The Book of Abraham - Shifting sands

[_Tobin]

My point being that there is evidence that the story was added to the gospel of John hundreds of years later.

This is just a numbers game really. About 14% of the oldest copies include the story of the adulteress who Jesus saves from being stoned while 86% of the texts do not. Convervative Christians like to play this game because they think it was added by liberals to keep them from judging. I find the whole line of thinking stupid, but you can believe what you want. http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=37799 It is really an argument over whether LESS is MORE or LESS is LESS. I agree with the latter.

[_son of Ishmael]

My point being that there is evidence that the story was added to the gospel of John hundreds of years later.

This is just a numbers game really. About 14% of the oldest copies include the story of the adulteress who Jesus saves from being stoned while 86% of the texts do not. Convervative Christians like to play this game because they think it was added by liberals to keep them from judging. I find the whole line of thinking stupid, but you can believe what you want. http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=37799 It is really an argument over whether LESS is MORE or LESS is LESS. I agree with the latter.

Right. So the Bible can't be trusted.

[_Tobin]

Right. So the Bible can't be trusted.

Sure it can, if you have a personal witness of Jesus Christ and have been born again.

[_son of Ishmael]

Right. So the Bible can't be trusted.

Sure it can, if you have a personal witness of Jesus Christ and have been born again.

Oh yeah that again

[_Themis]

1. Abraham really existed.

Debatable. Tobin's asserts that because it is written in the Bible he must have existed shows a lot of ignorance. The farther back in time we go the less evidence exists to support certain characters in the Bible existed as real people.

2. He wrote something like the Book of Abraham.

zero evidence for this.

3. The Egyptians copied what he wrote.

Zero evidence for and completely made up only for the purpose to protect a belief the Book of Abraham is inspired of God and not made up by Joseph as so much evidence shows.

4. Over time the copies of the Egyptian Book of Abraham were perverted to reflect Egyptian mythology but somehow the original story of Abraham lay hidden inside the Egyptian version.

Zero evidence for and completely made up only for the purpose to protect a belief the Book of Abraham is inspired of God and not made up by Joseph as so much evidence shows.

5. "By his own hand" and all the other references to Abraham actually writing on the J.S. papryi really didn't mean that Abraham physically wrote on the papyri J.S. bought.

Almost everything Joseph stated has to be discarded for this silly idea.

6. The 3 facsimiles and the extant pieces of the Breathing permit of Hor from which J.S. translated (revealed?) the Book of Abraham (Abr 1-2:18) contain these dual meaning mythologies and to date only J.S. has been able to read the hidden Book of Abraham story inside the Egyptian text.

Zero evidence for and completely made up only for the purpose to protect a belief the Book of Abraham is inspired of God and not made up by Joseph as so much evidence shows.

7. There is a large missing piece that contains the rest of the Book of Abraham and it also has the dual mythologies on it.

Zero evidence for and completely made up only for the purpose to protect a belief the Book of Abraham is inspired of God and not made up by Joseph as so much evidence shows.

[_Tobin]

Uh no.
1. Abraham really existed - see the Bible.
2. Clearly something was written about Abraham - see the Bible.
3. The Egyptians perverted and wrote their own legends in place of the original in their copies.
4. Joseph Smith received the perverted copy - he revealed the original that no longer exists.

I am not arguing whether or not Abraham existed. I am merely pointing out what is necessary to assume (or believe) to make the theory in the OP work. Taken all together it is a very implausible theory to explain the Book of Abraham, even from a believers point of view. It does not eliminate any of the issues and, in fact, adds more problems.

I think it is more plausible than the working Mormon apologist view that magically papyri not old enough to have been written by Abraham, that appears Egyptian in origin, and contains their mythos in the depictions - somehow, somewhere also contains the record of Abraham.

[_Fence Sitter]

I think it is more plausible than the working Mormon apologist view that magically papyri not old enough to have been written by Abraham, that appears Egyptian in origin, and contains their mythos in the depictions - somehow, somewhere also contains the record of Abraham.

Both theories have problems. But the one that OP describes has most of the problems of the working theory (missing scroll-unsupervised scribes) plus a lot of its own problems. Keeping the explanation simple is their best course. Dual meaning theory only compounds those problems.

[_Tobin]

I think it is more plausible than the working Mormon apologist view that magically papyri not old enough to have been written by Abraham, that appears Egyptian in origin, and contains their mythos in the depictions - somehow, somewhere also contains the record of Abraham.

Both theories have problems. But the one that OP describes has most of the problems of the working theory (missing scroll-unsupervised scribes) plus a lot of its own problems. Keeping the explanation simple is their best course. Dual meaning theory only compounds those problems.

I don't see a dual meaning papyri implied in the OP. The papyri are merely the impetus for Joseph Smith to ask the Lord about source of the papyri. The Lord in turn reveals the original story. It is not present in the papyri, which are merely Egyptian papyri containing the Egyptian mythos.

[_Fence Sitter]

I don't see a dual meaning papyri implied in the OP. The papyri are merely the impetus for Joseph Smith to ask the Lord about source of the papyri. The Lord in turn reveals the original story. It is not present in the papyri, which are merely Egyptian papyri containing the Egyptian mythos.

It is not implied it is implicit. If nothing on the papyri, hidden or otherwise, spoke of Abraham then they were not an impetus. For the papyri to be merely a trigger mechanism adds even more issues than the already discussed dual meaning theory. Contemporary accounts indicates that J.S. and those around him believed that the collection of papyri represented specific stories on specific pieces of papyri. For the papyri to be merely a trigger mechanism adds even more issues than the already discussed dual meaning theory

[_Tobin]

I don't see a dual meaning papyri implied in the OP. The papyri are merely the impetus for Joseph Smith to ask the Lord about source of the papyri. The Lord in turn reveals the original story. It is not present in the papyri, which are merely Egyptian papyri containing the Egyptian mythos.

It is not implied it is implicit. If nothing on the papyri, hidden or otherwise, spoke of Abraham then they were not an impetus. For the papyri to be merely a trigger mechanism adds even more issues than the already discussed dual meaning theory. Contemporary accounts indicates that J.S. and those around him believed that the collection of papyri represented specific stories on specific pieces of papyri. For the papyri to be merely a trigger mechanism adds even more issues than the already discussed dual meaning theory

That's non-sense. It isn't implicit at all and not what is being said in the OP. It drew Joseph Smith's interest and that was the trigger that caused him to speak to the Lord about it. The position is simply not that there is a dual meaning in the existing papyri. That is completely ridiculous. They are Egyptian and Joseph Smith's, and those around him, mistaken beliefs about the papyri themselves have nothing to do with what is being stated in the OP.