Terryl Givens Interview of Dr. Kerry Muhlestein

[Tacenda]

2 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Climate change is responsible for earthquakes?  Hmmm.  Interesting.  Do you have a reference?

Here's just one of the few: https://nuscimag.com/does-climate-change-really-trigger-earthquakes-41a91477e7fc

[Calm]

54 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Here's just one of the few: https://nuscimag.com/does-climate-change-really-trigger-earthquakes-41a91477e7fc

If that is the one I have read, it points out that while earthquakes may increase in the future (more than a century iirc) due to ice caps melting, etc., that currently the change of pressure over earthquake locations due to typhoons just trigger earlier earthquakes primed to go off...so not increasing yet.

Edited September 27, 2019 by Calm

[SeekingUnderstanding]

18 hours ago, smac97 said:

I agree that I would like to see Gee respond, but I'm not sure how significant these mathematical calculations are (in terms of evidence either against or for the Book of Abraham).

What are your thoughts?

Thanks,

-Smac

My thoughts are that the missing papyrus theory is dead. 

[smac97]

6 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

My thoughts are that the missing papyrus theory is dead. 

Could you elaborate?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

10 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Could you elaborate?

Based on the most reliable early witness statements we know what was on the papyri. There were two scrolls, one allegedly from Joseph and one from Abraham. Based on witness descriptions we know that the breathing permit for Hor was the one that allegedly contained Abraham’s writings. Based on the fragments we have Gee and others postulated an absurd length of missing papyrus from this scroll as the source of the book of Abraham. Klaus Baer estimates 59 cm missing, Cook and Smith have independently estimated 56 cm using a different method. The text of the book of Abraham needs about 10 times this amount of space. Gee has stated (without showing his work or math) that more than 12 meters was missing. This is just not supportable. There is no missing papyrus sufficient to explain the book of Abraham. The missing papyrus theory is dead. 

[hope_for_things]

Joseph’s scriptural products are efforts in mid-rash, not history.  His assumptions for historicity are colored by his 19th century world views.  Modern Biblical scholarship is evidence enough against historicity. 

[CA Steve]

On 9/26/2019 at 6:49 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Actually, all those words came directly from the Book of Abraham into the GAEL.  Moreover, there is no evidence that Joseph offered a translation of the Kinderhook Plates.  All we have are the statements of others placed, as per usual, in the first person in the History of the Church.  Scholars do not accept those statements as authentic.  We may as well falsely claim that the Christians on Pentecost in Acts 2 actually knew the foreign languages, rather than being enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

Of course the directionality of the Book of Abraham and the GAEL is hotly debated. There are quite a few who would say the words came from the GAEL into the Book of Abraham. If what I am hearing is correct, there will be some interesting publications in this regard coming up. I am especially looking forward to what Mat Grey may have to say with regard to the Seixas Lexicon influence on those portions of the Book of Abraham written in Nauvoo.

As to your statement that there is no evidence that Joseph offered a translation of the Kinderhook plates, my understanding is that Don Bradley showed that not only was there an attempt at a translation of the Kinderhook plates, but that Joseph used the GAEL in that attempt. See “PRESIDENT JOSEPH HAS TRANSLATED A PORTION”: SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF THE KINDERHOOK PLATES

From his article

Quote

“the plates are evidently brass, and are covered on both sides with hieroglyphics. They were brought up and shown to Joseph Smith. He compared, in my presence, with his Egyptian Alphabet,” 

So what conclusions can we draw from all this? ... the text that Joseph from what Clayton calls a “portion” of the Kinderhook plates can be derived from a single character definition – so that portion that he is describing is probably just a single character -  near the beginning of the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language. Substantially the same character appears on the Kinderhook plates as one of their most prominent characters. An eyewitness account, written on the day of the event has Joseph Smith comparing the characters from the two sources, finding a match and enabling him to decipher at least one of the characters.  
 So, a larger conclusion that we can draw is that we’ve got both the smoking-gun – the GAEL that he uses to translate, and we’ve got an eyewitness. We know exactly how Joseph Smith attempted to translate from the Kinderhook plates and obtain the content that Clayton says he did. A larger conclusion, then, that we can draw is that Joseph Smith translated from the Kinderhook plates not by revelation, but by non-revelatory means

If Joseph didn't believe he could translate Egyptian, why would he be trying use the GAEL to translate the Kinderhook plates?

[Robert F. Smith]

13 hours ago, CA Steve said:

Of course the directionality of the Book of Abraham and the GAEL is hotly debated. There are quite a few who would say the words came from the GAEL into the Book of Abraham. If what I am hearing is correct, there will be some interesting publications in this regard coming up. I am especially looking forward to what Mat Grey may have to say with regard to the Seixas Lexicon influence on those portions of the Book of Abraham written in Nauvoo.

Yes, Matt Grey is good, and it will be interesting to hear what he says.  I work with the Seixas books regularly (beginning actually about 40 years ago), along with other sources then available to Joseph and the brethren.  See my “Some ‘Neologisms’ From the Mormon Canon,” 1973 Conference on the Language of the Mormons, paper delivered May 31, 1973, at BYU (Provo: BYU Language Research Center, 1973):64-68, online at https://www.scribd.com/document/363522963/SOME-NEOLOGISMS-FROM-THE-MORMON-CANON .

13 hours ago, CA Steve said:

As to your statement that there is no evidence that Joseph offered a translation of the Kinderhook plates, my understanding is that Don Bradley showed that not only was there an attempt at a translation of the Kinderhook plates, but that Joseph used the GAEL in that attempt. See “PRESIDENT JOSEPH HAS TRANSLATED A PORTION”: SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF THE KINDERHOOK PLATES

...........................

If Joseph didn't believe he could translate Egyptian, why would he be trying use the GAEL to translate the Kinderhook plates?

I am well aware of the claims made about what Joseph attempted to do, but there is no evidence to indicate that he was successful, nor that he thought he was successful.  The GAEL was most likely constructed as a "pony" for non-revelatory translation (but not for a scholarly or standard translation, such as a linguist might do).  All evidence (even from before the mummies and papyri arrived in Kirtland) indicates that there was an effort to work with cipher-keys, and that it was not an effort driven by Joseph Smith, but rather by W. W. Phelps.  With the arrival of the papyri, the brethren (including Joseph) had more grist for the mill.  The method employed by those country bumpkins never had any chance of success, but was a brave attempt nonetheless.

For a successful professional effort at decipherment, see Steven Roger Fischer, Glyph-Breaker (Copernicus/Springer-Verlag, 1997), for his personal account of deciphering the Phaistos Disk.

[smac97]

On 9/28/2019 at 1:21 PM, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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My thoughts are that the missing papyrus theory is dead. 

Could you elaborate?

Based on the most reliable early witness statements we know what was on the papyri.

We do?  How so?

Also, whom to you characterize as "reliable early witness{es}"?

I'm genuinely curious to see if your position is substantiated, as it varies quite a bit from my assessment.

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There were two scrolls, one allegedly from Joseph and one from Abraham.

Agreed.

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Based on witness descriptions we know that the breathing permit for Hor was the one that allegedly contained Abraham’s writings.

Okay.  The consensus appears to be that the Scroll of Hor was the most likely source for the text of The Book of Abraham (see, e.g., here).

Quote

Based on the fragments we have Gee and others postulated an absurd length of missing papyrus from this scroll as the source of the book of Abraham.

It appears that the debate about mathematical estimates of scroll length are unresolved.  I really would like to see Dr. Gee (and Dr. Muhlestein) address the Smith/Cook treatment of this issue.

However, Gee has also presented apparent eyewitness recollections about this issue:

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Eyewitnesses from the Nauvoo period (1839–1844) describe “a quantity of records, written on papyrus, in Egyptian hieroglyphics,”32 including (1) some papyri “preserved under glass,”33 described as “a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics”;34 (2) “a long roll of manuscript”35 that contained the Book of Abraham;36 (3) “another roll”;37 (4) and “two or three other small pieces of papyrus with astronomical calculations, epitaphs, &c.”38 Only the mounted fragments ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and thence were given back to the Church of Jesus Christ. When eyewitnesses described the vignettes as being of the mounted fragments, they can be matched with the fragments from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; but when the vignettes described are on the rolls, the descriptions do not match any of the fragments from the Met. Gustavus Seyffarth’s 1856 catalog of the Wood Museum indicates that some of the papyri were there.  Those papyri went to Chicago and were burned in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Whatever we might imagine their contents to be is only conjecture. Both Mormon and non-Mormon eyewitnesses from the nineteenth century agree that it was a “roll of papyrus from which our prophet translated the Book of Abraham,”39 meaning the “long roll of manuscript” and not one of the mounted fragments that eventually ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.40
---
32. William S. West, A Few Interesting Facts Respecting the Rise, Progress, and Pretensions of the Mormons (Warren, OH, 1837), 5, cited in Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 196–97.
33. Quincy, Figures of the Past, 386.
34. Henry Caswall, The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo, in 1842 (London: Rivington, 1843), 22–23.
35. Charlotte Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843, printed in “A Girl’s Letters from Nauvoo,” Overland Monthly 16/96 (December 1890): 624, as cited in Todd, Saga of the Book of Abraham, 245.
36. Jerusha W. Blanchard, “Reminiscences of the Granddaughter of Hyrum Smith,” Relief Society Magazine 9/1 (1922): 9; and Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843.
37. Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843.
38. Oliver Cowdery to William Frye, 22 December 1835, printed in the Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2 (December 1835): 234.
39. Blanchard, “Reminiscences,” 9; and Haven to her mother, 19 February 1843.
40. For the distribution of the manuscript fragments, see John Gee, “Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” in The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson, ed.  Stephen D. Ricks et al. (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 188–91; and John Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 10–13.

Haven's letter seems to be the most noteworthy evidence, as it references both a "long roll" and "another roll." 

Jeff Lindsay provides a pretty good summary of the relevant evidence re: scroll length (and number of scrolls) here.

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Klaus Baer estimates 59 cm missing, Cook and Smith have independently estimated 56 cm using a different method.

So you posit that what we have today is a remnant of "long scroll," and that this remnant is missing, at most, less than two feet of papyri?

That does not seem like a very long scroll.

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The text of the book of Abraham needs about 10 times this amount of space.

Could you provide a citation for this estimate?

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Gee has stated (without showing his work or math) that more than 12 meters was missing. This is just not supportable.

Again, I would like to see Dr. Gee respond to Andrew Cook's Dialogue article.

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There is no missing papyrus sufficient to explain the book of Abraham.

I also find this assessment to be interesting, together with this response to it from our own Robert F. Smith (from 2011): "We need to be well assured that the Cook & Smith measurements are correct, QED? Then we need to agree on how much of that papyrus was available for additional writing. As in biblical scholarship, we have minimalists and maximalists. The debate on this issue continues apace."

This still seems to be the case.

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The missing papyrus theory is dead. 

I question that.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited April 10, 2020 by smac97

[SeekingUnderstanding]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

We do?  How so?

Also, whom to you characterize as "reliable early witness{es}"?

From Phelps written contemporaneously:

Quote

The last of June four Egyptian mummies were brought here, there were two papyrus rolls, besides some other ancient Egyptian writings with them. As no one could translate these writings, they were presented to President Smith. He soon knew what they were, and said they, the “rolls of papyrus, contained the sacred record kept of Joseph in Pharaoh’s court in Egypt, and the teachings of Father Abraham. God has so ordered it that the mummies and writings have been brought to the Church…

Oliver Cowdery stated the same indicating two scrolls and some loose papyrus. These early statements (as Jeff Lindsay acknowledges) indicate two intact scrolls (one for Joesph one for Abraham) and some other fragments. Among the fragments we know there was the Hypocephalus (facsimile 2), surviving fragments from Nefer-ir-nebu’s book of the dead, and potentially a couple other loose pieces of papyrus. Once the two scrolls were opened, the damaged outer layers were mounted. We have 6 mounted pieces associated with TaSheritMin (or Joseph’s scroll - based on matching characteristics from the surviving papyrus with witness statements). We have three fragments from the book of Hor as well as the closing vignette from the breathing permit if Hor (facsimile 3). The facsimiles, witness statements and the Kirtland Egyptian papers all tie the breathing permit of Hor to Abraham.  The damaged outer layers were preserved. The inner cores of both scrolls were destroyed in the fire. 

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Okay.  The consensus appears to be that the Scroll of Hor was the most likely source for the text of The Book of Abraham (see, e.g., here).

It appears that the debate about mathematical estimates of scroll length are unresolved.  I really would like to see Dr. Gee (and Dr. Muhlestein) address the Smith/Cook treatment of this issue.

Not really. Gee produces widely divergent numbers with no work shown (41 feet down to 10 feet), while Smith and Cook show there work and produce an estimate that closely matches the length that would be expected based on a standard Egyptian text. 

Quote

However, Gee has also presented apparent eyewitness recollections about this issue:

These are all over the place in time and content. Most are entirely consistent with Cowdery and Phelps (recorded contemporaneously above). And even if there was some other scroll, we know via so many other means that Joseph believed the Hor scroll to contain the words of Abraham. 

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Haven't letter seems to be the most noteworthy evidence, as it references both a "long roll" and "another roll." 

Jeff Lindsay provides a pretty good summary of the relevant evidence re: scroll length (and number of scrolls) here.

So you posit that what we have today is a remnant of "long scroll," and that this remnant is missing, at most, less than two feet of papyri?

Are you saying a scroll that is 5 feet long plus or minus couldn’t be described as long?

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Could you provide a citation for this estimate?

Again, I would like to see Dr. Gee respond to Andrew Cook's Dialogue article.

It’s in the Cook article you link to here. Again determining papyrus length is straightforward if you can determine winding lengths. Cook and Smith have shown their work and used a computer code (IIRC) to determine the winding lengths. Their methodology matches what Egyptologists predicted based on scroll contents. Gee et al have had since 2010 to rebut the methodology, the selection of  winding lengths and more, but have failed to do so. It’s really hard to figure out why other than there is no response.

Edit:

Sorry on my phone and couldn't follow your link. The estimate was from Cook's original paper and is included here:

Quote

The question then becomes whether the undamaged scroll of Hôr was ever long enough to accommodate a hieratic Book of Abraham source text. The main text of the canonized Book of Abraham contains 5,506 English words. The hieratic text in the instructions column of the Document of Breathing translates to ~97 English words.18 This column is ~9 cm wide. Hence, if the Book of Abraham was written on the scroll in the same hieratic font as this portion of the Document of Breathing, it would have taken up ~9(5,506/97) = ~511 cm of papyrus.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V43N04_413.pdf

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by SeekingUnderstanding

[smac97]

21 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

We have three fragments from the book of Hor as well as the closing vignette from the breathing permit if Hor (facsimile 3). The facsimiles, witness statements and the Kirtland Egyptian papers all tie the breathing permit of Hor to Abraham.  The damaged outer layers were preserved. The inner cores of both scrolls were destroyed in the fire. 

Okay.  I htink I'm with you so far.

21 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Not really. Gee produces widely divergent numbers with no work shown (41 feet down to 10 feet), while Smith and Cook show there work and produce an estimate that closely matches the length that would be expected based on a standard Egyptian text. 

"Based on a standard Egyptian text."  That seems like a fairly significant caveat.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I need to study this matter more.

21 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

These are all over the place in time and content. Most are entirely consistent with Cowdery and Phelps (recorded contemporaneously above). And even if there was some other scroll, we know via so many other means that Joseph believed the Hor scroll to contain the words of Abraham. 

How can evidence be "all over the place in time and content" and yet also be "entirely consistent with Cowdery and Phelps?"

21 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Are you saying a scroll that is 6 feet long plus or minus couldn’t be described as long?

It could be.  I acknowledge that.

I guess what I'm having difficulty accepting is the conclusory assertion that "the missing papyrus theory is dead."  That seems a bit much.  Sketchy evidence.  Lots of assumptions in play.

21 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

It’s in the Cook article you link to here. Again determining papyrus length is straightforward if you can determine winding lengths. Cook and Smith have shown their work and used a computer code (IIRC) to determine the winding lengths. Their methodology matches what Egyptologists predicted based on scroll contents. Gee et al have had since 2010 to rebut the methodology, the selection of  winding lengths and more, but have failed to do so. It’s really hard to figure out why other than there is no response.

Oh, I think there are more options than that. 

21 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Edit:

Sorry on my phone and couldn't follow your link. The estimate was from Cook's original paper and is included here:

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/V45N03_122.pdf

Thank you.

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

48 minutes ago, smac97 said:

"Based on a standard Egyptian text."  That seems like a fairly significant caveat.

It just represents a second method of estimating length. If the Hor’s scroll was nothing out of the ordinary how long would we expect it to be? Klaus gives us this length. Cook and Smith independently estimate the length via winding measurements and match within a couple of centimeters. This is what evidence looks like. Gee gives widely different lengths without showing his work and fails to respond to Cook and Smith. 

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How can evidence be "all over the place in time and content" and yet also be "entirely consistent with Cowdery and Phelps?"

Sorry - I mostly type on my phone with infant daughter in lap napping! I merely meant the state of the papyrus changed over time. The scrolls were opened. Fell apart, were mounted, presented to different people. If we want to understand what was there originally, Phelps and Cowdery seem the best sources since they are contemporaneously written. Sources afterwards describe different things because the state of the papyrus changed over time. These later witness statements are consistent with Phelps and Cowdery if this fact is understood. There is the forth hand late Nibley reference, but I can’t see anyone taking that credibly and passing a red face test. 

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I guess what I'm having difficulty accepting is the conclusory assertion that "the missing papyrus theory is dead."  That seems a bit much.  Sketchy evidence.  Lots of assumptions in play.

Not really. There is no credible evidence at this point that contradicts the idea that Hor’s scroll was a standard book of breathing. Someone saying the scroll was “long” (what does that even mean) hardly seems likely as contradictory evidence. On the other hand, the KEP, the text itself, eye witness reports, scroll winding lengths all indicate that Joseph thought the book of breathing was the Book of Abraham.

 

[Ahab]

On 9/25/2019 at 5:47 PM, Calm said:

Specifics issues you see as the above please.

[CA Steve]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

It just represents a second method of estimating length. If the Hor’s scroll was nothing out of the ordinary how long would we expect it to be? Klaus gives us this length. Cook and Smith independently estimate the length via winding measurements and match within a couple of centimeters. This is what evidence looks like. Gee gives widely different lengths without showing his work and fails to respond to Cook and Smith.

Ritner elaborates more about the length of the Hor scroll, The Book of Breathings, in his The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition.

From page 86 & 87. Brackets mine.

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The modern designation "Book of Breathings" include a variety of late funerary compositions, but the text found in the Joseph Smith collection represents a specific type termed in antiquity The Document of Breathings Made by Isis for Her Brother Osiris". P.JS 1 [one of the extant fragments in the possession of the church] is thus a formal document of "permit" created by Isis and copied by Thoth to assure that the defied Hor [the mummy lying on the couch in Facsimile#1] regains the ability to breath and function after death, with full mobility, access to offerings and all other privileges of the immortal gods. This specific form of "permit" was used by (often interrelated) priestly families in Thebes and its vicinity from the middle Ptolemaic to early Roman eras, and the limited distribution probably accounts for their uniform pattern, which displays only minor modifications.

   As a result of this uniformity, the original size of the papyrus is not in doubt. With textual restorations and the now lost Facsimile 3, the papyrus will have measured about 150-155 cm. At most, the papyrus might have expanded by the inclusion of a further, middle vignette...

And this footnote below on page 87.

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Gee has claimed that this papyrus would have measured "320 cm (about 10 feet)" but that is the average length of a blank papyrus scroll as manufactured in the Ptolemaic era--not the length of the known Books of Breathings copied on sections cut from such rolls.

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by CA Steve

[cinepro]

7 minutes ago, Ahab said:

 

Interesting points, but there is quite a bit of evidence for it being a real situation, including the video above and lots of pictures from different angles:

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by cinepro

[Ahab]

4 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Interesting points, but there is quite a bit of evidence for it being a real situation, including the video above and lots of pictures from different angles:

 

Yeah I can believe the building has fallen, and may continue falling.  But why are those pots still there on that ledge and why aren't people staying as far away as they can? at least these people in this picture are keeping a safe distance away.

[cinepro]

On 9/25/2019 at 8:46 AM, smac97 said:

4. M also states (speaking, I think, of modern Egyptological interpretations of the glyphs/hieroglyphics) that "I'm not even sure if that is the question we should be asking," since we don't know if Joseph was actually trying to tell us how "an average ancient Egyptian would have seen it" (that is, how they would have construed the glyphs), or if he (Joseph) was telling us "how a Jew would have re-interpreted it," since "they certainly did re-interpret Egyptian things," or if he was telling us that "this is what we should get out of it," or if he was telling us that "there were a group of priests in Thebes who were taking Jewish things and intermixing {them} with Egyptian religion," and "is that how they {the priests in Thebes} would have interpreted it," or is it "some other thing he's telling us."  "In the end," M states, "we don't know," and that "we are typically basing our questions and research on assumptions, often without looking carefully at what those assumptions are."

(emphasis added)

I think this is where Muehlstein works up the biggest sweat from tap dancing.  Read what he says, and then recall what we actually have in our scriptures for Facsimile 3:
 

Quote

 

Fig. 1. Abraham sitting upon Pharaoh’s throne, by the politeness of the king, with a crown upon his head, representing the Priesthood, as emblematical of the grand Presidency in Heaven; with the scepter of justice and judgment in his hand.

Fig. 2. King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head.

Fig. 3. Signifies Abraham in Egypt as given also in Figure 10 of Facsimile No. 1.

Fig. 4. Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, as written above the hand.

Fig. 5. Shulem, one of the king’s principal waiters, as represented by the characters above his hand.

Fig. 6. Olimlah, a slave belonging to the prince.

(Emphasis added)

It's all good until Joseph says "whose name is given in the characters above his head." How does this work if Joseph isn't actually claiming to translate the Egyptian characters into their Egyptian-author intended meaning?

Muehlstein's objective doesn't appear to be to shed any actual light on the subject, but instead he's trying to un-tether us from reality when thinking about the Book of Abraham, hoping we will drift mindlessly into an alternate universe where anything anyone says about the Facsimiles has an equally valid claim to being "true."  I understand this the last gasp of defense, but are we all just supposed to pretend that the explanations of the Facsimiles (especially #3) don't say what they say?

 

Quote

"In the end," M states, "we don't know," and that "we are typically basing our questions and research on assumptions, often without looking carefully at what those assumptions are."

I'm guessing that Muehlstein's entire approach to the Book of Abraham is based on his assumption that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the text he dictated while looking at the ancient Papyri has to relate to it in someway.  Until he demonstrates he has looked at this assumption carefully, I'm not sure we should treat his opinions with much weight.

Honestly, one question I would like to see Muehlstein asked is this:

If you were teaching a post-graduate class on Egyptian, and as part of a test a student was given a picture similar to Facsimile 3 and gave answers similar to what Joseph gave, would you give that student an "A" on the test and laud him for his translation ability?  If you marked the student's answers incorrect for not adhering to the accepted Egyptian translation, and he argued that he wasn't translating as an every-day Egyptian would but instead was using an alternate translation from another society that had possibly co-opted Egyptian imagery centuries later, would you still give him an "A", even if he couldn't establish the basis for this alternate translation?  What if he told you that he couldn't provide more support for this alternate translation, but during the test he had prayed very hard and these are the answers that came to him, so they must be correct, even if we don't understand exactly how?

Edited September 30, 2019 by cinepro

[Calm]

The not falling is the big one.  

The ladder could have been in use on something else and then just put there for convenience and forgotten.

As far as standing there unconcerned, some time has passed and they likely believe that if anything happens, they will have enough warning and distance to get out of the way, so there isn't much risk and great need to see what it looks like.

But the not falling one is problematic.  They might be braced with bars to prevent falling off the window ledge, I do that with a window fan I use.  Or looking at it closer, they could have been tied in place to the railing that trims the balcony to prevent falling off.  It is definitely something I would have done, given if they were bumped they would be going straight down even when the building was upright.  The plants might even have grown around the railing and if the pot hadn't been watered recently, and was a plastic one, it might be light enough not to be ripped off by the weight of the dirt and pot.

add-on:  if you blow up the pots, you can see a lot of likely foliage above the pots, this would hold them in place.

The angle of the clothes hanging seems to be right for a tilted building.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Calm

[smac97]

23 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I think this is where Muehlstein works up the biggest sweat from tap dancing.  Read what he says, and then recall what we actually have in our scriptures for Facsimile 3:
 

It's all good until Joseph says "whose name is given in the characters above his head." How does this work if Joseph isn't actually claiming to translate the Egyptian characters into their Egyptian-author intended meaning?

An interesting question.  Dr. Muhlestein references Facsimile 3 briefly here, and more specifically here:

Quote

As was pointed out above, there are many concepts having to do with the Book of Abraham that we are still trying to understand. Do we currently have all the answers? Certainly not. Do we have better answers than our critics? Unabashedly yes. Do we understand as much as we would like? No, and this is part of why we are in such an intensive study of the Book of Abraham. There are so many things we want to understand and so many fruitful avenues of research. I expect that I will spend my life trying to better understand this wonderfully complex book and its accompanying story. Will questions arise in the future for which we will not immediately have answers? Undoubtedly. Are there questions that arise from the facsimiles that I cannot explain now? Yes. Joseph identifies certain people in Facsimile 3 and points out that their names are indicated by the hieroglyphs over their heads. As I translate these hieroglyphs, they do not match Joseph’s interpretations. There are some facts that cast light on this. I am not disturbed by Joseph labeling Figure 2 as a male when the picture and text identify a female. This happened more often in Egyptian papyri than one would think. Strikingly, the ancient owner of Facsimile 3 was pictured as both a male and female in his own Book of the Dead. Yet this does not fully satisfy my questions about how I understand the labels Egyptologically as opposed to how Joseph Smith understood them.

While I am not satisfied with the answer thus far, I am not concerned. During more than a decade of research on this subject, I have often found that I have misunderstood the Book of Abraham and made incorrect assumptions about it. Even more frequently I have found mistakes and inaccuracies in my own professional discipline, Egyptology. We are a fairly young discipline, and just as research on the Book of Abraham is a work in progress, so is Egyptology as a whole. Our history as a discipline is full of gaffes, mistakes, stumbles, and wonderful discoveries and corrections. Many of these corrections have been immensely helpful in my efforts to understand the Book of Abraham.

Thus, while there are questions which have not been fully answered, I know that the search for answers is part of scholarly progress. As an Egyptologist I have far more unanswered questions regarding Egyptian history than I have regarding the Book of Abraham. I was once dissatisfied with the question of human sacrifice as depicted in Facsimile 1, and no answer appeared to be forthcoming. But we have learned more, and now I am satisfied. I once was dissatisfied with explanations of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, but as we have done further research I have become satisfied (though I still have questions as to what they really represent). Claims of textual anachronisms once gave me pause, but research has answered each of these questions. How grateful I am that I did not abandon my faith over these questions, for they have now been answered so well. As we wrestle with these issues, undoubtedly both critics and defenders will make missteps along the way. Most likely there will be questions for which we will not find answers in my lifetime. Perhaps we will in the next. We have eventually found answers to past questions, so I research furiously but wait patiently for answers to current ones.

Thoughts?

23 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Muehlstein's objective doesn't appear to be to shed any actual light on the subject, but instead he's trying to un-tether us from reality when thinking about the Book of Abraham, hoping we will drift mindlessly into an alternate universe where anything anyone says about the Facsimiles has an equally valid claim to being "true." 

I don't think that's a fair characterization.

23 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I understand this the last gasp of defense, but are we all just supposed to pretend that the explanations of the Facsimiles (especially #3) don't say what they say?

See Muhlestein's comment above ("Joseph identifies certain people in Facsimile 3 and points out that their names are indicated by the hieroglyphs over their heads. As I translate these hieroglyphs, they do not match Joseph’s interpretations...").

23 minutes ago, cinepro said:

I'm guessing that Muehlstein's entire approach to the Book of Abraham is based on his assumption that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the text he dictated while looking at the ancient Papyri has to relate to it in someway.  Until he demonstrates he has looked at this assumption carefully, I'm not sure we should treat his opinions with much weight.

He seems to be big on re-examining assumptions.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

8 minutes ago, smac97 said:

 

He seems to be big on re-examining assumptions.

Not so much. Here is his stated approach to the book of Abraham:

Quote

And so I start out with an assumption that the Book of Abraham ... is true, therefore, any evidence I find I will try and fit into that paradigm. I don’t feel that I need to defend that paradigm, I feel that I want to understand the evidence that I find within that paradigm because to me it’s a given that it’s true.

(Emphasis mine)

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2014/book-abraham-unnoticed-assumptions

Edited September 30, 2019 by SeekingUnderstanding

[CA Steve]

3 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Not so much. Here is his stated approach to the book of Abraham:

(Emphasis mine)

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2014/book-abraham-unnoticed-assumptions

What is interesting here, is the underlying assumption (see what I did there?) that "true" for Dr's Gee and Muhlestein seems to require an actual translation  of Egyptian characters on papyri that talks about Abraham and was in the possession of Joseph Smith at one time. There are others out there (Hauglid and Jensen for example) who also view the Book of Abraham as "true" whose views don't require that any of the Joseph Smith Egyptian artifacts actually have/had anything on them about Abraham. 

I don't believe this is a discussion about whether or not the Book of Abraham is true so much as it is a contest to see whose field of study is more applicable to examining the origins of the Book of Abraham. 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

24 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

What is interesting here, is the underlying assumption (see what I did there?) that "true" for Dr's Gee and Muhlestein seems to require an actual translation  of Egyptian characters on papyri that talks about Abraham and was in the possession of Joseph Smith at one time. There are others out there (Hauglid and Jensen for example) who also view the Book of Abraham as "true" whose views don't require that any of the Joseph Smith Egyptian artifacts actually have/had anything on them about Abraham. 

I don't believe this is a discussion about whether or not the Book of Abraham is true so much as it is a contest to see whose field of study is more applicable to examining the origins of the Book of Abraham. 

It is the circular reasoning (admitted to by Muhelstein above) that leads to people like Hauglid to call Muhelstein’s and Gee’s scholarship “abhorrent” (an assessment I agree with). 

[OGHoosier]

3 hours ago, CA Steve said:

What is interesting here, is the underlying assumption (see what I did there?) that "true" for Dr's Gee and Muhlestein seems to require an actual translation  of Egyptian characters on papyri that talks about Abraham and was in the possession of Joseph Smith at one time. There are others out there (Hauglid and Jensen for example) who also view the Book of Abraham as "true" whose views don't require that any of the Joseph Smith Egyptian artifacts actually have/had anything on them about Abraham. 

I don't believe this is a discussion about whether or not the Book of Abraham is true so much as it is a contest to see whose field of study is more applicable to examining the origins of the Book of Abraham. 

You may have a point. I would like to hear Hauglid and Jensen discuss their opinions, because I have it on good authority that they are in pretty good standing with the Church, scholastic flame wars aside. 

2 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

It is the circular reasoning (admitted to by Muhelstein above) that leads to people like Hauglid to call Muhelstein’s and Gee’s scholarship “abhorrent” (an assessment I agree with). 

Regarding the Hauglid comment, I confess that I don't see how Hauglid really has ground to stand on in saying that. He might very much disagree with their theories, more power to him, and if he's talking about their work with 19th-century documents he is most definitely their peer and has the requisite expertise to condemn their work. However, when it comes to things Egyptological, Hauglid is not their peer by any standard. Hence, I have a hard time accepting his dismissal as authoritative for all of their work on the subject. 

Muhlestein is certainly dedicated to his paradigm, but I don't feel that I can safely judge him without knowing the inputs that contribute to that. We should remember at this point that it is not wrong to hold on to a theory in the face of anomalies if you think the supporting evidence is sufficiently strong to overwhelm them. I can't really call Muhlestein's argument circular because I don't know what holds him in his current position. 

 

 

[Tacenda]

4 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

It is the circular reasoning (admitted to by Muhelstein above) that leads to people like Hauglid to call Muhelstein’s and Gee’s scholarship “abhorrent” (an assessment I agree with). 

With your many posts and replying back and forth with Smac and maybe others on here, I'm really impressed with your knowledge about the topic. Quite envious with it as well. I'm too lazy I guess. 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

Regarding the Hauglid comment, I confess that I don't see how Hauglid really has ground to stand on in saying that. He might very much disagree with their theories, more power to him, and if he's talking about their work with 19th-century documents he is most definitely their peer and has the requisite expertise to condemn their work. However, when it comes to things Egyptological, Hauglid is not their peer by any standard. Hence, I have a hard time accepting his dismissal as authoritative for all of their work on the subject. 

Muhlestein is certainly dedicated to his paradigm, but I don't feel that I can safely judge him without knowing the inputs that contribute to that. We should remember at this point that it is not wrong to hold on to a theory in the face of anomalies if you think the supporting evidence is sufficiently strong to overwhelm them. I can't really call Muhlestein's argument circular because I don't know what holds him in his current position. 

 

 

If you read the context of Hauglid’s comment, he is not critiquing their Egyptian work. Here is the build up to the comment:

Quote

 I now reject a missing Abraham manuscript. I agree that two of the Abraham manuscripts were simultaneously dictated. I agree that the Egyptian papers were used to produce the BoA. I agree that only Abr. 1:1-2:18 were produced in 1835 and that Abr. 2:19-5:21 were produced in Nauvoo. And on and on.