mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/5/2020 at 9:34 AM, The Unclean Deacon said: And the catalyst theory while still viable has the position needing to retreat so far to allow for the evidence and data so as to be indistinguishable from a fraud. And if a faithful interpretation is indistinguishable from a fraud, why not just skip the mental gymnastics and just go with the most rational conclusion that it is just fictional psedupigripha created as a deception? (Because that conclusion requires no mental gymnastics) Category mistake. If you want to live without mental gymnastics, stop thinking which apparently many have. We all need meaning in our lives and meaning is not derived from objective evidence. Or better yet face our truth square on, that all scripture including the Bible is mystically received and has nothing to do with history or translation in the usual sense. They are metaphors- as is all language- which might have "actually happened" or not, but their VALUE to humanity is in their spiritual message- and the spiritual message is what gives meaning. Poof. Argument over. You don't go to a hardware store to buy cold remedies. That is what "category mistake" means. A human receives visions or truths directly within their minds and writes them down, and then we get to read them and decide if their SPIRITUAL contents warrant- and that is an important word- warrant- them being regarded - seen AS- scripture for oneself. Wittgenstein's rabbit and duck! We need to ask that small voice in our heart that makes us know good from bad - exactly like Moroni 10:4-5 says- which alone makes THAT "scripture" for me. It is a great truth. We need to decide inside ourselves in our hearts- in all things. Add that to James 1 and many other "scriptures" and countless statements by GA's etc which say that we need to get our own testimonies and decide that indeed they are right. All of us have a little voice inside us that tell us right from wrong and deciding what is scripture for us is no different. Heck every day we make these kinds of decisions without need for history or scientific evidence- Am I a racist deep in my heart? Do we really need to worry about global warming? Should I dedicate my life to stopping it? For whom should I vote? Is abortion right or wrong? Is the Book of Abraham scripture because it is the source of the temple rites? If you feel the spirit in the temple, then the Book of Abraham is scripture. We need to give up the kid stuff and stand up as an adult and know that each of us make our own worlds, and these are just decisions each of us need to decide for ourselves on our HEARTS- not evidence other than spiritual evidence. That is what our theology is, isn't it? About human gods creating their worlds? IMO, what else should we doing right now in our lives? Why live if you are not doing what your purpose in life is: creating your world and having joy therein? And like it or not, presented that way, it is what both theists and atheists do every day of our lives. It is the heart of Christianity and Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, and every other world religion: listening to that inner voice! "But Joseph thought he was translating!" Yes he used that word, which meant something quite different than it does today. 1 Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/5/2020 at 9:38 AM, DBMormon said: This should be interesting! For you. How many times do we need to go over the same category error? The problem with the whole argument is summarized in those two words. Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/5/2020 at 12:31 PM, OGHoosier said: I'm going to channel Bro. Christensen now, if I can. You can and should at all times and all places. 1 Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/6/2020 at 6:46 AM, stemelbow said: I'd compare it to a biologist pointing out the weakness in the Bible's explanation of creation. It simply didn't happen that way and so a biologist pointing out that it simply could not have, sure, is conclusive. Good analogy, but the biologist would not be seeing it as a spiritual lesson instead of science. THAT is the category error. The author's intentions become irrelevant- what is important is the value we can gain from the story. On the other hand, as has been pointed out, even the Genesis story can be seen as primitive but biologically "accurate" in that plants come before animals even in evolutionary theory. And spiritually, we are all Adam and Eve and all of us have a fall from innocence at some point in our lives. Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/6/2020 at 7:41 AM, OGHoosier said: I'd give you rep points if I could, but I can't, so this will have to do. You can now! 1 Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/6/2020 at 7:58 AM, Calm said: This would appear to conflict with this: I do not necessarily agree with either statement but there is no conflict that I see, unless one concludes that "Egyptology" consists strictly of translating hieroglyphics which is not the case. It is much more than that. 1 Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/6/2020 at 6:16 PM, OGHoosier said: Are you precisely sure that's how they'd frame it? Also known as scholastic humility. 2 Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 On 8/7/2020 at 2:00 PM, webbles said: That is probably a picture of the god "Min" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_(god)). He is normally shown that way with the erect phallus. Also, the phallus was probably removed accidentally instead of intentionally. It is in the original printing plate (see https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/facsimile-printing-plates-circa-23-february-16-may-1842/2) and was in many of the earlier editions. According to http://www.boap.org/LDS/BOAP/SecondEd/Draft-copy/AppendixVI-JS-Commentary-on-BOA.pdf, in the 1920's, they made a new printing plate and didn't do a very good job with facsimile 2. Yet if one takes that as I think Joseph naively took it, that is a right arm, missing the hand, making a gesture which can be seen in the temple today, with the left "hand" showing the symbolic "translation" of both the compass and square. I am never sure why that is not obvious. To me this is THE clear evidence for the whole catalyst theory- in fact- I personally came up with my own "catalyst theory" when I first joined the church and saw the facsimile the first time before I had ever seen the catalyst theory mentioned in apologetic circles. And that left arm raised and the left "hand" illustrates the exact meaning of what that left arm and right hand "say" symbolically, in the temple, or at least that is how I see it. So it is not Min, or a phallus if you see it that way- it is a right arm seen only below the elbow, forming a square, and the left arm raised to the square, and hand illustrated as a compass and square. I saw that and immediately said to myself that Joseph was not "translating" Egyptian but, with that interpretation, clearly (to me) seeing the illustration in a naive way as what he describes it as being- God revealing the symbols used in the temple. It is an interpretation of a drawing the way he saw it- which has nothing to do with Egyptology. For me that was the key to the whole interpretation of "direct revelation" of all scriptures which came through Joseph, from the Book of Mormon through the King Follette Discourse. They trace either 1) the development of Joseph's theology from the rather Protestant stuff in the Book of Mormon OR 2) the gospel as the Lord wanted to reveal it, bit by bit and line by line. To me either way of seeing it- 1 or 2- is "correct". The bottom line is that it is all for our spiritual edification putting together a comprehensive theory from which we can gain meaning in our lives about our eternal journey, which can only be "verified" by resonance felt within us delivered by either- the Holy Ghost- OR perhaps our own unconscious, reflecting the rules which have always worked for humanity. It is either God or some deep instinct within us, as deep as perhaps the one that can lead a Monarch butterfly on its journey of thousands of miles, or the Spirit of God Himself guiding and directing our moral path and giving us meaning in life But that comes down to a distinction without a difference, as we say in Pragmatism- it comes down to two ways of seeing like the rabbit and duck I have used so often to illustrate it. And in my moments of silent meditation it is clear to me that it is a Voice of a Being so far above my intelligence that it is unimaginable, and which can only be spoken about in stories we have made up. And so here we are imprisoned by language as the children of Babel. I wonder if Wittgenstein every thought of that old story which says so much about his own philosophy?? 3 Link to comment
mfbukowski Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) On 8/7/2020 at 3:29 PM, Robert F. Smith said: Not sure that there is anyone anywhere who actually claims that the Book of Abraham is on any of the papyri. Instead, all have been saying (both anti- and pro-LDS) that the BofA is not on any of the known papyri. So, not sure what you are saying here, Steve. Brilliant in its simplicity. It never occurred to me in precisely those terms but it is totally true!! Edited August 8, 2020 by mfbukowski 1 Link to comment
Popular Post smac97 Posted August 9, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted August 9, 2020 (edited) 19 hours ago, stemelbow said: I'm not trying to portray him as anything. Are you sure? Robert is correct. "Muhlestein is being very frank" about his assumptions. I question whether you are being similarly frank about Ritner. You claim that you aren't "trying to portray him as anything," and yet you are "respecting his expertise" while simultaneously not respecting Muhlestein's. Contrary to your denial, you are specifically and expressly portraying Ritner as "objective" and having an "agenda" of "truth" and "good solid objective scholarship." In contrast, you characterize Muhlestein as an "apologist" who is unduly beholden to "assumptions." OGHoosier characterized Dr. Ritner as an "an excellent Egyptologist with an anti-Mormon chip in his shoulder so big that Khufu modeled his Pyramid on it." I think there are evidentiary grounds for this characterization. For example, he was removed from Gee's doctoral committee at Yale. The circumstances of that removal remain mostly publicly opaque, apart from this (apparently written by Daniel Peterson in 2006): Quote The fact is that Professor Gee went on to earn a doctorate from Yale in Egyptology after successfully petitioning for the removal of Professor Ritner, his appointed advisor, from his doctoral committee. (Aug 2 2006, 10:45 AM) Perhaps you’re unaware that Professor Gee (successfully) petitioned his department at Yale to have Professor Ritner replaced as chairman of his doctoral committee. Such requests are not commonly made. And they are not commonly granted. Do you think they’re best buddies? (Jun 10 2006, 04:56 PM) Professor Ritner was once Professor Gee’s dissertation chairman at Yale University, until he was removed from that position and replaced by another professor. There is a personal history here (of which I was aware as it played out, since Professor Gee had been a student of mine before he went off to graduate school at Berkeley and then Yale. (Mar 22 2006, 08:43 PM) As I’ve said, various substantive responses are in the works. Whether the personal side of this will ever come out is unknown to me. I wish it would, but I don’t think that’s my decision to make. (Sep 29 2004, 01:26 PM) “I also will not comment on his removal from my dissertation committee other than to note that it was the department’s decision to do so. There is much more to the story than what Professor Ritner has chosen to tell.” (John Gee, Mar 23 2006, 07:47 PM). Ritner purportedly responded to the above: Quote My response to Gee's relevant academic output will be contained in the book edited by Brent. Gee has been increasingly visible, but not increasingly respected, at meetings. I do not know Mr. Peterson, nor how he would have any knowledge of my involvement with Gee's dissertation (except through misrepresentations by Gee himself), but I am the one who rejected further participation in Gee's work, and I signaled many errors in his work as a reason. If Mr. Peterson continues to make false allegations, I may have to consider a slander or libel lawsuit. In any case, whoever he is, he is neither competent nor legally authorized to discuss the private matter. I have retained my dated correspondence and may put it on-line if such misrepresentations continue. Seems like there may be some behind-the-scenes stuff going on. But that's mostly conjecture. I think there's a better case to be made by examining what Dr. Ritner has actually said in publications. In his 2013 book, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition, Dr. Ritner declares that "Except for those willfully blind… the case is closed." This doesn't really come across as "objective" (or, for that matter, scholarly). Larry Morris provides further indications: Quote In JNES Ritner reports that personal attacks followed publication of his translation in Dialogue. This is regrettable and reflects poorly on those who responded in such a manner. As Ritner describes: “The earlier version of this article produced internet discussions devoted not to the translation, but to scurrilous remarks concerning my own religious and personal habits. Let the scholar be warned” (p. 162 n. 7). Ritner apparently believes that those who engage in these kinds of discussions ought to follow basic standards of good scholarship. I agree. Ritner does not say precisely what those standards are, but I suggest the following: Avoiding sarcastic language or ad hominem arguments Making explicit and fair assumptions Following sound methodology Documenting arguable facts Eschewing ax-grinding No one adhering to such canons would have resorted to scurrilous remarks about Ritner. Furthermore, given Ritner’s understandable discomfort with such responses, I would have thought he would be the last person to level criticism at those who disagree with him. But that is not true at all. In JNES, for example, Ritner begins his discussion by attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “The anglicized Latin term ‘Egyptus’ is said to be Chaldean for ‘that which is forbidden’ in reference to the cursed race of Ham who are denied the ‘right of Priesthood’ ({Abraham} 1:23–27), a statement that served as the basis for Mormon racial discrimination until a ‘revelation’ during the modern era of civil rights legislation reversed the policy (but not the ‘scripture’) in 1978” (p. 161). Ritner’s choice of terms (racial discrimination) and his use of quotation marks (“revelation,” “scripture”) immediately reveal his cynicism toward the Church of Jesus Christ. In contrast, consider historian Robert V. Remini’s treatment of the same topic: “The Book of Abraham . . . related how Abraham insisted on his right of appointment as High Priest, claiming that the Pharaoh of Egypt, a good and decent man, was a descendant of Ham and therefore could not hold the priesthood. That statement later justified Church policy of denying the priesthood to African-Americans, since they supposedly descended from Ham, a policy that continued until 1978, when it was terminated.” Ritner offers politically charged language, Remini neutral language; Ritner makes value judgments, Remini maintains scholarly disinterest. The difference is instructive because neither of these scholars is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. I appreciate Morris doing more than just critiquing Dr. Ritner's less-than-scholarly rhetoric. He offers examples of other scholars (here, Remini) who adopted a more objective, less cynical/incendiary approach to the BoA. More: Quote Not surprisingly, Ritner also ridicules Joseph Smith. Note his choice of terms: “Such ‘reasoning’ included references to the outlandish ‘Jah-oh-eh,’ ” “all of this nonsense is illustrated,” “Smith’s hopeless translation,” and “such interpretations are uninspired fantasies” (JNES, pp. 161, 162, 176 n. 128, emphasis added). Then, despite using such partisan language, Ritner suggests that he is providing an “impartial reassessment of Baer’s translation” (JNES, p. 164, emphasis added). Is Ritner impartial? Again, Remini’s treatment stands in stark contrast: “Other important teachings of Joseph resulted from his purchase in July 1835 of four Egyptian mummies and some papyri for $2,400 from a traveling ‘entrepreneur’ by the name of Michael H. Chandler. He then translated the papyri, which contained, he said, writings of the patriarch Abraham. This Book of Abraham became part of The Pearl of Great Price, along with the Book of Moses and other writings.” Well? It sure seems like Ritner's editorializing is far from "objective" or "impartial." Who is correct here, you or Morris? More: Quote There is also reason to believe that Ritner’s anti-Mormon sentiments affect his translation. As noted above, Ritner offers the following translation for a text fragment identified as column 4 in JSP I: {“O Anubis(?), . . .}. He explains that “a divine name (Anubis?) must be lost here, since the following address shifts from Hor to a deity on his behalf.” This is hardly incidental, however, because, as Ritner points out, “This passage rebuts Gee” (JNES, p. 169 n. 51). Since Ritner is relying on his own reconstruction of the text to rebut John Gee, the question is, how did Baer translate this fragment? Baer offered no translation at all. “Too little is left of line 4 to permit even a guess at what it said,” he wrote. Likewise, Rhodes offers no translation, simply an ellipsis indicating missing text. Ritner, however, suggests a new interpretation that just happens to give him an advantage in his dispute with Gee—and he fails to inform the reader of Baer’s comment on the matter. Huh. Seems like Ritner "rebuts Gee" by citing . . . Ritner. He quotes his own reconstruction of the text to rebut Gee. This is, in your view, "objective" scholarship? Morris drops a long footnote expressing concern about Dr. Ritner using a scholarly venue to vent about his personal dispute with Gee: Quote I object to Ritner taking up a personal dispute with John Gee. In JNES, for example, Ritner includes the following aside: “With regard to the articles by my former student John Gee, I am constrained to note that unlike the interaction between Baer and Nibley, and the practice of all my other Egyptology students, Gee never chose to share drafts of his publications with me to elicit scholarly criticism, so that I have encountered these only recently. It must be understood that in these apologetic writings, Gee’s opinions do not necessarily reflect my own, nor the standards of Egyptological proof that I required at Yale or Chicago” (p. 167). Such a statement is objectionable for several reasons. First of all, claims made in a scholarly paper should be verifiable by the reader—either through the text itself or through the documentation cited in the notes. But there is no way for the reader to verify what happened between Ritner and Gee—that is a private matter between the two of them. And Gee has had no opportunity to speak for himself. Second, the sophisticated readership of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies knows perfectly well that one professor does not speak for others or for another institution. Ritner has no business bringing up something that is obviously a personal matter between him and Gee. This is yet another departure from scholarship. Ritner then compounds his mistake by not keeping up with Gee’s work. For example, he seems to be unaware of two of Gee’s key articles on the Book of Abraham: John Gee, ”Eyewitness, Heresay, 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, Donald W. Parry, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 175–217; and John Gee and Stephen D. Ricks, “Historical Plausibility: The Historicity of the Book of Abraham as a Case Study,” in Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2001), 63–98. What are your thoughts about this? More: Quote Ritner next attacks Gee and Hugh Nibley, making a point of describing them as “Mormon traditionalists,” in contrast with “Egyptological scholars”—a category that includes Ritner himself (JNES, p. 163). But rather than simply stating his disagreements with Nibley and Gee and allowing readers to judge for themselves, Ritner poisons the well through his use of sarcastic and contemptuous language. In describing Hugh Nibley, for example, Ritner seems unwilling to use the kind of language employed by other authors who are also not Latter-day Saints. Richard and Joan Ostling (who direct a fair amount of criticism toward the Church of Jesus Christ) describe Nibley as “a BYU scholar in ancient Near Eastern studies but not an Egyptologist.”¹⁴ Ritner, by contrast, calls Nibley the “lionized patriarch” of FARMS (JNES, p. 163 n. 9), an obvious allusion to Facsimile 1, where the patriarch Abraham is said to be fastened upon a lion-couch altar. Again, Ritner mentions the “work of Nibley and his acolytes” (Dialogue, p. 98 n. 4). My Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (eleventh edition) defines the word acolyte as “one who assists a member of the clergy in a liturgical service by performing minor duties.” Nibley is thus a priest of polemics, and his fellow scholars are altar boys. Some may think Ritner’s remark is clever, but the question is whether Ritner’s approach is helpful to readers seeking a fair look at the Joseph Smith Papyri. Quite the contrary, Ritner’s approach time and again smacks of nonscholarly ax-grinding. Nibley’s and Gee’s ideas are characterized not as opinions or disagreements but as “quibbling” or even “nihilistic quibbling” (Dialogue, p. 102 n. 30, p. 115 n. 125). Not content with this kind of editorializing, Ritner uses exclamation marks to express his disgust: “Nibley’s error was further confused in J. Gee . . . where it is said to be Hor’s father’s (!) name” (Dialogue, pp. 106–7 n. 59). The irony of all of this is that Ritner criticizes Nibley for his (supposedly) ad hominem attacks on such Egyptologists as Breasted, W. M. Flinders Petrie, and Samuel A. B. Mercer, objecting to Nibley’s characterizations of these scholars and arguing that they should be judged on their arguments. Why, then, does Ritner himself sarcastically characterize his opponents rather than offer an assessment of their arguments? Nor is Ritner following in the tradition of Wilson or Baer when he goes out of his way to attack Joseph Smith, the Church of Jesus Christ, and BYU scholars. In his discussion of JSP II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, and IX (all of which are fragments from the Book of the Dead—Egyptian religious documents typically buried with the dead), Wilson limits his comments to the papyri themselves, never making snide remarks about the position of the Church of Jesus Christ. His good will is apparent in his concluding sentence: “The Church may well be proud to have such a text.” Similarly, Baer’s tone is nonhostile. He certainly agrees with Ritner that the Breathing Permit of Hor has nothing to do with Abraham, but he does not use terms such as “outlandish,” “nonsense,” “hopeless,” or “uninspired” to describe Joseph Smith’s interpretation. After giving his preliminary translation, Baer comments: “This is as far as an Egyptologist can go in studying the document that Joseph Smith considered to be a ‘roll’ which ‘contained the writings of Abraham.’ The Egyptologist interprets it differently, relying on a considerable body of parallel data, research, and knowledge that has accumulated over the past 146 years since Champollion first deciphered Egyptian—none of which had really become known in America in the 1830’s. At this point, the Latter-day Saint historian and theologian must take over.” By making personal attacks, Ritner produces a paper that is less scholarly than those of Wilson or Baer. Are you sure you want to continue to juxtpose Ritner's purported "objective" approach to the BoA with Muhlestein's purportedly biased/"apologetic" approach? As I see it, Ritner's Dialogue article brings his (apparent lack of) objectivity, and his apparent biases, into reasonable dispute. Meanwhile, what are we to make of Ritner's treatment of the KEP? This is a pretty important issue. Again from the Morris article: Quote In the very first sentence of his Dialogue article, Ritner steps out of his area of expertise to make a controversial claim that really has nothing to do with his stated purpose of reexamining the Breathing Permit of Hor. He announces, as if it were an established fact, that the eleven papyrus fragments once owned by Joseph Smith—and given by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Church of Jesus Christ in 1967—were “employed as the basis for ‘The Book of Abraham’ ” (p. 97). Of course, whether Joseph Smith employed these fragments as the “basis” of the Book of Abraham is not established at all—this is the issue that has sparked such a long and heated debate over the origin of the Book of Abraham. Further, this is not an Egyptological question, for the debate does not center on a translation of the fragments. Rather, this is a historical question: what papyrus—if any—was Joseph Smith viewing when he dictated the Book of Abraham and what did he mean by translation? ... Given the controversy over the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, we would expect Ritner to “document arguable facts” and inform his readers of this strong difference of opinion, even if only in a note. Instead, Ritner gives the impression that the whole matter is cut and dried. When Ritner mentions the Kirtland Egyptian Papers in a note, he simply references an article by Ashment as evidence of Joseph Smith’s authorship of the so-called Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar (JNES, p. 169 n. 48).²¹ That’s the end of it. The very least that Ritner should have done was tell readers of the dispute and suggest they check Nibley’s landmark article “The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers” to understand the opposing viewpoint, but he doesn’t even do that. This is not impartial scholarship. Morris does a pretty good job of laying out examples of Dr. Ritner's lack of objectivity and impartiality in his scholarship. Quote I'm respecting his expertise. I think you are doing more than that. Quote What's that I figured filtered meant, from his {Muhelstein's} statement. He takes all the evidence then filters it to fit his assumption, no? That's what he said, it seems to me. Is there any similar "filtering" going on with Dr. Ritner (particularly given the issues raised by Morris, some of which are noted above)? Quote I think his filter is set at attempting to be objective. His agenda appears to be truth, good solid objective scholarship. In contrast, Kerry has a goal other than objectivity as he describes. "In contrast." You characterize the scholar who shares your antipathy toward the Church and its doctrines as "objective," as having an "agenda" of seeking "truth" through "good solid objective scholarship." You then, "in contrast," characterize the Latter-day Saint scholar (Muhelstein) as . . . something else. As an "apologist" beholden to "assumptions." Quote Quote I think that's what Kerry Muhlestein has done. Meanwhile, I'm not sure Dr. Ritner has acknowledged his biases/hostilities. What are those? See the Morris article, quoted at length above. Quote Quote If I understand you correctly, you sare saying that Ritner "cannot...find anything near the BoA in Egypt ... that the Abraham story purportedly came from." My understanding is that there are a number of stories from antiquity that place Abraham in Egypt. From the POGPC article above: Perhaps there are stories that crept in Hebrew tradition for instance, but that's not finding the BoA story in ancient Egypt. So you are speaking of ancient Egyptian sources of information about Abraham? In The Ancient Egyptian View of Abraham, the author states that "evidence survives today indicating that stories about Abraham were known to the ancient Egyptians as early as the time of the composition of the Joseph Smith Papyri (ca. 300–30 BC)." The article itemizes some of these ancient sources: Quote In addition to the biblical text, extra-biblical stories about Abraham circulated in Egypt during this time. For example: “During the reign of Ptolemy I, Hecateus of Abdera traveled to Thebes and learned stories about Abraham from Egyptian priests; he wrote these stories in a book called On Abraham and the Egyptians. This work is now unfortunately lost, but Clement of Alexandria, a second-century AD Egyptian Christian, quoted a short passage from it in which the worship of idols is condemned.” “The writer Eupolemus, who lived under Egyptian rule in Palestine in the second century BC, recounts how Abraham lived in Heliopolis (On) and taught astronomy and other sciences to the Egyptian priests. In connection with Abraham, Eupolemus seems to think that the Egyptians descended from Canaan.” “In the first century BC, the Egyptian Jew Artapanus wrote an account of Abraham teaching astronomy to the Egyptian Pharaoh.” “Philo, a first-century AD Egyptian Jew, claimed that Abraham studied astronomy, the motion of the stars, meteorology, and mathematics, and used his reasoning on these subjects to understand God.” “The Testament of Abraham describes Abraham’s tour of the next life before he dies. Scholars think that this work was written by an Egyptian Jew around the first century AD. It is notable for its reinterpretation of the Egyptian judgment scene in a Jewish fashion. This text was read liturgically the Sunday before Christmas during the Egyptian month of Khoiak.” “[A] fragmentary text from Egypt about Abraham describes how the king (the word used is pharaoh) tries to sacrifice Abraham, but Abraham is delivered by an angel of the Lord. Abraham later teaches the members of the royal court about the true God using astronomy.” An additional significant body of evidence for the Egyptian view of Abraham comes from a collection of texts commonly called the Greek Magical Papyri or the Theban Magical Library. This corpus of texts from the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes preserves “a variety of magical spells and formulae, hymns and rituals. The extant texts are mainly from the second century B.C. to the fifth century A.D.” Significantly, numerous biblical names and figures are used in these texts alongside native Egyptian and Greek names and figures. The name for this common ancient phenomenon is syncretism, where elements of different religions or traditions were harmonized together into a new synthetic religious paradigm. In some important ways the religion practiced by the Egyptians during the time of the Joseph Smith Papyri was a highly syncretic one. Why is Artapanus not a sufficient source for you? Is it your position that Joseph Smith knew about Artapanus writing about Abraham teaching astronomy to the Egyptian Pharaoh, and included that detail in the BoA? Or is it just happenstance that an ancient source presents this story and Joseph Smith just stumbled into replicating it? As Daniel Peterson commented: "It's amazing what Joseph Smith was able to pick up on the western frontier." Indeed. Quote Quote The article goes on to provide a number of examples of "extra-biblical stories about Abraham {} in Egypt during this time," including "Eupolemus ... recount{ing} how Abraham lived in Heliopolis (On) and taught astronomy and other sciences to the Egyptian priests," "the Egyptian Jew Artapanus wrote an account of Abraham teaching astronomy to the Egyptian Pharaoh," a fragmentary text from Egypt about Abraham describes how the king (the word used is pharaoh) tries to sacrifice Abraham, but Abraham is delivered by an angel of the Lord," and about "Abraham later teach{ing} the members of the royal court about the true God using astronomy." Yes. The point...none of this is found in ancient Egypt. Hecateus of Abdera? Eupolemus? Artapanus? Philo? The Testament of Abraham? These aren't ancient Egyptian sources talking about Abraham in Egypt? I'm not sure what you are saying. Did you even read the POGPC article? Quote Quote As Daniel Peterson notes: Your position (and apparently Ritner's) is that Joseph Smith was totally fabricating things as he went along. And yet Joseph Smith claimed to translate a text that, in part, states that Abraham taught astronomy to Pharaoh in Egypt. This seems like a pretty specific thing to get right. Is it your position that Joseph Smith was just guessing on this point? Or that he cribbed from ancient sources to formulate the narrative? If so, what do you think those sources were? Beats me. Not sure it matters much to me. "Beats me?" That's it? That's all you've got? Desite having commented extensively about the Book of Abraham? Funny how often we end up with glib conclusions like this. You aren't the first one to be unwilling/unable to formulate or defend a counter-argument relative to the claims of the Church. Daniel Peterson has commented on the tendency of critics who, when pressed in an adversarial construct, suddenly go all quiet and agnostic and conveniently ambivalent about such controversies. They are vocally adamant about the Church's position being necessarily and demonstrably wrong, but then become curiously uncurious when asked to provide and substantiate and defend a coherent alternative explanation for, say, the source of the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham. Some excerpts from DCP: Quote I want to suggest something like that in this case, that to me, the explanation of Joseph Smith is simple and elegant, and the alternative explanations just don’t work and they get more and more complex and it’s just too much for me, and so I’ve said sometimes that I simply don’t have the faith to disbelieve Joseph Smith’s story. I just can’t get there. I can’t do it. And I’ve tried. I’ve really tried to give it a serious look. I cannot put together hallucinatory explanations of the witnesses and stealing from Solomon Spaulding and stealing from Ethan Smith, and I’m just mentioning a few, and putting it all together. Joseph Smith, this incredibly learned young man who’s sitting there on the frontier. ... I remember my friend Bill Hamblin once being in communication with a one-time, fairly prominent, ex-member critic of the Church and of the Book of Mormon. And he said, “Look, let’s assume for a moment that you’re right and that Joseph Smith did not have plates. Did he know that he didn’t have plates or did he think that he had the plates? In other words, was he a conscious deceiver, or was he in some sense mad?” To which this critic responded: “I don’t have to lower myself to your simplistic little dichotomies.” Well, see, I think it’s intellectually incumbent upon people like that to, come on, give us an answer to this. Otherwise it’s like guerrilla warfare. You attack and attack and attack, you always withdraw, you never defend territory. You never have to stake out your own explanation, which then will be subject to criticism and attack. I think DCP has a fair point. I think it's intellectually incumbent upon people like you to provide at least some sort of alternative explanation for, say, how Joseph Smith ended up with including a narrative about Abraham teaching astronomy to the Pharaoh. Was it just a lucky guess? See also here (also by Dr. Peterson) (emphasis added): Quote The most serious contemporary criticisms of the Book of Mormon and of Mormonism more broadly tend to come not from self-proclaimed orthodox (i.e., usually Evangelical) Christians, but from self-identified atheistic materialists or naturalists. The Utah-based historian Dale Morgan, largely forgotten today but still much admired in certain small contemporary circles, wrote a 1945 letter to the believing Latter-day Saint historian Juanita Brooks. In it, he identifies the fundamental issue with unusual candor: Quote With my point of view on God, I am incapable of accepting the claims of Joseph Smith and the Mormons, be they however so convincing. If God does not exist, how can Joseph Smith’s story have any possible validity? I will look everywhere for explanations except to the ONE explanation that is the position of the church. In Risen Indeed, Stephen Davis remarks that Quote believers point to something of an embarrassment in the position of those who do not believe in the resurrection: their inability to offer an acceptable alternative explanation of the known facts surrounding the resurrection of Jesus. The old nineteenth-century rationalistic explanations (hallucination, swoon theory, stolen body, wrong tomb, etc.) all seem to collapse of their own weight once spelled out, and no strong new theory has emerged as the consensus of scholars who deny that the resurrection occurred. A similar situation obtains, in my judgment, with regard to the Book of Mormon and certain other elements of the Restoration. While, for instance, this or that aspect of the Book of Mormon can, hypothetically, be accounted for by means of something within Joseph Smith’s early nineteenth-century information environment, a fully comprehensive counterexplanation for Joseph’s claims remains promised but manifestly unprovided. Critics have disagreed over the nearly two centuries since the First Vision about whether Joseph was brilliant or stupid, whether he was sincerely hallucinating or cunningly conscious of his fraud, whether he concocted the Book of Mormon alone or with co-conspirators (their own identity either hotly debated or completely unknown), whether he was a cynical atheist or a pious fraud defending Christianity, and so forth. With respect, I think you are taking a Dale Morgan-esque approach that just doesn't work for me. I think it is problematic to, as Morgan put it, "look everywhere for explanations except to the ONE explanation that is the position of the church." This is a heads-the-Church-loses-tails-the-Church-loses approach. Quote I think Givens case for bricolage is built on things like that. Are you saying Givens is way off with his argument that Joseph used other sources? No. I think Givens offers some interesting ideas. However, I'm not sure he has fully considered the ramifications of this approach. Mark Johnson has some interesting comments on this here: Quote This model of bricolage in Joseph Smith’s speculative theology is a useful template in understanding the way Joseph framed the doctrines of the restoration. By and large, Givens provides a logical sequence for the evolution of these doctrines. However, this argument for a bric-à- brac construction of the scriptures translated by Joseph Smith ignores the actual methods of translation as well as the statements of those who were involved in the process. David F. Holland has noted regarding Joseph Smith’s role in the process: Quote In his forays into the ancient world — whether the Book of Mormon, or the book of Abraham, or his inspired translation of the Bible — he was ever the vehicle for other men’s histories, always the receiver, the transcriber, the transmitter of knowledge about the ancient world, not the producer. He simply gave his modern readers the records as he encountered them, translated but otherwise unaffected. It can certainly be noted that Joseph felt free to alter the texts of his revelations after he received them. The additions of Hebrew into the translation of the Book of Abraham or the twice-revised verses in the JST are evidence of this. The question of how much latitude Joseph Smith had to voice the revelations in his own words is still unanswered and will likely be debated for years to come. Indeed. In any event, Givens is not seeking to upend or contradict the Church's claims about the Book of Abraham. I am reminded here of the pretty-darn-embarrassing misreading/misrepresentation of Givens by Consig and Analytics last year. Quoth Analytics: Quote {O}ur own consiglieri is an extremely well-read ex-apologist now critic. He has a very articulate and accessible podcast called "Radio Free Mormon". A recent episode is called "The Amazingly Subversive Terryl Givens," which goes through Givens's latest book and shows how it is subversive in the sense that it contains dozens of concessions of anti-Mormon claims that you'd find on a "big list." Givens thinks the end result is beautiful and expresses it all from a perspective of admiration in erudite language, but if you have the patience and intellect to read what he is actually saying and compare it to what the church teaches in manuals and in conference, then one inescapably comes to the conclusion that Givens is admitting it isn't true--it is a fraud. A beautiful inspiring fraud for Givens, but a fraud nonetheless. Listen to the podcast. I responded: Quote So I listened to most of the podcast (it's a bit tedious). I also sent an email to Terryl Givens. I quoted (verbatim) the {} paragraph above, and asked him if he would agree with your characterization/conclusion (that he is conceding that the Pearl of Great Price is "a fraud"). He responded within minutes and categorically rejected your characterization (calling "patently false" your allegation that he believes or implies the PoGP is a "fraud"). Given that Givens is perhaps the world's leading expert on what he believes, and given how massively incorrect you were in reaching a purportedly "inescapabl{e}" conclusion derived from applying "patience and intellect to read what he is actually saying," I think you'll understand which of the two sources I will find more persuasive. And here: Quote I've been musing the last little bit about Consig's and Analytics' assessment of Terryl Givens. These two are well-seasoned observers of the Church. They know a lot about the Church. It is interesting, then, to see them so spectacularly mis-read Givens. Consig pubilcly characterizes Givens' latest book as "amazingly subversive." Roger publicly declares that if "patience and intellect" are used to read Givens' book, "one inescapably comes to the conclusion that Givens is admitting it isn't true--it is a fraud." Givens himself rebuts these characterizations of his position. "Patently false," he calls them. This does not seem like an isolated incident. I feel like our critics are not really listening to us. They are not understanding us, or accurately describing or characterizing our position. It seems like they don't want to listen or understand or charactize us. They want to make us look bad, so any and every event or story about us must be construed so as to put the Church in a negative light. I continue to feel a bit perplexed at A) critics and skeptics taking a Dale Morgan-esque I-will-look-everywhere-for-explanations-except-to-the-ONE-explanation-that-is-the-position-of-the-church approach to the Church's claims, B) critics and skeptics adopting a "guerrilla warfare" attitude when examining the BOM, BOA, etc. (endlessly disputing the Church's explanation of the BOM, BOA, etc., while not actually getting around to formulating a coherent counter-explanation); C) critics and skeptics suddenly going all quiet and agnostic and conveniently ambivelant about issues pertaining to the Church when pressed to present a coherent counter-explanation for these things, and D) critics and skeptics not really listening to, or meaningfully interacting with, what the Church and its scholars and apologists are actually saying, and instead trying to distort, misconstrue, misstate and mischaracterize what we are saying so as to put us in the worst possible light (such as what Consig and Analytics did re: Givens). Responses like "beats me" and “I don’t have to lower myself to your simplistic little dichotomies" are singularly unimpressive to me, particularly in 2020, and particularly given the wealth of readily-available information and scholarship we have seen come out in the last many years. I returned from my mission in 1995, and ever since then have made studying the Restored Gospel a significant priority in my life. I think it's fair to say that I am both a "defender of the faith" and a long-time consumer of apologetic and scholarly materials. In the aggregate I have found such materials to be very helpful in my faith journey. They are a wonderful supplement to the spiritual and personal experiences I have had which have pursuaded me to that the Church is what it claims to be. Since law school, I have come to appreciate the value of adversarial examination of disputed issues. My daily, bread-and-butter work is to examine factual and legal issues about which the parties pretty much always have divergent viewpoints, asssessments, conclusions, etc. I like how the adversarial process can (can, mind you) help the parties sift through the facts and the law to get to a more accurate and more complete understanding of A) what really happened, and B) what the law should do about what really happened. I have had many experiences in which I have had to backtrack and reconsider my client's factual and/or legal position because my grasp of the facts and/or the law was materially incorrect. My errors have become manifest because, through the adversarial process, people who who do share my perspective/biases have shown me where I went wrong. These are difficult and humbling, but also very useful, learning experiences for me. However, I have also had many other experiences where my grasp of the facts and the law has been largely confirmed and vindicated through this same adversarial setting and process. Having worked vary hard in law school to gain some mastery of the basics of the practice of law, and then having spent 15+ years practicing law, it is gratifying to have had such experiences. I have spent the last 25+ years reading what the Church and its scholars/apologists have said about controversies and difficulties pertaining to the claims of the Church. I have also spent most of that time reading what critics of my faith have to say about such things, and also interacting with many of them in an adversarial setting (message boards). The claims of the Church, and critiques and criticisms of those claims, are examined, and re-examined. I have actively involved myself in many of these examinations. I feel like I am a lot more informed than I was in 1995, and a lot more clear-eyed in my perception of and perspective on the Church and its claims. But more to the point, examining the Church's claims in an adversarial setting has helped me feel vindicated in my assessment of the Restored Gospel. I have long believed that the Church's claims are substantively true, but I have spent the last 25 years testing and debating those claims in an adversarial setting. I have been humbled a lot. I have had to correct and re-assess some of what I believe and why. But in the main, I am very happy with the cumulative results of these efforts. Through revelation, through day-to-day experiences, through prolonged study and examination (including reviewing critical assessments/arguments), I have come to find that the Church's claims are reasonable, resilient, eminently defensible, and substantively true. Thanks, -Smac Edited August 9, 2020 by smac97 7 Link to comment
Robert F. Smith Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 On 8/7/2020 at 3:00 PM, webbles said: That is probably a picture of the god "Min" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_(god)). He is normally shown that way with the erect phallus. Also, the phallus was probably removed accidentally instead of intentionally. It is in the original printing plate (see https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/facsimile-printing-plates-circa-23-february-16-may-1842/2) and was in many of the earlier editions. According to http://www.boap.org/LDS/BOAP/SecondEd/Draft-copy/AppendixVI-JS-Commentary-on-BOA.pdf, in the 1920's, they made a new printing plate and didn't do a very good job with facsimile 2. It is no accident, by the way, that the Hebrew word for "sex" is min, taken from the name of that ancient Egyptian god. Link to comment
Robert F. Smith Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 3 hours ago, smac97 said: ........................ Contrary to your denial, you are specifically and expressly portraying Ritner as "objective" and having an "agenda" of "truth" and "good solid objective scholarship." In contrast, you characterize Muhlestein as an "apologist" who is unduly beholden to "assumptions." OGHoosier characterized Dr. Ritner as an "an excellent Egyptologist with an anti-Mormon chip in his shoulder so big that Khufu modeled his Pyramid on it." I think there are evidentiary grounds for this characterization. For example, he was removed from Gee's doctoral committee at Yale. The circumstances of that removal remain mostly publicly opaque, ........................................... Seems like there may be some behind-the-scenes stuff going on.......................................................................................... Ritner, who is a first-rate scholar, has a visceral hatred for the LDS Church -- which colors all his thinking on the subject -- even though the LDS Church and its members do not actually have it in for him and his personal orientation. Most members have never even heard of him, and could care less. 3 hours ago, smac97 said: So you are speaking of ancient Egyptian sources of information about Abraham? In The Ancient Egyptian View of Abraham, the author states that "evidence survives today indicating that stories about Abraham were known to the ancient Egyptians as early as the time of the composition of the Joseph Smith Papyri (ca. 300–30 BC)." The article itemizes some of these ancient sources: Why is Artapanus not a sufficient source for you? Is it your position that Joseph Smith knew about Artapanus writing about Abraham teaching astronomy to the Egyptian Pharaoh, and included that detail in the BoA? Or is it just happenstance that an ancient source presents this story and Joseph Smith just stumbled into replicating it?.............................. Hecateus of Abdera? Eupolemus? Artapanus? Philo? The Testament of Abraham? These aren't ancient Egyptian sources talking about Abraham in Egypt? Part of the problem is that people generally are abysmally ignorant of Egyptian history, as well as of Western history. Hardly anyone, for example, realizes that in Greco-Roman times, Egypt generally and Alexandria, Egypt, specifically was the intellectual center of the ancient world. The world's greatest library was in Alexandria. The center of Christianity was in Alexandria. Not only that, but the greatest Jewish intellectuals lived there. Not only was the Jewish community in Egypt huge, but they had been living in Egypt for centuries, and even had two temples in Egypt. That's right, temples with priests and blood sacrifice. The native Egyptian people were well aware of their Jewish neighbors, just as most Americans today are well aware of their American Jewish neighbors. With the rise of Christianity, virtually the entire native Egyptian population converted to Christianity (Coptic Christianity). That huge Jewish community in Egypt continued to exist and prosper there for the next two thousand years -- with the world's largest synagogue in Alexandria. Yokels just can't grasp that reality. So, naturally, there couldn't possibly have ever been anything Jewish in Egypt. 3 hours ago, smac97 said: ...................................... In any event, Givens is not seeking upend or contradict the Church's claims about the Book of Abraham. I am reminded here of the pretty-darn-embarrassing misreading/misrepresentation of Givens by Consig and Analytics last year. ........................... I continue to feel a bit perplexed at A) critics and skeptics taking a Dale Morgan-esque I-will-look-everywhere-for-explanations-except-to-the-ONE-explanation-that-is-the-position-of-the-church approach to the Church's claims, B) critics and skeptics adopting a "guerrilla warfare" attitude when examining the BOM, BOA, etc. (endlessly disputing the Church's explanation of the BOM, BOA, etc., while not actually getting around to formulating a coherent counter-explanation); C) critics and skeptics suddenly going all quiet and agnostic and conveniently ambivelant about issues pertaining to the Church when pressed to present a coherent counter-explanation for these things, and D) critics and skeptics not really listening to what the Church and its scholars and apologists are actually saying, and instead trying to distort, misconstrue, misstate and mischaracterize what we are saying so as to put us in the worst possible light (such as what Consig and Analytics did re: Givens). Responses like "beats me" and “I don’t have to lower myself to your simplistic little dichotomies" are singularly unimpressive to me. .............................. The late John A. Wilson, a modern Egyptologist, saw the Aoffhand and hostile opinions@ of the 1912 Spalding anti-Mormon jurors as Aa lot of indignant snorts@ inimical to good scholarship.[1] I suspect that Wilson would say the same of Ritner. [1] Wilson, Thousands of Years, 176. 4 Link to comment
aussieguy55 Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Klaus Baer who authored a Dialogue article in 1967 in a letter regarding Nibley's publications (28th February 1972) to Walters Dear Reverend Walters A quick answer to your letters of February 24th which just arrived. I must admit that I have not been keeping up with the flood of LDS publication on the topic of the so-called "Book of Breathings" that has appeared since my article in Dialogue. Much of it seems to be obfuscatory in the extreme,tending to pick on aside quotes out of contexts and opinions emittered by the large penumbra of semi-scholarly types (and crackpots) that hang around the fringes of Egyptology - and are of course much attracted by such things as the Book of the Dead. Among the latter I would include those who want to see in the Book of the Dead a manual of initiation. That the Book of the Dead has ritual significance in connection with funeral services - and that a great deal more can be pulled out of it than has been in regard to ancient Egyptian cosmological and theological views - has of course nothing to do with the point under consideration." Link to comment
Robert F. Smith Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 On 8/7/2020 at 4:51 PM, Tacenda said: I know but Joseph is saying that is God telling how to get back to heaven using the PH language or something right? And according to Ritner it doesn't have anything to do with that. Joseph Smith claimed that the Plan of Salvation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ gets us back to heaven. Not sure what this "PH language" you refer to, or the claim that Ritner discussed "the PH language" -- whatever that is. It seems to me that both of those claims are false. 2 Link to comment
gav Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 7 hours ago, smac97 said: continue to feel a bit perplexed at A) critics and skeptics taking a Dale Morgan-esque I-will-look-everywhere-for-explanations-except-to-the-ONE-explanation-that-is-the-position-of-the-church approach to the Church's claims, B) critics and skeptics adopting a "guerrilla warfare" attitude when examining the BOM, BOA, etc. (endlessly disputing the Church's explanation of the BOM, BOA, etc., while not actually getting around to formulating a coherent counter-explanation); C) critics and skeptics suddenly going all quiet and agnostic and conveniently ambivelant about issues pertaining to the Church when pressed to present a coherent counter-explanation for these things, and D) critics and skeptics not really listening to, or meaningfully interacting with, what the Church and its scholars and apologists are actually saying, and instead trying to distort, misconstrue, misstate and mischaracterize what we are saying so as to put us in the worst possible light (such as what Consig and Analytics did re: Givens). Responses like "beats me" and “I don’t have to lower myself to your simplistic little dichotomies" are singularly unimpressive to me, particularly in 2020, and particularly given the wealth of readily-available information and scholarship we have seen come out in the last many years. "guerrilla warfare" is an elegant analogy, my less refined thinking processes summarise the above with phrases like "uber greased weasel strategies" and "ultimate slippery eel tactics" Link to comment
Robert F. Smith Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, aussieguy55 said: Klaus Baer .................28th February 1972.. to Walters Dear Reverend Walters A quick answer to your letters of February 24th which just arrived. I must admit that I have not been keeping up with the flood of LDS publication on the topic of the so-called "Book of Breathings" that has appeared since my article in Dialogue. Much of it seems to be obfuscatory in the extreme,tending to pick on aside quotes out of contexts and opinions emittered by the large penumbra of semi-scholarly types (and crackpots) that hang around the fringes of Egyptology - and are of course much attracted by such things as the Book of the Dead. Among the latter I would include those who want to see in the Book of the Dead a manual of initiation. That the Book of the Dead has ritual significance in connection with funeral services - and that a great deal more can be pulled out of it than has been in regard to ancient Egyptian cosmological and theological views - has of course nothing to do with the point under consideration." The so-called Book of the Dead (that is not its Egyptian title) is not one regularly published document, but appears in a variety of forms and rescensions of various lengths with illustrations. Like the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, it is liturgical in nature. It first appears in the Pyramids of ancient Egypt, and is therefore called the Pyramid Texts, then it takes the form of the Coffin Texts, and finally the Book of the Dead. All contain traditional liturgical spells and prayers. Some such documents are merely compact summaries of the larger works, as with the Book of Breathings. There is a ritual dramatic text of ca. 110 B.C. going back to the First Dynasty,[1] and there were plenty of magic spells used by living Egyptians.[2] Prof Baer passed on before it became a commonplace in Egyptology to recognize that the spells and prayers of that Book of the Dead liturgical tradition were an integral part of regular Egyptian temple observance in ancient times -- that is regular observance by the living. The false view is that the Book of Dead was never used for any other purpose than being rolled up and placed in a tomb so that the deceased could read it on the other side. The Mysteries of Re, for example, as recorded at Ashmunein (Hermopolis Magna) from at least as early as the reign of Ramesses III (ca. 1198-1167 B.C.), followed the same dramatic sequence as that of Mithraism a millennium later: Birth, struggle, triumph, and final journey to completion.[3] This was typical also of the Mysteries of Isis, practiced throughout the Mediterranean world. Pagan temples and libraries were everywhere in the ancient world,[4] until systematically destroyed by Christianity. The only place one is likely to encounter such ancient practices today is in a Mormon or Hindu temple. [1] Fairman, The Triumph of Horus (1974), 4, 34. [2] Kirsten Dzwiza, "Concealing Cultural Diversity under the Veil of Modern Translation: ‘Magic’ in the Greek, Demotic and Coptic Ritual Instruction Manuals,” Sept 12, 2014, at the Cultural Plurality in Ancient Magical Texts and Practices Conference in Heidelberg, online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265850896_Concealing_Cultural_Diversity_under_the_Veil_of_Modern_Translation_'Magic'_in_the_Greek_Demotic_and_Coptic_Ritual_Instruction_Manuals [3] Gary Lease, AMithra in Egypt,@ 127 n. 53, in B. A. Pearson & J. E. Goehring, eds., The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (Phila.: Fortress Press, 1986). Cf. Hans Dieter Betz, The AMithras Liturgy@: Text, Translation, and Commentary, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 18 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). [4] Finegan, Myth & Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the Biblical World (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 15, citing, C. J. Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals: Enactments of Religious Renewal, Studies in the History of Religions 13 (Leiden: Brill, 1967, 11-12; cf. Joseph Campbell, ed., The Mysteries: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Bollingen Series XXX/2 (Princeton Univ. Press, 1978), translated from the Eranos-Jahrbücher IV - XI (Zurich: Rhein Verlag, 1936-1944). Edited August 9, 2020 by Robert F. Smith 4 Link to comment
Tacenda Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said: Joseph Smith claimed that the Plan of Salvation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ gets us back to heaven. Not sure what this "PH language" you refer to, or the claim that Ritner discussed "the PH language" -- whatever that is. It seems to me that both of those claims are false. Priesthood language. Or is it the teachings to get back to heaven? Is that considered a PH language? Don't know, I just saw a meme with it. And making fun of JS for saying it was that vs what it really is that of a guy doing the no-no. Or the "M" word. I lack much in this area of expertise. I just don't get how it's okay to believe that Joseph was in the right to take the papyri and turn it into something else entirely. Isn't it okay for members to say that is wrong? Like it's okay for members to say that leaders get things wrong sometimes and that they are human? Why are we okaying that JS lied about knowing the translation of the papyri? Shouldn't we say he got it wrong when he did? Now the poor apologist for the church have to fend for Joseph and put their very own lives in such a state to where people can't believe they have good judgement since doing that. That's got to be difficult for these good people. Link to comment
OGHoosier Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 4 minutes ago, Tacenda said: Priesthood language. Or is it the teachings to get back to heaven? Is that considered a PH language? Don't know, I just saw a meme with it. And making fun of JS for saying it was that vs what it really is that of a guy doing the no-no. Or the "M" word. I lack much in this area of expertise. I just don't get how it's okay to believe that Joseph was in the right to take the papyri and turn it into something else entirely. Isn't it okay for members to say that is wrong? Like it's okay for members to say that leaders get things wrong sometimes and that they are human? Why are we okaying that JS lied about knowing the translation of the papyri? Shouldn't we say he got it wrong when he did? Now the poor apologist for the church have to fend for Joseph and put their very own lives in such a state to where people can't believe they have good judgement since doing that. That's got to be difficult for these good people. Well, what was the point of the papyri in the first place? What is the point of any symbol? Does any symbol represent reality in anything stronger than an arbitrary sense? Who gets to define the meaning of a symbol? These are questions that bear on how we interpret the case of the Joseph Smith papyri. What was the point of the papyri? Symbolic instructions regarding return to the presence of Deity within the Egyptian religious system. Is the only acceptable "translation" a direct rendering of what the Egyptians thought? Why do they deserve to have a monopoly on meaning? The ancients did not think of symbols in such a narrow, copyrighted sense. Why should we consent to such a rhetorical straitjacket? The whole formulation of "Joseph got it wrong" is dependent on first accepting the idea that the only acceptable interpretation of these symbols is the "original" one, which, might I add, we can't be sure is the true original. Symbols got recycled and repurposed throughout the ancient world. Fixing on one meaning as "the one true meaning" is not wise. Also, the whole "JS lied" formulation is a conclusion jumped-to in and of itself. Egyptology was in its infancy - how was Joseph to know any better? He may legitimately have believed that those things represented Abraham. Is that a lie, then? Is there any charity present in this worldview at all? Furthermore, this all assumes the conclusion that the papyri truly had nothing to do, or could never be interpreted in a way relating to Abraham. I think that conclusion is premature and dependent on dogmatic thinking. D. Charles Pyle, in my opinion, demonstrates that the picture can be more complicated than a Missed in Sunday School meme can convey. 3 Link to comment
gav Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 7 minutes ago, Tacenda said: I just don't get how it's okay to believe that Joseph was in the right to take the papyri and turn it into something else entirely. Isn't it okay for members to say that is wrong? Like it's okay for members to say that leaders get things wrong sometimes and that they are human? Why are we okaying that JS lied about knowing the translation of the papyri? Shouldn't we say he got it wrong when he did? Please allow me illustrate. OK? 👌 You have and I have just used what wikipedia(I know...) describes thus: Quote OK (spelling variations include okay, O.K., and ok) is an English word (originally American English) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. It has been described as the most frequently spoken or written word on the planet.[1] The origins of the word are disputed. The OK sign 👌or symbol is well recognised and benign but now the woke have decided that since the three percenters far right militia uses a similar gesture it must be cancelled. To the point that the regular OK sign 👌has been removed from the Call of Duty game etc. for fear of woke backlash. In France the same gesture has a sexual connotation (something to do with homosexuality I believe) as it does in some other places. So here we have one relatively recent symbol that potentially means 3 different things at the same time. The word OK only emerged in the last few centuries. I'm not sure about the gesture but it is in the form of an O and a K so probably emerged after the spoken expression. When you have common symbols that span many centuries and even millennia their meaning naturally drifts, much like words, meaning and language drift over time. Just because we know some of the meanings that have been applied to some symbols over certain periods of time does not mean we know all meaning that have been ascribed at all times. Anybody that excludes other interpretations/translations on the basis that the meaning of the symbol is perfectly known and excludes any other meaning is overstating their case when it comes to symbols that were in use for such long periods in Egypt. 4 Link to comment
Tacenda Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 (edited) 29 minutes ago, OGHoosier said: Well, what was the point of the papyri in the first place? What is the point of any symbol? Does any symbol represent reality in anything stronger than an arbitrary sense? Who gets to define the meaning of a symbol? These are questions that bear on how we interpret the case of the Joseph Smith papyri. What was the point of the papyri? Symbolic instructions regarding return to the presence of Deity within the Egyptian religious system. Is the only acceptable "translation" a direct rendering of what the Egyptians thought? Why do they deserve to have a monopoly on meaning? The ancients did not think of symbols in such a narrow, copyrighted sense. Why should we consent to such a rhetorical straitjacket? The whole formulation of "Joseph got it wrong" is dependent on first accepting the idea that the only acceptable interpretation of these symbols is the "original" one, which, might I add, we can't be sure is the true original. Symbols got recycled and repurposed throughout the ancient world. Fixing on one meaning as "the one true meaning" is not wise. Also, the whole "JS lied" formulation is a conclusion jumped-to in and of itself. Egyptology was in its infancy - how was Joseph to know any better? He may legitimately have believed that those things represented Abraham. Is that a lie, then? Is there any charity present in this worldview at all? Furthermore, this all assumes the conclusion that the papyri truly had nothing to do, or could never be interpreted in a way relating to Abraham. I think that conclusion is premature and dependent on dogmatic thinking. D. Charles Pyle, in my opinion, demonstrates that the picture can be more complicated than a Missed in Sunday School meme can convey. 12 minutes ago, gav said: Please allow me illustrate. OK? 👌 You have and I have just used what wikipedia(I know...) describes thus: The OK sign 👌or symbol is well recognised and benign but now the woke have decided that since the three percenters far right militia uses a similar gesture it must be cancelled. To the point that the regular OK sign 👌has been removed from the Call of Duty game etc. for fear of woke backlash. In France the same gesture has a sexual connotation (something to do with homosexuality I believe) as it does in some other places. So here we have one relatively recent symbol that potentially means 3 different things at the same time. The word OK only emerged in the last few centuries. I'm not sure about the gesture but it is in the form of an O and a K so probably emerged after the spoken expression. When you have common symbols that span many centuries and even millennia their meaning naturally drifts, much like words, meaning and language drift over time. Just because we know some of the meanings that have been applied to some symbols over certain periods of time does not mean we know all meaning that have been ascribed at all times. Anybody that excludes other interpretations/translations on the basis that the meaning of the symbol is perfectly known and excludes any other meaning is overstating their case when it comes to symbols that were in use for such long periods in Egypt. Well, if this is acceptable, could JS creating the BoM be also? Because both are incredible feats! Edited August 9, 2020 by Tacenda Link to comment
gav Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Tacenda said: Well, if this is acceptable, could JS creating the BoM be also? Because both are incredible feats! Although pontificating, speculating and reasoning about their origins can be scholarly, fun and at times enlightening it is the doctrinal content of these two books that I spend far more of my time on. I consider the doctrine, knowledge to be obtained and tutoring via the spirit while studying and searching the scriptures, of infinitely more value. Edited August 9, 2020 by gav 2 Link to comment
OGHoosier Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 33 minutes ago, Tacenda said: Well, if this is acceptable, could JS creating the BoM be also? Because both are incredible feats! To some, it is acceptable. My hangup with the historicity is that Joseph said he talked with these people as angels. I believe that Joseph wasn't lying; perhaps God sent angels named Moroni and etc. to give him instructions and they were responsible for helping with the creation? It's a possibility, I suppose, though I do not personally adhere to it. That being said, I can't speak for what God is capable of doing/not doing, so I don't usually place limits on Him in my personal evaluations. I suppose that's a built-in bug/feature in me: I don't assume that I know what God would consider to be right, or what He would or would not do or permit to be done, so the problem of evil has never hit me as hard as others. Statements like "God wouldn't do X" to me seem not just correct/incorrect but in fact meaningless, since I feel that I have 0 authority to constrain God to my generation-specific conceptions of right and wrong. The long and the short of what gav (if I have him correctly) and I are trying to say is that the meaning of a symbol is largely in the eye of the beholder, and the meaning derived will be different from person to person. It's like Jesus' parable of the sower: not only will the same seeds yield differently based on the ground they land on, but even seed on the same ground can yield differently: "But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold." It's significant that Jesus taught this parable as a key to understanding parables: "Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?" Given that all symbols are parables, the same holds true for symbolic imagery: meaning is in the eye of the beholder. So, the whole "Joseph got it wrong" kind of runs aground on this. He said it meant something different than the typical Egyptological explanation: that is a fact, but that is the extent of the facts. That's as far as the facts go. Any further depends on our ground, to continue with the sower parable. Egyptologists like John Wilson have acknowledged that their explanations aren't exhaustive: the whole thing is symbols and thus could mean any number of things depending on who's looking. This leads to two potential resolutions: one option is that Joseph just repurposed the facsimiles to illustrate his revelation. Ancient Christian and Jewish communities did just that, we have it on record, so there's a precedent. The other option is that ancient communities really did interpret those things in the way Joseph said that they did, and he was conveying their interpretation, as opposed to the conventional Egyptological one which is mistakenly portrayed as the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND EGYPTOLOGIC interpretation. 2 Link to comment
Tacenda Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 1 hour ago, OGHoosier said: To some, it is acceptable. My hangup with the historicity is that Joseph said he talked with these people as angels. I believe that Joseph wasn't lying; perhaps God sent angels named Moroni and etc. to give him instructions and they were responsible for helping with the creation? It's a possibility, I suppose, though I do not personally adhere to it. That being said, I can't speak for what God is capable of doing/not doing, so I don't usually place limits on Him in my personal evaluations. I suppose that's a built-in bug/feature in me: I don't assume that I know what God would consider to be right, or what He would or would not do or permit to be done, so the problem of evil has never hit me as hard as others. Statements like "God wouldn't do X" to me seem not just correct/incorrect but in fact meaningless, since I feel that I have 0 authority to constrain God to my generation-specific conceptions of right and wrong. The long and the short of what gav (if I have him correctly) and I are trying to say is that the meaning of a symbol is largely in the eye of the beholder, and the meaning derived will be different from person to person. It's like Jesus' parable of the sower: not only will the same seeds yield differently based on the ground they land on, but even seed on the same ground can yield differently: "But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold." It's significant that Jesus taught this parable as a key to understanding parables: "Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?" Given that all symbols are parables, the same holds true for symbolic imagery: meaning is in the eye of the beholder. So, the whole "Joseph got it wrong" kind of runs aground on this. He said it meant something different than the typical Egyptological explanation: that is a fact, but that is the extent of the facts. That's as far as the facts go. Any further depends on our ground, to continue with the sower parable. Egyptologists like John Wilson have acknowledged that their explanations aren't exhaustive: the whole thing is symbols and thus could mean any number of things depending on who's looking. This leads to two potential resolutions: one option is that Joseph just repurposed the facsimiles to illustrate his revelation. Ancient Christian and Jewish communities did just that, we have it on record, so there's a precedent. The other option is that ancient communities really did interpret those things in the way Joseph said that they did, and he was conveying their interpretation, as opposed to the conventional Egyptological one which is mistakenly portrayed as the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND EGYPTOLOGIC interpretation. 1 hour ago, gav said: Although pontificating, speculating and reasoning about their origins can be scholarly, fun and at times enlightening it is the doctrinal content of these two books that I spend far more of my time on. I consider the doctrine, knowledge to be obtained and tutoring via the spirit while studying and searching the scriptures, of infinitely more value. Well then, why do we even have apologists that have to go to all the work of making it historic, and years before the essays of saying that the BoA is historical? And not just book of breathing for the dead? I did listen to the 1st and 2nd podcasts, didn't catch all of the contents because I listen at night most likely sleep through most of it and there is a part where I can see how Joseph could use papyri to put out a story like he has that can probably help people believe in an after life and a map for their lives. So there's that. But maybe we aren't giving the apologists enough credit for holding the boat afloat for the leadership of the church, that don't have to worry about any of that. Link to comment
OGHoosier Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 12 minutes ago, Tacenda said: Well then, why do we even have apologists that have to go to all the work of making it historic, and years before the essays of saying that the BoA is historical? And not just book of breathing for the dead? I did listen to the 1st and 2nd podcasts, didn't catch all of the contents because I listen at night most likely sleep through most of it and there is a part where I can see how Joseph could use papyri to put out a story like he has that can probably help people believe in an after life and a map for their lives. So there's that. But maybe we aren't giving the apologists enough credit for holding the boat afloat for the leadership of the church, that don't have to worry about any of that. I don't think I understand the question. Nobody has said that the Book of the Dead is the Book of Abraham. All Egyptologists, in the Church and out of it, are in agreement on that. The argument as I understand it is: did the Book of Abraham text come from another part of the papyri? Or did Joseph just receive it by revelation, independent of the papyri connection? How do the facsimiles fit in? Were they simply repurposed for Joseph's translation or were they connected with the Book of Abraham urtext? Nobody that I know of is denying that Facsimile 1, say, is surrounded by the text of the Book of the Dead, and that text does not say anything about Abraham. So, I do not understand the question. 2 Link to comment
gav Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 1 hour ago, OGHoosier said: The long and the short of what gav (if I have him correctly) and I are trying to say is that the meaning of a symbol is largely in the eye of the beholder, and the meaning derived will be different from person to person. I would pluralise. "the meaning of a symbol is largely in the eye of the beholders and the meaning derived may be different from groups of persons to groups of persons" A consensus develops around what a symbol means, that way it can convey the same meaning to everyone in the consensus group. Over time the consensus may change and evolve and the same symbol can have a slightly different meaning. During the transitions there may be multiple different groups that ascribe different meanings to the same symbol and over time they might diverge completely and permanently. We can see this process happening before our very eyes in the ways of the woke movement. They started off as political correctness in the last century. Words and actions which had been serviceable and culturally acceptable up till then were re-defined as offensive and discriminatory. Now cancelling is the order of the day for anybody that refuses to comply with the "new consensus" that is being forced down in a new cultural revolution. Not only words and behaviours are being redefined but also icons etc. in the form of statues and monuments. After a few such revolutions symbols may fall into disuse or be repurposed altogether. Since Egyptian symbols were carved in stone on magnificent edifices with sacred significance or costly papyri it would be easier to repurpose than to expunge. Hence similar symbols - potentially different meanings over vast periods of time as societal consensus drifts. Often one of the first things a conquerer does is goes after the symbols, beliefs, other group identity features and cohesion of the conquered to institute their new ways or co-opt the old. This also muddies the waters of the past and what things might have meant way back when. 1 Link to comment
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