DiscussMormonism.com

This message is aimed at LDS faithful. Please ignore if that doesn't describe you. Yes, I am well aware that that is not a lot of you. Hey Paul Osborne, my friend, wish you were a part of us.

A core group of individuals including myself have formally formed a Book of Abraham and Egyptian/Hebrew Research group. It is named GRAPHERS (to highlight the linguistics/language studies angle):

"Grand Reasoning on Abraham and Paleo-Hebrew/Egyptology Research Studies"

Our primary ideology is to adhere to the forensic evidence of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers and the Sensen Papyrus in our research, meaning that is primary evidence, and a primary assumption that Joseph Smith was responsible for the Kirtland Egyptian Papers/Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, not his scribes.

We are not here to attack FAIR/FARMS ideologies, only to respond to them with substance, not evasion apologetics.

We are now formally taking steps to organize. We will be having conferences at some future point, coordinating research projects, and so on and so forth.

We do have a formal direction and ideology set up. We would want people who fit with our model or who will seriously considering abiding by our model.

This is by no means limited to Book of Abraham research. It can be Book of Mormon research that aligns with our vision, linguistic or not. But we are not here to promote the Heartland Theory.

We don't have a formal website for the group yet, but here is my blog if interested:

http://egyptianalphabetandgrammar.blogspot.com/

Contact me at kokobim@gmail.com if you care to discuss.

Thanks.

Ed Goble

Oh brother...

I'm waiting for EdGoble to announce an expedition to the North Pole to locate Santa's workshop.

Didn't Jeffrey R. Holland admit in a BBC interview that the papyrus (and therefore KEP) have nothing directly to do with the Book of Abraham other than they were 'the vehicle' for delivering inspiration to Joseph to write down something that became the word of God?

Didn't John Gee already prove that the papyrus relating to the Book of Abraham is missing?

Is John Gee or Will.I.Am Schryver going to to be part of your group - why or why not?

Will you be seeking to monetise your group in some way at some point and is it worth investing in as a shareholder/sponsor who would receive a royalty on any produced works etc?

Why wouldn't you want people in the group who don't have a vested interest in reaching the conclusion that the Book of Abraham is a correct translation as a sort of protection from confirmation bias?

From your blogspot announcement about GRAPHERS

We believe that Hebrew and Egyptian material that came out of Kirtland, if understood in the right context, can be shown to be correct translations.

Excellent, this will be a first in Book of Abraham apologetics and I for one cannot wait.

Tobin wrote:Oh brother...

I'm waiting for EdGoble to announce an expedition to the North Pole to locate Santa's workshop.

I thought that the celestial forum is supposed to be respectful.

I have a question wrote:Didn't Jeffrey R. Holland admit in a BBC interview that the papyrus (and therefore KEP) have nothing directly to do with the Book of Abraham other than they were 'the vehicle' for delivering inspiration to Joseph to write down something that became the word of God?

Didn't John Gee already prove that the papyrus relating to the Book of Abraham is missing?

Is John Gee or Will.I.Am Schryver going to to be part of your group - why or why not?

Will you be seeking to monetise your group in some way at some point and is it worth investing in as a shareholder/sponsor who would receive a royalty on any produced works etc?

Why wouldn't you want people in the group who don't have a vested interest in reaching the conclusion that the Book of Abraham is a correct translation as a sort of protection from confirmation bias?

From your blogspot announcement about GRAPHERS

We believe that Hebrew and Egyptian material that came out of Kirtland, if understood in the right context, can be shown to be correct translations.

Excellent, this will be a first in Book of Abraham apologetics and I for one cannot wait.

I don't defend or care what Elder Holland says on a subject that he is not an expert on, and I'm only interested that he has the priesthood keys necessary for my salvation. I'm loyal to the Lord's anointed, but I am not one of their lawyers. Go take that up with them.

Why would I seek to monetize and give up my independence? I only seek popularization of the paradigm that there is no missing papyrus, and that Joseph Smith is responsible for the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. I have a theory that explains that paradigm that I would like to be popularized so that it presents a challenge to the status quo, and builds faith in Joseph Smith's ability to translate.

Why would John Gee care about me when he only cares about his own ideology? He ignores me, along with the rest of the FAIR/FARMS crowd, and I don't expect a change in that behavior. So I have to start from scratch to eventually challenge that status quo.
William Schryver is John Gee's protege. He ignores me now, and disagrees with me, so why would he care about me, or care to join my group.

No, I don't particularly want people in my group that don't have a testimony of the Book of Abraham and the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. Sorry, but we are 100% biased and we admit it. You ought to be happy to some degree that we are striving to base our conclusions off the forensic evidence instead of making up missing papyrus-type theories. You would think that critics would be happy about that development in apologetics.

https://www.Facebook.com/groups/1512204635775665/

Here is our new Facebook group.
I would ask only for believers to join. If you are not a believer, then I don't think that anything is there of interest to you.
If anyone joins that says anything that isn't helpful or distracting to our purpose, you will just be removed anyway.

Here is our new web page for the group:

http://www.book-of-abraham-graphers.weebly.com/

EdGoble wrote:I don't defend or care what Elder Holland says on a subject that he is not an expert on, and I'm only interested that he has the priesthood keys necessary for my salvation. I'm loyal to the Lord's anointed, but I am not one of their lawyers. Go take that up with them.

Why would I seek to monetize and give up my independence? I only seek popularization of the paradigm that there is no missing papyrus, and that Joseph Smith is responsible for the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. I have a theory that explains that paradigm that I would like to be popularized so that it presents a challenge to the status quo, and builds faith in Joseph Smith's ability to translate.

Why would John Gee care about me when he only cares about his own ideology? He ignores me, along with the rest of the FAIR/FARMS crowd, and I don't expect a change in that behavior. So I have to start from scratch to eventually challenge that status quo.
William Schryver is John Gee's protege. He ignores me now, and disagrees with me, so why would he care about me, or care to join my group.

No, I don't particularly want people in my group that don't have a testimony of the Book of Abraham and the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. Sorry, but we are 100% biased and we admit it. You ought to be happy to some degree that we are striving to base our conclusions off the forensic evidence instead of making up missing papyrus-type theories. You would think that critics would be happy about that development in apologetics.

Fair enough. I appreciate your plain speaking.
But you just rebutted your claim that you are doing research. You're not, you're doing faith promotion.

I have a question wrote:Fair enough. I appreciate your plain speaking.
But you just rebutted your claim that you are doing research. You're not, you're doing faith promotion.

I'm doing faith promotion. Absolutely, no if's and's or but's about it. Give that man a cigar.

I didn't come here to argue about epistemology. Apologetics is not open minded at all, and isn't supposed to be, because testimony is the foundation stone that causes all arguments that are otherwise circular to be grounded. You will find that I am not the usual apologist that sits here and tries to tell you that I'm open-minded toward apostasy and criticism, and the proposition that the Holy Ghost didn't tell me what he told me. You can tell me that you think I'm deluded, but that doesn't mean anything to me. I've argued with atheists and apostates for so many years that I just don't mess around at all with people like that. It's fruitless. Those that disagree with testimony from the Holy Ghost as an anchor, of course, see things differently. That's why I'm aiming at the people that still have it as their anchor, not at those who do not. And no, research is not about just pure objectivity that is not grounded in any ideology. You always have some ideology or confirmation bias guiding your thinking. The only difference here is that I'm absolutely 100% straight forward in admitting my bias, while your implied claim in your statement is that only faithless research is pure research, unencumbered by bias. That is not the case at all, because it's ideology is the ideology of the faithless, and it is similarly not open-minded toward the proposition of a spiritual claim. The problem with spiritual claims is that they are reliant on spiritual confirmations, and are not respected by those that don't have that confirmation, or who have talked themselves out of belief in the confirmation that they previously had. Just because you don't respect the spiritual claim that I make when I tell you that my foundation is testimony only says that your bias is against that claim, and that you side with an ideology that is against that claim, and that only research that doesn't respect those claims is true research. As I said, you ought to be happy that we are striving to base ourselves in the forensic evidence, because that is a step forward for LDS researchers, is it not?

EdGoble wrote:I thought that the celestial forum is supposed to be respectful.

I was being respectful. You are proposing spending time forming an Egyptian/Hebrew Research group to study the Book of Abraham. Since there is no evidence that the Book of Abraham is anything but a work of fiction, I thought my comments were dead-on.

Perhaps you are just ignorant of the facts here, so let me explain. The Book of Abraham supposedly comes from a 1st century Egyptian papyrus (missing or otherwise). Would you care to explain why Egyptian pagans would be burying their dead with both a papyri about Egyptian myths like the Sons of Horus AND Hebrew myths like Abraham in the 1st century BC?

EdGoble wrote:No, I don't particularly want people in my group that don't have a testimony of the Book of Abraham and the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. Sorry, but we are 100% biased and we admit it. You ought to be happy to some degree that we are striving to base our conclusions off the forensic evidence instead of making up missing papyrus-type theories. You would think that critics would be happy about that development in apologetics.

You have little chance of getting close to the truth when you have already made certain conclusions that cannot be questioned before you even look at the facts. Might make you feel good though.