Book of Abraham Astronomy

[_truth dancer]

Hi Kevin...

And I'm sick and tired of this excuse: "but he was a human and you can't expect the divine to be able to communicate to humans without confusion." I mean isn't that the whole purpose of having a prophet? To avoid the confusion left during the apostasy? So we can be sure we have the "true" Church, the "true" gospel, the "true" interpretation of scripture, etc? I mean this apologetic line essentially undermines the entire Mormon foundation of divine revelation. If it is no more trustworthy and is just as prone to error as any layman with his own Bible interpretation, then what's the point at all?

The Mormon paradigm is rigged from teh start to exclude any for of fault system. They'll scratch and claw through history to find any superficial "parallels" and hold them up as evidence for modern revelation, yet when the evidence contradicts, then this is just an example whereby a prophet allows his human nature to get in the way. The entire claim of prophethood has become unfalsifiable in the LDS paradigm. I mean what would it take to prove to an apologist that the LDS leadership is not in fact "inspired" by God? The thought doesn't even register with them. No amount of evidence works because they have been conditioned to reject any kind of fault system.

This sums up what was my difficulty with the "prophets-are-just-sharing-their-opinion" apologetic technique....

On the one hand, prophets seem not to have the ability to know when they are speaking truth or not, when they are inspired or not, when they are receiving revelation or not.... On the other hand, they say inspiration is the way to know the church is true. :-( Hmmm...

To the topic, my understanding is that science considers every point to be the "center" of the universe... If I recall correctly some apologists were going along with this idea to prove Abraham's geocentric model was actually correct?

I have to say, in my opinion, the church would do well to jettison the Book of Abraham. I mean seriously!

~dancer~

[_dartagnan]

I have to say, in my opinion, the church would do well to jettison the Book of Abraham. I mean seriously!

Ben McGuire suggests that it was a mistake for the Church to make the Book of Abraham part of the canon and I have to agree. Keep in mind that Joseph Smith never included it into the canon. It became part of the canon at the end of the 19th century long after Smith had died.

[_Sethbag]

Well, this is exactly what they said.

Secondly, the geocentric view of the cosmos is not, strictly speaking, false. [blah blah blah]

Yes, but then they're not exactly going to admit that the reason they're looking to show a Geocentric Model is so that they can dodge the accusation that Joseph just copied from some books he or his family happened to have access to, right? They have to make it look like they're arguing for a Geocentric Model for some other reason, and you point that out.

Sounds to me like they are holding out for the possibility that the earth really is at the center. This apologetic is thorough and careful to cover all its bases. On the one hand, it doesn't matter if the Book of Abraham teaches bad astronomy because Joseph Smith only said it was astronomy "as Abraham understood it." On the other hand, Abraham might have been right all along. This is typical methodology at FARMS/FAIR.

They aren't so much arguing that the earth "really is" at the center so much as arguing that in a relativistic cosmology there is no real center, so it may as well be anywhere, or something like that. In other words, "Abraham may be thought to be wrong, but technically speaking, he wasn't, strictly speaking, actually wrong." Just a face-saving maneuver.

Yes, but this still causes problems because Abraham was receiving this information through divine revelation. ... And I'm sick and tired of this excuse: "but he was a human and you can't expect the divine to be able to communicate to humans without confusion." I mean isn't that the whole purpose of having a prophet? To avoid the confusion left during the apostasy?

Yeah, you and I would expect that, but not them. The fact is the argument "Abraham was receiving Divine Truth, but his finite, mortal, bronze-age mind couldn't comprehend the truth he was receiving, and his interpretation of it, as he reformulated it in his mind to write it down, became something he could comprehend, though we recognize now the limitations in it." is perfectly good Mormon apologetics.

So we can be sure we have the "true" Church, the "true" gospel, the "true" interpretation of scripture, etc? I mean this apologetic line essentially undermines the entire Mormon foundation of divine revelation. If it is no more trustworthy and is just as prone to error as any layman with his own Bible interpretation, then what's the point at all?

Preach it Kevin! Yeah, that's pretty much what the LDS are left with once the apologists come in and f*ck everything up.

The Mormon paradigm is rigged from the start to exclude any form of fault system. They'll scratch and claw through history to find any superficial "parallels" and hold them up as evidence for modern revelation, yet when the evidence contradicts, then this is just an example whereby a prophet allows his human nature to get in the way. The claim of prophethood has become unfalsifiable in the LDS paradigm. I mean what would it take to prove to an apologist that the LDS leadership is not in fact "inspired" by God? The thought doesn't even register with them. No amount of evidence works because they have been conditioned to reject any kind of fault system.

Exactly. Did you see the thread over there (probably not) from a week or so ago when a guy posted the idea that the Melchizedek Priesthood restoration not having an actual date and location for when it supposedly happens actually serves as evidence that it really did happen? Isn't that just amazing logic? Like I posted in that thread, if they did have a date, then it really happened (because they said it and you can't prove it didn't happen so you have to take their word for it), and if they didn't have a date, well that proves it really happened as well (by the twisted logic in the starting post of the thread).

[_Sethbag]

To the topic, my understanding is that science considers every point to be the "center" of the universe... If I recall correctly some apologists were going along with this idea to prove Abraham's geocentric model was actually correct?

Every point is only the center of the universe if the universe is infinite in its extent, with an infinite number of stars. Newton thought that, which is how he explained all the stars not collapsing into the center under the force of gravity. But scientists don't think that today.

[_Gazelam]

I have to say, in my opinion, the church would do well to jettison the Book of Abraham. I mean seriously!

Ben McGuire suggests that it was a mistake for the Church to make the Book of Abraham part of the canon and I have to agree. Keep in mind that Joseph Smith never included it into the canon. It became part of the canon at the end of the 19th century long after Smith had died.

Kind of hard to add it to the canon when its unfinished isn't it? And the part we do have is only the part that was printed in the local paper, there was a mountain more that was lost.

[_CaliforniaKid]

And the part we do have is only the part that was printed in the local paper, there was a mountain more that was lost.

No, actually there wasn't.

[_Gazelam]

And the part we do have is only the part that was printed in the local paper, there was a mountain more that was lost.

No, actually there wasn't.

And you know this how? The soure I have states that they read from the translation for over an hour, The reader got tired and had to pass it over to someone else to finish.

[_CaliforniaKid]

He read from the translations of the "Egyptian records," which would include the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar material and other tanslations in Joseph's notebooks. We have something like 40 pages of translated material besides the Book of Abraham. Some of this is redundant, but even so there is plenty there to account for the two hours of reading. All the evidence points to Joseph Smith having advanced no further than Abr. 2:18 until 1842.

[_Gazelam]

Hurm... interesting take on that California....

[_Pokatator]

I have to say, in my opinion, the church would do well to jettison the Book of Abraham. I mean seriously!

Ben McGuire suggests that it was a mistake for the Church to make the Book of Abraham part of the canon and I have to agree. Keep in mind that Joseph Smith never included it into the canon. It became part of the canon at the end of the 19th century long after Smith had died.

Kind of hard to add it to the canon when its unfinished isn't it? And the part we do have is only the part that was printed in the local paper, there was a mountain more that was lost.

They sure got into the habit of losing a lot of things; the 116 pages of the Book of Mormon here and a mountain more of the Book of Abraham there. The Inspired Translation unfinished, the Book of Abraham unfinished, etc.
There sure seems to be a lot of lost and unfinished things in something that is suppose to be a restoration of all things.