Statement on the problems with the Book of Abraham

[freedomforall]

Has anyone taken into consideration that so called experts are nothing more than intellectuals with a piece of paper that says they learned about something just a little more than the other guy? That piece of paper doesn't make them "the last word" on any topic.
The origin of some wording within the facsimiles are said to be not of Egyptian language. Maybe so, maybe not, who really cares?
There may have been a language we not not of.
Look into the Book of Mormon, for instance. There are at least two words that no one, not even experts have ever figured out. Does this mean they did not exist? Come on!
The words are:

Ether 9:19
19 And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms. They are considered to be untranslated Jaredite terms.

Without more information, one cannot count this as a strike against the Book of Mormon. Interestingly, were he fabricating the Book of Mormon, this was an opportunity for Joseph Smith to let his imagination run wild, and yet no descriptions of these strange beasts are provided.

SEE: http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon ... and_cumoms" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jbalm]

Cumoms = penguins, and cureloms = unicorns, obviously.

Prove me wrong.

[freedomforall]

Cumoms = penguins, and cureloms = unicorns, obviously.

Prove me wrong.

Better yet, prove you're right! Show that this isn't merely guesswork. Maybe they're all Unicorns that look like Penguins, or vise verse. Who knows?

[jbalm]

That's not the way things work around here.

I get to say whatever I want, then challenge everyone to come up with proof that I am wrong-- like everyone else does.

And, if nobody comes up with irrefutable proof that cumoms are not penguins, and cureloms are not unicorns (opinions by mere academics don't count, mind you) then I am right by default.

Can we at least apply the standards with a little consistency?

[Hannant]

Experts can translate Egyptian.
We can test that.
Joseph couldn't. That has been proven. We have the originals

[Hannant]

Log you are a disgrace.

Take your red ink and stuff it.

If you want early church history anecdotes I have them by the bucketfull, but you won't like them.

We HAVE the manuscripts, and Josephs handwriting all over then
Maybe they meant red handed, not red inked.

This is what we HAVE

Grammar & Alphabet of Egyptian Language

Four manuscripts that contain Egyptian and invented characters with Joseph's English names and definitions of them. Many of the words and definitions from these documents are found in the Book of Abraham and the facsimile definitions.

Joseph Smith ..."The remainder of the month, I was continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients...."
Joseph Smith - Mormonism founder
History of the Church 2:238


Egyptian Counting
A manuscript with invented numbers, their names, and Joseph's English counterparts.


Translation Manuscripts
Three manuscripts that contain characters copied from the source papyri (Abraham roll) along with Joseph's translations of them, which comprise the text of Abraham 1:1-2:18.

These manuscripts copy characters from the papyrus section highlighted in the link I gave a few posts above (and invent characters where the papyrus in damaged or missing) along with Joseph's translation of them, which comprise the text of Abraham 1:1-2:18.

The Kirtland Egyptian Papers allow us to examine Joseph's accuracy in translating Egyptian characters.
Egyptoligist I.E. Stephen Edwards sums up an analysis of the KEP best:
The whole work was, "largely a piece of imagination and lacking in any kind of scientific a value."
I.E.S. Edwards - Keeper of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, British Museum
Letter dated June 9, 1966
as quoted in Charles M. Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, p. 43


The Book of Abraham is demonstrated to be a false translation- of those Egyptian characters from those manuscripts..

This is irrefutable.

The ONLY, I repeat the ONLY reply the church has, is that the Rosetta stone is not Egyptian as Abraham had it.

Which is hilarious when you think it through. But its all we have

[sevenator]

Cumoms = penguins, and cureloms = unicorns, obviously.

Prove me wrong.

[freedomforall]

That's not the way things work around here.

I get to say whatever I want, then challenge everyone to come up with proof that I am wrong-- like everyone else does.

And, if nobody comes up with irrefutable proof that cumoms are not penguins, and cureloms are not unicorns (opinions by mere academics don't count, mind you) then I am right by default.

Can we at least apply the standards with a little consistency?

And then there's the new proof that debunks the old proof, leaving both proofs null and void, because proof can only come from that which is more than a mere expert. They have to have been present when the proof was being written down the very moment it was. But nobody has proof of when proof was even proved, so the supposed proof goes poof! But I suppose there is some proof proved to have not gone poof...someplace. Proving it is something that has to be proved, and has to be viable enough as to not go poof when presented. Really makes sense when one doesn't think about it much. But I can't prove it.

[freedomforall]

Cumoms = penguins, and cureloms = unicorns, obviously.

Prove me wrong.

This is actually a UniHare.

[log]

Log you are a disgrace.

Take your red ink and stuff it.

(-| 8-|

The Papyri That Aren't There
Larson has nothing but contempt for what he calls the "Missing Black and Red Scroll" Theory (pp. 129-34), for "it is considered valid by novices" (p. 85). He insists that we now possess the papyri from which the book of Abraham comes, and that Latter-day Saint scholars who have argued that another, missing, papyrus was the source are indulging in mere wishful thinking. After all, "whenever qualified people have studied the papyri, including such undisputed experts as Baer, Wilson, and Parker, they have always reached the same conclusions that [Dee Jay] Nelson did" (p. 151, deemphasis mine). Yet Larson is unaware that the most recent non-LDS Egyptologist to write on the subject, to my knowledge, said that "the Pap. Joseph Smith XI and X containing the Book of Breathings were wrongly identified by others with Joseph Smith's book of Abraham."35

Larson is adamant that "there were two, and only two, 'rolls of papyrus' " (pp. 133, 85) and accuses Nibley of concocting a story about there being more than one lengthy scroll in Nauvoo (pp. 129-30).36 This is important to him because he wants to be able to demonstrate that we have the papyrus from which Joseph Smith claimed to have derived the book of Abraham, and then point out triumphantly that the book of Abraham cannot, in fact, be derived from that papyrus. Nonetheless, the evidence appears to be on Nibley's side rather than Larson's. In 1842, the fragments we now have in the Joseph Smith Papyri were mounted in "a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics."37 The next year, in 1843, a nonmember named Charlotte Haven visited Lucy Mack Smith and wrote a letter to her own mother about it:

Then she [Mother Smith] turned to a long table, set her candlestick down, and opened a long roll of manuscript, saying it was "the writing of Abraham and Isaac, written in Hebrew and Sanscrit," and she read several minutes from it as if it were English. It sounded very much like passages from the Old Testament—and it might have been for anything we knew—but she said she read it through the inspiration of her son Joseph, in whom she seemed to have perfect confidence. Then in the same way she interpreted to us hieroglyphics from another roll. One was Mother Eve being tempted by the serpent, who—the serpent, I mean—was standing on the tip of his tail, which with his two legs formed a tripod, and had his head in Eve's ear.38

If Nibley's source seems suspect for being late, oral, and from a Mormon, this other source (which Nibley did not cite) nevertheless says the same thing—but is contemporary, written, and from a non-Mormon. Notice that the vignette described matches none of those in the Joseph Smith papyri we have from the Metropolitan Museum.39 And there seem indeed to have been two long rolls even after the present fragments of the Joseph Smith Papyri were mounted. If there were only two rolls it is important to note that Joseph Smith Papyri I-XI were not on them.

Larson tries to dismiss the notion that the document from which the book of Abraham was translated was "beautifully written upon papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation" (pp. 129-32).40 But there is another eyewitness account from the Nauvoo period that supports this statement:

"Oh, here is the Pearl of Great Price," said Brother Horne, picking up that book. "I've seen these records with my own eyes," referring to the Book of Abraham, "and handled them with these hands. Mother Lucy . . . showed them to me. . . . The records which I saw were some kind of parchment or papyrus, and it contained writing in red and black. Mother Lucy told me that one was the writings of Abraham and the other the writings of Joseph, who was sold in Egypt."41

And there is still more evidence that Joseph Smith had additional papyri. Egyptian papyrus documents almost universally pertain to only one individual.42 So from an Egyptological perspective how many papyri do we know that Joseph Smith had? We know that there was a Book of Breathings belonging to Hor, son of Remnyqay and Taykhebit,43 a Book of the Dead belonging to Tasheritmin,44 a Book of the Dead belonging to Neferirnub,45 a hypocephalus belonging to Sheshonq,46 and a document belonging to Amenhotep, the son of Hor.47 Here we have documents from at least five different individuals. If we have all the papyri Joseph Smith had, where, we might ask Mr. Larson, are Facsimiles 2 and 3, the roll belonging to Amenhotep, or all the strange vignettes which those who saw the papyri in Nauvoo describe? If there are documents we do not have, by what clairvoyance do Larson and his fellow critics proclaim what was or was not on them?

35. Zondhoven, Annual Egyptological Bibliography 1977, 180-81.

36. In 1906, while visiting Nauvoo, President Joseph F. Smith related to Preston Nibley his experience as a child of seeing his Uncle Joseph in the front rooms of the Mansion House working on the Egyptian manuscripts. According to President Smith, one of the rolls of papyri "when unrolled on the floor extended through two rooms of the Mansion House. Hugh Nibley, "Phase I," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3/2 (Summer 1968): 101. This would have been sometime between 1843 when the Mansion House was completed and the prophet's death in June 1844, one or two years after other parts of the papyri had been cut up and placed under glass. Cf. also Hugh Nibley, "New Look at the Pearl of Great Price," Improvement Era 71 (March 1968): 17-18, and Hugh Nibley, "Judging and Prejudging the Book of Abraham," Nibley archive, 1979, 6-7; reprinted as an appendix in Robert L. and Rosemary Brown, They Lie in Wait to Deceive, vol. 1, ed. Barbara Ellsworth, rev. ed. (Mesa, AZ: Brownsworth, 1982), 236-45.

If you want early church history anecdotes I have them by the bucketfull, but you won't like them.

(-| 8-|

Remember: all liars go to hell.

[cayenne]

Thx log and freedomforall for your posts.

This anti stuff is getting old. I am guessing this is against the forum rules right?

After many years of researching anti stuff, anti's refuse to even dare consider all the stuff joseph nailed in the BOM and the B of Abraham not known in his day. So when anti's try to bring up this and that, they won't consider the other. The Book of Abraham has numerous things not known in josephs day but later shown to be authentic. Once again the anti's discount this. This evidence overpowers any other because it proves he could not have Made it up or plagairized it. Even if some of the stuff hannant brings up is true, it would show the human misunderstandings of how Joseph arrived at the information in the BOA because we know much of it was unknown in the 1840's and later shown to be authentic....this is the mark of a prophet. In other words the anti argument would once again collapse....however what hannant brings up is more garbage so it does not matter.

Plus, every anti i have even known/had conversation with is bitter, unpeaceful, and full of anger.

Hopefully this anti stuff will come to an end on here. It is one thing to ask questions and investigate, and another to cross over to the anti route and accuse Joseph of being a fraud.

[Hannant]

The integrity of the dialogue here is embarrassing.

Calling Me a liar, repeatedly, and invoking hell, is disgraceful, utterly sickening.

Resorting to "they're anti, quick, ban them" is childish. Is that how you inoculate your children.

Who cares about possible red ink parchments that_might_exist.

The facsimiles we have are not correct.

Abraham 1&2 came from what we DO have.

It also, is not a correct translation.

The red ink parchments are a red herring because of what we do have.

Don't hide behind "its anti material". That really is childish

Have I ever said its not a divinely inspired document? No.

I have only said he didn't translate them from that papyrus

[drjme]

The Book of Abraham has numerous things not known in josephs day but later shown to be authentic. Once again the anti's discount this. This evidence overpowers any other because it proves he could not have Made it up or plagairized it. Even if some of the stuff hannant brings up is true, it would show the human misunderstandings of how Joseph arrived at the information in the BOA because we know much of it was unknown in the 1840's and later shown to be authentic....this is the mark of a prophet.

Any chance of a list? just for the sake of the conversation.

[log]

The integrity of the dialogue here is embarrassing.

Calling Me a liar, repeatedly, and invoking hell, is disgraceful, utterly sickening.

Lying repeatedly about us possessing the source of the Book of Abraham, despite the publicly available evidence which shows we do not, is disgraceful indeed.

Who cares about possible red ink parchments that_might_exist.

Those who care about the actual source of the Book of Abraham care about the papyrus with the red ink. It is a lie to say otherwise.

The red ink parchments are a red herring because of what we do have.

The actual source of the BoA, which is the papyrus with the red ink, is not a red herring - to insist otherwise is to lie.

I have only said he didn't translate them from that papyrus

Excellent! That is the implication of not having the papyrus with the red ink, since that is the source of the Book of Abraham, and we don't have it, therefore he didn't translate it from the papyrus we do have.

We finally agree on something.

[cayenne]

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_Abraham.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here is a good take on it.

[log]

Have I ever said its not a divinely inspired document? No.

(-| @-) :ymsigh: 8-|

You cant explain that Joseph Smith got it very, very wrong, and you are making a very poor attempt to distract from the issue.

Because even though the papyrus Joseph smith translated was written in the same era as the Rosetta stone was written, the Mormon Egyptian is a lost, hidden language which has never been found anywhere on earth.

Or, he just made it up and got it wrong.

He got it entirely wrong.

I take your challenge, whoever wrong, leaves

D&C 93
24 And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come;

25 And whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning.

[Hannant]

Translation is strange.
The notes are wrong.
The translation is wrong
But somehow the words are right,
Apparently we now have things not possibly known.

Strange, the Book of Mormon has problems the opposite- when he copied Isaiah from the OT, and Mark 16, he kept the errors, those "italics" words.

God missed that in the translation?

Sure, he was able to correct the language of Egyptuan, actually it was a pre emptive correction, but in the book of Mormon he kept the errors from the KJV.

I ask again, he was a prophet, here is a TRUE translation of Egyptian. The Rosetta stone only translated a later, new version if hieroglyphs translation.

So why, now that we found the new Rosetta stone, in the Js manuscripts with his language translations, why don't we take that to the world, and use it to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs that are proven to be from Abrahams time in Egypt (not that there is much/ any evidence he even was there)

I mean Surely that is a slam dunk?

[log]

And now, class, we see an example of a "red herring."

[Hannant]

http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_Abraham.shtml

Here is a good take on it.

Uh, sorry. Good try.

The problem which blows it all apart, time and time again, is that we have papyrus, with Joseph Smith's handwriting all over them.

They ARE the source.

If the best Jeff Lindsay has is 1835 statements by Oliver Cowderey, trust me, I can trump that red ink one.

And it involves 15 year old girls

[Hannant]

And now, class, we see an example of a "red herring."

who are you log and what's your mission mate.

never mind that you are a one trick pony with regards to your technique. Quote shut down scriptures.

ever taken money from the church for anything other than reimbursement?

I'm guessing you are very troubled inside.

Seeks like there is a lot being reconciled there. This is a very strong committment you are giving here.

maybe you are out of work and thinking this will show your committment to the Lord?

Log, face it. We have THE papyrus JS translated from.

all 3 facsimiles.

Abraham 1&2.

Its a slam dunk

deal with it

[log]

Log, face it. We have THE papyrus JS translated from.

Remember - all liars go to hell.

[Hyrcanus]

I haven't followed the thread closely, so I apologize if someone said any of this earlier. Here are a few items to consider:

- In regards to the Kirtland Egyptian Papers (KEP), it is clear that little or none of the work done in the KEP by Joseph Smith and others lines up with current understanding of Egyptian. I realize there are some working theories, but 9/10 Egyptologists are going to tell you it doesn't work. Where this disconnects from the rest of the discussion is that it is relatively clear that Joseph wasn't using the KEP in his "translation" of the Book of Abraham. It appears to have been a failed academic attempt to produce an Egyptian alphabet.

- We abuse the word "translation" in the church as it pertains to the BoM and BoA. While some people ascribe to the theory that both of these were done as word for word translations, we don't actually know. Most of the reports we have are second hand at best and usually late second hand.

- There is no question there is a section, potentially a large section of the scrolls that Joseph had that is currently missing. Trying to have a conversation without acknowledging this is going to be pointless. Guessing at what parts of the BoA came out of certain scrolls is nothing more than guesswork, we just don't know.

Kerry Muhlstein did a series of videos on the BoA that addresses several of these issues. He actually has a PhD in Egyptology, which puts him in a good position to address several of the claims. Here is one, there are several others if you are interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCH529IgDrY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[log]

And now, class, we see an example of a "red herring."

who are you log and what's your mission mate.

never mind that you are a one trick pony with regards to your technique. Quote shut down scriptures.

ever taken money from the church for anything other than reimbursement?

I'm guessing you are very troubled inside.

Seeks like there is a lot being reconciled there. This is a very strong committment you are giving here.

maybe you are out of work and thinking this will show your committment to the Lord?

And now, class, we see an example of "argumentum ad hominem."

[Hannant]

Log, face it. We have THE papyrus JS translated from.

Remember - all liars go to hell.

You are filth log

what foul spirit has infested you?

[log]

Log, face it. We have THE papyrus JS translated from.

Remember - all liars go to hell.

You are filth log

what foul spirit has infested you?

And now, class, we see an example of "projection".