Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

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hauslern
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Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by hauslern »

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/2 ... 065qzfoCeQ

He seems to support the missing scroll theory

But look at this doosy
Q 3: Do you have any insight in the other figures in Facsimile 2 that Joseph Smith declined to translate?

A 3: I think that is a great question and honestly I don’t think I could answer that very well at this time; maybe another day.

Smith only commented about pictures. He did not have a clue about the writing.
Philo Sofee
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Re: Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by Philo Sofee »

Hey hauslern! Welcome to the boards. Yeah it is to the point that to almost even comment on it is dangerous. The days have changed us through time, just as they always do in religion, history, philosophy, science, you name it. I just finished reading Silberman's excellent history of the Kabbalah "Heavenly Powers," and the regular pattern is when a new idea is brought forward through revelation, it gets its heyday, then it changes, and the meaning changes, and nothing stays the same. There is not a human discipline that this does not occur with.
Brack
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Re: Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by Brack »

hauslern wrote:
Tue Jan 12, 2021 9:16 pm
https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/2 ... 065qzfoCeQ

He seems to support the missing scroll theory

He does seem to support the missing scroll theory. I glanced through what he stated, and found that he believes that Charlotte Haven's letter of her account to her mother supports the missing scroll theory.
We know, however, that not all of the papyri were framed in glass. On February 19, 1843, Charlotte Haven wrote to her mother about her visit in Nauvoo and described her experience with the mummies and papyri, explaining that Lucy Mack Smith opened a long roll of papyrus on top of a long table, set her candlestick down and explained that the roll contained the writings of Abraham and Isaac (either Lucy or Charlotte probably meant Abraham and Joseph). Charlotte also mentioned seeing another roll of papyrus.[7]


Here is what Don Bradley stated to me about Charlotte Haven's account from
the old board.
I'm not much for apologetics--or criticism. But I should mention that a recent review of Charlotte Haven's letters, prompted by Grindael, has me convinced that she is a much more reliable witness than I had thought. While she does appear to err in the direction of enhancing sizes and quantities, the errors are not huge (the biggest is that she makes the Kinderhook plates nearly twice their actual size) and on the great majority of the points where she can be checked, she is accurate.

In short, Charlotte Haven does, in my revised view, provide some evidence for the scroll's, but that evidence needs to qualified by the recognition that she's a bit of an over-stater regarding sizes.

Don



Here is what the Tanners stated about Charlotte Haven's account back in 1992.
He cites from a letter written by Charlotte Haven in 1843. Haven claimed that Joseph Smith's mother "opened a long roll of manuscript, saying it was 'the writing of Abraham and Isaac, written in Hebrew and Sanscrit,' and she read several minutes from it as if it were English." Because the papyri the church now has in its possession were supposed to have been cut into sheets by this time and therefore could not have been a "long roll of manuscript," Rhodes seems to conclude that there was a third roll of papyrus which has been lost. This interpretation, which is also held by John Gee, is erroneous. Significant evidence points to the conclusion that there were only two rolls of papyrus. Joseph Smith's History contains this information: "On opening the coffins, he [Mr. Chandler] discovered... something rolled up... which, when examined, proved to be two rolls of papyrus, previously mentioned. Two or three other small pieces of papyrus, with astronomical calculations, epitaphs, &c., were found with others of the mummies." (History of the Church, vol. 2, page 349)
Although the text mentions that there were "Two or three other small pieces of papyrus," Joseph Smith never identifies a third roll of papyrus. Furthermore, while Charlotte Haven's statement contains some interesting information, it contains a number of factual errors She says that Mother Smith told Haven that the roll contained the "writing of Abraham and Isaac written in Hebrew and Sanscrit." Mormon leaders have never claimed that the Book of Abraham was written in "Hebrew and Sanscrit." Joseph Smith's History makes it abundantly clear that the Book of Abraham was supposed to be written in "Egyptian characters.'' (History of the Church, vol. 2, page 320)


http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no82.htm
Brack
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Re: Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by Brack »

I haven't seen Brent Metcalfe around in a while, but he did give a great refutation of the missing scroll theory many years ago. Here is what Metcalfe stated many year ago.
Other Book of Abraham scholars, including me, roundly reject any notion of a missing papyrus from which Smith translated the Book of Abraham narrative. Reasons for this include:

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

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.)

The Book of Abraham 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.

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

In keeping with the Book of Abraham claim that Facsimile 1 opened the record, all extant dictated Book of Abraham 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.)

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.

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 Book of Abraham—an association that is attested to repeatedly in the Book of Abraham text and its antecedent manuscripts.
hauslern
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Re: Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by hauslern »

Phi0 I am not a new boy just Aussieguy using a different name.
Tamis responded kindly to my question about how many hypocephalus Smith had access to.It was only one.
"
Brack
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Re: Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by Brack »

Dan Vogel's Book of Abraham videos part 6 and particularly part 7 also refute the missing papyrus theory for the Book of Abraham.

Book of Abraham (Part 6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47ibkJ4QrE


Book of Abraham (Part 7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7haq-PdjU&t=25s
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dan vogel
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Re: Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by dan vogel »

I had an exchange with Barker on Facebook when I announced my upcoming book on Abraham apologetics. He snidely said my book will have trouble with his new argument presented at FAIR. So I responded:
Tim Barker I read the first part of your paper that attempts to respond to Tanner and Heward's early observation about the origin of the characters in the margins of the translation manuscripts. I find your argument utterly unconvincing. Whether it was Joseph Smith or Hedlock who chose the characters to restore the hypocephalus is unclear, but Joseph Smith's saying the meanings in Fac. 2 can't be given at this time has no connection to the characters in the margins of the translation documents. The two things were separated by seven years. It is clear that Joseph Smith could not translate any writing that was on Fac. 2, let alone falsified restorations. The writing that Joseph Smith said could not be translated at this time can be read by Egyptologists and there is nothing so sacred that had to be withheld. You are attempting to use a falsified document that Joseph Smith pretended to translate and understand to argue that he didn't pretend to translate the characters in the margins of the translation documents.
He didn't give much of a response. Mostly ad hominem. I responded again.
Why the ad hominem? I see no response to my arguments. I'm not opposed to the "inspiration of the book of Abraham." I care nothing for that issue. Joseph Smith may have believed he was inspired, but that has nothing to do with his interaction with the papyri. Having read your entire paper now, I would suggest that my book will be problematic to your apologetic arguments. There's nothing in the remaining few pages and Q&A that changes anything I wrote or strengthens the argument you gave in the first half. You don't know if Joseph Smith or Hedlock filled the gaps in Fac. 2. It would seem natural for Hedlock to go to the document purported to be the record of Abraham to fill in the gaps since Fac. 2 was believed to be part of the record of Abraham. If Joseph Smith knew this, he couldn't give a translation of the same characters, so he opted out. I'm not sure why you think Joseph Smith's comments on a falsified document "is clearly the strongest point of evidence wherein we obtain Joseph's thoughts." There is simply no good reason to believe the characters in the margins of the translation manuscripts are other than a pretended translation by Joseph Smith, the same as what he did in the Valuable Discovery, the Alphabets, and then the Grammar.
His response merely repeated without addressing my arguments. I responded anyway.
I’m only interested in your main argument, not Gee, Muhlestein, or Brown. My book deals with their arguments. Your argument is: “what we have is Joseph Smith's direct comments on JSP XI via Facsimile 2, wherein he clearly states that he didn't translate these characters.” You say this as if you are not making inferences, but Tanner and Heward were. But you are inferring that what Joseph Smith said about the inserted text in Fac. 2 also pertains to what he did seven years earlier with Joseph Smith XI, that his refusal to give a translation means he didn’t translate them in 1835, and therefore Hor’s Breathing Permit was not the source of the Book of Abraham.

Scholars make inferences all the time. Without them, there would be no scholarship. But are these inferences sound or are they a stretch? Yours are a stretch, whereas Tanner and Heward’s are not. Knowing the documents well is key, but almost no one has taken the time to really study them, especially Gee and company. Assigning translation to specific characters begins with the Valuable Discovery notebooks, then the Egyptian Alphabets, which gets expanded in the GAEL, with characters in the left margin and translations to the right. The earliest part of the Book of Abraham manuscript in WWP’s handwriting has the characters (from Joseph Smith XI) numbered. The remainder of that document and the two others follow the same method, except without numbering. The inference that Tanner and Heward made is straightforward, whereas yours is not.

In 1842, Joseph Smith was commenting on a falsified document, giving false explanations. In such a situation, one can’t reasonably infer that he is making an accurate statement about the characters that reflects on what he did with JSP XI seven years earlier, that is, unless the translation of those characters were something that should be withheld. It doesn’t matter where the characters came from. Once they are inserted and presented as an authentic restoration, which they weren’t, they have been appropriated for a new purpose and Joseph Smith’s comment pertain only to Fac. 2 and have no relevance to how he treated them in 1835.

Moreover, you haven’t demonstrated that Joseph Smith was cognizant that the characters were the same as what was in the margins of the translation manuscripts. If Hedlock chose the characters and Joseph Smith didn’t know their origin, then you can’t make the inference that you do. But if Joseph Smith knew, it still doesn’t necessarily mean what you infer because he failed to give a translation. If he gave a different translation, you might have an argument. His comment pertained to Nos. 12-20, which mixes characters that were used in the margins of the translation documents with others that were not, which causes you to make another inference. If Joseph Smith knew some of the characters also appeared in the margins of the Abraham documents, he would naturally not want to translate them again. That is a more likely explanation than the polemical use you are attempting.
I'm passing on my initial arguments for anyone interested in the subject.
Philo Sofee
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Re: Tim Barker's rehash of old theories on Book of Abraham

Post by Philo Sofee »

Dan Vogel
I'm passing on my initial arguments for anyone interested in the subject.
Your response to the clown are perfect. This convinces me to acquire your book without doubt! Thanks for sharing this interaction Dan.
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