John Gee Interview

[Rivers]

 

Sorry for another Book of Abraham thread.  But I thought this was an interesting interview recently posted by FAIR. I thought I’d share it on here.  

Edited December 19, 2021 by Rivers

[Robert F. Smith]

Scott Gordon is a very nice guy, but he fails to understand that, once the introduction is made, it is time to quickly move on to substantive issues.  An open-ended interview can be very refreshing and informative, and Gee is capable of handling the hard questions.

That said, it is a good interview.

[Rivers]

Watching this interview brought a question to mind. Have the papyrus fragments we have now always been fragments?  Or were they actually part of a roll when they were discovered?  Joseph Smith said the BOA was on a scroll.  Not fragments.

[strappinglad]

IIRC , much of what we have were once part of a scroll that was in rough shape and was cut up and mounted on paper and behind glass for a while. The BoA isn't on the fragments we have. The Introduction to the Book of Abraham by Gee said something I was not aware of, that Joseph did not  " translate " the entire scroll , that there was more he could have and that the BoA would have been bigger. The things you learn late in life. !!

The round illustrations are an entirely different debate. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by strappinglad

[Tweed1944]

I found this interesting comment  by Lucy Mack Smith of interest as to the translation method specially the parts that were missing.

Lucy Mack Smith

When Joseph was reading the papyrus he closed his eyes and held a hat over his face, and a revelation came to him and  that where the papyrus was torn, he could read the parts that were  destroyed equally as well as those that were there

Friends Weekly Intelligencer  3 Oct 1846 211

Were these what Baer said were created and nothing to do with Egyptian language.  Would the "missing" BOA papyri have had gaps?  

[CA Steve]

15 hours ago, Rivers said:

Watching this interview brought a question to mind. Have the papyrus fragments we have now always been fragments?  Or were they actually part of a roll when they were discovered?  Joseph Smith said the BOA was on a scroll.  Not fragments.

The original collection purchased in July of 1835 in Kirtland from Chandler consisted of 4 mummies (1 male and three female), 2  intact rolls in the arms of two of the mummies (the Hor scroll dated to 150 B.C.E. and the Min Scroll dated to after 500 B.C.E.), the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq (Fac#2) and some fragments of a third scroll (Papyrus of Amenhotep) and fourth scroll (the Neferirtnub scroll dated to after 500 B.C.E). All contemporary evidence points to the Hor scroll as the roll from which Joseph Smith derived the BoA. The other complete roll (the Min scroll) was the one on which they thought the Book of Joseph was written. The extant pieces of both scrolls contain nothing regarding either Abraham or Joseph so if there actually was text regarding those two Biblical figures on those scrolls we are completely missing all the pieces that would have had references to both of them.

The papyri was not in good shape when it was unrolled, especially the Hor scroll, so they cut it up into squares and glued it to backing paper, paper which had been used previously in drawing up plans for the Kirtland temple.  They also attempted to repair some of the damage by gluing "detached fragments over the holes in the text. Done haphazardly and with no competence in reading the ancient script, or recognizing the handwriting of distinct manuscripts, lacunae spacings of even the direction of writing, this amateurish cosmetic makeover has mingled sections of [the papyri], garbled much of the latter papyrus and even produced an artificial sheet composed only of randomly pasted patches and hand copies."

Edited December 20, 2021 by CA Steve

[Rivers]

6 hours ago, CA Steve said:

The original collection purchased in July of 1835 in Kirtland from Chandler consisted of 4 mummies (1 male and three female), 2  intact rolls in the arms of two of the mummies (the Hor scroll dated to 150 B.C.E. and the Min Scroll dated to after 500 B.C.E.), the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq (Fac#2) and some fragments of a third scroll (Papyrus of Amenhotep) and fourth scroll (the Neferirtnub scroll dated to after 500 B.C.E). All contemporary evidence points to the Hor scroll as the roll from which Joseph Smith derived the BoA. The other complete roll (the Min scroll) was the one on which they thought the Book of Joseph was written. The extant pieces of both scrolls contain nothing regarding either Abraham or Joseph so if there actually was text regarding those two Biblical figures on those scrolls we are completely missing all the pieces that would have had references to both of them.

The papyri was not in good shape when it was unrolled, especially the Hor scroll, so they cut it up into squares and glued it to backing paper, paper which had been used previously in drawing up plans for the Kirtland temple.  They also attempted to repair some of the damage by gluing "detached fragments over the holes in the text. Done haphazardly and with no competence in reading the ancient script, or recognizing the handwriting of distinct manuscripts, lacunae spacings of even the direction of writing, this amateurish cosmetic makeover has mingled sections of [the papyri], garbled much of the latter papyrus and even produced an artificial sheet composed only of randomly pasted patches and hand copies."

So which one is the long roll that Dr Gee thinks is the real source of the BOA?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, Rivers said:

So which one is the long roll that Dr Gee thinks is the real source of the BOA?

For anyone from the outside looking in, it’s obvious. The BOA came from the Hor scroll. It has the diagram from the beginning of the scroll. It matches with reports of Joseph’s testimony (Abraham had sloppy handwriting compared to Joseph for one - the other scroll was attributed to Joseph). It matches with the Kirkland Egyptian papers. It’s a pretty easy open and shut case unless you have an obvious and strong motivation to see it otherwise. 
 

Edit:

For a great presentation that lays it out in a straight forward manner see here:

 

The idea of a long missing scroll comes from conflating witness statements from separate time lines. The earliest witnesses are clear on what was there. Once the rolls were cut up and mounted it’s easy to juxtapose different statements to confuse the casual observer. 

Edited December 20, 2021 by SeekingUnderstanding

[CA Steve]

21 hours ago, Rivers said:

So which one is the long roll that Dr Gee thinks is the real source of the BOA?

In his latest book on the subject, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, Dr. Gee argues that the BoA comes from a long roll that we no longer have. Whether or not that roll was originally part of the Hor scroll or a hypothetical third scroll is not possible to determine since we do not have the scroll to examine. (See pg 86)

One problem I have with this theory (among many) is that even if those missing portions or missing scroll were to somehow turn up, it would more than likely just be more ordinary funerary documents. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by CA Steve

[Tweed1944]

 deleted

Edited December 24, 2021 by Tweed1944