New Book of Abraham Research Group

[_EdGoble]

When you claim to be above the rules of evidence because of some Jesus-related special pixie dust you've sprinkled on yourself, yeah, you're arrogant. It's okay, it's not a crime or anything. But don't expect others to be convinced. That will only disappoint you.

Ok. So, now even after all the admissions and concessions that can be made between people of two different points of view can be made, one guy sits there and continues to throw around offensive words about the position of another person. I didn't expect you to be convinced. That's not why I'm here, and I told you that. Why are you even talking? I don't recall agreeing to be held to "rules of evidence" from your side. I recall acknowledging that the rules of evidence for either side are different, because one acknowledges as evidence something the other does not. I don't recall engaging in this conversation with the intent of convincing anyone that doesn't subscribe to the rules of evidence of my side.

[_Themis]

I am not asking you to prove it to me. Your problem is you cannot prove it to yourself in any objective way. You have not been able to show even yourself why your sensations are more likely to come from some unseen being then from yourself. People have the same experiences all over the world and how they interpret them is usually based on their world view. The evidence for the Book of Abraham are much more objective and they tell us Joseph was making things up. It's so bad no one has been able to convince, based on all the evidence of the Book of Abraham, to convince them Joseph was not making it up. Then add all those members, who are biased for the church and have interpreted their sensations in favor of the church's truth claims, who have had to admit Joseph was making it up. The evidence is very one-sided. It's at this point one may be less biased in viewing the evidence of both the physical and internal sensations. Many members cannot remove enough bias to see more clearly.

Oh, ok. So now I must prove it to myself for it to be valid to myself. That is pure stupidity, right up there with young-earth creationism. I owe nothing to you, absolutely nothing. The burden of proof doesn't lie with me. Sorry. The burden of proof lies with Christ when he shows himself to people as the Second Comforter, or when he shows himself to people at the judgement bar. That is true empiricism. And with your attitude, you will never qualify. So, with your drivel, you might as well deny all existence and tell us all to kill ourselves, because our thoughts can't even be proven to be real either, because we ourselves are figments of an imagination. I owe you nothing, let alone any kind of proof of what is subjective. It is Jesus Christ that will prove himself to you, to your damnation or your exaltation. That is his job.

I go around and around in circles with people like you all the time, and the arguments never are any different. Its you, the denialist, denying the reality of my subjectivity, and saying that I owe something to you. I've told you, I owe you absolutely nothing, and have already admitted confirmation bias, and already admitted inability to prove subjectivity. You should be happy with those types of admissions. Because the Holy Ghost will always be real to me and those like me, while you can go to wherever your denialism will lead you to go. Arguing with someone like you never creates any fear in me from your words. I don't fear you, and I don't fear your words, and I don't acknowledge your words as anything of value that gets me any closer to solving problems at hand. Everyone has to make the internal choice to live as they see fit and to have faith in that which they have faith in. I've made my choice. You seemingly have made yours. They are both faith based choices, because you have no more proof than I do to prove that what I subjectively perceive is not so. All you can do is speak and spread denialism and faithlessness to the weak minded. Your position is no more solid.

Looks like I hit a nerve without even trying. You quote me saying I am not asking you to prove anything to me and yet accuse me anyways. What I was saying is that we cannot know our subjective internal experiences/sensations are coming from an unseen being. I have grown up in the church and been on a mission. I suspect I have a little experience of what the church claims is the HG. The only option will be to suggest most members have never experienced the HG. Not much good when most members who believe and are following LDS God can't get the HG to show up, if that is what you want to argue.

My choices were to believe for most of my life. It took decades to see I didn't know and it was apparent other member's probably didn't either. Especially if you read church material on the HG. The other problem is that the experience of the HG and it's meanings are claimed all over the world and how much they disagree with each other. It's at this point one tends to become less biased. At this point the physical evidence plays a more important role.

[_Themis]

Or, God just has to allow things to naturalistically happen so that the foundation stone for one becomes the stumbling block for those who will not build on the stone as their foundation. Because we are intentionally in an environment of faith, where our faith is tested.

I never could figure out how it can naturally occur without Joseph or God being Dumb. Lets start with the papyri showing up. Does God tell Joseph it is the Book of Abraham or does Joseph just make that bit up? It's not like he needs a source text since he didn't with the Book of Moses. Why would someone make up so much as Joseph would have to do. He identified the hieroglyphs and put meaning to them that is the Book of Abraham.

[_Themis]

It is Jesus Christ that will prove himself to you, to your damnation or your exaltation. That is his job.

Or, God just has to allow things to naturalistically happen so that the foundation stone for one becomes the stumbling block for those who will not build on the stone as their foundation. Because we are intentionally in an environment of faith, where our faith is tested.

I wonder why Jesus would damn anyone for simply not believing other peoples claims about him. It is only blind faith that wants belief without good evidence. Other faiths are about what one does with real knowledge.

[_EdGoble]

Looks like I hit a nerve without even trying. You quote me saying I am not asking you to prove anything to me and yet accuse me anyways. What I was saying is that we cannot know our subjective internal experiences/sensations are coming from an unseen being. I have grown up in the church and been on a mission. I suspect I have a little experience of what the church claims is the HG. The only option will be to suggest most members have never experienced the HG. Not much good when most members who believe and are following LDS God can't get the HG to show up, if that is what you want to argue.

My choices were to believe for most of my life. It took decades to see I didn't know and it was apparent other member's probably didn't either. Especially if you read church material on the HG. The other problem is that the experience of the HG and it's meanings are claimed all over the world and how much they disagree with each other. It's at this point one tends to become less biased. At this point the physical evidence plays a more important role.

Yeah, you hit a nerve because I grow tired of this same conversation. And I sit here and say the same thing over and over again. It always devolves back to epistemology and the denialism of your side of the Holy Ghost, when the thread isn't even about that. Just because you say words doesn't mean anything to me. Just because you say the same things that John Dehlin and friends continually say in their podcasts where they deny the power and influence of the Holy Ghost doesn't impress me, any more than when they say it impresses me. You seem to think that just because I have faith in the Holy Ghost that my faith isn't sophisticated or complex enough to answer you. Its insulting to be treated as if my 4 decades of experience with the Holy Ghost means nothing, as if my fine-tuning of my internal radio to pick it up means nothing. Just because you say that other people have other subjective experiences that presumably conflict in your mind doesn't mean anything to me. Life is like that, where the Holy Ghost leads people on varying paths to prepare them for the amount of light that they are able and willing to recieve at a certain point in time, until finally they are prepared to recieve Mormonism in the end. Yes, that means that many will not be ready until they are dead, and they continue on the path where the spirit is taking them. That says nothing for Mormonism. That says something about paths of preparation for where people need to be in their current state. I am not impressed by what you are saying, and you act as if I cannot philosophically deal with or answer or counter what you say. I can. You don't acknowledge it, but its good enough for me to keep me going on my path. You act like I'm a regular TBM. Not at all. The only thing I have in common with them is faith. I am as complex in my faith as any post-Mormon is with their lack thereof, with a full knowledge of everything that any post-Mormon is aware of. The difference is, I think, is that I had my faith crisis at 14 years old, long before most Post-Mormons had theirs in the Internet era, and have had 30 years to reconstruct my faith. So no, I am not going to sit here and be treated like I am an unsophisticated Chapel Mormon who hasn't been around the block.

[_EdGoble]

I never could figure out how it can naturally occur without Joseph or God being Dumb. Lets start with the papyri showing up. Does God tell Joseph it is the Book of Abraham or does Joseph just make that bit up? It's not like he needs a source text since he didn't with the Book of Moses. Why would someone make up so much as Joseph would have to do. He identified the hieroglyphs and put meaning to them that is the Book of Abraham.

The Sensen Papyrus characters are a source of characters drawn upon for mappings to sections of text in the Book of Abraham ancienty, with meaning assignments. One of the best analogy in modern times is a legend on a map, which is different from a dictionary. Both a legend and a dictionary give definitions. The difference between them is that a legend gives assignments of meaning to abstract characters, whereas a dictionary defines meaning that is inherent in a symbol or word.

And so, when the internal evidence in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers is taken seriously, it becomes evident that the ancient system in place was one of assignment of meaning to symbols rather than a typical dictionary. There is no mystery in this. If I have the color green on a map and assign it to mean "rainy areas" on the map, using my legend, then it only takes on that significance in the map. Outside of that map, it is only the color green. Similarly, these characters were chosen for artistic and ritualistic reasons for mappings to meaning assignments. They are not the source of the text of the book of Abraham. But meaningful relationships can be demonstrated between the characters and the meanings that were assigned to them. Otherwise, they are abstract in this context, and can mean whatever a person chooses. The surprising thing is, that there are indeed demonstrable relationships between the Egyptological meanings of the characters when used like pictographs, and the meaning assignments given them. So no, there is no mystery here, and there are modern analogies to what it is, as well as ancient examples of the same type of thing to boot. So, Just because the underlying complexity of what is going on was not revealed to Joseph Smith, but left to later generations doesn't take away from the fact that the partial revelation given to him about it is still true, and was as complete as necessary for what he needed at the time.

[_Themis]

Yeah, you hit a nerve because I grow tired of this same conversation. And I sit here and say the same thing over and over again. It always devolves back to epistemology and the denialism of your side of the Holy Ghost, when the thread isn't even about that.

It's a problem no one has solved, so no need to get upset at the messenger.

You seem to think that just because I have faith in the Holy Ghost that my faith isn't sophisticated or complex enough to answer you.

never said that. You just assumed.

Its insulting to be treated as if my 4 decades of experience with the Holy Ghost means nothing, as if my fine-tuning of my internal radio to pick it up means nothing.

The problem is looking at others who have had similar experience over decades not agreeing with yours. It doesn't mean you are wrong, or that some other person is wrong. The problem is you cannot all be right and what that says about reliability of interpretations of very subjective experiences.

Just because you say that other people have other subjective experiences that presumably conflict in your mind doesn't mean anything to me. Life is like that, where the Holy Ghost leads people on varying paths to prepare them for the amount of light that they are able and willing to recieve at a certain point in time, until finally they are prepared to recieve Mormonism in the end.

I made this excuse for many years as well. It's how we sometimes try to deal with inconsistencies.

I am not impressed by what you are saying, and you act as if I cannot philosophically deal with or answer or counter what you say. I can.

You can't, but I cannot prove you didn't have a subjective experience from an unseen being or all those other people in the world. I just understand we all don't really know for certain. So may as well stay open minded as we can. Is God going to damn me for this?

[_Themis]

The Sensen Papyrus characters are a source of characters drawn upon for mappings to sections of text in the Book of Abraham ancienty, with meaning assignments. One of the best analogy in modern times is a legend on a map, which is different from a dictionary. Both a legend and a dictionary give definitions. The difference between them is that a legend gives assignments of meaning to abstract characters, whereas a dictionary defines meaning that is inherent in a symbol or word.

And so, when the internal evidence in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers is taken seriously, it becomes evident that the ancient system in place was one of assignment of meaning to symbols rather than a typical dictionary. There is no mystery in this. If I have the color green on a map and assign it to mean "rainy areas" on the map, using my legend, then it only takes on that significance in the map. Outside of that map, it is only the color green. Similarly, these characters were chosen for artistic and ritualistic reasons for mappings to meaning assignments. They are not the source of the text of the book of Abraham. But meaningful relationships can be demonstrated between the characters and the meanings that were assigned to them. Otherwise, they are abstract in this context, and can mean whatever a person chooses. The surprising thing is, that there are indeed demonstrable relationships between the Egyptological meanings of the characters when used like pictographs, and the meaning assignments given them. So no, there is no mystery here, and there are modern analogies to what it is, as well as ancient examples of the same type of thing to boot. So, Just because the underlying complexity of what is going on was not revealed to Joseph Smith, but left to later generations doesn't take away from the fact that the partial revelation given to him about it is still true, and was as complete as necessary for what he needed at the time.

So are you suggesting that God or that the person who created the papyri assigned meanings to each hieroglyph different then the Egyptology meaning Egyptology would translate into a coherent story?

[_EdGoble]

You can't, but I cannot prove you didn't have a subjective experience from an unseen being or all those other people in the world. I just understand we all don't really know for certain. So may as well stay open minded as we can. Is God going to damn me for this?

I can only be as open minded as I can be without sacrificing fundamentals.

That's up to God. That's not my judgement. And furthermore, your life is not over and you have time to come back, and so, my answer as far as my light and knowledge goes, is no, God will not damn you if you eventually come back. Will he damn you if you don't? I don't know the extenuating circumstances of your situation, because exaltation is a case by case basis. Judgement is the Lord's not mine. I am only worried about my own standing. I can't say anything about yours.

[_EdGoble]

So are you suggesting that God or that the person who created the papyri assigned meanings to each hieroglyph different then the Egyptology meaning Egyptology would translate into a coherent story?

1) I'm suggesting that Abraham himself wrote a book anciently.
2) This book got into the hands of the Egyptians in the Greco-Roman era.
3) Egyptians love word and symbol games.
4) Egyptians in the Greco-Roman era thought it would be artistic and neat to take characters from the papyrus and decorate an ancient book of Abraham copy with them, and play word games with the symbols and tie them in with the wording of the Book of Abraham. Its like somebody decided that these characters would make a fun numbering or marking system for paragraphs of text.
5) Joseph Smith reconstituted this numbering/decoration/text marking system, along with the text that they were used anciently marked.
6) Neither Joseph Smith nor the ancient Egyptians ever made the suggestion or claim that these were the source of the text, but rather that they aligned with thematic subject matter.

These don't "translate" as much as they "decorate," just like you wouldn't presume to translate the content of the scriptures from the verse numbers that mark them. The fact of the matter is though, there is more going on here than just what we see with verse numbers in our English scriptures. But what is going on here is to be determined by internal evidence in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers and Facsimile Explanations not by classic assumptions. The nuances only show up when you reverse-engineer the relationships between the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar and the Egyptological meanings of the characters.

An example of what is going on is similar to an acrostic, such as in Psalms 119 with the Hebrew letters being used as section markers for the Hebrew text, yet there is a linkage or relationship between the text and the Hebrew letters. Nevertheless, you wouldn't presume to be able to reconstitute the text of Psalm 119 from the Hebrew alphabet alone. Yet, Joseph Smith reconstituted the text of the Book of Abraham by revelation, based on cues and clues from what the characters used to mark or decorate in an ancient copy.