them, apparently.

So far the only criteria I have discerned is whether the person agrees with him or is that just a coincidence?

[cinepro]

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.

 

That's exactly what Thinking was talking about.  You're doing exactly what his math students do.  They would say the exact same thing:

 

"But Mr.Thinking, you don't understand.  I'm moving from the known to the unknown.  I know the answer, and I'm working backwards.  The thing at the start and the thing at the end are known.  You've given me the problem, and the answer, so I just need to decipher how they were arrived at.  It's like the Rosetta Stone.  It's not the answers that need to be found.  It's about how the answers are arrived at."

 

 

Continuing Thinking's analogy, here's the difference between your theory and the Rosetta Stone:

 

For years, scientists can't figure out what the "@" symbol means when used in ancient mathematical equations.  Then the Rosetta Stone presents the following data:

 

2@2 = 4

2@3 = 8

2@4 = 16

2@5 = 32

2@6 = 64

2@7 = 128

(pattern continues for another 50 lines)

 

Using that data, scientists are able to figure out how exponents work with a very high degree of certainty.

 

But 10 years before that discovery is made known, a man by the name of Henry Thompson is given a set of ancient math problems.  Using his dowsing rod, he produces the following chart:

 

5@6 = 356

2@5 = 71

4@6 = 190

5@2 = A cow

4@3 = 63

 

Henry's friends are amazed, because 4@3 is 64, and he deciphered it to mean 63, which is really really close.  What are the odds of that? 

 

Henry's friends are also amazed at how much more Henry knew than the scientists, because while conventional scientists have produced the boring and narrow minded theory that the "@" symbol worked as an exponent, Henry was able to discover that the "@" symbol actually contained many different mathematical operators. 

 

For example, it's possible that the originator of the equation could have wanted it to mean "add these two numbers together, then add 345".

 

It could also mean "multiply these two numbers together, then add 61".

 

Alternatively, it could mean "subtract the first number from the second number, then add 188"

 

And most interestingly, it could mean "an animal, found by subtracting the second number from the first, then counting to that letter in the English alphabet and finding the animal whose name starts with that number, and the name contains that many letters."

 

We might never agree on whether or not Henry was really onto something, but I think we would all agree that when it comes to the creativity and dedication of his followers, that Henry Thompson was a really lucky guy.

[cinepro]

I think it's mainly just a good understanding of how Egyptians communicated ideas, and how Joseph "saw" that method. He didn't have the table/glossary/index with definitions written down for his use so the only way he could have gotten it was as a "seer", through the power of God, with him then writing it down for our use.

Basically, we would still be wondering where Joseph "came up" with all of the other stuff that isn't explicitly written in the text.

We now see that Joseph bridged the gap for us.

 

 

If that is how DragonLancer's theory approaches the KEP, then I would warn that it is treading in very dangerous waters.

Edited March 23, 2015 by cinepro

[cinepro]

So far the only criteria I have discerned is whether the person agrees with him or is that just a coincidence?

 

If so, then it might just be the most logical (and consistent) thing he has produced in this discussion.  It's even testable!

[Ahab]

If that is how DragonLancer's theory approaches the KEP, then I would warn that it is treading in very dangerous waters.

Oooooooh. Let's all be scared now.

As an analogy, think of a parable. Any parable.

Now tell me the parable by using an analogy.

And please try to make it verrrrry interesting.

[DragonLancer]

Who, exactly, are you trying to reach here?  You mentioned Brian Hauglid, but I don't recall him ever participating here.

 

Maybe it would be more productive for you to prepare a clear, understandable summary (say, fewer than 500 words) and send it to five of the "people that matter".  Ask them if they think you're heading in the right direction, and then share their responses here.

 

I would send them the summary myself, but I still can't figure out what, exactly, you are proposing.  Specifically, here is what I can't figure out:

 

Let's call the scribe who prepared the actual papyri "Mim".  You previously stated that you believe the papyri were prepared in the "Greco Roman" era, so around 300 BC. 

 

According to your theory, was Mim familiar with the content of The Book of Abraham (as written by Abraham himself ~1700 years earlier)?

 

If so, how did Mim change the funerary papyri to include the content of The Book of Abraham, and what could be his incentive to do this?

 

In other words, if Mim prepared the papyri in the regular way so as not to encode The Book of Abraham, how would it be any different?  Which hieroglyphs would have to be different?

 

So, Let me get this straight.  You presume to be a critic of my theory, but you haven't applied yourself follow it to know if you actually disagree with it.  You don't get it, so you don't even know if you disagree.  You are still trying to figure it out, in your frustration you spout off stuff trying to make me look bad.

 

Yes, according to my theory, unnamed Egyptian priest or set of priests knew the content of the Book of Abraham.  For all this matters, this is the same person, an Egyptian Jew if you like, that Kevin Barney called J-Red (Jewish Redactor).  My version of J-Red is E-Red (Egyptian Redactor).  He could have been Jewish.  He could have been Egyptian.  Both groups of people fit the bill.

 

You see, so many of you love Kevin Barney's theory, but you don't see that my theory has his theory as its foundation to a large degree.  If you were truly familiar with his theory, mine would not be all that off base to you.

 

E-Red, or J-Red, whoever you please, did not "change" anything in the document.

 

http://www.hains.net/articles/moyer/jewishbookofabraham.html

 

This is Joshua Moyer's article that has a lot in common with Kevin Barney's theory, who also suggests a Jewish Redactor.  In fact, I do not know who to give credit for here for the origin of theJ-Red concept.  Is it Moyer, or is it Barney?  I imagine that one has some dependence on the other, and only those two authors could answer who is dependent on the other. The thing I don't like about Moyer's theory is that he believes in a pseudepigraphic Book of Abraham like David Bokovoy.  So Moyer's theory is like a hybrid between Barney's and Bokovoy's.  I don't buy into the pseudepigraphic Book of Abraham theory.  So Moyer and Bokovoy both basically propose that the Redactor was a guy in some community in Egypt that wrote this book of Abraham that we have as a false author, a scenario that I reject, but that I admit is plausible.  Why would Joseph Smith restore a falsely-authored book?  Why not go all the way and say that Abraham authored it if we are going to the trouble of figuring that this J-Red/E-Red guy is responsible for the usage of the Sensen Papyrus?

 

 Whatever the case, both Moyer and Barney have the element of a Redactor that repurposed existing Egyptian symbolism to represent a Semitic context.  I say he was Egyptian, or Jewish.  I don't care.  I like Egyptian because of the Syncretist tradition from the Greek Magical Papyri corpus, because those guys have all the elements we are looking for, and their existence is documented.  Barney's hypothetical Jewish guy is from some hypothetical group of Jews.  I don't have to stretch hypothetically to say that I have found a group of people that fit the bill.  And they are Egyptian, not Jewish.  So, Barney calls your Mim person by the term "J-Red," short for Jewish Redactor.  I say he is Egyptian, or even a group of priests from a Syncretist sect.  For all this matters, this could even be Hor himself, the guy that was the owner of this very papyrus.  Which is why, when I started writing this research blog, I called it "Hor's Alphabet," because back then, I hypothesized that perhaps there is reason to believe that Hor could be this very J-Red or E-Red person.

 

Now.  Barney and Moyer basically say that it was ONLY the Facsimiles pictures that were repurposed to represent the story of Abraham.  I say that ALL the characters, pictures and letters and all, were repurposed.  The characters, after all, are exactly what Joseph Smith called them.  He called them the Egyptian Alphabet.  The characters in the text are indeed characters from the "Egyptian Alphabet," (or more specifically the Egyptian Abjad) that is comprised of uniliteral (single consonantal), bi-literal (dual consonantal), and tri-literal (three-consonantal) letters, along with the determinatives (context-hint giving characters).  But these are all little pictures of things.  And they were all repurposed as I have described: as a pictographic usage, were they are all employed as little pictures, little facsimiles, all with different contexts.  And each one was an abstract, variable-like place-holder that has fundamental criteria/attributes in common with its value assignment.

 

And so, nobody did anything to change the document.  They left all the characters in the document in place.  And they re-interpreted each one in the place it was in the document.  Furthermore, the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq (Facsimile #2), is NOT EVEN A PART OF THE SENSEN PAPYRUS.  It is a separate document altogether, from a totally different owner, a guy named Shesonq.  And it was reinterpreted and cobbled together with this other document, and used as yet another decoration for the same story.

 

Does this ring any bells?  Let me direct your attention again to the quote that I quoted before, a section of which I quote again, which has reference to the so-called Greek Magical Papyri:

 

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.  (Ernst Riess, The Classical Weekly, Monday, January 28, 1935, pp. 105-111)

 

 

So we have these documents that have nothing to do with each other, cobbled/thrown together seemingly haphazardly into this context that is totally different than the original thing that they were meant to be used in.  And the interpretation applied to them is ancient.  But it is different than what they started out as.

 

Now, if J-Red/E-Red/Mim or whoever decided, they could have just given us a book of Abraham that actually "read" that way in Egyptian just like our English version given to us by Joseph Smith "reads" that way in English.  But that is not what we have here.

 

I'm sorry that you have no clue what you think you are against, but I suggest that you read everything I have written more carefully and maybe when you stop ignorantly being against something, you might actually be for it in an informed way.

Edited March 23, 2015 by DragonLancer

[DragonLancer]

DragonLancer, I appreciate the many good thoughts I have received from God while reading your words to express your and his corresponding thoughts to me. You are definitely on to something good and it sounds and feels and tastes very good to me, personally. And I don't think anyone could be any more clear about what you are trying to convey to others. Some just do not agree for some reason and that is just how things go sometimes when trying to share good thoughts with the masses, whether members of the Church or not.

 

Thank you Ahab.  It's nice to know that it's not me against the whole world.  It feels like that sometimes.

[DragonLancer]

I guess I am wondering why there is any net spiritual value in understanding the details of how Joseph used the various sources since we still end up with basically the catalyst theory anyway.

 

Because then we can know that there was actual translation going on:  relaying ancient information into English.  If that is demonstrated, then Joseph Smith's primary claim is demonstrably correct.  With any other approach, you are left with Joseph Smith basically only "revealing" something.

Edited March 23, 2015 by DragonLancer