Ritner publishes complete translation of the papyri

[_Dad of a Mormon]

The video illustrates perfectly the tactic of the apologist: no evidence, long presentations. That is why he goes on and on about there being this many books, and they have this many pages, etc., etc. To a person who wants to believe, that is impressive. To a rational person, we much prefer succinctness and a good argument. 1 page of substance Trump's a 10 pound paperweight any day of the week.

To be fair, if you think that Shirts does actually present a good argument later on, summarize the argument and then let us examine his case in detail. (If you do this, please say specifically whare he makes his case: the specific video and time.) But no one is interested in continuing to watch after 10 minutes of self-aggrandizing with no real substance at all.

[_Fence Sitter]

Can Shirts translate Egyptian? I thought the apologetic requirement to speak about the Book of Abraham required an ability to translate Egyptian.

[_LDS truthseeker]

And you actually think he's an "expert"?

On Egyptology, absolutely. Here's Ritner's resume:

http://nelc.uchicago.edu/faculty/ritner

The whole Book of Abraham thing is basically like asking a mathemetician to solve an equation. It doesn't matter where the equation came from.

Ritner solved the equation in the same way that every other qualified non-LDS Egyptologist would solve it. He translated the facsimiles and papyri and they have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Abraham. End of story. Period!

[_Fence Sitter]

On Egyptology, absolutely. Here's Ritner's resume:

http://nelc.uchicago.edu/faculty/ritner

The whole Book of Abraham thing is basically like asking a mathemetician to solve an equation. It doesn't matter where the equation came from.

Ritner solved the equation in the same way that every other qualified non-LDS Egyptologist would solve it. He translated the facsimiles and papyri and they have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Abraham. End of story. Period!

I suppose if you just dismiss Ritner as unqualified you would also have to reject anything his students do, and anyone else who studied at that school.

[_Buffalo]

On Egyptology, absolutely. Here's Ritner's resume:

http://nelc.uchicago.edu/faculty/ritner

The whole Book of Abraham thing is basically like asking a mathemetician to solve an equation. It doesn't matter where the equation came from.

Ritner solved the equation in the same way that every other qualified non-LDS Egyptologist would solve it. He translated the facsimiles and papyri and they have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Abraham. End of story. Period!

I suppose if you just dismiss Ritner as unqualified you would also have to reject anything his students do, and anyone else who studied at that school.

[_Fence Sitter]

TRUE "scholars" don't write anti-religion polemic's. They use objective and fair standards weighing ALL the available data.

This so-called "scholar" claims to speak on Mormon issues while at the same time entirely ignoring Mormon scholarship, from scholars JUST AS QUALIFIED as he is.

If someone walks up to me and hands me a copy of Don Quixote in Spanish and claims it is a book on Abraham, I don't have to know anything about Abraham to know he is wrong. If he tries to hand me other books, written in Spanish that do talk about Abraham, it still does not change the fact the Don Quixote text does not deal with Abraham. If he tries to show me how many parallels there are between Don Quixote and Abraham it still will not change the fact the book does not talk about Abraham. If he shows me how many mistranslations there have been of Don Quixote over the years it still would not mean there is anything about Abraham in Don Quixote. If he tells me there are missing pages in the book he handed me, it still would not give any indication that those pages would contain anything but what other texts of Don Quixote would contain and to assume other wise would be IDIOTIC!!!!

The moral of this story is trying to find Abraham in Don Quixote is a bit like tilting at windmills.

[_Themis]

If someone walks up to me and hands me a copy of Don Quixote in Spanish and claims it is a book on Abraham, I don't have to know anything about Abraham to know he is wrong. If he tries to hand me other books, written in Spanish that do talk about Abraham, it still does not change the fact the Don Quixote text does not deal with Abraham. If he tries to show me how many parallels there are between Don Quixote and Abraham it still will not change the fact the book does not talk about Abraham. If he shows me how many mistranslations there have been of Don Quixote over the years it still would not mean there is anything about Abraham in Don Quixote. If he tells me there are missing pages in the book he handed me, it still would not give any indication that those pages would contain anything but what other texts of Don Quixote would contain and to assume other wise would be IDIOTIC!!!!

The moral of this story is trying to find Abraham in Don Quixote is a bit like tilting at windmills.

Good post. I wonder sometimes if ldsfaqs is a troll trying to make the church look bad. I don't think I have seen anyone act so childish around here.

[_r_t]

This so-called "scholar" claims to speak on Mormon issues while at the same time entirely ignoring Mormon scholarship, from scholars JUST AS QUALIFIED as he is.

He hasn't studied the evidences of how Mormonism and what Joseph did relates to Egyptology and the Book of Abraham.

Did you actually read Ritner's book? Can you state for a fact that he has entirely ignored Mormon scholarship? If not, on what basis do you make the above statement?

One other thing..... You jerkwads take "scholars" as being so important. Well, we have a 1,000 scholar's to every one of your idiot anti-mormon scholar's. Why aren't OUR scholar's valid???

All scholars are judged by the quality of their published work. Since Mormon scholars rarely publish about the Book of Abraham in relevant, reputable, peer-reviewed journals, they don't count as scholarly authorities on the Book of Abraham. BYU devotionals and stake firesides just don't cut it in the real world.

[_moksha]

I think we should give LDSfaqs a chance to list specific points of rebuttal. He has made an opening claim that Ritner's book can be easily rebutted by current LDS evidence, let's give him the chance to present his case rather than simply shout that it is meaningless bluster.

[_Fence Sitter]

I think we should give LDSfaqs a chance to list specific points of rebuttal. He has made an opening claim that Ritner's book can be easily rebutted by current LDS evidence, let's give him the chance to present his case rather than simply shout that it is meaningless bluster.

He would have to own a copy first, which I doubt he does. If he did he would not be making claims on how Ritner is ignoring Mormon scholarship. Anyone who has read the book would see how silly such a claim is. References to Mormon scholars comprise the bulk of the footnotes in the book. The translations in it are comparisons of his translations to translations of the same texts by Mormon and other scholars.