The God of Korash - not in the earliest mss

Post by **_CaliforniaKid** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:51 pm

It didn't generate much response there. Will replied somewhat off-topic, and Her Amun said he'd go with current, official church publications over the original manuscripts. That's it so far.

Post by **_DonBradley** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:26 am

CaliforniaKid wrote:You're probably right. Verse 14 does connect the deities with the figures at the beginning, but since Joseph Smith overlooked adding Korash to v. 13 in MS 1, he may not have realized that adding that deity to v. 6 would conflict with his interpretation of the vignette. Then, in the 1840's, he made the crocodile connection. I'm curious as to why he added Korash in the first place, though.

I know, but since I can't provide an answer to that question, I thought I'd offer input on the related issues I did have thoughts on.

Do you have any ideas on why Ko[r]ash was added?

Don

Post by **_CaliforniaKid** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:46 am

DonBradley wrote:
CaliforniaKid wrote:You're probably right. Verse 14 does connect the deities with the figures at the beginning, but since Joseph Smith overlooked adding Korash to v. 13 in MS 1, he may not have realized that adding that deity to v. 6 would conflict with his interpretation of the vignette. Then, in the 1840's, he made the crocodile connection. I'm curious as to why he added Korash in the first place, though.

I know, but since I can't provide an answer to that question, I thought I'd offer input on the related issues I did have thoughts on.

Do you have any ideas on why Ko[r]ash was added?

Don

And I appreciate the thoughts you've offered.

I initially thought Korash was added to account for why the crocodile would have been in "Ur of the Chaldees", far from the Nile. In this case, the crocodile would have been associated with pharaoh to explain why something so distinctly Egyptian is present in Ur. That would be why Korash is inserted before pharaoh, rather than after it.

Then again, you make an interesting argument for the connection to the crocodile in facsimile 1 having been made no earlier than Nauvoo.

-CK

Post by **_DonBradley** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:54 pm

Huh, interesting. "Ur of the Chaldees" certainly doesn't immediately call to mind Nile-like conditions and crocodiles! So associating making the crocodile merely symbolic of something Egyptian should have done the trick. But then with the Egyptian looking jar-figure, named for Pharaoh, Terah being led astray by Pharaoh's claims to priesthood, the idolatrous priest making sacrifices on Potiphar's Hill," and his death being mourned in Pharaoh's court, it all sounds quite Egyptian to begin with! Given the "Egyptianness" of the story and (obviously) of the vignette, Smith may well have simply overlooked the problem of having a live crocodile in Ur; or his impression of Ur may have been that it was much more like Egypt than it was. He may also have interpreted the crocodile as symbolic from the beginning, without necessarily linking it to any particular idol, just as he apparently interpreted the bird as symbolic of an angel.

In short, it seems plausible that Joseph Smith identified the god of Pharaoh with the crocodile because of the latter's problematic presence in Ur, but it's also not unlikely that he failed to consider this as a problem at all, and inserted a new god into the line-up for reasons entirely independent of this vignette.

Don

Post by **_CaliforniaKid** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:32 pm

Yeah, I really don't know. One of those darn mysteries we'll never know the answer to, I guess.

Post by **_DonBradley** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:38 pm

Actually, I'll bet we eventually will know the answer.

Post by **_Blixa** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 6:39 pm

It is kind of amusing, though.

Post by **_DonBradley** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:55 pm

And you look amused, Blixa. :-)

Don

Post by **_DonBradley** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 3:42 am

Here's an off the wall idea, CK. Perhaps "Korash" is related somehow to EA&G names that it doesn't precisely match--e.g., the elegant-sounding "Crashmackraw".

by the way, when was Ko[r]ash added to the Book of Abraham--do you have an approximate time range for this?

Don

Post by **_CaliforniaKid** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 3:49 am

DonBradley wrote:Here's an off the wall idea, CK. Perhaps "Korash" is related somehow to EA&G names that it doesn't precisely match--e.g., the elegant-sounding "Crashmackraw".

by the way, when was Ko[r]ash added to the Book of Abraham--do you have an approximate time range for this?

Don

It probably wasn't more than a month removed from the earlier manuscripts in which it's absent. Sometime in late November.

Your idea is interesting... I'll have to think on that some more. Thanks!