New Book of Abraham Research Group

[_EdGoble]

I cannot critique what does not exist. We have had this conversation before. I know you mean well, but your argument so far is to argue Egyptians used ciphers so maybe one was used with the papyri. Cipher use is ancient and used any most of not all advance civilizations of the past. Just adding meaning to different sections of the papyri is not much of a cipher if at all, and you cannot show one really existed in the ancient past. All you can do is speculate. Schryver was trying for many years but gave up. Joseph was just trying to suggest to his believers about how to translate Egyptian. I think he knew he was making much of it up to impress, but he was claiming to translate an ancient langue like he did with what he called reformed Egyptian. Like he did with the Greek document. Like he did with the kinderhook plates which we certainly know was not ancient. Abraham is not even considered a real person by most scholars some of whom are Christian.

Well, Themis, then we have an impasse in our opinions. Thanks though for your response.

[_Themis]

Themis, am I to understand that you are a Mormon still? Yes, true, not all of us think the same way. Not all Mormons are believing of the core claims. I am an apologist of the sort that seeks to uphold core claims.

I wouldn't say all core claims. You go for the old earth creation, but then, that is where I went for a while as well.

I don't know Schryver's whole story, but I have seen some of the criticisms of him unrelated to his scholarship, which even if true, sort of are not very helpful in ascertaining the value or lack thereof in his scholarship. I'm not particularly interested in Schryver's life or identity outside of his scholarship. Not that such things are not important to a degree, but I am interested in what good he did that I find of value, not his mistakes.

He is not a scholar. He has no formal education in these areas.

I don't know the reason he gave up, and I'm not real interested in it.

Somehow I doubt he quit due to success.

I know that the Mormon Mystics on the Mormon Mystic email group are believers in the occult, such as Joe Swick, etc. Many of the Freemasonic LDS are also believers in the occult to a degree.

Mormon rationalists (at least those that try to be to the degree possible) who are still believers in core claims, as a necessity, must adopt a stance that embraces some occultism in the sense of prophets employing physical objects.

Mormons can be diverse. The problem with Joseph's use of seer stones and such is that more Mormons today dismiss them as not really working. Less today think Ouija boards can really work. This has problems when these same people start to really evaluate what Joseph was doing and claiming.

Yes, I get it that most Mormon Evolutionists would like Adam and Eve to just be evolved humans like the rest. That is certainly another option. I, however, like the theory of the hybridization, with them being direct children of Heavenly Parents. Its sort of a compromise between evolution and Mormon tradition. And its cool, because Adam and Eve are then still immortal in the Garden, and actually fall into mortality, while the rest of the human race are still evolved.

The problem is that Joseph believed the Bible quite literally like most of the rest of society when creating his religion. He then attached him self through claimed revelations of so many of these biblical characters as real people. This means many Mormons have to do mental gymnastics to try and keep them real. If he hadn't then you would probably just consider them as fictional characters while believing God exists and talked with Joseph.

[Guest]

I have encyclopedias of the paranormal where proponents of seemingly endless models of reality are put forth relating to everything from free energy to economic systems to forgotten books of the Bible to alien contact, ad infinitum. It's fascinating to see the differing perspectives, degrees of sophistication and sacralization of mundane things.

James Mosely, late editor of Saucer Smear and veteran reporter on all things UFO, confided late in life that he stopped believing in the extraterrestrial possibility many years before, but what kept him fascinated was the endless bizarre parade of people: sincere and frauds, creative and derivative, an unfolding cultural phenomenon that is still with us.

Maksutov,

I want to make another comment in response to this. I hope other Mormons will consider this, though I know others will disagree. Why would God put us in a situation to make fools out of ourselves by having to be believers, when it would be preferable to be pure rationalists and not have to appear foolish?

Its because the power of faith is at the root of the power of priesthood. And there is a time for every season, a time for planting, a time for harvest, etc. And so, the time to be pure rationalist has not come yet. The time for that is the time when we are beyond the veil and have full knowledge of all things. For now, we cannot have power in the priesthood without an exercise of faith. For now, for the believer, we believe for the sake of power generation, to be like God. To give that up now for the sake of the virtues of rationality is to give up the very reason we came to earth. And we also risk being denialists of things that we will know perfectly later on, once we are beyond the veil. Now is not the time for that. So, to have faith is a sacrifice of what some may see as the greater virtue, for the sake of power in the hereafter.

To be denalists of that which is true, which is only known by the power of the Spirit for now, is to allow the adversary to destroy our ability to gain power.

[_Themis]

I cannot critique what does not exist. We have had this conversation before. I know you mean well, but your argument so far is to argue Egyptians used ciphers so maybe one was used with the papyri. Cipher use is ancient and used any most of not all advance civilizations of the past. Just adding meaning to different sections of the papyri is not much of a cipher if at all, and you cannot show one really existed in the ancient past. All you can do is speculate. Schryver was trying for many years but gave up. Joseph was just trying to suggest to his believers about how to translate Egyptian. I think he knew he was making much of it up to impress, but he was claiming to translate an ancient langue like he did with what he called reformed Egyptian. Like he did with the Greek document. Like he did with the kinderhook plates which we certainly know was not ancient. Abraham is not even considered a real person by most scholars some of whom are Christian.

Well, Themis, then we have an impasse in our opinions. Thanks though for your response.

I'm open to it, but you have never demonstrated anything more then speculating. Where is your evidence that a cipher was employed by the person who created the papyri or knew about it before it was deposited in the tombs? Why would it make sense to create something not needed when the Book of Abraham story was going to have to come from God anyways?

[Guest]

I'm open to it, but you have never demonstrated anything more then speculating. Where is your evidence that a cipher was employed by the person who created the papyri or knew about it before it was deposited in the tombs? Why would it make sense to create something not needed when the Book of Abraham story was going to have to come from God anyways?

Thanks for being open to it, but I did my best under the constraints in which I find myself, with the amount of evidence I have. To tell you the truth, I think the Lord likes puzzles, for one thing, being a Jew, because the ancient rabbis loved this stuff. And another thing is I think that he wanted to give people an exercise of faith, yet again.

I'm just telling you the best explanation I have for the evidence I do have.

[_Maksutov]

Themis, am I to understand that you are a Mormon still? Yes, true, not all of us think the same way. Not all Mormons are believing of the core claims. I am an apologist of the sort that seeks to uphold core claims.

I wouldn't say all core claims. You go for the old earth creation, but then, that is where I went for a while as well.

I don't know Schryver's whole story, but I have seen some of the criticisms of him unrelated to his scholarship, which even if true, sort of are not very helpful in ascertaining the value or lack thereof in his scholarship. I'm not particularly interested in Schryver's life or identity outside of his scholarship. Not that such things are not important to a degree, but I am interested in what good he did that I find of value, not his mistakes.

He is not a scholar. He has no formal education in these areas.

I don't know the reason he gave up, and I'm not real interested in it.

Somehow I doubt he quit due to success.

I know that the Mormon Mystics on the Mormon Mystic email group are believers in the occult, such as Joe Swick, etc. Many of the Freemasonic LDS are also believers in the occult to a degree.

Mormon rationalists (at least those that try to be to the degree possible) who are still believers in core claims, as a necessity, must adopt a stance that embraces some occultism in the sense of prophets employing physical objects.

Mormons can be diverse. The problem with Joseph's use of seer stones and such is that more Mormons today dismiss them as not really working. Less today think Ouija boards can really work. This has problems when these same people start to really evaluate what Joseph was doing and claiming.

Yes, I get it that most Mormon Evolutionists would like Adam and Eve to just be evolved humans like the rest. That is certainly another option. I, however, like the theory of the hybridization, with them being direct children of Heavenly Parents. Its sort of a compromise between evolution and Mormon tradition. And its cool, because Adam and Eve are then still immortal in the Garden, and actually fall into mortality, while the rest of the human race are still evolved.

The problem is that Joseph believed the Bible quite literally like most of the rest of society when creating his religion. He then attached him self through claimed revelations of so many of these biblical characters as real people. This means many Mormons have to do mental gymnastics to try and keep them real. If he hadn't then you would probably just consider them as fictional characters while believing God exists and talked with Joseph.

Great exchange. One thing I would like to add is that Mormon leaders actually *have* tended to believe in things like Ouija boards, just that they have been a conduit for "evil spirits".

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7000 ... tml?pg=all

Mormon culture is open to all kinds of paranormal notions and movements, as a jaunt through the LDS Freedom Forum can show.

[_Themis]

I'm open to it, but you have never demonstrated anything more then speculating. Where is your evidence that a cipher was employed by the person who created the papyri or knew about it before it was deposited in the tombs? Why would it make sense to create something not needed when the Book of Abraham story was going to have to come from God anyways?

Thanks for being open to it, but I did my best under the constraints in which I find myself, with the amount of evidence I have. To tell you the truth, I think the Lord likes puzzles, for one thing, being a Jew, because the ancient rabbis loved this stuff. And another thing is I think that he wanted to give people an exercise of faith, yet again.

OK what you are doing here is saying I am correct in my opinion of having no evidence of a cipher being used by some ancient person in Egypt. Sure you can also speculate that God wants to hide the evidence to promote faith. DCP does this all the time. I never liked it though. What value is it to ask someone to believe something for which they have no good evidence for? It's no different then frauds asking the same thing. Does God really want blind faith? Does God really think blind faith is a great trait?

[_EdGoble]

I wouldn't say all core claims. You go for the old earth creation, but then, that is where I went for a while as well.

He is not a scholar. He has no formal education in these areas.

Somehow I doubt he quit due to success.

Mormons can be diverse. The problem with Joseph's use of seer stones and such is that more Mormons today dismiss them as not really working. Less today think Ouija boards can really work. This has problems when these same people start to really evaluate what Joseph was doing and claiming.

The problem is that Joseph believed the Bible quite literally like most of the rest of society when creating his religion. He then attached him self through claimed revelations of so many of these biblical characters as real people. This means many Mormons have to do mental gymnastics to try and keep them real. If he hadn't then you would probably just consider them as fictional characters while believing God exists and talked with Joseph.

I am not as much of a Biblical literalist as Joseph Smith, but I do believe in basic historicity of the characters in the text. I won't go so far as to believe every claim that each person did this or that, because I think some of that is symbolic. But I also believe in basic Book of Mormon historicity despite the problems in the English Book of Mormon text (i.e. the basic reality that Moroni and Mormon and Nephi were real people).

I believe that Ouija boards manifest real power. I just think its from the wrong source.

[Guest]

OK what you are doing here is saying I am correct in my opinion of having no evidence of a cipher being used by some ancient person in Egypt. Sure you can also speculate that God wants to hide the evidence to promote faith. DCP does this all the time. I never liked it though. What value is it to ask someone to believe something for which they have no good evidence for? It's no different then frauds asking the same thing. Does God really want blind faith? Does God really think blind faith is a great trait?

I didn't say that. I just said that I do have evidence, maybe just not as much as you want to see. I believe I have enough to make the claims that I make. I think you differ on that. And furthermore, I don't think that you have personally scrutinized my claims to see if you really can dismiss them. I think there is a big chasm between what I'm doing and what DCP and his lemmings do.

[_Themis]

Great exchange. One thing I would like to add is that Mormon leaders actually *have* tended to believe in things like Ouija boards, just that they have been a conduit for "evil spirits".

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7000 ... tml?pg=all

Mormon culture is open to all kinds of paranormal notions and movements, as a jaunt through the LDS Freedom Forum can show.

My experience is that more Mormons believed this about things like Ouija boards in the past then they do today. People in Joseph's day were big believers in this kind of thing which is why he could get a good following based on using things like seer stones. More people used to believe in diving rods, but you have a hard time finding many today. This is the same with people in the church, and it creates a problem when they start thinking about Joseph using seer stones. Then add in his treasure seeking and it becomes pretty hard for many Mormons not to see an obvious link to fraudulent.