Royal Skousen and the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham.

[Ryan Dahle]

12 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I suspect that the point of this (which isn't mentioned by Tweed) is the suggestion that this makes it more difficult to accept the idea of a fully formed Abraham narrative written by Abraham himself. Of course, I don't really hold this view myself (that the text was written by Abraham). I would suggest (along with others) that the Book of Abraham is at best a composite work, making it pseudepigraphical. In the same sense, so are the five books of Moses - most of which simply cannot have been written by Moses ... for what its worth.

Yeah. I get that. I'm not saying that Tweed's posts aren't in the same ball park of the discussion. Tweed just seems to be flitting from one claim to another, with very minimal engagement with his (or her) interlocutors.

[Benjamin McGuire]

4 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The problem is that even if the editorial comment in the text was from Joseph, it doesn't necessarily follow that the relationship between text and the facsimiles wasn't ever intended or perceived by any ancient authors.

I think that for this statement to make sense, you would have to explain what you mean by "any ancient authors." Even with that sort of exception being made, I suspect I will disagree with you. Facsimile one is part of a standard Egyptian funerary text (at least standard in the sense that it doesn't seem to be any more unique than any other example). The original of facsimile one wasn't included in the burial of the deceased person because it contained the story of Abraham. And it is on this basis that I would suggest that for at least some ancient authors, we can have some expectation of what they intended.

10 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

A big part of the analysis depends on what people think about the explanations in the facsimiles. Do they look like Joseph was simply trying to match up images with the text, merely inferring a relationship? Or are there aspects of the explanations that seem (1) authentically ancient, (2) unlikely for Joseph Smith to think up on his own, and (3) non-inferable from the text itself.

The fact that Joseph uses a Sephardic transliteration for terms in facsimile 1 that he learned from Joshua Sexias in early 1836 is interesting because it tells us that Joseph Smith is likely producing some of what is going into the descriptions for facsimile 1 on his own. This also provides an earliest possible date range for at least part of the descriptions - suggesting that they were produced some time after most of the text of the Book of Abraham - including the parts that Skousen suggests were inserted into verses 12 and 14 in Chapter 1. Again though, we also run into the problem of context. What Joseph Smith provides for the facsimile doesn't really match directly up with the way it would likely have been understood by the person who produced it and the person with whom it was buried. And this should be an important consideration when we start to discuss whether or not the figure has been appropriated or given a new context. Your criteria, in that sense, are largely irrelevant - because we aren't concerned with whether it can be considered ancient - we are concerned with whether the interpretation provided by Joseph Smith is different from the historical context in which the specific document it is taken from was produced.

17 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

If the latter is the case, then it is possible that instead of reflecting Joseph's own inference, the editorial insertion into the text (pointing to its relationship to Facsimile 1) represents an ancient (and not merely modern) perceptual link between the text and images. Ancient cultures were reappropriating iconography long before Joseph Smith came on the scene. That is so well attested that it hardly needs mentioning. 

I don't actually think this argument works. What you are essentially suggesting is that there was an original. That original was appropriated by ancient Egyptians at some point in the past, giving it a new meaning and context. Joseph Smith then sees the original before it was appropriated and returns it to its original context. I think this is splitting hairs to try and protect some value or idea that doesn't need to be protected. What is your underlying concern that you are trying to protect by keeping Joseph Smith from appropriating the image?

22 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The issue might further be complicated by the possibility of the text itself and the facsimile interpretations having some content that is ancient and other content that has been repurposed for modern audiences. I think the text of the Book of Mormon is also like this, as it appears to be a dynamic translation, ranging from literal, to functional equivalent, to expansion in some areas. In fact, I suspect that pretty much all of Joseph's translations were like this. If this possibility is correct, it means that one can't simply identify elements that seem to be modern or Joseph's (like his use of Hebrew terms in the Sephardic tradition) and see that as dispositive evidence for a strictly modern repurposing. Another analog would be the temple endowment. It would be fallacious to assume that just because there are aspects of the temple endowment borrowed from freemasonry that the whole thing is Joseph just cribbing off his 19th century environment, or merely creating something new through inspiration. 

You seem to be creating my argument for me here ... but, if you are referring to 1:12, 14, there are specific reasons why we would attribute that text to Joseph Smith (as opposed to some ancient writer) and those reasons come through accepted use of textual criticism - both from the text itself, and, as Skousen points out, from the manuscript evidence. The most important reason why the use of Sephardic Hebrew is of interest is that it helps us put together some sense of chronology, which is important in the study of the Book of Abraham and the KEP. The challenge with all of this minutiae is that it takes more than a cursory look to start understanding the material. And, one of the problems that we face as readers is that our assumptions about what the material is inevitably colors our sense of what the text says ... and I don't think that this particular thread is a place where I want to dig too deeply into the minutiae. And from a certain perspective, does it really matter if we aren't that concerned with some of the questions that you seems to be concerned with? If it is revealed, does it really matter what the connection is to something ancient? These are to some extent apologetic concerns that aren't really all that important for most believers. Which is more important? That the doctrine contained in the text is revealed, or that it was really a translate from some ancient papyri ...

[Ryan Dahle]

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I think that for this statement to make sense, you would have to explain what you mean by "any ancient authors." 

What I meant was that ancient people (most likely ancient Jews living in Egypt) may have, at some point, conceptually linked these or similar vignettes with the text of the Book of Abraham. They may have been transcribers or redactors of the text (not necessarily its "authors"), or just readers of it. It is also possible that some ancient people more directly associated the text and the facsimiles by writing down interpretations or descriptions linking the two together. In that case, they would be "authors" of the explanations. These potential "authors" or individuals could have written or perceived these relationships before the text took its final form and therefore Joseph's explanations could be derived from a context not directly related to the Joseph Smith Papyri (although they could be related, as we are still missing lots of papyri). 

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Facsimile one is part of a standard Egyptian funerary text (at least standard in the sense that it doesn't seem to be any more unique than any other example).

Whether or not the vignette represented by Facsimile 1 is meant to be associated with its adjacent funerary text or with the text of the BofA (or both) is not clear merely from its proximity to the Book of Breathings. As the gospel topics essay states: "Some have assumed that the hieroglyphs adjacent to and surrounding facsimile 1 must be a source for the text of the book of Abraham. But this claim rests on the assumption that a vignette and its adjacent text must be associated in meaning. In fact, it was not uncommon for ancient Egyptian vignettes to be placed some distance from their associated commentary."

And I'm guessing you know that whether or not the vignette itself is merely a common funerary scene is a debated position and that some key differences may indeed support Joseph's explanations:

https://mormonchallenges.org/2013/02/10/abraham-challenge-2/

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/the-idolatrous-priest-facsimile-1-figure-3/

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/facsimile-1-as-a-sacrifice-scene/

Furthermore, as Gee has pointed out:

"In working with the Facsimiles, I assume that as Ptolemaic period vignettes they should be treated as Ptolemaic period vignettes, with the same approaches and knowledge of the range of possibilities. There are over twenty-two hundred Ptolemaic period books of the dead known. Very few Egyptologists have explored this material in any depth and have an idea about the scope of this material. I only know of about five of us. Last month one expert who twenty years ago put together thirty-nine Ptolemaic manuscripts (which at the time had not been done before) made some conclusions based on those thirty-nine manuscripts. Now there are two data sets dating to the Ptolemaic period of 833 manuscripts and 1386 manuscripts respectively, so almost 57 times as many manuscripts. Those who have been through the larger data set rightfully questioned some of the conclusions based on the much smaller data set. Until one has looked at a few thousand Ptolemaic period vignettes one is really not able to comment on them in an informed manner. Even with the larger number of manuscripts, there are still surprises. I showed a vignette from one of the Joseph Smith Papyri to one of the experts who had cataloged all of the known vignettes from Ptolemaic period manuscripts, and he could only think of one that was remotely similar, and none that were identical. He found the matter curious, not alarming."

Gee has also remarked: 

"Interpretations of the facsimiles by most Egyptologists begin with the assumption that the facsimiles are standard illustrations for funerary texts. (Egyptologists describe any text found buried with someone as funerary whether or not the text was originally intended to be connected with a burial.) These interpretations are often hampered by the lack of good recent studies on the class of illustrations to which the various facsimiles belong. Comparisons between Joseph Smith’s explanations and those of the ancient Egyptians have inherent problems: (1) We only know what Joseph Smith called the figures in the facsimiles, but we do not have corresponding portions of the Book of Abraham that would tell the story portrayed in two of the facsimiles. (2) The ancient Egyptian interpretation of figures does not necessarily match those of modern scholars."

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The fact that Joseph uses a Sephardic transliteration for terms in facsimile 1 that he learned from Joshua Sexias in early 1836 is interesting because it tells us that Joseph Smith is likely producing some of what is going into the descriptions for facsimile 1 on his own. This also provides an earliest possible date range for at least part of the descriptions - suggesting that they were produced some time after most of the text of the Book of Abraham - including the parts that Skousen suggests were inserted into verses 12 and 14 in Chapter 1.

Maybe. It is also possible that he edited and updated existing or preliminary explanations with his newly acquired Sephardic knowledge. Either way, this doesn't really affect the core issue here (at least not under my working assumptions). But it is interesting and helpful to consider. 

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Again though, we also run into the problem of context. What Joseph Smith provides for the facsimile doesn't really match directly up with the way it would likely have been understood by the person who produced it and the person with whom it was buried. And this should be an important consideration when we start to discuss whether or not the figure has been appropriated or given a new context. Your criteria, in that sense, are largely irrelevant - because we aren't concerned with whether it can be considered ancient - we are concerned with whether the interpretation provided by Joseph Smith is different from the historical context in which the specific document it is taken from was produced.

But that is just the problem. You seem to presume that we can confidently assume a given context for the production of the document and facsimile. First of all, we don't know whether or not the BofA was on the missing papyri. And that obviously influences what we might presume about Hor's understanding of the text and its possible relationship to Facsimile 1. Unless we know one way or the other, we can't determine what this particular individual likely "understood" about the possible relationship.

Yet even if the missing papyri theory is wrong and the catalyst theory is correct, that still doesn't solve the bigger problem. Which is that there would still remain a host of complex possibilities pertaining to the BofA text and these Facsimiles before they came into the possession of Hor. If anything should be clear from modern studies of ancient pseudepigrapha, it is that we often simply can't tell all of the convoluted steps that may have been taken before any given text has reached its final form. Dating a text's final form is often possible, but teasing out all the layers of translation, transmission, redaction, original source materials, and so forth is often impossible. The history of some texts we can ferret out better than others, but there are always limits, sometimes major ones. 

Until we know many more specifics about the history of the BofA text and the potential history of its association with the vignettes, we can't really say much about how these items were anciently understood. We can only guess, based on similar examples of vignettes and caches of similar texts. But that is a problem because the extant data, as robust is it may appear, is likely still a highly fragmentary and incomplete picture of what all ancient people might have ever thought of these texts and vignettes. And as Gee has pointed out, there are actually very few people in a position to make authoritative assessments based on the data that we have. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

3 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

If the latter is the case, then it is possible that instead of reflecting Joseph's own inference, the editorial insertion into the text (pointing to its relationship to Facsimile 1) represents an ancient (and not merely modern) perceptual link between the text and images. Ancient cultures were reappropriating iconography long before Joseph Smith came on the scene. That is so well attested that it hardly needs mentioning. 

I don't actually think this argument works. What you are essentially suggesting is that there was an original. That original was appropriated by ancient Egyptians at some point in the past, giving it a new meaning and context. Joseph Smith then sees the original before it was appropriated and returns it to its original context. I think this is splitting hairs to try and protect some value or idea that doesn't need to be protected. What is your underlying concern that you are trying to protect by keeping Joseph Smith from appropriating the image?

That is not what I am saying. I'm saying that Joseph's explanations may reflect a variety of concepts: 

• Concepts related to the the original BofA and Abraham's worldview.
• Concepts that were held by later interpreters or redactors of the text or facsimiles (likely Jews living in Egypt).
• Concepts that Joseph learned through his study of Hebrew.
• Concepts adapted to modern audiences by revelation.

I'm not splitting hairs to protect something that doesn't need to be protected. I just have a hard time seeing the facsimile explanations as purely a product of Joseph's (1) conjecture (2) Hebrew studies or (3) modern revelation for modern audiences. I see things in each of the facsimile explanations that seem to be (1) genuinely ancient and relevant to ancient Hebrew or Egyptian culture, (2) unlikely to be guessed by Joseph Smith, and (3) non-inferable from the text of the BofA.

So we have to come up with some theory to accommodate both the ancient and modern aspects of the text itself and of Joseph's explanations of the vignettes. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

You seem to be creating my argument for me here

I'm not creating your argument for you. We obviously agree about some things and disagree about others, often in complex ways in relation to general topics. Where our ideas intersect, great. 

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

... but, if you are referring to 1:12, 14, there are specific reasons why we would attribute that text to Joseph Smith (as opposed to some ancient writer) and those reasons come through accepted use of textual criticism - both from the text itself, and, as Skousen points out, from the manuscript evidence. The most important reason why the use of Sephardic Hebrew is of interest is that it helps us put together some sense of chronology, which is important in the study of the Book of Abraham and the KEP.

I think you must have misunderstood. I'm not saying that the insertion was ancient. I don't think it was. I think Joseph Smith most likely made it. But I think it is plausible that the reason he made the insertion was because he believed, based on other revealed details, that there was an ancient perceptual link between the vignette and the text of the BofA. In other words, the reason for the insertion may have ultimately derived from antiquity rather than being due to his own conjecture. Joseph's use of Sephardic Hebrew doesn't really play into that assumption. It is a separate issue. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The challenge with all of this minutiae is that it takes more than a cursory look to start understanding the material. And, one of the problems that we face as readers is that our assumptions about what the material is inevitably colors our sense of what the text says ... and I don't think that this particular thread is a place where I want to dig too deeply into the minutiae. 

Well, that is fine if you don't want to dig into the minutiae. But whether or not Skousen's interpretation is correct may very well depend on it. And that is what this thread is about. 

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

 And from a certain perspective, does it really matter if we aren't that concerned with some of the questions that you seems to be concerned with? If it is revealed, does it really matter what the connection is to something ancient? These are to some extent apologetic concerns that aren't really all that important for most believers. Which is more important? That the doctrine contained in the text is revealed, or that it was really a translate from some ancient papyri ...

As I guess you are aware, concerns about the authenticity of the Book of Abraham rank pretty high on intellectual reasons for people losing their testimonies and leaving the Church. So, while it may not be that important to many members of the Church, it is obviously important to many who leave or who are in the processes of leaving. It isn't just a matter of comparative doctrinal significance. It is a matter of trust. It is a matter of the limits of prophetic fallibility and the ability to place faith in Joseph Smith's prophetic calling, which obviously is a key pillar of one's testimony in the Restoration. 

If I truly felt like there were no basis for the text being translated from ancient papyri and that the facsimile explanations were purely a product of Joseph's mistaken conjectures, then I would probably adopt something like your view. But I think that is not only the less likely option but also a less helpful one, when it comes to most people trying to navigate a faith crisis. 

[Benjamin McGuire]

25 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Whether or not the vignette represented by Facsimile 1 is meant to be associated with its adjacent funerary text or with the text of the BofA (or both) is not clear merely from its proximity to the Book of Breathings.

You are missing the forest for the trees. The vignette is part of a funerary text because of its proximity to the deceased person with which it was buried. Just as importantly though, you write this (quoting the Church essay):

Quote

Some have assumed that the hieroglyphs adjacent to and surrounding facsimile 1 must be a source for the text of the book of Abraham.

One of the people who seems to have made this assumption was Joseph Smith (along with his associates). That is clear from the KEP. Again, I am not going to dig through the minutiae here. Neither you nor I are qualified, and I am not that interested in trading references. I think that it is absolutely reasonable to presume that the papyri (with its text and images) was a standard funerary text buried with a deceased Egyptian mummy. I think that trying to make an exception for this document requires a lot more than mere plausibility. The plausibility allows people to continue to hold to their pet theory - but it isn't capable of being explanatory.

40 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So we have to come up with some theory to accommodate both the ancient and modern aspects of his interpretations. 

No, we don't. You feel that need (for whatever reason). I don't. I have no problem with the idea that Joseph's connecting his text to the papyri was simply wrong.

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

You are missing the forest for the trees. The vignette is part of a funerary text because of its proximity to the deceased person with which it was buried.

Well, sure, we can say that the vignette discovered in a funerary context. But that doesn't mean that the facsimile itself is a standard funerary scene or that it wasn't ever perceived anciently to be connected to the BofA. You seem to be conflating specific trees for the forest. Most forests, even if they are predominantly one type of tree, tend to have all sorts of other trees scattered here and there in different contexts. Not all texts buried in funerary contexts are themselves funerary texts.

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

One of the people who seems to have made this assumption was Joseph Smith (along with his associates). That is clear from the KEP.

I'm not saying that they didn't make that assumption. But it technically a separate issue. Here are the two different assumptions: 

• Assuming that the images on the vignette relate to the text of the BofA. 
• Assuming that because the characters from the Book of Breathings are adjacent to the vignette that they must correspond to the BofA text. 

It is possible that Joseph received the explanations of the vignette by revelation (or at least that revelation played a significant role in the explanations) but then he (or his associates or both) mistakenly assumed that the text next to the vignette (which he knew was correlated to the BofA), must itself be the BofA. In fact, having a revelatory basis to first connect the vignette to the text may actually help explain why the adjacent characters from the Book of Breathings show up in the KEP. So your point here is pretty much irrelevant. 

On the other hand, there are still major question marks concerning these characters and their use in the KEP. There are several reasons to think that those involved didn't actually think the characters and their explanations correlated directly to the Book of Abraham. There are major problems with a simplistic backwards translation theory. Something else was going on, and nobody seems to know what it was. So your point is also inconclusive. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Benjamin McGuire]

12 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Well, that is fine if you don't want to dig into the minutiae. But whether or not Skousen's interpretation is correct may very well depend on it. And that is what this thread is about. 

This isn't what this thread is about. Skousen's point of view has absolutely nothing to do with the papyri. The evidence he offers for his point of view comes from the Book of Abraham text and the manuscripts we have of that text. We could make this decision without ever considering the implications that you suggest can be raised from the papyri. I agree with Skousen on this point.

14 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

As I guess you are aware, concerns about the authenticity of the Book of Abraham rank pretty high on intellectual reasons for people losing their testimonies and leaving the Church.

And intellectual reasons are the main reason why people leave right? I mean, I do recognize that in the 2016 survey, 20% of the respondents who had left the Church said that historical problems with the Book of Mormon and/or the Book of Abraham contributed. This came behind the inability to reconcile personal values with those of the Church (38%), those who stopped believing in the one true church (36.5%), a distrust of the Church leadership to be honest about its past (31%), feeling judged (30%), just drifting away (26%), engaging in sinful behaviors (25%), LGBTQ issues (23%) and tied with having problems with the push for conformity (21%). If we combine the historical issues of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, that probably becomes the top intellectual reason for leaving the Church (I have no idea how this would split). But, I would suggest this - your arguments here seem to want to push this belief into a corner. Perhaps that is part of the problem ...

[Benjamin McGuire]

Just now, Ryan Dahle said:

Well, sure, we can say that the vignette discovered in a funerary context. But that doesn't mean that the facsimile itself is a standard funerary scene or that it wasn't ever perceived anciently to be connected to the BofA. You seem to be missing conflating specific trees for the forest. Most forests, even if they are predominantly one type of tree, tend to have all sorts of other trees scattered here and there in different contexts. Not all texts buried in funerary contexts are themselves funerary texts.

It is as standard a funerary vignette as any of them are. It is hard to make the argument that facsimile 1 is unique among unique vignettes isn't it ... and you have zero evidence that the vignette was ever connected to Abraham (let alone a Book of Abraham). I am not conflating things here. I do not have to rely on that magic word of plausibility that ignores the question of probability. You are, I think, fundamentally misrepresenting what the original of facsimile 1 could be, and how it should be interpreted.

2 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

'm not saying that they didn't make that assumption. But it technically a separate issue. Here are the two different assumptions: 

• Assuming that the images on the vignette relate to the text of the BofA. 
• Assuming that because the characters from the Book of Breathings are adjacent to the vignette that they must correspond to the BofA text. 

It is possible that Joseph received the explanations of the vignette by revelation (or at least that revelation played a significant role in the explanations) but then he (or his associates or both) mistakenly assumed that the text next to the vignette (which he knew was correlated to the BofA), must itself be the BofA. In fact, having a revelatory basis to first connect the vignette to the text may actually help explain why the adjacent characters from the Book of Breathings show up in the KEP. So your point here is pretty much irrelevant.

Well, I suppose this is where we just agree to disagree.

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Again, I am not going to dig through the minutiae here. Neither you nor I are qualified, and I am not that interested in trading references. I think that it is absolutely reasonable to presume that the papyri (with its text and images) was a standard funerary text buried with a deceased Egyptian mummy. I think that trying to make an exception for this document requires a lot more than mere plausibility. The plausibility allows people to continue to hold to their pet theory - but it isn't capable of being explanatory.

Actually, those who try to account for the ancient features in the facsimiles definitely do have to start resorting to "plausibility" arguments to try to explain away the ancient correspondences. Whether the faithful Latter-day Saint Egyptologists involved are holding to their pet theories or you are holding to your unwarranted assumptions remains to be seen. As you say, there is a lot of minutia to dig through.

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

So we have to come up with some theory to accommodate both the ancient and modern aspects of his interpretations. 

No, we don't. You feel that need (for whatever reason). I don't. I have no problem with the idea that Joseph's connecting his text to the papyri was simply wrong.

I should point out that we haven't yet dealt with the any of the allegedly ancient features of any of the facsimile explanations (we haven't even got to that). And that is mostly what is driving my conclusions (rather than some "need" to save some interpretation at all costs). I will point out, though, that you seem to frequently impute shallow motives and biases to those you converse with that turn out to be wrong. It might be better to just talk about the data and the possible interpretations of it. We are clearly on the same team. 

But we can drop the conversation. And we probably should as it is technical enough that it will take up too much of my time.  

Edited August 17, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Ryan Dahle]

9 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

But, I would suggest this - your arguments here seem to want to push this belief into a corner. Perhaps that is part of the problem ...

Or maybe you are just being hasty.

Maybe I've actually looked at a lot of this data and have just reached a different conclusion than you. Perhaps part of the problem is that you think people that disagree with you must hold different views because they are too shallow to control their biases or because they just must be wedded to pet theories that confirm what they want to believe. Maybe you should adopt a different style of discourse. 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Ryan Dahle]

3 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And intellectual reasons are the main reason why people leave right?

Nope. I actually didn't say that or imply it. I knew that they aren't the main reason people leave. But this topic still matters and it isn't insignificant. Even when it isn't a main reason, it is often a contributing factor at some point. 

In any case, I will let you have the last word, until our next pleasant conversation. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Ryan Dahle

[Tweed1944]

"As will be shown, Givens’ attempt at a balanced portrayal of some of the difficulties and controversies surrounding the Book of Abraham eventually gives way to his ultimate conclusion that, at least in this case, it does not appear that Joseph Smith provided an English translation of an ancient text written by Abraham after all. Rather, for Givens, the evidence demonstrates that the Prophet mistakenly thought he was translating an ancient writing of Abraham from characters that were actually part of an ancient Egyptian text known as a Book of Breathings, while simultaneously creating a modern story of Abraham in his own fertile, if not divinely inspired, mind.

[Page 4]After outlining some problems surrounding Joseph Smith’s explanations of the Egyptian vignettes and other evidence that appears to demonstrate the Prophet used the Book of Breathings as his source for “translating” the Book of Abraham, Givens concludes:

Smith certainly believed that he was successfully rendering the actual Egyptian symbols into their English counterparts. In the case of the facsimiles he was apparently wrong, and in the case of the Book of Abraham narrative he may have been as well.⁵"

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/we-may-not-understand-our-words-the-book-of-abraham-and-the-concept-of-translation-in-the-pearl-of-greatest-price/

 Givens comes across and a gentle honest man, the type of man who in my youth would have loved to have as my Bishop. In my exchanges with him he wished me well in my journey. 

At the end of the day what matters. I am going to  party this next weekend to celebrate a long time LDS friends 80th birthday who unfortunately has brain cancer. Both her and her husband work a lot performing in the local temple. 

[Tweed1944]

Well  after being banned for a few days I am back. I watched long interview with Daniel McClellan on Mormon Stories. His tick tock series  Data over Dogma is quite popular. His views will be seen as troublesome for the orthodox LDS member.  I received an email from a Biblical scholar at BYU who said  "Abraham is a can of worms, and it gets people all worked up in ways that I find nauseating. To stay safe, I would say that the Book of Abraham is a revelation and not a history book."  He also accepts the multiple authorship of Isaiah.  What is it about the LDS scholars who do advanced studies in other institutions come back with ideas that are challenging to traditional LDS views of scripture. Would it hurt if the facsimiles were dropped?  Was the slaves face mutilated in facsimile 3? Look at the printing plate. Do you think Smith was aware that facsimile 2 was not unique? Looking at the examples in Tamas Mekis' book it seems the facsimile was not so unique. 

Tamas Mekis's thoughts on the "slave"  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hy48-P-YZQpzOKaRyyzMZ2Zvko01NJUlwAZD39OJ5qM/edit

 I know this debate can get exhausting so I appreciate both your contributions. 

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

2 hours ago, Tweed1944 said:

His views will be seen as troublesome for the orthodox LDS member.

I think that this statement is misleading. After all, the LDS Church has changed the narrative quite a bit on their official website - and this means that what is considered orthodox is also changing - especially with regard to the Book of Abraham. This is from the LDS Church's website (I assume you are familiar with it):

Quote

Joseph’s study of the papyri may have led to a revelation about key events and teachings in the life of Abraham, much as he had earlier received a revelation about the life of Moses while studying the Bible. This view assumes a broader definition of the words translator and translation. According to this view, Joseph’s translation was not a literal rendering of the papyri, as a conventional translation would be. Rather, the physical artifacts provided an occasion for meditation, reflection, and revelation. They catalyzed a process whereby God gave to Joseph Smith a revelation about the life of Abraham, even if that revelation did not directly correlate to the characters on the papyri.

This is now an orthodox position.

3 hours ago, Tweed1944 said:

Look at the printing plate.

Yeah, I don't actually think that this is real evidence. There isn't any way to distinguish the ideas that have been presented from coincidence other than the general sense of "I know it when I see it". It could be right - but I don't have any reason to actually think it is given all of the assumptions that are required for this to be true (and the very simple assumption required for it to be a wild goose chase - Occam's razor and all that.)

I am sorry you had a temporary ban. These discussions can be difficult.

[Tweed1944]

Here is a paper by Egyptologist Tamas Mekis on the hypocephalus

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fc7q4KNlr01H7J4xr7HnU_yL8ACaQC08kAoEkVt3DDc/edit?usp=sharing

Here is the collection of the hypocephali held at the British Museum.  

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/search?object=hypocephalus&fbclid=IwAR1mf5jmVTStsjGiXmrJUcL-MsgRjROS6tLwPKSjYravybT7o5hzRooFkQA

 

[Tweed1944]

https://rsc.byu.edu/introduction-book-abraham/facsimiles?fbclid=IwAR3waoZQcCd9lWkMOlDuxWri10SWylGBQQTiAUTzZp9wq0VPEbRgFxAZZIc

One response I got on Gee

"

Gee: "Parallel scenes on grave stele usually included a formula about living in the presence of Osiris that in later times replaces the Egyptian god Osiris with Abraham." So "parallel" scenes [how parallel? From what place and time period?] replace Osiris with Abraham." Could this be from when a whole lot of Jews lived in Egypt after the diaspora? Sometimes I think their Osiris-Abraham argument is like claiming that "ancient Americans compared the great spirit to Jesus Christ" and it turns out that the "ancient Americans" they're talking about are the British settlers in Massachusetts Bay in the 1600s. Designed to fool someone who doesn't know the territory."Egyptian temples are explicitly labeled as initiations. Known initiation rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt include instruction in astronomy as part of the initiation." So "parallel" scenes (i.e. different scenes) are labeled "initiation." and other different "initiation scenes" include astronomy. That's a lot of grasping if you ask me. But as I always point out Facsimile 3 has the most readable text which Joseph Smith translated and gives his translation right there in the BOA. And he gets it completely wrong. This they don't talk about.It's like saying, "there was someone else who didn't like the murder victim and he knew someone who had a gun." while ignoring the defendant's fingerprints on the murder weapon that ballistics has proven fired the fatal shots."

 

[rjohnson7]

Egyptologist John Gee has explained that there remains much work to be done on Facsimile 3:

"Facsimile 3 has always been the most neglected of the three facsimiles in the Book of Abraham. Unfortunately, most of what has been said about this facsimile is seriously wanting at best and highly erroneous at worst. This lamentable state of affairs exists because the basic Egyptological work on Facsimile 3 has not been done, and much of the evidence lies neglected and unpublished in museums. Furthermore, what an ancient Egyptian understood by a vignette and what a modern Egyptologist understands by the same vignette are by no means the same thing. Until we understand what the Egyptians understood by this scene, we have no hope of telling whether what Joseph Smith said about them matches what the Egyptians thought about them."

Chuckle, he get it wrong? oh my! 

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

16 hours ago, rjohnson7 said:

Egyptologist John Gee has explained that there remains much work to be done on Facsimile 3:

I think that this sort of says it all.

The reason why no one really cares about what Tweed1944 was posting is because none of this is really relevant to the vast majority of people. With the Book of Abraham, the disagreements between apologists (at least of a certain type) and polemicists aren't relatable. They work with all sorts of assumptions. To put it a little more bluntly, in the OP, Tweed1944 brings up the fact that Skousen is arguing about how the contents of the English Book of Abraham suggest that the facsimiles were not originally a part of the text that Joseph Smith provided and were attached as an after thought. Nothing else that Tweed1944 posted in this thread interacts with that idea. And Tweed1944 posts nothing in this thread about the content of the English Book of Abraham. Even the LDS Church has recognized that the Egyptian material doesn't appear to be connected to the English Book of Abraham. Mormonism didn't canonize the Egyptian originals - it canonized the documents produced by Joseph Smith. So whether or not John wants to connect the facsimiles to the English text, this is an issue that has very little meaning to most LDS members. These debates have little value or use to the vast majority of members of the LDS faith. John Gee's efforts to relate the facsimiles in their original context to the English Book of Abraham has absolutely nothing to do with Skousen's text-critical approach to the English Book of Abraham and the editorial insertions made by Joseph Smith and his associates.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[rjohnson7]

Do you  believe in the long scroll theory or just the small amount we have recovered as the Book of Abraham?  

 

LDS Church states.... “The book of Abraham…was canonized as part of the Pearl of Great Price in 1880. The book originated with Egyptian papyri that Joseph Smith translated beginning in 1835. Many people saw the papyri, but no eyewitness account of the translation survives, making it impossible to reconstruct the process. Only small fragments of the long papyrus scrolls once in Joseph Smith’s possession exist today. The relationship between those fragments and the text we have today is largely a matter of conjecture.“

[Benjamin McGuire]

37 minutes ago, rjohnson7 said:

LDS Church states....

The LDS Church also states that:

Quote

According to this view, Joseph’s translation was not a literal rendering of the papyri as a conventional translation would be. Rather, the physical artifacts provided an occasion for meditation, reflection, and revelation. They catalyzed a process whereby God gave to Joseph Smith a revelation about the life of Abraham, even if that revelation did not directly correlate to the characters on the papyri.

In other words, the English text of the Book of Abraham doesn't (according to the Church) have to have anything to do with the papyri. The long scroll theory, or whatever other theory you might have about the relationship between the English text and the Egyptian materials is, in that sense, irrelevant.

[mfbukowski]

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I think that this sort of says it all.

The reason why no one really cares about what Tweed1944 was posting is because none of this is really relevant to the vast majority of people. With the Book of Abraham, the disagreements between apologists (at least of a certain type) and polemicists aren't relatable. They work with all sorts of assumptions. To put it a little more bluntly, in the OP, Tweed1944 brings up the fact that Skousen is arguing about how the contents of the English Book of Abraham suggest that the facsimiles were not originally a part of the text that Joseph Smith provided and were attached as an after thought. Nothing else that Tweed1944 posted in this thread interacts with that idea. And Tweed1944 posts nothing in this thread about the content of the English Book of Abraham. Even the LDS Church has recognized that the Egyptian material doesn't appear to be connected to the English Book of Abraham. Mormonism didn't canonize the Egyptian originals - it canonized the documents produced by Joseph Smith. So whether or not John wants to connect the facsimiles to the English text, this is an issue that has very little meaning to most LDS members. These debates have little value or use to the vast majority of members of the LDS faith. John Gee's efforts to relate the facsimiles in their original context to the English Book of Abraham has absolutely nothing to do with Skousen's text-critical approach to the English Book of Abraham and the editorial insertions made by Joseph Smith and his associates.

Agree, this hits it perfectly.

Joseph might well have "translated" patterns he saw in the floral wallpaper ( if that existed then) or tea leaves or ripples in a pool.

We just cannot fathom this in our church as one does who actually "did" the 1960's.  I hesitate to say it that way, but I think someone needs to.

Scriptures speak of being "carried away" in the Spirit all the time, but for some it is impossible to imagine and accept that Joseph had such experiences based on the Spirit alone.

We can accept that that was what happened in dreams and visions to others, but to Joseph? Not possible in this case because for some reason because he used that slippery word "translate" to describe all his revelations.

I'm glad we no longer have the gold plates - that would just magnify the silliness further.

Either it was ALL the Spirit or all something else, we all need to pray and get our own answers.

Why do not all our scholars see that?  To me, it has always been the CONTENT of what came from Joseph's mind that counts and its spiritual "verification" that matters.

We talk the talk, but it seems that even the scholars do not know about the wonders of the human mind.

 

[Calm]

3 hours ago, rjohnson7 said:

Do you  believe in the long scroll theory or just the small amount we have recovered as the Book of Abraham?  

 

LDS Church states.... “The book of Abraham…was canonized as part of the Pearl of Great Price in 1880. The book originated with Egyptian papyri that Joseph Smith translated beginning in 1835. Many people saw the papyri, but no eyewitness account of the translation survives, making it impossible to reconstruct the process. Only small fragments of the long papyrus scrolls once in Joseph Smith’s possession exist today. The relationship between those fragments and the text we have today is largely a matter of conjecture.“

Do you have bad eyesight?  If not, can you avoid the larger font, please? My eyesight isn’t great, so I understand needing to make adjustments, but if it is just your preference, change would be appreciated.  It’s quite annoying and makes it harder to read the regular stuff as it keeps drawing attention.  

Edited August 28, 2023 by Calm

[rjohnson7]

  3 hours ago, rjohnson7 said:

LDS Church states....

The LDS Church also states that:

  Quote

According to this view, Joseph’s translation was not a literal rendering of the papyri as a conventional translation would be. Rather, the physical artifacts provided an occasion for meditation, reflection, and revelation. They catalyzed a process whereby God gave to Joseph Smith a revelation about the life of Abraham, even if that revelation did not directly correlate to the characters on the papyri.

In other words, the English text of the Book of Abraham doesn't (according to the Church) have to have anything to do with the papyri. The long scroll theory, or whatever other theory you might have about the relationship between the English text and the Egyptian materials is, in that sense, irrelevant.

 

I'm just interested, do you believe that their was a long scroll that  got burned in the Chicago fire...?