Farms is out of phase with Mormon.org about the Book of Abraham

[_Tarski]

Clearly this is NOT a conventional translation. Paul O

Right. It is called a florid imagination.

[_Sethbag]

Dude, I don't need to tell you how that crap can stand as a conventional translation. That's because I view this in an even better and more logical way; that Joseph Smith made it up. The whole degrees and whatnot was just the smoke he was blowing up the butts of his gullible followers. He was giving them what they wanted to hear. Whoever said it had to be logical?

[_Paul Osborne]

There's just one problem with all this .... the characters he translated don't mean what he said they mean. So, In other words, he made them up.

The characters represent what the prophet said. Think about that!

"The Egyptian characters used by the prophet Joseph Smith in making the Grammar & Alphabet and the Book of Abraham are a curious work indeed. Did Joseph Smith interpret Egyptian characters in the manner Egyptologists do today? Of course not. The purpose of the characters is to teach the value of symbolism; through the means of representationalism the mysteries of godliness can be revealed spiritually.

Translations of Egyptian hieroglyphs and other characters given through Joseph Smith are not patterned after the manner of the world. The characters are symbolic representations of the story given by revelation. The Book of Abraham Translation Manuscripts and Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language show how a single character from the papyrus could generate an entire sentence and multiple characters together produced whole paragraphs"!

Paul O

[_Paul Osborne]

Clearly this is NOT a conventional translation. Paul O

Right. It is called a florid imagination.

You could say the same of any prophet in the history of the world. Lehi's son thought their father was a foolish man with a silly imagination; did they not? The Jews thought Jesus was a nut. The point of the matter boils down to whether the concepts given by a prophet are true or not.

I find the things of the KEP to be quite interesting. It gets pretty involved too.

Paul O

[_Tarski]

Clearly this is NOT a conventional translation. Paul O

Right. It is called a florid imagination.

You could say the same of any prophet in the history of the world. Lehi's son thought their father was a foolish man with a silly imagination; did they not? The Jews thought Jesus was a nut. The point of the matter boils down to whether the concepts given by a prophet are true or not.

Well what were the true concepts?
I see a few that look false (like the astronomy).

[_Paul Osborne]

Dude, I don't need to tell you how that crap can stand as a conventional translation. That's because I view this in an even better and more logical way; that Joseph Smith made it up. The whole degrees and whatnot was just the smoke he was blowing up the butts of his gullible followers. He was giving them what they wanted to hear. Whoever said it had to be logical?

Fair enough. But don't ever let me hear you say that the KEP was considered to be a conventional translation. I don't think anyone in Kirtland that was involved in the project thought it was. They saw concepts being born out of the prophet's mind. Too many critics are constantly bitching about how the Mormon prophet failed to translate like Egyptologists do. But let me tell you something: Egyptologists fail to translate like Joseph Smith did!

Paul O

[_Paul Osborne]

Well what were the true concepts?
I see a few that look false (like the astronomy).

The concepts in the KEP are not complete. It wasn't canonized, yet. Those concepts were being sifted and sorted - they needed to be properly organized in their fulness before they could be canonized. What the world says regarding astronomy is sometimes a joke. Too many scientists put limits on the universe as if there is no end to space.

Paul O

[_Tarski]

Well what were the true concepts?
I see a few that look false (like the astronomy).

The concepts in the KEP are not complete. It wasn't canonized, yet. Those concepts were being sifted and sorted - they needed to be properly organized in their fulness before they could be canonized. What the world says regarding astronomy is sometimes a joke. Too many scientists put limits on the universe as if there is no end to space.

Paul O

You just asked me to judge it by it's contents. What are the truths?

And, how is saying there is no end to space the same as putting limits? Isn't that backwards?
What example do you have of a scientists putting limits on the universe?
Give an example, pleeeez

[_Paul Osborne]

Well what were the true concepts?
I see a few that look false (like the astronomy).

The concepts in the KEP are not complete. It wasn't canonized, yet. Those concepts were being sifted and sorted - they needed to be properly organized in their fulness before they could be canonized. What the world says regarding astronomy is sometimes a joke. Too many scientists put limits on the universe as if there is no end to space.

Paul O

You just asked me to judge it by it's contents. What are the truths?

And, how is saying there is no end to space the same as putting limits? Isn't that backwards?
What example do you have of a scientists putting limits on the universe?
Give an example, pleeeez

Not quite. I'm asking you to accept those things on faith. That is what religion is based on. The KEP and the astronomy teachings therein should be taken with an eye of faith. I think those who are schooled in astronomy can take it further, if they like. I'm not out to prove those things before the world. I don't give a damn what the world thinks of the KEP. I do, however, care about what LDS people think about the KEP.

I've read many times how scientists put a number on how many stars there are in the universe. I've heard them say that there is a fixed number of star systems - infinity therefore is not in their cards. As for myself, I believe there is no number to the universes in existence. Of course, I'm one of those people who believe the Father had a Father, and so on. There never was a first Father and neither was there a first universe.

Paul O

[_Sethbag]

Clearly this is NOT a conventional translation. Paul O

Right. It is called a florid imagination.

You could say the same of any prophet in the history of the world.

Yes, one could indeed say the same thing of any prophet in the history of the world. You're catching on, albeit unwittingly. How's that for an oxymoron?