Themis wrote:I would be fine with that if it fit the evidence of what Joseph claimed he was doing. I also have a problem with God's supposed involvement in this way, and you bring up a good problem that Joseph couldn't read the papyri.
It’s a vexing problem, I admit. I don’t know of any way to ignore what you bring up here. For some, it can worked around but not really ignored.
Then I add in Book of Mormon and all it's problems and huge lack of evidence we should see. When I start to look at the whole picture it points heavily that Joseph was making it all up, even if he may have believed some parts. His actions with polygamy and other events also suggest he had some bad motivations, which point to a willingness to deceive for the purpose of financial gain, sexual access to many women, and power.
Themis wrote:Then I add in Book of Mormon and all it's problems and huge lack of evidence we should see. When I start to look at the whole picture it points heavily that Joseph was making it all up
Joseph Smith made up the entire Book of Mormon just like he made up the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3. Nothing in any of those works is factual, true, or historical. It's all stuff Joseph Smith made up and pretended to exist.
But we know that it really doesn't exist. It's all make-believe.
Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles of the book of Abraham contain additional earmarks of the ancient world. Facsimile 1 and Abraham 1:17 mention the idolatrous god Elkenah. This deity is not mentioned in the Bible, yet modern scholars have identified it as being among the gods worshipped by ancient Mesopotamians.39
Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles of the book of Abraham contain additional earmarks of the ancient world. Facsimile 1 and Abraham 1:17 mention the idolatrous god Elkenah. This deity is not mentioned in the Bible, yet modern scholars have identified it as being among the gods worshipped by ancient Mesopotamians.39
Nice try, LDS.org, but ... Nope.
Elkanah Was the name of Samuel's father in the Bible....Smith liked to riff off biblical names
"...The official doctrine of the LDS Church is a Global Flood" - BCSpace
"...What many people call sin is not sin." - Joseph Smith
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" - Phillip K. Dick
“The meaning of life is that it ends" - Franz Kafka
Wonhyo wrote: Part of me is embarrassed to no end by the facsimiles. And part of me really hopes they don’t ever remove the facsimiles so that as our maturity about the Book of Abraham continues to develop, we continue to acknowledge the book’s midrashic nature.
I think the facsimiles stand as a testament to Joseph Smith's creativity. If you've ever tried to make up a caption for a picture, then you will see the work involved with churning out a meaning for nearly every element of the picture. Fortunately, the Egyptians helped this process by not making all their canopic jars the same and even fashioned the lids into everlasting god stoppers.
From Left to Right: Heardit, Smelledit, Feltit, Dealtit
moksha wrote:I think the facsimiles stand as a testament to Joseph Smith's creativity. If you've ever tried to make up a caption for a picture, then you will see the work involved with churning out a meaning for nearly every element of the picture. Fortunately, the Egyptians helped this process by not making all their canopic jars the same and even fashioned the lids into everlasting god stoppers.
From Left to Right: Heardit, Smelledit, Feltit, Dealtit
You are one harlious penguin.
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2 different threads same day 2 hours apart Yohoo Bat 12/1/2015
These guys still follow the classic problem that if there is a parallel it implies causation and connection directly in physical reality. Vague parallels do no such thing. And notice how they ignore modern parallels which are much more probable and realistic. Shulem appears to me to be right about calling them out on it. They use the language of Dan Peterson in his article "News From Antiquity." We see the sorry spectacle of a prophet and apostles following a scholar instead of showing what really is via revelation. It's a gigantic drop from the days of Joseph Smith when God was talking to everyone in both their sleep and while they were awake.
Dr CamNC4Me
"Dr. Peterson and his Callithumpian cabal of BYU idiots have been marginalized by their own inevitable irrelevancy defending a fraud."
Craig Paxton wrote:Elkanah Was the name of Samuel's father in the Bible....Smith liked to riff off biblical names
Biased scholars love to give Joseph Smith credit for anything they can, even names ripped from various sources are used to credit Smith as if it's original to the story in question. They assert that such names authenticate Smith's revelatory claim to ancient history. It's really quite a joke, truth be told. But unsuspecting and ignorant readers eat it up as if it's God's honest truth. The scholars use tricky and precise language to showcase their proposal in the best possible light. They might as well dress a turd in a tuxedo and spray it with cologne. That's pretty much all they can do for the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3.
moksha wrote:I think the facsimiles stand as a testament to Joseph Smith's creativity. If you've ever tried to make up a caption for a picture, then you will see the work involved with churning out a meaning for nearly every element of the picture. Fortunately, the Egyptians helped this process by not making all their canopic jars the same and even fashioned the lids into everlasting god stoppers.
From Left to Right: Heardit, Smelledit, Feltit, Dealtit
Indeed, the Explanations of the Facsimiles prove that Joseph Smith was daringly creative in his claims to translate and interpret the ancient Egyptian language and iconography. He claimed to be literally translating Egyptian from the papyrus -- Egyptian into English. Those who were familiar with the process and knew the prophet claimed the same. There is plenty of eyewitness testimony that spells it out very plainly, Smith was making "LITERAL" translations. But Mormons today have thrown all that under the bus. They don't believe what Smith claimed to be doing only the end result. They don't believe what his associates have said regarding the translation process. Modern Mormons have thrown them all under the bus!
Philo Sofee wrote:These guys still follow the classic problem that if there is a parallel it implies causation and connection directly in physical reality. Vague parallels do no such thing. And notice how they ignore modern parallels which are much more probable and realistic. Shulem appears to me to be right about calling them out on it. They use the language of Dan Peterson in his article "News From Antiquity." We see the sorry spectacle of a prophet and apostles following a scholar instead of showing what really is via revelation. It's a gigantic drop from the days of Joseph Smith when God was talking to everyone in both their sleep and while they were awake.
If Smith really knew what he was talking about there would be a king's name written in the characters above the head of Fig. 2. But we know that there is no king's name written above the head. Smith got that completely wrong. He was blowing smoke.
If Smith really knew what he was talking about the name Shulem would be written above the hand of Fig. 5. But he got that wrong too because he couldn't read Egyptian and he knew it. He was making it up out of thin air.
The same goes for the rest of the Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 and there isn't a damn thing Dr. Peterson and his cronies can do to fix that. Parallels and wishful thinking is not going to fix it either. It's very cut and dry. Smith falsely represented the Facsimile and claimed to be providing genuine Egyptian information to the vignette. But it was all a lie. LDS.org continues to support the lie and in doing defames the memory of ancient Egypt. It's all very shameful.
