The Book of Abraham: From Whence was it Derived?

[_wenglund]

Many versions of the KJV included the apocrypha. If we're talking about things Joseph couldn't have known, then this doesn't qualify.

Fair enough.

Elkanah is much closer to Elkenah than Nahom is to NHM. Spelling was not standardized in Joseph's day. Again, if we're talking about things Joseph couldn't have known, then this doesn't qualify. We don't even know if these were real gods - not without some primary sources. When I google these names, all I get are links to LDS topics.

They're very prevalent themes in the Bible - especially the four quarters. Anyone who's read the flood story knows about the waters of the firmament. Again, if we're talking about things Joseph couldn't have known, then these don't qualify.

Good point about the spelling. However, again, we aren't just talking about whether Joseph may have been familiar with the names (in their variant spellings) or concepts, but whether he would have known they were names of idolatrous gods in Abraham's day and in the region in which Abraham lived at the time, and more particularly that Joseph would have known that the canoptic jars were not only associated with the four idolatrous gods as well as the sons of Horus, but were also symbolic of the four quarters of the earth, not to mention the Egyptian symbols for firmament. This clearly qualifies. And, if you read through the LDS links that I supplied, you will find at least some non-LDS references to substantiate what the LDS have argued.

Incidentally, a common trick of fortune tellers is to count on their customers to count the hits and ignore the misses.

It is a common "trick" for those who use inductive reasoning--including yourself.

The misses in the Book of Abraham far outnumber the hits, and the hits appear to be nothing that can't be explained by material available to Joseph in his lifetime.

At this point in the discussion I have just begun to list some of the hits (of which you have addressed only a portions). Once that is complete, I can begin to consider the alleged misses and neutrals to see how it all adds up.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Buffalo]

Good point about the spelling. However, again, we aren't just talking about whether Joseph may have been familiar with the names (in their variant spellings) or concepts, but whether he would have known they were names of idolatrous gods in Abraham's day and in the region in which Abraham lived at the time, and more particularly that Joseph would have known that the canoptic jars were not only associated with the four idolatrous gods as well as the sons of Horus, but were also symbolic of the four quarters of the earth, not to mention the Egyptian symbols for firmament. This clearly qualifies. And, if you read through the LDS links that I supplied, you will find at least some non-LDS references to substantiate what the LDS have argued.

The problem is that we DON'T know that those were the names of any Egyptian gods. They may be, but I have seen no evidence to that effect.

As far as the imagery and association with firmament &four quarters, I will look into that more closely and report back. But the concepts themselves are very familiar to a Bible reader.

It is a common "trick" for those who use inductive reasoning--including yourself.

There is no doubt that that there are clear misses in the Book of Abraham.

At this point in the discussion I have just begun to list some of the hits (of which you have addressed only a portions). Once that is complete, I can begin to consider the alleged misses and neutrals to see how it all adds up.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Fair enough.

[_moksha]

Proof that the Principal was brought to Egypt by Abraham. Note the father, mothers, children ane even a kneeling sales rep.

[Guest]

As far as the imagery and association with firmament &four quarters, I will look into that more closely and report back. But the concepts themselves are very familiar to a Bible reader.

Smith just finished writing a book about American tribes (central, north, south american, who knows.)
He was obviously interested in the topic of American tribes. He got a seer stone from an Indian didn’t he? He had a great deal of Indian contact and had access to the information that the American tribal indians believed in the 4 quarters. 4 quarter information is easy for him.

How much information did Smith and his coworkers have regarding the pre-columbian American civilizations? Anthropologists used to contrast the "peaceful" Maya with the bloodthirsty Aztecs of central Mexico. Sounds like the Lamanites and Nephites doesn’t it?

Fray Diego de Landa, second bishop of the Yucatan ordered a mass destruction of Mayan books in 1562 and only three survived.
http://www.lost-civilizations.net/mayan-history.html

Here we can see that Rome was on a mission to keep the geocentric model in place and did not like the science of the mayans. (one can imagine if rome disliked the heliocentric model they REALLY disliked the Mayan model.)

Surely he would have known that the Mayans held a complex model. He was not only writing about ancient America but the Mayans model was at odds with the Roman model; which was a bone of contention for Rome during that era and Smith was living at the tail end of that religious contention. (drawing from information from Consiglieri’s thread it appears likely that he would know about the Mayan model.)
The mayans were around before Lehi allegedly arrived in 600BCE approx. Earliest date listed on the "long count" calendar is about August 11, 3114 BC, what the Maya said was the founding date of their civilization.

Mayans also believed in the 4 quarters and referenced it in glyphs.

Smith had a number of sources for 4 quarter reference information.

[_jon]

Instead of speculating about what we don't know, let's consider what we do know:

1. Joseph himself stated that it was 'written by the hand of Abraham on the papyrus'.
The papyrus has been dated to a time when Abraham was long dead. The apologist's only defense of this is to discount what Joseph himself said.

2. Regardless of the debate around 'missing' pieces, we do have some of the actually pieces that were used in the translation that nobody disputes. The facsimilies.
These have been comprehensively shown to be something other than that which Joseph translated them. In point of fact, these facsimilies crop up in plenty of other Egyptian papyrus showing them as part of common funeral documents.

There cannot be any real doubt that the Book of Abraham is a creation from the mind of Joseph Smith, that Joseph himself presented as a direct translation of Abraham's writing on the papyrus. Just check the facts out.
(I'm discounting the 'I've got a testimony of it being true' defense because that can be applied in equal measure as 'I've got a testimony that it's fake')

[_Buffalo]

As far as the imagery and association with firmament &four quarters, I will look into that more closely and report back. But the concepts themselves are very familiar to a Bible reader.

Okay, it looks like Joseph didn't get the interpretation of the imagery right either. While the four quarters of the earth and firmament/waters happen to exist in Egyptian mythology, the images Joseph interpreted as being symbolic of those ideas don't match up. Add that to the fact that those concepts are well-established in the Bible and we have a perfect zero score for Joseph. I haven't seen a single thing here that Joseph couldn't have known from sources already known to him, and none of it matches with what real Egyptologists see in the actual papyrus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ab ... mile_No._1

Peterson's article is a cornucopia of misinformation and wishful thinking. Sorry, Wade.

http://library.LDS.org/nxt/gateway.dll/ ... plates&2.0

[_wenglund]

Okay, it looks like Joseph didn't get the interpretation of the imagery right either. While the four quarters of the earth and firmament/waters happen to exist in Egyptian mythology, the images Joseph interpreted as being symbolic of those ideas don't match up.

They appear not to match up at first glance (as indicated in the wikipedia article you linked to), but upon deeper investigation they do.(See the Keery Shirts article and the Book of Abraham Commentary I linked to earlier).

Peterson's article is a cornucopia of misinformation and wishful thinking. Sorry, Wade.

Why should I be sorry for your self-serving mis-characterization of Peterson's article? To be sorry, I would need to give your unwarranted dismissal credence. I don't.

Anyway, the issue of the names of the four idolotrous gods seems to have run its course. We will just have to agree to disagree on this one. So, if you would like, you can move on to address the questions: whether the canoptic jars represent the four quarters of the earth; whether figure 11 of facsimile 1 represents the pillars of heaven, as understood by the Egyptians; whether the angled lines below the lion couch in facsimile 1 represent “the firmament over our heads” (fig. 12); and whether the crocodile in Facsimile 1, fig. 9 represents the idolatrous god of Pharaoh. (Again, it isn't sufficinet for you to show that the concepts were biblical. You need to show where it was known in Joseph's day that the heiroglyphic figures represent what Joseph claimed they did, and this in agreement with modern Egyptology.)

Once you address those issues, we can then move on to consider the extra-biblical story of the failed attempt to sacrifice Abraham to idolotrous God as depicted in Abr. 1 and Fac. 1, as well as other portions of the Book of Abraham believed to have been unknown to Joseph.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

Instead of speculating about what we don't know, let's consider what we do know:

1. Joseph himself stated that it was 'written by the hand of Abraham on the papyrus'. The papyrus has been dated to a time when Abraham was long dead. The apologist's only defense of this is to discount what Joseph himself said.

I prefer to continue with the line of discussion against the best wishes of some of the non-believers, with the intention that once this line of discussion is completed, we can move on to examine counter-arguments like the one above and below. You may be pleased to learn that your issue above, and portions of your issue below, have been reasonably addressed elsewhere. To say the least, there is ample room for both doubt and faith on both sides.

2. Regardless of the debate around 'missing' pieces, we do have some of the actually pieces that were used in the translation that nobody disputes. The facsimilies.
These have been comprehensively shown to be something other than that which Joseph translated them. In point of fact, these facsimilies crop up in plenty of other Egyptian papyrus showing them as part of common funeral documents.

There cannot be any real doubt that the Book of Abraham is a creation from the mind of Joseph Smith, that Joseph himself presented as a direct translation of Abraham's writing on the papyrus. Just check the facts out.

See above.

(I'm discounting the 'I've got a testimony of it being true' defense because that can be applied in equal measure as 'I've got a testimony that it's fake')

If, by "testimony" you mean that you firmly believe that God has witnessed to you through his Spirit that the Book of Abraham is not of him, and that when you followed the precepts found in the Book of Abraham they were not magnified in your soul, then it seems reasonable for you to reject the supernaturalistic origins of the Book of Abraham, though for me the divine evidence has been otherwise. To each their own.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Buffalo]

They appear not to match up at first glance (as indicated in the wikipedia article you linked to), but upon deeper investigation they do.(See the Keery Shirts article and the Book of Abraham Commentary I linked to earlier).

I hadn't read that the first time, but going through it now, it appears that Shirts is only able to make the names work by cobbling together parts of words from different languages. You could literally make sense of any made up name using that methodology. Furthermore, those aren't the names of the gods portrayed in the papyrus. They are Qebehsenuf, Duamutef, Hapy and Imsety. Joseph got them all wrong.

More later. Sorry about the partial response - I'm quite busy.

[_Buffalo]

Anyway, the issue of the names of the four idolotrous gods seems to have run its course. We will just have to agree to disagree on this one. So, if you would like, you can move on to address the questions: whether the canoptic jars represent the four quarters of the earth; whether figure 11 of facsimile 1 represents the pillars of heaven, as understood by the Egyptians; whether the angled lines below the lion couch in facsimile 1 represent “the firmament over our heads” (fig. 12); and whether the crocodile in Facsimile 1, fig. 9 represents the idolatrous god of Pharaoh. (Again, it isn't sufficinet for you to show that the concepts were biblical. You need to show where it was known in Joseph's day that the heiroglyphic figures represent what Joseph claimed they did, and this in agreement with modern Egyptology.)

I'm not sure there's really a need to discuss these - we have a nice compare and contrast between Joseph's interpretation and the actual meaning here. Do you dispute any of this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Ab ... mile_No._1