New Book of Abraham Research Group

[_Lemmie]

They are not equal in that Joseph never spent much time on them as he did with the Book of Mormon or Book of Abraham. What it does show is that Joseph was willing to try and deceive people into thinking he could translate other languages into English. Zelph is Joseph making up stories to impress. He has a history of this starting at least with his treasure hunting days, but I believe his mother also said he would tell detailed and entertaining stories.

in my opinion Joseph was an inventor and an opportunist. He was willing to improvise as required. If there had been sufficient time and ROI for him to work on either of them, he might have. But he was also producing a lot of "revelation" with no other prop than his lips moving in the presence of a scribe. So I think that the physical phenomena, including fabrications, was on its way out. He did still have the "sealed portion" of the Book of Mormon in his back pocket if he ever needed it. He didn't live long enough.

Interesting point. Would the sealed portion have eventually shown up? I really think JSJr's death and the subsequent lengthy isolation in Utah is what allowed the religion to take hold. If JSJr had lived, I don't think he could have realistically maintained the fraud.

[_Maksutov]

in my opinion Joseph was an inventor and an opportunist. He was willing to improvise as required. If there had been sufficient time and ROI for him to work on either of them, he might have. But he was also producing a lot of "revelation" with no other prop than his lips moving in the presence of a scribe. So I think that the physical phenomena, including fabrications, was on its way out. He did still have the "sealed portion" of the Book of Mormon in his back pocket if he ever needed it. He didn't live long enough.

Interesting point. Would the sealed portion have eventually shown up? I really think JSJr's death and the subsequent lengthy isolation in Utah is what allowed the religion to take hold. If JSJr had lived, I don't think he could have realistically maintained the fraud.

He was confronted with accusations of fraud from early youth. He'd learned how to slough it off.

Smith may never have needed the sealed portion, but a gambler like him would have kept an extra ace.

I think a lot about what would have happened if Smith had made it west. It would make a great alternate reality novel.

Some of his contemporaries (Matthias, Thomas Lake Harris, others) succeeded but in smaller and less sustainable ways. Smith's inventions, followed by isolation and the expansionist colonial enterprise of Deseret, ensured a longer lasting culture. But now the Smith portion is crumbling under scrutiny. We're left with the pioneer identity and the determination to be "in the world but not of it", a sort of Hermetic communitarian evangelism that is constantly shifting and morphing. Fascinating if you don't empathize with the collateral damage.

[_EdGoble]

This is an interesting phenomena. Why is it some Mormons feel they have a special right to exist, have opinions, identities, beliefs, and the inhabitants of the entire rest of the world (the non-members) don't?

All people in the world have a fundamental expectation/hope that other people will cordial and disagree in a friendly manner, not be rude or pure jerks. My issue is not your disagreement. My issue is your delivery of your disagreement. Individuals don't have to sit around and be verbally abused and have other people proclaim their right to verbally abuse others. Sorry. If I was a kid, and my father was abusing me, I have a fundamental right to remove myself from that.

[_EdGoble]

3) Egyptians love word and symbol games.

Not sure what evidence you have for what exactly they liked to do and how it relates to individual hieroglyphs having about a paragraph of English text.

Here is the evidence for this:
http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/p/ancient-letter-puzzles-and-word-games.html

4) Egyptians in the Greco-Roman era thought it would be artistic and neat to take characters from the papyrus and decorate an ancient book of Abraham copy with them, and play word games with the symbols and tie them in with the wording of the Book of Abraham. Its like somebody decided that these characters would make a fun numbering or marking system for paragraphs of text.

Not sure what you mean here. The papyri has a well established stories involving the people they were buried with. The iconography of all three facsimiles fits that story found on the papyri. Are you suggesting they made the papyri for their dead relatives with a second meaning for each Hieroglyph?

I am talking about the ancient and well documented practice of Iconotropy, where iconography/characters were re-appropriated and repurposed for other usages, even though that was not their original intent:

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/2013/12/syncretistic-adaptation-of-characters.html

5) Joseph Smith reconstituted this numbering/decoration/text marking system, along with the text that they were used anciently marked.

How does this numbering system work?

It is similar to how in English, we use numbers and letters to number an outline.

6) Neither Joseph Smith nor the ancient Egyptians ever made the suggestion or claim that these were the source of the text, but rather that they aligned with thematic subject matter.

The evidence only tells us about a common story from these ancient Egyptians. I do believe Joseph has said the papyri was the Book of Abraham and that he could translate ancient Egyptian just as he claimed to be able to translate reformed Egyptian. He even made a couple of other stabs and failed.

The evidence from the Kirtland Egyptian Papers clearly shows that he was only saying that a "subject" (i.e. theme) was represented by a character. And so, when I say that a linkage is made between text and character, I'm saying that that linkage is thematic. For example, the Khnum-ra character (Facsimile #2, Figure 1), is the god of Creation. Kolob is the first creation. They share a thematic linkage. You can't extract all the text from the explanation for Facsimile #2, Figure 1 from the Khnum-Ra character. That is an explanation, where like I said, a meaning assignment was made, to be represented by a character that has a thematic tie to it. He was not saying that a whole chunk of text was extractable from a character.

[Guest]

This is an interesting phenomena. Why is it some Mormons feel they have a special right to exist, have opinions, identities, beliefs, and the inhabitants of the entire rest of the world (the non-members) don't?

All people in the world have a fundamental expectation/hope that other people will cordial and disagree in a friendly manner, not be rude or pure jerks. My issue is not your disagreement. My issue is your delivery of your disagreement. Individuals don't have to sit around and be verbally abused and have other people proclaim their right to verbally abuse others. Sorry. If I was a kid, and my father was abusing me, I have a fundamental right to remove myself from that.

Funny, my issue is with your delivery of your disagreement as well! I totally agree people don't have to listen to you proclaim your right to verbally abuse others. Plus, I'm not your father, you are not a kid, and being disagreed with is not verbal abuse.

That is pure stupidity, right up there with young-earth creationism. I owe nothing to you, absolutely nothing. The burden of proof doesn't lie with me. Sorry. ...
And with your attitude, you will never qualify. So, with your drivel....
All you can do is speak and spread denialism and faithlessness to the weak minded....
This is why I don't count many apostates as friends, because they can't act friendly even though they disagree. They have to act like jerks, and then sit there and make accusations that I am a jerk just because I respond the least bit defensively....
Why are you even talking? I don't recall agreeing to be held to "rules of evidence" from your side....
I am fully aware that every time I come here, I am among a den of lions that aren't looking to be my friends, but to be fault finders....
because they can't act friendly even though they disagree. They have to act like jerks, and then sit there and make accusations that I am a jerk just because I respond the least bit defensively...
All you can do is speak and spread denialism and faithlessness to the weak minded....
So you sit there and whine about FARMS for their ad-hominem practices, yet you make me an offender for a word....
Are you done yet too? Or are you going to sit here and continue to waste your time with this stupid irrational Mormon too?

Why not just focus on the debate and quit having such a thin skin?

[_Lemmie]

3) Egyptians love word and symbol games.

Not sure what evidence you have for what exactly they liked to do and how it relates to individual hieroglyphs having about a paragraph of English text.

Here is the evidence for this:
http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogs ... games.html

Calling that source evidence is problematic. It is an apologetic blog entry that references Maxwell institute publications, apologist discussion boards and Wikipedia. Do you have a source that is based on Egyptian studies that are recognized and accepted in the academic world?

[Guest]

Calling that source evidence is problematic. It is an apologetic blog entry that references Maxwell institute publications, apologist discussion boards and Wikipedia. Do you have a source that is based on Egyptian studies that are recognized and accepted in the academic world?

That is my blog, and the references are solid. And you have a bias against good information, just because its source is perceived to you to be apologetic.

[_EdGoble]

Funny, my issue is with your delivery of your disagreement as well! I totally agree people don't have to listen to you proclaim your right to verbally abuse others. Plus, I'm not your father, you are not a kid, and being disagreed with is not verbal abuse.

Why not just focus on the debate and quit having such a thin skin?

LOL. Either be cordial, or don't expect a further response from me.

[_Chap]

This does seem like a waste of time since the evidence proves the Book of Abraham was invented out of whole-cloth. Also, internally, the Book of Abraham seems to be nothing other than nonsensical riffs on biblical myths.

Of course that is your opinion. It seems to be an opinion shared by those who do not have faith. But my point of even posting here is to leave information for those few who do truly have interest and who have faith, as I do. I know there are only a few among you like this on this message board, but they are out there, and if I can get through to them, then it is worth it, even though I have to deal with others who make comments like yours. I'm not really doing this for the sake of those of you who do not have testimonies in this work. You have already made your choice what you believe. I aim to help those who have not as yet lost their faith, and show them that there is hope, and there is no occasion to give up.

So Mr Goble has tried to form a group to do research, but basically he already knows the answer. And he only wants to talk to people who agree with him on religious grounds.

It's research, Jim, but not as we know it ...

By the way, has Mr Goble made any effort to learn how to read ancient Egyptian written in hieroglyphic script?

[_bcuzbcuz]

LOL. Either be cordial, or don't expect a further response from me.

I may have missed it, but I don't remember reading where you studied Egyptian. Which university or college. I ask because I know Egyptian grammar is extremely difficult.

I myself have not yet made it beyond my second year, I must re-take an exam on verb forms. I still have trouble with causative and anomalous verbs.

Causatives and Anomalous Verbs

Causatives are formed by taking one of the root classes above and adding an s before the root. For instance, the word wsḫ wsx - widen“widen” can be written as the causative swsḫ swsx - causative - widen “cause to widen.” Since the causative is formed by adding a s to the 3-lit verb wsḫ, swsḫ is considered a caus. 3-lit verb.

Causatives are sometimes difficult to identify, because not all words that begin with s are causatives. The easiest way to identify causatives is to remove the s and see if the remaining root is an actual verb. If it is not a verb after removing the s, then it is not a causative.

Anomalous verbs are irregular verbs that do not follow the same patterns of the verbs in their same class. There are three anomalous verbs: rdi rdi - anomalous verb, iw iw - anomalous verb, and ii ii - anomalous verb.

(Unfortunately, I could not copy the hieroglyph characters that came with the above text, but for those who want to see the complete text, inclusive the hieroglyphs, go to: http://www.egyptianhieroglyphs.net/egyp ... /lesson-9/