New Egyptian Tombs found. More Book of Abrahams to come?

[_Sethbag]

Polygamy Porter, dude, I'm afraid you've got me bass ackwards. ;) This was invoking the apologetic response that explains that Joseph didn't really "translate" the Book of Abraham from the papyrus so much as receive it in revelation, which the Lord gave him because he went to the Lord and asked, and show how stupid it is. If Joseph could pray to ask the Lord what an Egyptian Book of Breathings mean, and receive the Book of Abraham as a revelation, why can't GHB just pray over a plate of muffins and receive the Book of Abraham Part II?

Anyhow, it was meant to be funny in a dry sort of way. Sorry that didn't go over too well. ;)

[_Brackite]

Hi There,

Most LDS Apologists of the Book of Abraham believe, maintain, and proclaim that the Book of Breathings text ((also known as Shait en Sensen) "Breathing permit" for the priest Hor text) is Not the source from which the Book of Abraham. Hugh Nibley maintained and proclaimed this. John Gee maintains and proclaims this. And of course, Even the 'Chief' LDS Apologist Daniel C. Peterson maintains and proclaims this.
Here is what Daniel C. Peterson wrote in the January 1994 Ensign:

Critics have long attempted to make a case against the book of Abraham. They argue that some ancient texts do not support the book. They point to the fragments of the Joseph Smith papyri that we now possess and claim that since the contents of these papyri bear little obvious relationship to the book of Abraham, the book is a fraud; but Hugh Nibley has made an exhaustive study of these claims and has shown that the papyri we now have were probably not the ones from which Joseph Smith translated the book of Abraham. 29

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

Despite Daniel C. Peterson, wanting the readers of the Ensign to not believe that the Book of Breathings text ((also known as Shait en Sensen) "Breathing permit" for the priest Hor text) is not the source for the Book of Abraham (by providing a footnote to some of Hugh Nibley Book of Abraham Apologetics, which had a lot of it already been refuted before the year of 1994 (1)), the evidence is very overwhelming that the Book of Breathings text is indeed the source for the Book of Abraham.

Here is what Kevin Graham wrote and quoted from Brent Metcalfe on the “FAIR"/MA&D Message Board many, many months ago there:

We also get all these wild excuses as to how the Breathings text couldn`t have possibily been the source for the Book of Abraham translation, but not one single LDS apologetic even acknolwedges the many reasons to believe it was. Here is a list provided by Metcalfe:

1. Facsimile 1 is the opening vignette in the Breathing Permit of Hôr.

2. Facsimile 3 is the closing vignette in the Breathing Permit of Hôr. (The Hôr papyrus fragment for Fac. 3 is not extant. Still, the Fac. 3 woodcut preserves the identity of the deceased—Hôr—confirming that it too belongs to Hôr's Breathing Permit.)

3. The BoAbr identifies Facsimile 1 (the opening vignette in Hôr's Breathing Permit) as an illustration placed at the "commencement" (Abr. 1:12) or "beginning" (Abr. 1:14) of patriarch Abraham's record.

4. Vignette Facsimile 3 (from the Breathing Permit of Hôr), according to Smith, also illustrates scenes from Abraham's life.

5. In keeping with the BoAbr claim that Facsimile 1 opened the record, all extant dictated BoAbr manuscripts (MS 1a [fldr. 2], MS 1b [fldr. 3], and MS 2 [fldr. 1]) contain authentic hieratic copied sequentially from the contiguous portion of the Breathing Permit of Hôr only. (There are two minor exceptions to sequence, but those characters too originate from Hôr's Breathing Permit. Invented, non-authentic Egyptian characters also appear on the manuscripts at points where the papyrus fragment has a lacuna.)

6. All authentic Egyptian characters in Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts and the bound Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language were copied from the Breathing Permit of Hôr.

7. Aside from hypocephalus Facsimile 2 (the original of which is no longer extant), Hôr's Breathing Permit is the only papyrus that is associated with Joseph Smith's BoAbr—an association that is attested to repeatedly in the BoAbr text and its antecedent manuscripts.

Point #5 is the true kicker, and to explain exactly how this worked, here is a photo of a KEP manuscript to the right.


( The Bold Emphasis is Mine here; It is Kevin quoting from Brent. )

Well Anyways then, despite what Daniel C. Peterson and John Gee believing and Maintaining, and them wanting a lot of people to believe that the Book of Breathings test ((also known as Shait en Sensen) "Breathing permit" for the priest Hor text) is Not the source for the Book of Abraham, The evidence is indeed very Overwhelming that the Book of Breathings text is indeed the very source for the Book of Abraham.

1. Please See for example: [URL=http://www.xmission.com/~research/central/resscri3.htm] 'Reducing Dissonance:
The Book of Abraham as a Case Study'
by Edward H. Ashment[/URL]

[_Fortigurn]

They brought Joseph Smith the papyrus because nobody could read it (at least, nobody the Saints had any access to), and Joseph Smith was reputed to be a translator. So, he "translated" them. Of course, nowadays, we have scholars of Egyptology who can read these kinds of things, so it would seem kind of redundant to ever bring them to the LDS prophet.

However, the current best Book of Abraham apologetic argument, as far as I've been able to tell, has it that Joseph Smith didn't really "translate" the papyrus anyway (ya think?), but rather, in asking the Lord to help him figure out the papyrus, the Lord took the opportunity to just reveal the Book of Abraham's text to his mind.

When you think about it, Joseph Smith never really needed the papyrus at all. He just needed some reason to approach the Lord and ask, so the Lord could answer him back with the revelation.

They have exactly the same problem with the Book of Mormon. Judging from what almost every eyewitness says, the plates were entirely irrelevant to the process of writing.

[_Brackite]

Hi There again,

Here is some more very overwhelming that the Book of Breathings text ((also known as Shait en Sensen) "Breathing permit" for the priest Hor text), is indeed the very source from which the Book of Abraham came from. The following is a Post from our friend here 'Who Knows' from the CTR Message Board:

Here's some things to think about for those 'missing papyri' theorists:

- Fac.1 is at the beginning of the BOB, as well as the beginning of the Book of Abraham.
- Fac.3 (though it doesn't exist today) is at the end of the Book of Abraham, and refers to the same story as told in the BOB. In other words, the text of the Book of Abraham is somewhere between Fac. 1 and Fac. 3, however, there's absolutely no justification for assuming any missing text between those, as the Facs. are 'bookends' to the same story (as noted by the translations of the Facs.)
- The text of the Book of Abraham refers to Fac.1 as being at the beginning of the record. And this text comes before Fac. 3.
- The characters next to the text in the KEP (whether put there by the scribes on their own, or at Joseph Smith's direction) come directly from the BOB - IN ORDER no less. In the very least - Joseph Smith's personal scribes for the translation of the Book of Abraham felt that the Book of Abraham came from the BOB.
- Joseph Smith's translations of the Facs. were clearly wrong. Yes, some have been able to find similarities for a few of his translations. However, they are wrong in the sense of being direct translations. Thus, Joseph Smith's method of translation (the way he 'translated') was clearly unconventional. I'm assuming the way he translated the Facs. is similar to the way he translated the text of the Book of Abraham. In other words, if his translations of the Facs. were not traditional, why would anyone expect his translations of the Book of Abraham text to be different?
- Some of the Facs. were damaged prior to Joseph Smith's purchase of them. Joseph Smith 'restored' these facsimiles - using characters from the BOB.
- Joseph Smith's translations as seen in the GAEL are clearly wrong. This should be some kind of indicator of the methods used to translate the text of the Book of Abraham. Also, the characters used in the GAEL come from the BOB.

Those are just some of the things that to me, indicate that the BOB is the source of the Book of Abraham. There is absolutely no evidence to assume the translation came from any missing records - other than the fact that the BOB is not the Book of Abraham.

( http://www.kevingraham.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=136 )

Now here is what Kevin Graham wrote, in a Post of his on that Discussion Thread, over there:

I would add that the original Facsimile #2 suffered from lacunae over to the right. Apparently Joseph Smith decided to fill in the holes while using symbols from the BoB - the text apologists tell us have nothing to do with the Book of Abraham.



The facsimile with BoB symbols was published as part of the Book of Abraham so it cannot be argued that some scribe decided to do this on his own without Smith's consent.

Rhodes argued that someone filled it in just to make it look better, but this is a lame argument without a shred of evidence to support it. to Especially since Smith filled in the lucuna of the BoB and indicated that he did so via inspiration. Thus, it follows that he did likewise with Fac 2.

( http://www.kevingraham.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=136 )

The evidence is indeed very, very overwhelming that the Book of Breathings text ((also known as Shait en Sensen) "Breathing permit" for the priest Hor text), is indeed the very source from which the Book of Abraham came from.

[_Fortigurn]

Excellent material, thanks.

[_Polygamy Porter]

Sethbag,

My bad. Kudos to you for being such an excellent wolf in sheeps clothing!

[_Sethbag]

PP: personally I thought the notion of GBH asking the Lord to help him translate a plate of muffins was a dead giveaway, but hey... ;)

Brackite: yeah, I love these lists of reasons why the BoB is almost certainly the source papyrus for the BoB. What really makes me laugh is when both sides say exactly the same thing, and yet mean it so differently.

Example:
Critic: Joseph Smith didn't "translate" the Book of Abraham from this papyrus, because the Book of Breathings, on the papyrus, is actually something else entirely.
Apologist: Joseph Smith couldn't have translated the Book of Abraham from this papyrus, because the papyrus has the Book of Breathings on it, which is something else.

Isn't this just totally bizarre?

[_Polygamy Porter]

PP: personally I thought the notion of GBH asking the Lord to help him translate a plate of muffins was a dead giveaway, but hey... ;)

Brackite: yeah, I love these lists of reasons why the BoB is almost certainly the source papyrus for the BoB. What really makes me laugh is when both sides say exactly the same thing, and yet mean it so differently.

Example:
Critic: Joseph Smith didn't "translate" the Book of Abraham from this papyrus, because the Book of Breathings, on the papyrus, is actually something else entirely.
Apologist: Joseph Smith couldn't have translated the Book of Abraham from this papyrus, because the papyrus has the Book of Breathings on it, which is something else.

Isn't this just totally bizarre?

Not when you have your ass in a garment sling.

*cue Olivia Newton John "Magic"*

You have to believe we are magic
Nothin' can stand in our way
You have to believe we are magic
Don't let your aim ever stray

[_gramps]

PP: personally I thought the notion of GBH asking the Lord to help him translate a plate of muffins was a dead giveaway, but hey... ;)

Brackite: yeah, I love these lists of reasons why the BoB is almost certainly the source papyrus for the BoB. What really makes me laugh is when both sides say exactly the same thing, and yet mean it so differently.

Example:
Critic: Joseph Smith didn't "translate" the Book of Abraham from this papyrus, because the Book of Breathings, on the papyrus, is actually something else entirely.
Apologist: Joseph Smith couldn't have translated the Book of Abraham from this papyrus, because the papyrus has the Book of Breathings on it, which is something else.

Isn't this just totally bizarre?

Indeed. Very bizarre! LOL

[_Brackite]

Excellent material, thanks.

You are Welcome, Fortigurn!