Book of Abraham - still a problem

[CA Steve]

4 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Just curious, where are you getting this list from. Grunder? Vogel?

And are these just generic themes you are talking about, or do all of these authors connect specific ideas with the life and teachings of Abraham? 

Hi Ryan,

 

I have a list that I have compiled over the years from various sources of books that somehow impacted Joseph Smith. These range from books that he was known to own, to ones he quoted from in speeches and publications, to books whose content closely matched or clearly were influential to what he produced but of which there is no record of him owning or reading. My list of such books is up to the middle 60's-90's depending on how one counts multiple volumes or books of which he was thought to have owned more than one copy, like Phinney Bibles or Clarke's Bible Commentary. I started collecting late 19th or early 20th century Improvement Era's almost 20 years ago as a result of my interest in the Book of Abraham. When I first started a serious look at it, the only pictures one could find of the papyri were in the 1969 I.E. Feb edition. That entire year carried a series of articles by Nibley on the papyri and I was able to pick up copies of all 12 of the 1968 I.E. magazines on Ebay for about $15.00 and, when they arrived, the address stamp on the back listed Leonard Arrington as the original owner! Very cool. Unfortunately, there wasn't any marginal notes by him in them telling me what he thought of Nibley's articles. This led me to collecting older versions of the I.E., then to collecting earlier church magazines like the Contributor and the Juvenile Instructor and from there I discovered that one could buy actual 19th century books that were the same versions as ones used by Smith. of which I have 30-40 depending on a variety of factors. Sometimes we are not really sure of the exact book but know the author (like Thomas Dic k), or other times we have a title that might be two or more different books (like "Dictionary of the Holy Bible- could be from Brown or Wood.)

 

Sorry, that was a bit more than you asked. I go a bit overboard when it comes to early Mormon publications, books and my collection. In regard to your 1st question, I do not recall any references I pulled from Vogel and, while I love Rick's "Mormon Parallels", I can't think of anything in there that I used to compile my list though I have used his work to add to my notes on those books. So, when I find a book that I thought fit my list criteria, I do check Rick's list to see what he has to say about it. It is an incredible reference work, regardless of what one thinks about how influential the material he lists was on Smith. Now this short list of books in my response to Pyreaux came from a couple of different sources. I don't think there is any question about the Hebrew stuff, beside the Gesenius. We know Cowdery was sent to the East in late 1835 to buy Hebrew and Greek textbooks and returned with the ones I listed. You can find more about them at JSP or Matt Grey has done quite a bit of work on them also. I assume you are familiar with his work but let me know if otherwise.

 

The definition of "Theology" was quoted in Charles Buck's Theological Dictionary in its entirety in the Lectures on Faith so it's a safe bet Smith had a copy of that. Books by William Hone, Thomas Dic k and Thomas Taylor were all part of Joseph Smith's personal donation of more than 30 books to the first Nauvoo Library in Jan of 1844. For more on that you can look at Kenneth Godfrey's 1974 BYU Studies Quarterly article "A Note of the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute." Link here.

As to your 2nd question, it is a pretty big subject and one answer does not fit all cases. We would probably have to pick either a theme found in the Book of Abraham or an author who dealt with content similar to what was in the Book of Abraham and see if the idea is unique to Smith at the time or if it actually was part of his milieu. If you want to ask about a particular author I can offer what I know from my notes on it and any side references. As far as themes or content go, feel free to ask about one and I'll tell you what I know.  By the way, I think claims which attempt to establish limits on what Joseph Smith could or could not have known are useless. In most cases where we do not know if he was exposed to a subject, that is all that can be said, and it is neither proof that he did nor proof that he did not. They are just arguments from ignorance. 

 

 

 

 

[CA Steve]

21 hours ago, InCognitus said:

I believe this is a bit of a false dichotomy, as there may be people who hold the catalyst view that may not consider the papyri to have any relationship at all to the translation, other than perhaps for the facsimiles (which Joseph did quite well on that part).  The way you phrased it that the "existing papyri is the source text for the inspiration of the Book of Abraham" still implies it is a "source".  Joseph needed no "source" for the book of Moses or D&C 7, for example, even though for the latter he described it as "made on parchment by John and hidden up by himself" (Doctrine and Covenants 7, Heading).

I was trying to give Dario, a new member, a bit of background on the Book of Abraham and not overwhelm him with the subject. I realize there is a lot of nuances in different views. I fall into the catalyst camp myself but that theory covers a lot of different views on how he was inspired by the text in the Hor scroll and beyond. I guess I agree with one of the JSP Book of Abraham editors whom I asked directly about this to which he responded, "Jospeh thought he was translating the glyphs on the papyri but was wrong." (That's a paraphrase and I am not sure how comfortable he would be with me quoting him on that so I'll leave it at that.) I view the existing Hor scroll as the source text. 

 

22 hours ago, InCognitus said:

But this is not a "good" reason.  This theory seems highly unlikely given that Joseph declined to translate the portions of facsimile 2 that were filled in from these same manuscripts.  If Joseph had indeed obtained the Book of Abraham from these manuscripts then why would he say there is no translation for the same portion of text added to the facsimiles?  See:  Translating the Book of Abraham: The Answer Under Our Heads (and quoted from earlier here and here in this same thread).

I am aware of the theories surrounding the KEP and its purpose. Again, I was trying to give a simple explanation to Dario. I think the easiest response I could give here is that I mostly agree with what the JSP editors have said in the Book of Abraham volume with regards to how and when the KEP was created. I do not see it as a reverse engineering attempt. 

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

As to your 2nd question, it is a pretty big subject and one answer does not fit all cases. We would probably have to pick either a theme found in the Book of Abraham or an author who dealt with content similar to what was in the Book of Abraham and see if the idea is unique to Smith at the time or if it actually was part of his milieu. If you want to ask about a particular author I can offer what I know from my notes on it and any side references. As far as themes or content go, feel free to ask about one and I'll tell you what I know. 

Maybe you could pick something like the top 3 parallels from your sources, preferably something that hasn't already been debated before or isn't widely known (unlike Josephus, Adam Clark, etc.). In other words, I'm wondering if you have something new and important to offer in this list, or is it just a bunch of very generic parallels that would likely arise in any large corpus from the Judeo-Christian tradition? I'll leave it to you to share anything meaningful you have to offer, rather than me trying to guess what topics might be most relevant or revealing among these sources. Thanks. 

And if you don't have time or interest, no worries. 

[CA Steve]

14 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Maybe you could pick something like the top 3 parallels from your sources, preferably something that hasn't already been debated before or isn't widely known (unlike Josephus, Adam Clark, etc.). In other words, I'm wondering if you have something new and important to offer in this list, or is it just a bunch of very generic parallels that would likely arise in any large corpus from the Judeo-Christian tradition? I'll leave it to you to share anything meaningful you have to offer, rather than me trying to guess what topics might be most relevant or revealing among these sources. Thanks. 

And if you don't have time or interest, no worries. 

Hi Ryan,

I am not trying to defend claims that Joseph Smith could not have known content we find in the Book of Abraham.  It was another poster who made the claim, and I was responding to that poster's claims of specific content.  

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Hi Ryan,

I am not trying to defend claims that Joseph Smith could not have known content we find in the Book of Abraham.  It was another poster who made the claim, and I was responding to that poster's claims of specific content.  

I wasn't alleging or implying that you were trying to defend such claims. If I understand correctly, you apparently have sources that you think could plausibly have been used in the creation of the Book of Abraham. That inherently involves parallels (i.e., similar themes or details ) shared between these texts and the Book of Abraham. Moreover, you apparently think these parallels possess something like sufficient explanatory power (i.e., they can adequately explain where Joseph Smith may have derived many, or perhaps all, of his ideas for the text). Otherwise, why bring these sources into the conversation?

I'm just interested in what parallels, among your corpus, you think have the greatest explanatory power or which texts (or specific data points from those texts) you think are the best candidates for plagiarism, etc. Give us a few samples to know what you are talking about. 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Pyreaux]

On 7/4/2023 at 10:18 PM, OGHoosier said:

Yo, I want to hear more about this. Would you mind posting or sending me a PM? 

I'm still looking for my handwritten notes for the names. My internet searches comeback with some difficulty in identifying exactly among the known list of the first to became honorary masons were from the Royal Society, as the Royal Society was intended to be a secret society. Masonic guilds of the Middle Ages changed when members of the Royal Society became incorporated into the Masons, giving birth to the denomination of "Freemasons" as a social fraternity (and not much to do with the craft of masonry). Forming the first Grand Lodge in 1717 and it was at this time they adopted the rites and trappings same as actually found in other ancient religious orders and of chivalric brotherhoods. These traditions go far back in time and remembered by the more Gnostic-minded members of the Royal Society.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Pyreaux

[InCognitus]

On 7/3/2023 at 6:33 PM, mfbukowski said:

Is this a duck or a rabbit?  Both and neither. It depends on the context.

 

 

[Tweed1944]

duplicated

Edited July 8, 2023 by Tweed1944
duplicate

[Tweed1944]

Letters where Klaus Baer friend and tutor in things Egyption Nibley thought of apologetics.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BaMIkQfIWy6Te71j9BpdIqx31r3fM6cXZKMjh_dbuQg/edit?usp=sharing

[InCognitus]

1 hour ago, Tweed1944 said:

Klaus Baer on Nibley apologetics

Nice.  Here we have a letter written from a renowned Egyptologist to Reverend Wesley Walters (a guy who writes anti-Mormon literature), and he provides only one point of very very tentative scholarly criticism against Nibley about "recent publications that just possibly might have a closer bearing on the subject" being ignored (you can't get more tentative than the redundant "possibly might" usage), and an ad-hominem attack (dismissing him as doing "religious apologetics"), and a jab at Gnosticism. 

I'd say Nibley passed on that one with flying colors  

[Tweed1944]

 deleted

Edited July 8, 2023 by Tweed1944
deleted

[Tweed1944]

Robert Ritner studied under Baer "Egyptologist Robert Ritner passed away on July 25. ... where he studied with Klaus Baer,"

In his paper The "Breathing Permit of Hor" Thirty-four Years Later"

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V33N04_107.pdf  This paper is well worth reading. 

72. Written with only the seal logogram; see Moller 1912, 40, no. 422. Nibley, 30, misread the detached elements as rc nb or hr, though he read the sign correctly in col. V/12 (44).

78. Misread as fcsf [twk] by Nibley, 32.

84. A small misplaced fragment used to patch lines 9-10 of this column contains the words nfr and frpr, which properly begin lines 8 and 9. See Baer, 122n62, and Nibley, 35-36, who did not place the fragment and misread nf

88. Misread by Nibley, 35, as nhs twk

91. Misread by Nibley, 36, as (nd)w.k.

92. Misread by Nibley, 37, as rn'k. Nibley's n is the lower stroke of the ovoid r

94. Misread by Nibley, 37, as hnm.n.f

99. Nibley, 38, mistranscribed the final signs, substituting a "t" for the human figure after frb. Contra Nibley, this is not the "only occurrence of the complete name," nor is its meaning "unknown." Nibley himself noted the full writing in col. II/2 (20). Other unbroken writings of the mother's name appear in cols. 1/3 and III/7. Nibley's treatment skipped col. I and misread III/7 (26).

105. Nibley, 41, misread tyt.k

108. Nibley, 42, garbled this passage, misreading swSd'f tw k as "c nkh nd (wda?)- snb or m swda.tw.k." Nibley's "transliteration" does not follow standard conventions

 

[latterdaytemplar]

On 7/5/2023 at 11:15 PM, Pyreaux said:

I'm still looking for my handwritten notes for the names. My internet searches comeback with some difficulty in identifying exactly among the known list of the first to became honorary masons were from the Royal Society, as the Royal Society was intended to be a secret society. Masonic guilds of the Middle Ages changed when members of the Royal Society became incorporated into the Masons, giving birth to the denomination of "Freemasons" as a social fraternity (and not much to do with the craft of masonry). Forming the first Grand Lodge in 1717 and it was at this time they adopted the rites and trappings same as actually found in other ancient religious orders and of chivalric brotherhoods. These traditions go far back in time and remembered by the more Gnostic-minded members of the Royal Society.

When you find your notes, I'd also be interested.