Biblical Archaeology and Book of Mormon Archaeology

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, NRnowlinMA said:

Okay, Pyreaux, here is a rendition and compilation of Luther's collected works:

Selected Works of Martin Luther (projectwittenberg.org)

In his work, "Disputation on the Divinity and Humanity of Christ" he speaks of the opposition of works to the grace of Christ.  In his "Treatise on Good Works," Luther emphasizes grace.  

It will take you quite a while to get through the sum of Luther's criticisms of ritualism and the original heresies. I had not realized that the Wittenberg project had been placed online.  Still, not all of the collected works of Luther in the Library of Congress are available on the Internet.  

Sweet. I'm bookmarking it. I could really use a lead on what Luther says on Theosis as an original heresy.

Edited December 30, 2023 by Pyreaux

[NRnowlinMA]

The inferences of opinion were rife in the "Interpreter," while firmly stating what was formally stated by LDS general authorities over the last 170 years.  B.H. Roberts believed that the Hill Ramah and the Hill Cumorah in New York were the same.  If I were a Mormon opposing Roberts' view, I wouldn't have wanted to debate the man about it.  While the statements and comments of Smith, Jr. recorded in the journals of prominent Mormons reflected such arrogant statements, such as the discovery of a vast Mayan city in Mesoamerica in 1843 was the lost city of Zarahemla.  Smith, Jr. was a braggard and very pompous, which is clearly proven by his immediate response to the bogus Kinderhook plates.  As Smith, Jr. told seven versions, over time, of his infamous first vision, he didn't even bother mentioning the "restoration of his Melchizedek Priesthood" or even the lessor Mormon priesthood until after 1833, because those priesthoods weren't mentioned at all in the 1833 Book of Commandments.  Smith, Jr. couldn't even recall the date of that alleged priesthood restoration. He didn't even use the current form of the first vision until 1843.  

[NRnowlinMA]

I suppose, in your case, Pyreaux, seeing is believing. 

[Pyreaux]

49 minutes ago, NRnowlinMA said:

The inferences of opinion were rife in the "Interpreter," while firmly stating what was formally stated by LDS general authorities over the last 170 years.  B.H. Roberts believed that the Hill Ramah and the Hill Cumorah in New York were the same.  If I were a Mormon opposing Roberts' view, I wouldn't have wanted to debate the man about it.  While the statements and comments of Smith, Jr. recorded in the journals of prominent Mormons reflected such arrogant statements, such as the discovery of a vast Mayan city in Mesoamerica in 1843 was the lost city of Zarahemla.  Smith, Jr. was a braggard and very pompous, which is clearly proven by his immediate response to the bogus Kinderhook plates.  As Smith, Jr. told seven versions, over time, of his infamous first vision, he didn't even bother mentioning the "restoration of his Melchizedek Priesthood" or even the lessor Mormon priesthood until after 1833, because those priesthoods weren't mentioned at all in the 1833 Book of Commandments.  Smith, Jr. couldn't even recall the date of that alleged priesthood restoration. He didn't even use the current form of the first vision until 1843.  

Dude, I just asked you for one quote, anyone that testified in the name of God, not merely assuming, that the BoM Cumorah is in New York. You have one or not? Who are you even talking to? I'm seriously starting think you have a condition, its like you are just answering unsolicited questions you hallucinated that someone asked. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Pyreaux

[webbles]

@NRnowlinMA, the idea that Moroni started in Central America is from at least the late 1800s.  There are two maps, drawn by contemporaries of Joseph Smith, that have Moroni starting his travels from Central America or central Mexico and then traveling to Palmyra.  You can see the maps at https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-fourth-nephi-through-moroni-zion-destruction/moroni-last-nephite-prophets in the "Two Interesting Maps" section.

So, the idea that the Hill Cumorah in New York is not the same as the Hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not a new idea.

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by webbles

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, NRnowlinMA said:

I suppose, in your case, Pyreaux, seeing is believing. 

You are quoting from something, you don't know which one? Help me understand you. How is this not theosis taught by Martin Luther here?

In a 1526 sermon Luther said: “God pours out Christ His dear Son over us and pours Himself into us and draws us into Himself, so that He becomes completely humanified (vermzenschet) and we become completely deified (gantz und gar vergottet, “Godded-through”) and everything is altogether one thing, God, Christ, and you.”‘ (Martin Luther, D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, 58 volumes (Weimar, 1883- ), 20:229,30 and following, cited in Werner Elert, The Structure of Lutheranism, volume 1 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1962),175-176)

So, Luther taught God becomes man, so man can become God?

Edited December 30, 2023 by Pyreaux

[NRnowlinMA]

You are prejudicially drawing a conclusion from one statement by Luther.  Only Mormons would do that.   Deification to Luther was a process wrought by the resurrection, in accordance with 1 Cor. 15.  Here is a smarter man's, Dr. Paul Lehninger, rendering of the matter:

Although the Greek word theosis never appears in the writings of Martin Luther. Luther scholars have long been aware of the concept of deification in Luther's theology. Various forms of deificatio and Vergottlichung occur frequently in Luther's work; in fact, these terms occur more frequently than the term theologia crucis, a concept so widely acknowledged to be an integral part of Martin Luther's theology that Walther von Loewenich's Luther's Theology of the Cross is considered a Lutheran classic. Nevertheless, the theme of deification has been largely ignored, reinterpreted or flatly denied. Interpreters of Luther recognize that he spoke of Christ and the soul becoming one body, Christ dwelling in us, Christ being one with us, and our being Christ to our neighbor, but they rarely understand this in the context of a participation of the human person in the divine nature."

"Luther and Theosis: Deification in the Theology of Martin Luther" by Paul Lehninger (marquette.edu) 

What I derived from Luther was his pure adoration for the Lord Jesus, nor wanting to be "like him in form or as great as him" but "near him" to worship the Lord.  In one of his sermons, listed in the chrestomathy, Luther states that "there is but one God that man may never become."  On one occasion, Luther was quoted by a Christian writer as saying that, Greek philosophy has entered wrongly into the minds of the men who varied from the teachings of the Apostles." I believe that Lehninger does a great job in showing that Luther did not believe in man becoming a god, with a capital G.   

[Calm]

2 hours ago, webbles said:

So, the idea that the Hill Cumorah in New York is the same as the Hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not a new idea.

Missing a “not” I suspect, though also correct as written.

[NRnowlinMA]

I can guarantee you that those numerous statements by Mormon GAs were either stated or written in the name of the Mormon god, and E.T. Benson believed that the Mormon scripture in D&C 68:3 applied as aptly after 1955 as it did in 1831.  He said so in several speeches and sermons he gave while he was President of the 12 Apostles.  So, I have given you numerous citations from Mormon GAs stating that the Hill Rama and the Hill Cumorah were both in New York.  Who are you going to believe, Dr. John Sorenson or B.H. Roberts and Bruce McConkie?  Apostle Orson Pratt said that Mormon apostles and prophets have the right to receive inspiration from the Holy Ghost about all matters, including BOM geography.  

[webbles]

8 minutes ago, NRnowlinMA said:

I can guarantee you that those numerous statements by Mormon GAs were either stated or written in the name of the Mormon god,

Can you please prove it?  I don't accept your guarantee.

8 minutes ago, NRnowlinMA said:

Who are you going to believe, Dr. John Sorenson or B.H. Roberts and Bruce McConkie?

I'm going to believe the Book of Mormon.

[Pyreaux]

17 minutes ago, NRnowlinMA said:

I can guarantee you that those numerous statements by Mormon GAs were either stated or written in the name of the Mormon god, and E.T. Benson believed that the Mormon scripture in D&C 68:3 applied as aptly after 1955 as it did in 1831.  He said so in several speeches and sermons he gave while he was President of the 12 Apostles.  So, I have given you numerous citations from Mormon GAs stating that the Hill Rama and the Hill Cumorah were both in New York.  Who are you going to believe, Dr. John Sorenson or B.H. Roberts and Bruce McConkie?  Apostle Orson Pratt said that Mormon apostles and prophets have the right to receive inspiration from the Holy Ghost about all matters, including BOM geography.  

Sorry, no you failed to produce any quotes stating, in the name of God, that Hill Cumorah was in New York. Your CFR is ongoing.

[InCognitus]

15 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Sorry, no you failed to produce any quotes stating, in the name of God, that Hill Cumorah was in New York. Your CFR is ongoing.

Not answering the CFR and doing this...

3 hours ago, NRnowlinMA said:

That Moroni allegedly buries the plates, is the basis for him returning to show Joe Smith, Jr. where is to find the buried plates.

Even after being made aware of the board guidelines....

6 hours ago, Amulek said:

Please read the board guidelines. You are engaging in uncivil behavior here:

• Do not belittle religious leaders or use demeaning nicknames (ex. Calling Joseph Smith "Joe")

... is going to get him banned from the board, unfortunately.  I don't think he cares.

[Stormin' Mormon]

45 minutes ago, NRnowlinMA said:

I can guarantee you that those numerous statements by Mormon GAs were either stated or written in the name of the Mormon god,

One of those statement was from Joseph Fielding Smith, who is reported to have explicitly stated that his views on the matter were simply his opinion.  In the 1960s, when Sydney B. Sperry was preparing to publish his theory of a Mesoamerican setting for the Book of Mormon, he went to Elder Smith seeking guidance on the issue.  Sperry knew how the apostle felt about the issue, and did not want to set a foot wrong with him or the Church.  Elder Smith is reported to have put his arm around Sperry's shoulder and said, "Sidney, you are as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. You go ahead and publish it."

I wouldn't be so quick to make this guarantee.  Perhaps you should curate your own set of quotes to ensure that you don't make hasty guarantees like this.  

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, InCognitus said:

Not answering the CFR and doing this...

Even after being made aware of the board guidelines....

... is going to get him banned from the board, unfortunately.  I don't think he cares.

Hasty to say. Failure to produce a CFR can still be resolved by a simple retraction. The problem is we aren't likely to get one as he's not comprehending that he's failed to do anything, yet. He thinks repeating from his script as his reference is sufficient. It's not. Maybe he'll just get a warning. 

[Calm]

Oops…

Edited December 30, 2023 by Calm

[Pyreaux]

On 12/29/2023 at 9:46 PM, NRnowlinMA said:

You are prejudicially drawing a conclusion from one statement by Luther.  Only Mormons would do that.   Deification to Luther was a process wrought by the resurrection, in accordance with 1 Cor. 15.  Here is a smarter man's, Dr. Paul Lehninger, rendering of the matter:

Although the Greek word theosis never appears in the writings of Martin Luther. Luther scholars have long been aware of the concept of deification in Luther's theology. Various forms of deificatio and Vergottlichung occur frequently in Luther's work; in fact, these terms occur more frequently than the term theologia crucis, a concept so widely acknowledged to be an integral part of Martin Luther's theology that Walther von Loewenich's Luther's Theology of the Cross is considered a Lutheran classic. Nevertheless, the theme of deification has been largely ignored, reinterpreted or flatly denied. Interpreters of Luther recognize that he spoke of Christ and the soul becoming one body, Christ dwelling in us, Christ being one with us, and our being Christ to our neighbor, but they rarely understand this in the context of a participation of the human person in the divine nature."

"Luther and Theosis: Deification in the Theology of Martin Luther" by Paul Lehninger (marquette.edu) 

What I derived from Luther was his pure adoration for the Lord Jesus, nor wanting to be "like him in form or as great as him" but "near him" to worship the Lord.  In one of his sermons, listed in the chrestomathy, Luther states that "there is but one God that man may never become."  On one occasion, Luther was quoted by a Christian writer as saying that, Greek philosophy has entered wrongly into the minds of the men who varied from the teachings of the Apostles." I believe that Lehninger does a great job in showing that Luther did not believe in man becoming a god, with a capital G.   

Really? The approach of Irenaeus and Athanasius comports with a Biblically oriented theology, while Luther's seems more paradoxical. Only Protestants would prefer that. For Luther, there is no separation of God’s person from his gifts. When he grants us the righteousness of Christ, he grants us Christ himself. When Luther speaks of our union with the divine, when Christ indwells us, there are traces of deification found in Luther passages that seem to support the Finnish Lutheran claim that deification as the exchange of our natures is at the center of Luther's theology.

In the Christmas sermon of 1514:

• "Just as the Word became flesh so is it necessary that the flesh become the Word. For the Word becomes flesh precisely so that the flesh can become Word. In other words, God became man so that man may become God. Thus power becomes powerless so that weakness may become powerful. The Logos put on our form and manner, image and likeness, so that he might clothe us with his image, form and likeness. Therefore, wisdom became foolish, so that foolishness might become wisdom. And so with regard to all other things that are in God and us, in everything he assumes ours, so that he might confer onto us his …"

From a 1525 sermon:

• "And so we are filled with “all the fullness of God.” This phrase, which follows a Hebrew way of speaking, means that we are filled in all the ways in which God fills; we are filled with God, and he pours into us all his gifts and grace and fills us with his Spirit, who make us courageous. He enlightens us with his light, his life lives in us, his beatitude makes us blessed, and his love causes love to arise in us. Put briefly, he fills us in order that everything that he is and everything he can do might be in us in all its fullness, and work powerfully, so that we might be divinized throughout"

The Early Christian Fathers theosis theologies were based on ancient Israelite scriptures, not neo-Greek philosophy, such as Psalm 82 of which humans "are gods" (with a small g).

Justin Martyr, 

• "Let the interpretation of the Psalm be held just as you wish, yet thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming “gods,” and of having power to become sons of the highest.... (Dialogue with Trypho)

Irenaeus of Lyon:

• "For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him insidiousness or grudgingness. He declares, “I have said, Ye are gods; and ye are sons of the Highest.” (Against Heresies, Bk. IV, ch. 38, sec. 4)

Clement of Alexandria:

• "Accordingly this grace is indicated by the prophet, when he says, “I said that ye are gods, and all sons of the Highest.” For us, yea us, He has adopted and wishes to be called the Father of us alone, not of the unbelieving." (Protreptikos 12)
• "Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal. “I,” says He, “have said that ye are gods, and all sons of the Highest.” (Paedagogus, Bk. I, ch. 6)

Clement of Alexandria uses Psalm 82 to show that our Biblical "sonship", in Christ, is synonymous with our becoming god.

Likewise, Apostle John said:

• “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)

Edited December 31, 2023 by Pyreaux

[russianwolfe]

On 12/26/2023 at 11:12 PM, Calm said:

Had Michael Coe ever read more than a few verses of the Book of Mormon?

He claims that he read the Book of Mormon once, 40 years ago. Cyrus Gordon, who never read the Book of Mormon, claimed that he would have to study the book for three years before having an opinion.

[russianwolfe]

On 12/28/2023 at 4:38 PM, Pyreaux said:

That it's the dumbest issue ever raised. "Adieu" isn't just French, its English, found in Webster's 1828 American English dictionary which demonstrates that adieu was a well-established English word prior to the Book of Mormon's translation.

The CES letter is just plagiarized arguments from the nineteenth century, arguments which have been thoroughly and carefully treated by responsible LDS writers and scholars. He just repeats them and makes it sound as if no one has ever dared to respond to these arguments. In fact they have.

I always find it funny that there is an objection to a single word like "Adieu" but not to the 250,000 English words. Is this a case of willful blindness?

[Kevin Christensen]

On 12/28/2023 at 11:21 AM, NRnowlinMA said:

I see that Kevin is quite an articulate Mormon apologist in the same egregious league of Lindsey, Griffith, Petersen. and Muhlstein and is making an effort to calm "Calm's'" nervousness about possibly being in grave error. At least, Calm does not appear to be arrogant.  He asks questions.  The BOA and the Joseph Smith Papyri have given clear understanding about the extent to which Smith, Jr. went to deceive the Kirtland Mormon community about his abilities to translate foreign languages to English.  In 1979, I had a lengthy phone conversation with Dr. Klaus Baer, before the scholar's death.  I was in Tyler, Texas and he was speaking to me from his office at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.  I ran-up quite a phone bill that day. He told me about his translation of the 13 fragments of the Joseph Smith Papyri, from color photos made by "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought," and his rendering of the Breathing Permit of Hor as ordinary Egyptian funerary texts, and the vain and arrogant attempt of Smith, Jr. to fabricate his own Egyptian grammar and alphabet.  Dr. Baer told me about his imaginative and pragmatic student, Hugh Nibley, and about Dee Jay Nelson and his arrogance.  Dr. Baer made it very clear that nowhere in the JSP was there any mention of Abraham.  Baer's translation of the JSP was confirmed by three other professional Egyptologists, such as Dr. John Wilson from Brown University.  Dr. Baer had chuckled over the phone about Nibley's futile arrogance, and had said, "Even when Hugh was my student at UC Berkeley, his imagination was always greater than his scholarship.  Hugh was desperate to explain away why Abraham at all was not mentioned in the papyri, and why the dating of the papyri was around 100 BCE."  Baer said that the addition of the facsimiles in Smith, Jr.'s BOA was the greatest evidence that Smith, Jr. had used the JSP to produce the BOA, which pseudo-Egyptologist Kerry Muhlstein vainly attempted to proclaim from BYU.  Since Klaus Baer's death Dr. Robert Ritner has made his own translation of the JSP to confirm his venerable mentor's previous translation and went gone on the Internet to dispel the awful illusions that Muhlstein has made about the JSP.  Since Ritner's death others at the Oriental Institute have up the torch of enlightenment.  

For the foregoing salient reasons, I submit that Smith, Jr. was a liar and deceived the Mormon people into believing that he had the ability to translate foreign languages.  The Kinderhook Plates attest to the egregious hubris and arrogance of Smith, Jr. No one had the ability to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics until the Rosetta Stone was introduced in Egyptology by Champollion.  The latently admitted fact that Smith, Jr. used the folk magic "seer stone" to dictate the BOM from out of a black hat into which he inserted his head to dictate to routinely "dictate" what became his 1830 edition of the BOM.  Smith, Jr. discovered this white rock while digging a water well for a neighbor, and for buried treasure.  Hence, the alleged gold plates weren't needed to "translate" a non-existent foreign language, reformed Egyptian.  Hence, it is possible that they never did exist, for David Whitmer had stated thrice that he witnessed the "gold plates" with his spiritual eyes, possibly under in influence of some drug taken by the disciples of Smith, Jr. to produce the illusion and to make them see what Smith, Jr. wanted them to see, perhaps Indian grade peyote.  B.H. Roberts stated in his "Book of Mormon Studies" that it was very probable that Smith, Jr had used Ethan Smith's "A View of the Hebrews" as a fundamental predicate and outline for his 1830 BOM written between 1825 and 1830.  So, is there any wonder why the Mormon Church hierarchy refused to publish Roberts' commissioned findings? 

The lies that the fulltime Mormon missionaries told investigators to Mormonism between 1950 and the present day, while showing them color pictures on flannel boards, flipcharts, and videos that Smith, Jr. sat across a veiled table from Oliver Cowdery before the alleged golden plates with his precious "urimm and thumim" around his neck deceived millions of Christians into joining the Mormon Church.  Hence, if the BOAS is bogus fictional drivel, and was produced by the same flimflam man that produced the 1830 BOM, the BOM must, by direct association, be bogus drivel. You see, I was one of those deceived Christians who accepted the statements of two Utah Mormon missionaries during the autumn of 1970.  There will be more to follow that I will submit for Kevin's benefit.    

My response to you had to do with your statement that "The articulate writer and minister, Rev. Ethan Smith, wrote a fictional "A View of the Hebrews," calling it fiction."   Rather than enter into a dialogue, or admitting that you mischaracterized Smith's book, you have applied rhetorical  labeling such as "apologist...egregious..." and then change the subject and offer up a standard set of skeptical memes in a scattershot fashion.

I read all of Hugh Nibley's responses when the Metropolitan Museum presented surviving fragments to the church in November 1967.  (Most of the papyrus that Joseph Smith possessed was destroyed in the Chicago fire, which, is, a significant fact when considering the controversy.) Nibley was certainly interested in defending Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Abraham, but he does not fret in print about trying to find Abraham in the existing papyrus, but rather to explain what they are.  It was Nibley who identified the Hor Book of Breathings for what it was.  His book An Egyptian Endowment is a translation and commentary on a longer version of a book of Breathings.

As to the source of the Book of Abraham, there are several competing theories, notably the catalyst theory and the "direct revelation" theory reported by his contemporary scribes, but not mentioned by you, who prefer to argue for an "open-and-shut" case.  You may not have realized that Tim Barker recently pointed out at FAIR that the annotations to the published facsimiles provide a crucial clue that everyone had overlooked.  While critics of the Book of Abraham eagerly pointed out in a Dialogue article that the hypocephalus was incomplete. For publication with a complete figure, Joseph Smith had Rueben Hedlock take characters from the other papyrus that Joseph Smith had to fill out the missing portions.  What is interesting is that those characters all come from the Hor Book of Breathings, and that Joseph Smith's published annotations for Facsimile all basically declare that Joseph Smith has not translated those characters.  For all the fuss skeptics have made trying to claim that Joseph Smith mistakenly or fraudulently claimed to translate the Book of Abraham from the Hor Book of Breathings, the published book of Abraham facsimile 2 contains first hand contemporary comments from Joseph Smith that he has emphatically not translated characters from that that specific papyrus.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/2020-fairmormon-conference/the-answer-under-our-heads

With respect to the Kinderhook hoax, Don Bradley presented on that, as Calm has already pointed out.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Don-Bradley-Kinderhook-President-Joseph-Has-Translated-a-Portion-1.pdf

Joseph did not claim revelation, but rather spoke as a scholar, using the tools at hand.  And it is evident that in contrast to the Egyptian papyrus, and the plates, Joseph Smith made no attempt to acquire them, but rather took a look, noticed that one character resembled one discussed in the Kirtland papers, and then left them alone.

Regarding the Kirtland Papers, it is also important to account for Will Schryver's observations:

Quote

One of the first things that became apparent in the process of this particular study—before attempting to quantify anything—is that we are quite obviously dealing with a very limited set of unique words, with very specific applications.  As opposed to a more non-contextual selection of wide-focus building block words that one would reasonably expect to encounter in a document intended as a tool to decipher an unknown text, instead we encounter words and phrases focused on a narrow subject matter.  

As a result, what was intuitively evident to me was that this thing was being driven by an already known text, rather than being a means by which to produce an as yet unknown text.  The substantial words are almost all proper nouns that form a lexicon of people, places, and things—almost all of them from the Book of Abraham, and often very uniquely so.

If, as Mormon critics have argued for the past 40 years, the Alphabet and Grammar was produced before the text of the Book of Abraham was received, and was the means by which that text was subsequently “translated” from the papyri, then how likely is it that the would-be translators would include virtually nothing but unique words and phrases from an as yet unwritten book? 

And later:

Quote

The Alphabet and Grammar is dependent on a story that has already been written.  We are able to discern within the Alphabet and Grammar the complex contextual elements of the Book of Abraham only because we already know the story.  And the complex, interrelated aspects of the references we find simply could not have been achieved unless the whole story had already been produced.

In short, there is too little of the story of the Book of Abraham in the Alphabet and Grammar for it to have been used to produce the story, yet too much of the story for it not to be dependent on the rest of the story.
 

And crucially:

Quote

Thus we see, in the explanations given to four successive characters from the Alphabet and Grammar, very particular references to specific passages from those two giants of Joseph Smith’s previously received revelations—sections 76 and 88.  Right in order, this so-called Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language is making reference to the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms, followed immediately by the kingdom which is not a kingdom of glory!

I went on to identify several additional references that are clearly dependent on other passages from the Doctrine and Covenants.

I confess I was rather befuddled by this finding, and it took me several days of contemplation before I began to appreciate its import and implications.

Slide#: 109
(To the extent the Alphabet and Grammar is partially dependent on texts that have no relationship to the Egyptian papyri, then it cannot have been intended as a tool to decipher those papyri.)

First of all, I came to see that my initial hypothesis could not be true.  To the extent this lexicon was built partially on texts that have no relationship to the Egyptian papyri; texts that were written not in Egyptian at all, but in English, then the Alphabet and Grammar simply could not have been intended as a tool to decipher the papyri.  Indeed, the more I considered the evidence in this new light, the more I came to believe that these men were not focused on translating the Egyptian papyri at all!

One of the keys to this conclusion was my discovery that, of the 69 characters to which explanations were assigned, most of them are not even Egyptian and do not appear on the papyri!  

Slide#: 110
(Many, if not most of the A&G characters are not Egyptian; they do not come from the Egyptian papyri.”)

Let me repeat: Most of the characters explained in the Egyptian alphabet documents are not Egyptian, and do not appear on the Egyptian papyri in question.  

Slide#: 111
(“The characters that are Egyptian and which can be found on the papyri appear to have been selected arbitrarily.”)

A few of the characters are Egyptian and can be found on the papyri, but not in any one place, and not in any order, and not with any discernible relationships.  They appear to have been selected arbitrarily.

Of the 69 characters given explanations, some of them are clearly invented; some are composites—in other words they are formed by combining two or more previously used characters …

Slide#: 112
(Several of the Egyptian Alphabet characters can be traced to ciphers employed by the Knights Templar.)

… and, much to my surprise, I discovered that several of the characters can be traced to ciphers used by the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.
 

From Will Schryver's The Meaning and Purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers ~Address Delivered at the 2010 Conference of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research.

One additional crucial point regarding arguments from authority, and claims concerning what has or has not been proven.  Douglas Hofstadter has observed that "proofs are demonstrations within fixed systems of propositions." He then says "Godel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiomatic system is involved."  (Godel, Escher and Bach, 18-19). 

In attempting to  shore up the claim that the New York "hill of considerable size" is the same as the Ramah/Cumorah in the Book of Mormon, you have cited several LDS general authorities such as B. H. Roberts.  But you have not addressed the specific text-based arguments that convinced careful Book of Mormon scholars to look elsewhere.  (Such as Sperry, "Were There Two Cumorahs? and In Search of Cumorah by David Palmer). Regarding the rhetorically useful assumption that LDS authorities would certainly know, you have not seen fit to mention the formal statement of "mine authority and the authority of my servants" spelled out in Doctrine and Covenants section 1:6 and then 1:24-28.  

Quote

these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding.

25 And inasmuch as they erred it might be made known;

26 And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed;

27 And inasmuch as they sinned they might be chastened, that they might repent;

28 And inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time.

B. H. Roberts was a formidable intellect of his time, but I have read the study decades ago, and to me it is like dropping down a hole a century deep and one scholar wide.  A lot has been learned since then.   I've read many things that Roberts did not, and that I rather think he would welcome them, things like Sorenson's Mormon's Codex, and Gardner's "The Book of Mormon as History" rather than pompously declaring, "hitherto thou shalt come, and no further," something Joseph Smith explicitly warned against.   

The advantage of claiming that "Surely a prophet (or general authority) would know!" for believers means that no further inquiry is necessary, that all the thinking has been done.  And for skeptics like yourself, if makes the appearance of imperfection, and only that, decisive.  Neither assumption is justified in light of the crucial passages in D&C 1, which means that your arguments based on the appearance of authority, rather than on the substantial relevant evidence, are rather flimsy, built on sand, and not rock. 

Quote

"And they understood me not, for they supposed..."  (3 Nephi 15:22).

It was a useful exercise for me to go through Alma and notice every place where Alma qualified the source of his beliefs.   Sometimes it was revelation, sometimes personal study, sometimes tradition, and sometimes his own opinion. Asking whether there is evidence that Joseph Smith's inspiration was Real is a very different thing than asking whether it fits the opinions of one's favorite authority or conforms to one's ideal preferences.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

Edited January 4, 2024 by Kevin Christensen
typo, grammar, add link to Tim Barker Under our Heads

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Sometimes it was revelation, sometimes personal study, sometimes tradition, and sometimes his own opinion. Asking whether there is evidence that Joseph Smith's inspiration was Real is a very different thing than asking whether it fits the opinions of one's favorite authority or conforms to one's ideal preferences.

Agree whole heartedly.

There is no evidence in these critical comments that the anonymous authors have any understanding of the philosophy of language, and seeing language as a social construction where the text itself creates its own contexts, and the history and alleged "translation" becomes irrelevant to the new point of view under construction.

What the Book of Mormon and other "Mormon" texts create is a return to an anthropomorphic view of God, absolutely needed in this era of Humanism, which seeks a paradigm leading toward the "perfection" of mankind in a society in harmony with other cultures and with the planet itself.

What they seek is like seeking the name and address and autobiography of the prodigal son, so that the story's "reality" can be "proven" where the proof/truth is in the text itself.

They miss the point entirely. 

If God can be human, then humans can be gods, and humanism becomes theology 

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

It was a useful exercise for me to go through Alma and notice every place where Alma qualified the source of his beliefs.   Sometimes it was revelation, sometimes personal study, sometimes tradition, and sometimes his own opinion. Asking whether there is evidence that Joseph Smith's inspiration was Real is a very different thing than asking whether it fits the opinions of one's favorite authority or conforms to one's ideal preferences.

I love the Book of Alma, in which the author deconstructs and reconstructs Christianity, first with the empathetic treatment of the atonement in chapter 7, and then chapter 32 which really presents a postmodern view of "truth" in which that which is "true" becomes that which is "sweet" to the spirit, and NOT corresponding to some irrational standard in an invisible world beyond human perception.

If THAT is not a Christianity for our day, I don't know what is!

Historicity and alleged "translation" becomes irrelevant; it is the new paradigm being presented that is revolutionary imo.

"But the church does not teach it that way" say the opposition.

Like changing seasons, it does not happen in one day.  We now often see revisions here and there, like new leaves in springtime, "better explaining" doctrines as the tree grows stronger after it's long slumber through the winter of the 20th century. 

Perhaps that rebirth began in 1978.

Continuing revelation is still alive and well, but spring is only the beginning of the beauty of summer.

 

Edited January 3, 2024 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

One additional crucial point regarding arguments from authority, and claims concerning what has or has not been proven.  Douglas Hofstadter has observed that "proofs are demonstrations within fixed systems of propositions." He then says "Godel showed that provability is a weaker notion than truth, no matter what axiomatic system is involved."  (Godel, Escher and Bach, 18-19). 

I just had to repeat it.

Our critics here are still thinking within a dying metanarrative which says that "science" and "his-story" are relevant to morals and religion.

That is like throwing out the notion that "all men are created equal" because they who wrote those words owned slaves.

Words, once uttered, tend to live their own lives regardless of who said them.

Edited January 3, 2024 by mfbukowski

[Stargazer]

On 12/29/2023 at 6:53 PM, webbles said:

Second, you really need to respond to our questions.

@NRnowlinMA is not here to answer questions. He/she is here to pontificate and preach to the unwashed and ignorant hicks called Mormons. I've been reading his/her posts quietly and it has become glaringly obvious that he/she is not an honest debater, but one who is here to insult and overtalk those whom he/she deems subgenius. 

It's quite clear. One interesting detail is that whenever an anti-Mormon with a doctorate is mentioned, it is Dr. So-and-so, but for Mormons with a doctorate it's not even Mister, just the surname. 

In short, this guy/gal is a poser.

[Stargazer]

On 12/29/2023 at 9:48 PM, NRnowlinMA said:

God bless you, Pyreaux, pyrex, or whatever you call yourself.  If you will believe Martin Luther, read what he said about the doctrines of works considered and allowed by the Council of Nicaea, that led to Roman Catholic rituals, and the "illusion of man thinking that he can be God, or as great as God."  There were several heresies discussed at Nicaea, Arianism, doctrines about the resurrection of Jesus, and man becoming a god, or as great as a god.  Smith, Jr. resurrected the heresies that had never been an official part of the doctrine and gospel of Jesus. 

In 1831, the 1833 Book of Commandments had not been written, and there was no such thing as canonization of scripture by common consent.  Actual common consent did not begin until 1917.  Joseph Smith approved the Lectures on Faith as doctrine in 1835 in Kirtland, Ohio, and so they were the doctrine of the LDS Church for nearly 100 years.  Yet, what the general authorities stated under the influence of the Holy Ghost was the mind and will of the Mormon lord.  Every Mormon general authority, long before 1917 and 1955, believed and testified in the name of their god that the Hill Cumorah near Palmyra, New York was the Book of Mormon Hill Cumorah. That's what Michael Coe found so humorous about Mormon doctrine and history.  "They can change it as long as it is convenient for political purposes.  They can pretend that they are swallowing camels, while choking on gnats." 

Recall that before Dr. Simon Southerton published his proofs about Lamanite DNA not being Hebrew or Jewish, Spence Kimball said to hundreds of Peruvians under what he called the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, "The blood of Father Lehi, Nephi, and Israel flows in your veins."  Yet, that was a blatant lie told by Kimball.  Send an email to Dr. John Clark at BYU and ask him if a goodly portion of the Hill Cumorah in New York has been excavated for commercial improvement without any discoveries of archaeological artifacts? He won't lie to you. If I follow your line of reasoning, the statements of Mormon apostles and prophets in general conferences can't be taken as "scripture" unless it is put to a vote. Ezra T. Bensen didn't see it that way and said so in a speech to BYU. 

In late 1984, just before his death, Mormon Apostle B.R. McConkie came to preside over a stake conference in the Palomar Stake of Southern California and attended an elders' quorum meeting in the Oceanside 1st Ward.  He "testified" that "Lesson 21-Man May Become Like God" was the most important lesson in the 1984 39-lesson LDS Melchizedek Priesthood Study Guide, "Search These Commandments."  Why?  He said that "Lesson 21" was a restatement of Smith, Jr.'s King Follett Discourse and Lorenzo Snow's refinement of it in his couplet, "as man is, God once was, and as God is, man my become."  He warned the elders not to expose the contents of "Lesson 21" to anyone who was not LDS.  I was present in that quorum of elders that particular Sunday. 

The devilish doctrine of works, and not grace, is promulgated in "Lesson 21," as is the "destiny of all worthy Mormon elders to be as great as the Mormon father-god. In that pernicious lesson, the doctrine of polytheism is advanced as a continuation of father-godhood, from father to son, through the exaltation of a worthy mortal elder, and his wife, attaining father-godhood and celestial mother goddess status.  The role of the heavenly mother-goddess is directly implied in "Lesson 21" and the 1984 Relief Society lesson manual explained the role of being the exalted wife of Mormon father-(g)od to all the potential heavenly-mother goddesses.  That every father-(g)od is born mortally on an earth-like planet somewhere in the cosmos, lives and abides by the works required of him, dies, is resurrected and is deemed worthy by a superior council of father-gods to be exalted and made into a creator.  It is implied in "Lesson 21" that the mortal sons of father-gods must do everything that the father-gods have done to take their place in the hierarchy of father-gods.  The word grace is nowhere mentioned in "Lesson 21."  You may not have explored Joe Smith, Jr's teachings in depth, but he, in 1944, stated in connection with the King Follett funeral Discourse, that it is the duty of every exalted formerly mortal god to sire, with his goddess wife, a firstborn spirit son who will serve as the savior of that god's world, to be his world's redeemer.  Wild, huh?  This anthropomorphic system of gods is much more convoluted and pagan than Greek mythology. 

For the foregoing reasons, "Lesson 21," if read by any reasonable Christian, is the undoing of a formal association of that Christian with Mormonism.  That is why I've sent hundreds of PDF copies of "Lesson 21" to evangelical anti-Mormon ministries.  A PDF copy of "Lesson 21" was placed on the Mormonthink.org website in 2011, but many Christians still don't know that it is available on the Internet.  You see, Pyreaux, "Lesson 21" tells the investigating Christians the salient facts about Mormon theology and doctrine that the Mormon missionaries don't reveal in their scripted discussions.  I believe that most reasonable Christians don't believe that is the purpose of Christianity and the destiny of man to be as great as God, for no mortal can ever become as great as the Lord Jesus Christ. Most sincere Christians just want to worship and praise Jesus and to try to be like him, not his Father, working diligently after receiving salvation from sin by grace through faith in Jesus precious redeeming blood. 

The old Mormon film, "Man's search for Happiness" makes it abundantly clear that Mormon theology maintains that resurrection is the only free gift offered to mankind by Jesus. The film states that in order to attain exaltation, the highest degree of eternal opportunity, people must constantly work for it, constantly improving over the time of mortality, never knowing if you are good enough.  This is not what Paul states in Ephesians 2:1-9 (KJV).  I sincerely hope that "Lesson 21" will serve as the means for the ultimate failure of the fulltime Mormon missionary scheme.   

Gushers of words filled with irrelevant preaching. If ever there were a TL;DR needed, this word vomit needed one.

Do you seriously believe anyone's going to read this spew? 

ETA: This may be his swan song. It's been over a week since he's posted, and perhaps has said all he wants to.

Edited January 8, 2024 by Stargazer

[Buckeye]

Feel free to move this comment to a separate thread if it risks a derail, but I just read an abstract of an article regarding a major new archeological find in Ecuador. Based on the size and years of habitation we can add one more candidate to the possible locations for BoM geography. 
 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi6317?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D75470974684613446334993648347645513518|MCORGID%3D242B6472541199F70A4C98A6%40AdobeOrg|TS%3D1705022942

 

Abstract

A dense system of pre-Hispanic urban centers has been found in the Upano Valley of Amazonian Ecuador, in the eastern foothills of the Andes. Fieldwork and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) analysis have revealed an anthropized landscape with clusters of monumental platforms, plazas, and streets following a specific pattern intertwined with extensive agricultural drainages and terraces as well as wide straight roads running over great distances. Archaeological excavations date the occupation from around 500 BCE to between 300 and 600 CE. The most notable landscape feature is the complex road system extending over tens of kilometers, connecting the different urban centers, thus creating a regional-scale network. Such extensive early development in the Upper Amazon is comparable to similar Maya urban systems recently highlighted in Mexico and Guatemala.